The dating of Russian manuscripts is often based on morphology, orthography and scientific methods. There is rarely a systematic method on dating texts through handwriting style evolution.
In the English language, there is often a gap in research on comprehensive methods for dating Russian manuscripts. Oftentimes, in the dating of manuscripts, palaeography is not prioritised.
In Russian palaeographic development, we can note a progressive shift in the hands used: uncial, half-uncial and then Skoropis which all influenced the modern Russian script and its cursive forms. We can also see the influences of alphabet reforms on the Russian script. As well as that, we can note the loss of the unstressed short vowels ь, ъ, and the loss of certain letters like the nasal vowels Ѫ, Ѭ, Ѩ and later on Ѧ, some of the Greek letters, and the vowel ѣ.
This study has broader implications for the study of Slavic linguistics in the UK. There is a limited linguistic interest and few modules at the undergraduate level. As well as that the vast majority of literature on Russian palaeography is in Russian with limited availability in English. For these reasons, I aim to make Russian linguistics more accessible for English-speaking students, and further to make Russian more accessible for and therefore popular with general linguistics students.