Boris A. Larin – Lectures on the History of the Russian Literary Language From the X to the Mid-18th Century

Begin with the источник of Boris A. Larin’s lectures–pull the archival notes and the published transcript together, then compare how the язык shifts раньше across the X to the Mid-18th Century. Use a practical, hands-on method: annotate passages, mark terms, and record where format choices in manuscripts affect sense. This approach yields nothing vague and helps you map concrete changes in syntax, morphology, and lexicon.

For format details, treat the lectures as a two-part balance: the first half (половины) outlines manuscript tradition; the second half focuses on print culture (издательства) and public reception. When you read references to конференции and notes about марта events, note how the argument builds on primary sources. The term источник recurs, reinforcing that every claim rests on a document, not a guess. The Latin idem appears in citations to signal parallel cases you should compare across editions.

Practical workflow: assemble a reading notebook; separate notes on язык shifts, then create a cross-lingual glossary that helps track terms across orthographic shifts. When you annotate, think about how to наносить observations into the margins without clutter. Use a soft palette–like glycerin in creams–to keep your notes legible, and handle кисти and margins with care, even when the paper carries the запах of old ink and a faint layer of пленочкой. If a section mentions a tea-house conference (конференции чайного) or a publisher’s imprint (издательства), capture its date and формат as a reference point. A well-kept chain of notes, including mentions of половины, grounds your grasp of how язык matured over time.

Finally, apply this approach when you study references to марта releases, and coordinate a quick чайного-themed reading session with colleagues to discuss shifts in punctuation, spelling, and phraseology. The lectures demonstrate that argument lines in orthography trace lines from chroniclers to poets, with the source materials guiding every conclusion. Keep each источник in reach, compare idem citations across editions, and treat the course as a practical toolkit for mapping the history of the Russian literary language from the X century into the mid-18th century.

Canonical Texts and Manuscripts from the X Century to the Mid-18th Century

Begin with the X century core: anchor your study on the Повесть временных лет (The Tale of Bygone Years) and several ранних летописей, then expand to mid-18th‑century codices. Build a compact reference map that ties manuscript families to their editions, noting ремуверы and marginal кутикулы in the notes. In борис ларин (larin)’s framework, russian linguistic choices emerge in the lexicography (лексикография) across traditions, so collect dulcis glosses and annotate how they shape meaning в составе разных рукописей. Have a clear baseline: a short list, xxxvi sigla, and a cross‑walk to Pososhkov (посошков) catalogs to keep dating and provenance straight.

For readers aiming to connect language with manuscript form, remember that each text carries a unique material trace: the язык, the запах of aged parchment, and the layout. The canonical corpus is много layered: lexical notes sit beside orthographic quirks, and stylistic shifts appear across летописей types. Always consult both early X–century copies and the later mid‑18th‑century codices to see how the text evolves in составе и редакциях. In this context, notable figures like ярослав and later editors shape cultural memory, while boris and ларин guide how to interpret glosses and marginalia that наносится on the margins of the codex.

Key manuscripts and scribal features

In the early tradition, scribes inserted ремуверы (emendations) and кутикулы (marginal notes) that reveal reading practices and correction strategies; the singular кутикула also appears in some inventories. The sigla xxxvi identify a codex with dulcis glosses that illuminate lexical choices used to describe everyday objects and religious life. The носик of punctuation and the spacing of lines help paleographers judge dating and regional variation, while notes about гель-уход (care for fragile leaves) slip into colophons and marginalia in some late copies. These small signals matter: they show how a textual culture balances preservation with change across большой spans of времени and месяцев of transmission.

Beyond the physical features, the летописей types present a spectrum from concise annals to richly narrative chronicles. The Посошков catalogues (посошков) are indispensable for locating copies, pairing each manuscript with a known creator or scriptorium, and tracing how лексикография shifts across centuries. The Ярослав circle contributes core variants that inform a russian text‑history approach, while the носитые corrections and ремуверы illuminate how readers in different eras interpreted key terms. When you assemble data, you should have a robust map where каждый manuscript type (annalistic, narrative, and provincial copies) aligns with editions and glossing practices.

Finally, build your toolkit around concrete steps: verify manuscript dating with Pososhkov references, compare лексикографические notes across редакции, and record how язык usage migrates from X to mid‑XVIII century. Use imaging techniques that reveal dulcis additions and кутикулы that are not visible to the naked eye, and document how the запах of vellum correlates with preservation quality. Nothing replaces direct examination, but a careful synthesis of эти элементы gives a reliable portrait of canonical texts and manuscripts and how they shaped the literary language that борис and ларин discuss in their lectures.

Tracing Orthography Changes: Practical Guidelines Across Centuries

Begin by constructing a century-spanning orthography ledger that maps variant spellings to their modern forms. Build for each phoneme a family of spellings, and attach a confident modern equivalent. Keep the ledger in a reusable template so future researchers can append new entries.

When you extract data from летописей and related истории, record variants for names like всеволод, мстислав, and игореве, plus common morphemes. Note where scribes used ремуверы marks or ligatures, and indicate transitions when a character shifts from one symbol to another across centuries. Include context notes: region, scriptorium, and any конференции that mention orthography choices.

Design a data schema: fields for century, source, variant, modern_form, justification, and confidence. Use составе to indicate where the entry sits within a corpus; connect notes with from to clarify provenance. Track semantic drift when a form changes beyond surface spelling, and mark readers’ questions that have ambiguous readings.

Glossary notes: glycol, carbomer, glycerin appear here as test tokens or marginalia examples to check annotation systems. Include примеры like чайного in marginal notes to illustrate non-lexical markers. Treat these as unrelated labels and ensure they do not influence the rules of spelling correspondence.

Phonological Shifts in Early Russian: What Larin Emphasizes

Begin with a concrete plan: map the yer loss and early vowel shifts across texts, then compare летописей and собр азбука to locate stable patterns. Gather texts spanning X century to mid-18th century and annotate how orthography encodes sound, чтобы связать spelling with pronunciation. Larin stresses that the малейший phonetic adjustment surfaces in the written record, so log the малейший variants and track where они cluster in составе texts. This también yields секунд-level observations that ground a diachronic view of Russian phonology.

He foregrounds the yer system as a living archive: non-stressed yer often disappear, while stressed positions preserve a trace that guides later spellings. In the texts, the tonal balance between vowels shifts subtly, and это reflects a тонкой reorganization of syllable structure. When you compare X-century glosses with later кодифицированные формы, you видишь how язык gradually consolidates a standard, и поэтому the phonology remains a moving target for scribes, читатели, and reformers alike.

Consonant behavior also shifts: palatalization spreads along front vowels, and дефорсификация voices emerges through spelling choices that hinge on пальцев, палочкой, and кисти in writing practice. Through through the evidence, Larin shows how scribes transcribed sounds через ограниченные интервала: some forms adopt a полоской stroke, others rely on a кисти stroke, but the underlying shift remains detectable. The result is a layered record where просмысление sounds and symbols travel together, through the writer’s hand and ink, into the reader’s memory.

Lexical Development: Borrowings, Neologisms, and Style in the Lectures

Identify borrowings at a момент when texts shift from Church Slavonic to vernacular forms. Larin marks origin of loanwords by tracing citations in летописей and книги, then showing how semantic fields widen across administrative, religious, and scientific discourse. These borrowings cluster around official vocabulary, ritual terms, and conceptual labels, and their phonology adapts to Russian phonotactics while retaining foreign morphology in some forms.

Neologisms and stylistic moves fill gaps in the evolving lexicon. Larin demonstrates that neologisms emerge to name new concepts in science and administration, and he notes the размягчающий effect of adopting foreign forms into the vernacular. Examples include гидроксид and гель-уход as technical terms that enter the texts with clear semantic load, while carbomer appears as a later category illustrating how specialized discourse expands. The result is a большой shift in register and audience alignment; even small units like минуты of explanation matter for reader clarity.

Style and texture emerge in the way terms travel between registers. Larin blends precise loan-forms with native morphology to keep reader engagement without sacrificing accuracy. He foregrounds the кутикула and кутикулу as surface indicators of science meeting everyday description, while носик and кисти surface in anatomical or illustrative passages to signal register shifts. Even the phrase describes in terms of чувствительная кожа. This careful lexical layering shows how language can remain transparent to the reader while carrying layered origin and nuance, reinforcing the role of language as a living archive in the летописей and throughout the книги.

Practical takeaway for researchers: map borrowings by a focused checklist–borrowed terms, neologisms, and style markers. Track the момент when a root migrates from летописей to книги, compare origin across periods, and note how terms like гель-уход, гидроксид, and carbomer signal expanding scientific discourse. Create tight glosses that contrast кутикулу with кутикула, or носик with кисти, to illuminate context shifts. Use these patterns to interpret how Boris A. Larin shapes readers’ perception of the X to mid-18th century lexical development and to identify how specific moments of linguistic creativity informed the evolution of language in literary texts.

Manuscript Variants and Editorial Choices: How to Reconstruct Texts

Start by laying out a complete stemma codicum and a reading apparatus: map every manuscript witness (mans) and label each reading with its exact location (chapter, page, line). Compile variants from летописей, владимир, святослав, and пушкин; classify readings by types (типы) such as orthographic, lexical, and syntactic, and track how each witness contributes to the subject of the reconstruction. Use language as the guiding criterion, preserving archaisms and idiosyncrasies that reflect the era’s usage rather than modern editorial taste. Maintain a master file with notes on составе, punctuation, and page layout; assess every(texts) variant and mark the differences for different witnesses. Use idem when readings repeat across sources, and indicate when a variant is unique to one manuscript.

In the editorial act, prefer readings that survive across multiple manuscripts and show internal coherence. Compare handwriting marks from кисти and пальцев to gauge scribal practice and possible contamination or misreading in the margin. When a page reveals azБУka traditions or glosses, treat these as paratextual elements, not readings, and place them in the apparatus with explicit exclusion notes. If a passage shows половины divisions or ambiguities at line breaks, annotate the question as a potential split in the составе and test which reading best preserves meaning and cadence. Do not let гель-уход, carbomer, масла, или glycerin on the surface influence the textual decision; treat such markings as physical residues, not textual variants. If acids (кислоты) or hydroxides (гидроксид) appear in the paper’s aging notes, record them only as material history and not as readings of language.

Implement practical steps for the edition: (1) draft an apparatus showing every variant along each line, (2) provide a chosen text with a parallel note on the question of authenticity, and (3) mark non-identical readings with the tag “different,” while leaving identical readings under idem. For each entry, specify the source set (летописей, владимир, святослав, игореве) and the influence of the azбука conventions on spelling choices. Include references to уважаемые texts like летописей and пушкин, but let the language and rhythm guide the editorial policy rather than popularity. Keep the subject high-level but precise, so researchers can trace the logic from the manuscript to the final form and reproduce the reconstruction for every(texts).

In practice, use relevant examples across a corpus that spans centuries and genres: летописей informs orthography, владимир and святослав reflect regional scribal habits, and игореве offers later stylistic variants. When differ, show how the chosen reading aligns with the predominant language of the X to the Mid-18th Century and preserves the азбука tradition. Document how каждая versão integrates lexicon from названия and everyday terms, including references to Пушкин and другие authors, to illustrate diachronic change. By coupling a transparent stemma with a rigorous apparatus and explicit criteria (subject, language, состав, иidem), you enable readers to follow decisions, even when confronted with rare variants or ambiguous passages, даже in complex passages where читатель must weigh different manuscript testimonies against the printing tradition.

Using Larin’s Lectures in Teaching: A Classroom Framework

Begin with a concrete recommendation: in the beginning, set a precise objective and run a 15‑minute close reading of a Larin excerpt paired with a lexicography task that traces spelling forms to a timeline.

This framework centers on the history of the Russian literary language from the X to the mid‑18th century and translates that arc into actionable classroom steps, with explicit prompts, artifacts, and assessment criteria.

• Format and cadence: Structure lessons in a three‑phase format: Beginning context, Lexicography mapping, and Student output. Use формат to label the cycle, and keep each phase to 20–25 minutes so דר you stay focused. In every phase, connect ideas to the alphabet and азбука as concrete anchors for historical change.
• Context and subject alignment: Tie the subject of a text to its historical moments. Discuss истории of spelling, script, and syntax, and show how a single word morphs across centuries. Use examples like alphabet alongside азбука to demonstrate transliteration and adaptation, and invite learners to compare владимир and ярослав in manuscript episodes.
• Lexicography as practice: Treat лексикография as a living discipline. Create a mini‑lexicon for each unit, recording form, sense, and dating. Use оригинальные orthographic variants to illustrate how authors chose forms “from” earlier traditions to later standards, and annotate transitions with a lok of notes on как это было записано. Include words that travel from one century to another, highlighting how маленькая details like palochkoy (палочкой) marks, or a small diacritic, signal shift.
• Textual artifacts: Bring images of manuscripts or facsimiles and annotate them with a digital or paper palimpsest approach. Students наносить short notes on the «skin» (кожу) of the text to track morphology and phonology, emphasizing how surface features reveal deeper histories. Include a discussion of носик and кутикулу as playful metaphors for subtle variant surfaces in word shapes.
• Diverse prompts and livsi corpus: Build a livsi‑style corpus of sample lines from the era. Use this corpus to pose questions and tasks: Kérdés prompts such as “How would you render this form in modern spelling?” or “What lexeme would a Ярослав‑era scribe choose for this concept?” These prompts help students see how meaning travels across time.
• Named‑entity prompts: Introduce recurring figures such as владимир és ярослав as case studies. Track how their names appear in variants and how orthography encodes social identity, audience expectations, and regional practices. Include a note on игореве manuscripts to illustrate localized spelling and format quirks.

Выбор источников и форматов подталкивает к активному восприятию: use which text as primary source, and supplement with glossaries, marginalia, and intertextual cross‑references to illuminate how the alphabet evolved, how азбука was interpreted in schools, and how истоки и истории language intersect with literary practice. The approach also nurtures transfer: students apply insights from литературного analysis to linguistics tasks, making connections across context, usage, and audience.

1. Student tasks by phase:
   • Phase 1 (Beginning context): identify historical cues, note<>();
   • Phase 2 (Lexicography mapping): assemble a mini‑glossary, tag each item with alphabet és азбука origins, and record variants (сколько вариаций you find).
   • Phase 3 (Production): produce a one‑page landing page for a modern reader that translates chosen lexemes and explains the path from истории to contemporary usage.
2. Assessment and feedback: use rubrics for historical accuracy, lexical reasoning, and clarity of annotation. Include peer reviews focusing on how well students connect form, meaning, and date. Track progress across format types and measure every step of the process.
3. Adaptation and inclusivity: adjust timeframes for younger learners or advanced classes. Offer bilingual glosses or transliterations where needed, ensuring access to лексикография concepts for diverse learners. Encourage students to bring their own examples from reading lists to deepen engagement with the subject.

Concrete classroom activities to implement immediately:

• Activity A: Clip a paragraph from a Larin‑era text, annotate with палочкой to mark line‑level variants, and discuss how the носик of a chữ reflects orthographic habit instead of a single fixed rule.
• Activity B: Create a mini glossary that pairs each Cyrillic entry with its English equivalent, noting alphabet progression and азбука alignment across centuries. Compare forms to the current alphabet and show how истории influenced today’s формат of education.
• Activity C: Run a quick Q&A with a focus on question prompts: “What changed between раніше and дольше in this text, and what drove the shift?”

Resulting skills include sharper attention to orthographic choices, better ability to justify historical readings, and clearer explanations of how литературного language evolves in response to social and educational needs. By combining lexicographic practice with hands‑on text work, classrooms gain a practical pathway from азбука to modern Russian, while keeping students engaged with concrete tasks, tight formats, and meaningful historical context.