Rules For Usage in Russian (pre-1918)
- ‹і› was used before all vowels and before the semivowel ‹й›, except at the end of a morpheme in a compound word, where ‹и› is used: пяти + акровый = пятиакровый, (five-acre)
- ‹и› was used as the last letter of a word and before consonants, except in міръ for "world, universe, local community, commons, society, laity", and words derived from it.
The distinction between миръ ("peace") and міръ ("world") lost when they were merged to мир led to the legend that Tolstoy's War and Peace was originally titled "War and (the) World". As it turns out, the spelling of the two variants of мир was an artificial distinction to separate two different definitions of what was originally in fact the same word (much as with English "to" vs. "too").
Read more about this topic: Soft-dotted I (Cyrillic)
Famous quotes containing the words rules, usage and/or russian:
“I invented the colors of the vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green—I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.”
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)