Letter of the sun. Fire of life. The numerical value of a Latin letter is 40. The sixth letter of the English alphabet. There is no equivalent in Hebrew. There are two known variants in the Cyrillic alphabet - Fert - the 22nd letter, numerical value 500 and Fita - the 42nd letter in the alphabet, numerical value - 9. In Russian, the letter F is the 22nd letter in the alphabet. The Greek letter phi is the 21st letter in the alphabet.
In the tarot - 21 - a universal protective sign - the basis of life. Serves as a vertical axis to attract Divine energies. Symbolizes the balance of thoughts, body and spirit.
Article from the encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus F.A. and Efron I.A.
F is a letter of the Russian alphabet, denoting a voiceless labial-dental spirant, the voiced pair of which is the consonant v. When pronouncing f, the lower lip rises towards the upper teeth, together with which it forms a narrow opening; Through this hole there passes an air current exhaled by the lungs. The friction of particles of this air current against the machine of the hole formed by the lower lip and upper teeth gives that non-musical noise that we call the consonant f. The vocal cords are inactive when pronouncing it, leaving a wide opening for the free passage of air expiratory current through the glottis. However, the voiceless spirant f is not always denoted by this letter in generally accepted Russian spelling. There are quite a few cases where it is also represented by the letter v: teeth - zubof, shop - lapka, all - fso. On the contrary, sometimes the letter f also represents the voiced v: Afghan - ăvganets. The F style goes back to the Greek capital F. There was no corresponding Phoenician sign. The numerical value of F in the Old Slavonic alphabet was 500. The sound corresponding to our f is depicted in modern European alphabets of Latin origin by F f, less often Ph, ph (in Greek words), and in German graphics also by v.
Fita Θ is the thirty-fourth letter of the old Russian alphabet, which has the same sound meaning as the letter f, that is, denoting the same voiceless labial-dental spirant. Thus, from a phonetic point of view, the letter θ is currently completely redundant. The only motive in favor of its use is that with its help it is possible to indicate the different origins of the above-mentioned voiceless labial-dental spirant, namely the letter f to denote the sound corresponding to the Greek φ, Latin, Germanic and Roman f (in borrowed words - philosopher, count, false fire, fanfaron, felt, etc.), and the letter θ is the same sound that arose from the Greek θ (θήτα).
The original pronunciation of the Greek θ, as is commonly thought, was identical with the English th (interdental spirant), which also often turns into f in English folk dialects, for example in the words: pulpit (καθέδρα), Catholic (καθολικός), Athena ("Αθηνά or "Αθήνη), Theodosius (Θεοδόσιος), myth (μΰθος), etc. There is no doubt that this motive is untenable, especially since we are never guided by it in other similar cases: we have thrown out of use the sign that we have received the same meaning as the sign оу, and we do not distinguish between different y in words like coward, hand with on one side and the ear, the spirit on the other.
In the same way, we do not distinguish the different origins of I in the words tongue and box, in genus. units howl (from howl) and in the participle howl, etc. It is not surprising if many of our philologists armed themselves against the use of θ, recognizing its uselessness and redundancy (Lomonosov, I.I. Martynov, Pavsky, J. Grot, spelling commission of the Imperial Academy of Sciences 1904, etc.). As a mark, θ goes back to the Greek letter θήτα. In some words, modified according to the type of their New European (German, Romance) parallels, θ, which was once written (mainly in the 18th century), is now replaced by the sign t (theater instead of θtheater, theory instead of θtheory, library instead of vivlvioθika, mathematics instead of mathematician etc.). Numerical value θ = 9 (only in Cyrillic).
B ukva "Yo, yo"is the 7th letter of the Russian and Belarusian alphabets and the 9th letter of the Rusyn alphabet. It is also used in a number of non-Slavic alphabets based on the civil Cyrillic alphabet (for example, Mongolian, Kyrgyz, Udmurt and Chuvash).If possible, it means the softness of the consonants, being after them, and the sound [o]; in all other cases it sounds like .
In native Russian words (in addition to words with the prefixes three- and four-), it is always under stress. Cases of unstressed use are rare, mainly these are borrowed words - for example, Königsberg surfers, complex words - loess-like or words with three- and four-prefixes - for example, four-part. Here the letter is phonetically equivalent to the unstressed “e”, “i”, “ya” or has a side stress, but can also reflect the characteristic features of writing in the source language.
In the Russian language (i.e., in Russian writing), the letter “е” stands, first of all, where the sound [(j)o] comes from [(j)e], this explains the form derived from “e” letters (borrowed from Western scripts). In Russian writing, unlike Belarusian, according to the rules for using letters, placing dots above the “е” is optional.
In other Slavic Cyrillic alphabet there is no letter “ё”. To indicate the corresponding sounds in writing in the Ukrainian and Bulgarian languages, after consonants they write “yo” and in other cases - “yo”. Serbian writing (and the Macedonian one based on it) generally does not have special letters for iotated vowels and/or softening the preceding consonant, since to distinguish syllables with a hard and soft consonant they use different consonants, and not different vowel letters, and iot is always written a separate letter.
In the Church and Old Church Slavonic alphabets there is no letter equivalent to “е”, since there are no such combinations of sounds; Russian “yokanye” is a common mistake when reading Church Slavonic texts.
Superscript element and its name
There is no generally accepted official term for the extension element present in the letter “e”. In traditional linguistics and pedagogy, the word “colon” was used, but most often in the last hundred years they used a less formal expression - “two dots”, or generally tried to avoid mentioning this element separately.
It is considered incorrect to use foreign language terms (dialytics, diaresis, trema or umlaut) in this situation, since they relate to diacritics and denote, first of all, a specific phonetic function.
Historical aspects
Introduction of Yo into use
For a long time, the sound combination (and after soft consonants - [o]), which appeared in Russian pronunciation, was not expressed in any way in writing. From the middle of the 18th century. they were designated by the letters IO, located under a common cap. But such a designation was cumbersome and was rarely used. The following variants were used: the signs o, iô, ьо, іо, ió.
In 1783, instead of the existing options, they proposed the letter “e”, borrowing from French, where it has a different meaning. However, it was first used in print only 12 years later (in 1795). The influence of the Swedish alphabet was also assumed.
In 1783, on November 29 (Old Style - November 18) at the home of the head of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Princess E. R. Dashkova, one of the 1st meetings of the newly formed Russian Academy was held, where Fonvizin D. I., Knyazhnin were present Ya. B., Derzhavin G. R., Lepyokhin I. I., Metropolitan Gabriel and others. They discussed the project of a complete version of the explanatory dictionary (Slavic-Russian), subsequently the famous 6-volume Dictionary of the Russian Academy.
The academicians were about to go home, like E.R. Dashkova asked if any of them could write the word “Christmas tree.” The learned men thought that the princess was joking, but she wrote the word “yolk”, which she had pronounced, and asked the question: “Is it legal to represent one sound with two letters?” She also noted: “These reprimands have already been introduced by custom, which, when it does not contradict common sense, should be followed in every possible way.” Ekaterina Dashkova suggested using the “newborn” letter “e” “to express words and reprimands, with this consent, beginning as matiory, iolka, iozh, iol.”
She turned out to be convincing in her arguments, and Gabriel, Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, who is a member of the Academy of Sciences, was asked to evaluate the rationality of introducing a new letter. So, in 1784, on November 18, the official recognition of the letter “e” took place.
The princess's innovative idea was supported by a number of leading cultural figures of that period, incl. and Derzhavin, who was the first to use “ё” for personal correspondence. And the first printed publication in which the appearance of the letter “е” was noticed was in 1795 the book “And My Trinkets” by I. Dmitriev, published by the Moscow University Printing House of H. A. Claudia and H. Riediger (in this printing house since 1788 published the newspaper “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, and it was located on the site of the present building of the Central Telegraph).
The first word printed with the letter “ё” became “everything”, then “vasilyochik”, “penek”, “light”, “immortal”. For the first time, a surname with this letter (“Potemkin”) was printed by G. R. Derzhavin in 1798.
The letter “e” became famous thanks to N.M. Karamzin, so until recently he was considered its author, until the story outlined above received wide publicity. In 1796, in the first book of the anthology of poems “Aonids”, published by Karamzin, who came out of the same university printing house, the words “dawn”, “moth”, “eagle”, “tears” were printed with the letter “e”. ", and the 1st verb is "flowed".
It’s just not clear whether this was Karamzin’s personal idea or the initiative of some employee of the publishing house. It should be noted that Karamzin did not use the letter “e” in scientific works (for example, in the famous “History of the Russian State” (1816 - 1829)).
Distribution issues
Although the letter “е” was proposed to be introduced in 1783, and was used in print in 1795, for a long time it was not considered a separate letter and it was not officially introduced into the alphabet. This is very typical for newly introduced letters: the status of the symbol “th” was the same; it (in comparison with “e”) became mandatory for use back in 1735. In his “Russian Spelling”, Academician J. K. Grot noted, that both of these letters “should also occupy a place in the alphabet,” but for a long time this remained only a good wish.
In the XVIII-XIX centuries. An obstacle to the spread of the letter “е” was the then attitude towards such a “yocking” pronunciation as petty-bourgeois speech, the dialect of the “vile rabble,” while the “yokking” “church” pronunciation was considered more noble, intelligent and cultural (with a “yocking” "Fought, for example, V.K. Trediakovsky and A.P. Sumarokov).
12/23/1917 (01/05/1918) a decree was published (undated) signed by the Soviet People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky, who introduced reformed spelling as mandatory; it said, among other things: “To recognize the use of the letter “е” as desirable, but not mandatory. "
Thus, the letters “ё” and “й” formally entered the alphabet (having received serial numbers) only in Soviet times (if you do not take into account the “New ABC” (1875) by Leo Tolstoy, where there was the letter “ё" between " e" and yatem, in 31st place).
On December 24, 1942, the use of the letter “e” by order of the People’s Commissar of Education of the RSFSR was introduced into compulsory school practice, and since then (sometimes, however, they remember 1943 and even 1956, when spelling normative rules were first published) it is considered officially included in the Russian alphabet .
For the next 10 years, scientific and fiction literature was published almost exclusively using the letter “е,” and then publishers returned to the old practice: using the letter only when absolutely necessary.
There is a legend that Joseph Stalin influenced the popularization of the letter “ё”. It says that in 1942, on December 6, I.V. An order was brought to Stalin for signature, where the names of a number of generals were printed not with the letter “ё”, but with “e”. Stalin was angry, and the next day all the articles in the Pravda newspaper suddenly appeared with the letter “e”.
On July 9, 2007, Russian Minister of Culture A. S. Sokolov, giving an interview to the Mayak radio station, expressed his opinion on the need to use the letter “e” in written speech.
Basic rules for using the letter “ё” /Legislative acts
On December 24, 1942, the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR V.P. Potemkin, by order No. 1825, introduced the letter “Ё,ё” into mandatory practice. Shortly before the order was issued, an incident occurred when Stalin treated rudely the manager of the Council of People's Commissars, Ya. Chadayev, because on December 6 (or 5), 1942, he brought him a decree for signature, where the names of a number of generals were printed without the letter “e”.
Chadayev informed the editor of Pravda that the leader wanted to see “ё” in print. Thus, already on December 7, 1942, the newspaper issue suddenly came out with this letter in all articles.
Federal Law No. 53-FZ “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” dated 06/01/2005 in part 3 of Art. 1 states that when using Russian modern literary language as the state language, the Government of the Russian Federation determines the procedure for approving the rules and norms of Russian punctuation and spelling.
The Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On the procedure for approving the norms of the modern Russian literary language when used as the state language of the Russian Federation, the rules of Russian spelling and punctuation” dated November 23, 2006 No. 714 establishes that, based on the recommendations given by the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language, a list reference books, grammars and dictionaries, which contain the norms of the modern Russian literary language, when it is used in the Russian Federation as the state language, as well as the rules of Russian punctuation and spelling, are approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
Letter No. AF-159/03 dated 05/03/2007 “On the decisions of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language” of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation prescribes writing the letter “e” in case of probability of misreading words, for example, in proper names, since in In this case, ignoring the letter “е” violates the requirements of the Federal Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation.”
According to the current rules of Russian punctuation and spelling, the letter ё is used selectively in texts during normal printing. But, at the request of the editor or author, any book can be printed using the letter e sequentially.
The sound of "Yo"
The letter "ё" is used:
To convey the stressed vowel [o] and at the same time indicate the softness of the previous consonant: youth, comb, crawl, oats, lying, during the day, honey, dog, everything, trudged, Fedor, aunt (after g, k, x this is only used for borrowing : Höglund, Goethe, liqueur, Cologne, exception - the only proper Russian word tkesh, tkem, weave, weave with derivatives, and formed in Russian from the borrowed word panicer);
To convey the accent [o] after hissing words: silk, zhzhem, click, damn (in this position, the conditions for choosing between writing with “o” or with “e” are set by a rather complex system of lists of exception words and rules);
To convey the combination of [j] and the percussive sound [o]:
At the beginning of the words: container, hedgehog, Christmas tree;
After consonants (a separating sign is used): volume, viet, linen.
After the vowel letters: her, loan, striker, tip, spit, forges;
In native Russian words, only the stressed sound “ё” is possible (even if the stress is collateral: loess-like, four-story, three-seater); if, during word formation or inflection, the stress moves to another syllable, then “е” will be replaced with “e” (takes - will choose, honey - honey - on honey, about what - about nothing (but: about nothing )).
Along with the letter “е” in borrowings, the same sound meaning can be conveyed after consonants - the combination ё and in other cases - yo. Also in borrowings “ё” can be an unstressed vowel.
Yo and E
§ 10 of the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation”, officially in force since 1956, defines the cases when “ё” is used in writing:
"1. When it is necessary to prevent incorrect reading and understanding of a word, for example: we recognize as opposed to learn; everything is different from everything; bucket as opposed to bucket; perfect (participle) as opposed to perfect (adjective), etc.
2. When you need to indicate the pronunciation of a little-known word, for example: Olekma river.
3. In special texts: primers, school textbooks of the Russian language, spelling textbooks, etc., as well as in dictionaries to indicate the place of stress and correct pronunciation
Note. In foreign words, at the beginning of words and after vowels, instead of the letter ё, yo is written, for example; iodine, district, major."
§ 5 of the new edition of these rules (published in 2006 and approved by the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences) regulates these issues in more detail:
“The use of the letter ё can be consistent and selective.
Consistent use of the letter ё is mandatory in the following types of printed texts:
a) in texts with sequentially placed accent marks;
b) in books addressed to young children;
c) in educational texts for primary schoolchildren and foreigners studying the Russian language.
Note 1. The sequential use of ё is adopted for the illustrative part of these rules.
Note 3. In dictionaries, words with the letter e are placed in the general alphabet with the letter e, for example: barely, unctuous, fir-tree, spruce, elozit, fir-tree, fir-tree, spruce; to have fun, to have fun, gaiety, cheerful, fun.
In ordinary printed texts, the letter е is used selectively. It is recommended to use it in the following cases.
1. To prevent incorrect identification of a word, for example: everything, sky, summer, perfect (in contrast to the words everything, sky, summer, perfect), including to indicate the place of stress in the word, for example: bucket, we recognize (unlike a bucket, let's find out).
2. To indicate the correct pronunciation of a word - either rare, not well known, or having a common incorrect pronunciation, e.g.: gyozy, surfing, fleur, harder, lye, including to indicate the correct stress, e.g.: fable, brought, carried away , convicted, newborn, spy.
3. In proper names - surnames, geographical names, for example: Konenkov, Neyolova, Catherine Deneuve, Schrödinger, Dezhnev, Koshelev, Chebyshev, Veshenskaya, Olekma.”
“Yo”, “yo” and “yo” in borrowed words and the transfer of foreign proper names
The letter “е” is often used to convey the sounds [ø] and [œ] (for example, denoted by the letter “ö”) in foreign names and words.
In borrowed words, the letter combinations “jo” or “yo” are usually used to record combinations of phonemes such as /jo/:
After consonants, at the same time softening them ("broth", "battalion", "mignon", "guillotine", "senor", "champignon", "pavilion", "fjord", "companion", etc.) - in Romance languages usually in places after palatalized [n] and [l] “о” is written.
At the beginning of words ("iota", "iodine", "yogurt", "yoga", "York", etc.) or after vowels ("district", "coyote", "meiosis", "major", etc.) spelled “yo”;
However, in recent decades, “ё” has been increasingly used in these cases. It has already become a normative element in the systems of transferring titles and names (transliteration sense) from a number of Asian languages (for example, the Kontsevich system for the Korean language and the Polivanov system for the Japanese language): Yoshihito, Shogun, Kim Yongnam.
In European borrowings, the sound is conveyed by the letter “е” very rarely; it is most often found in words from the languages of Scandinavia (Jörmungand, Jötun), but, as a rule, it exists along with the usual transmission through “yo” (for example, Jörmungand) and is often considered non-normative.
“Ё” in borrowed words is often unstressed and in this position its pronunciation is indistinguishable from the letters “I”, “i” or “e” (Erdős, shogunate, etc.), i.e., its original clarity is lost and it sometimes turns into just an indication of a certain pronunciation in the source language.
Consequences of not using the letter “ё”
The slowness of the entry of the letter “е” into the practice of writing (which, by the way, never fully took place) is explained by its inconvenient form for cursive writing, which contradicts its main principle - the unity (without tearing the pen from the sheet of paper) of the style, as well as the technical difficulties of technology publishing houses of pre-computer times.
In addition, people with last names with the letter “е” often have difficulties, sometimes insurmountable, when preparing various documents, since some employees are irresponsible when writing this letter. This problem became especially acute after the introduction of the Unified State Examination system, when there is a danger of differences in the spelling of the name in the passport and in the Certificate of Unified State Examination results.
The habitual optionality of use led to the erroneous reading of a number of words, which gradually became generally accepted. This process affected everything: both a huge number of personal names and numerous common nouns.
Stable ambiguity is caused by words written without the letter e such as: piece of iron, everything, flax, let's take a break, blowjob (will fly by without hitting you), perfect, planted, in summer, recognize, palate, tapeworm, admits, etc. are increasingly used erroneous pronunciation (without ё) and shifting stress in the words beet, newborn, etc.
"e" turns into "e"
The ambiguity contributed to the fact that sometimes the letter “е” began to be used in writing (and, naturally, read [`o]) in those words where it should not be there. For example, instead of the word “grenadier” - “grenadier”, and instead of the word “scam” - “scam”, also instead of the word “guardianship” - “guardianship”, and instead of the word “being” - “being”, etc. Sometimes such incorrect pronunciation and spelling become common.
Thus, the famous chess player Alexander Alekhine, world champion, was, in fact, Alekhine and was very indignant if his last name was pronounced and spelled incorrectly. His surname belongs to the noble family of Alekhins and is not derived from the familiar variable “Alyokha” from the name Alexey.
In those positions where it is necessary to be not ё, but е, it is recommended to place an accent in order to prevent incorrect recognition of words (everyone, takes) or erroneous pronunciation (grenadier, scam, Croesus, stout, Olesha).
Due to the spelling of words without e in the 20-30s. XX century Many errors arose in the pronunciation of those words that people learned from newspapers and books, and not from colloquial speech: musketeer, youth, driver (these words said “e” instead of “e”).
Orthoepy: the emergence of new variants
Due to the optional use of the letter “е”, words have appeared in the Russian language that allow the possibility of being written with both the letter “e” and “е”, and the corresponding pronunciation. For example, faded and faded, maneuver and maneuver, whitish and whitish, bile and bile, etc.
Such variants constantly appear in the language due to the action of contradictory analogies. For example, the word nadsekshiy has variants of pronunciation with e/e due to the double motivation: notch/notch. The use or non-use of the letter “ё” does not matter here. But, developing naturally, a literary language, as a rule, tends to eliminate variants: either one of them will become non-literary, incorrect (golo[l`o]ditsa, iz[d`e]vka), or pronunciation variants will acquire different meanings (is[ t`o]kshiy - is[t`e]kshiy) .
It is preferably pronounced not “glider”, but “glider” (stressed 1st syllable), since the following trends exist in the Russian language: in the names of mechanisms, machines, and various devices, stress is preferable on the 1st syllable, or more precisely, on the penultimate one , i.e., glider, trireme, glider, tanker, and on the last one - when indicating the character: combine operator, driver, watchman.
Inconsistency in the use of the letter “е” is an artificial rather than a natural factor. And it helps to slow down the natural development of the language, giving rise to and maintaining pronunciation options that are not determined by intralingual reasons.
The sound that wasn't there
F is the rarest letter in the Russian alphabet. It is used only in borrowings. There are many letters with which words of Slavic origin do not begin, such as A or Y, but these letters appear with varying frequency in the middle or at the end of a word. F in words with Slavic roots is never found anywhere, except for onomatopoeias like the word “snort”.
At the same time, F sounds quite often in Russian, including in many words beginning with the letter V. For example, we pronounce the words “second”, “Tuesday”, “in a hurry” with the sound [f]. The fact is that in Slavic languages initially there was not only the letter F, but also such a sound. It appeared only in the Middle Ages, when B often became stunned.
The letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, as is known, come mainly from Greek, and Greek are borrowed from the Phoenician alphabet. The letter F is no exception. It came into the Slavic alphabet from Greek. At the same time, it is interesting that the prototype of this letter cannot be found in the Phoenician alphabet. According to legend, the letter phi, like some other letters in the Greek alphabet, was invented by Palamedes, a hero of the Trojan War, who for some reason was not mentioned in Homer’s poem.
Arrogant letter
The letter phi came into Slavic writing under the name “fert”. What the word “fert” meant and whether it meant anything is unknown, but this is one of those cases when it was not the word that gave the name to the letter, but the name of the letter itself became the word. In Pushkin and other authors in the 18th-19th centuries one can find the now outdated expression “walking with a fert” - that is, hands on hips, arrogantly - or even just “fert” in the meaning of “an arrogant person.”
Fedor, brother of Theodore
There was another letter in the Slavic alphabet for the sound [f] - fita (above). It comes from the Greek letter theta, which denotes the aspirated sound [th]. The Greeks, it must be said, were afraid of the letter theta, because it began with the word “thanatos” - “death”, which was written on shards for voting during the selection of punishment in court. Latin did not borrow fita and rendered it in Greek words with two letters - th. This digraph was read in the West as [t], which is why we have Fedor, and the Germans have Theodor.
Signs of duplicity
Two letters for a sound that is alien to the language is too much. Therefore, since the 18th century there has been talk about abolishing the extra sign. The first attempt was made in 1708 by Peter I. When introducing the civil script, he left only fita in it. (In the picture, a fert is crossed out by Peter’s hand in the list of letters of the Russian alphabet. — Ed.)
However, just two years later, in 1710, the fert font was returned in the second edition. And for another two centuries, many scientists, writers and poets figured out how to get rid of the extra letter. Some considered fita unnecessary and even indecent, others considered fert.
Vasily Trediakovsky believed that it was fita that needed to be abolished. In one of his imaginary dialogues with a stranger, he wrote: “Farewell to you written Fyodor through Fita! I thought that in your Fite there is some power, and an imaginary sacrament, not to say empty!..” Alexander Pushkin did not talk about the abolition of letters, but words with F are practically absent in his works. The fita was abolished in 1918, shortly after the revolution. Everywhere they began to write fert, which was renamed in a modern way to ef.
Savincheva Alena
In her work, the student talks about the rarest letter of the Russian alphabet - the letter F - in an accessible and interesting form.
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Municipal budgetary educational institution
secondary school No. 10, Pavlovo
School scientific and practical conference
"Start in Science"
Humanities department.
Philological section.
Job title:
"The rarest letter of the Russian alphabet."
Alena Sergeevna Savincheva, 6B grade
Age: 12 years.
Scientific adviser:
teacher of Russian language and literature
Kumokhina Natalya Yurievna
2013, Pavlovo
- Introduction. ________________________________________________ With. 3-4
- Which letter is the rarest letter in the Russian alphabet? With. 4-
- The history of the origin of the Russian alphabet. ______________With. 4-6
- Frequency of use of the letter “f”___________________________ s. 6
- Use of the letter "F" in Russian folk tales. _____ With. 7
- The use of the letter “F” in the fairy tales of A.S. Pushkin and V.A. Zhukovsky._________________________________________ p. 8-10
- Conclusion. ________________________________________________p.10
- List of used literature. ___________________________With. eleven
- Introduction
Do you know how many letters are in the Russian alphabet? Even a first grader will confidently answer that thirty-three. But has it always been this way? I wonder which letters have disappeared and which ones still exist today? Do you know the rarest letter in the Russian alphabet? There are many questions. The answer to one of them became the topic of my scientific work.
Relevance my research is to address
the origins of the Russian language, its origin, because you cannot be an educated and developed person without knowing the basics of the language you speak and write. Who do you think a person who cannot express his own thoughts is like? For fish that are washed up on land. Likewise, students who do not speak the language cannot communicate, do not find understanding, and all because they simply do not know how to agree.
In my research work I want to talk about a letter that is rarely used in our speech. We will talk about the letter “F”.
Hence the purpose of my research: learn the history of the origin and use of the letter "F".
Tasks:
- find and study reference literature that talks about the letter “F”;
- analyze the works of A.S. Pushkina, V.A. Zhukovsky; Russian folk tales where the letter “f” appears;
- find out how many times the letter “F” is used in these works.
An object research: history of origin and frequency of use of the letter “F” in speech,
Item research: reference literature, scientific publications, fairy tales by A.S. Pushkin “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda”, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights”, “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan...”. V.A. Zhukovsky “The Sleeping Princess”, Russian folk tales “The Hare and the Fox”, “The Seven-Year-Old Daughter”, “Baba Yaga”, “Sivka-Burka”, “At the Command of the Pike”
Methods , used during the work:
- research method;
- immersion method;
- analytical reading method;
- method of comparative analysis.
- Which letter is the rarest letter in the Russian alphabet?
- The history of the origin of the letter "F".
Why didn’t the Russian classics like this letter? Why was it used so rarely in works? To find answers to these questions, we had to turn to the history of the origin of the Russian alphabet. By the way, this word already contains our heroine. And it means the first letter of the Greek alphabet: alpha, i.e. "a" and second beta, in Greek ( “vita”).
The appearance of writing among the Slavs is associated with the adoption of Christianity (988), when in Rus' church books began to be translated and copied using the alphabet, which was called the Cyrillic alphabet after its creator, the Slavic first teacher Constantine (Kirill) the Philosopher. In the ancient alphabet, each letter had its own style, name, and most of them had a numerical value. The Cyrillic alphabet also had letters created for words borrowed from the Greek language; they denoted sounds that existed in the Greek alphabet, but were absent in the Old Russian (f, , , )
In the medieval Russian grammar “Writing in Slovenian about literacy and its structure” (in the “Encyclopedia for Children”), the author, in the form of questions and answers, introduces students to the structure of the Russian alphabet. So, the question is asked: “How many consonant letters are there in the alphabet? Which ones?” - the author lists them, giving characteristics. Among the twenty-four consonants, he also names three lisping letters - V, F, .
Two letters: f (“fert”) and (“fita”) conveyed the same sound, and there was no strict distribution of their use. As a mark, θ goes back to the Greek. θ (θήτα) The original pronunciation of Greek θ, as is commonly thought, was the same as in English. th, which also often turns into f in English folk dialects, for example in the words: pulpit (καθέδρα), Catholic (καθολικός), Athena ("Αθηνά or "Αθήνη), Theodosius (Θεοδόσιος), myth (μΰθο ς), etc.
But there was confusion about when to write which letter, and therefore how to read it. Therefore, Peter I made an attempt to get rid of some letters: “omega”, (“fert”), (“and decimal”), (“xi”), (“psi”), ("from"). It was only possible to eliminate the letters “psi”, “omega”, “ot” - and this was the first reform in the field of Russian graphics. Reform 1708-1710 divided the single alphabet into two: one is traditional, used for church books, and the other is new, secular, civil.
Twenty-five years later, the Russian Academy of Sciences continued to reform the alphabet begun by Peter. Vasily Evdokimovich Adodurov and Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky opposed the idea that “some voices are expressed with two or three signs.” They proposed that one letter represent one sound. Therefore, scientists proposed eliminating the letters Z, I, (“earth”, “like”, “fita”). The choice in favor of one letter or another was determined by their proximity to the Latin alphabet, which was perceived as a model. Both authors protested against the old rule requiring words borrowed from Greek to be rendered using Greek letters. "How? - Trediakovsky was indignant. “If a Russian wants to write directly in Russian, he needs to know every language in the world?” If according to the Greekth in borrowed words it is pronounced t , then you should write not “fitu”, but the letter t: topic, mathematics (and not mathematician, θema). But this reform was not fully implemented, and the letter “fita” remained in the Russian language until the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1901-1904, the Moscow and Kazan Pedagogical Societies proposed a spelling reform. A commission was even created, the chairman of which was first Philip Fedorovich Fortunatov, and after his death - Alexey Alexandrovich Shakhmatov. But when the scientists’ proposals were ready, the President of the Academy of Sciences, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, was afraid of “spelling confusion.”
And the first edition of the decree on the reform of Russian spelling was published in Izvestia on December 23, 1917. After 1918, the letters were “expelled” from the alphabetϊşŠ,Ђ , The spelling of Ъ at the end of a word has been cancelled.
2.2.Frequency of use of the letter “f”
It turns out that the letter “F”, so dear and close to the Russian heart, is actually “foreign”. And once upon a time it simply was not in the Russian alphabet (before the Cyrillic alphabet). It’s worth looking into the Russian dictionary and trying to find words starting with the letter “F” that are of original Slavic origin. You don’t even have to waste your time; in the dictionary you will only see words borrowed from other languages. Based on the peculiarity of the letter “F”, you can even derive a simple rule: if a word begins with this letter, it means it is of foreign origin. And if the letter occurs in words in other positions, this also indicates that the word came from another language.
In Lev Uspensky’s book “A Word about Words”, in an article dedicated to the letter “F”, I read almost a detective story: the author claims that if you count the frequency of their use of the letter “F” in the works of Russian classics in their own works, then you can find it extremely rarely and only in words of foreign origin. I was very surprised: is this really possible? It turns out yes.
- Use of the letter "F" in Russian folk tales.
I read five Russian folk tales: “The Hare and the Fox”, “The Seven-Year-Old Daughter”, “Baba Yaga”, “Sivka the Burka”, “At the Command of the Pike” and counted the number of letters “F” in them
In the fairy tale “The Hare and the Fox,” the letter “F” appears 6 times in the same word “tyaf.” “Tuff, bang, bang! What, are you crying, little bunny? , “Tuff, bang, bang! Get out, fox!
In the fairy tales “The Seven-Year-Old Daughter” and “Baba Yaga,” words with this letter were never found.
In the fairy tale “Sivka-Burka” - 1 time in the word “snorted”. “The horse snorted, neighed, and jumped.” .
In the fairy tale “To Pike’s Command” - 6 times. Of these, 5 times in the word “officer” and 1 time in the word “caftan”. “...For a long time, or for a short time, the king heard about Emelin’s tricks and sent an officer after him... . An officer arrives in that village..." , “...The officer got angry and hit him on the cheek” , “The baton jumped out - and come on, the officer, he forcibly took his legs away. The king was surprised that he Officer I couldn’t cope with Emelya” , “...Our Emelya loves when he is kindly asked and red they will promise a caftan.”
It became more and more interesting and fascinating to me when I analyzed the frequency of use of the letter “F”. After all, it had never occurred to me before that there were letters that were so rarely used in literary works and speech.
- The use of the letter “F” in the fairy tales of A.S. Pushkin
and V.A. Zhukovsky.
Next, I decided to turn to the works of Russian classics: A.S. Pushkin and V.A. Zhukovsky. Of Pushkin’s five fairy tales, in three: “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda”, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights”, “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel” this letter was not found even once. In the fairy tale “About Tsar Saltan...” - 3 times in the same word “fleet”.
“Here the king could not resist,
He ordered the fleet to be equipped" ,
"Across the plains of Oceana
Tsar Saltan's fleet is coming" ,
“The fleet is already approaching the island” .
In the fairy tale “About the Fisherman and the Fish” - 4 times in the same word “simp”.
The old woman scolded the old man:
“You fool, simpleton!..” ,
The old woman scolds even more loudly:
“You fool, simpleton!..” ,
What the world stands on scolds her husband:
“You fool, you simpleton!..” ,
“You begged for a hut, you simpleton!” .
Thus, in “The Sleeping Princess” Zhukovsky uses the letter “F” -1 time in the word “sarafan”.
Why did the Russian people use this letter so little, A.S. Pushkin and V.A. Zhukovsky? I decided to find out the origin of these words. I turned to the Etymological Dictionary. And this is what I found.
“Fleet” is a word of foreign origin that arose in the Latin language (“flure” means “to flow”), and then passed into Spanish, English, German and French. The Russian language borrowed it from French in the 17th century, with the meaning “to sail” .
“Officer” - for the first time by Peter I, 1701 from the French. official from lat. officiarius "official; employee": officium "service" .
“Sarafan” is women’s clothing, and the word came to us from time immemorial and is definitely Russian .
But research is research, and in the dictionary I read that this word is indeed of Old Russian origin, but borrowed from the Turkic group, in particular Persian, where SERAPA is “a kind of long garment”), the same origin is given by Vasmer, only it is specified that This was also the name for the men's long caftan.
In interpreting the meaning of the word “sarafan” the word “caftan” is used.
“Kaftan” - “outerwear, robe” came into Russian from Turkish in the 15th century.
SOOPE. Original Addition based on a simple Phil, where Phil is a diminutive-caress. form from Philip. The development of the negative value is similar to that in Fofan (
Thus, the great Russian writers and classical poets wrote in pure, truly folk Russian. In his abundant and rich vocabulary, words that came from afar, borrowed, always occupied a secondary place. Even fewer of them contain the letter "f". Doesn’t this speak of the amazing skill and care with which the great poets and writers chose the right words?
- Conclusion
In the course of my research work, I came to the following conclusions:
- The alphabet of the Russian language was changing all the time, because... some letters duplicated each other.
- The letter "F" in the Russian language has undergone changes. It is not a “native” letter of the Russian alphabet. After all, in the Russian language there were two letters denoting the same sound, and during the research I realized that every word of the Russian language in which a letter is written at the beginning, at the end or in the middle “F” turns out to be not native Russian, but came to us from other languages that are in international use. So “focus” in Greek means “hearth”, “lantern” means lamp, “coffee” comes from Arabic. It’s the same with our proper names: Foka means “seal”, Fedor means “God’s gift”.
- In any dictionary of the Russian language there are many words with the letter “F” that are found in Russian speech, but all of them are borrowed, except for onomatopoeic formations (“snort”, “sniff”) or fictitious ones (“fuflyga”, “figli-migli”).
- And writers and poets, until the 20th century, rarely used words with the letter “F”, not because they did not like it, but because they wrote in pure, genuine folk Russian. And the rarity of this letter in our literature of the 18th and 19th centuries is not an accident. It is evidence of the deep nationality and high purity of the Russian language among our great writers..
4. List of used literature.
1. Vetvitsky V.G., Ivanova V.F., Moiseev A.I.. Modern Russian writing. Manual for teachers. – M.: Education, 1974.
A.S. Pushkin. Fairy tales.-M.: “Eskimo”, 2004.
2. Uspensky Lev “A Word about Words.” – M.: Children's literature, 1986.
3. History of the Ancient World: textbook. for 5th grade. general education institutions./ A.A. Vigasin, G.I. Goder, I.S. Svenitskaya. – 14th ed. – M.: Education, 2007
5. Encyclopedia for children. T. 10. Linguistics. Russian language. – 2nd ed., Spanish/Ch. ed. M.D. Aksenov. – M.: Avanta+, 1999.
6.Etymological Dictionary": edited by Vasmer - M.: Sov. encycl., 1972
Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. – M.: Nauka, 1986, p. 165. All subsequent quotations in the future will be from this edition.
Sorry - it doesn't fit under the cut....
The letter “F” in Russian is “alien” and its carrier words in the language are most often borrowed from foreign dictionaries. Ukrainians who speak only Ukrainian do not hear “f” at all, and instead say Philip – Pylypp. This letter does not exist in Lithuanian either. And it's not just us who have some hearing peculiarities. The Japanese also cannot hear some letters. Here is what V. Otkupshchikov writes about this:
“Sounds and their combinations. The phonetic (sound) structure of different languages is not the same. Each of us had the opportunity to verify this when studying foreign languages. For example, in German there are no native words with the sound [zh], in English - with the sound [ts], in French - with the sound [ts] or [h]. None of these languages have words with the sound [s]. And, conversely, the Russian language lacks many sounds common to German, English, French and other languages.
Slavic languages once lacked the sound [f].
Try to open a Russian dictionary starting with the letter “F” and find at least one ancient native Slavic word there. There will only be borrowed words starting with this letter. You will encounter the same phenomenon in the Lithuanian language, where there are no native words with the sound [f].
Already on the basis of one such feature, we can sometimes come to the conclusion about the foreign origin of the word we are interested in. In other cases, a sound, although normal for a given language, appears in a position unusual for it.
For example, the sound [f] in native Latin words occurs only in the initial position:
faba [faba] – “bean”,
ferrum [ferrum] – “iron”,
focus [focus] - “hearth”, etc.
That's why words like
scrofa [skro:fa] – “pig” and
rufus [ru: fus] – “red”,
are considered borrowings in the Latin language."
This very accurate presentation of the situation with sound variations in various European languages was taken, as stated above, from the book of V. Otkupshchikov, already cited more than once. A few notes and comments.
So that the quotes do not seem to readers the absolute truth, as we are accustomed to with the classics, we will sow a number of fruitful doubts.
Firstly, in fact, the sound “Y” exists in European languages. That is, at least there was. This is evidenced by the presence of the letter “Y” in almost all European languages. It was taken from Latin, where it was called “upsilon”. In European "languages" it is called "igrek", i.e., according to Western grammarians, it means "I-Greek".
What sound should “Y” have, so that to express it it would be necessary to introduce a new sign for “I” in comparison with the already existing “I”. Grammarians do not yet answer this question, limiting themselves to “examples of sounds” in which there really is no “Y”.
However, if we try to write down a word (for example, Ryzhkov), where the letter “y” already sounds, we will definitely need “Y”: Ryzhkov. And if we try to read English words, where there is already a “u” through “s”, then sometimes we will begin to get amazing sounds.
[!] English ladies, for example,
Lady, read “lady”
will sound like “Lada”.
And Ryazan begins to smell sweetly from England.
This might seem like a coincidence if it weren't for the next episode with the letter "F".
If the words are borrowed from Latin, then
[!] The first rule of grammar is that the “correct” sound of “F” is “P”.
By restoring their original sound (the correct sound is access to the proto-language, not yet distorted!), we will often obtain a purely Slavic (Russian) sound that coincides with the meaning of the word:
[!] FLOT [fleet] – RAFT, shutdown (floating, instead of foreign “flotation”), rafters, rafters. In general: “Fly fan raft planes together with your raft leaders (fleet - raft).”
FIRST [fe:st] - first, firstborn - FINGER - finger of the hand, one like a finger.
FLAME [flame] – flame – FLAME – needs no comments.
FAKEL - tow - needs no comment.
FRESH [fresh] - (FRESH) = FRESH - fresh, - does not need comments.
FILE [file] – saw, file, system, line, card index, list – SAW = SAW, – does not need comments.
FLAT [flat] - flat - PLATO.
There are many such examples that can be selected; of course, not all words in a row, due to the complexity of the origin of languages, will obey one rule, but there is no doubt that a general rule has been discovered for all languages of Indo-European origin. Attempts to “get rid of” the alien letter “F” lead to a more ancient layer, lead to the proto-language, and these words of the proto-language turn out to be recorded in living Slavic languages.
Phoenician Finland or kick finish
The word “finish”, as a designation of a stop, the final stage of a journey, or, in general, an end, is found in almost all Indo-European languages. Especially in European languages.
In most of them, this word is borrowed from Latin, where “finis” means end, border, stop, goal, “to close within”, “to limit to the border”, “to stop at the border”, “to finish”.
In English “final” is final.
In Slavic languages, practically in all, it is a borrowed word, used in a narrow sports sense: “the final limit of a speed sports competition,” “the final limit of a competition.” In this narrow sports sense, the word is borrowed from English.
Even in French, where it was previously taken by the English (Latin from Old French), while in French, in a broader sense - “end, ending”, this word already existed in the form “fin”.
The correct spelling of this word in accordance with the first rule of grammar is “pin”, “pin”. If in Latin and French this word is preserved from the parent language, and is not a borrowing from a foreign language, say, South Dravidian.
The Russian language, having in the lexicon of foreign words all the Euro-forms of words with “fin” - from “finish” and “finance” to “date” and “Finland”, each with its own alien, unrelated and separate meaning, in this case has retained a number of native words of the proto-language with the original proto-root “pin”:
[!] “kick”,
“stammer” – stopping speech,
"stammering"
"kick",
“punctuation marks” (i.e. in the true meaning of “finish marks”),
with complete preservation of the original semantic meaning and complete coincidence in form, with the exception of the late letter “F”.
In Ukrainian - and we can read it at every tram stop -
[!] “tongue”, –
The meaning of the parent language has also been preserved. And, therefore, in Old Russian (Common East Slavic). There are a number of derivatives of this root in other Slavic languages.
We only have to deal with the abundant polysemy of the root “Fin” in order to once again be convinced of the emerging ancestral language of the vocabulary of the Russian language and all other Slavic languages.
The easiest way is with “finance” and “financiers”. It turned out that this is not a generalized term for the entire abundance of monetary relations, but in the primary sense of their “completion,” “stop,” “termination” in relation to monetary transactions. This means that the meaning of the primary meaning of “pin” - “stop”, “cessation” - was preserved by the root “pin”, and this meaning was preserved by the Slavic root under someone else’s guise in relation to monetary relations, and then the semantic field expanded to a comprehensive symbol of exchange-monetary relations and operations. And in this expanded sense, the word returned to the Russian language as a borrowing under the foreign sign of the letter “F” and therefore occupied a new separate field of meanings, no longer subject to etymologization (research of origin) due to the borrowing of this word from a foreign language. And the field of meanings stored in the root of the proto-language, sad as it may be for the entire army of self-loving “PINansiet”, is a “scam,” that is, the word carries the connotation of a sudden “termination,” “stopping” of financial relations.
A very important phenomenon was discovered here - “borrowings are not etymologized” in the new semantic field of the language, which limits the systematic joint study of Indo-European languages. In view of the significance of this fact, we will quote V. Otkupshchikov in detail:
[!] “...the development of principles and methods for studying borrowed words clearly lags behind the corresponding development in the field of etymological study of “one’s own” vocabulary. In any case, etymological dictionaries in articles devoted to borrowed words are often limited to simply indicating the fact of borrowing, without supporting this statement with any argumentation. The Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogue “Cratylus” can find an interesting statement on the issue of borrowing:
“If it is completely impossible to achieve any result with the help of the means at his disposal, the etymologist can declare the word he is interested in to be borrowed from the language of the barbarians”
(the ancient Greeks called all non-Greeks barbarians).”
There are two points to note in this passage.
Firstly - and this is very important! – borrowed words are usually not etymologized based on the material of “their” language. This observation of Plato remains valid in our time, being one of the important criteria for identifying foreign language vocabulary.
Secondly, the absence of a reliable “native” etymology for a particular word has been considered (since the time of Plato!) to be a sufficient basis for declaring it a foreign language. After this, in some language the etymologist (usually without much difficulty) finds some word with the same or similar sound and meaning - and the issue of borrowing is considered resolved. Sometimes this is what authors of various etymological notes do these days.
Meanwhile, the etymologization of borrowed words is not such a simple matter.
To establish the real (and not imaginary) origin of a foreign word, it is not enough to find in one of the languages some word similar in sound and meaning. When there are a lot of different languages, such a word is usually almost always found somewhere.
But comparison with this word in most cases does not prove anything. And to seriously confirm the alleged etymology, a whole system of evidence is needed. Moreover, the main evidence of linguistic order can be divided into phonetic, word-formation and semantic. You just need to keep in mind that in all these cases, the etymologization of borrowed words will differ in some specific features.
Therefore, “to seriously confirm” the primacy of the meaning of the Russian root “pin” in the whole fan of derived meanings (including borrowed ones), it is necessary to find where the meaning contained in the word “kick” went during travel, and also to find out how the meanings contained in the words “ date", "Finland", "Phenicia".
To do this, let us again turn to Latin, from where Europe borrowed all these words.
[!] By the way, in Latin and Italian there was “pina” in parallel.
[!] In Latin pinus - pine, spruce, cedar, pinia - pine, pineal - pineal, pine-apple - pineapple.
Therefore, this root should be present in many “forest”, “coniferous” and “palm” places.
[!] “Finlandia” is coniferous, cedar “Phenicia” and even the “date” itself is of the same “coniferous-palm” origin.
[!] We have coniferous trees “Pinega”, “Pinsk”, “Pinskiye Boloty”, “Pina”.
[!] The range of meanings associated with wood products - “pinnace”, “pinka” - a seaworthy vessel, “tweezers” (even with the verb “pinch”) - brush, stick, shaft; PINch - chisel, punch, limit, constrain - the circle is closed!
The rule worked for the original meaning of the root “PIN” in Russian. Therefore, it can be assumed that “kick” originally meant not only a form of push, but also a push with a stick - “kick”.
[!] In Slavic languages, the meaning of “pin” – stick in the word “back” (originally “spine”) has been preserved.
[!] In Spanish “spina” - thorn, splinter, paper clip, the meaning of a paper clip, to fasten is also in Slovak, in addition, in Russian there is a meaning of “kick” - to drive and create an obstacle [C-11].
Let's try to formulate the conclusion from the first observation as a certain rule that should be used when encountering words with the letter “F” in Indo-European languages as a distortion, a deviation from the proto-linguistic ancient regular perfect form, since this form was determined by syllabic writing with a clearly defined system of consonants and vowels .
Conclusion from the first observation. In all Indo-European languages there is a rule characteristic of the Russian language:
a more ancient layer of vocabulary is obtained if a borrowed word with someone else’s letter “F” or a word from one’s own vocabulary, deformed by this letter, is restored in the correct spelling.
It is in this spelling that words take on a form closer to the common Indo-European proto-language, often coinciding with Slavic vocabulary.
Hence,
[!] the rule can serve as an indicator in the analysis of ancient languages in order to determine absolute time scales in language changes and historical analyzes of the development of nations.
And also serve as a guide in intra-group and inter-group historical parallels and comparative language comparisons. The basis for comparison should be Slavic languages, and the resurrection of the common Slavic parent language becomes a priority task.
Ryzhkov L.N.
Source libereya.ru