CLARIFICATIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE OLD BULGARIAN CANON FOR PENTECOST

In his research on the anonymous Old Bulgarian Canon for Pentecost, Georgi Popov concludes that the canon was composed by a disciple of Sts. Cyril and Methodius during the preparation of the Slavic hymnographical repertoire for the movable liturgical calendar. The rendering of the little yus through two consecutive verses – one for the vocal [e] and the other for the nasal component – is a unique feature not attested in another acrostic and proves that the work was originally written in Glagolitic script. A comparison between the vertical and the horizontal text in these parts of the canon shows an ambivalent meaning of the sign Ⱔ which was used here both as only a nasal index and as the whole little yus. Therefore, the work was created at a transitional stage in the development of the Glagolitic script. The placement of these observations in the context of the scholarly literature on the Glagolitic script (especially Boryana Velcheva’s studies) allows us to conclude that the Old Bulgarian canon for Pentecost is written in Northeastern Bulgaria.