Brains with peas

Here, the other day, the “Russia” showed a pseudo -scientific craft called “Cyril Code” - about the Cyrillic alphabet http://russia.tv/video/show/brand_ ID/43887/Video_id/435003 . Well, it would seem, they showed and showed - you never know all nonsense. But then another thing is interesting: they called very qualified philologists. In addition to one lady who, with an important look, was broadcast something conspiracy, the rest were better than another: V. M. Alpatov, A. A. Kibrik, A. A. Gippius. But they were placed in such a context: secret enemies talk about the benefits of globalization ...; German priests of the 9th century - the forerunner of racial fascist theories; Those who lost the war for Cyril’s code and are now forced to use the Latin residents (Poles, etc.), have lost identity; unique letters have become a reliable weapon against globalists, who through all centuries sought to deprive the Slavs of the words; Cyril code is a unique system of education and the spread of book knowledge; a mystical turn of history; In Sevastopol there was a mysterious transfer of Cyril code; Alexander Nevsky repelled the attack of globalists on all our civilization . This is a know-how: to use scientists at all, creating by installing the illusion that they approve of all these nonsense.

It’s a shame that the story of the Cyrillic alphabet is really terribly exciting, and writing is really difficult to associate with religion, with politics, with culture. Moreover, the creators of the film had all the materials to make the film meaningful and exciting at the same time. But they cut all these materials into small pieces, grabbed something, stirred and flooded with smelly mystically insulating brew.

It is especially annoying that, repeating a hundred times that the Cyrillic alphabet “gave writing” to many peoples, the film does not explain that, in fact, it means “to give writing”. But this is a difficult thing, and the problem here does not come down to which hooks and circles will be used. Colleagues will forgive me and can skip the next paragraph as self -evident. For non-collection, I'm afraid this is completely not obvious.

So imagine someone else's language, and we need to come up with writing for him. Of course, we can catch the sounds similar to ours in a stream of someone else's speech, and appropriate an icon to each of them. But it will be the most perfect nonsense, and the native speaker simply does not recognize his speech in our record. The thing is that for different languages ​​different phonetic features are relevant (somewhat simplified - meaningful). I will give an example. Everyone probably remembers how in English lessons they taught to pronounce differently Sheep and SHIP -and how funny it will be if, instead of Beach, to pronounce Bitch . It is difficult for us, because for the Russian language such a sign as the longitude of vowels is not distinguishable. The British laugh at the Japanese who instead of elections pronounces Erections : they can’t understand how it can not be distinguished by ear and [r]. We, too, of course, when the Japanese speaks in Russian Hirimi, we can hardly think that he is so pronouncing the word film . Remember, by the way, how Japanese Masa at Akunin pronounces the word bagels - Buburiki ?

So, in order to compose an alphabet for the language, you need to study its phonetic system, catch what signs are relevant for it, highlight certain units and compare each unit with its own icon. I am a little primitively explaining, for example, one could say the word “phoneme”, but then I would have to delve into science a phonology somewhat, and I want to say something else.

The cultural feat of Cyril is not at all in any Kabbalistic achievements, but in the fact that he managed to comprehend the system of Slavic languages ​​and offer for them such a set of graphic units that turned out to be very successful. Moreover, these were not the badges that we call the Cyrillic alphabet, but the so -called Glagolitic - a unique Slavic letter. These funny beams were then replaced, in essence, some variations of the Greek, but the essence of the matter did not change. This is even reported in the film “Cyril Code”, but nevertheless, it somehow turns out that the whole thing is in the mystical properties of what we now call Cyrillic.

But with the Cyrillic alphabets for unwritten peoples, the authors of the film are completely behaved like thimbles. The Cyrillic alphabet, they say, has such magical properties that it almost comes to the Gentiles, involving them in the “Cyrillic civilization”. Meanwhile, the matter was completely wrong. In the 20s, a huge work really began to create alphabets for unwritten languages ​​(for example, some languages ​​of the North Caucasus and the languages ​​of the peoples of the North). It was conducted at a high scientific level. Linguists have studied the phonetic system of different languages, these studies, by the way, gave a powerful impetus to the development of phonology. You can, perhaps, see the famous article by N.F. Yakovleva: “The mathematical formula for the construction of the alphabet (experience of a practical application of linguistic theory)”, culture and writing of the East, Prince. I. M., 1928, p. 41-64 www2.unil.ch/slav/ling/textes/jakovlev28b/txt.html to better understand what I'm talking about. They would tell this exciting story - only without secret codes and mystical meetings! Just the story of the enormous work of scientists and enlighteners, romantics and revolutionaries.

And here there is one piquant detail. The fact is that, starting in the 1920s, the linguists first took the basis not at all Cyrillic alphabet, but the Latin (this was due to the internationalist aspirations of the first years of the revolution, then even the Russian language wanted to translate to the Latin alphabet). And already in the 30s, the icons were replaced with Cyrillic (which in itself, as we understand, is not a focus when the alphabet was developed), and the creation of writing already on a Cyrillic basis continued. So all these mantras about the civilizational role of the Cyrillic alphabet are for ignorant. And it’s not that the authors of the film did not know about the Latin. They knew: A. A. Cybrik, upset by what was done with his material, published what he told the creators of the film, here: www.nsad.ru/slavyane-s-zapada-govoryat-nazvaniya-gorodov-evropy . By the way, there are interesting thoughts about why in the 30s there was a U-turn to Cyrillic.

The funny thing is that the television people seem to have so worried an interesting plot and high -quality material not even for political reasons (enemies around, they want to destroy us, rally under the banners) - but simply because it seems to them that it is more interesting. Four-meter people, mobs people, the great secret of water, the secret code of the alphabet-do they really think that there are some idiots around? Or are they trying to turn everyone into idiots?

With this sad thought, the column and I go on the summer holidays - to make a new book. See you in the fall.