Image new letter, was probably borrowed from the French alphabet. A similar letter is used, for example, in the spelling of the Citroën car brand, although it sounds completely different in this word. Cultural figures supported Dashkova’s idea, and the letter took root. Derzhavin began to use the letter e in personal correspondence and used it for the first time when writing his last name - Potemkin. However, in print - among typographical letters - the letter е appeared only in 1795. Even the first book with this letter is known - this is the book of the poet Ivan Dmitriev “My trinkets”. The first word, over which two dots were blackened, was the word “everything”, followed by the words: light, stump, immortal, cornflower. And the popularizer of the new letter was N.M. Karamzin, who in the first book of the poetic almanac “Aonids” (1796) he published, published the words “dawn”, “eagle”, “moth”, “tears” and the first verb with the letter e - “ drip." But, oddly enough, in the famous “History of the Russian State” Karamzin did not use the letter “ё”.
The letter came into place in the alphabet in the 1860s. V.I. Dahl placed е along with the letter "e" in the first edition of the Explanatory Dictionary of Living Great Russian language" In 1875, L.N. Tolstoy in his “New ABC” sent it to the 31st place, between yat and the letter e. But the use of this symbol in typography and publishing was associated with some difficulties due to its non-standard height. Therefore, the letter e officially entered the alphabet and received the serial number 7 only in Soviet times - December 24, 1942. However, for many decades, publishers continued to use it only in cases of extreme necessity, and even then mainly in encyclopedias. As a result, the letter “е” disappeared from the spelling (and then pronunciation) of many surnames: Cardinal Richelieu, philosopher Montesquieu, poet Robert Burns, microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur, mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev (in the latter case, the place of emphasis even changed: CHEBYSHEV; exactly the same the beets became beets). We speak and write Depardieu instead of Depardieu, Roerich (who is pure Roerich), Roentgen instead of the correct Roentgen. By the way, Leo Tolstoy is actually Leo (like his hero - the Russian nobleman Levin, and not the Jew Levin). The letter е also disappeared from the spellings of many geographical names - Pearl Harbor, Königsberg, Cologne, etc. See, for example, the epigram on Lev Pushkin (the authorship is not exactly clear):
Our friend Pushkin Lev
Not without reason
But with champagne fatty pilaf
And a duck with milk mushrooms
They will prove to us better than words,
That he is healthier
By the strength of the stomach.
Often the letter “е”, on the contrary, is inserted into words in which it is not needed. For example, “scam” instead of “scam”, “being” instead of “being”, “guardianship” instead of “guardianship”. The first Russian world chess champion was actually called Alexander Alekhine and was very indignant when his noble surname was spelled incorrectly, “commonly” - Alekhine. In general, the letter “е” is contained in more than 12 thousand words, in approximately 2.5 thousand surnames of citizens of Russia and the former USSR, in thousands of geographical names.
A categorical opponent of using this letter when writing is designer Artemy Lebedev. For some reason he didn't like her. It must be said that it is indeed inconveniently located on a computer keyboard. Of course, you can do without it, as, for example, the text will be understandable even if zngo sklcht vs glsn bkv. But is it worth it?
IN recent years a number of authors, in particular Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Yuri Polyakov and others, some periodicals, as well as the scientific publishing house “Big Russian Encyclopedia” publish their texts with the obligatory use of the discriminated letter. Well, the creators of the new Russian electric car gave the name to their brainchild from this one letter.
Why, oh my, don’t you write “Yo” anywhere?
Recently, an amazing transformation of the Russian language has been taking place. Reforms in the field of word formation and stress have already led to the fact that coffee has become of an indefinite gender, and they are trying to completely eliminate the letter “Y” from the alphabet.
200-year "war"
The first discrepancies associated with “Yo,” the youngest letter in the Russian alphabet, began more than 220 years ago. In 1783, it was invented by Ekaterina Dashkova, an associate of Catherine II, princess and head of the Imperial Russian Academy. At an academic meeting, Ekaterina Romanovna asked Derzhavin, Fonvizin, Knyazhin and other letter scholars whether it was legal to write “iolka” and whether it would be wiser to replace the digraph “io” with one letter “Ё”.
Already in 1795, the letter “Y” began to appear in print, but linguistic conservatism still prevented the promotion of the young letter to the masses. For example, Tsvetaeva wrote “damn” on principle, Andrei Bely wrote “zholty”, and the Minister of Education Alexander Shishkov, for example, leafed through the books that belonged to him volume after volume, erasing two hated dots from them. In all pre-revolutionary Primers, “Yo” did not stand after “E”, but at the very end of the alphabet.
The appearance of “Yo,” according to its opponents, is the result of the arbitrariness of one person, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. Allegedly for the sake of external effect, in 1797 he used the European umlaut, the Latin “E” with two dots, in the Russian-language text. Opponents of “Yo” are still trying, by hook or by crook, to get rid of the letter they hate. And where does this unnecessary, in my opinion, “disinfection” ultimately lead us?
On a computer keyboard it is “relegated” to the upper left corner, but on a phone it is often completely absent. When sending a telegram, we insistently ask for “more money.” Many of us are sure that the great Dumas wrote not about Cardinal Richelieu, but about Richelieu; the favorite French actor’s name is not Depardieu, but Depardieu. And our fellow countryman Fet once became Fet.
And how many legal problems do I, an honest citizen of the Russian Federation, have because of negligent passport officers, nurses, secretaries who ignore the letter “Y” in my last name? It turns out that according to my passport I am one person, but according to my driver’s license I am another... Literary and letter scholars say correctly: “We live like this, as if there are 32.5 letters in our alphabet.”
Hard facts:
— the letter E is in the sacred, “lucky” 7th place in the alphabet;
— in the Russian language there are about 12,500 words with “Ё”. Of these, about 150 begin with “Yo” and about 300 end with “Yo”;
— frequency of occurrence of “Ё” – 1% of the text. That is, for every thousand characters of text there are on average ten “yoshkas”;
- in Russian surnames “Yo” occurs in approximately two cases out of a hundred;
- there are words in our language with two and even three letters “Yo”: “three-star”, “four-vector”, “Byoryoloh” (a river in Yakutia), “Byoryogyosh” and “Kyogolyon” (male names in Altai);
— in the Russian language there are 12 male and 5 female names, the full forms of which contain “Yo”. These are Aksen, Artyom, Nefed, Parmen, Peter, Rorik, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alena, Klena, Matryona, Thekla, Flena;
- in Ulyanovsk, hometown of the inveterate “yofikator” Nikolai Karamzin, there is a monument to the letter “Y”.
By the way:
In Russia, there is an official Union of Eficators of Russia, which is engaged in the fight for the rights of “de-energized” words. Thanks to their vigorous activity to besiege the State Duma, now all Duma documents (including laws) are completely “eified.” “Yo” - at the suggestion of the chairman of the Union Viktor Chumakov - appeared in some all-Russian newspapers, in television credits and in books.
Russian programmers created the “etator” - computer program, which automatically places dotted letters in the text. And the artists came up with the “epyrite” - an icon for marking official publications.
For a long time, the Russian language did not have the famous letter “ё”. But this letter can boast that the date of its birth is known - namely, November 29, 1783. The “mother” of the letter is Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, an enlightened princess.
Let's remember the details of this event...
In the house of Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, who was at that time the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a meeting of the Academy of Literature, created shortly before this date, was held. Present then were G. R. Derzhavin, D. I. Fonvizin, Ya. B. Knyazhnin, Metropolitan Gabriel and others.
And once during one of the meetings she asked Derzhavin to write the word “Christmas tree”. Those present took the proposal as a joke. After all, it was clear to everyone that it was necessary to write “iolka”. Then Dashkova asked a simple question. Its meaning made academicians think. Indeed, is it reasonable to designate one sound when writing with two letters? The princess's proposal to introduce a new letter “e” into the alphabet with two dots on top to indicate the sound “io” was appreciated by literature experts. This story happened in 1783. And then off we went. Derzhavin began to use the letter “ё” in personal correspondence, then Dmitriev published the book “My Trinkets” with this letter, and then Karamzin joined the “e-movement”.
The image of the new letter was probably borrowed from the French alphabet. A similar letter is used, for example, in the spelling of the Citroën car brand, although it sounds completely different in this word. Cultural figures supported Dashkova’s idea, and the letter took root. Derzhavin began to use the letter e in personal correspondence and used it for the first time when writing his last name - Potemkin. However, in print - among typographical letters - the letter е appeared only in 1795. Even the first book with this letter is known - this is the book of the poet Ivan Dmitriev “My trifles”. The first word, over which two dots were blackened, was the word “everything”, followed by the words: light, stump, etc.
A widely known new letter e became thanks to the historian N.M. Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sl” when preparing to publish one of his poems io zy" with one letter e. Yes, with light hand Karamzin, the letter “e” took its place in the sun and became entrenched in the Russian alphabet. Due to the fact that N.M. Karamzin was the first to use the letter е in a printed publication, which was published in quite a large circulation, some sources, in particular, Bolshaya Soviet Encyclopedia, it is he who is mistakenly indicated as the author of the letter e.
In the first book of the poetic almanac “Aonids” (1796) he published, he printed the words “dawn”, “eagle”, “moth”, “tears” and the first verb with the letter e - “flowed”. But, oddly enough, in the famous “History of the Russian State” Karamzin did not use the letter “ё”.
The letter came into place in the alphabet in the 1860s. V.I. Dahl placed е along with the letter “e” in the first edition of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. In 1875, L.N. Tolstoy in his “New ABC” sent it to the 31st place, between yat and the letter e. But the use of this symbol in typography and publishing was associated with some difficulties due to its non-standard height. Therefore, the letter e officially entered the alphabet and received the serial number 7 only in Soviet times - December 24, 1942. However, for many decades, publishers continued to use it only in cases of extreme necessity, and even then mainly in encyclopedias. As a result, the letter “е” disappeared from the spelling (and then pronunciation) of many surnames: Cardinal Richelieu, philosopher Montesquieu, poet Robert Burns, microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur, mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev (in the latter case, the place of emphasis even changed: CHEBYSHEV; exactly the same the beets became beets). We speak and write Depardieu instead of Depardieu, Roerich (who is pure Roerich), Roentgen instead of the correct Roentgen. By the way, Leo Tolstoy is actually Leo (like his hero - the Russian nobleman Levin, and not the Jew Levin).
The letter е also disappeared from the spellings of many geographical names - Pearl Harbor, Königsberg, Cologne, etc. See, for example, the epigram on Lev Pushkin (the authorship is not exactly clear):
Our friend Pushkin Lev
Not without reason
But with champagne fatty pilaf
And a duck with milk mushrooms
They will prove to us better than words,
That he is healthier
By the strength of the stomach.
When the Bolsheviks came to power, they “combed through” the alphabet, removed “yat” and fita and izhitsa, but did not touch the letter E. It was under Soviet rule that the points above e In order to simplify typing, most words were missing. Although no one formally banned or abolished it.
The situation changed dramatically in 1942. Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin received German maps on which German cartographers wrote down the names of our settlements down to the dots. If the village was called “Demino”, then in both Russian and German it was written Demino (and not Demino). The Supreme Commander appreciated the enemy's meticulousness. As a result, on December 24, 1942, a decree was issued requiring the mandatory use of the letter Yoyo everywhere, from school textbooks to the Pravda newspaper. Well, of course, on the maps. By the way, no one has ever canceled this order!
Often the letter “е”, on the contrary, is inserted into words in which it is not needed. For example, “scam” instead of “scam”, “being” instead of “being”, “guardianship” instead of “guardianship”. The first Russian world chess champion was actually called Alexander Alekhine and was very indignant when his noble surname was spelled incorrectly, “commonly” - Alekhine. In general, the letter “е” is contained in more than 12 thousand words, in approximately 2.5 thousand surnames of citizens of Russia and the former USSR, in thousands of geographical names.
A categorical opponent of using this letter when writing is designer Artemy Lebedev. For some reason he didn't like her. It must be said that it is indeed inconveniently located on a computer keyboard. Of course, you can do without it, as, for example, the text will be understandable even if zngo sklcht vs glsn bkv. But is it worth it?
In recent years, a number of authors, in particular Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Yuri Polyakov and others, some periodicals, as well as the scientific publishing house "Big Russian Encyclopedia" publish their texts with the obligatory use of the discriminated letter. Well, the creators of the new Russian electric car gave the name to their brainchild from this one letter.
Some statistics
In 2013, the letter Yoyo turns 230 years old!
She is in 7th (lucky!) place in the alphabet.
There are about 12,500 words in the Russian language with the letter Ё, of which about 150 words begin with е and about 300 words end with е!
On average, there is 1 letter e for every hundred characters of text. .
There are words in our language with two letters E: “three-star”, “four-bucket”.
There are several traditional names in the Russian language that contain the letter Ё:
Artyom, Parmen, Peter, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alena, Matryona, Fyokla and others.
Optional use letters e leads to erroneous readings and the inability to restore the meaning of the word without additional explanations, for example:
Loan-loan; perfect-perfect; tears-tears; palate-palate; chalk-chalk; donkey-donkey; fun-fun...
And, of course, the classic example from “Peter the Great” by A.K. Tolstoy:
Under such a sovereign let's take a break!
What was meant was “ let's take a break" Do you feel the difference?
How do you read “Let’s Sing Everything”? Are we all eating? Shall we eat everything?
And the last name of the French actor will be Depardieu, not Depardieu. (see Wikipedia)
And, by the way, A. Dumas’s cardinal’s name is not Richelieu, but Richelieu. (see Wikipedia)
And the correct way to pronounce the surname of the Russian poet is Fet, not Fet.
The scoundrel Karamzin came up with such a letter “e».
After all, Cyril and Methodius already had B, X, and F...
But no. This was not enough for the esthete Karamzin...
Venedikt Erofeev
Myth #7: Writing e instead of e- gross spelling error.
In fact: According to the rules of Russian spelling, the use of the letter e in most cases optional (i.e. not required).
A short preface. We begin to consider an issue that has recently become one of the most pressing for many Russian speakers. The controversy surrounding the letter e, in their bitterness are comparable only to the discussion about what preposition should be used with the name of the state Ukraine – on or V. And, admittedly, there is something in common between these completely different, at first glance, problems. Just as the question of choosing a preposition for Ukraine constantly goes beyond the conversation about language, affecting other aspects - politics, interethnic relations, etc. - so does the problem of using the letter e has recently ceased to be strictly linguistic. It stopped mainly through the efforts of irreconcilable “yofikators” (as people who fight for the use of the letter e has become ubiquitous and mandatory) who perceive the spelling (orthographically correct!) hedgehog And let's go instead of hedgehog And let's go as a gross mistake, as ignoring the fact of existence e in the Russian alphabet, and therefore - due to the fact that this letter is endowed with the status of “one of the symbols of Russian existence” - as a disdain for the Russian language and Russia in general. “A spelling error, a political error, a spiritual and moral error” pathetically calls the spelling e instead of e An ardent defender of this letter is the writer V. T. Chumakov, chairman of the “Union of Efictors” he created.
How did it happen that of all the alphabetic and non-alphabetic signs of Russian writing, it is precisely two dots over e have become an indicator of the level of love for the Fatherland? Let's try to figure this out.
But let’s immediately make a reservation: this article was not written at all in order to once again enter into polemics with the “yoficators.” The purpose of the article is different: we invite to a calm, detailed conversation those who want to understand why, of all 33 letters of the Russian alphabet, it is e is in a special position, who is interested in knowing what arguments were expressed by linguists in different years for the consistent use e and against such use, for whom it is important to hear what the law still says about this - current rules Russian spelling.
Many facts from the history of scientific discussions related to the letter e, as well as quotes from the works of linguists, we took from the book “Review of proposals for improving Russian spelling” (M.: Nauka, 1965). (This publication came out of print at a time when there was a heated discussion in society about the fate of Russian writing - proposals developed by the Orthographic Commission to amend the rules of Russian spelling were discussed.) In the corresponding section of the book, all the proposals that were put forward in different years are collected and commented on (from the end of the 18th century to the 1960s) regarding the use of the letter e(and - more broadly - related to the problem of the letter pair to O), arguments are given in favor of sequential and selective writing e. Readers interested in an in-depth study of this issue are strongly recommended to consult this book.
While working on the article, we came across a unique document - a fragment of correspondence between two outstanding Russian linguists - Alexander Alexandrovich Reformatsky and Boris Samoilovich Schwarzkopf. In a friendly letter to B. S. Schwarzkopf1 A. A. Reformatsky (probably continuing the previous discussion with the addressee) explains the reasons why the famous Russian chess player A. A. Alekhine could not stand it when his last name was pronounced A[l’o]khin. The chess player “loved to emphasize that he was of good noble family, stubbornly insisting that his last name be pronounced without dots above the “e.” When, for example, someone asked on the phone whether it was possible to speak with Alekhine, he invariably answered: “There is no such thing, there is Alekhine,” A. A. Reformatsky quotes L. Lyubimov’s memoirs “In a Foreign Land.” Next is the commentary of the linguist himself: “All this is fair, but the reader gets the impression that all this is some kind of whim of a great chess player and noble fanfare, and “in truth” he should be Alekhine... In fact, all this is not So. The point here is not a matter of “whim” or “fanfare,” but of the laws of the Russian language, to which the surname Alekhine is subject.”
We begin our article by talking about these patterns. Before talking about the features of use e in modern Russian writing, it is necessary to answer the question why letter e was absent from the Cyrillic alphabet initially and why was there a need for its appearance?
To answer this question we will have to do short excursion into the history of Russian phonetics. In the Russian language of the most ancient era, the phoneme<о>did not appear after soft consonants. In other words, our ancestors once uttered, for example, the word dog not as we say now - [p’os], but [p’es], the word honey not [m’od], but [m’ed]. Letter e so they simply didn’t need it!
And then in phonetics Old Russian language a very important change occurred, which linguists call the “transition e V O"(more precisely, the transition of the sound [e] to the sound [o]). The essence of this process is this: in the stressed position after soft consonants (let’s not forget that all sibilants were soft at that time) at the end of the word and before hard consonants, the sound [e] changed to [o]. This is how the modern pronunciation [m’od] arose (honey),[p’os] (dog),[all] (All). But before soft consonants, the sound [e] did not turn into [o], but remained unchanged, this explains the relationship, for example, [s’ol]a - [s’el’]skiy (village – rural): before the hard [l] the sound [e] turned into [o], but before the soft [l’] it did not. In a letter to B. S. Schwarzkopf, A. A. Reformatsky gives numerous examples of such relationships: whip - whip, cheerful - fun, day - day, crack - crack, smart - thinking, the same in proper names: Savelovo(station) – Savely(Name), Lakes(city) - Zaozerye(village), Styopka – Stenka, Olena (Alena) – Olenin (Alenin) etc.
(An attentive reader will ask: why, then, in modern language, after a soft consonant before a hard consonant, is often pronounced [e], and not [o]? There are many reasons for this, a complete listing of them will take us away from the main topic of this article. So, there is no specified transition in words where there was once “yat” - forest, place, Gleb, in words where the consonant hardened after the transition e V O ended - first, female, in borrowed words - newspaper, Rebekah. Details about the transition e V O can be read in works on the historical phonetics of the Russian language.)
Thus, in the surname Alekhine[e] should really be pronounced: before soft [x’] there are no conditions for the transition [e] to [o] (cf.: Lyokha – there is a transition before the hard [x]. Then what does the noble origin that the chess player spoke about have to do with it? The fact is that in high circles for a long time There was an opinion that “yokanye” is the lot of common people’s speech, but not the Russian literary language. It is known, for example, that an ardent opponent of “yokanya” and the letter e(after its appearance) there was a conservative and purist A. S. Shishkov.
But we got ahead of ourselves a little. So, transition e V O occurred (the first evidence of it appears in ancient Russian texts already in the 12th century), but there are no special letters to designate the combinations that appeared as a result of this change
But is it a letter? The answer is not obvious. Over 200 years of existence e In the Russian letter, polar opinions were expressed. Thus, in an article from 1937, A. A. Reformatsky wrote: “Is there a letter e in the Russian alphabet? No. There is only the diacritic sign “umlaut” or “trema” (two dots above the letter), which is used to avoid possible misunderstandings...”
What’s “wrong” with the outline of the sign? e, that not only many writers avoid its use, but even some linguists deny it the right to be considered a letter (while no one doubts that, for example, sch– is an independent letter, not “ w with a ponytail")? Are all these people really “idlers” and “slobs”, as the “yofikators” claim, or are the reasons much deeper? This question is worth thinking about.
A little-known fact: the proposal of E. R. Dashkova and N. M. Karamzin did not mean at all that the search for a sign that could become a letter pair to O, discontinued. In the XIX – XX centuries. instead of e V different times letters were offered ö , ø (as in Scandinavian languages), ε (Greek epsilon), ę , ē , ĕ (the last two signs were proposed already in the 1960s), etc. If any of these proposals were approved, the word honey we would now write like mod, or fashion, or mεd, or honey, or honey, or mĕd, or some other way.
Please note: the proposed letters were created in some cases based on O(since there was a search for a letter pair to O), but more often based on e, which is not surprising: after all, the sound for which the letter is being sought comes precisely from e. The question arises: what was the point of such searches, why the authors of these proposals were not satisfied with the outline e? The answer to this question will lead us to understand one of the main reasons why the letter e in the minds of native speakers is not perceived as obligatory . In 1951, A. B. Shapiro wrote:
“...The use of the letter ё has not received any widespread use in the press until now, and even in recent years. This cannot be considered a random phenomenon. ...The very shape of the letter е (a letter and two dots above it) is undoubtedly difficult from the point of view of the writer’s motor activity: after all, writing this frequently used letter requires three separate techniques (letter, dot and dot), and you need to monitor each time so that the dots are symmetrically placed above the letter sign. ...IN common system Russian writing, which has almost no superscripts (the letter y has a simpler superscript than ё), the letter ё is a very burdensome and, apparently, therefore unsympathetic exception.”
Now let us once again pay attention to the signs proposed in the function of a letter pair to O and created on the basis of the letter e: ę , ē , ĕ (in 1892 I. I. Paulson also proposed such a very exotic sign as e with a circle at the top). It becomes clear: there was a search for a letter sign that, on the one hand, would emphasize the relationship with e, and on the other hand, it required not three, but two separate techniques (as when writing th), i.e. it would be more convenient for the writer. But despite the fact that the design of almost all the proposed signs is more convenient e, they were never able to replace the letter that had already come into use. One can hardly expect the introduction of any new letter instead of e in the future (at least in the foreseeable future),
Meanwhile, numerous inconveniences e For decades, it has delivered not only to those who write, but also to those who print. First - to typists, for the simple reason that there was no corresponding key on typewriters for a long time. In the textbook by E. I. Dmitrievskaya and N. N. Dmitrievsky “Methods of teaching typewriting” (M., 1948) we read: “On the keyboards of most typewriters currently working in the USSR there is no... the letter “e”... The sign has to be made up... from the letter “e” and quotation marks.” Typists thus had to resort to pressing three keys: the letters e, carriage return, quotes. Naturally, sympathy for e this did not add anything: typists developed the habit of replacing a complex compound press with a simple one in the form of a letter e and saved it subsequently, after the appearance e on the keyboard of typewriters.
The letter required special attention e and with the advent of the computer age. In different layouts e takes different place(often inconvenient), on some keyboards produced at the dawn of the computer era, it was not provided at all; sometimes it was possible to type a letter only using special characters in a text editor.
So, the following situation has arisen, which we invite readers to fully understand: as a function of the letter pair k O In our alphabet, a letter has been fixed (despite repeated proposals for the introduction of another, more convenient sign), which in its style is unusual for Russian writing, complicates it, requires increased attention and additional effort from those who write and type. Thus, native speakers actually faced a choice of two evils: not to indicate combinations in writing
But we must admit that the first of these “evils” is not always such an evil, since in most cases the failure to write e does not lead to significant reading problems; a literate person is unlikely to make a mistake and read the word that you just read correctly as wrong. According to N. S. Rozhdestvensky, “spelling’s tolerance for problems arising due to the absence of a letter e spellings is explained by the fact that there are few such spellings.” That is why native speakers prefer to consistently dodge the “evil” of the second – inconvenient diacritics (even in cases where errors during reading are still possible). Can this be explained solely by the “carelessness” of the writer, his “indifference” to language? In our opinion, such statements in no way reveal the true reasons for the peculiar fate e in Russian. “It is significant that, despite all the validity of the use of ё, it still cannot win a place for itself in our orthography,” wrote in 1960 by A. N. Gvozdev. “Obviously, practical requirements not to complicate writing take precedence over theoretical motives regarding the systematicity and consistency of the written designation of phonemes.”
Over more than two hundred years of history of the letter e there was only one short period when it was considered obligatory. On December 24, 1942, the order of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR V.P. Potemkin “On the use of the letter “e” in Russian spelling” was promulgated. This order introduced mandatory use e in school practice (“in all grades of primary, junior high and secondary schools”). The order also spoke about the consistent use e in all newly published textbooks, textbooks and books for children's reading, about a detailed statement of the rules of use e in school grammars of the Russian language, as well as on the publication of a school reference book of all words in which the use e causes difficulties. Such a reference book entitled “Using the letter e” was published in 1945 (compiled by K. I. Bylinsky, S. E. Kryuchkov, M. V. Svetlaev, edited by N. N. Nikolsky). Before this, in 1943, the directory was published as a manuscript (see illustration).
The initiative to issue an order (and generally show attention to the letter e in 1942) rumor attributes it to Stalin: it all started with the fact that a decree on conferring the rank of general on several military men was brought to the leader for his signature. The names of these people in the resolution were printed without a letter e(sometimes they even name a last name that was impossible to read: Ognev or Ognev). Legend has it that Stalin immediately, in a very categorical form, expressed his desire to see e in writing and in print.
Of course, this is just a legend, but it’s believable: such a question could hardly have been resolved without the knowledge of the “linguistic-savvy” leader. Sudden Appearance e in the issue of the Pravda newspaper dated December 7, 1942, where that same resolution was published, cannot be explained otherwise than by the strictest instructions from above (in the previous issue, dated December 6, there was no mention of this letter).
Modern “yofikators”, speaking with a breath about the resolution of 1942 and the strong will of the leader, who during the harsh war years with an iron hand put an end to "spelling sloppiness", it is usually stated with regret that the process of introducing letters into printing and writing e faded away a few years after Stalin's death. From this the conclusion suggests itself that during the life of the leader about optionality e no one dared to think. But this is not true. Discussion about the feasibility of using e resumed before March 1953. Above we cited the words of A. B. Shapiro about the complexity that e for the writer, said in 1951. And in 1952, the 2nd edition of the “Handbook of Spelling and Punctuation for Print Workers” by K. I. Bylinsky and N. N. Nikolsky was published. The book says in black and white: “ Letter e in print it is usually replaced by the letter e (Emphasis added by us. – V.P.) It is recommended to use e in the following cases: 1) When it is necessary to prevent the incorrect reading of a word, for example: let's find out unlike let's find out; All unlike that's it, bucket unlike bucket; perfect(participle) in contrast to perfect(adjective). 2) When you need to indicate the pronunciation of a little-known word, for example: Olekma River. 3) In dictionaries and spelling reference books, in textbooks for non-Russians, in books for younger children school age and in other special types of literature."
Almost word for word, these three points are repeated in the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation” of 1956. Thus, current spelling rules, consistent use of letters e not provided in ordinary printed texts. Understanding the complexity of choosing between two evils (which we discussed above), linguists found golden mean: if from failure to place two points the appearance of the word is distorted - the letter e we write (even if diacritics are inconvenient, it is more important to prevent the word from being read incorrectly). If non-writing e does not lead to errors when reading, replacement is quite acceptable e on e. That is, the rule (we emphasize that it is still officially in force) provides for writing in ordinary texts ice, honey, tree(it’s impossible not to recognize these words even without e), But All(to distinguish from All) And Olekma(to indicate the correct pronunciation of an obscure word). And only in standard dictionaries of the Russian language, as well as in texts intended for those who are just mastering the skills of reading in Russian (these are children and foreigners), the spelling e Necessarily.
If the rule were a little more detailed and regulated sequential writing e in proper names (where options are possible: Chernyshev or Chernyshev) and if it were strictly observed, then it is quite possible that in our days there would be no battles with the “yoficators”, the use e it would not have become overgrown with myths and speculation, and this article would not have had to be written. However, the habit turned out to be stronger: the letter e and after 1956 was replaced by e, words All And All were written the same way. This is precisely where a number of linguists see the main drawback of the existing rule: in practice it is difficult to implement. Already in 1963, just eight years after the adoption of the rules, A. A. Sirenko noted: “The spelling ё recommended by the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation” for the purpose of establishing differences between words and their forms is not observed even in the most necessary cases. The force of inertia manifests itself in spelling: where the letter е is not indicated due to its optionality, it is not indicated despite obvious necessity.”
That is why the discussion about the letter e continued. And after 1956, a proposal was repeatedly considered to replace the rule with another: on the consistent use e in all texts. At different times, linguists have given different arguments for and against the introduction of such a rule. Here are the main 2 arguments in favor:
1. Consistent writing e would provide an indication of the correct pronunciation of words with<о>after soft consonants in stressed position. It would prevent errors such as scam, grenadier, guardianship(Right: scam, grenadier, guardianship) – on the one hand and whitish, mockery(Right: whitish, mockery) - on the other. An indication of the correct pronunciation of proper names (foreign and Russian) would be provided - Cologne, Goethe, Konenkov, Olekma, as well as little-known words - hairdryer(wind), gueuze(in the Netherlands in the 16th century: a rebel opposing Spanish tyranny).
2. When used consistently e written form of all words that include a phoneme<о>after soft consonants in a stressed syllable, would contain an indication of the place of stress. This would prevent speech errors such as beets, quicklime(Right: beets, quicklime), etc.
3. Mandatory use e would make it easier to read and understand the text, distinguish and recognize words by their written form.
However, arguments against mandatory e quite a lot, but they are not limited to stating the inconvenience of this letter for writers, typists and readers. Here are some other counter-arguments given by linguists:
1. In cases where pronunciation is in doubt, the requirement is to consistently use e would lead to great difficulties in printing practice. It would be very difficult (and in some cases impossible) to resolve the issue of writing e or e when publishing texts by many authors of the 18th – 19th centuries. According to A.V. Superanskaya, Academician V.V. Vinogradov, when discussing the rule on mandatory e addressed the poetry of the 19th century: “We do not know how the poets of the past heard their poems, whether they had in mind forms with e or with e" In fact, can we say with confidence what his lines from the poem “Poltava” sounded like in Pushkin’s time: We are pressing the Swedes, army after army; // The glory of their banners darkens, // And God fights with grace // Our every step is captured? Banner – sealed or banner - sealed? Apparently banner - sealed, but we won’t know for sure. Therefore, the introduction of mandatory e in printing practice would require special rules for publications by authors of the 18th – 19th centuries. But how could their implementation be guaranteed given the mass production of such publications?
2. Mandatory use e would complicate school practice: teachers’ attention would be constantly directed to checking for the presence of “dots over e", failure to place points would have to be considered an error.
It was not by chance that we called the rule recorded in the 1956 code the “golden mean” above. To summarize the arguments for mandatory writing e and "against", it can be seen that, subject to strict adherence to the existing rule, almost everything of value is preserved, which gives a proposal for consistent use e and at the same time there are no difficulties associated with such use. This is the main advantage of the existing rule.
“Review of proposals for improving Russian spelling” gives us an idea of how for almost two hundred years (from the end of the 18th century to 1965, i.e., until the publication of the book), there was a scientific discussion about the pros and cons of sequential and selective letter usage e. Please note: this was precisely a scientific discussion, various arguments were expressed - convincing and controversial, a view was given on the problem from the point of view of a linguist and from the point of view of a native speaker - a non-specialist. What was missing from this controversy? There was no populism, there were no exaggerated statements about the letter e as a stronghold of the Russian language and one of the foundations of Russian statehood. There were no arguments indicating the incompetence of their authors (in particular, the argument that the use e cannot be optional, because variations in spelling are allegedly in principle unacceptable3). There were no pseudoscientific or pseudoscientific arguments, including esoteric ones (that e in the Russian alphabet it is no coincidence that it is listed under the “holy, mystical” number seven) and nationalist (that due to the lack e in the book of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, a Russian surname Levin turned into Jewish Levin, and also that they reject the letter e those who are characterized by “irritation at everything distinctly Russian”). There were no direct insults to opponents. It never occurred to anyone that writing Kremlin Christmas tree less patriotic than Kremlin Christmas tree.
All this obscurantism, unfortunately, appeared in the late 1990s and continues today. Of course, not in the works of linguists: scientific discussion about the use e, and other spelling issues are conducted quite correctly within the linguistic community. But in recent years there has been a flourishing of what academician A. A. Zaliznyak calls “amateur linguistics”: people who are far from academic science have joined the conversation about the modern Russian language and its history, basing their views not on a strict scientific basis, but on their own thoughts and attitudes. “Where the criterion of serious scientific analysis of a problem is discarded, motives of a tasteful, emotional and especially ideological order will certainly come to the fore in its place - with all the ensuing social dangers,” rightly points out A. A. Zaliznyak. We encounter similar phenomena characteristic of amateur linguistics - the manifestation of one’s own taste, increased emotionality (sometimes going beyond the bounds of decency), an appeal to readers who share a certain ideology - when reading menacing articles and interviews of amateur “yofists”. They tell of a “crime against the native language” committed by those who write e instead of e, theses are heard about what is against e a “sacred struggle” is being waged, a set of pseudo-patriotic clichés is repeated, regrets are expressed about the absence of a law that would presuppose - literally - repression for not writing e. Its irrepressible defenders call this letter “the most unfortunate”, “the publican”, while using such concepts that are far from scientific terminology as “extermination” of the letter, “monstrous distortions of the native language”, “ugliness”, “mockery”, “foreign language terror” and etc., and try in every possible way to convince native speakers that writing e instead of e – a) a gross spelling error and b) a sign of lack of patriotism.
They are trying, admittedly, not without success. The myth that writing e instead of e in all cases, it is a violation of the norms of Russian writing, which is now shared by many native speakers, including writers, public figures, journalists, and many officials. Under the pressure of “yoficators”, it is mandatory to write e is now accepted in many print and electronic media, as well as in official documents of a number of regions of Russia, for example the Ulyanovsk region, where the letter e a monument was even erected in 2005. At the same time, the zealousness of officials, their hasty implementation e into the practice of writing did not go unnoticed by publicists: the new cult of letters is ironically called a “national spelling project” e writer, journalist, philologist R. G. Leibov.
We would like to draw the reader's attention to the formulation that can often be heard from the mouths of "yofists" who spread the myth of the "war against e”, and people already in the grip of this myth: “there are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, the letter e no one canceled, therefore, writing e instead of e – error". Many don’t know what to say to this and agree: yes, indeed, since the letter e no one canceled it e instead of e, apparently, is indeed a mistake. In fact, the first two theses in this formulation are completely fair, no one denies them, but the third one does not correspond to reality and does not follow from the first two at all! Yes, there are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, yes, e no one has canceled it, but according to the current rules of Russian spelling, this letter is used selectively in ordinary printed texts - that’s how things stand. It must be admitted that the tricky combination of true statements with a false conclusion in one sentence confuses many.
And one more important note. From the previous few paragraphs, the reader may make the erroneous conclusion that both the author of the article and other linguists who oppose the forced “efication” of Russian texts experience some strange hostility towards e and they talk about the implementation of this letter that has happened in some contexts with regret. This, by the way, is another of the myths spread by the “yoficators”: that their opponents hate the letter e and they are trying with all their might to expel it from the Russian alphabet. Of course, this is not actually the case. It is difficult to imagine how one can hate this or that letter: to a literate person, a person who loves his native language, all its letters and words are dear to him, just as the norms of the language and the existing spelling rules are dear to him. The author, as well as fellow linguists who occupy a similar position, are not against e, A against the emerging cult of this letter, against the transformation of a private spelling problem into a political issue, against the absurd situation when a person writing according to the rules, accused of illiteracy and disregard for their native language. We are not at all waging a “holy struggle” with the letter e – we are trying to resist the aggressive expansion of militant amateurism.
However, among the supporters of mandatory e(we are still talking about native speakers - non-linguists) includes not only “yoficators”, who inflate a minor linguistic issue to the scale of a national problem, and their followers, who, out of ignorance, believe that non-writing e – This is truly a gross mistake. In sequential use e interested native speakers who, due to the presence of phonemes in their names, patronymics, and surnames<о>after a soft consonant or combination
Indeed, in recent years, the number of such situations has increased when, due to different spellings of the first name, patronymic or last name in different documents, their bearers were unable to formalize an inheritance, receive maternity capital and were faced with other bureaucratic delays. “For fifty years, legal services have written first and last names in passports and other documents without e,” emphasizes A.V. Superanskaya, “and now they demand that the “owners” of the documents prove to them that the names Seleznev And Seleznev identical that Semyon And Semyon- the same name. And if a person does not know what to object, he is sent to court to prove that he is he.”
It is significant, however, that such legal incidents related to writing / non-writing e, until the early 1990s (i.e., before the “yofikators” introduced confusion into this area of Russian writing), there was practically no observed...
What about linguists? Are their voices heard? Is there any room left for scientific debate in this situation? Yes, there are still works coming out that argue for consistent use e and against such use. As a rule, they repeat arguments that have already been expressed earlier and given above. Thus, recently one of the discussion platforms has been the journal “Science and Life”, in which in 2008 the already cited article by A. V. Superanskaya “” and - a few months later - the article by N. A. Eskova “” were published. If A.V. Superanskaya spoke mainly about the fact that mandatory e would ensure the correct pronunciation of proper names and prevent legal incidents, then N. A. Eskova noted that “the introduction of mandatory use e for all texts is fraught with danger... for Russian culture,” meaning the publication of texts by authors of the 18th – 19th centuries. “By entering “required” e How general rule, we will not save the texts of our classics from barbaric modernization,” warns N. A. Eskova.
In other words, the arguments of linguists - supporters and opponents of sequential use e- remain the same, it is unlikely that anything new can be added to them. Unless the following argument becomes even more relevant today: mandatory e would complicate school practice. Indeed, if we recognize the non-writing e mistake, this may be perceived as an additional punitive tool, and students’ attention will be focused not on really important spellings, but on private problem writing two dots (as was the case in the 1940s). Considering the heated discussions around school education go on in our society, it seems that adding another controversial issue to them would be at least unreasonable.
An attempt (in our opinion, quite successful) to put an end to a dispute that has lasted for 200 years was made by the authors of the complete academic reference book “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation” (M., 2006), approved by the Orthographic Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This book is the first to clearly indicate that the use of the letter e can be sequential or selective. Consistent use is mandatory in the following types of printed texts: a) in texts with sequentially placed accent marks (this includes heading words in dictionaries and encyclopedias); b) in books addressed to children younger age; c) in educational texts for primary schoolchildren and foreigners studying the Russian language. At the same time, an important caveat is made: at the request of the author or editor, any book can be printed sequentially with the letter e.
In ordinary printed texts, according to the reference book, the letter e 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 a word, for example: bucket, let's find out(unlike 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, for example: gyoza, surfing, fleur, harder, lye, including to indicate the correct accent, for example: fable, brought, carried away, condemned, newborn, spy; 3) in proper names – surnames, geographical names, for example: Konenkov, Neyolova, Catherine Deneuve, Schrödinger, Dezhnev, Koshelev, Chebyshev, Veshenskaya, Olekma.
The attentive reader will notice that the rules for selective use of letters e became much more detailed. Unlike the 1956 code, a recommendation has been added to use e in words that have common mispronunciations; In addition, proper names are highlighted in a separate paragraph. In a letter to V.T. Chumakov dated October 21, 2009, the executive editor of the directory V.V. Lopatin indicates: “In the following editions of the directory, the recommendation in this wording (е in proper names – V.P.) may well be replaced by mandatory... which is quite consistent with the wishes of our “yofikators”, and with the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science of May 3, 2007 on the mandatory use of the letter e in proper names."
In our opinion, compliance with the rules set out in the handbook will help reconcile supporters and opponents of mandatory e and relieve the severity of many issues related to the use of this letter. In fact, on the one hand: a) authors who want to “efect” their own books receive the right to do so; b) the requirement for mandatory e in heading words in dictionaries and encyclopedias, in publications for those who are just learning to read or are learning Russian as a second language; c) problems of bearers of names, patronymics, surnames in which e; d) an indication of the correct pronunciation of words that cause difficulty in reading is provided - and on the other hand: e) Russian writing will not be overloaded with diacritics that are inconvenient for writers and readers; f) the texts of the classics will be saved from “barbaric modernization”, and the school will be saved from an additional “stumbling block” in Russian language lessons.
Of course, this is not enough for the irreconcilable “yoficators” who do not want to make any compromises; their passionate struggle with common sense doesn't stop. But we hope that the majority of our readers, who have become familiar with the history of the scientific debate around e, with arguments for and against consistent use of this letter, with the prescriptions of the 1956 rules and their more complete interpretation in the new academic reference book - it will be easier to separate genuine information from false information, and competent opinion from profanity. Therefore, we suggest you remember elementary truth No. 7.
Basic Truth No. 7. Use of letters e mandatory in texts with sequentially placed accent marks, in books for young children (including textbooks for primary schoolchildren), in textbooks for foreigners. In regular printed texts e it is written in cases where a word may be misread, when it is necessary to indicate the correct pronunciation of a rare word or to prevent a speech error. Letter e should also be written in proper names. In other cases, use e optional, i.e. optional.
Literature
1. Eskova N. A. About the letter e // Science and life. 2000. No. 4.
2. Eskova N. A. // Science and life. 2008. No. 7.
3. Zaliznyak A. A. From notes on amateur linguistics. M., 2010.
4. Review of proposals for improving Russian spelling. M., 1965.
5. Rules of Russian spelling and punctuation. M., 1956.
6. Rules of Russian spelling and punctuation. Complete academic reference book / Ed. V.V. Lopatina. M., 2006.
7. Superanskaya A.V. // Science and life. 2008. No. 1.
V. M. Pakhomov,
Candidate of Philological Sciences,
editor-in-chief of the portal "Gramota.ru"
1 Thank you very much k.f. n. Yu. A. Safonova, who provided the original letter to the author of the article.
2 Significant place in the scientific discussion around e The question is how much the consistent use of this letter contributes to the implementation of the main principle of Russian spelling - phonemic. Since it will be very difficult for a non-linguist reader to understand this issue, when reviewing the arguments “for” and “against” we will allow ourselves e omit this paragraph; Let's just say that here too there are arguments in favor of sequential use e, and against such use.
3 That this is not true is evidenced, for example, by such equivalent spelling options as mattress And mattress, sparrow And little sparrows, hydrocephalus And hydrocephalus and many more etc.
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Abstract
In the category “Scientific discoveries that turned the world upside down”
On the topic “Is the letter E necessary?”
Gilmanov Timur, student of class 9A
MBOU "School No. 5"
(Muravlenko, Novoselov St., 2, apt. 18)
Head: Akylbekova Gulmira Abylgazyevna, teacher of Russian language and literature MBOU “School No. 5”.
2015
Introduction
II . Main part.
The history of the letter E
a) Origin.
b) The further difficult fate of the letter.
c) How to fight without Yo?
d) Spelling reform.
2. The position of Ё in the modern Russian language and the obligation of stress.
4. People's attitude towards the letter.
III. Conclusion.
VI . List of used literature.
I.Introduction.
This year Yo will turn 228 years old. Her birthday is November 18 (old style) 1783. The letter E is in the sacred, “lucky” 7th place in the alphabet. There are about 12,500 words in the Russian language with Ё. Of these, about 150 begin with Ё and about 300 end with Ё. The frequency of occurrence of E is 1% of the text. That is, for every thousand characters of text there are an average of ten yoshkas. In Russian surnames, Yo occurs in approximately two cases out of a hundred. Do we need this letter in our lives? Let's try to figure it out.
The purpose of my work is not only to talk about the seventh letter of the Russian alphabet, but also to specific examples show its necessity.
Research objectives:
Research information and facts about the origin of the letter E and its appearance in the Russian alphabet;
Determine the meaning of the letter E in Russian;
Study people's attitudes towards the letter E
Subject of research: the history of the letter “Y”.
Object of study: the role of the letter “E” in our lives.
Relevance of the chosen topic:
In recent years, writing and printing the letter E has become optional. And this is despite the fact that our modern Russian alphabet is considered to have 33 letters. Due to reluctance and laziness to write the letter E, undesirable phenomena occur: surnames and names of cities, rivers and lakes are incorrectly pronounced and spelled. Absencein the text the letter E leads to slow reading of various texts. The letter E is atus in the alphabet, we pronounce it, but for some reason sometimes we neglect this letter letter.
Thus, the topic seems veryrelevant, as it is of fundamental importance for further development Russian language, because for many people the Russian language has become an integral partproduction and household...
II . Main part.
1. The history of the letter E
A) Origin.
On November 29 (November 18, old style), 1783, one of the first meetings of the newly created Russian Academy took place in the house of the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova. The meeting was attended by: G. R. Derzhavin, D. I. Fonvizin, I. I. Lepyokhin, Ya. B. Knyazhnin, Metropolitan Gabriel and others. The project of a complete explanatory Slavic-Russian dictionary, the later famous 6-volume “Dictionary of the Academy”, was discussed Russian." The academicians were about to go home when Ekaterina Romanovna asked those present if anyone could write the word “Christmas tree”. The academics decided that the princess was joking, but she, having written the word “Iolka” she had spoken, asked: “Is it legal to represent one sound with two letters?” Noting that “these reprimands have already been introduced by custom, which, when it does not contradict common sense, should be followed in every possible way,” Dashkova proposed using the new letter “e” “to express words and reprimands, with this consent, beginning as matioryy, іolka, іож , іol". Dashkova’s arguments seemed convincing, and the feasibility of introducing a new letter was asked to be assessed by Metropolitan Gabriel of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, a member of the Academy of Sciences. On November 18, 1784, the letter “е” received official recognition.
The letter “e” became famous thanks to N.M. Karamzin, and therefore until recently (until the above story became widely known) he was considered its author. From Chumakov V.T. in his work “Yo is the seventh, lucky letter of the alphabet” I learned that in 1796, in the first book of the poetic almanac “Aonids” published by Karamzin, which came out from the same university printing house, with the letter “yo” were printed the words “dawn”, “eagle”, “moth”, “tears”, as well as the first verb “flow”. It should be noted that in scientific works(for example, in the famous “History of the Russian State,” 1816-29) Karamzin did not use the letter “e”.
Meanwhile, little by little, the letter E began to be fixed in writing. One can give a number of examples of its writing in manuscripts and printing in books: from “Eugene Onegin” (examined in detail from this point of view by V.T. Chumakov can be found on the now popular website organized in defense of this letter) to the “feuilletons” of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky from the newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti” (“Petersburg Chronicle”). Finally, the letter E also appeared in school alphabet books (in the second version of L.N. Tolstoy’s “ABC”, for example), occupying a place at the end of the alphabet. School education presupposed its wider development in writing.
B) The further difficult fate of the letter.
After its difficult birth, the letter E did not always appear in print. It was occasionally used in cases where the meaning of a word or sentence was thus clarified, when writing foreign names and titles. The lack of generally accepted rules made its use optional throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. There was a long debate about its use. The 20th century made its own adjustments to the problem of the letter E.
In the famous Decree on the introduction of a new spelling, approved by the Council of People's Commissars on October 10, 1918, there was no longer a clause about the letter E, although in the resolution of 1917. there was a point: “Recognize the desirable, but optional, use of the letter “ё” (carried, led, everything). What the Academy of Sciences fought for, understanding the need for the mandatory use of Yo, remained unfeasible.
The introduction of the letter E (at least partially) would have required the production of many types for printing houses, for which the Soviet government had neither the funds nor the materials during the civil war.
Unfortunately, in 1918 the letter E was never revived. Moreover, it began to disappear completely from Russian writing; E was now replaced everywhere. Nevertheless, the largest Russian linguists continued to fight for this letter. Outstanding defenders of the letter E were the outstanding linguists L.V. Shcherba and A.A. Reformatsky.
A.A. Reformatsky demanded that the disgraced letter be legally enshrined in the alphabet. However, in relation to Yo, a legal initiative was nevertheless taken, and this happened at a very alarming moment for our Motherland.
c) How to fight without Yo?
They remembered the letter E again in the wave of patriotism during the Great Patriotic War. There is a legend that the popularization of the letter “ё” was influenced by Joseph Stalin. According to it, on December 6, 1942, an order was brought to Stalin for signature, in which the surnames of several generals were printed with the letter "e" rather than "e". Stalin came torage, and the next day in all articles of the newspaper Pravd a “Suddenly the letter “e” appeared.At that time, our military was faced with an unpleasant surprise: it turned out that the German operational maps of our territory were not only topographically more accurate than ours, but were also toponymically flawless. If Orel, then Orel, and if Berezovka, then Berezovka, not Berezovka.
We had to debug all this during the retreat and huge losses of population and territory. Therefore, it is complete nonsense to claim that the introduction of Yo was the extravagance of a tyrant. No and no again. “It was a dictate and an absolute necessity of the cruel realities of war,” note historians Pchelov and Chumakov.
d) Spelling reform.
But the letter E did not last long in writing and in print. By the spelling rules of 1956, it was again transferred to the category of “optional”, “optional”, and its use was considered necessary only in cases where it is necessary to prevent incorrect reading and understanding of a word (EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING), and in special-purpose books: dictionaries , primers and publications for foreigners learning Russian. It turned out that Eskimos and Papuans studying Russian have the right to see the letter E in books, but for some reason native speakers are deprived of this opportunity. In those years, a remarkable anecdote arose: a foreign distinguished guest asks Brezhnev why, if the Secretary General has numerous hero titles, a huge number of awards and the whole country is in his hands, he does not own a mausoleum on which “Lenin” is written, to which Leonid Ilyich replies : “And for us the letter E is optional.”
According to § 10 of the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation”, officially in force since 1956, “the letter “ё” is written in the following cases:
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.
When you need to indicate the pronunciation of a little-known word, for example: Olekma river.
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. In other cases, you can write both “ё” and “e”. More detailed regulation is provided by the new edition of these rules (published in 2006, approved by the Orthographic Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but has not yet come into force and has the status of a reference book, not a law), § 5:
The use of the letter E can be consistent and selective. Consistent use of the letter е 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.
The position of Yo in modern Russian and the obligatory stress.
Currently, the letter E means (or rather, should mean, since in print this letter still absent):
Combination of sounds [th, o]: hedgehog, mine, rises, pours, volume, whose, etc..
Vowel [o] after a soft consonant: everything, carried, honey, led, etc.
The vowel [o] after sibilants (along with the letter O).In modern spelling the rules are:
I . In the roots of words under stress after sibilants, when O is pronounced, E is written, if in related words this O alternates with E: wives-wife, bangs-brow, walked-walked, dandy-flaunt, etc.
If there is no such alternation in related words, then O is written: rustle, seam, glutton, ramrod, etc. The spelling with O was also established in the surname Shchors.
Exceptions in spelling concern the adverb vechor (as opposed to evening) and the nouns: burn and arson (but the verbs are written Yo-ozhyog, arson).
P. Under stress after sibilants it is pronounced and written O:
A) at the endings of nouns, adjectives, and at the end
adverbs: shoulder, cloak, candle, stranger, big, hot, etc.. exception -
adverb "yet".
b) in noun suffixes:
Ok, -onk, -onk-a, -onok: knot, little pebble, little hand, little bear, etc.; -on (where O is fugitive): knyazhon (princesses), nozhon (sheath); in the suffix of the noun guts (O is also fluent);
V) in adjective suffixes:
Ov: canvas, penny, hedgehog, etc.;
He (where O is fugitive): funny.
a) at the endings of verbs: you lie, bake, etc.;
b) in the suffixes of passive participles -yonn, -yon: harnessed, harnessed; in the suffix -yon of adjectives formed from verbs: baked, smoked, scientist, etc. and in derivative words: learning, zhzhenka.
V) in the suffixes of verbs - yovyva- and verbal nouns -
evk: to demarcate - demarcation;
G) In the suffixes of nouns - er: intern, retoucher, etc.;
d) in the pronoun “about what”, adverbs “how much” and “nothing”, conjunction
"and"
In a number of foreign words, O is written after hissing words and not under stress: driver, juggler, highway, Scotland, etc.
Yo is quite widely used in borrowed words, for example, from French: serious, curiosity, fleur, in the suffixes of nouns -er: actor, prompter, conductor, director, musketeer, grenadier.
At the same time, in borrowed words to convey [й о], not immediately established spellings are used: o (after soft consonants) or yo (at the beginning of a word and after vowels): battalion, postman, broth, señor, champignon, iodine, major.
3. Consequences of the mandatory and optional use of the letter E.
Consequences of the mandatory use of the letter “Ё”
Opponents of the letter “е” believe that its continuous use interferes with reading, sincethe eye “stumbles” on the diacritic and reading becomes more difficult.
Some writers and poets publish or have published their texts with mandatoryusing the letter "ё". Among them is Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Maria Semyonova, Yuri Polyakov. Mikhail Shcherbakov. Svyatoslav Loginov, Mikhail Pogarsky.
Consequences of the optional use of the letter “Ё”
The slow (and never fully realized) entry of the letter “е” into life is explainedinconvenient for her quick letter a form that contradicts the main principle of cursive writing: a continuous (without lifting the pen from the paper) style, as well as the technical difficulties of publishing technologies of pre-computer times.
Moreover, in people having surnames with the letter “Yo”, difficulties often arise, sometimes insurmountable, when registration of various documents due to the careless attitude of some responsible employees to write this letter. This problem has become especially acute with introduction of the Unified State Examination system, manifested in the danger of differences in the spelling of the passport name and the name on the Certificate of passing the Unified State Exam. The traditional optionality of use led to erroneous readings, which gradually became generally accepted, They affected everything: a huge mass of personal names, and manycommon nouns.
Due to the optional use of the letter “ё”, words appeared in the Russian language, which can be written as with the letter “e”. same with “e”. and pronounce accordingly way. For example: faded and faded, whitish and whitish, maneuver and maneuver, bile and bile.
Variants constantly arise in language under the influence of contradictory analogies. For example, the word nadsekshiy has variants of pronunciation with e/e due to the double motivation: notch/nadsek. The use or non-use of the letter “ё” has no role here plays. But when natural development literary language always strives to get rid of options: or one of them becomes unliterary, incorrect (iz[d"e]vka).
So. for example, the letter “е” disappeared from the spellings (and then pronunciations) of surnames:Cardinal Richelieu, philosopher and writer Montesquieu,physicist Roentgen, microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur, artist and philosopher N.K. Roerich, famous British politician Churchill, Austrian physicist Schrödinger and many others. Very often, especially in the scientific community, the surname of the mathematician P. L. Chebyshev is pronounced incorrectly (in the latter case, even with a change in the place of emphasis: Chebyshev instead correct Chebyshev).
The letter “ё” also disappeared from the surname of the nobleman Levin, a character in L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”. A modern reader may associate the surname Levin with the common surname “Levin” among Jews, which comes from Levitical priests from the Israelite tribe of Levi (the surname Levitan is also known). The surnames Levin and Levin should not be confused also because in Tsarist Russia Jews, as a rule, were not nobles. The nimble and gifted striker Dima Sychev is running around the football fields of the world, and his dad is Sychev. President of the Olympic CommitteeRussia Leonid Tyagacheev abroad, as it were, changes his last name and is registered like Tyagachev.And how does the letter E help when writing foreign names: Pearl Harbor, Schöngraben, Preussisch-Eylau, Schönbrunn, Bayreuth, Faroe Islands; Goethe, Turner, Burns, Greuze, Richelieu, Lagerlöf... There is no letter E and Roerich became Roerich, Foeth became Fet, Röntgen became Roentgen, but wouldn’t it be more accurate to write Churchill or Goebbels (Goebbels)? It’s okay when there is already an established spelling and pronunciation in Russian of a foreign toponym or anthroponym, but what about those that are currently in our circulation, for example, the name of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder? Inaccuracy, incorrectness, fallacy, often leading to unpleasant consequences - these are the results of ignoring the letter E.
Changing the spelling of place names and names
The letter “e” has also disappeared from the spellings of some geographical names (for example Shengraben), and it is generally accepted to spell these words with “e”, and so and they pronounce them.
During Soviet times, incorrect pronunciation became widespread.names of the city of Königsberg (including in the famous film “Seventeen Moments spring").
The last name of the Nazi leader Goebbels was supposed to beis written as Goebbels, just as Goering's surname should have been written as Goering.
Freken Bock from the children's book "The Kid and Carlson Who Lives on the Roof" in Swedish
spelled froken , and “fröken” is closer to the Swedish pronunciation.
The surname of the famous French singer Myrène Mathieu is long
time was written and pronounced incorrectly - “Mathieu”. The last few years everything
More often they write and pronounce it correctly - “Mathieu”.
Facts from life:
Perm resident Tatyana Teterkpia almost lost her Russian citizenship because of
the wrong spelling of her last name in her passport.
The Yolkin family from Barnaul lost their inheritance due to the fact that it was registered
on Elkins.
The surname of the famous Russian poet Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich was distorted
when printing his first book. He gained fame under the name Fet.
4. People's attitude towards the letter.
Some writers and poets publish their texts with the obligatory use of the letter “е”. Among them are Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Yuri Polyakov, Mikhail Shcherbakov, Svyatoslav Loginov. Supporters of this letter at various times were such famous linguists as Dmitry Ushakov, Lev Shcherba, Alexander Reformatsky.
In modern publishing, there is a noticeable movement to assert the rights of Y. Books with the letter Y are being published; several newspapers: “In
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