The materials examined here consist of 121 Russian letters dating from 1700-1715. The present study aims to define a stage in linguistic evolution and analyze the morphological heterogeneity in the textual corpus. The letters are divided into three categories: private, semiofficial, and official. All nomina (substantives, adjectives, pronouns, and numerals) are registered and their occurrences processed statistically case by grammatical case. The focus is on linguistic features where a choice is possible and variation is in evidence.
letters dating to 1700
Conservatism asserts itself primarily in strongly standardized texts such as the official correspondence, while phonetic spelling reflecting akanie and dialectally influenced syncretism between different cases (e.g., the GDLsg) is observable mainly in the private letters, which consitute the least standardized category. There is a trend break among u-genitives and u-locatives, where our findings indicate that the u-ending is losing ground.
The use of samyj for the comparative degree is not particularly prominent in these 18th-century letters. Because this descriptive comparison type developed in the 17th century, its use could have been expected to rise in the 18th, but our materials do not indicate any such increase.
In accomplishing this task Schneider immediately runs into a problem of definition. The sheer variety of writings that may be called letters is staggering. The sort of letters found in the state papers constitutes one large class; private letters sent by individuals make up another. But should one also include works like The copie of a letter sent out of England to Don Bernardin de Mendoza, propaganda trumpeting the defeat of the Armada which, despite the title, was never sent at all? Or the newsletters, written by professionals, to be circulated in manuscript to the news-hungry well-to-do? In other words, does the letter have to be authentic? Was it ever sent? Was it even intended to be sent? Similarly, what should one make of letters, like some of Petrarch's, which the author edited for publication long after the original occasion that had called them forth? Yet all of these last, however, partook of the power of an authentic letter: that is, they claimed a personal, perhaps intimate, knowledge of the events being described, and a careful examination of the rhetoric employed in them makes clear just how the epistolary form could be deployed to establish some sort of truth. These intimacies help to explain why manuscript newsletters survived as long as they did and why the epistolary novel took hold.
Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923.
In England, Wales, Ireland and Britain's American colonies, there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted the start of a new year from Lady Day (25 March) to 1 January (which Scotland had done from 1600), while the second discarded the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, removing 11 days from the September 1752 calendar to do so.[2][3] To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating.
In Britain, 1 January was celebrated as the New Year festival from as early as the 13th century, despite the recorded (civil) year not incrementing until 25 March,[12][d] but the "year starting 25th March was called the Civil or Legal Year, although the phrase Old Style was more commonly used".[3] To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal even in semi-official documents such as parish registers to place a statutory new year heading after 24 March (for example "1661") and another heading from the end of the following December, 1661/62, a form of dual dating to indicate that in the following twelve weeks or so, the year was 1661 Old Style but 1662 New Style.[15] Some more modern sources, often more academic ones (e.g. the History of Parliament) also use the 1661/62 style for the period between 1 January and 24 March for years before the introduction of the New Style calendar in England.[16]
Other countries in Eastern Orthodoxy eventually adopted Gregorian (or new style) dating for their civil calendars but most of these continue to use the Julian calendar for religious purposes. Greece was the last to do so, in 1923.[17] There is a 13-day difference between Old Style and New Style dates in modern Greek history.
Because of the differences, British writers and their correspondents often employed two dates, which is called dual dating, more or less automatically. Letters concerning diplomacy and international trade thus sometimes bore both Julian and Gregorian dates to prevent confusion. For example, Sir William Boswell wrote to Sir John Coke from The Hague a letter dated "12/22 Dec. 1635".[22] In his biography of John Dee, The Queen's Conjurer, Benjamin Woolley surmises that because Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/84 date set for the change, "England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates".[24] In contrast, Thomas Jefferson, who lived while the British Isles and colonies eventually converted to the Gregorian calendar, instructed that his tombstone bear his date of birth by using the Julian calendar (notated O.S. for Old Style) and his date of death by using the Gregorian calendar.[25] At Jefferson's birth, the difference was eleven days between the Julian and Gregorian calendars and so his birthday of 2 April in the Julian calendar is 13 April in the Gregorian calendar. Similarly, George Washington is now officially reported as having been born on 22 February 1732, rather than on 11 February 1731/32 (Julian calendar).[26]
The Lee Family Digital Archive is the largest online source for primary source materials concerning the Lee family of Virginia. It contains published and unpublished items, some well known to historians, others that are rare or have never before been put online. We are always looking for new letters, diaries, and books to add to our website. Do you have a rare item that you would like to donate or share with us? If so, please contact our curator, Colin Woodward, about how you can contribute to this historic project.
More than 3,600 letters, legal documents, books, and other papers are available at the Lee Family Digital Archive. We are in the process of adding new documents to our database daily. Items added before September 2015 are found at this link.
Until 1974, the mark of origin on silver was the Crown. The date letters began in 1773 with the letter E, and were varied irregularly each year until 1824, after which date they were arranged in alphabetical order.
The Glasgow Assay Office was established in 1819. A date letter was used on wrought silver from 1681 to 1710 then discontinued until 1819. During this time the letters "S" (sometimes reversed), "E","F" and "O" were used. The date letter, which followed a 26 year cycle, was changed annually in July. Items were produced in Glasgow since the 17th Century and marked in a similar manner to those in other Scottish Provincial towns. The town mark is a tree, a fish and a bell. The Assay Office closed in 1964.
A recently discovered inscription on an ancient ivory comb is claimed to be the earliest example of a sentence written using an alphabet that would eventually evolve into the set of 26 letters you're translating into words right now.
The fine-toothed instrument was unearthed several years ago in Tel Lachish, an old Canaanite city in the foothills of central Israel, but scientists only recently noticed the implement was engraved with 17 tiny letters.
The shallow inscription on its body is even smaller. Some letters are no larger than a single millimeter. Others have faded to the point where they are practically illegible, making them hard to interpret without their neighbors for context.
Other examples of curses and hexes written in Canaanite letters have been found adorning more recent artifacts dating between 1200 and 1400 BCE. In fact, similar enchanting inscriptions have been found on a jar from the same dig site as the comb, also dated to a more recent period.
Radiometric dating of the ancient comb was ultimately unsuccessful, but based on other artifacts previously found in the same area researchers suspect the tool was inscribed in the Bronze Age, about 3,700 years ago.
And judging from the style of the archaic letters, experts think the actual words were written in the "very earliest stage of the alphabet's development", not long after the Canaanite alphabet came to be.
Introduced in the 1670s, the mantua, accessorized with a stomacher, a lace neck frill, sleeve ruffles, or engageantes, and a wired headdress known as a fontange, remained the dominant form of dress for women between 1700 and 1709 (Crowston 25, 36-37). A rare surviving example of this type of gown (Fig. 1) dating to about 1708 in the collection of the Costume Institute displays the luxuriant shape of the early eighteenth-century mantua with its exaggerated bustle and long train (Figs. 3-5). The gown is constructed like a kimono from two lengths of silk that extend from the front to the back hem; the excess fullness of the fabric is set into pleats over the shoulders that, as seen here, would have been secured at the waist with a belt or sash (Fig. 4). The lower sleeves and wide cuffs, probably stiffened with pasteboard (leaves of inferior quality paper, pasted together, generally used in bookmaking), are added on, as are pieces at the back hem to create the rounded train (Figs. 3, 5). Deep self-fabric flounces that became fashionable during this decade decorate the matching petticoat (Fig. 2). The two women at the left of a Portrait of a Family in an Interior (Fig. 2) wear mantuas. 2ff7e9595c
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