Pugna pro patria
The Treatise on Orthography in 15th century Poland by Jakub Parkoszowic
The paper reconstructs the reforms in 15th century Polish orthography put forward by Jakub Parkoszowic who sought to find an improved orthographic system compared to the so-called “complex” spelling (grafia złożona) in use at the time, adapting the Latin alphabet to the particular phonetic characteristics of medieval Polish.
Jakub Parkoszowic, commonly known as Parkosz (1400 ca - after 1452), parish priest at ś. Stanisław na Skałce, and also three times Rector of the University of Krakow, wrote the brief treatise on orthography Pugna pro patria, quia ipsam defendere laus est meritoria in Latin just before midway through the 15th century. The treatise used the Latin terminology to define the particular phonetic characteristics of Polish as already outlined by Jan Hus in De orthographia bohemica (1414), but proposed a new orthographic system which included the introduction of new graphemes alongside the continued use of digrams and trigrams. Although rediscovered by the historian Jerzy Samuel Bandtkie in the early 19th century, Parkosz’s reforms were swiftly and comprehensively forgotten. It is not in the success – or otherwise – of the reform that the importance of Parkoszowic is to be measured: in the end his proposals served simply to complicate issues of orthography still further. Only centuries later did the treatise become recognized as a document of huge scientific value, both because it provides a faithful reproduction of 15th century Polish phonology – including evidence of the existence of vowel quantity, and also because it constitutes a significant lexicographical source of ancient Polish.
