When is Orthography Not Just Orthography? The Case of the Novgorod Birchbark Letters

Authors

  • Andrew Dombrowski

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/bls.v36i1.3904

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:

In this paper, I argue that the jer-letter merger in the corpus of the Novgorod birchbark letters is entirely explicable in terms of the underlying phonology of the Old Novgorod dialect. In particular, I propose that the outcome of the jer shift in the Old Novgorod dialect was affected by a Finnic substratum. 

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Published

2010-08-24