Viena kalba - dvi abėcėlės: kirilika ir lotyniška abėcėle rašyti Petro Survilo laiškai
One language - Two alphabets: Petras Survilas' letters in cyrillic and latin alphabets (Beginning of the twentieth century)

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the analysis of Petras Survilas' letters written both in the Cyrillic and in the Latin alphabets. The five surviving letters of Survilas were written in the Eastern Highland Lithuanian subdialect of the town of Pasvalys. Possible standard language influence, however, is evident in the usage of the diphthongs [ai], [ei] and of full (non-reduced) endings, in marking <i> in the position of dialectal [e]. Survilas' orthography was highly influenced by the traditional (pre-standard) Lithuanian orthography that was used at the end of the 19th century and that was still prevailing in the prayer books. The pre-standard orthography affected not only Survilas' writing habits in the Latin alphabet, but also the orthography of Cyrillic letters (cf. his digraphs). Moreover, Survilas' Cyrillic orthography letters did not correspond to any of the known Cyrillic spelling systems proposed for Lithuanian. Thus, Survilas created his orthography himself.

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