Yakov Karlovich Grot (; – ) was a Russian philologist of German extraction who worked at the
University of Helsinki
The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...
.
Grot was a graduate of the
Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. In his lifetime, he gained fame for his translations of German and Scandinavian poetry, his work on the theory of
Russian orthography
Russian orthography () is an orthography, orthographic tradition formally considered to encompass spelling ( rus, орфогра́фия, r=orfografiya, p=ɐrfɐˈɡrafʲɪjə) and punctuation ( rus, пунктуа́ция, r=punktuatsiya, p=p ...
, lexicography, and grammar, and his approach to literary editing and criticism, exemplified in a full edition of the works of
Derzhavin (1864–1883). His ''Russian Orthography'' (1878, 1885) (, ''Russkoye pravopisaniye'') became the standard textbook of Russian spelling and punctuation until superseded by the decrees of 1917–1918, although his definition of the theoretical foundations remains little changed to this day. Shortly before his death, he assumed the compilation of the ''Academic Dictionary of Russian'' (1891–1923), which, although continued by
Aleksey Shakhmatov, was never to be completed. He was a member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...
from 1858, its chairman from 1884, and its vice-president from 1889. He was appointed Russian-language tutor to the future tsars
Alexander II and
Alexander III.
His spelling primers "reduced words to historical hieroglyphs of a kind, mismatched with the living spoken language of most Russians"; later linguists like
Baudouin de Courtenay and
Filipp Fortunatov promoted reforms that would make spelling a better reflection of spoken language.
[Michael G. Smith, ''Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917-1953'' (Walter de Gruyter, 1998: ), pp. 22-23.]
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
* A part of Grot's ''Russkoye Pravopisaniye'', 1885, in
the old Russian orthography&mdas
'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grot, Yakov Karlovich
Linguists from the Russian Empire
Philologists from the Russian Empire
1812 births
1893 deaths
Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum alumni
People from the Russian Empire of German descent
Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery (Saint Petersburg)