PHONETIC, ORTHOGRAPHIC AND MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION OF PRIVILEGES TO KYIV CITY MAGISTRATE

Abstract

The article analyzes variant spellings at the phonetic and graphic and morphological levels. Many variant
spellings reflect various phonetic phenomena (reflexion of *ě, assimilation, dissimilation, simplification,
softness / hardness of consonants, etc.) in the text and the formation of morphological norms (inflection of
nominal parts of speech, verbs, etc.) of the Ukrainian language of the Old Ukrainian period.
The subject of the linguistic analysis were the letters of the Kyiv Magistrate, issued to confirm the
Magdeburg law of the city of Kyiv by the Polish rulers from 1544 to 1659. The collection, which is now in
the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv (Fond 62. Inventory 1. Unit 1), contains privileges
copied for his own use by K. Krichevets in the first half of the 18th century. The signed privileges are in
the Old Ukrainian language of the corresponding period, but some of them are translations from Latin and
Polish. It remains unknown whether the owner of the collection copied from already translated documents or
ordered the translation from A. Trotsina and M. Yakgelnytskyi, which were recorded as translators therein.
Linguistic fluctuations are present in the forms of the same words and in different words, often different
variant spellings occur side by side on the same page. Having studied the variety of parallel forms in the
analyzed source, we singled out the reasons for their appearance: the lack of normalization of spelling
features, in particular the transmission of individual sounds, the incompleteness of linguistic processes at
that time in the language, the preservation of traditions and the influence of the living language element,
the mutual influence of the phonetic and morphological systems of the Church Slavonic and Polish
languages with Ukrainian.
The note reveals the interaction of the systems of the named languages, which manifested itself in
fluctuations in various reflections in writing - reflection of sonorous in the middle of a word, changes of
sonorous at the beginning of a word, reflexes *dj, *tj, *gt / *kt, *je at the beginning of a word, variant
endings in the declension of nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.