Initial pronunciation of “The tale of Ihor’s campaign”: methods of reconstruction

Abstract

Background. If “The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign” is an incorrect text, deformed by its re-singing (during its oral performance) and re-writing (including intentional corrections, in particular exclusion of pre-Christian concepts and motifs), then the text could be restored as more archaic (and more organized!) “proto-text” by removing later layers.

Methods. The author (based on earlier particular methods, e. g. of Olexander Potebnia) uses his own complex “linguistic-poetic” reconstruction. It is a combination of the linguistic reconstruction of the XII-century Old Rus’-Ukrainian language and the renewal (basing on the consonances) of lexemes, phonetic and grammatic forms, set expressions (“poetic formulas”).

Results. The previous attempts of the “Tale”’s linguistic reconstructions (from Mykhailo Maksymovych and Olexander Potebnia) are newly examined. As it was clarified, the consisted reconstruction of exclusively Old Rus’-Ukrainian “full-vowelized” forms (-oro-, -olo-, -ere-), as well as the pronunciation of “ъ” and “ь” as syllabic sounds in all cases (as some linguists proposed) totally destroyed the rhythm of this poetic text. It caused the hypothesis the rhythmic-stylistic variability of the aforementioned forms. Some examples of reconstructed “non-vocalic” pronunciations of some combinations with liquid consonants (like one-syllabic брзы).

Some accents, different from the contemporary Ukrainian ones (but confirmed by ancient texts and “Tale”’s consonances), are also reconstructed (Игόрь, полόвци, бόяре). Rhythm and theoretical opinions caused the reconstruction of root-accents, different from the contemporary Ukrainian ones. The reconstructed “poetic formulas”, based on consonances, appear variable, as it is typical in folklore (въ древесе – въ лѣсѣ – подъ небеса; въ небесе – въ лѣсѣ – въ древесе).

Discussion and conclusions. The poetic base of the reconstruction is epic octosyllable, well-known in Ukrainian folklore (e. g., the “Song about Dovbush”) and other folklore traditions (Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Georgian etc.), West European epic in different languages, contemporary to the “Tale”. The reconstruction of the “Tale”’s proto-text considers lexical substitutions and omissions (which could be corrected using consonances with neighbor words), syllabic sounding of ъ and ь in some stylistically caused cases, Proto-Slavic pronunciation of ъ and ь in some archaic poetic formulas, consisted usage of only short forms of adjectives.

Information about the author:

Yurii Mosenkis –  Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of Ukrainian Language and Applied Linguistics, Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Email: yu.mosenkis@knu.ua