Transcribing Church Slavic

1. Transcription of abbreviated words

Printed resources in Church Slavic often follow old manuscript practices and abbreviate certain words by omitting letters. Omission is designated by a special symbol,  placed directly above the abbreviation, and called “titlo” (brevigraph) that can look either like a tilde ( ~ ) or an upside down bracket:

Words that most likely will be abbreviated are:

and some other nouns describing holy persons or conveying the sacred nature of the word.

Sometimes the titlo is combined with the letter that was omitted, forming the so-called "выносная буква", or “слово-титло” (word-titlo). For example, in the word “пророкъ”, the omitted letter “o” is combined with the titlo over the first “p”:

The main principle of abbreviating words in Church Slavic is spelled out in one of the Russian medieval grammar books: "Еже что свято и Господови угодное, то пишеся под титлом" ("What is sacred and pleasing to God, is written under a titlo").

Suggested cataloging practice:

For titles:

Transcribe the title exactly as it appears on the resource. Do not transcribe the titlo. Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (DCRM ) 0.4.16.1 says to expand all suspensions, contractions, symbols, and other abbreviations to their full form, enclosing supplied letters or words in square brackets. DCRM 1.25.3565 further instructs catalogers to also provide two additional titles: one for the title as it appears in the manifestation, ignoring the marks of contraction, and a second for the transcribed form of the title proper, but without the square brackets.

If the missing letters cannot be determined, substitute a letter with a question mark within brackets (i.e., [?]), in accordance with the widely used practice for cataloging manuscripts and archival materials

Example (in MARC format):

245 10 Ирмологій съ Б[о]гомъ С[вѧ]тымъ.

245 10 Irmologīĭ sʺ B[o]gomʺ S[vę]tymʺ.

246 3   Ирмологій съ Богомъ Свѧтымъ

246 3   Irmologīĭ sʺ Bogomʺ Svętymʺ [spelled-out form]
246 3   Ирмологій съ Бгомъ Стымъ

246 3   Irmologīĭ sʺ Bgomʺ Stymʺ [without expansion]

For publication statements, contents notes, etc.:

Transcribe the text exactly as it appears on the resource, enclosing omitted letters in square brackets. Do not provide additional fields with the spelled-out form.

Optionally, a cataloger may provide a full form of abbreviated words in a note.

Example (in MARC format):

264 1  Издадесѧ въ царствꙋющемъ великомъ градѣ Москвѣ : ǂb ВЪ тѵпографіи Верхнѣй, ǂc въ л[ѣ]то [ѡ]тъ сотвореніѧ міра 7188, [ѡ]т рождєства жє по плоти Б[о]га Сл[о]ва 1680.

264 1  Izdadēsę vʺ t︠s︡arstvūi︠u︡shtēmʺ vēlikomʺ gradě Moskvě : ǂb Vʺ tv̇pografīi Vērkhněĭ, ǂc vʺ l[ě]to [ō]tʺ sotvorēnīę mīra 7188, [ō]t rozhdestva zhe po ploti B[o]ga Sl[o]va 1680

500     Publication statement should read: Izdadēsę vʺ t︠s︡arstvūi︠u︡shtēmʺ vēlikomʺ gradě Moskvě : ǂb Vʺ tv̇pografīi Vērkhněĭ, ǂc vʺ lěto ōtʺ sotvorēnīę mīra 7188, ōt rozhdestva zhe po ploti Boga Slova 1680.

Publication dates:

It is a common practice that dates of publication in Church Slavic texts are given in the   mundane era of the Constantinople calendar, or "Era of the Creation of the World” (oт сотворения мира) which had as its beginning date the year 5508 before the Christian era. These dates could be expressed as words, for example: “въ лѣто ѡтъ сотворєніѧ мира” (“vʺ lěto ōtʺ sotvorēnīę mira”), followed by a date in Arabic numerals or in the form of Church Slavic letters, or both. 

Per RDA 1.8.1 and DCRM 5.23.31.1, catalogers should transcribe numbers in the form in which they appear on the source and add the corresponding date in the Gregorian   calendar in square brackets. 

Examples (in MARC format):

264 1 Izdadēsę vʺ t︠s︡arstvūi︠u︡shtēmʺ vēlikomʺ gradě Moskvě : ǂb Vʺ tv̇pografīi Verkhněĭ, ǂc vʺ lěto ōtʺ sotvorenīę mīra 7188 [1680]    

264 1 [Russia], ǂc vʺ lěto ōtʺ sozdanīę mīra #ap︠s︡kv [1722]

When the date of publication requires multiple adjustments or additions, record multiple adjustments or additions within the same set of square brackets with “that is” in between:

Example (in MARC format):

260 [Russia], ǂc vʺ lěto ōtʺ sozdanīę mīra #zūaī [7411, that is, 1903]

In this case the date on the source is given in the Mundane era of Constantinople expressed in Church Slavic numerals (#zūaī). Two additional dates were given - 1st - converted to Arabic numerals for this date (7411), and 2nd - for the Gregorian date (1903), calculated by subtracting “5508” from the “7411”.

If a cataloging agency prefers not to transcribe the date in Mundane era, record the date in Arabic numerals and provide a note indicating the form of the numeral found on the resource.

Example (in MARC format):

500 Date appears in Church Slavic letters in the Mundane Era calendar.

For calculating of dates from non-Gregorian calendar to Gregorian calendar see Slavic Cataloging Manual chapter Eastern Slavic and Russian Calendar Systems.

2. Recensions

When cataloging a title in Church Slavic language, it is desirable to identify a recension of the Church Slavic. The term “recension” is usually defined as “a critical revision of a text”, but it can also refer to a dialect of a language. Church Slavic, used in different geographic regions, included linguistic variations common for the language spoken in a region, creating a separate dialect, or recension, of the Church Slavic.

Currently established in the Library of Congress Authority File are the following 9 recensions:

Church Slavic language--Bulgarian recension

Church Slavic language--Croatian recension

Church Slavic language--Czech recension

Church Slavic language--East Slavic recension

Church Slavic language--Macedonian recension

Church Slavic language--Romanian recension

Church Slavic language--Russian recension

Church Slavic language--Serbian recension

Church Slavic language--Ukrainian recension

When a recension is identified, a language note should be added in bibliographic record.

Example (in MARC format):

546  Church Slavic (Serbian recension).

3. Church Slavic numbers  

The Church Slavic language does not have a distinct set of numerical symbols. Letters are used to designate numbers, and a titlo or other distinguishing mark above a letter or letters indicates that this is a number, not a word. Note that multiple-letter numbers usually have a single titlo above the group of letters; the examples below feature a titlo over each letter due to online display issues.

It’s important to remember some peculiarities when calculating Church Slavic numbers.

Numbers 1 through 10 will have a single letter corresponding to a single number; for example,

B̃= 2

Numbers 11 through 19 are written in an order opposite to the one that we usually use, in that the “ones” digit always precedes the “tens” digit: ; for example,

B̃Ĩ = 12, where the Ĩ denoting the number 10 does not precede, but follows the B̃ denoting the number 2.

Numbers higher than 20 are treated in the usual order, for example,

K̃B̃ = 22.

For letters corresponding to numbers, please refer to the LC Church Slavic Romanization table at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/churchsl.pdf

4. Adding parallel fields in Cyrillic script

Currently, all Church Slavic letters transliterate and display properly in OCLC Connexion. However, prior to 2018, several Church Slavic letters were not supported by the OCLC Connexion software, so it is common to see many OCLC records created before 2018 that do not properly display certain characters. The following text addresses these historical issues, and also includes some recommendations on how to fix them if encountered.

In the past, several Church Slavic letters were not supported by the OCLC Connexion software, so adding parallel fields in Cyrillic script presented some problems.

Church Slavic letters that were not supported:

These letters appeared in OCLC Connexion records as black squares. This happened because the letters listed above are part of an extended Cyrillic character set in Unicode and were not supported by the OCLC Connexion software prior to 2018.

Example (in MARC format):

245 10 Ѱалтирь царѧ и пророка Давида, х∎дожєствомъ рѷѳмотворнымъ равномѣрнѡ слоги, и согласноконєчнѡ по различнымъ стіхѡв родѡм прєложєннаѧ ... / ǂc стіхотворилъ Ієромонахъ Сѷмєѡн Полоцкій.

245 10 P︠S︡altirʹ t︠s︡arę i proroka Davida, khudozhestvomʺ rẏḟmotvornȳmʺ ravnoměrnō slogi, i soglasnokonechnō po razlichnȳmʺ stīkhōv rodōm prelozhennaę ... / ǂc stīkhotvorilʺ Īeromonakhʺ Sẏmeōn Polot︠s︡kīĭ.

A workaround to correct this was to use the corresponding Numeric Character Reference (NCR), so that it could be recognized and appropriately changed in the future, when the Unicode character code was implemented by OCLC. The recommended method preserved the Unicode character value, and so when converting to Unicode the character could be restored.

An NCR for one character has the following structure (per MARC Proposal No. 2006-09):

&#x[series of numbers and letters representing a letter in Unicode]; in which :
• "&" and ";" surround the reference,
• "#x" indicates that it is a numeric reference expressed in hexadecimal numbers

For example, in OCLC, the capital letter Psi Ѱ will have the NCR format Ѱ and the small letter little yus ѧ will be rendered as  ѧ

So, a title “Ѱалтирь царѧ и пророка Давида” in the parallel Cyrillic field will look like this:

245 10 Ѱалтирь царѧ и пророка Давида
245 10 P︠S︡altirʹ t︠s︡arę i proroka Davida

A list of all Numeric Character References for Church Slavic letters that were not supported by OCLC can be found here: http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0400.pdf