DOCSLIB.ORG

Chapter Three an Illyrian Theory of the Baltic Languages

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Chapter Three an Illyrian Theory of the Baltic Languages Chapter Three An Illyrian Theory of the Baltic Languages The Illyrian Theory of the Baltic languages is especially associated with the name of Conrad Gessner and Hieronymus Megiser. In the following, I shall illustrate the characteristics of this theory and its place in the general context of Renaissance linguistic theories on the Baltic Languages. It is hard to determine who first used the term Illyrian to refer to Baltic languages. A special investigation should be devoted to this task. Up to now I can mention two significant cases: that of Raffael Maffeius Volaterranus and that of Paulus Jovius. Chronologically, one sees how a convergence between the concepts of Illyrian and Slav was performed already at the beginning of the 16th century. Among the followers of Æneas Sylvius de’ Piccolomini, the most enigmatic remained Rafael Maffeius Volaterranus [1451–1522]. In the 7th book of the Commentariorum rerum Urbanorum libri XXXVIII [The thirty- eight books of commentaries on city matters] he wrote about the language of Lithuania: Sermone vtuntur emidalmatico, vt ferè Sarmatia omnis Europea. It is pretty obscure why Volaterranus used exactly the term semi- dalmaticus to define this language. Nevertheless there is a possible explanation: in his 8th book of the same work the Dalmatians are presented as an Illyrian people and the Illyrians are identified with the Slavs: Inequentibus vero temporibus Sclaui dicti unt… Sclaueni gens Scythica Iutiniani tempore in illyricum irruere. Paulus Jovius [1483–1552] was a bishop from Como in Italy and the author of many books on different topics. In some of them he also dealt with Baltic matters and expressed his opinion on the languages. Jovius knew the Quadripartite Theory of Miechovita and referred to it, but in the Historiarum sui temporis libri XLV [The forty-five books of the history of his time] (Florence, 1550–1552) he expounded another point of view. Jovius noticed that Poles, Muscovites, Lithuanians and Ruthenians (Roxolani) do not especially differ among themselves in language (Jovius 1560:520-521): Lingua Illyrica vtuntur omnes, corrupta tamen, vtpote quàm diueri inter e populi, diueris vocum inflexionibus inuerterint. [They all use the Illyrian language, although corrupted, insofar as people (who were) different among themselves have altered (it) through different modifications of the words]. It is known that Jovius did not travel anywhere, although he wrote on countries and peoples very far from Italy. Thus he surely got his Lingua 32 Prelude to Baltic Linguistics Illyrica from the many sources he consulted or perhaps from informers he had the opportunity to ask. These are two good examples, and probably among the first, of the usage of the term Illyrian referred at least to one Baltic language. The cases of Volaterranus and Jovius are interesting because both preceded the activity of Conrad Gessner. They show that the Lingua Illy- rica was a concept already known among the humanists. 3.1. The Philoglots’s linguistic ideas During the second half of the 16th century a group of scholars, with Conrad Gessner as the best known, had as center of irradiation the German countries and flourished in particular in German Switzerland. They were called Philoglots: Who where they and what did they do? Besides Gessner, Siegmund Gelens and Theodor Biblianders are also included among the Philoglots (cf. Riedl-Dorn 1989:21–26; in general Tavoni 1990). To these names can be added those of Angelo Rocca, follower of Gessner in Italy, and those of the German Hieronymus Megiser and Johann Heinrich Alsted (see 3.3.). The activity of the Philoglots had as its principal aim precisely the diffusion of the multilingual Verbum in and for itself. Not by chance, this was characterized by the production and publication of relatively many different catalogs of languages, specimina, collections of Lord’s Prayers (Orationes Dominicae). This activity and production was perceived and understood within the frame of the typical “radical culture of poliglotism”. Such a view of the linguistic phenomenon was based notoriously on practical assumptions, but also on religious and ecumenic ones, that placed in the center the esprit de la Pentecôte, with a clear reference to the day of Pentecost when God appeared to the Apostles in the form of the Holy Ghost and conferred upon them the gift of tongues. Today there is agreement on the fact that this culture of poliglotism set the most important premise for the rise of Comparative Linguistics at the beginning of the 19th century. Many of the Philoglots dealt also with the Baltic languages and it is worth giving special attention to their ideas. Bibliander [1504–1564] (his real name was Theodor Buchmann) is considered the first to have pointed out and investigated the reciprocal relations among the languages of Europe in his famous book De ratione commune omnium linguarum commentarius [Commentary on the common principle of all languages] (Zürich, 1548). It has already been stressed how he got close to the concept of the Indoeuropean community. Concerning the Baltic languages Bibliander followed the ideas of Miechovita (i.e. he accepted the so–called Quadripartite Theory; see Chapter Five). Conrad Gessner was the pupil of Bibliander, but in general the following can be observed: just as much as the master Bibliander had limi-.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Impact of the Illyrian Movement on the Croatian Lexicon
    Slavistische Beiträge ∙ Band 223 (eBook - Digi20-Retro) George Thomas The Impact of the Illyrian Movement on the Croatian Lexicon Verlag Otto Sagner München ∙ Berlin ∙ Washington D.C. Digitalisiert im Rahmen der Kooperation mit dem DFG-Projekt „Digi20“ der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, München. OCR-Bearbeitung und Erstellung des eBooks durch den Verlag Otto Sagner: http://verlag.kubon-sagner.de © bei Verlag Otto Sagner. Eine Verwertung oder Weitergabe der Texte und Abbildungen, insbesondere durch Vervielfältigung, ist ohne vorherige schriftliche Genehmigung des Verlages unzulässig. «Verlag Otto Sagner» ist ein Imprint der Kubon & Sagner GmbH. George Thomas - 9783954792177 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 04:08:27AM via free access 00050383 S lavistische B e it r ä g e BEGRÜNDET VON ALOIS SCHMAUS HERAUSGEGEBEN VON HEINRICH KUNSTMANN PETER REHDER • JOSEF SCHRENK REDAKTION PETER REHDER Band 223 VERLAG OTTO SAGNER MÜNCHEN George Thomas - 9783954792177 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 04:08:27AM via free access 00050383 GEORGE THOMAS THE IMPACT OF THEJLLYRIAN MOVEMENT ON THE CROATIAN LEXICON VERLAG OTTO SAGNER • MÜNCHEN 1988 George Thomas - 9783954792177 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 04:08:27AM via free access ( B*y«ftecne I Staatsbibliothek l Mönchen ISBN 3-87690-392-0 © Verlag Otto Sagner, München 1988 Abteilung der Firma Kubon & Sagner, GeorgeMünchen Thomas - 9783954792177 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 04:08:27AM via free access 00050383 FOR MARGARET George Thomas - 9783954792177 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 04:08:27AM via free access .11 ж ־ י* rs*!! № ri. ur George Thomas - 9783954792177 Downloaded from PubFactory at 01/10/2019 04:08:27AM via free access 00050383 Preface My original intention was to write a book on caiques in Serbo-Croatian.
    [Show full text]
  • Albanian Families' History and Heritage Making at the Crossroads of New
    Voicing the stories of the excluded: Albanian families’ history and heritage making at the crossroads of new and old homes Eleni Vomvyla UCL Institute of Archaeology Thesis submitted for the award of Doctor in Philosophy in Cultural Heritage 2013 Declaration of originality I, Eleni Vomvyla confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signature 2 To the five Albanian families for opening their homes and sharing their stories with me. 3 Abstract My research explores the dialectical relationship between identity and the conceptualisation/creation of history and heritage in migration by studying a socially excluded group in Greece, that of Albanian families. Even though the Albanian community has more than twenty years of presence in the country, its stories, often invested with otherness, remain hidden in the Greek ‘mono-cultural’ landscape. In opposition to these stigmatising discourses, my study draws on movements democratising the past and calling for engagements from below by endorsing the socially constructed nature of identity and the denationalisation of memory. A nine-month fieldwork with five Albanian families took place in their domestic and neighbourhood settings in the areas of Athens and Piraeus. Based on critical ethnography, data collection was derived from participant observation, conversational interviews and participatory techniques. From an individual and family group point of view the notion of habitus led to diverse conceptions of ethnic identity, taking transnational dimensions in families’ literal and metaphorical back- and-forth movements between Greece and Albania.
    [Show full text]
  • Print This Article
    European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching ISSN: 2537 - 1754 ISSN-L: 2537 - 1754 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu doi: 10.5281/zenodo.2644601 Volume 4 │ Issue 1 │ 2019 ONOMASTICS OF ALBANIAN ABC-BOOKS IN KOSOVO Valentina Nimonaj-Hotii PhD candidate South East European University, Tetovo, Macedonia Abstract: An abc-book is the first school book that aims to form the skills to speak, read and write in the Albanian language. Like in any other book, the abc-book has some types of names. The names on these abc-books compose an important and interesting field for studies. During this research we will focus at the onomastics of Albanian abc-books in Kosovo from the year of 1945 – 2012. This study of onomastics especially analyses the anthroponomastics or the personal names. The group of anthroponyms shall include these types of individual names: names from one Albanian word, Illyrian names, Catholic names, Slavic names, oriental names, anthroponyms that came from places, the form of names that came from the first and last part of the name and names from abbreviations and different cuttings etc. This research is a study that describes and compares names from one abc- book to another. By studying different types of names in the abc-books we open a window for knowledge to the abc-books as special books, we knowledge the value of educational names as well as the types of the names in the abc- books of different periods that our people had to go through. Essentially, the study of the names has special importance because it contributes to history of education and linguistics.
    [Show full text]
  • History of the Name “Macedonia”
    HISTORY OF THE NAME “MACEDONIA” It is generally accepted today that the ethnic name MuxEftmv, from which by adding the ending -ux the geographical term MuxeSovux was formed, derives from the ancient Greek adjective (xuxEftvo;. The latter was formed by the stem of the noun [xàxo;=pfjxo;, with the suffix -ft-1 and the ending -vôç : puxE-ft-vôç, and already occurs in Homer (Odys. t) 106) old te <pôÀ/ux urxxeftvtj; ulyEipoio. The name Mxxxeôcov, plural Muxeôôveç, belongs to the ethnic names denoting a physical characteristic, like the ancient MuxooxÉxpcdoi (long-heads), Iluypuloi (Pygmies=fist-sized) and the teutonic Langobardi (long-beards), Chauci (tall), Quadi (ugly, bad) \ The Macedonians probably distinguished themselves amid the other Greek tribes by their height, as it often happens to highland tribes compared to tribes of the plains. The Macedonians, as it is accepted by all unbiased ethnologists, historians and linguists, are a Hellenic tribe3. Their names, those that have 1. The suffix -8- is known from other nouns too, as dkyrj-S-wv, k«|iJii|-8-d>v, /ixiot)—ö—ci'jv, xe).i-0-d)v. From this compound ending -Scov, derive by alternance the endings-Srxvôç, as in Àrp'lf-fiuvôç, Jteuxr-Savôç, (Hyr-ôavô;, rqxf-Savôç, Trike-Savog, and -Svoç, as in yoe-Ôvdç, puxE-8vôç, jirki-Svoç, o7o<pu-8vôç, ipE-Svö;. See f. i. G. N. Hadjidakis, ' AxaàrgiEixà dvayvcoa/iaxa 1,71 and 2,405 and also E. Schwyzer, (Griechische Grammatik 1,489. 2. Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, in word Makedonia, p. 6822. 3. See Ulrich Wilcken, Griechische Geschichte im Rahmen der Alterlitms- geschichte.
    [Show full text]
  • National Myths in Interdependence
    National Myths in Interdependence: The Narratives of the Ancient Past among Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia after 1991 By Matvey Lomonosov Submitted to Central European University Nationalism Studies Program In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts CEU eTD Collection Advisor: Professor Maria Kovács Budapest, Hungary 2012 Abstract The scholarship on national mythology primarily focuses on the construction of historical narratives within separate “nations,” and oftentimes presents the particular national ist elites as single authors and undisputable controllers of mythological versions of the past. However, the authorship and authority of the dominant national ist elites in designing particular narratives of the communal history is limited. The national past, at least in non- totalitarian societies, is widely negotiated, and its interpretation is always heteroglot . The particular narratives that come out of the dominant elites’ “think-tanks” get into a polyphonic discursive milieu discussing the past. Thus they become addressed to alternative narratives, agree with them, deny them or reinterpret them. The existence of those “other” narratives as well as the others’ authorship constitutes a specific factor in shaping mythopoeic activities of dominant political and intellectual national elites. Then, achieving personal or “national” goals by nationalists usually means doing so at the expense or in relations to the others. If in this confrontation the rivals use historical myths, the evolution of the later will depend on mutual responses. Thus national historical myths are constructed in dialogue, contain voices of the others, and have “other” “authors” from within and from without the nation in addition to “own” dominant national ist elite.
    [Show full text]
  • Interventions by the Roman Republic in Illyria 230 – 167 BC
    Interventions by the Roman Republic in Illyria 230 – 167 BC Submitted by Jack James Willoughby, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics, September 2018. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature) ……………………………………………………………………………… Page 1 of 181 Abstract This thesis aims to determine how and why Rome undertook a series of interventions in Illyria during the period of 230 – 167 BC. The thesis is based on a detailed examination and consideration of the ancient written sources and the subsequent historiography on the subject. The Roman interventions in Illyria during this period have traditionally been treated as a component of wider studies of Roman expansion, although Rome’s involvement in Illyria has recently been examined by Dzino in his 2010 work Illyricum in Roman Politics 229BC-AD68. This work examined the development and integration of Illyricum in Roman political discourse, in which the Roman interventions were a smaller component in the broader study. A study of the Roman interventions in Illyria during the period of 230 – 167 BC has never previously been treated on this scale, nor effectively with a synthesis of the various approaches and pieces of evidence that are now available.
    [Show full text]
  • Language in Ancient Europe: an Introduction Roger D
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-68495-8 - The Ancient Languages of Europe Edited by Roger D. Woodard Excerpt More information chapter 1 Language in ancient Europe: an introduction roger d. woodard The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothik and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family. Asiatick Researches 1:442–443 In recent years, these words of an English jurist, Sir William Jones, have been frequently quoted (at times in truncated form) in works dealing with Indo-European linguistic origins. And appropriately so. They are words of historic proportion, spoken in Calcutta, 2 February 1786, at a meeting of the Asiatick Society, an organization that Jones had founded soon after his arrival in India in 1783 (on Jones, see, inter alia, Edgerton 1967). If Jones was not the first scholar to recognize the genetic relatedness of languages (see, inter alia, the discussion in Mallory 1989:9–11) and if history has treated Jones with greater kindness than other pioneers of comparative linguistic investigation, the foundational remarks were his that produced sufficient awareness, garnered sufficient attention – sustained or recollected – to mark an identifiable beginning of the study of comparative linguistics and the study of that great language family of which Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and Old Persian are members – and are but a few of its members.
    [Show full text]
  • Historia E Kosoves SHG ENG.Pdf
    The History of Kosovo in the history textbooks of Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia Publisher: Alter Habitus Author: Shkëlzen Gashi Proof reader: Gazmend Bërlajolli Consultants: Albana Rexhepaj Arbër Vokrri Armanda Hysa Translated by: Elizabeth Gowing Front cover design and typesetting: Rrota www.rrota.com Print: Night Design Prishtinë 2016 Number of copies printed: 400 Research and publication supported by: The Embassy of the Netherlands, the Embassy of Switzerland, Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS), and Institute “Georg Eckert” The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute “Alter Habitus”, the Embassy of the Netherlands, the Embassy of Switzerland, or the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS), or the consultants. CONTENTS Introduction .....................................................................................................................................................................................................5 1. The origins of the Albanians ..............................................................................................................................................................9 Summary ...................................................................................................................................................................................................17 2. Kosovo from the Medieval period to Serbian rule .................................................................................................................21
    [Show full text]
  • Northern Indo-European Dialects
    A GRAMMAR OF MODERN INDO-EUROPEAN 1.7. INDO-EUROPEAN DIALECTS Languages of Europe. The black line divides the zones traditionally (or politically) considered inside the European subcontinent. Northern dialects are all but Greek and Kurdish (Iranian); Armenian is usually considered a Graeco-Aryan dialect, while Albanian is usually classified as a Northern one. Numbered inside the map, non-Indo- European languages: 1) Uralic languages; 2) Turkic languages; 3) Basque; 4) Maltese; 5) Caucasian languages. SCHLEICHER’S FABLE: FROM PIE TO MODERN ENGLISH The so-called Schleicher's fable is a poem composed in PIE, published by August Schleicher in 1868, originally named “The Sheep and the Horses”. It is written here in the different reconstructible IE dialects for comparison. The immediate parent dialect of each proto-language is enclosed in parentheses. Indo-European Language Association <http://dnghu.org/> 1. Introduction A Common PIE version (ca. 3500 BC?): H3owis h1ekwōs-kwe. • H3owis, kwesjo wlh1neh2 ne h1est, w h h w h • h1ekwoms spekét, • h1oinom g rh3úm wog om wég ontm, • h1oinom-k e mege̥ h2m b orom, • w h h h h w h h1oinom-k e d h1g monm h1oh1ku b̥ érontm. • H3owis nu h1ékwob̥ jos weuk ét: • “Krd h2ég nutoi w h h1moí, • h1ekwoms h2égontm̥ wih1róm wídn̥ tei”. • H1ekwōs tu weuk ónt: “Klud í, h̥ 3owi! • krd h h h wh h2ég nutoi nsméi wídntb jos: ̥ • h2ner, potis, h̥ 3owjom-r wlh1neh2m • sweb ei g ermom westrom̥ w w h k rneuti”. • H̥ 3owjom-k̥ e wlhneh2 ne h1esti. • Tod kékluwos̥ ̥ h3owis ̥ h2egrom b ugét.
    [Show full text]
  • Two Types of Ancient Indo-European Isoglosses in the Albanian Language
    UDC 809.198.3-02 Original Scholarly Work Vanja STANISIC Faculty of Philology Belgrade TWO TYPES OF ANCIENT INDO-EUROPEAN ISOGLOSSES IN THE ALBANIAN LANGUAGE Abstract Since a separate Indo-European feature of the Albanian lan­ guage has been discovered in the mid-19th century, reliable and gener­ ally accepted criteria for determining its ethno-liguistic connections were largely exhausted. Due to the comparatively late appearance of the Albanian language on the historical scene, on the one hand, and the absence of literary testaments of old-Balkan langauages on the other, the dispute on the origin of the Albanian language has been conducted for two centuries, with relatively moderate results. This paper attempts to view the question of Albanian ethno-linguistic ties in the light of new conclusions that have emerged in the comparative grammar of Indo-European languages. The fact that Albanian is spoken in territories inhabited in the past by Illyrian tribes has incited pioneers in Albanology to view it as a successor of the Illyrian language [1. Thunmann, Untersuchungen tiber die Geschichte der ostlichen europiiischcn Volker, Leipzig, 1774]. Be­ sides a similarity in the tribal names of the ancient and contemporary inhabitants of that part of the Balkans, the Illyrian 'AA~aVOt - the Alba­ nian arbcn/erber (with a void of eight centuries between them), lin­ guists have before them meager data which has itself been a subject of dispute and insufficient for any reliable judgment on the Illyrian lan­ guage. I An indisputable fact, nevertheless, is that the Albanian Ian- 1 Congruity between the names ofIllyrian tribes L1£/q.HX1;al - Dalmatae and Alb.
    [Show full text]
  • Similarities Between Albanian and Romanian in the Entire Language Subsystems
    ISSN 2039-2117 (online) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences Vol 4 No 2 ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Published by MCSER-CEMAS-Sapienza University of Rome May 2013 Similarities between Albanian and Romanian in the Entire Language Subsystems Mimoza Karagjozi Kore Associate Professor, Lecturer, Department of Albanian language, Faculty of History and Philology, Tirana University, Albania. E-mail: [email protected] Doi:10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n2p175 Abstract In this study of theoritical character, the sight is set on the most typical similtudes between Albanian and Romanian observed in the entire language subsystems. There turn out to be common features only for these two languages which are different from overall Balkan features (Balcan shpracbund). This article points out not only the parallelisms previously noticed by many linguists over centuries during the evolution of these two languages independently of each other, but also the latest common points recently observed. The causes of these phenomena are given at the end of the article.Similarties between Albanian and Romanian languages come as a result of Illyrians and Trachians being in contact for centuries before Slavs were established in Balkans. Key words: linguistc relations, Albanian and Romanian languages, phonetic features, grammatical similiarities, syntax, phraseology. 1. Introduction The identification and the explanation of the origin of common linguistic features of Albanian and Romanian languages are related to the problem of ethnogenesis of the two relevant nations. The studies are often cloaked by obscure and logicist reasoning, thus creating confusion about the nature of these relationships, the time and the geographical environment where they were created.
    [Show full text]
  • The Illyrian Movement: a Croatian Vision of South Slavic Unity
    29 The Illyrian Movement: A Croatian Vision of South Slavic Unity MARC L. GREENBERG Background In the last year of his life, a poet from the province of Carniola, 1 Jožef Žemlja (1805–1843), published an epic poem, Seven Sons , allegorizing the seven Slavic nations—the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Croats, Winds, Illyrians, and Bulgarians 2 —as seven children condemned to death at birth by a pitiless mother. The sons are secretly spared by their father, Ban Mikić, who reunites them as adults and reveals to them their mother’s perfi dy, upon which the sons forgive her. Žemlja’s contemporary, France Prešeren (1800–1849), born and raised in a neigh- boring Carniolan village, three years before his own death published another epic poem, Baptism by the Savica Falls . Baptism depicts the battle between pagan and christened Slovenes in the eighth century. Though the pagans are defeated, their leader declares that it is better to fi ght for freedom and die than to remain alive and enslaved (Hladnik 2001 ) . The two poems stylize the confl icting perspectives of the South Slavs 3 at the outset of the nineteenth century. Žemlja proposes that the cruel past be forgotten and the grand unity of the Slavs restored for the common weal. Prešeren opts to cultivate local identity. Žemlja was an Illyrian and his name is now dimly remembered. Prešeren was a Slovene and is today celebrated as the national poet of Slovenia. The Illyrian movement (1835–1848) strove to establish a broad national iden- tity among the South Slavs, who were subjects of two empires, Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, by creating a single language for the people who today identify themselves as Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Bosniacs (Muslims of Bosnia), Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians.
    [Show full text]