Между латиницей и кириллицей : аббревиатуры в письменности Литвы ХIХ века

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Abreviatūros; Brachigrafija; Graždanka; Kirilica; Lietuviškas rašymas; Lietuviškasis raidynas; Lietuvių rašmenys; Lotyniškas rašymas; Lotyniškasis raidynas; Lotynų rašmenys; Rašmenys kirilika; Rašymas kirilicawriting; Sutrumpinimai; Trumpiniai; Abbreviations; Brachygraphy; Cyrillic writing; Grazhdanka; Grazhdanka, abbreviations; Latin writing; Latin writing, Lithuanian writing, Cyrillic writing,; Lithuanian writing.

ENThe article is devoted to the analysis of the Lithuanian writing development in the 19th century with the focus on marginal writing ñ brachygraphy, i.e. usage of abbreviations or special characters. In the paper, the texts of religious content ñ books of prayers, gospel collections, and hymnals ñ are analysed. Shorthand and abbreviation tradition in Lithuania is characteristic of the old multilingual writing ñ handwritten or printed. Still in the 19th century, the forming national press distanced itself from the brachygraphic tradition significantly reducing the use of abbreviations. It was also due to the prohibition of press in Lithuania imposed by the czarist government that lasted from 1865 to 1904. Cyrillic writing, under the name of grazhdanka, took over Lithuanian letters. Cyrillic writing was employed not only in imparting the text itself, but also the established traditions of the Latin writing. The most obvious of the adopted methods is iteration ñ repetition of a grapheme (usually initial) when naming the plural.As decoding and understanding of abbreviations became significantly more complex with the transfer to the new alphabet, the attempt to reduce the amount of abbreviations, especially of the ambiguous ones, is obvious. It is quite often that a full lexeme is presented on the page and only then the abbreviation is given. This kind of principle of obviousness and clarity is related to the addressee and the purpose of religious printing. It was also influenced by the fact that abbreviations in the Russian secular press formed only at the end of the 19th century. Introduction of grazhdanka also had an impact on some Lithuanian orthographic elements: instead of the old double-letter graphemes sz and cz, standing for sounds  and Ë, singleñletter graphemes were formed in the course of time. Still grazdanka itself underwent the direct influence of the Latin brachygraphy, e.g., abbreviation NN (nomen nominandum) is simply transferred to the texts in the Cyrillic script with no translation or transcription. [From the publication]

• Kalbotyra / Linguistics
• Literatūrologija / Literary Studies