Refleksy regionalnych cech (orto)graficznych i fone- tycznych w ćwiczeniu stylistycznym ucznia Adama Mickiewicza
Reflections of regional spelling and phonetic features in Adam Mickie- wicz’s student’s exercise

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses peculiar spelling and phonetic features found in a short stylistic exercise written by Adam Mickiewicz’s student in 1820/1821, i.e. during the young poet’s employment in a district school in Kaunas. An exercise of just two pages shows numerous characteristic features of written Polish within the territories of the Northern Borderlands in the first quarter of the 19th century. Only graphic, spelling and phonetic aspects were discussed in the said article. As far as spelling is concerned, the following is included: an innovatory use of the letter j (more frequent within the Borderlands than within other regions), con¬servative, with respect to other works printed within the territory of the Borderlands, preservation of the letter x in a native noun form and frequently observed mixing of the z and ż graphemes in other manuscripts and prints. As regards characteristic spelling features, attention is drawn to the archaic, compared to the period’s practices, one-word spelling of prepositions with separate words (for example: aprzez; aposuwaiąc się), writing infinitives with a final dź (for example: bydź), based on pseudo-etymology, as recommended by O. Kopczyński, but fought against by other grammarians as well as an incorrect phonetic transcript within the consonant group: scieszką. The said phenomena are also visible in other works created within the territory of Northern-Eastern Borderlands. The written work of Adam Mickiewicz’s student also reflects the characteristic features of pronunciation of the Northern Borderlands: cases of equating long e with short e (for example: zmieysca, drzemiący), pronouncing short o instead of long o (for example: chłod, mogł, naprzod, swoy), lowering the articulation of u to o (okazało się ‘ukazało się’), ę // ą fluctuations (kręg), replacing vowel a with a vowel o (pogorek), introducing nasal ę in the place of eń (uwięczony), sharpening ś and ź in consonant groups (for example: spiewaniem, trzezwieią), sharp pronunciation of the vowel ń before cz (pomaranczowym, konczy) and characteristically soft ć in the final sound (ukazująć się). The characteristic features of spelling and phonetics found in A. Mickie¬wicz’s student’s work are also known from manuscripts of the great master and his closest surroundings.

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