ON THE ROLE OF O. P. PAVLOVSKY’S SPELLING SYSTEM IN THE HISTORY OF EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

The problems of evolution of the modern Ukrainian literary language as well as of linguistic normalization are relevant in modern linguistics. The article is devoted to a famous linguist of the 19th century, researcher of the Ukrainian language, author of Grammar book of Little Russian Dialect Oleksiy Pavlovich Pavlovsky (c. 1770/1773 – after 1826). His work is of exceptional importance being the first attempt to systematize the spelling of the Ukrainian colloquial language, which was based on the phonetic principle. The article analyzes and discloses the ownership marks of copies of Grammar book by O. P. Pavlovsky, stored in the Scientific Library of the Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University. The author managed to trace a copy of Grammar book (1818) that entered the library holdings of the Richelieu Lyceum (predecessor of the Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University – until 1865) and three copies of an offset print. Two of the latter belonged to Professor Artemiy Amvrosiyovych Moskalenko and Associate Professor Fyodor Pavlovich Smaglenko, well-known Odessa linguists of the 20th century who kept Grammar book in their personal book collections and used it for their scientific research. Grammar book of the Little Russian Dialect by O. P. Pavlovsky opened a new page in the history of Ukrainian linguistics. Despite certain shortcomings, for a long time it had been the only thorough manual that contained the basics of Grammar and spelling of the modern Ukrainian language. It was O. P. Pavlovsky’s work that laid the foundations for the formation of Ukrainian Grammar books and contributed to the development of the written Ukrainian literary language.