Tweaking Russian Orthography

[Harold F. Schiffman]

This furor calls to mind the furor over spelling 'reform' (actually
'rectifications') for French in 1989-90, where many groups saw the attempt
to rectify the orthography as a grievous attack on the body of the
language itself.

HS

On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Ronald Kephart wrote:

> >Mr. Putin's wife, Lyudmila, called the academy's proposals "totally
> >self-serving."  "When the country's economy still has to be
> >rebuilt," she said, "now is not the time to go reforming the
> >language, which is still developing...
>
> I appreciate and respect the fact that Ms. Putin is a "trained
> linguist," but I wonder whether she actually said "language" (yazik)
> or "orthography" (orfografiya). And if not the latter, why not?
>
> Ronald Kephart
> Associate Professor
> English and Foreign Languages
> University of North Florida
> Jacksonville, FL USA
> http://www.unf.edu/~rkephart/
>