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Research fields: Balto-Slavic studies, Baltic studies, Slavic studies, the historical morphology of Baltic and Slavic, etymology, the phraseology of Baltic and Slavic languages, lexicology, the language of Baltic and Slavic folklore, the history of Baltic and Slavic studies.

ON THE PHRASEOLOGY IN JOHANN BRETKE’S BIBLE

On the phraseology of Jonas Bretkūnas’s Bible

NOTE

Johann Bretke’s complete translation of the Bible into Lithuanian at the end of the 16th century contains a multitude of complex elements (idioms, phrasemes). Regarding biblical phraseologisms, it is important to distinguish between two categories: 1) elements that derive from biblical idioms; 2) elements that derive from particular situations.

In his handbook of phraseology, Harald Burger described an efficient method for identifying idiomatic expressions in old translations. Among other things, he demonstrated a type of equivalence in idiomatic usage: “source language: one word – target language: one phraseme.” Thus, in Luther’s Bible translation, a single word may correspond to a prepositional phrase in Bretke’s translation. Phraseologisms also vary and often occur in different forms. Finally, examples of phraseologisms functioning as sentences, such as greetings, are mentioned.

ANNOTATION

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

KEYWORDS: phraseologism, phraseme, phraseotexteme, phraseme variant, translation borrowing (calquing), phraseoschemes, figura etymologica, phraseological biblicisms (biblical phraseologisms).

KEYWORDS: phraseologism, phraseme, phraseological texteme, phraseological variant, translation, phraseological scheme, figura etymologica, biblical phraseologisms.

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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.

INTRODUCTION

To justify the choice of topic, let me state the following: I am undertaking an examination of phraseology in the first complete translation of the Bible into Lithuanian, by Johann Bretke, since texts consist not only of “free sentences,” and these not only of more or less “free word combinations,” but also of specific (stereotyped) sentences and specific (fixed, idiomatic) word combinations. Combinatorics, thanks to which sentences and texts are formed, is therefore not limited to linking elementary (minimal) units, but also includes entire blocks of (non-minimal) units that, as such, participate directly in the construction of sentences and texts. This also applies to the text of the Bible.

In this connection, a number of instances of self-reflection in the Bible are of particular interest. Consider, for example, references such as common saying or proverb in Luther’s Bible, which Johann Bretke rendered as kalbefis (resp. kalbefys) and paſaka and prikalbefys, respectively; cf.:

(1) Ir anis ieme pinigus, ir dare, kaip buvo pamokiti. Schitai [toios paſpalitwas kalbeſis tarp Sżidu [iſcheio ta paſaka tarp Sżidu] ik ſchei dienai – And they took the money and did as they had been instructed. This has become a common saying among the Jews to this day – But they, having taken the money, did as they had been taught. And this saying has been spread among the Jews to this day (Mt XXVIII 15) or

(2) Bila iam io Apaſchtalai, Schitai atwirai kalbi, ir ne kalbi ne wieno prikalbeſio – His disciples said to him, “Look, now you are speaking plainly and not using any proverb” – His disciples said, “Behold, now you are speaking openly, and you are saying no proverb” (Jn XVI 29). (Here and below I give the corresponding quotations from the Vulgate according to NVBS).

Examples (1) and (2)—and probably elsewhere as well—certainly appear to be passages with a figurative meaning. Proverb is used here in the much broader sense of simile, parable. A certain stability and semantic specificity, however, characterize them just as they do units of phraseology.

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In many passages, images are used in the vivid and expressive language of the Bible. Figurative language, emotionality, and expressiveness, however, are the very domain of phraseology.

In the postwar period, phraseology developed into an independent linguistic discipline, although its research findings are still insufficiently applied in linguistic analysis and, for example, in lexicographic practice. This is particularly true of older texts. Nor is it a coincidence that, following the momentous events of 1989/1990, phraseological research once again turned more intensively to sacred texts. Thus, the first conference on “Phraseology and Religion” was held in 1996 in Opole, Poland, and its proceedings were published in 1997¹. Over the past decade, numerous contributions have appeared on phraseology in the Bible, biblical expressions in the phraseological inventories of various languages, and related topics, although it must be said that this subject had also engaged researchers in earlier periods.

These studies have made it increasingly clear that the phraseology of individual languages has been influenced to a considerable extent by Holy Scripture, with an interesting interaction between the international and the national taking place in the development of phraseology in individual national languages.

Finally, after a prolonged period devoted to developing synchronic phraseological research, it needs to be complemented by diachronic (historical) phraseological research. Some progress has already been made in this field: we need only think of Harald Burger’s work on the historical phraseology of German, or of the preparations for historical-etymological descriptions of the phrasemics of individual Slavic languages by Valerij Mokienko and his group (Бирих, Мокиенко, Степанова 1998). Historical phraseology in the Baltic languages is still in its infancy. I have contributed to this young field of research with a monograph (Eckert 1991) and a series of articles on the historical phraseology of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Old Prussian. In this context, the study of phraseology in Johann Bretke’s first complete translation of the Bible into Lithuanian holds a special place.

Before turning directly to the subject, I must briefly say something about the concept of phraseology I use, which is discussed in greater detail in a monograph (Eckert, Günther 1992). I use the umbrella term phraseologism (−men) for linguistic units that are characterized by

¹ Frazeologia a religia. Problemy frazeologii europejskiej 2, pod red. Andrzeja M. Lewickiego i Wojciecha Chlebdy. Warszawa: Energeia, 1997.

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are distinguished by the following features: 1) specific semantics, 2) hyperword character (i.e., phraseological units are formally larger than word forms), and 3) their particular function. As regards the latter, they are divided into: 1) phraseological units functioning as sentence constituents = phrasemes and 2) phraseological units functioning as sentences = phraseotextemes.

Phrasemes are characterized by varying degrees of idiomaticity, i.e., their meaning cannot (or at least cannot entirely) be derived from the meanings of their components. Their overall meaning exists alongside the literal meaning, although the latter is not realized. Decisive for their use is the phraseological meaning that arises through figurative transfer. Phrasemes are combined with word forms in sentences and function as sentence constituents. This is the basis for their classification into phraseme classes (by a certain analogy with parts of speech). Phrasemes, together with word forms and free word combinations, form sentences.

Phraseotextemes are complete statements. They can be linked with sentences (in compound sentences) and, together with sentences, form texts. These include, for example, proverbs (paremias), aphorisms, greetings, etc. They designate facts and situations. Compared with that of phrasemes, their semantics has two layers, since it consists of: 1) the literal meaning (hence their translatability into other languages) and 2) the generalizing sense that is decisive for their use.

Semantics in a sense cements phraseological units, thereby giving them a high degree of stability. Individual components may be omitted or replaced by others, resulting in variation among phrasemes and phraseotextemes. This, too, clearly distinguishes them from free word combinations and “free sentences.” Imagery, expressiveness, emotionality, and intensity play an outstanding role in phraseology.

In what follows, I will focus primarily on phrasemics and, only at the end, briefly address phraseotextemics (and here, above all, a few proverbs).

SOME PARTICULARITIES IN THE STUDY OF BIBLICAL PHRASEOLOGY

1. A basic distinction must be made between two categories of biblical phraseological units: 1) phraseological units that derive directly from linguistic units in the Bible (Vladimir Gak calls them biblical phraseological units with a Zi-

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tatcharakter (Гак 1996: 10)) und 2) Phraseologismen, die keine direkte Quelle in Form einer sprachlichen Einheit aufweisen, sondern eine bestimmte Situation (Begebenheit) aus der Heiligen Schrift widerspiegeln (Nach Gak – situative biblische Phraseologismen).

First, two examples follow (one phraseme and one phraseotexteme) of the first category:

(3) werkļmas ir griežumas dantų – heulen und zeenklappen (Lk XIII 28). The modern Lithuanian equivalent of this phraseme is dantų griežimas ‘ajmanavimas’ (LKŽ 60), and its modern German equivalent is Heulen und Zähneklappern ‘general fear and despair’ (MDL 212);

(4) ką raščiau, tatai raščiau – was ich geschrieben hab, das hab ich geschrieben (Jh XIX 22). Cf. Latin quod scripsi, scripsi. The phraseotexteme has the sense: “What is done is done and can no longer be changed.” It is an aphorism supposedly deriving from the utterance of Pontius Pilate, when he refused to change the inscription that was to be placed above Christ’s head on the cross. The following example belongs to the second category, the so-called situational biblical phraseological units:

(5) Modern Lithuanian atpirkimo ožys—a person onto whom the blame of others is shifted (LKŽ VIII 1029): German Sündenbock: Russian козёл отпущения. Compare the following passage from 3 Mose XVI 22:

(6) Jog schitaipo Awins wifsus ių nuffideghimus ant sawens ing Pufchcze nu neſchtu, ir tepaliekt ghi puſtineie – Das also der Bock alle jre miſſethat auff jm in eine wildnis trage, und laſſe jn in die wuſte.

I will not discuss further the last-mentioned category of phraseological units, which were formed only secondarily on the basis of biblical situations (contexts) and are not connected with linguistic units in the text of the Bible.

2. In assessing biblical phraseological units that derive from linguistic units in the text of Holy Scripture, an essential difficulty arises in comparison, for example, with the study of phraseology in contemporary languages: we lack linguistic competence in earlier periods of language and are also unable to determine precisely the degree of idiomaticity of particular expressions. For this reason, much remains hypothetical. Therefore, in my opinion, historical studies of phraseology should adopt a very broad conception of phraseology, encompassing not only phrasemes and phraseotextemes but also pre-phraseological expressions with low idiomaticity (such as those that merely signal certain degrees of intensity) and even fixed (stable, stereotyped) expressions.

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In this sense, I would like to briefly discuss two types of such expressions:

a) Those based on a particular grammatical pattern (also called a phraseological schema by some scholars), such as the typically Lithuanian expressions consisting of the infinitive II (būdinys) + a finite form of the verb, with both forms sharing the same root. In terms of their meaning, they express an intensification of the semantics contained in the verbal root and should therefore not be regarded merely as a purely grammatical category. Compare expressions of the type gužė gužės in:

(7) iog Strowe (upe) warlemis gu̇žete gu̇žes (krebždes) – that the stream [river] teemed with frogs (2 Mose VIII 3)²;

the expression dengte apdenge in:

(8) When Aaron stretched out his staff and his hand over Egypt, and [the] frogs came, and covered Egypt’s land [covered all of it] – And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and frogs came up, so that the land of Egypt was covered (2 Moses VIII 6).

b) A larger number of expressions of the figura etymologica type can be identified in Bretke’s Bible translation. These are not yet fully developed phraseological units, but in the following example there already seems to be a certain semantic specialization, which brings the figura at least close to becoming a phraseological unit; compare:

(9) Bet kaip tą Regeghima regeio, toiaus dumoiom eiti ing Macedonia... – But when he had seen the vision, we immediately planned to depart for Macedonia... – Ut autem visum vidit, statim quaesivimus proficisci in Macedoniam (Apg XVI 10);

(10) Tikejose regėjima regis (Vilentas, Epistolos ir Evangelios 156 – nach LKŽ XI 360). Compare also modern German Gesichte haben ‘to foresee the future’ (WW 268) and Latin visa videre ‘to see dream visions’.

3. The Reformation regarded it as one of its principal tasks to bring the word of God closer to people, in languages they understood and used. Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into Early New High German was, as is well known, of great significance for the spread of Protestant doctrine in northern, eastern, and southeastern Europe, and for the first translations of the Holy Scripture into the various languages of this region that followed. The emergence of the old Baltic written tradition in the sixteenth century belongs in this context and

² Siehe Rainer Eckert (1987: 20), wo zu der Wendung aus der Bibelübersetzung des Bretke noch. lit. krebždėte krebžda – von einem Gewimmel von Wildenten (LKŽ VI 487) und russ. kimša kišit – von einem großen Gewimmel, gestellt wird.

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and finally also the monumental achievement of Johann Bretke, the first translation of the entire Bible into a Baltic language, namely Lithuanian, in the last third of the 16th century. He used Luther’s translation primarily as his Vorlage, although he also translated parts from Latin. The investigation of phraseologisms in such a text must take a number of peculiarities into account:

a) First and foremost, a particularly close relationship to the source texts is, of course, characteristic. The sacred text must be followed strictly, and liberties are not readily permitted. At the same time, however, the translation must reach and be understood by its hearers and readers. This tension gives rise to particular problems when Phraseme in the source language (i.e., the immediate Vorlage) have to be rendered in the target language. The modern Lithuanian Phrasem (sàvo) krỹžių nešti ‘to suffer greatly’ (FŽ 353) already has a precursor in the Bretke Bible, as well as a variant that closely follows Luther’s Vorlage:

(11) ir jei kas ne neſchaie krížaus sawa ir eit paskui manes: ne gal buti mana Apaſchtalas – Vnd wer nicht ſein Creutz tregt, vnd mir nachfolget, der kan nicht mein Jĕnger ſein – Et, qui non baiulat crucem suam et venit post me, non potest esse meus discipulus (Lk XIV 27);

(12) Kurſai mane nor ſekti, te uſsigina pats sawe ir teim Krížu ant sawes – Whoever wishes to follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Mk VIII 34). Cf. German to bear one’s cross; to take one’s cross upon oneself ‘to endure one’s sufferings patiently’ (MDI 271), which is likewise prefigured in Latin, although surely in cases where the text speaks of Jesus carrying his cross, the expression is still pre-phraseological.

In a number of other cases, there are renderings of verbal Phraseme that closely follow the Vorlage, such as bùrną laikýti ‘to keep silent’, literally ‘to hold one’s mouth’, and láužti širdį ‘to (nearly) kill someone with grief’, literally ‘to break the heart’:

(13) Bei ſchitai eſti pawarguliojo Nūdeia, jog Piktenibe sawa Burną turres laikiti – Vnd ift des Armen hoffnung, das die bosheit wird iren mund müſſen zuhalten – et erit egeno spes, iniquitas autem contrabet os suum (Job V 16);

(14) Ka darot, werkdomi, ir lauſzdami mano ſchirdi? – What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? – Then Paul answered: “What are you doing, weeping and grieving my heart?” (Acts XXI 13).

The Phrasem bùrną laikýti is not characteristic of standard Lithuanian; according to FŽ 114, it occurs in the western and northwestern dialects, as well as in the works of Kristijonas Donelaitis, Philip Ruhig, Johannes Brodowski

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and Ieva Simonitytė. Incidentally, the Quandt Bible has a very similar expression here (sawo burną užlaikyti), which likewise seems to have arisen under German influence; cf.:

(14a) Ir yra warg=dieno nuflitikkėjimas, kad piktenybe turrės sawo burna užlaikyti.

As for the phraseme láužti širdį, I was unable to find it in later sources. The Dictionary of the Lithuanian Academy (LKŽ XIV 884) records only phrasemes with prefixed verbs and other meanings, so I suspect that Bretke gives equivalents here in both cases for German den Mund halten ‘keep one’s mouth shut’ and das Herz brechen ‘break the heart’, closely following Luther’s Vorlage. The Latin Vorlage differs markedly in form, with the verb affligere ‘to throw violently; dash; knock down, injure; depress the spirits; make the heart heavy’. In the Quandt Bible we find an expression of the type ‘make the heart heavy’; cf.:

(14b) Bet Powil’s atfake: ką dárote jūs, werkdami, ir mano Birdį funkindami?

Bretke generally understands the phrasemes in Luther’s Vorlage quite well and renders them accurately, although he often follows Luther closely. In what follows, I cite one of the few unsuccessful instances of translation:

(15) Anis wiſzą ſawa Nora iſchpilde ant manes – Sie haben iren mut mit einander an mir gekü^elet – Aperuerunt super me ora sua (Job XVI 10). Jonas Palionis did not happen by chance to correct, in his commentary, Bretke’s rather incomprehensible translation of this predicative phraseme in B RR 14, rendering it as follows:

(16) Jie visą savo apmaudą išgiežė ant manęs, cf. Lithuanian apmaudą giežti ant ko, kam ‘to be angry; vent one’s anger on someone’. Modern German sein Mütchen an j-m kühlen means ‘to take out one’s high-spirited (bad) mood, (one’s anger) on someone’. Luther also has the non-diminutive Mut, but already also uses mütlein; cf. LSR III 664 (for further discussion, see Eckert 2004).

b) It should be borne in mind that the expression in the Vorlage, i.e. in Luther, differs from present-day German, and that Bretke’s translation equivalent must therefore be assessed accordingly. The following examples are instructive in this respect:

(17) ...wadinamas Hiobas, tas buwa praſtas ir geras [teiſus] Diewobians ir pikta wengis – der hies Hiob, Derſelb war ſchlecht und recht, Gottfürchtig, und meidet das böſe –...nomine Job, et erat vir ille simplex et rectus ac timens Deum et recedens a malo (Job I 1);

(18) Er ne dabóieisi mana Tarno Hiobo? Neſa nera iem ligaus Sžemeie, praſtas ir geras /teiſus/, Diewo bijans ir pikta wengis – Have you not taken notice of my servant Job? For there is none like him on earth, a simple and upright man, fearing God and shunning evil –

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has no equal in the land, simple and upright. God-fearing... – Numquid considerasti servum meum Iob, quod non sit ei similis in terra, homo simplex et rectus ac timens Deum et recedens a malo (Job I 8).

The rhyming or paired formula simple and upright is already known in Middle High German, and Luther uses it several times in his Bible translation, besides the passages cited above, also in 2 Sam XV 3 and Psalm XXV 21. For the latter passage, cf.:

(18a) Pratibe ir teifibe [this] protected me, for I wait for you – Simple and upright protected me, for I wait for you (TE 84–85)³.

The Early New High German expression simple and upright meant ‘simple (=plain) and correct’; cf. LSR III 853. Only after Luther did its meaning increasingly shift in a negative direction; cf. the modern simple and upright ‘with difficulty, imperfectly’; more badly than well ‘as well as possible, but imperfectly’ (MDI 415). Bretke renders schlecht (=plain) convincingly with prastas, probably borrowed from Slavic, which could also mean ‘simple’ (alongside the already more negative ‘poor, insignificant’); cf. Skardžius (1931: 176). For the second component of the paired form, he uses geras or teisus, which also means, among other things, ‘honest, upright’. In the Quandt Bible, the corresponding word pair in both passages is wiernas ir teisus, where wiernas is in turn a Slavicism meaning ‘faithful, believing, honest’; cf. Skardžius (1931: 236).

c) The translator’s close relationship to the Vorlage ultimately raises the question of borrowing—in phraseology, especially translation borrowing (calquing)—although this is often not easy to determine. One may perhaps assume that in the cases above, such as burną laikyti, širdį laužti, as well as in a number of other examples, such calques are present. Partial or hybrid translation borrowings can be identified unambiguously; they are characterized by one component being adopted (borrowed) directly from the source language, while the other component (or components) is translated. Cf.:

(19) PONas ufžu ius Baiu mufch [will fight] – The LORD will fight for you... – Dominus pugnabit pro vobis (Exodus XIV 14). For fight, Bretke uses baju mušti, which goes back to East Slavic *bojb biti ‘to wage battle’. Lithuanian mušti is the translation of East Slavic biti, whereas bojb (Polish boj, Belarusian and Russian boj) was borrowed directly into Lithuanian as bajus, bojus ‘strife, battle’, as is evidenced by

³ This work became available to me only shortly before the completion of the present article.

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according to Fraenkel (LEW I 30), in Bretke and in the Kniga Nobaznistes. The figura etymologica mūši mūšti ‘to fight, wage war’ is, incidentally, common in the language of Lithuanian folklore; cf.:

(20) I was in a great war; there they fought a great battle, there they made a fence of swords (from L. Rhesa’s collection of folksongs, according to LKŽ VIII 454–455). East Slavic *biti bojb is also a figura etymologica, certainly very old on the basis of the ablaut pattern in the root vowel. It is attested in the following examples, which already show a certain shift in meaning; cf.:

(21) Old Belarusian боем бул ‘he beat [someone] through a brawl, a fight’ (GSBM 120; the example dates from the 15th century);

(22) Russian dialectal Чему ж меня отец-мать не учила – До кровавого боя не била ‘Why did my parents not teach me / or beat me until I bled’ (around Smolensk, according to SRNG 66). The glossing of baju muš ti as kariauti ‘to wage war’ points to the original meaning of the expression. Skardžius (1931: 37) traces Old Lithuanian bajus, bojus back to Belarusian boj or Polish boj. It seems to me that East Slavic is primarily the likely source language. It is noteworthy that the Quandt Bible also has karauti here (corresponding to Early New High German streiten in the Vorlage and to Vulgate pugnare):

(22a) The Lord will wage war karáus for you...

d) It cannot be ruled out that in a number of instances Bretke offers paraphrases for individual word forms in Luther’s text, resulting in word combinations. Whether these are stable or even somewhat idiomatic is difficult to judge. Cf. German frönen – Lithuanian dirbti per baudžiavą:

(23) Go then, work through the corvée (corrected from baudžiwą) – So go now and serve (Exodus V 18);

German whistle – Lithuanian giedojome wamzdeis:

(24) We sang to you with pipes (wam/ḑziu), but you did not dance – We have piped to you, and you have not danced – Cantavimus vobis tibiis, et non saltastis (Luke VII 32).

ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF PHRASemes IN BRETKE’S BIBLE TEXT

1. Harald Burger has dealt in detail with identifying Phraseme in older German texts (Burger and others 1982: 346–382), and has focused in particular on clues that can be derived from translated texts—

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(op. cit.: 356–360). From his typology of correspondences, I would like to discuss only one type, for which I have found numerous examples in the material I have collected.

This is the type “source language: one word – target language: a phrase,” although additional criteria must be met for the phrase in the target language to be considered probably phraseological. A significant number of examples can be identified in Bretke’s Bible translation, forming two subgroups:

a) The source language (the Luther text) has the Early New High German preposition fur ‘before’, which corresponds in Old Lithuanian in the target language to the expression po akim (literally: ‘before the eyes’), used with designations of persons, institutions, peoples, etc., which are in the genitive singular or genitive plural; cf.:

(25) ...that my name might be borne po akim of the Gentiles and kings, and po akim of the children of Israel – that he should bear my name fur the Gentiles, and fur the kings, and fur the children of Israel – ut portet nomen meum coram gentibus et regibus et filiis Israel (Acts IX 15);

(26) Po akim Karaliaus ne tieſa dariti (...) ira ne apikanta. Nefa per teiſibe Sołtas ira pałtiprinamas – (1546) Fur den Königen to act unjustly is an abomination. For through righteousness the throne is established – Abominantur reges agere impie, quoniam iustitia firmatur solium (Prov. XVI 12). For this example, we may assume that Bretke used the 1546 edition of the Bible and not the 1522 one; for here we read: It is an abomination to kings when they act godlessly. For through righteousness the throne is established. The Latin source likewise gives no reason for using po akim; only Luther’s 1546 translation does.

b) In many examples, the Early New High German preposition fur ‘before’ occurs in combination with pronouns, and correspondingly the Old Lithuanian expression po akim:

(27) And when the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down akim before him, cried out, and said, “You are the Son of God” – And when the unclean spirits saw him, they fell fur before him, cried out, and said, “You are God’s son” – Et spiritus immundi, cum illum videbant, procidebant ei et clamabant dicentes: „Tu es Filius Dei!“ (Mark III 11);

Here, too, it is Luther’s translation that provides the basis for the use of po akim.

(28) If you sit down to eat with a lord, then take heed. What is akim before you – When you sit and eat with a lord, then take note of whom you have fur before you – Quando sederis, ut comedas cum principe, diligenter attende, quae apposita sunt ante faciem tuam (Prov. XXIII 1). Here, too, I assume that Bretke most likely used the 1546 edition of Luther’s Bible (quoted just above), although the 1522 edition also contains a fur: So take heed of what stands fur before thee. The Latin source, however, has the even more explicit ante faciem ‘before the face’.

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c) In some cases Bretke renders Luther’s bey dir mit po tawa akim:

(29) Kas po tawa akim ko ƒtow? – Who is anything bey dir to you? – Quid ad te? (Job XXXV 3);

(30) Neƒa ir tarnƒibes po tawa akim ne tamƒibes ira. Ir naktiſ ƒzib kaip diena, tarnƒibe ira kaip ƒchwieƒibe – For even darkness is not dark bey dir, and the night shines like the day; darkness is like light – etiam tenebrae non obscurabuntur a te (Ps 139 12).

d) In a number of cases, po akim ira renders the presence, existence of something:

(31) ...neƒa Piuwe po akim ira – for the harvest is at hand – quoniam adest messis (Mk IV 29);

(32) Schi tai, hadina po akim ira, kaip Sunus ƒzmog aus ingi rankas Griefchnuj tur buti iſchdu- tas – Behold, the hour is here when the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of sinners – ecce appropinquauit hora (Mt XXVI 45). The 1522 edition differs slightly: ƒihe, die ƒtund iſt er bey komen (i.e. has come), similar to the Latin Vorlage (to approach, come near).

It should, however, also be noted that in a few cases Bretke translates the word combinations von ihren Augen as pa akim iu and vor mein Angesicht as mano akim, that is, completely literally:

(33) Girpelnei ne iſſilaika po tawa akim – The wicked do not endure before your eyes – neque permanebunt iniusti ante oculos tuos (Ps 5 6);

(34) Eƒch Wieƒchpati wiƒsada tureiau po mano akim – (1546) I have set the LORD always before my face (Acts II 25). The 1522 Luther edition has here: Ich hab den herren allȝeyt furgeſeſt fur meyn gesicht (Acts II 25).

I was unable to determine fully whether variation between po akim // po akiu was already attested in Bretke’s time. In her monograph, Jolanta Gelumbeckaitė (2002: 167–168) maintains that pa akiu was corrected to pa akim in the following example:

(35) ...nuleida pa akiu (corrected to: pa akim) Jesaus – in the midst of them, before Jesus – summiserunt... ante Iesum (Lk V 19).

On the basis of the evidence available to me, I could not determine whether this is also the case in the following examples:

(36) ... ir nuwede ghi po akiu (po akim) Rodos –...and brought him before the council – et adduxerunt in concilium (Acts VI 12);

(37) Ir atwadina anus po ƒawo akiu (po sawo akim) – and set them before themselves (Acts IV 7). Finally, the constructions į akis // po akim ‘toward’ alternate:

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(38)...ir kaip ne mȧgzas furtmas prieſch mus buwo (po akim, į akis) wissa nussitikȩghima sziwato pametem – (1546) and not a small storm was against us, all hope of our lives was gone – et tempestate non exiqua imminente (Acts XXVII 20). Incidentally, this passage reads differently in the 1522 Luther edition from the version just cited: and not a small tempest lay upon our necks, all hope of our lives was gone. The Vulgate likewise has a different formulation here. It must be emphasized that, given its meaning, po akim // į akis is to be regarded as separate from the phrase po akim ‘before’.

It is of interest that the typological relationships between Early New High German fur ‘before’ and Old Lithuanian po akim may be compared with the etymologies of Latin coram and Greek ἐν-ώπιον; compare Latin coram, the preposition ‘in the presence of; before’, which derives from co(m) ‘with’ + ōram, from ōs, ōris ‘mouth, face, opening’⁴; and Greek ἐν-ώπιον, preposition meaning 1. ‘against’, 2. ‘before’, 3. ‘in relation to’, 4. ‘in the presence of’, which is itself related to Greek ὤψ, ἡ, Pl τα ὦπα ‘gaze; appearance; Pl. ‘eyes, face’’. Compare Homeric εἰς ὦπα ἰδέασθαι ‘look someone in the face; look into someone’s eyes’. For a more detailed discussion, see Eckert (2004: 51–62).

2. In my view, an important criterion for identifying a phraseme is the discovery of phraseme variants (in Bretke’s Bible text, in other Old Lithuanian linguistic monuments, and also in the language of the source text). Free word combinations do not form variants. In what follows, I present only a few examples from among a larger number of cases; compare:

a) Luther’s nominal phraseme heulen und zeenklappen⁵, our modern Heulen und Zähneklappern ‘general fear and despair’ (MID 212), is represented in Bretke by the following variant expressions:

(39)...werkſmas ir grieſzumas dantų – There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – Ibi erit fletus et stridor dentium (Luke XIII 28): kaukim as ir dantu drebeghimas (Gallus: kaukim as ir dan-tu klabeghimas) (Matthew XIII 42). B. Vilentas has verksmas ir griežimas dantų (according to LKŽ XVIII 760), while contemporary Lithuanian has the already shortened variant dantų griežimas (FŽ 129).

b) The verbal phraseme griežti dantis ant ko or griežti dantimis ant ko, literally ‘to gnash one’s teeth (with one’s teeth) at someone’, with the phraseological meaning ‘to be angry with someone’, is attested in the following passage:

⁴ Siehe Alois Walde (1910: 191). Für den wertvollen Hinweis auf latein. cōram und griech. ἐν-ώπιον in der Diskussion zu meinem Vortrag bin ich Frau Prof. Dr. Jolanta Gelumbeckaitė (Frankfurt) sehr dankbar.

⁵ Keith Spalding (HDGFU III 1319) records the variant in Hans Sachs: heulen, grießgramen und zeenklappern.

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(40) Kaip tai girdeio, eio iemus per schirdi, ir griežę dantis (dantimis) ant jo – (1546) When they heard this, it pierced their hearts, and they gnashed their teeth at him – Audien-tes autem haec, dissecabantur cordibus suis et stridebant dentibus in eum (Acts VII 54). The 1522 edition has a slightly different version: When they heard this, their hearts were cut, and they gnashed their teeth at him. Old Lithuanian griesze dantis evidently has the morphological variant griesze dantimis. The new academic dictionary of Lithuanian phraseology (FŽ 131–132) lists a whole series of variants for this phraseme: danįti giẽžti, danįti griežti, dančių griežti, dantis griežti und dantimis griežti – all meaning ‘to be angry; pykti’. A. Kurschat (LDW I 646) also records the variant sàvo iltį grięžti ant ko (literally ‘to gnash one’s eye-tooth at someone’) ‘to be angry with someone’.

c) Bretke’s equivalents for German zu Herzen nehmen: deti širdina and deti širdiesp(i):

(41) Set your heart on my teaching – Vnd nim zu herczen meine Lere – Inclina aurem tuam et audi verba sapientium, appone autem cor ad doctrinam meam (Prov. XXII 17);

(42) ...and the living takes it to heart (Eccl. VII 3).

d) The adverbial phraseme iš visos sylos also occurs in Bretke in the variant iš visų sylų; compare:

(43) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength (isch wissu silu) – You shall love God your LORD with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might... (Luke X, 27). The notes to the New Testament text edition (Range Ed 488) draw attention to the sandhi phenomenon in wissa silas (< visos sylos), as well as to the expressions in the source texts: Luther – with all your might, Vulgate – et ex omnibus viribus tuis.

3. Clues for identifying a phraseme are provided by the anchoring of an image and the expression that conveys it in a particular culture and language, with this expression being clearly distinguished from similar but separate expressions in other languages and cultures. This applies especially to phrasemes that acquire a certain symbolic character. Consider, for example, the Old Testament “milk and honey,” represented by “a land where milk and honey flow” = ‘a land of riches, abundance, prosperity, extraordinary possibilities; a promised land’; compare:

(44) ...and that I might bring them out of this land into a good and broad land, into a land flowing with milk and honey –...and bring them out of this land into a good and spacious land, into a land where milk and honey flow... – et educam de terra illa in terram bonam et spatiosam, in terram quae fluit lacte et melle (Exodus III 8).

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(45) ...Into the land flowing with milk and honey... – Into the land in which milk and honey flow – ad terram fluentem lacte et melle (2 Mose III 17)⁶.

Alongside the variants pienas ir medus and pienas ir midus, there is also medus ir sviestas ‘milk and butter’, which already occurs in this form in Luther’s source text and in the Vulgate:

(46) He will not see the streams nor the watercourses flowing with honey and butter – He shall not see the streams, nor the brooks of water that flow with honey and butter – Non videat rivulos olei, torrentes melles et butyri (Hiob XX 17).

The paired formula with ‘honey and milk’ also occurs in the Song of Solomon, following a comparison that includes the term for honeycomb:

(47) Your lips, my bride, are like dripping honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue... – Thy lips, my bride, are like dripping honeycomb; honey and milk are under thy tongue – Favus distillans labia tua, sponsa; mel et lac sub lingua tua (Hohel Sal IV 11).

At another place in the Song of Solomon, “honeycomb,” “honey,” “wine,” and “milk” probably still occur in pre-phraseological use, and thus also provide the point of departure for the variant “milk and wine”; cf.:

(48) I ate my honeycomb and honey; I drank my wine and milk – I have eaten my honeycomb together with my honey; I have drunk my wine together with my milk – comedi favum cum melle, bibi vinum cum lacte meo (Hohel Sal V 1)

Keith Spalding (HDGFU V 1692) vermerkt, dass auch „Milch“ und „Wein“ in Juxtaposition vorkommen und zwar ebenfalls in der Bibel, vgl.:

(49) ...the mountains shall drip with new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk – stillabunt montes mustum, et colles fluent lacte (Joel IV 18). He also cites the expressions “milk” and “sweet fare,” or “milk and wine,” from writings of the Baroque period, e.g.:

(50) my mouth refreshed me with milk and sweet fare’;

(51) to the promised land, where milk and wine continually flow in.

In the passages cited above, the Quand Bible has the same expressions, namely pienas bey meddus and meddus ir swi estas, cf.:

(51a) ...and bring you out of this land into a good and broad land, a land in which milk and honey flow (2 Mose III 8);

⁶ Here Bretke uses, instead of the otherwise usual Old Lithuanian medus ‘honey’, the somewhat different midus ‘mead, honeycomb’, which is semantically very apt and represents a certain transition to the variants with “wine.” Fraenkel assumes that midus is a borrowing from Germanic (LEW 446–447).

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(51b) And I will bring you to the land... where milk and honey flow (2 Mose III 17);

(51c) He will not see the rivers, nor the streams, flowing with honey and cream (Hiob XX 17);

Kazys Grigas behandelt in seiner Monographie Литовские пословицы (1987: 77–95) das litauische Sprichwort Kur mūšų nēra, veršiai midų geria (wörtlich: ‘Wo wir nicht sind, trinken die Kälber Honigtrank’; Sinn: ‘Wo wir nicht sind, ist es sehr gut’) und seine vielzähligen Varianten. Dabei streift er die biblischen Wendungen des Typs „Milch und Honig“ und verbindet das lit. Sprichwort Kur mūšų nēra, ten ir upės pienu plaukia damit. Er unterstreicht allerdings, dass letzteres ironisch gebraucht wird, was auf die biblischen Wendungen keineswegs zutrifft, allerdings ist der Einfluss der biblischen Wendung augenscheinlich. Von besonderem Interesse jedoch ist, dass Grigas unter Verweis auf meinen ersten Aufsatz zur historischen Phraseologie des Baltischen und Slawischen (siehe Eckert 1968: 79–81) für diese Sprachen eine alte Wendung „Honig & Bier trinken“ voraussetzt, der gegenüber das oben erwähnte litauische Sprichwort spezieller und jünger ist. Nach meiner Meinung existiert neben der biblischen (alttestamentlichen und möglicherweise mit der hebräischen Folkloretradition in Zusammenhang stehenden) Wendung „Milch und Honig“ bzw. „Honig und Wein“ eine davon völlig separat zu betrachtende Wendung „Honig & Bier“ (ostbalt. medus & alus; ursl. medъ & olъ) im Baltischen und Slawischen, die auf die Verknüpfung (und Opposition) der Bezeichnungen für das alte berauschende Süßgetränk und Bittergetränk zurückgehen. Es liegen hier von ihrem Inhalt gesehen ziemlich ähnliche Wendungen vor, die jedoch ganz verschiedenen Traditionen und damit zusammenhängenden Kulturen entspringen.

4. When identifying phraseological units, several attestations from one linguistic monument or several attestations from different linguistic monuments of the same period are helpful. One example is the fixed comparison (or comparative phraseological unit) “A is as white as snow”:

(52) And his appearance was like lightning, and his garment white as snow – And ſeine geſtalt war wie der bliʒ, vnd ſein Kleid weis als der ſchnee – Erat autem aspectus eius sicut fulgur, et veſtimentum eius candidum sicut nix (Mt XXVIII 3).

The following attestation from Bretke’s Postil of 1599 (II 399) is known from Klementina Vosylyte (LKPŽ 250) (with its spelling already adjusted to modern norms):

(53) And his garment white as snow.

In Samuel Boguslav Chylinski’s Bible translation, the same passage reads:

(54) His garments white as snow (According to LKŽ XIII 250, likewise with normalized spelling).

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ON SOME PROVERBS AND TWO GREETING FORMULAS

In this final section, I would like to make a few remarks on phraseotextemics, specifically on an important area within it: paroemias, or proverbs.

1. Let us first consider the German proverb Whoever digs a pit for someone else will fall into it himself, whose source is identified as the Proverbs of Solomon in Horst and Annelies Beyer’s “Dictionary of Proverbs” (1987: 232). It reads:

(55) Kafasis dübe, ipuls. Ir kas raicӡoji (?) [in place of the crossed-out ritta] akmeni, ant to puls (ateis) – Whoever makes a pit will fall into it, And whoever rolls a stone, it will come upon him – Qui fodit foveam, incidet in eam; et, qui volvit lapidem, revertetur ad eum (Prov XXVI 27), and

(56) O kaſanſis dübe, pats ipuls. Ir ardanti tworą, kirmis (ſzaltis, ingels) įkas – But whoever makes a pit will fall into it himself, and whoever breaks through a fence will be bitten by a snake (Eccl X 8). Both passages cited contain another synonymous proverb. The figurative proverb that concerns us can probably be rendered as follows: ‘The one who would inflict harm on someone else suffers it himself.’

There is a connection between phraseotextemes and phrasemes, consisting above all in the fact that quite a few phrasemes are made up of parts (segments) of phraseotextemes; in other words, one way phrasemes are formed is through the detachment of parts of phraseotextemes. Compare:

(57) Jus uſӡpūlat Sȳrata, ir kaſat Artimoiui iuſu Dūbe – (1545) And you fall upon a poor orphan, and dig a pit for your neighbor – Super pupillum irruitis et subvertere nitimini amicum vestrum (Job VI 27). Bretke probably also draws here on the 1545 Luther edition, since the 1524 edition has a somewhat different wording: you fall upon a poor orphan and wipe out your neighbor.

2. Proverbs also often have variants; compare:

(58) Ne wienas bernas ne gal dwiem ponam ſluſziti – No servant can serve two masters – Nemo servus potest duobus dominis servire (Luke XVI 13), and

(59) Newienas negal dwiem Ponam ſluſziti – No one can serve two masters (Matt VI 24). The proverb just cited is already more generalized by the omission of bernas.

3. Although the following examples differ considerably from one another in some respects, they should nevertheless be understood as variants of one phraseotexteme (here, a proverb):

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(60) Bet Jefus biloio jemus. Nera Prarakas be czel̄ties, tiktai Tiewifchkioia ir namie prieg ſawuiu – But Jesus said to them, A prophet is held in no less esteem anywhere than in his fatherland, and at home among his own – Et dicebat eis Iesus: “Non est propheta sine honore nisi in patria sua et in cognatione sua et in domo sua” (Mk VI 4).

(61) Prarakas niekur ne tur maſz̄efnios garbes, net Tiewifchkioia sawa, ir sawa Namūſu – (1546) A prophet is held in no less esteem anywhere than in his fatherland and in his own house (Mt XIII 57). Here, too, the 1522 Luther edition differs: A prophet is held in no less esteem anywhere than at home and among his own.

(62) Ne wienas prarakas (wiens praraks) priīmtas ira tewiſchkiei sawa – No prophet is welcome in his fatherland (Lk IV 24).

(63) Nesa ghis pats Jeſus liudīja, ſog Prarakas ſawo tiewiſchkeie garbes ne tur – For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no standing at home (Jh IV 44).

It goes without saying that many more proverbs occur in Bretke’s Bible translation, and only a few could be discussed here by way of example. In general, it can be observed that the proverbial lexicon of modern European languages has been shaped to a significant extent by the paremias already found in the Bible.

For the sake of completeness, I will conclude by citing two phraseotextemes with an appellative function (here: greetings):

(64) Giwenk ſu Diewu [weikas]! – Farewell! (Acts XXIII 30). Here it is necessary to consider a larger context: this is a letter written by the chief captain to Claudius Lysias, quoted in this 23rd chapter, at the end of which the greeting mentioned above appears. The alternative greeting added (Swei-kas!) leaves no doubt that Giwenk su Diewu! (literally: ‘Live with God!’) is a greeting. This greeting also occurs in abbreviated form in the following example:

(65) Su Diewu (!) – Farewell! –...to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from fornication; if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell (Acts XV 29). I cite an expanded context from the 1546 Luther edition: That ye abstain from what is offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; if ye keep yourselves from these, ye do well. Farewell.

Naturally, further examples of this type of phraseotexteme could also be cited.

What has been presented shows that the complete translation of the Bible into Old Lithuanian by Johann Bretke reflects the full richness and great diversity of the phraseological units contained in Holy Scripture. This concerns the various categories of phraseological

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…gical units, beginning with minimal phraseological units of the type Old Lithuanian po akim, proceeding through the various classes of phraseological units (such as nominal, verbal, predicative, and adverbial phraseological units, etc.) and on to special types such as binomial expressions, fixed comparisons, phraseological schemata, figurae etymologicae, and finally various types of phraseological texts (proverbs, greeting formulas). A substantial part of the study is devoted to the discussion of how the idiomatic expressions found in M. Luther are rendered and translated by Bretke; with a few exceptions, these can be described as successful. The problems of calquing are discussed in detail. Particular attention is paid to phraseological variants and to the various degrees of idiomaticity of the expressions under consideration.

Some of the problems mentioned (such as the relationship between Early New High German fur ‘before’ and Old Lithuanian po akim, as well as the equivalents of Early New High German seinen Mut / Mütelein / an j-m (ab)kühlen in the Bretke Bible, in other Old Lithuanian monuments, and in modern Lithuanian) were further investigated and described in my article Phrase and Idiom in Bretke’s Old Lithuanian Bible.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize just one point: the ideal would be to produce a concise monographic description of every individual phraseological unit and phraseological text in the Bible, taking account of the source language (the Luther Bible, but also its Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Vorlage) and the target language (the Old Lithuanian of the final third of the 16th century). This would provide a basis, satisfactory in every respect, for diachronic research into Lithuanian phraseology.

REFERENCES

Beyer Horst, Beyer Annelies 1987: Sprichwörterlexikon. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut.

Burger Harald, Buhofer Annelies, Sialm Ambros 1982: Handbuch der Phraseologie. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.

Eckert Rainer 1968: Minimale Textfragmente im Slawischen und ihre Entsprechungen im Baltischen. – Baltistica 4(1), 79–81.

Eckert Rainer 1987: Martin Luther und das frühe baltische Schrifttum. – Polata knigopisnaja sī (Priloženije Early protestantism in Eastern Europe, ed. by Veronica du Feu) 16, 6–25.

Eckert Rainer 1991: Studien zur historischen Phraseologie der slawischen Sprachen (unter Berücksichtigung des Baltischen) (Slawistische Beiträge 281). München: Verlag Otto Sagner.

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Eckert Rainer 2004: Phrase and Idiom in Bretke’s Old Lithuanian Bible. – Studies in Baltic and Indo-European Linguistics. In honor of William R. Schmalstieg, ed. by Philip Baldi, Pietro U. Dini. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 51–62.

Eckert Rainer, Günther Kurt 1992: Die Phraseologie der russischen Sprache. Leipzig–Berlin–München–Wien–Zürich–New York: Langenscheidt Verlag Enzyklopädie.

Frazeologia a religia (Problemy frazeologii europejskiej 2), pod red. Andrzeja M. Lewickiego i Wojciecha Chlebdy. Warszawa: Energeia, 1997.

FŽ – Frazeologijos žodynas, red. Jonas Paulauskas. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2001.

Gelumbeckaite Jolanta 2002: Linksnių ir prielinksnių konstrukcijų sintaksė Jono Bretkūno Biblijos Evangelijoje pagal Luką (Opera linguistica Lithuanica 1). Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.

Grigas Kazys 1987: Литовские пословицы. Вильнюс: Vaga.

GSBM – Гістарычны слоўнік беларускай мовы, рэд. А. И. Жураўскі, вып. 2, Мінск: Навука і тэхніка, 1983.

HDGFU – Spalding Keith. An Historical Dictionary of German Figurative Usage 3, 5. Oxford: Blackwell, 1974, 1991.

LDW I–IV – Kurchat Alexander. Litauisch-deutsches Wörterbuch 1–4. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968–1973.

LEW I–II – Fraenkel Ernst. Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch 1–2. Heidelberg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962–1965.

LKFŽ – Paulauskas Jonas. Lietuvių kalbos frazeologijos žodynas. Kaunas: Šviesa, 1977.

LKPŽ – Vosylytė Klementina. Lietuvių kalbos palyginimų žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1985.

LKŽ – Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language 1–2, Vilnius: Mintis, 1968–1969; 3–6, Vilnius: State Publishing House for Political and Scientific Literature, 1956–1962; 7–9, Vilnius: Mintis, 1966–1973; 10–15, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1976–1991; 16–17, Vilnius: Publishing House of Science and Encyclopedias, 1995–1996; 18–20, Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopedia Publishing, 1997–2002.

LSR I–IV – Röhrich Lutz. Lexikon der sprichwörtlichen Redensarten 1–4. Freiburg–Basel–Wien: Herder Verlag, 1973.

MDI – Wolf Friedrich. Moderne deutsche Idiomatik. München: Max Hueber Verlag, 1976.

NVBS – Nova vulgata Bibliorum sacrorum editio. Romae: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1979.

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Skardžius Pranas 1931: Die slavischen Lehnwörter im Altlitauischen. – Tauta ir žodis 7, 3–249.

SRNG – Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects, ed. F. P. Filin, issue 3. Leningrad: Nauka, 1968.

TE – Text-Critical Edition of the Translation of the Psalter into the Lithuanian Language by Johannes Bretke, pastor in Labiau and Königsberg i. Pr., based on the manuscript from 1580 and the revised version of this Psalter by Johannes Rehsa, pastor in Königsberg i. Pr., based on the printed edition from 1625, together with the translation of the Psalter into German by Martin Luther, based on the edition from 1545, with the collaboration of Friedemann Kluge, introduction and edited by Friedrich Scholz, Biblia Slavica, edited by Hans Rothe and Friedrich Scholz, with the collaboration of Christian Hannick and Ludger Udolph, Series VI: Supplementum: Biblia Lithuanica, Series 2: Editions, Volume 6, Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, Zurich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2002.

Walde Alois 1910: Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2. Auflage. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Verlag.

WW – Words and Expressions. Dictionary of German Usage, edited by Erhard Agricola with the collaboration of Herbert Görner and Ruth Küfner. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1975.

Бирих Александр, Мокиенко Валерий, Степанова Людмила 1998: Словарь русской фразеологии. Историко-этимологический справочник. Под ред. В. М. Мокиенко, Санкт-Петербург: Фолио-Пресс.

Гак Владимир 1996: Специфика библейских фразеологизмов в русском языке. – Frazeologia a religia. Tezy referatów międzynarodowego sympozjum naukowego. Opole, 4–6 września 1996 r., 10.

THE SOURCES

I. For my study, I have used only parts of the Old Testament, namely those contained in the edition by J. Palionis and J. Žukauskaitė Jonas Bretkunas. Selected Writings (abbreviated: B, RR), Vilnius 1983: 33–312. The accompanying commentary (pp. 332–359) was also taken into account.

II. I was able to work through the New Testament of Bretke’s Bible translation using the as-yet unpublished edition volume 7 (abbreviated: Range Ed). I would like to express my sincere thanks to Prof. Dr. Jochen D. Range for kindly lending me this volume for a time.

The edition in question is: Navias Testamentas Ing Lietuwischka Lieszuwi perraschitas per Jana Bretkuna Labguwos plebona 1580. The New Testament translated into the Lithuanian language by Johann Bretke, pastor in Labiau, 1580. Edition of the manuscript, vols. 7 and 8,

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Labiau i. Pr. 1580. Bd. 7: Evangelien und Apostelgeschichte. Bearbeitet von Jochen D. Range. Ferdinand Schöningh Paderborn–München–Wien–Zürich sowie um das Beiheft zu Bd. 7: Anmerkungen und Erläuterungen (S. 520–544) bearbeitet von Jochen D. Range.

III. For Luther’s source text, I consulted the following work: D. Martin Luther’s Works. Critical Complete Edition. The German Bible 1522–1546. Vol. 1 – Weimar, 1906; vol. 2 – Weimar, 1909; vol. 6 – Weimar, 1929; vol. 8 – Weimar, 1954; vol. 10, first half – Weimar, 1956; vol. 10, second half – Weimar, 1957; vol. 11, second half – Weimar, 1960.

IV. I cite the Quandt Bible according to: Biblia Tai esti Wissas Szwentas Raßtas Seno ir Naujo Testamento, Karalauczuje, 1736.

[Author’s note: This contribution presents the paper I delivered on 27.09.2002 at the international conference “400 Years of the Lithuanian Bible: Philological and Theological Aspects of Bretke Research.” The conference mentioned was organized by Prof. Dr. Jochen D. Range at the University of Greifswald from 26 to 29 September 2002. Since the proceedings of this conference have not been published to date (08.04.2011), I find myself compelled to publish my work in this way. – R. E.].

On the Phraseology of Johann Bretke’s Bible

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is to discuss phraseologisms in Johann Bretke’s translation of the Bible. This translation contains many complex elements, idioms, and phrasemes. The article distinguishes two categories: elements based on biblical idioms and elements based on particular situations. It offers numerous examples showing that, in Bretke’s translation, a prepositional construction may correspond to a single word in Luther’s Bible. The material presented in the article shows how phraseologisms vary and how they are expressed. The article also mentions phraseologisms that function as sentences, such as greeting formulas; for example, Luther’s Bible reads: Gehab dich wol!: Old Lithuanian Giwenk su Dievu! (farewell): Latin: Valete! (Acts XV 29). It would be important to prepare a brief description of the expression of each biblical phraseme in both the source and target languages, discussing its variants and their specific semantic features.

Received on April 8, 2011.

RAINER ECKERT

Murtzner Ring 16, D-12681 Berlin, Deutschland

[email protected]

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