Some time ago, Joseph Boyle (bo…@netcom.com) wrote:
>I seem to remember that Polish spelling was based on the old Czech
>spelling, which took its sound values from the German of the time,
>and that the new Czech spelling, which today’s Czech, Slovak,
>Yugoslav, and Baltic orthographies are based on, was invented by Jan
>Hus. Can you confirm or correct this?
This is probably to simple a description.
The Latin script was introduced into those European countries which
were not a part of the Roman Empire via the Latin language not via the
vernaculars. The Latin language was first used in those countries by
the Catholic
Church and on this basis in can be said that the Latin script was
introduced by it. The ecclesiasticals were the first literate people in
these countries and the first texts (in whatever language) were
religious texts, wr
itten by them. Some people, for reason unknown to me, see the world as
a great pyramid and cannot free themselves from this scheme. They have
a hard time while trying to differentiate between the Holy Roman
Empire, the Ca
tholic Church in Germany, the kingdom of Bohemia and Jan Hus. They have
also difficulty in seeing the difference between the Holy Roman Empire
and those who imported (or not) something from Germany. One has to keep
in min
d that the first Polish Christian ruler —
Mieszko I, married a Bohemian princess and accepted baptism from
Bohemia in order to avoid giving the Holy Roman Emperors any pretext to
consider him to be their subject.
Jan Hus, whoever or whatever borrowed from him, hardly can be
considered to be a propagator of the imperial cause. He certainly was a
Bohemian patriot and if he used the Latin script to write in Czech, it
was because he w
rote earlier in Latin, as did every learned man in Europe, not because
of his connections with the Empire. He learned the Latin language and
script when he studied for the priesthood. It is not sure, however,
whether he w
as the first who wrote in Czech.
I would like to point out that we did not discuss the question of how
the spelling systems of some languages were established, but why the
used script was the Latin not Greek script. The script and the
orthography are not
the same thing.
The first Polish texts (and I guess that Czech also) appeared much
earlier than Jan Hus was born. The use of vernacular did not start just
some day. Its introduction was a slow, gradual process, ocurring in
various places
and full of expariments. The first, incidental, texts were very short
, inserted usually in Latin texts, and very few of them were preserved.
The spelling standard was not established, at least for one reason:
there were
many dialects and for one of them or a combination of some to become
the standard a script was necessary. On a 16th century map the western
Bug river is called, starting from its easternmost part: Bug, Buh,
Buck.
The initially used spelling was also different from today’s. The
medieval phonemes were also different — e.g.. in Polish there was one
nasal, now there are two of them. Because the oldest text were so
short, it is very d
ifficult to identify the language in which some texts, in
linguistically mixed areas, were written and what was the source of the
spelling. A fragment of "Ksie,ga Henrykowska" (The Henryko’w Book),
written in the Cistersi
an monastery of Henryko’w in Silesia, in the second half of the 13th
and in the 14th century, in Latin (nota bene), contained a sentence
which was, by some, considered to be the oldest, preserved, Polish
text.
Here is the text: "Daj ut ja pobrusze, a ty poczywaj!" ("Now, let me
grind (grain) and you take a break!"). These words were uttered by a
husband to his, grinding corn, wife. The Latin part of the text reports
the man to
be a Czech.
Now this text is considered to be rather Czech than Polish.
In the 13th century’s Poland credo was said in Polish and the
archbishop of Gniezno Jakub S’winka recommended in 1285 that the Gospel
be explained in Polish, if there is somebody adequately prepared to do
so. The first lo
nger texts in Polish were, probably, sermons. The oldest, preserved,
sermons in Polish are, written in the 13th century, "Kazania
S’wie,tokrzyskie" ("The Sermons of the Mount of the Holy Cross"). Below
is a fragment of th
em:
"…I pokazuje evanjelista, iz"e tet to Krol i Krolewic niebieski w
trojakiej rzeczy znamienitej jine wszytki krole zmija…" (… And
shows the Evangelist that this King and King’s Son in three-fold
excellence all othe
r kings surpasses…)
The other interesting text is, so called, "Psal/terz Florian’ski" (St.
Florian’s Psalter) written at the end of the 14th and the beginning of
the 15th century in Latin, German, and Polish. The psalter was written
for Jad
wiga, queen of Poland and was kept in St. Florian’s convent in Austria.
My reference, "Toc’ Jest Dziwne a Nowe", Antologia Literatury Polskiego
S’redniowiecza (Anthology of Polish Medieval Literaure), Published by
Pan’stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw in 1987 mentiones also a Polish
text eng
raved on a 12th century ring and the famous religious hymn —
"Bogurodzica" (The Mother of God), which was the first Polish national
anthem.
The hymn is said to be written in the 13th century. Some think that it
is even older.
There were, of course, translations from Czech as "Biblia Krolowej
Zofii", (The Bible of Queen Sophia), found in Szarosz-Patak in Hungary,
prepared in the 15th century for Sonka, the fourth wife of Wladysl/aw
Jagiel/l/o,
king of Poland (Jadwiga was his first wife or rather he her husband)
This Bible was a translation from an unknown Czech text. One of the
translators was the queen’s chaplain, Andrzej from Jaszowice.
I don’t know what kind of spelling principles the translators followed.
The fact is that older German, Czech, and Polish texts already existed.
Uncertain is to what an extent the writers of some of them knew the
works of
the others.
The Czechs, Germans, and Poles had spelling problems only when they
needed a character for a phoneme which did not exist in the Latin
language. The table below clearly shows that where the Czech, German,
and Polish spelli
ng are identical it is because the character denotes a phoneme which
appeares in all of those languages and in Latin as well. So this is,
plain and simple, the Latin not German spelling.
In his didactic poem written about 1440 — Obiecado (modern word
Abecadl/o — Alphabet), Jakub Porkosz presents recommended spelling of
the following phonemes:
a — short vs. aa — long (does not exist in today’s spelling)
e — short vs. ee — long (does not exist in today’s spelling)
b — b vs. b’ — b soft b (does not exist in today’s spelling)
c — /ts/ vs. k — /k/
c, — soft c (presently ci)
Ø – nasal vowel (the character does not exist in today’s spelling)
c — /ts/ vs. cz — /ch/
h — voiced h vs. ch — voiceless h
Latin German Czech Polish Transcription
a a a a a
á á
ae ai
ä ä (umlaut)
au au au aw
a, nasal — oN
b b b b b
bs ps
bt pt
z c c ts
c’ ,t’ very soft ts
k
ch ch ch kh
ch h
ci, ti long c’
cz ch
d d d d d
dv dy
dev dye
di dyi
dí dyee
dz voiced ts
dz’ voiced c’
dz" voiced cz
dzi long dz’
e e e e e
é é – as in first
e,, en eN — nasal
eu ev+oo
eu oy
ei ai
f f f f f
g g g g g
ge zhe
h h h h h
i i i i i
í ee
ie ee
j j j j, ÿ, y y
c k k k, ck k
l l l l l
l/ w
m m m m m
n n n n n
nv n’ ny — very soft
nev nye
ngu ng ng
ni ni nyi
ní nyee
o o o o o
ó ó ooo
ö ö (umlaut)
oe oi
ou ow
p p p p p
ph p
qu kw
r r r r r
rv rzh
rz zh (was rzh)
s s s s s
s’ sh — very soft
si sh — long s’
sch sv sz sh
si zi
ss s
st sht
t t t t t
tv ty — very soft
tev tye
th t
ti tyi
tí tyee
u u u u, v u
ü y:
ui ui
v v v v
v f
w w v
x x ks
y y Y
z z
z’ voiced s’
zi long z’
zv z" zh
In the above table:
If ’ is preceded by a character, it should be written over it;
If " is preceded by a z, it is a dot written over it;
If v is preceded by a character it is a "hacek" over it;
If , is preceded by a character (but not another ,) it is an "ogonek"
beneath it.
l/ is the slashed l.
Looking at the table, everybody can draw conclusions regarding
similarities of the phoneme sets in the reported languages and the
extent of any potential basing of every one of the above spellings on
another one. In the
Polish column I included some, known to me, old spelling, not used
today. The first character is always the one which is used today.
As you can see, both Czech and Polish spelling contain only those
characters or their standard combination which existed in Latin or were
created in Bohemia or Poland, respectively. If Polish spelling was
based on the spe
lling used by Jan Hus (which I don’t know), the "old Czech spelling"
did not contain any German-introduced innovations.
As far as the Baltic languages are concerned, I am not sure whether any
writing in Lithuanian started before the 19th century. This country
formed a union with Poland in 1386 and at that time sbegan its
conversion to Chri
stianity. The written languages, used in this country afterwards, were
Latin and Polish.
Regards,
Marek Konski
