Zhelekhivka[1][2] (Ukrainian: Желехі́вка) was Ukrainian phonetic orthography in Western Ukraine from 1886 to 1922 (sometimes until the 1940s), created by Yevhen Zhelekhivskyi on the basis of the Civil Script and phonetic spelling common in the Ukrainian language at that time (with some changes) for his own "Little Russian-German Dictionary", which was published[3] in full in 1886.[4]
It was for the "Little Russian-German Dictionary" that E. Zhelekhivskyi created his own phonetic spelling, which he built on the basis of Kulishivka, common in eastern Ukraine. It was an attempt to unite the Galician dialect and the new Ukrainian literary language, to develop general rules of spelling. After all, in the late nineteenth century. Galicians wrote many words based on their own dialectical features.[3]
The novelty of this spelling was the consistent use of it not only instead of /jі/, but also on the consonant in place of the ancient ѣ and /ɛ/. Zhelekhivka was firmly established among the supporters of phonetic spelling in both Galicia and Bukovina. In fact, it was not some news, because in its main features we find it in the writings of, for example, Omelian Ohonovskyi.[5]
Zhelekhivka is enshrined in the Ruthenian Grammar by Stepan Smal-Stotskyi and Theodor Gartner, published in 1893 in Lviv, a year earlier, Zhelekhivsky's system had been declared official for the Ukrainian language in Austria-Hungary (instead of Maksymovychivka), because for the first time by order of the Austrian Ministry of Education "Ruthenian Grammar" became official in schools and government records of Galicia.[6] Iryna Farion considers the published "Ruthenian Grammar" according to the system of E. Zhelekhivskyi to be the final point in the victory of the Ukrainophiles.[6] With the advent of the "Little Russian-German Dictionary" and, consequently, the new spelling, "Iazychie" as a pasta[clarification needed] literary language, gradually fell out of use.[7]
Zhelekhivka, in addition to Kulishivka and Drahomanivka, was more thoroughly worked out by the language commission at the Scientific Society named after Taras Shevchenko, who in 1904 published "Ruthenian orthography with a dictionary." Borys Hrinchenko used the Zhelekhivka with some changes in the four-volume "Dictionaries of the Ukrainian Language" published by him, and most of the spelling rules applied by him are still in force.
The spelling lasted until 1922, and in some places until the 1940s, when it was replaced by a new spelling system of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.[3]
Features of this spelling determined the dialectal features of Galician dialects:
Zhelekhivskyi's system is based on those dialects where the corresponding whispers before /i/, which originates from /ɔ/ in the newly closed syllable, are pronounced firmly: столъ > стіл, долъ > діл, носъ > ніс, and before /i/, which originates from /ɛ/ in the newly closed syllable and in place ѣ, — softly: неслъ > нїс, осень > осїнь, дѣдъ > дїд, etc.
In connection with the distinction in a significant part of the Ukrainian dialects[8][9] of hard and soft dental before the sound /i/ the system of iotated in the Ukrainian language is supplemented:
In other words, Zhelekhivka testified to the important distinction between soft and hard pronunciation of consonants before /i/ preserved in some Ukrainian dialects, which is not a narrow dialectal feature, but has a common Slavic etymological root: «у цій рудї руді домішки», «я волїв не купляти цих волів», «вуж лїз серед ліз», «на цьому лисї лисі плями», «твій ніж довший, нїж мій», «потік тїк через тік», etc.[10]
В тонкім флюїдї миготїнь
Купаєть ся земля і море,
Розчинюєть житє і смерть
І родить ся добро та горе.
This orthography had both significant advantages over previous spellings and certain shortcomings; It was contradictory, in particular, to write the letter ї instead of і in place of historical ѣ and е, which made sense in the western dialects and dialects of the Right-bank, where the distinction between hard and soft dental consonants before і was preserved, but created some inconvenience for some Eastern dialects. This distinction has disappeared over time.
Ivan Franko — more as a writer than as a linguist — did not accept Zhelekhivka and at first protested against it, but still later he himself wrote it (after Drahomanivka), when he actively cooperated with the Scientific Society. T. Shevchenko and his publications, and in "Essays on the history of Ukrainian-Russian literature before 1890." noted: "Zhelekhivskyi's Dictionary", having adopted phonetic spelling, became the basis for the later victory of phonetics in schools and governments."[10] Eastern Ukrainian writers and scholars, such as Borys Hrinchenko, reacted negatively to Zhelekhivka. However, the Western Ukrainian intelligentsia and the general public took this spelling quite favorably.
Although Mykhailo Hrushevskyi was a popularizer of the Zhelekhivka in Dnieper Ukraine (in publications after the 1905 revolution, mainly in the Literary-Scientific Bulletin), the Hrinchenkivka, a spelling modified by Borys Hrinchenko and used in the Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language, was adopted.
Two modern written standards of the Rusyn language are based on Zhelekhivka:[citation needed]