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The paper introduces the solution of tension between pagan and Christian world during the early Middle Ages shortly after the succession of Christianity. The evidence of mentioned tension lies in the existence of various toponyms and antroponyms, which are connected with Byzantine-Slavic cultural environment, too.
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This article provides a comprehensive analysis of English illocutionary speech acts' typological peculiarities of utterances-statements in dialogic discourse of Old-, Middle-, and Early Modern English. The research is the first attempt to identify and prove the relevance of English affirmative, imperative, interrogative statements' use as direct, indirect illocutionary speech acts in diachrony. Corpus data of the research are certified and argued in English utterances-statements as the illocutionary speech acts in the paradigm as: assertive or verdictive utterances, directive or exercitive utterances, commissive utterances, expressive or behabiative utterances, declarative or expositive utterances. Illocutionary force intensity feature is characterized by the speaker's intentional purpose in English utterances-statements of illocutionary assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, declarative goals, which actualize different types of illocutionary speech acts as "strong illocutionary force – weak illocutionary force". Direct / indirect illocutionary speech acts are highlighted in the objective / subjective content of an utterance, depending on the illocutionary force and purpose, the syntactic type, and conventionality / unconventionality of the speech acts as "affirmative statements", "imperative statements", "interrogative statements". Peculiarities of English illocutionary speech acts' relevant use in diachrony are outlined as the realization of speaker's intentional verbal proposition, depending on illocutionary paradigm of the main illocutionary verbs in utterancesstatements.
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With broad reference to various sources, the author presents the Cyril and Methodius Slavic Mission and its developments in the contest of the Christianisation of the Slavs and the complicated geopolitics of the Middle Age era. The essay focuses on different phases of the Slavic acculturation process starting with the first translations, including the entire Bible, and original works until to formation of a new cultural memory. The copious early Slavic written production, an overlooked page of European culture history, is considered through the paradigmatic example of Simeon's Miscellany, a collection of texts with the classical tradition of Patristic thought, which intended to offer a series of indispensable tools to understand the Bible and illustrate the traditional doctrine of the Christian East.
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In “A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint” when a word appears to be proper to the LXX and the literature depending on it, it is characterized as a neologism. The label “neol.” suggests that the word in question was probably not used before the time of the composition of the LXX. According to the Lexicon the first use of more than 500 words is in the Pentateuch. The purpose of the article is to trace how the Slavonic translator of the biblical books understands and transmits these words. It can be said that the translation of the neologisms is very indicative of the ways in which the vocabulary of the still young OCS was formed. It reveals the Slavonic men of letters not only as translators but as creators of the language.
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The paper summarizes the contribution of Anton Habovštiak’s scientific work in the field of Slavic comparative linguistics, especially dialectal lexicology and linguistic cartography. The central topic of the text reflects the participation of A. Habovštiak in international projects, with emphasis on the Slovanský jazykový atlas [Slavic Linguistic Atlas], research on the dialects of individual Slavic languages, and on the interconnection of the results of Slovak dialectology with other Slavic dialectological institutions. The paper also includes an overview of a number of Habovštiak’s scientific and professional publications that form the methodology of research on dialect vocabulary in both Slovak and Slavic scientific contexts. The paper concludes with the author’s memories of his cooperation with A. Habovštiak in the Slavic Linguistic Atlas project.
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This article explores the historical development of the meanings of two key words in 16th–19th century literary Estonian – raamat ‘book’ and kiri ‘letter, message, etc.’ Literary Estonian emerged in the first half of the 16th century, following the Reformation, with the translation of religious literature from German. Even at that time, the Estonian words raamat and kiri were used with distinct meanings. This article examines the evolution of their usage, drawing primarily on Corpus of Old Written Estonian and dictionaries. At the same time, it seeks to answer how and why, unlike in Finnish, the word raamat in Estonian came to refer to various types of texts, while kiri retained meanings that diverged from its Finnish counterpart, kirja ‘book’. In old written Estonian, both raamat and kiri referred to written documents. Over time, the word raamat became associated with longer printed or handwritten texts, while kiri referred to shorter texts intended for a specific recipient and purpose. Both words were used to denote the Bible and its parts. The usage of these words by Baltic German religious authors was influenced by the example of German words, such as Buch, Schrift, and Brief. However, there were also several semantic developments that occurred independently of German influence. With the diversification of Estonian written culture, new types of books, documents, letters, and other written texts have continued to be introduced over the centuries. Already by the late 19th century, compound words had been created to describe many of these. Later, as a result of deliberate language planning, further adjustments were made to both the meanings and forms of these words, leading to the creation of new terms for emerging types of books and written materials.
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This article explores the development of written Estonian during the early national awakening period, with a focus on the mid-19th century, as reflected in literary translations. The language reform process involved a transition from the old orthography to a new one, reducing dialectal differences, and enriching the vocabulary. Translated texts played a central role in this process. By broadening readers’ worldview with new concepts and ideas, and introducing language innovations in an appealing and engaging context, translations from the early national awakening period significantly contributed to the evolution of written Estonian. The article highlights examples from the works of translators who are now largely forgotten, such as Berend Gildenmann, Heinrich Nieländer, and Aleksander Umblia, alongside texts by key figures of the early Estonian national awakening, including Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, and Friedrich Nikolai Russow. During the mid-19th century, the majority of Estonian-language literature comprised translations from German folk literature, adapted to suit the needs and knowledge levels of Estonian-speaking audiences. Translators often added explanations, introduced new words, expanded the existing vocabulary, and included notes that provided cultural and geographical context. Faithfulness to the original source text was not a priority; texts could be abridged, expanded, or annotated as needed. Thus, Estonian translations of popular books, such as Kreutzwald’s Reinowadder Rebbane (1850) and Kilplaste imewärklikud, wäga kentsakad, maa-ilmas kuulmata ja tännini veel üleskirjutamata jutud ja teud (1857), heavily adapted European literary heritage. These and other literary translations helped cultivate reading habits among the Estonian people, establish a book market, and lay the foundation for the emerging tradition of original Estonian literature as a cultural and communal phenomenon. The article also examines the historical context of the 19th-century standardization of written Estonian and its links to broader social and cultural changes, such as ideological disagreements between Baltic German and Estonian intellectuals and the bilingualism of educated Estonians. It discusses the attitudes of translators towards the language reform as well as the debates and perceptions surrounding translation as a cultural process.
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Josef Jungmann’s work offers three different sources of data for the analysis of author’s view of letters and epistolary communication: lexical material collected in author’s Czech-German dictionary, theoretical explanation of so-called epistolary style in Slovesnost (“Belles-lettres”), and author’s own correspondence. The relevant entries and lexical material from the dictionary reveal that letters were a relatively important genre in the given historical period and that they were relevant for a large variety of life situations. The theoretical explanation and the examples of letters in Slovesnost reveal that Jungmann’s theory of letter was focused on pragmatic aspects of epistolary communication. The key function of the letter was to maintain the relationship between the writer of the letter and the physically absent addresse. A sample analysis of Jungmann’s letters indicates that the relationship between the writer and the addressee were important in Jungmann’s own letters as well.
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This article examines the occurrence and functional distribution of the linguistic units ja and ning (‘and’) in early written Estonian texts. In modern Estonian, ja and ning are high-frequency synonymous coordinating conjunctions, whose functions have been described in previous linguistic studies and subjected to prescriptive language regulation. The corpus-based study reveals that while the conjunction ning appears in the oldest preserved texts, evidence of the reinterpretation of the affirmative response particle ja(a) as a conjunction can already be found in early 17th-century texts. Based on the preserved sources of written Estonian, it is evident that the contact-induced particle ja occurs in (inter)subjective contexts, not only in an affirmative function but also in a connective one (jaa > ja). This represents a rare developmental pathway for conjunctions: a contact-induced particle (ja) evolving into a conjunction. This process demonstrates a transition from pragmatics to grammar. Previous studies suggest that the more common developmental path involves the opposite direction: a conjunction evolving into a particle. However, such an exceptional pathway becomes possible when the contact-induced linguistic unit possesses a suitable phonological structure and meaning. Although the particle functions of ja – affirmative, emphatic, and concordant – also exist in German, the conjunction function develops only in Estonian. The entrenchment of the conjunction ja was further supported by deliberate decisions made during the ecclesiastical reforms of written language in the late 17th century, as well as by the authority of the 1739 Estonian Bible. The emphatic function of the particle ja – conveying meanings ‘indeed, surely’ and derived from German – also appears in 17th-century texts, albeit rarely. This represents a secondary branch of functional development influenced by language contact. However, the development of the conjunction ja is primarily linked to the reinterpretation of the affirmative particle jaa, as evidenced by numerous bridging constructions in texts from the early 17th century onward. The emphatic and affirmative functions connect ja as both an affirmative response particle (jaa) and as an emphatic particle (‘ju’). The decline of emphatic usage and the increased positioning of ja in sentence-internal connective roles led to its preference as a neutral coordinative conjunction from the 18th century onward. A distinction between Northern and Southern Estonian usage lies in the fact that Southern Estonian texts overwhelmingly favour the conjunction ning until the late 18th century. The affirmative response particle jaa emerges in Southern Estonian texts only in the second half of the 18th century. The emphatic use of ja in the sense of ‘indeed, surely’ is also rare in written Southern Estonian. Consequently, the development of ja into a conjunction occurs earlier and more rapidly in Northern Estonian texts compared to Southern Estonian ones.
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The emergence of Estonian family names (in Estonian: perekonnanimi) is typically dated to the 19th century. However, approximately one-fourth of these names have older onomastic roots. The first comprehensive lists of Estonian peasants date back to the 16th century. This study examines eight regions of Estonia, encompassing 765 peasants. Of these, 662 (87%) were recorded with a binominal naming structure (byname + given name), which suggests that by the 1560s, Estonian peasants had adopted a binominal personal naming system. One list from the 1540s recorded 63% of peasants with a byname, indicating that the development of bynames was likely complete by the mid-16th century. Among the peasants with bynames, four regions exhibited patronymic bynames (with the suffixes -son or -poeg ‘son’) in at least one-third of cases. In the other four regions, patronymic bynames were rare, yet no clear geographical pattern appears to explain this variation. Comparative analysis with later records from the same areas reveals that the stock of bynames sometimes changed over time, with patronymic bynames replacing those of other origins. This suggests that both bynames and naming practices were fluid and subject to change. Of the 662 peasants with bynames, 3.8% had bynames that later evolved into legal family names during the general bestowal of family names in the 1820s–1830s. Some of these family names appear to have originated from migrated bynames (appearing in a neighbouring village in the 16th century) or from rare given names. Consequently, approximately 1,500 family names (representing about 2% of the total) likely trace their origins back to the 16th century. If research confirms that the same family carried a name before the 1820s, it can be regarded as a family name rather than merely a byname.
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Ethnolinguistic studies are of special importance in the study of the relationship between language and culture, the peculiarities of the perception of the world by different ethnic groups. The purpose of the article is to describe and contextually analyze the content and form aspects of the ethnolinguistic term "Tsuli". Ethnological and linguistic aspects are reflected in the mentioned term, which are confirmed in dictionaries of the Georgian language and clarified and filled with additional content in ethnolinguistic texts. In the texts and dictionaries of the ancient and modern Georgian language, "tsuli" refers to son, son, man, and related terms can be found: tsulaki-nephew; tsulebrivi - gender-male, ram, male; sakhlistsuli-born at home, son of a servant; dedatsuli-family; siqaltsule –virginity, purity; sepetsuli-a man of the king's surname, a person close to the king; distsuli- niece, niece son; mepistsuli -princeking son; tsulistsuli-grandson... In the mountains of Eastern Georgia, in particular, in Pshav-Khevsureti, "tsuli" means a son and expressed the relationship between the cross (//khati) and the male member of the community. According to the tradition spread here, the eldest son of the family was considered the protector of the community from birth, and after fulfilling the rule of "satsule" he became the owner of the property belonging to the village. In this rule, the ritual of rolling a naked child under the age of one year under the flag, which has a corresponding explanation in the ethnographic literature, is particularly noteworthy: the child's children by the cross. By rolling the child under the cross, the paternal relationship between the cross and the child was established. This act indicates the genetic connection between the cross and the tsul (son): the cross adopted the child and made it his own. In Pshav-Khevsureti, "man" is confirmed as a parallel term for "tsuli", and Akhaltsuli//Akhalkatsi means a newborn male child. "Tsuli" (//shvili) from the lexical-semantic and functional group of the public name by means of affixes to the proper name, the Georgian surnames were created: Tsulukidze, Tsuladze, Tsulukiani, Tsuleiskiria, Tsulaya...
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The article is dedicated to observations regarding term formations in The Hippocratic Corpus treatise “Nature on Bones”. The research material is analysed in its original text in Ancient Greek. The article encompasses an introduction, empirical part, and a conclusion. The introduction informs on the readers of The Hippocratic Corpus, its origin, possible time of writing of the treatise, authorship, content, and the present-day research of this source. The empirical part elaborates on the classification of term formation and analysis of terms, elucidating the transfer of common language words to a specific medical field, parts of speech used in terms and the structures underlying parts of speech, as well as methods of word formation. There are terms, multi-word terms and compound-word terms observed in the treatise. In the article, terms are analysed in the following groups: 1) nouns, 2) nouns with non-agreement attributes, 3) nouns with agreement attributes, 4) nouns with adverbs, and 5) compounds. The first group includes words of common language which have been under influence of the process of terminologization. This group is the largest regarding the number of terms and use, but these terms are employed only for reference to basic anatomy. The second, third, and forth groups cover multi-word terms. These three groups are not as large as the first one, but the terms here are highly specialized, allowing the naming of concepts in angiology. The last group is compound-word terms. It is the smallest group but similarly to the multi-word terms these are more specialized and can also be attributed to a conceptualized terminology.
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As part two of a series about the Basic Prayers (Hail Mary, Apostolic Creed and Lord’s Prayer) in Old Lithuanian, the aim of this article is to collect all attestations of the Apostolic Creed translated into Lithuanian prior to 1700. The Apostolic Creed has two forms, the “common” declaratory one and a shorter, interrogative one used during baptism. This interrogative creed is not a shortened form of the declaratory one, but rather the original urban Roman creed, which was expanded during the 3rd century C. E. A total of 46 versions of the Apostolic Creed are attested in the Old Lithuanian era (the 16th and 17th century). The lexical and syntactic structure of the prayers is analyzed and compared as outlined in the first part of the series, to show their dependences and connections (compare Falk, Thies 2023). Four traditions can be discerned: Firstly, an early Lutheran line in Lithuania Minor, beginning with the Forma krikštymo by Mažvydas and continued by Vilentas (as already described by Judžentis 2021), the first translation of Mažvydas in his Catechism is only weakly connected to the aforementioned. Bretkes translation is close to this line as well, but shows variation. Secondly, a later Lutheran line begins with the Königsberg Cathechism of 1670 and is continued e. g. in the scientific works of Nettelhorst and Hartknoch and in many reprints of the 18th century. Third, the Reformed tradition, consisting of the reprints of Knyga Nobažnystės and only loosely connected to the earlier Catechism by Petkevičius; and fourth, the Catholic tradition, which begins relatively late, in the second half of the 17th century, because all earlier Catholic translations e. g. by Daukša can be considered isolated attempts. The traditions of all three denominations can be considered as canonicalized with the third edition of the Königsberg Catechism from 1700, the second edition of Knyga Nobažnystės from 1684 resp. the catechism by Pranas Šrubauskis from 1725.
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The article explores the evolution and origin of the name of Ginučiai village nestled within Ignalina district municipality. Positioned close to the hillfort presumed to have housed the Linkmenys castle, initially documented in historical records dating back to 1373, the settlement’s history intertwines with this fortress. Consequently, some earlier studies have linked the oikonym’s formation to the castle’s defensive nature, suggesting its origins stems from Lith. gnti(s) ‘to save someone or something from an attack; to repel an attack’. Based on the analysis of historical sources spanning from the 16th to the 20th century, the earlier form of the oikonym can be reconstructed as *Ginutėnai, initially documented in 1554 and remaining in use until the early 20th century. It is deduced that the variant Ginùčiai, present in historical documents from the first half of the 17th century, was prevailing form in common usage. Subsequently, both forms were used interchangeably until the version without the suffix -ėnai gained prominence in the first half of the 20th century. The primary form *Ginutėnai is derived from the patronymic personal name *Ginutėnas the likelihood of which is confirmed by the extant surname Ginùtis and historical anthroponyms Piotr Ginutis, Iasiul Ginutaytis, Ginnute, Ginnuttis, and Ginutatis. These names were documented in Ginučiai village or its vicinity from at least the mid-16th century, suggesting a probable earlier presence in this area. The immergence of the later oikonym form Ginùčiai is associated with the interchangeable usage of oikonyms with or without the suffix -ėnai, evident in the 17th and 18th century sources, particularly within church records.
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Review of: Laimutis Bilkis: LINKMENŲ BAŽNYČIOS XVIII AMŽIAUS METRIKŲ OIKONIMAI, NEIŠLIKĘ IKI ŠIŲ DIENŲ. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2023, 183 p. DOI doi.org/10.35321/e-pub.65.linkmenu-istoriniai-oikonimai ISBN 978-609-411-350-5
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The article shows various research perspectives opening up for linguists and historians of culture due to analysis of the rich diaristic legacy of Emilia Wróblewska, stored in the Manuscripts Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. The writings of a relatively little known author from the 19th-century Lithuania deserve multifaceted humanistic reflection and wider introduction to the wider scientific community. Thus, the aim of the current documentation and research project is presenting Wróblewska’s manuscripts in the form of a digital edition with a critical study, and showing the ideological, linguistic and literary aspects of women’s intimist literature written at the time of Partitions and domination of the Russian Empire.
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This article constitutes a continuation of the publication ‘Measuring Pronunciation: A Discursive Research Model’ (Kardelis, 2023).The primary objective of the paper was to apply the discourse model of dialectality measurement and to assess its implementation of the behavioural dimension of the trinomial model of language attitudes. The objective of the study was to empirically examine speakers’ attitudes towards the utilisation of dialectal language in informal settings with family members and friends from their native land. To this end, two tasks were identified: firstly, to present the course of the research and discuss the results, and secondly, to outline the research perspectives. The methodological principle of the study was the link between the cognitive and the emotional ↔ behavioural dimension. In essence, the methodology involved a dual-faceted approach: first, to ascertain whether informants employed dialectal language in informal settings with family members and friends from their country of origin; and second, to examine the practical implementation of this linguistic phenomenon. The most significant finding of this study is that the proposed discursive model of dialect measurement research functions in principle, yet it remains to be refined. The study also demonstrates the feasibility of collecting data for the model remotely. Secondly, the study yielded noteworthy insights concerning the utilisation of questionnaires in survey research. The study demonstrates that questionnaires alone cannot be relied upon to explain dialect. This is evidenced by the finding that respondents’ self-reported dialect use, in terms of its circumstances and frequency, is subject to a conflict between objective and subjective dialect. This conflict cannot be resolved by questionnaires alone and further research is required. The calculation of the dialect index according to the formula developed in this study demonstrated that, with one exception, RAP informants are more ‘dialectal’ than RAU informants with respect to objective dialect. It is important to note that it is not possible to draw any broader generalisations from a selection of several or even a few dozen informants on one or another of the points under study. The snowball method, a favoured approach among sociolinguists and dialectologists, may appear advantageous in terms of material collection. However, it is crucial to recognise its inherent limitations, the most significant of which revolves around its randomness. It is challenging to identify patterns within randomness, particularly when attempting to achieve a comprehensive overview. Consequently, a dilemma arises in the pursuit of an objective portrayal of the dialectal landscape of the Lithuanian language, its characteristics, and the indices that define it. This challenge is not merely a methodological or technical problem, but rather a complex one that demands resolution. A further challenge lies in the monitoring process within the domestic environment, a prerequisite for achieving an objective and reliable measurement of dialectal variation.
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Professor Elzbieta Smulkova’s memories of the Vilnius University professor Valerijus Chekmonas are based on materials from personal correspondence that continued over many years. Cooperation in the field of Polish and Belarusian studies was very fruitful, although in their course scientists were more than once faced with the need to solve complex issues.
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