Search results for "Slavic languages"
showing 10 items of 46 documents
Len’ka Panteleev and the traditions of Van’ka Kain: Criminal Biography in XXth Century Russia
2017
The Fighter against the myth, or the memoirist who considers himself a Hercules (Anton Pavlovich Chekhov: an attempt at a characterization by N.M. Ezhov). The vast corpus about the 1920s Petrograd bandit Len’ka Panteleev, comprised of different texts – such as newspaper articles, fiction, film and song, with a complex and often ambiguous interplay between factual accounts and fictional adaptation – seems untypical for the era. A useful term of comparison is the similar corpus concerning the 18th century Moscow rogue Van’ka Kain. The latter shows all the typical features of 18th century criminal biographies, which at the time were popular throughout Europe. According to Michel Foucault, this…
Names of Snakes in Latvian Texts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
2020
Names of Snakes in Latvian Texts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries This article analyses the naming of snakes in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Latvian texts which are taken from the Corpus of Early Written Latvian Texts, containing the first Latvian dictionaries, religious texts, and some secular texts. The objective of the paper is to try to determine how precisely the translators of religious texts rendered names of snakes, and to ascertain whether any semantic changes have taken place, or whether religious texts show specific use. The study also aims to find out if taboo of dangerous animals, snakes in particular, and related euphemisation is reflected in early Latvian text…
The Electronic Historical Latvian Dictionary Based on the Corpus of Early Written Latvian Texts
2016
The Electronic Historical Latvian Dictionary Based on the Corpus of Early Written Latvian Texts This article deals with the development of the Electronic Historical Latvian Dictionary (http://www.tezaurs.lv/lvvv) based on the Corpus of Early Written Latvian Texts (http://www.korpuss.lv/senie/). Some issues concerning the compilation and processing of the corpus data are discussed and the main sources added to the Corpus during the four-year project are described: the 16th c. Lord’s Prayers , 17th c. dictionaries, texts of oaths and laws, religious texts and so-called dedication poetry. The aim of the project is to compile a pilot electronic dictionary of 16th–17th century Latvian where all…
On flora semantics in house names found in Vidzeme: materials contained in the 1826 counting of souls in Vidzeme province
2014
On flora semantics in house names found in Vidzeme: materials contained in the 1826 counting of souls in Vidzeme province The information of the counting of souls containing both house names and names of individuals is an essential aspect of historical onomastics. The first counting of souls in Vidzeme took place in 1782 and coincided with the 4 th analogous census of the provinces of Russia. Subsequently these took place at irregular intervals, the 5 th in 1795, the 6 th in 1811, the 7 th in 1816, the 8 th in 1834, the 9 th in 1850, and the final, 10 th in 1858. The number of house names entered in the 1826 counting of souls in Vidzeme province (guberna) is 14,500, including those of peasa…
In memoriam: Aina Blinkena (5.09.1929 – 22.11.2017)
2018
In memoriam: Aina Blinkena (5.09.1929 – 22.11.2017) Professor Aina Blinkena passed away on 22 November 2017. Upon her graduation from the Latvian State University in 1953, she began working for the Institute of Language and Literature of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences (today: the Institute of the Latvian Language of the University of Latvia), which became her only permanent workplace. Starting her work as a junior research associate and later – a deputy director and a full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, Aina Blinkena shaped the linguistic thought in Latvia for almost fifty years. Aina Blinkena pursued broad interests in the history of language and linguistics, as well as mo…
Ethnic diversity in the construction of life stories in Latvia
2017
Ethnic diversity in the construction of life stories in Latvia Latvian society is ethnically diverse and has the largest proportion of ethnic minorities of the three Baltic States. The article draws upon life-story research with respondents from Russian and Romany communities in Latvia. These communities have different social, historical and cultural experiences, thereby allowing them to be contrasted and compared. Ethnic diversity can be considered one of the benefits of Latvia’s cultural identity because it provides the opportunity not only to become acquainted with the characteristics and uniqueness of each culture but also to establish which traits unite these cultures, thereby creating…
Slavic Loanwords in the Terms for Dumplings in Latvian
2016
Slavic Loanwords in the Terms for Dumplings in Latvian Food is an essential part of the material culture of every nation. It frequently preserves national traditions and old names longer than other spheres do, additionally, it lets observe the influence of other cultures. According to dictionary data, dumplings were known in Latvia already in the 18th century. Many names for them have been attested in regional subdialects of Latvian; borrowings usually cover wide areas. In this article, basing on ethnographic and linguistic material notations of different antiquity thus tracing the use of names for dumplings almost a century long and referring to dictionary data from 18th–19th century, the …
Atlas of the Baltic languages: from idea to pilot project
2015
Atl as of the B a ltic l a ngu a ge s : from idea to pilot project Dialectologists from Latvian Language Institute of the University of Latvia and the Department of Language History and Dialectology of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, have developed a proposal for a joint project entitled, The Atlas of the Baltic Languages, which is intended to demonstrate the close kinship of these two Baltic languages. A pilot project, supported by a grant from the University of Latvia and Directorate for the Millenium of Lithuania has been carried out between 2006 and 2008 to determine what the form and eventual content of such an atlas might be. In 2009 a summary of work carried out on the pilo…
Atlas of the Baltic languages: plant names of Slavonic origin
2015
Atlas of the Baltic Languages: Plant Names of Slavonic Origin The article investigates Slavonic-derived plant names in dialects of the two surviving Baltic languages – Latvian and Lithuanian. Historically, these Slavonisms were originally adopted by small-scale regional dialects, which are now disappearing. In 2009, a pilot study for the Atlas of the Baltic Languages was published. It comprised 12 geo-linguistic maps with Latvian, Lithuanian and English commentaries. 2012 saw the publication, in CD format, of the Atlas ’s first volume: Lexis 1: Flora . The material analysed concerns names for: (1) wild plants, e.g., cornflower, nettle, waybread, milfoil, dandelion, plantain; (2) cultivated …
Dialects: Early European Studies
2006
The article begins with an overview of dialectology starting with dictionaries and grammars in Switzerland (forerunners) and in Bavaria (1821, 1827–1837). The tradition of dialect atlases beganworldwide with the data collection for the German linguistic atlas (1877–1888) by Georg Wenker. Research on Germanic dialects other than German began between 1841 and 1860 in Denmark, Norway, and Great Britain (also with dictionaries and grammars). It goes on to show that after French and Italian dialectology had concentrated on written dialect collections, several dialect grammars, e.g., for Paris and surrounding areas, appeared as from 1872, culminating in the enormous French dialect atlas ALF betwe…