Has заец really become an acceptable spelling?

Question

This is a follow up to the question Has кофе become neutral?

I have read somewhere on the web that it is now acceptable to write заец instead of заяц. Not that I am going to do that, just like I am going to continue to use кофе as masculine. Just curious.

Shouting Заеееец in the wild is still a good way to summon an avalanche. — GSerg, Jun 15 '12 at 15:28
Note that the louder you shout Ну, заец!, the safer you are. Thats an inexplicable paradox. — Dmitry Ilukhin, Dec 11 '14 at 10:32

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 15 '12 at 15:08

12

There is not a single dictionary that lists "заец".

You mentioned the case of кофе as an analogy. Well, I should argue that it's not, really. All the words in Russian that end in е are neutral, except for coffee. So, logically, it should be neutral as well, it's just that we have traditionally used it as masculine and its usage as neutral hits the ear wrong with no linguistic or logical reason whatsoever, only historical reasons.

The spelling заец, on the other hand, is completely illogical. Consider the plural - зайцы. The я->й shift is common in Russian, however, е->й is not. So, there would be no compelling reason to accept this weird spelling.

answered Jun 15 '12 at 15:08

Armen Tsirunyan

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I am guessing that кофе started out as кофий, which explains why it is masculine. That also makes it consistent with чай. ;) – Dima Jun 15 '12 at 15:11
Кофе is not all the words, because it was borrowed. – theUg Jun 16 '12 at 06:43
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Actually, заяц is the only surviving Russian word with a fleeting я (historically, fleeting ѩ, a nasal vowel). Fleeting е, on the other hand, is quite common: кореец, нанаец, молотобоец. – Quassnoi Jun 19 '12 at 15:05
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As far as I remember the spelling of this word had to be changed in 1918 along with other similar words, but the authors of the reform decided that new spelling will look weird in this particular case. – Artemix Jul 26 '13 at 12:25
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All the words in Russian that end in е are neutral
- you probably only mean inanimate words. Otherwise they can very well be masculine: падре, подмастерье, шансонье.
– J-mster Jan 08 '15 at 15:16
As Quassnoi said, it is the only case of fleeting vowel surfacing as "я" in written Russian. So, for example, Zaliznyak has to add a special rule to convert his morphophonological "заj*ц" to "заяц" not to "заец". – Viridianus Sep 29 '16 at 20:49

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 15 '12 at 15:06

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I remember reading a while ago (so I tracked it down) an article from Известия on this subject: http://www.izvestia.ru/news/250227

As far as I understand/remember/know, this was one of the possible suggested spelling changes, however it did not even make it into any official drafts. So, AFAIK, this is wrong. And hare is still spelled as заяц.

answered Jun 15 '12 at 15:06

Aleks G

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Good! The order in the Universe has been restored. :) – Dima Jun 15 '12 at 15:09

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 15 '12 at 21:55

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Note that outside of the animal world, Заец is a perfectly valid and relatively common family name...

answered Jun 15 '12 at 21:55

Philip Seyfi

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Note that it comes from Ukrainian заєць. – theUg Jun 16 '12 at 07:16

Has заец really become an acceptable spelling?

3 Answers3