ORTHOGRAPHICAL PECULIARITIES OF EARLY ROMANIAN MANUSCRIPTS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF CODEX NEAGOEANUS (1620) AND CODEX STURDZANUS (1580–1619))

The article is dedicated to the study of the graphics and orthographic features of early Romanian manuscripts written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The study is focused on two key sources: Codex Neagoeanus (CN) and Codex Sturdzanus (CS), which are important documents for the study of the Romanian language of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The article deals with the structure of these manuscripts, their graphic features, punctuation marks, use of ligatures, and analyses regional differences in graphics. The methodology of the study is based on a comparative analysis of graphemes, punctuation and general graphic features in the manuscripts. The descriptive method was used to identify patterns in the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by Romanian scribes, as well as to study their influence on the development of the written Romanian. The author analyses the peculiarities of the use of punctuation marks such as the full stop and the special sign «؞ «~in CN, and the more developed punctuation system in CS, including the unique sign ‘+’ to indicate direct speech. The main results of the paper show that the Romanian Cyrillic script was in the process of formation and showed instability in the use of individual graphemes, especially in vowel sounds and punctuation marks. The article also notes the ligatures specially created to denote sound combinations characteristic of the Romanian language, such as the ending «-lor». Examples of regional differences in script, including the use of the graphemes «ы», «ь», «ъ» and «ѫ» in different manuscripts, are given. The conclusion is that the Romanian Cyrillic orthography of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was not fully formed yet and was still in a stabilization phase. The article emphasizes the importance of further research on these manuscripts for a better understanding of the processes of adaptation of the Slavic script to the Romance language and the evolution of the Romanian writing tradition.