Orthography of a Written Source as a Witness of Textual Transmission

Old Church Slavonic orthography is considered to be as an essential tool for textual criticism. Since autonomous written usage is controlled by the linguistic reflexion of scribe(s). The description of deviations from scribal usage resulted by the influence of the earlier stages of textual transmission is of importance for textual criticism. On the basis of comparison of original Church Slavonic texts composed by Climent of Ohrid, Naoum of Ohrid and Constantine of Bulgaria it has been proved that Moravian (West Slavic) traces in the orthography of some Old Church Slavonic glagolitic manuscripts may not go back to the earliest period of Church Slavonic linguistic history, but represent variety of Western and South Slavic linguistic features, which was typical for the literary tradition established by the disciples of Methodius in the Western regions of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. The analysis of phonetic and orthographic features of the Old Church Slavonic manuscripts of Old East Bulgarian origin makes it possible to ascertain that the earliest East Slavonic office menaia do not correspond with the literary heritage of the Eastern regions of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, but are related with Church Slavonic linguistic usage of South-Western origin.