History of the Primer
In Old Russian, the first letter of the alphabet is called az, the second - beeches. So it turned out al-beeches, or alphabet. And the word primer means "a collection of letters", just like a dictionary means "a collection of words."
Initially, the alphabet was understood as an alphabet adapted for teaching literacy. The oldest Slavic alphabets in the form of inscriptions scratched on the walls of buildings date back to the 9th century. The oldest Russian educational alphabet dates back to the 11th century and was written on birch bark. The alphabet is older than the Primer.
The primer began to be called printed alphabets, which included not only the alphabet and syllables, but also reading material.
Primer is a textbook for teaching literacy, a guide for the development of speech and logical thinking in children.
In Russia, the first Slavic-Russian primer appeared in 1574 by Ivan Fedorov. A primer was written in the Old Slavonic language. Some of its pages are decorated with intertwining leaves, buds, flowers and cones. The first page is occupied by 45 lowercase letters. Moreover, the alphabet is given in direct and reverse order. This technique of repeating the alphabet helped better memorization. This primer has both two- and three-letter syllables, and punctuation marks. It also has sections on grammar and spelling. The reading material includes prayers, parables, instructions.
There are 33 letters in the modern alphabet. Each letter means a sound (exception - soft sign And solid mark). There are consonants and vowels.
Vowels stretch in a ringing song,
They can cry and scream
Can cradle the baby in the crib
But they do not want to whistle and grumble.
And the consonants agree
Whisper, whisper, creak,
Even snort and hiss,
But they don't want to sing.
(Valentina Berestova about vowels and consonants)
Consonants can be voiced or voiceless.
I, Yo, Yu, I, E will be soft.
Sounds in syllables before vowels A, O, U, S, E will be solid.
For each sound, you can think of a word.
Conclusion: Sounds live in words around us.
Probably there are no such people who would never in their life meet with the Primer, or simply have not heard this word.
From the history of the origin of the name Primer:
The letter A looks like a bull's head turned upside down with its horns. The bull in the language of the ancient militant peoples of Arabia was called aleph.
The second letter of the alphabet looked like a house. The house was called bet. Alefbet - this name consists, as it were, of two glued first letters of the ancient alphabet.
During their journey, the word Alefbet changed all the time and came down to us as an alphabet.
But we also had a second name for him - the alphabet. Where is it from? In ancient Russian, the first letter of the alphabet was called az, the second - beeches. And so it happened: az-beeches, or alphabet. And the word primer means "a collection of letters", as well as a dictionary - "a collection of words".
Primer - the first book for teaching literacy.
Primers have been around for a relatively long time, and the first alphabets were not the same as we are used to seeing them now.
To begin with, let's look at the historical museum: the most ancient knives, axes and tools in general are all made of stone. And, oddly enough, the most ancient books are also made of stone. Marvelous for modern man books, for their pages are the walls of palaces, monuments and tombstones. Everything is correct, only a stone could survive, not decay for so many thousands of years.
However, the ancient literate did not learn from the primer. And even more so - not according to written knowledge. If you decide to look for a stone primer in museums, you will only waste your time. Not a single priest even thought of carving letters over the entrance to the temple, let alone get down to business.
The first primers were printed as soon as mankind invented printing. One of the first Russian primers came out in the printing house of Ivan Fedorov only at the end of the sixteenth century.
This primer did not even remotely resemble a modern one. More than four hundred years have passed, and the language has changed a lot during this time - even a historian would hardly understand everything that is written in this primer. The book was written in the Old Slavonic language, which today is used only in church printing.
In those days, the opinion prevailed that the main task of a literate person was to learn to read church books. It is not for nothing that the following words were printed in the first primer: "to children who want to understand the Scriptures ..." This does not mean "children who want to learn to write," but "children who want to know the Holy Scriptures." The main texts in ancient primers were prayers.
In 1823, another primer was published called "A Precious Gift to Children, or the Newest Complete Russian Alphabet, Containing a New Method of Teaching, Various Prayers, a Symbol of Faith, and the Ten Commandments"
In 1863, Prokofiev’s primer was born: “The Encyclopedic Russian teacher or the Complete Russian alphabet, containing: the Russian alphabet, morning prayers, for the coming sleep and prayers before and after the meal, the Commandments of the Lord, the three theological virtues, the nine beatitudes of the gospel. With the addition of the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments"
Soon, in 1897, Antonov's primer appeared, entitled: "The Russian alphabet, containing: civil and Church Slavonic alphabets, warehouses of all peoples, prayers, commandments, anecdotes, multiplication tables"
And, finally, the Russian primer, published in the twentieth century in Paris, had a relatively short title: “Holy Prophet Naum, instruct the mind!”
According to one of these primers, the famous Russian teacher Konstantin Ushinsky learned to read and write, in 1864 he published his own primer, The Native Word, which was completely different from the previous ones. It started with the simplest words. Next to the drawing of children in the forest, “ay” was written, next to the crying baby the word “wa”, then a mustachioed hero and the inscription “mustache”, a picture of a wasp with the inscription “wasp”
Eight years after the appearance of the "Native Word" Leo Tolstoy's "ABC" was published.
Years will pass - and the primer will change again. But its function will always remain unchanged and the necessity is undeniable - the first step on the way to the vast world of knowledge.
Primer- the first book for teaching literacy.
In Rus', learning to read and write began much earlier than the first book intended for this appeared. If we turn to encyclopedias and dictionaries, then from the article "Primer" many of them refer to the articles "ABC" and "Alphabet", and from the article "ABC" back to the primer. Let's try to figure this out.
So, ABC(by the name of the Slavic letters az, beeches) has two related meanings:
- The system of arrangement of graphic signs - letters in order alphabet(by the name of the Greek letters alpha, beta[in a different pronunciation vita]) with their full name.
- Primary textbook for teaching literacy. Here the name "alphabet" indicates the method of learning itself - memorizing letters in alphabetical order.
Alphabet- a set of letters that are used when writing in a particular language.
Initially, the alphabet was understood as an alphabet adapted for teaching literacy. The oldest Slavic alphabets in the form of inscriptions scratched on the walls of buildings date back to the 9th century. For example, the alphabet written in Glagolitic on the wall of the Round Church in Preslav (Bulgaria), and the Cyrillic alphabet of the 11th century. on the wall of the Church of St. Sophia in Kyiv. The oldest Russian educational alphabet dates back to the 11th century. and written on birch bark. The finds of Cyrillic alphabets made on tablets belong to a later time.
By the 16th century in Rus', handwritten textbooks (grammars) appeared, in which ABC has already been separated into a separate section. These alphabets offered several styles of each letter, gave their Slavic name and Greek counterpart, the interpretation of words beginning with this letter.
Gradually, the content of handwritten alphabets began to expand. Those who already knew how to read urgently needed reading material in order to actually apply their skills, and at the same time draw interesting information from different aspects of society. After all, in the XVII century. almost all printed publications of the Moscow state were devoted only to religious topics. For this, the Moscow Printing Yard was created. Handwritten books were not subjected to any control by the state, and were especially popular. Readers with pleasure for themselves found in them stories, fables and fairy tales, as well as a large number of cognitive information. So, for example, the handwritten alphabet of 1643 from the time of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich included samples of business papers and private letters, secular parables (about Aristotle, about the Indian king). And in another alphabet (1667), the authors placed not only an extensive story about Alexander the Great, but also sayings, questions and answers, advice, sayings.
It is impossible not to mention here the magnificent monuments of writing of the Russian Middle Ages alphabet books. ABCs were anonymous handwritten collections of a moralizing and encyclopedic nature. In Rus' they have been in circulation since the 13th century. The first list of interpreted words such as an alphabet book is part of the Novgorod Pilot Book of 1282. Until the 16th century. alphabets were explanatory dictionaries"incomprehensible speeches" (incomprehensible words) found in the Holy Scriptures. The words were arranged alphabetically, their origin, translation and explanation were indicated. By the 17th century educational alphabet books spread, as a rule, including the alphabet with syllables and spellings, brief information on Russian, and sometimes Greek grammar. Here one could gain knowledge on general and Russian history, entertaining information on natural science (about exotic animals and plants, precious stones, natural phenomena), arithmetic and much more. More than 200 lists of alphabet books of the XIII-XVIII centuries are known. Such publications were most popular mainly in merchant and boyar families.
Now let's get acquainted with Russian printed primers. Their history is amazing. Obviously, the alphabet is older than the primer. The primer began to be called mainly printed alphabets. Under the alphabet as part of the primer, apparently, they understood an elementary manual with a volume not exceeding a notebook (8 sheets), which included only the alphabet and syllables. Moreover, by the time the first printed primer appeared, the form of its construction had practically taken shape. It was a combination of alphabet and reading material. Today, no library has any complete collection of these books scattered around the world. Primers used by children got dirty, fell into disrepair, and were often thrown out as useless. For them to survive, special circumstances were needed. This happened when inquisitive travelers and diplomats, bypassing children, took primers to non-Slavic countries and kept them as an "eastern rarity". Only thanks to this, priceless treasures have been preserved and come down to us - the first Russian printed primers. Let's see what they were.
The very first primer printed by Ivan Fedorov, the founder of book printing in Rus', in Lvov in 1574.
Today, there is only one copy of this book in the world, which, fortunately, has been perfectly preserved. It belongs to the library of Harvard University USA. It was acquired in 1950, and only in 1955 did the world see a complete photocopy of a previously unknown study guide. It is curious that the primer came to Harvard from the Paris collection of S.P. Diaghilev.
capital, alphabetically arranged in 8 columns and with verb conjugation patterns
The book has no title, so it is also called the alphabet and grammar. It is composed of five 8-sheet notebooks, which corresponds to 80 pages. Each page has 15 lines. A primer was written in the Old Slavonic language. Some of its pages are decorated with headpieces characteristic of Ivan Fedorov's publications in the form of ornaments of intertwined leaves, buds, flowers and cones. The first page is occupied by 45 lowercase Cyrillic letters. Moreover, the alphabet is given in direct and reverse order, as well as in a breakdown of 8 columns. Probably, this technique of repeating the alphabet helped better memorization.
The alphabet uses the subjunctive method inherited from the Greeks and Romans, which involves memorizing syllables. First, there were two-letter combinations with each vowel alphabetically (beeches - az = ba), then the same syllables with the addition of a third letter (beeches - rtsy - az = bra). Here az, beeches, rytsy- letters of the Cyrillic alphabet.
In section " And this ABC is from the book of osmochastny, that is, grammar"The author placed verb conjugation samples for each letter of the alphabet, starting with "b". Here are the forms of the passive voice of the verb beaty.
Chapter "According to prosody, and also two lying se is imperative and descriptive" gives information about stresses and "aspirations" in words. A section "By Orthography" contains separate words for reading, written in full or abbreviated (under the sign "titlo" - a superscript icon, meaning the omission of letters).
The alphabet ends with an acrostic. In alphabetical acrostic(Greek " line edge"), or alphabetic prayer, each line that conveys the content of one of the religious truths begins with a certain letter. If you look at the left edge of the lines from top to bottom, you get an alphabet. So Holy Bible remembered, and the alphabet was fixed.
The second part of the primer is entirely devoted to reading material. These are not only prayers, but also excerpts from the parables of Solomon and the epistles of the Apostle Paul, which, as it were, give advice to parents, teachers and students.
On the last page there are 2 engravings: the coat of arms of the city of Lvov and the publishing mark of the first printer.
Ivan Fedorov himself carefully selected the material for inclusion in his first primer. In an afterword about his role as compiler, he wrote: " hedgehog to you, not from myself, but from the divine apostle and God-bearing saints, the father of teaching, ... from grammar, there is little for the sake of early infantile learning". Some researchers compare the work of creating this primer with a scientific feat. After all, Ivan Fedorov proved himself not only as an outstanding master of bookmaking, but also as a talented teacher. For the first time, the alphabet tried to introduce elements of grammar and counting into the process of teaching reading (part of the text was divided into small numbered paragraphs). In addition, the children's textbook contains teachings about education that needs to be done " in mercy, in prudence, in humility, in meekness, long-suffering, accepting one another and granting forgiveness". The first sprouts of humanistic pedagogy were an unconditional innovation for medieval Rus'. And a modest book for elementary literacy went far beyond the usual alphabet, and was the beginning of a whole era that is being studied by primer.
The second edition of the primer by Ivan Fedorov
"A book in Greek "Alfa Vita", and in Russian "Az Buki", first for the sake of teaching children", released in 1578 in the city of Ostrog.
Having left Lvov, Moskvitin (as the first printer called himself - a native of Moscow) founded a printing house in the family estate of the Kyiv governor, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky. The alphabet is called so - Ostrozhskaya.
It is known from two surviving copies - in the Royal Library of Copenhagen and the city library of Gotha (Germany).
The book is richly decorated. In addition to intros and endings, there are already titles made by ligature, and drop caps- the first letters of a paragraph with a height of one or more lines, made in the form of an ornament. Repeating the construction of the first edition, the alphabet, in addition to Slavic texts, also includes Greek ones. At the same time, paragraph numbering and Cyrillic numbers at the end of the page have been removed.
But the most remarkable difference of this alphabet is that at the end of it, Ivan Fedorov published for the first time a magnificent monument of Slavic literature. This " The legend of how St. Cyril the philosopher compiled the alphabet in the Slovenian language, and translated books from Greek into Slovenian", created in the 9th century by Chernorizets the Brave.
The whole life of Ivan Fedorov was devoted, in his words, to "scattering and distributing spiritual food to everyone around the world." The Ostroh alphabet once again confirms this - wherever Moskvitin founded a printing house, everywhere he published books for teaching reading and writing.
The first Moscow manual for teaching literacy - Primer Vasily Burtsov
Vasily Fedorovich Burtsov-Protopopov - famous Russian publisher of the 17th century. - worked at the Moscow Printing Yard under special conditions. In 1633 - 1642. he was in charge of the entire technical part of the yard and had his own "printing hut".
Among more than 17 editions of books, his primer is notable for its particular elegance and simplicity. Traditionally, the book is small. Unlike Ivan Fedorov, Burtsov used the red color, highlighting the letters, syllables and titles of the sections of the primer. Particular attention is paid to fonts and graphic design, the construction of each page is clear, thoughtful. Compiled primer on the model of Fedorov's alphabets. There is also an alphabet in direct and reverse order, as well as in a breakdown; there are also two- and three-letter syllables, numbers and punctuation marks. There are sections on grammar with forms of conjugation of verbs, and on spelling with examples of declension of nouns and adjectives, and even the legend of Chernorizet the Brave. The reading material also includes prayers, parables, instructions. Yet this is not a simple reprint. This is a creatively revised manual with improvements, clarifications of the content and special love for it. appearance. V. Burtsov's primer was very popular in Russia at that time.
The second edition of Vasily Burtsov's primer
Moscow printing house, 1637
Quite a small, "pocket" book, reminiscent of a wallet. Although the principle of construction has not changed yet, this is the first Russian illustrated alphabet, and the plot of the illustration is quite secular. Immediately after the appeal to the students, the publisher placed on a separate page a frontispiece engraved on wood, vividly depicting the scene in the classroom of the school - the teacher punishes the delinquent student with rods. Instruction is clear without words. The engraving is done very carefully and harmoniously fits into the general style of the book with its headpieces and fonts.
In the preface of the alphabet there are verses addressed to the students, telling about the goals and methods of teaching. The verses contain instructions and a story about what a treasure is the knowledge of literacy. This is the earliest poetic work of a Russian author printed in Moscow. In this form, the primer was repeatedly reprinted. The editions of V. Burtsov's primers can be called the beginning of the miraculous transformation of a textbook into a secular book.
"Primer of the Slavonic language, that is, the beginning of teaching for children who want to learn to read scriptures"published in Moscow by Simeon Polotsky in 1679.
Semyon Emelyanovich Petrovsky-Sitnianovich (after being tonsured a monk, Simeon of Polotsk) is known as an outstanding figure in Russian education. Most of all, his literary and pedagogical talent remained in history. After arriving in Moscow from Polotsk in 1664, he was taken by the educator of the children of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
The primer by S. Polotsky is already more voluminous in comparison with the previous ones - it contains 160 sheets. Just like Burtsev, the red color is used in initial letters, initials, initial syllables, and titles of parts of the book. With such a large volume, color highlighting helped to better navigate. The primer is decorated with peculiar initials, headpieces and endings. The alphabet is preceded by a preface in verses about the benefits of enlightenment " To young men who want to learn"With the traditional content of two parts - the alphabet and reading material - the innovation was the inclusion in the primer of materials on versification, the doctrine of prosody (rules of versification) and information from syntax. Having selected the best from the previous samples, S. Polotsky improved the teaching methodology.
1. Read a passage from an ancient story. Find and underline the words that historians call this chronicle. Write the name of the chronicler.
"Se tales of bygone years , where did the Russian land come from, who in Kyiv began before the prince and where did the Russian land come from.
The name of the chronicler is Nestor
2. The wise turtle offers you a task. Find out the name of the alphabet created by Cyril and Methodius. Guess the words. Then write the first letter of each of the words in the boxes in order, and you will know the name of this alphabet.
1, 4. Surname of the inventor of printing.
2. Record from year to year.
3. Another name for the primer.
5. Yellow paint.
6. Letter typographical set.
7. Sign of ancient Egyptian writing.
8. So in Rus' they called the capital of Byzantium.
9. A set of letters arranged in order.
3. Consider how beautifully the creators of ancient Russian books designed the initial letter of the text. Write 1-2 sentences on the topic “Why do we study history?” and try to decorate the initial letter with which your text begins as well.
By studying history, we learn how our distant ancestors lived, what feats they performed and what masterpieces they created. And we can also learn a lot of interesting things about the objects that were used in former times and which we use now.