Kristus, Krystus, Christus, Chrystus ar Cristus? Vardo rašybos raida XVI-XIX amžiaus raštuose

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Senieji raštai; Rašyba; Old lithuanian writings; Orthography.

ENIn Lithuanian texts, the spelling of Christ's name varied up until the middle of the nineteenth century. In earlier writings, we can find the spellings Kristus, Krjstus, Krystus, Chris- tus, Chrjstus, Chrystus, and Cristus, as well as some abbreviations that may be ordered chronologically this way: xper-, Ch-, Xst-, The oldest examples can be found in the manuscript prayers of the beginning of the sixteenth century. The accusative singular form kriftu with the initial k- corresponds to the Polish spelling of the same name in manuscripts of the same time. The abbreviation cr- might have been a reflection of the Latin Cristus of the Middle Ages. The broadest generalization of the changes in orthography of Christ's name allows me claim that it was the editors of Lithuanian texts in East Prussia who modified the form Christus into Kristus according to the Lithuanian pronunciation (these were Lutheran texts from the middle of the seventeenth century). Catholics in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, however, simultaneously switched to the spelling Chrystus (sometimes returning to Christus) and kept at it for a comparatively long period, most probably up to the middle of the nineteenth century. The writings of the Lithuanian Evangelical Reformed Church do not yield any more consistent norms of the spelling; the selection of a variant depended either on the habits of writers or on the sources employed: during the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Lithuanian Evangelical Reformed Church used four orthographic variants of the name.Preliminary research into the Polish variants of Christ's name in fourteenth- to fifteenth- century manuscripts reveals that the Lutherans of the sixteenth century forgot the spelling Krystus and, under the influence of Latin and German texts, they chose the form Christus. Polish Catholics, after Bible translator Jan Leopolita's search and vacillation between Christus and Chrystus by Jakub Wujek in the second translation, selected Chrystus. The Polish Evangelical Reformed Church and the Antitrinitarians, who adhered to the spellings Kristus and Krystus in the sixteenth century, also began writing Chrystus in the year 1606. [From the publication]