THE ETERNAL QUESTIONS OF SPEECH STANDARDS IN LEXICOGRAPHIC TRADITION AND CONTEMPORARY DICTIONARY REPRESENTATION

The article discusses the Russian tradition of orthological lexicography. The comparison of orthological dictionaries of different time periods allows for making certain conclusions about the dynamics of speech standards and the status of variants at different stages of language development. In the broad sense, orthological dictionaries are standard-oriented but allow for different flexibility depending on the type (orthographic, orthoepic, accentological). When narrowly defined, orthological dictionaries contain difficult cases based on common mistakes and irregularities.

This article analyzes the materials of one of the first orthological dictionaries of the Russian language, “An Attempt of the Dictionary of Mistakes in Colloquial Russian” by V. R. Dolopchev (1886). Dolopchev’s dictionary is integrative and covers mistakes of pronunciation, word stress, and word choice. The analysis of the dictionary shows that its guidelines, despite the naivety of their lexicographic representation, are similar to contemporary textbook and dictionary guidelines, which points to the eternal nature of speech standards issues. On the other hand, on different linguistic levels, the shift of the standard can be traced, which eventually leads to drastic changes of dictionary information.