Prahos vokiečių–lietuvių rankraštinio žodyno autorystės klausimu

ILJA LEMEŠKIN Charles University in Prague Research interests: early Baltic literature and writing, comparative folkloristics, lexicography, and the history of Baltic studies. ON THE QUESTION OF THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PRAGUE GERMAN–LITHUANIAN MANUSCRIPT DICTIONARY1 On the issue of authorship of the Prague manuscript German–Lithuanian dictionary A B S T R A C T The Prague dictionary is the name given to a lexicographical work in manuscript, dated to the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century and currently held at the Klementinum, in the Department of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books of the National Library of the Czech Republic (Národní knihovna Oddělení rukopisů a starých tisků), shelfmark XVI.F.30. It was first introduced to the community of Lithuanian studies at the seminar Current Research Directions in the Languages of Northern and Eastern Europe, organized on January 27, 2011, by the Association of Researchers of the Dialogue of European Languages and Cultures. The presentation, “Monuments of Lithuanian Lexicography in the Czech Republic: The Prague Manuscript Dictionary of German and Lithuanian Attributed to Friedrich Wilhelm Haack,” introduced this previously unknown Lithuanian studies monument primarily from an archaeographic perspective; it also discussed the book’s contents and considered its textual relationship to the so-called Krause dictionary. The first article devoted to this East Prussian lexicographical work (Lemeškin 2012) appeared in 2012 in volume 3 of Archives of Language and Culture Intersections, published by the Association of Researchers of the Dialogue of European Languages and Cultures. It examined two aspects: 1) the circumstances in which the lexicographical monument was discovered and its place in nineteenth-century Czech Lithuanian studies, and 2) a general archaeographic description of the dictionary. The article concluded by noting that knowledge of the dictionary had only 1 This article was prepared as part of the project funded by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, Research and Preparation for Publication of the Manuscript German–Lithuanian Dictionary (Early 18th Century) Attributed to Friedrich Wilhelm Haack (Agreement No. K-4/2012, concluded on 2012-02-01). K E Y W O R D S: authorship, German–Lithuanian dictionary, Observatio de origine Verborum Littwhaniorum, East Prussian lexicography, Friedrich Wilhelm Haack, Baumgarten. K E Y W O R D S: Authorship, German–Lithuanian dictionary, Observatio de origine Verborum Littwhaniorum, lexicography of Eastern Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm Haack, Baumgarten. Straipsniai / Articles 269 ILJA LEMEŠKIN is beginning, and many questions can so far be answered only provisionally. Among the pressing tasks for the future, the issue of the dictionary’s authorship was mentioned; this is closely linked to the interpretation of a provenance. This article seeks to make some progress in that direction. A N N O T A T I O N An article is devoted to the lexicographical heritage of the third and fourth decades of the 18 century, in particular to the question of the authorship. Main accent is put on the structure of the codex including two independent parts which – from the point of the authorship – should be considered separately. As for the German–Lithuanian dictionary we cannot speak about the authorship because it is only another copy of an older document. But Observatio de origine Verborum Litthwaniorum can be described as creative and original. It is supposed that rewriter of *PRPK (i.e. protograph of the German–Lithuanian dictionary found in Prague) and the author of „Observation of origins of Lithuanian words“ is the same person having deep linguistic knowledge. It is quite possible that it was the reason why in the 18 century Friedrich Wilhelm Haack was recognized as the author. However the closer analysis of the oldest works suggests that the above mentioned conclusion was not correct. For that reason the title Hacke. Lexicon Lithuanicum written on the back of the codex should be verified too. Let us begin with the definition of the Prague Dictionary. The title immediately calls for clarification and specification, since first of all it is useful to establish the authorship of which linguistic work, and of what kind, is at issue. The Lithuanian lexicographical monument preserved in Prague is heterogeneous in genre. In fact, it is a codex consisting of two independent lexicographical parts. The first and larger part (2r–344v) is a German–Lithuanian dictionary closely related to the works that have survived to the present day: Lexicon Lithuanicum2Krause’s dictionary3, Richter’s (or Klaipėda-region) dictionary4, Clavis Germanico–Lithuana5. It has no authentic title of its own—that is, one which we could be certain was bestowed while the dictionary was being compiled (that is, transcribed and supplemented), or shortly thereafter. This part begins with the customary formulaic heading With God’s Help, followed by the dictionary’s first entries. The paper used for it (quires 1–43) can be dated to 1683–1712 (Lemeškin 2012: 52–53). The second part, for which a considerable amount of space was carefully set aside when the codex was assembled (quires 44–46), has a title: “Observatio de origine Verborum Littwhanio-rum”. “Observations on the Origin of Lithuanian Words” consists of a pair of lexicographical 2 Mid-seventeenth century; held at LMAB RS: f. 137–10; facsimile: Lexicon Lithuanicum 1987. 3 Third–fourth decades of the eighteenth century; held at LLTIB R: f. 1–5792. For the manuscript’s dating, see Drotvinas 1984. 4 Dated to 1728; held in the Francke Foundations Archives in Halle: AFSt J 84. 5 Held at LMAB RS: f. 137 13–14; published by Vincentas Drotvinas in 1995–1997 – Clavis Germanico–Lithuana 1995–1997. 270 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIX Prahos vokiečių–lietuvių rankraštinio žodyno autorystės klausimu articles in which the lexicons of Lithuanian and Greek are compared. In contrast to the first part, one would probably look in vain for works of related origin that served as a basis for the “Observations.” The notebooks making up this part bear a watermark dated to a slightly later period (from 1701 onward) (Lemeškin 2012: 53). Thus, the first part can be considered complete and finished, while the other is fragmentary. The first is a collective, in a certain sense mechanical, linguistic work, whereas the second part’s comparative linguistic conception is innovative (compared with the first part of the codex) and authentic. For this reason, the authorship of the codex’s constituent parts listed above is by no means equivalent and must be discussed separately. When applying the concept of Prahos žodyno to the entire codex, we should not forget the independent “Observations,” which, although modest in scope, attract the attention of the modern researcher as an advanced scholarly study for their time. In 1987, Vincas Urbutis expressed himself very cautiously on the question of authorship of the related Richter (or Klaipėda) dictionary: “The 1728 dictionary is most closely connected with the tradition of written Lithuanian lexicography in Prussian lands, [...] almost everything in it has been taken from elsewhere, while the original layer is very thin, and [...] for that reason this manuscript might perhaps be better regarded not as an independent dictionary, but merely as one of the revised and supplemented copies of an already existing dictionary. [...] Even the problem of authorship, once it became clear that it actually concerns not the entire dictionary but only a relatively small part of it, should be approached somewhat differently and should no longer seem so important” (Urbutis 1987: 58–59). The same must be said of the Prague dictionary, that is, of the first part of the codex. Indeed, when it comes to later copies that reproduce the protograph more or less faithfully, the question is usually that of copyists—that is, of the authors not of the dictionary itself, but of its individual copies. However, it is also evident that the layer of modifications differs from one copy to another, and that its size and character (whether additions were introduced through the linguistic competence of the copyist himself or entered the compilation from some third source) determine the authorship question. Naturally, the richer and more authentic this layer, the greater the justification for discerning signs of co-authorship in the person who copied and supplemented the text. The family of copies consisting of the aforementioned Richter, Prague, and Krause dictionaries, Clavis Germanico–Lithvana, and the dictionary considered lost, shelfmark Msc. 84 4° (held before the Second World War in the Réza collection at the Secret Royal Archives in Königsberg), is derived from a common protograph, which Urbutis designates by the abbreviation *Q. Christiane Schiller designates it *KR or *PRK (Prā-Richter / Krause) (Schiller 2005, 2002). It makes sense to retain this abbreviation, expanded by the reference to the Prague dictionary, as *PRPK (Prā-Richter / Prager / Krause). The Prague dictionary, returned to Lithuanian studies in 2011, occupies an important link in the chain of East Prussian manuscript German–Lithuanian dictionaries known to date. Urbutis had probably anticipated its existence, calling it “an earlier (lost) variant of Q” in his detailed textual study (Urbutis 1987: 65). Urbutis’s description is not apt, since texts deriving from a common source, or a copy in relation to its original, can be considered variants. The relationship between the Prague and Krause dictionaries appears to be Straipsniai / Articles 271 ILJA LEMEŠKIN different. It is probably a relationship between an original and a copy; therefore, from the perspective of the original—that is, the Prague dictionary—only the lexicographic monument held in the library of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore can be called a variant. That the Krause dictionary was copied from the Prague dictionary is suggested by instances where additions in the original, distinguishable on the pages of the Prague copy by their color and graphic placement (inserted between the lines, in the margins, in different ink, at a different angle, and so on), appear in the main text of the Krause dictionary. A few such examples for comparison: PŽ 78v KŽ 165 PŽ 3v KŽ 7 272 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIX Prahos vokiečių–lietuvių rankraštinio žodyno autorystės klausimu PŽ 61 KZ 134 This visual evidence reveals the “timid” strategy of the copyist of Krause’s dictionary: he reproduces insertions from the source being copied in the main text, but does so in a peculiar way (perhaps because of his limited competence). He presents the insertions found in the Prague dictionary as if he had written them between the lines; however, the excessive imitation of the original becomes obvious when we compare the distances between the lines (the usual ones and those where additions to the Prague dictionary have been entered). Thus, the Prague dictionary helps us better understand the nature of Krause’s dictionary and its place in the aforementioned chain of manuscript dictionaries, especially with regard to authorship. It becomes clear that the balance between the roles of copyist and co-author tips toward the former. It is doubtful that it would be possible to speak here at all of any innovative layer—the copyist, adding almost nothing of his own (in the Lithuanian equivalents section) and, unfortunately, distorting some things, blindly adheres to the original being copied. Consequently, Krause’s dictionary is probably of little use for reconstructing the protograph *PRPK. It seems that the creator of Richter’s copy worked in a similar way. He, too, can have done little to enrich and expand the original, i.e., the lost *PRPK. At present, while Schiller’s edition of Richter’s copy has not yet appeared in print and specialists who have carefully studied the monuments of the lexicography of Lithuania Minor have not expressed their considered opinion on this matter, it is preferable to refrain from firm conclusions about the relationships among the copies. However, if the relationship between the original and the copy in the case of the Prague and Krause dictionaries is well-founded, one may speak of a greater authorial contribution in the Prague dictionary. It seems that the copyist must have made a more substantial lexicographic effort—trying to improve and expand the older source available to him. This effort determined the multilayered nature of the first part of the Prague codex (as is clearly Straipsniai / Articles 273 ILJA LEMEŠKIN FIG. 1. Title page of the Prague codex revealed by the copy of the title page presented here). This effort, in turn, also fits well with and corresponds to the nature of the codex’s second part. Are the author of the German–Lithuanian dictionary and the author of the “Observations” in the same codex one and the same person? This question can probably be answered in the affirmative. Paper produced in East Prussia at approximately the same time was used for the second part of the codex. Second, the “Observations” were inserted into the codex before the book was bound, and the binding itself does not appear to be later. It may be assumed that the person who carried out the re- 274 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIX Prahos vokiečių–lietuvių rankraštinio žodyno autorystės klausimu and added to his copy a blank section of three quires (the second in terms of the codex’s structure), bound the entire book block, and began writing his “Observations.” The fragmentary and unfinished nature of the “Observations” could be explained by practical considerations of convenience. Developing a study of the origins of Lithuanian words within a thick, already-bound book probably seemed impractical, since writing had to be interrupted constantly to search for new lexemes worth explaining. Moreover, the writing of the headwords in the Lithuanian register of the “Observations” resembles the rendering of Lithuanian equivalents in the main body of the dictionary. The arguments suggesting that the creator of the “Observations” and the first part of the codex was the same person naturally enhance the authority of the person who copied out the dictionary. Its proximity to the “Observations” would indicate that the author of the Prague copy could indeed have been the author. In this respect, he differed from a casual copyist, that is, from someone far removed from the science of language, who merely copied a source given to him for payment. Urbutis was right to say that the question of authorship is not so important in the case of copies that differ little from the protograph. However, the question of the authorship of the Prague dictionary certainly deserves attention. One should probably look for a person with truly exceptional linguistic abilities. There was certainly no shortage of scribes in East Prussia in the first half of the eighteenth century; gifted lexicographers were few; and authors capable of writing, and willing to undertake, a Lithuanian etymological study were fewer still. And it was probably just such a person who reworked *PRPK into the form of the Prague dictionary. Might this circumstance have prompted a contemporary to attribute the book to Friedrich Wilhelm Haack? But let us return to the second part of the Prague codex. The fragment “Observations on the Origins of Lithuanian Words” is short. The small text is not easy to read with confidence, especially the author’s introductory reflection in German. The following text was deciphered (345r): PŽ 345r obleruat: de origine Verborum Littwaniorum It is considered by most scholars that the Lithuanian language is a mishmash: only a collection of words is to be compiled, taken from foreign languages: Metas means annus: derivation: ἐτῶν. Luke 8. 42. N. T. 120. τὸ ἔτος ετεος. Annus. || το ἔτος: {The M. may} easily have been added. Meli. lieben: i.e. dilectus: from Greek: τὸ μέλι, τος Mel, Straipsniai / Articles 275 ILJA LEMEŠKIN It is much to be regretted that the study breaks off almost as soon as it begins. More could be said if we had a couple, or at least one complete page. Unfortunately, we have only two laconic entries. Yet even these make it clear that the investigation must have had the characteristics of lexicographic work. On the left is a register of selected Lithuanian words; on the right is corresponding material from Greek, which, judging by the title of the investigation, was intended to reveal and explain the origins of Lithuanian lexemes. In these laconic entries, the author explains very little, does not indicate why he pairs the Lithuanian lemmas specifically with these Greek lexemes, and this once again invites interpretation. The examples give the impression that the author is proceeding in a qualitatively different way from what we might expect. One would naturally expect a comparative study based on the atomistic method. External, formal resemblance (or, more precisely, the phonetic identity of the lexemes) would prompt one to compare Greek μέθυ ‘alcoholic drink’ with Lithuanian medus and midus. The author of the “Observations” does not mention this parallel, which was apparently obvious to him. It seems that he wants to show that another Greek word used to denote honey also finds a reflection in Lithuanian, and therefore compares Greek μέλι, Latin mel with Lithuanian mieli. In another entry, alongside Lithuanian metas, he gives Greek ἔτος ‘year’. Such a comparison of lexemes can be considered well-founded even from the perspective of modern linguistics. In discussing Baltic material, Oswald Szemerényi writes of the contamination of two appellatives meaning ‘year’ (*əmḗtos and *wetos), and finds the intact appellatives in Greek ἄμητος ‘harvest, a single gathering of the harvest’ and Greek (ϝ)έτος ‘year’ (Szemerényi 1962: 198–199). If the “Observations” had not broken off, but had continued with similar substantive comparisons, we would now have a significant and exceptional work. The author works primarily with resources from Greek and Latin. Unfortunately, because the text is fragmentary, it remains unclear how competent the author was in other languages. Finally, it remains to discuss the provenance from the mid-eighteenth century, which seeks to identify the author of the Prague dictionary. We are referring to the donative inscription at the beginning of the book (1r): 276 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIX On the Authorship of the Prague German–Lithuanian Manuscript Dictionary Author Hacke Was a preacher in Lithuania. Studied at Halle. His language= treatise is said to have been printed at the Weisenhaus. Dono dedit [D]. Baumgarten We could translate the provenance as follows: “Author Hacke was a preacher in Lithuania. He studied in Halle. His linguistic work must have been / was probably published at the Weisenhaus press. Baumgarten gave it as a gift.” The greatest uncertainty concerns the end of the inscription and its interpretation. The letter next to the surname Baumgarten can be interpreted in different ways, as J or D. In the first case, it would indicate the owner's first name. In the case of the letter D, several possibilities suggest themselves. It could be understood as completing a conventional Latin donative inscription: Dono dedit dedicavit. If the Latin donative inscription was used in abbreviated form (and examples such as Dono dedit ‘gave as a gift’ are plentiful), the letter D could have denoted Baumgarten's title: Doctor. Finally, D could also be interpreted as dominus ‘lord’. This would mean that the inscription was left not by Baumgarten himself, but by some third person who considered the history of the book's presentation worth recording. In addition, between the lines above the surname Baumgarten, one can see either an illegible word or simply an ink blot. Thus, the intriguing testimony identifying the author of the Prague dictionary as Friedrich Wilhelm Haack should apparently be treated with caution. We cannot even be sure that it was left by the dictionary's owner, S. J. Baumgarten—that is, by someone who might have known a little more about the circumstances surrounding the book's creation. Christiane Schiller and Birutė Triškaitė kindly shared valuable observations relevant to interpreting and dating the provenance in question. I would like to mention them briefly. Schiller pointed out that by saying soll auf dem Weisenhause gedruckt seyn, the writer is in fact uncertain whether Haack's linguistic work was actually published at the orphanage press in Halle. He is merely speculating. The researcher also emphasized the use of the preterite war, which indicates that the inscription was made after Haack's death. Triškaitė, for her part, makes the pertinent observation that Haack could probably have held the post of preacher (Prediger) only after studying in Halle. This supports the assumption that the inscription was made after Haack returned to East Prussia and, apparently, after 1754. The later dating of the inscription encourages us to verify the title written on the book's spine, Hacke. Lexicon Lithuanicum. It follows that this title is secondary, associated not with the creation of the codex but with the time when the provenance was recorded. Therefore, the attribution of the codex to Haack must be considered unfounded. Thus, the question of whether the Prague dictionary should be attributed to Haack (as it is by a contemporary) must be answered in the negative. The provenance, which bears the surname of the book's owner, Baumgarten, raises considerable doubts. Its dating, as well as the identification of the person who left the inscription, also seems unreliable. Analysis of the donative inscription also prompts caution regarding the codex's title, Hacke. Lexicon Lithuanicum. Most likely, it Straipsniai / Articles 277 ILJA LEMEŠKIN is secondary and late. The paper of the book was produced in East Prussia; the process of writing and compiling the codex probably also took place here in East Prussia. If such work had been carried out in Halle, the corresponding German paper would most likely have been used as well. East Prussia itself would probably also be the place to look for the compiler of the Prague codex—the copyist and reviser of the dictionary, and the author of “Observations on the Origin of Lithuanian Words.” Therefore, the question of the authorship of both the dictionary and the “Observations” should be addressed jointly. The fragment of etymological study found in the second part of the codex testifies that the author of the dictionary copy must have been distinguished by exceptional linguistic abilities. LITERATŪRA Clavis Germanico–Lithvana 1995–1997: Clavis Germanico–Lithvana. Rankraštinis XVII amžiaus vokiečių–lietuvių kalbų žodynas 1–4. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla. Drotvinas Vincentas 1984: Kada parašytas vadinamasis Krauzės žodynas. – Baltistika 20(2), 163–167. Lemeškin Ilja 2012: Friedrichui Wilhelmui Haackui priskiriamas Prahos rankraštinis vokiečių–lietuvių kalbų žodynas. – Mažoji Lietuva: paribio kultūros tyrimai. Vilnius: Petro ofsetas, 31–58. Lexicon Lithuanicum 1987: Lexicon Lithuanicum. Rankraštinis XVII a. vokiečių–lietuvių kalbų žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslas. Schiller Christiane 2002: Clavis Germanico–Lithvana – ein Werk von Friedrich Pretorius d.Ä.? – Linguistica Baltica 10, 159–172. Schiller Christiane 2005: Wie alt ist ein Wörterbuch? Überlegungen zur relativen Chronologie von Wörterbüchern. – Kalbos istorijos ir dialektologijos problemos 1. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla, 153–160. Szemérényi Oswald 1962: Principles of etymological research in the Indo-European languages. – Innsbrucker Beitrage zur Kulturwissenschaft 15, 1962, 175–212. Urbutis Vincas 1987: 1728 m. klaipėdiškių žodyno leksikografiniai šaltiniai. – Baltistika 23(1), 57–75. On the issue of authorship of the Prague manuscript German–Lithuanian dictionary SUMMARY The article addresses the manuscript German–Lithuanian Dictionary kept at the National Library in Prague in respect of authorship. The problem of authorship is first discussed from the perspective of methodology; the concept of Prague Dictionary is defined. The article proposes to solve the question of author- 278 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIX Prahos vokiečių–lietuvių rankraštinio žodyno autorystės klausimu ship with reference to the structure of the codex sign. XVI.E.30. It is comprised of two lexicographical works: German-Lithuanian dictionary starting with a conventional formula Su Diewo Pagalba (God willing) (very akin to the surviving Lexicon Lithuanicum, Krause Dictionary, Richter’s (or Klaipėda Region Residents’) Dictionary, Clavis Germanico-Lithuana) and a fragment from the study Observatio de origine Verborum Littwhaniorum. The first is a collective linguistic work, while the second comparative linguistic undertaking is an authentic work. Therefore, the authorship of the two composite parts of the codex is not equivalent and should be evaluated separately. In the case of bilingual dictionary or, to be more precise, one of its transcripts, the author’s contribution depends on the layer of modifications, its scope. The more numerous in words and authentic the layer is in the transcript of the dictionary, the greater is the right to distinguish the features of co-authorship in the transcribed and supplemented version. Thanks to the Prague Dictionary, we can better understand the type and importance of Krause Dictionary. The comparison of the afore-mentioned transcripts shows a “timid” strategy of the rewriter of Krause Dictionary: he repeats the inserts from the transcribed source, most likely the Prague Dictionary, in the main text, but the repetition is peculiar. The inserts in the Prague Dictionary are rendered in such a way as if they were written in-between the lines but the exaggerated stylization of the original dictionary becomes evident when spaces between lines are compared. The fluctuation between the role of the rewriter and the co-author in the case of Krause Dictionary seems to be closer to the role of the former. We can also speak about the greater level of authorship in the Prague Dictionary. It seems that the rewriter must have had a more tangible lexicographical effort – he tried to improve and expand the available older source (it is marked by the abbreviation *PRPK according to the model proposed by Christiane Schiller). The said effort determined the multilayer character of the first part of the Prague Codex. The neighbourhood with Observatio de origine Verborum Littwhaniorum increases the author’s contribution to the bilingual dictionary. The observations on the origins of Lithuanian words are not based on the atomistic method and the attempt for external, formal, similarity. Finally, the provenience of Auctor Hacke War Prediger in Lithauen. Hat zu Halle studirt. Seine Sprachlehre soll auf dem Weisenhause gedruckt seyn. Dono dedit [D]. Baumgarten is analysed and its problems are revealed: it is doubted whether the inscription was actually made by the owner of the dictionary S. J. Baumgarten; it is considered that it could possibly be made at a later date, after 1754. It also encourages us to verify the name of the codex Hacke. Lexicon Lithuanicum. The name is most likely secondary and given later. Įteikta 2013 m. sausio 15 d. ILJA LEMEŠKIN Prahos Karolio universitetas Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Praha 1, Czech Republic [email protected] Straipsniai / Articles 279