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The background of the novel Nadberezyńcy by Florian Czarnyszewicz are historical events of the years 1910–1920 in Bobruysk district and the life of lesser nobility of that land. The author included a typical local vocabulary of Northern Borderland. The vocabulary was excerpted and arranged in a mini‑dictionary. Next to each entry the author related the lexemes to the vocabulary of the North‑Eastern Borderland within the territory of Lithuania and Western Belarus and to the languages of the surrounding – Belarusian and Russian. The mini‑dictionary consists of 710 entries.
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Reverend Krzysztof Kluk was born in 1739 in Ciechanowiec, Podlasie region. He was a parson of the Ciechanowiec parish since 1770. He is the author of 14 volumes of works of natural science printed between 1777 and 1789 and a 372‑page manuscript which was a draft of prepared sermons (here we can find loose insertions, mainly on farm topics). All studies were written during his stay in Ciechanowiec. Here he died in 1796. He wrote his works in Polish complying with grammar and spelling rules. Kluk’s works are taken into account in studies about the history of the Polish language. However Kluk’s creativity, especially in the part concerning the life and work of rural population had utilitarian and sometimes extremely practical character. Therefore he used simple language that was understood by people to whom he addressed his works. His utterances often had a colloquial form, taken from the local language. These were agricultural terms, names of objects and activities, emotional words and many other words connected with everyday life and material culture of country people. Numerous examples of dialectal expressions used contemporarily in Ciechanowiec and the neighbourhood can be found in Kluk’s writings. The dialectal layer in Krzysztof Kluk’s heritage is not sufficiently researched or described. Krzysztof Kluk’s works are a source of material – grammar features, phrases and most of all vocabulary common for all North‑Eastern area of Polish. They can be found in 19th century dictionaries of this region as well as in dialectal material recorded even in the second half of the 20th century.
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The Lithuanian traditions of writing were formed in the cultural context of Europe long ago. This article highlights the main characteristics of the Lithuanian alphabet and writing: the spread of the Gothic-type and Latin antiqua in the sixteenth and later centuries, the failed attempts to introduce the Russian “graždanka” at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The main principles of Lithuanian orthography, phonetic, morphologic and traditional (etymologic) are introduced. The traditions and innovations of Lithuanian writing are discussed in the context of the twenty-first century.
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The article discusses historical and dialectal changes of names of chosen body parts in Eastern‑Slavonic languages. Two names formerly occurred in the meaning of ‘forehead’: more frequently *čelo, rarely *lъbъ, which also has other meanings. The first one must have belonged to the higher (book) stratum, the other one – to the lower (folk) stratum. Today *čelo remained vestigially, in literary languages and in dialects *lъbъ stayed common. In all Eastern Slavonic area the name *oči occurred formerly in the meaning of ‘eyes’. The name *glazъ is a Russian innovation. It sporadically appears as early as in the 15th century but it was popularised on the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. It must have been known earlier in Russian dialects but it was probably understood as vulgar. The name of ‘human skin’ occurs mainly in Russian dialects but as a variant it reaches Belarus and Ukraine quite deeply. Today as a literary word it is fixed in Belorussian скýра, Ukrainian шкíра and Russian кóжа. Their fixing in literary languages was a very complex process. In the past the form скорá was also quite popular in Russian however partly in the meaning of ‘animal skin’, ‘leather’, ‘fur’. Undoubtedly the form шкýра appears in the 18th century as well. In the light of dialectal and historical materials it is rather unlikely that this word is a possible borrowing from Polish. The words *lъbъ ‘forehead’, *visъkъ ‘temple’ and *kosa ‘a plait’ also appeared on the Eastern borderland of Poland, besides *kosa ‘a plait’ historically much wider. After World War II łeb ‘a forehead’ and kosa ‘a plait’ were introduced in Western and Northern Poland as well. They started to disappear over time so that ranges of names typical for Eastern‑Slavonic languages were fixed on the Eastern border of Poland.
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This paper presents archaic lexics being in use in the interwar Polish language at the territory of the North‑Eastern borderlands. The analysis has covered peculiar vocabulary noted down from the „Kurier Wileński”, a daily newspaper published in Vilnius during the twenty‑year interwar period. The gathered linguistic phenomena have been confronted with the resources of the Polish and Russian definition dictionaries and translation dictionaries. Also the etymological dictionaries and linguistic guides served as a comparative source. The author has excerpted 96 archaisms, it means the words belonging to the oldest all‑Poland vocabulary. In the period under investigation they were not used any longer in the ethnic Polish language. Among this lexics a significant percentage covers the borrowings from foreign languages. They are Latinisms (azylum, cyrkuł, cyrulik, invidia, investygacyjny, kloaka, kwarta, teatrum, wjatyk) and Germanisms (jegier, junkier, komponista, oberpolicmajster), which as soon as after the post‑partition period were being eliminated from use. A part of the vocabulary referred to was based on the East Slavic languages (Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian). That fact impeded the process to withdraw the words from circulation over the borderlands. This phenomenon was reflected by the language of the editors of the „Kurier Wileński” between 1924 and 1939.
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The aim of the article is discussion of influence of the Polish language on Latvian dialects in the area of Latgale. Close contiguity as well as genetic nearness of Polish, Belorussian and Russian makes it difficult to state categorically which of these languages was a direct source for Latvian. Knowledge of settlement in the area of Latvia does not facilitate this task as these three Slavonic nations considerably reinforced former Livonia and Courland. The material basis of the discussion constitutes two studies – dialectal atlas of Latvian Latviešu valodas dialektu atlants and dialectal texts from Latgale Augšzemnieku dialekta tekst. Latgaliskās izloksnes. The article presents analysis of names which may have appeared in Latvian dialects from Polish. Polish (as well as Belorussian or Russian) could have equivalently affected the range of lexical Latgalian dialects and neighbouring dialectal groups. These are bocjans ‘a stork’, butèlka ‘a bottle’, kòldra ‘a quilt’, mjantuzs, mentuzs ‘a burbot – kind of fish’, skvarkas, škvarkas ‘a crackling’. A separate group is names for which the Polish language (or other Slavonic languages) was a medium for borrowing words of German origin: cegla ‘a brick’, kartufelis ‘a potato’, škùodä ‘a place in a field damaged by animals’, šeļma ‘a knave’, švagàrs ‘a brother in law’. Among Slavonic words there are such words with which it is impossible to decide on the direction of borrowing because of similarity of forms and common proto‑Slavonic source: maļina ‘a raspberry’, sawa ‘an owl’, zapaks ‘a smell’. The source of polonisms in Latvian dialects was words belonging to general Polish. Therefore the argument about considerable influence of Poles who represent higher social strata seems to be confirmed. Moreover we can indicate that Polish North‑Eastern dialect of the Polish borderland must have affected Latgalian dialects however it is difficult to indicate to what extent.
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Since 1908 Latvians have a unified writing – Antiqua or Latin script. Until that two writing traditions historically have been formed themselves – Fraktur or Gothic script used in Low Latvian texts, and Antiqua or Latin script for High Latvians or Latgalians. It should be mentioned that Latgale’s (at that time called Inflanty Polskie) Latvians were separated by a state border from the rest of Latvians’ ethnic territory for almost 300 years (1629–1917). During this separation, the region developed its own written language based on High Latvian dialect. One of the most essential problems connected with the consolidation of Latvian nation was to unite the spelling. It was changed from Fraktur to Antiqua. There were many unsolved problems of Latgalian writing and ortography. This article provides a description of the development of Latgalian writing from the beginning of the 20th century up to now. A short look into the first Latgalian book, the translation of Gospels “Evangelia toto anno…” issued in Vilnius in 1753 is given, as far as this book is considered to be a foundation of Latgalian orthography until the beginning of the 20th century. It has influenced the development of contemporary Latgalian orthography norms as well. In the 30-ies of the 19th century, some Latgalian authors began to follow the change in Polish orthography, e.g. to indicate the second component of the diphthongs [ai, ei] by the letter j. It should be admitted that the use of the letter j was not consequent, as far as the tradition of the existing written language was too strong. In the second half of the 19th century, the printing prohibition of Latin alphabet took place. At that time hand-written books were quite widespread in Latgale. In the most cases the authors of these books followed the written tradition of the first Latgalian books.
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This article includes a letter written by an older history teacher at a high school in Szawli (nowadays Siauliai in Lithuania). It is a document written in 1865, kept in archives of the Vilnius library. The author of the letter – a Russian by birth, educated in an Orthodox seminary and a graduate from The Pedagogical Institute of Petersburg – was delegated to work in so called West Districts of the Russian Empire, inhabited by citizens who spoke no Russian and were mostly Roman Catholics. Teachers of Russian origin, like the author of the quoted letter, considered themselves missionaries, “sheperds and harvesters”, the “harvest” being russification of the Polish and Lithuanian nation, eradication of Polish and Lithuanian languages, formal complaints and reports about people circulating books in these languages, and providing Russian publications. Such work in the time free from lessons at school was mentioned in the letter from an average teacher to his councellor – curator in Vilnius District. So this is not a letter as such, but e report.
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The authors came to a conclusion that in the now forgotten ‘Dictionary of Language Errors’, published in Vilnius in 1931 and compiled by a local Polish scholar Julian Szwed, lexical germanisms (over 180 words) dominate. This is a surprising statement because, as the research done by linguists studying Northern Borderlands Polish language used till the present day in Vilnius and in the Vilnius area proves that loan words from German are rare in this area. When writing his handbook, Szwed most probably used not only Borderland sources, but also materials (including the press) originating from Małopolska and Śląsk Cieszyński, both of which were territories previously annexed by Austria and which abound in germanisms. Germanisms collected in ‘Dictionary of Language Errors’ are noteworthy for researchers who study the influence of German on Polish language and they should be used as a basis for various specifications and comparisons more often. The authors presented in their article those lexical germanisms recorded in the handbook by Julian Szwed which are noted by at least one of the most significant vocabulary dictionaries of Polish, i.e. – as one may presume – loan words that are more well-known (over 130 words). Only 30 percent of the excerpt is widespread. They are words noted in all dictionaries (approx. 20 percent), for instance ‘bryftreger’, ‘obstalunek’, ‘szaber’ and words certified by three dictionaries (approx. 10 percent), for instance ‘gurt’, ‘mantel’, ‘sznaps’.
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On January 25, 1908, an Orthography Commission was founded at the Science Union of the Latvian Society with Kārlis Mīlenbahs as a chairman. On June 17, 1908, the Orthography Commission held a convincing vote for the new orthography. The main principles of this new orthography can be characterised by the following traits: use of Roman letters in print; dropping “h” as a lengthening mark; all long vowels must be denominated with a horizontal dash notwithstanding their position; diphthongs ie and o must be denominated according to the Lithuanian model – ie and uo; cluster letters sch, zch, tsch must be discarded; palatal consonants must be denominated by a mark above or a comma under the respective consonant; w must not be used in any position. Starting with 1909, this orthography was taught at schools. In 1919, an instruction was passed by the Commissariat of Education “On the Latvian Language Writing at Schools” accepting the 1908 orthography with a single exception – the diphthongs ie and o had to be written as ee and o. During the 20-ies and 30-ies of the 20th century the consolidation process of this orthography in writing was going on. The first authors in the 16th century of the books written in Latvian were German clergymen who moulded the Latvian writing according to their German reading and writing skills. The main features of this orthography were the Gottic letters, “h” as a lengthening mark, the so called “cluster letters” for indicating the consonants š, ž, č, differences in the reproduction of diphthongs, for example “ee” and “o” and an immense inconsistence all in all. Several rather successful attempts to improve the Latvian writing were made as early as in the 17th–18th century (Georgs Mancelis, Kristofors Fīrekers, Heinriks Adolfijs, orthography sessions for the second edition of the Bible), but they mostly concerned the changes in sound denominations. The possibility to change the Gothic type for Roman letters was not discussed. In 1847, the Latvian doctor Juris Bārs initiated essential changes in the writing of the Latvian language. He had the following proposal: to use Roman letters; to denominate the long vowels with two types of lengthening marks depending on intonation; to denominate the diphthongs ie and uo with ia and ua; to denominate the letters s, z, c with Roman letters, but to reflect the palatal consonants by crossed respective consonant letters; to retain w. In 1876 the Science Union of the Latvian Society elaborated an orthography of its own containing the following proposals: to use Roman letters, to denominate the sibilants š, č, ž with a mark above the letters, to denominate the palatal consonants ļ, ņ, ŗ, ķ with a comma mark under the letters, to abandon intonation differences in the denomination of long vowels, to retain the reflection of the diphthong ie by ee...
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Syllabic rhythmic is a very important element of a folk song language, due to which melography, dynamics of development in time and interethnic contacts in folklore is studied. Presence of cultural contacts of Belarusians with their neighbours is illustrated by the example of one rhythmic-cultural paradigm. It combines songs from different seasonal-ritual cycles on the ground of a single common attribute – heptasyllabic rhythmic formula with temporal ratio of syllable 1111212. In Belarusian folklore studies this formula is known as a “ciarezhka rhythm” (CR), since it is an attribute of the North Belarusian Christmas game “Ciarezhka’s marriage”. However, not a comic and dance sense but a sacral-marital aspect proper contributed to wider distribution of tunes with CR and it also defined their thematic orientation beyond a Christmas game. For the first time the article considers CR genre distribution using broad genre and ethnic material. CR can be found in Lithuanian songs of Dzūkija (southern Lithuania), in spring songs of Podlasie (eastern Poland), in wedding and stubble songs of Volhynia and the Rivno region (north-western Ukraine). Marginal zones of the RC areal can be also traced in neighbouring territories of Latvia and Russia (the Pskov region). Southerly the isodox stretches to the Vinnitsya and Transcarpathian regions. Within Belarus CR functions go beyond the scope of a Christmas performance. CR also penetrated into the wedding song complex. In transitional zones of the areal it can be met in songs from other cycles – spring, Midsummer Day (kupala), stubble, baptistic etc. The south-eastern branch of the CR isodox (the Mahilioǔ region) is characterized by a stylistic transformation of the studied rhythm in round dances. The CR tunes loose their playing sense and sound more lyrically here. To solve the question of initial RC function and the centre of distribution of the songs based on the “ciarezhka” rhythm, possible pattern prototypes of the given heptasyllabic structure are under consideration. Danger of monogenic tunes substitution with vocal-rhythmic “homonyms” is admitted. The cartography of the phenomenon will be studied from the melodic point of view.
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The Czech government has no more excuses for lagging behind the rest of the EU on a vital multinational institution.
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Estonian words juula, kunksmoor, heiastama, and Finnish words heijastaa, häikäistä,
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Translation activity in culture cannot take place in isolation from experience of culture and technological environment. Underlying the diversity of modern communication processes is the progression from printed media towards hypermedia and new media. In this new situation the peculiarity of translation activity consists in the actualization of intralingual and intersemiotic translation alongside interlingual translation: first, in synthetic form, combining all three types of translation (thus interlinguistic translation can be regarded as comprising intralingual and intersemiotic translation as well) and second, in analytic form, that is, as three autonomous types of translation producing diverse types of texts. Such widening of the boundaries of the translation process results in an intensified search for appropriate methodologies. One indication of this is the repeated reconceptualization of Jakobson's typology of intralingual, interlingual and inter semiotic translation at the intersection of semiotics, translation studies, analysis of culture and communication. At the same time translation studies show signs of methodological innovation, accompanied by certain semiotic steps. Semiotics in its turn is undergoing an actualization of translation issues, while the concept of semiotranslation refers to possibilities of a methodological synthesis between translation studies and semiotics. Keywords: translation studies, intersemiotic, interlinguistic, intralinguistic, translation process.
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