Autograf "Dziewicy z Orleanu" Adama Mickiewicza. Ortografia i fonetyka
The authorial manuscript of The Virgin of Orleans by Adam Mickiewicz: spelling and phonetics

Summary/Abstract: After discussing the origins and the underlying philosophy of the Vilnius Philomath Society as well as the way in which its archives are preserved, the author proceeds to examine one of the surviving manuscripts: The Virgin of Orleans, authored by Adam Mickiewicz. Set against the data from previous research on the language of the Philomaths by Kurz, the analysis of the spelling convention and the phonetics of the manuscript (e.g. the orthographic representations of j, o / ó, ż / z, x; prepositional phrases; word truncations; the pronunciation of nasal and raised vowels; palatalisation of consonants) helps determine that they fall closer to the language of the Philomaths and the North-Eastern Borderlands of Poland than to the national literary norm of the time. Above all, the analysis reveals that Mickiewicz’s spelling patterns were highly inconsistent, posing a major challenge to his publishers.

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