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The article presents the manuscript dictionary of Matas Slančiauskas The Dictionary = From Encyclopaedia. 1903 to the public for the first time. The dictionary is stored in the department of History of Šiauliai museum “Aušra”. The structure of the manuscript is discussed as well as the loanwords from various languages (Latin, Greek, German, English, French, Sanskrit) are presented. The transcription of 1910 of the dictionary with postscript to K. Barauske is compared to a dictionary of 1903. The differences of both dictionaries are emphasised. The material from manuscript of The Dictionary = From Encyclopaedia. 1903 is presented in the annexes of the article.
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The article explores sta stem verbs with long root attested in the scripts of Mikalojus Daukša. The verbs in question are analyzed in respect of different aspects: morphological (the structure of present and past tense forms), morphonological (vocalism, consonantism, the cases of vowel gradation), also the peculiarities of constructive coding regarding categorical semantics are taken into account. The structure of verbs registered in Daukša’s works is further compared to that found in old scripts of Bretkūnas and Mažvydas, also in Lithuanian dialects and current Lithuanian language. The research is intended to determine the localization and chronological layers of registered lexemes, to propose the motives for change of the verbs in question.
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The article discusses fifty-one oikonyms of Nemajūnai Parish recorded in the 19th century written sources. The analysis of the origin and formation of each name of settlement shows that in the 19th century the parish was dominated by the oikonyms deriving from personal names. The derivatives with the suffix -iškės prevailed. There are less names of settlements with the suffixes -ūnai, -onys, -ėnai deriving from personal names. Several oikonyms which can be traced to appellatives were also found in the 19th century record books of Nemajūnai Parish. By their morphemic structure, the latter can be divided to primary or compound names of settlements. Apart from linguistic knowledge, each oikonym is accompanied by the comments of historical type.
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The first complete translation of the Bible into Lithuanian from the end of the 16th century by Johann Bretke contains many complex units (idioms, proverbs etc.). Regarding biblical phraseological units it is important to distinguish between two categories: 1) units, which go back to biblical idioms; 2) units, which go back to certain situations. One of the efficient methods to investigate idiomatic expressions in ancient translations is described by Harald Burger in his Handbook of Phraseology. Among other things, he pointed out the following type of equivalence of idiomatic usages: “source language: a word – target language: a phrase”. In Luther’s translation of the Bible a single word can correspond to a prepositional phrase in the translation of Bretke. Phraseological units often occur in different variants. Finally, I mentioned examples of phraseological units with the function of sentences like the greeting formula.
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The article gives an overview of the structure and semantics of subordinate clauses of time boundary with the conjunction (pirm) neg in Old Lithuanian writings (in texts of Bretkūnas’ Postilla (1591), Daukša’s Postilla (1599) and Sirvydas’ Punktai Sakymų (I – 1629, II – 1644)). In all these texts most popular are temporal clauses with the compound conjunction pirm neg (only the compound conjunction pirm neg is used in temporal clauses in Bretkūnas’ Postilla). The temporal clauses introduced by the single conjunction neg (no longer used in temporal clauses in Modern Lithuanian) are found in the texts by Daukša and Sirvydas.
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The study deals with the topics of etymological analysis and brief nascence (consequently, a hierarchical position in the Baltic pantheon) of the theonym Chaurirari mentioned in Maciej Stryikowski’s work Kronika Polska, Litewska, Żmódzka i wszystkiej Rusi (1582). The one and only scientific examination of the issue was carried out by Vladimir Toporov. It must be stated with many regrets that tatpuruṣa composite Lith. *Kaur-aris ‘tawny tint (element of fire symbolism) horse deity’, reconstructed by the author of the hypothesis, is not acceptable due to reconstruction motivation of unauthenticated (in any written source of Baltic mythology and religion) Balt. *aris ‘horse’. Providing that non-existence of a horse-deity cult in Baltic and Slavic religious systems, save totemic vestiges, such an interpretation is doubtful in relation to mythological motivation. Being based on the new theonym etymology and analysis of the deity functions, a proposition has been made that Chaurirari could not be interpreted as ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. The lexeme may be correlated with nomen proprium (theonym) Kaukarius ‘ghats God’, which is mentioned in several Lithuania Minor lexicographical lexicons of the 18th century (Brodowski’s and Milke’s thesauruses).
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The very first grammar (book) of the Lithuanian language-Grammatica Litvanica by Daniel Klein (KlG) was published more than 350 years ago (in 1653). Kristupas Sapûnas also wrote a grammar even before-360 years ago, but it was revised by Teofilis Ðulcas and published only in 1673 (Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae; SÐG). Both grammars were written in Latin and after 300 years they both were translated into Lithuanian by Kazimieras Eigminas. Even though the first published grammar of the Lithuanian language was researched by a significant number of linguists (Tamara Buchienë and Jonas Palionis, Kazimieras Eigminas, Kazys Ulvydas, Zigmas Zinkevièius, Giedrius Subaèius, Loredana Serafini Amato, etc.) some moot points still remain. The research has been mainly focused on syntactic parts of both grammars. This article aims to: (1) make a quite exhaustive comparison of the syntactic parts of the two grammars, paying attention to both formal and content aspects; (2) bring out some differences in the grammatical as well as the methodological approach of both authors; (3) make a statistical analysis of the syntactic parts of both grammars (of Lithuanian phrases). While writing the grammar Klein was concerned with the scientific aspects of his work, and he divided his grammar only in two parts - etymology (encompassing phonetics, orthography, elements of word formation) and syntax. Ðulcas had more practical language teaching tasks and probably therefore he divided his text into smaller sections (sectio, caput, articulum, distinctio).
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Im Artikel werden die Beziehungen zwischen zwei Wörterbüchern kleinlitauischer Provenienz, des "Littauisch-deutschen und Deutsch-littauischen Lexicons" (1747) von Phillip Ruhig und des "Littauisch-deutschen und Deutsch-littauischen Wörter=Buches" (1800) von Christian Gottlieb Mielcke untersucht. Es ist bekannt, dass Mielcke die frühere Arbeit von Phillip Ruhig als Grundlage für sein Wörterbuch genommen hat. In diesem Artikel werden die redaktionellen Veränderungen im litauisch-deutschen Teil des Mielckeschen Wörterbuch erörtert. Der Artikel besteht aus drei Teilen: 1. Veränderungen der Rechtschreibung, 2. Veränderungen der Makrostruktur, 3. Veränderungen des Mikrostrukur. Als erstes wird erörtert, welche Veränderungen Mielcke an der Ruhigschen Rechtschreibung vorgenommen hat. Es wird untersucht, inwieweit Mielcke die traditionellen Grammatiken Kleinlitauens als Grundlage genommen hatte und welche orthographischen Prinzipien er selbständig verändert hat. Im litauisch-deutschen Teil des Mielckeschen Wörterbuches werden folgende Veränderungen der Ruhigschen Rechtschreibung festgestellt: <f>, <h> werden nicht verwendet, <c->, <ã> werden durch <c¸> ersetzt, in den reflexiven Verbformen finden wir anstelle von <o> bei Mielcke <æ>, in der Endung Gen.Sg. der Substantive der dritten Deklination ersetzt Mielcke <ë> durch <ie>. Konsequenter als bei Ruhig wird <y> in der betonten Position gebraucht, in den Endungen der Substantive im Gen.Pl. erscheint kein <i> nach [l], [n], [r], [f].
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Around the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century printers evidently believed that capital (upper case) letters <I> and <J> were to be differentiated like their lower case equivalents <i> and <j> (cf. Jurgis Kasakauskis' Razanczius, 1727; Jonas Jaknavièius' Ewangelie, before 1727, 1731, 1738, 1743). On the other hand such a rule was not applied consistently at that time, and all the texts still possessed deviations from the rules (whether because of absence of italic <J>, as in Kasakauskis' Razanczius, or because of the strong influence of an older model, as in Jaknavièius' Ewangelie). Nevertheless the new (fashionable) letter <J> sometimes managed to push the grapheme <I> aside. Thus there is no functional distinction between <I> and <J> in the anonymous grammar called Universitas (1737). Moreover, in the second half of the text the typesetter switched to using only the letter <J>. 1.2. Approximately in the middle of the eighteenth century (in 1750 and later) the Vilnius' University (Academy) printing house finally established the precise orthography of the letters <I> and <J> that matched respectively the sounds [i] and [j] (in Lithuanian the sound [i] is a vowel and the sound [j] is a sonorant consonant that can occur only before a vowel and is always pronounced like English [y] in yes); cf. Jonas Jaknavièius' Ewangelie (1750, 1756, 1758), Vincenzo Caraffa's Pedelis Miros (1750), Mykolas Olðevskis' Broma (1753).
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La linguistique indo-européenne, par la relativisation discriminante du sens de certains termes et vocables, tout en bénéficiant de l’éclairage que les différents sens se donnent les uns les autres, permet de resituer les phénomènes sociaux, religieux et juridiques, dans leur contexte évolutif et historique. Les travaux d’Émile Benveniste (1969) plus spécialement ont apporté aux concepts une signification historiquement profonde, apte à révéler certaines fonctions devenues imperceptibles mais inhérentes aux institutions désignées. Ce travail a eu cependant fort peu d’écho parmi les anthropologues. Mais ce désintérêt apparent viendrait probablement de ce que les terrains nobles de l’ethnographie n’ont généralement rien d’indo-européen et que les anthropologues croient n’avoir rien à attendre de ces étymologies.
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L’albanais, en tant que branche à part de la famille indoeuropéenne, est comparé aux autres langues de cette famille à des fins de reconstitution de phases plus anciennes ainsi que des rapports existant entre elles. Ce genre d’intérêts remonte déjà au XIXe siècle et concerne tout d’abord des langues présentes dans les Balkans, notamment le grec, le latin et la romanité balkanique, tout comme le complexe de langues slaves. De telles comparaisons sont le plus souvent de nature génétique et se rapportent à un fonds plus large indo-européen de langues antiques non classiques des Balkans, spécialement du complexe illyrien, y compris le messapien, du complexe thraco-daco-mésien, du phrygien, du macédonien, etc. De toute façon, les parentés génétiques de l’albanais avec les autres langues indo-européennes remontent plus loin dans le temps et sont souvent plus difficiles à identifier à cause de son écriture tardive. La documentation plus ancienne des autres langues indo-européennes potentiellement proches de l’albanais, telles que les langues slaves, le grec, le latin, l’arménien, les langues germaniques, les langues celtiques, tout comme sa comparaison avec les langues baltiques, attestées elles aussi tardivement mais ayant peut-être une proximité avec l’albanais à une phase très ancienne, ont permis d’émettre un certain nombre d’hypothèses concernant ses vieux liens avec ces langues et sa place dans le cadre de l’ensemble des langues indoeuropéennes.
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De Rada is the greatest arbëresh poet and one of the classical of Albanian literature. His work is of valuable contribution in relation to Albanian history as well. He utilizes archaic words with great interest for their etymology. From a phonetic point of view, the poet reveals dialectal traits found in regions where Albanian is spoken, especially in Arbëresh dialect as well as in other regions, especially the southern ones. Of particular interest are some grammatical forms, which have existed in an early stage of Albanian language and are stored in the work of the great arbëresh poet. These archaic grammatical forms are also found in the works of other old authors; therefore, a comparative study among them helps to sketch the general framework of the development of Albanian in the earliest period of its development.
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In addition to the references to Mackenzie mentioned in the first part of this paper, I found another one in Schurmann (1962, p. 13) that reads as follows: “In the late 1940s, an American named Mackenzie, then teaching in Kabul, was reputed to have come across some Mongol settlements in the Turkestan region. He made some photographs and compiled a small vocabulary. However, although he communicated his discovery to a number of scholars, none of his material has been published, to my knowledge.” This statement is also cited in Doerfer (1971, p. 228). It is to be hoped that this series of papers might lead to the discovery of Mackenzie’s photographs. Their localisation would be of indispensible importance for the ethnography, history and culture of the Turkic, Hazara and Moghol people of the northern part of Afghanistan. After writing this short introduction in the middle of 2014, the work had to be put aside due to other obligations. Not much new can now, after about four years, be said about A. F. Mackenzie. His second name was Franklin as it is stated by Dupree (1973, p. 74) who knew Mackenzie from their common time in Afghanistan where both seem to have worked for or been in contact with an American organization called Meridian.
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This paper reconstructs the Khitan vowel system by analyzing materials concerning the Khitan Small Script. First, the approximate phonetic values of the graphemes were determined by systematically comparing Khitan transcriptions of Chinese words with their original Chinese sounds and by analyzing Khitan rhymes. Next, an exhaustive survey of two adjacent graphemes in a corpus elucidated the script’s spelling rule and thus were the accurate phonetic values determined. Finally, a comparative study based on the reconstructed values established regular vowel correspondences between Khitan and Mongolian. In conclusion, the author presents twelve Khitan vowel phonemes that are distinguished by four vocalic features.
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In this article I am surveying several possible loanwords from Koreanic languages (probably Koguryǒ and/or Bo-hai) into the Khitan language. Apart from explaining the origin of some of the Khitan words that have no Mongolic, other Central Asian, or Chinese etymologies, I will demonstrate that these loanwords can shed light on the decipherment of Khitan characters with unknown readings, and therefore advance the reconstruction and reading of the Khitan language itself.
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This paper examines the term ā-rè recorded in mediaeval Chinese historical sources as the title of the ruler of the Yenisei Kirghiz state. The author aims to discover which Old Turkic title this Chinese phonetic transcription corresponds to. By reconstructing the sounds in ā-rè according to Middle Chinese the author argues that the most likely pronunciation of the term was änäl, which he suggests is a phonetic variant of the Old Turkic title inäl. The author also argues that this was a temporary title of the ruler of the Yenisei Kirghiz during their vassalage under the Uyghurs.
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The object of the study are some ancient Slavic greetings related to the semantic core of health and life. When reconstructing the original semantics of greetings, we turn to their internal form, which predetermines the meaning of expressions over many centuries, even with a significant development of its semantics.
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