Deutsch-polnische Sprachkontakte: Beiträge zur gleichnamigen Tagung 10.-13. April 1984 inGöttingen by Alek Pohl; A. de VincenzReview by: Gerald StoneThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp. 636-637Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4209850 .

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636 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

present form, offer a suitable foundation for the serious study of Hungarian, colloquial or otherwise. School of Slavonic and East European Studies PETER SHERWOOD University of London

Pohl, Alek and de Vincenz, A. (eds). Deutsch-polnische Sprachkontakte: Beitrage zur gleichnamigen Tagung Io.-I3. April 1984 in Gottingen. Slavische For- schungen, Band 52. Bohlau Verlag, Cologne-Vienna, I987. viii + 286 pp. DM 94.oo.

CENTURIES of intimate contact between the Polish and German languages have left a rich deposit of German borrowings in the Polish vocabulary. Histories of the Polish language note this fact and quote examples, but many questions remain unanswered. The nearest thing we have to a comprehensive treatise on the subject is Walter Kaestner's Die deutschen Lehnw6rter im Polnischen, I. Teil: Einleitung und Lautlehre (Leipzig, I939), which, for all its erudition, remains a torso. Since i 98 I, however, a small team of philologists at the University of G6ttingen have been working on a research project which intends to analyse exhaustively the German loanwords in Polish. It was thus in G6ttingen that in April I 984 a symposium was held, at which Polish and German philologists presented the results of their research into German- Polish language contact. The proceedings of the symposium are now published in a well-produced volume, thanks to the efforts of the G6ttingen team.

It is especially gratifying to note that Walter Kaestner is still active in the field. His 'Germanistische Aspekte der deutsch-polnischen Lehnwort- forschung' (pp. 89- I 02) demonstrates the importance of German (as well as Polish) historical grammar and dialectology in ascertaining the time and place of borrowing. Borrowings are found in Polish from all three main epochs of German linguistic history, viz. Old High German (c. 750-IO50), Middle High German (I050-I350), and New High German (I350 to the present). In the Old High German period (according to Kaestner) there was no direct contact with Polish-speaking territory, so German loanwords at that time could only reach Polish if transmitted through Czech or Sorbian. If they betray Upper German features (e.g. p for b), Czech is assumed to have been the intermediary (e.g. papiez 'pope', pizmo 'musk') (p. 92). It would be interesting to know whether there are any phonetic features pointing to Sorbian as the intermediary. Kaestner also considers German regional varieties and Yiddish as sources of loanwords in Polish.

A useful survey of the types of borrowing which occurred during the period when Poland was partitioned is made by Stanislaw Urbaficzyk in 'Wiek XIX w kontaktachjzykowych polsko-niemieckich' (pp. 245-56). He gives particu- lar attention to political and social conditions in the Austrian and Prussian partitions. The value of the semantic field (Sinnbezirk) as a concept in the analysis of the German element as a whole in the Polish vocabulary is convincingly demonstrated by A. de Vincenz in 'Sprachkontakte und die Konstituierung des polnischen Wortschatzes' (pp. 257-64). Nearly all the

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REVIEWS 637

articles in this volume are concerned with lexical questions, but Alek Pohl in 'Zum Problem des Genus deutscher Lehnw6rter im Alt- und im Mittel- polnischen' (pp. I9I-205) deals with a morphological problem, and Krystyna Pisarkowa in 'Friuhe Spuren deutsch-polnischer Kontakte in der Textstruktur' (PP. 179-90) and Daniel Weiss in 'Funkcjonowanie i pochodzenie polskich konstrukcji typu "mam cos do zalatwienia", "cos jest do zalatwienia"' (pp. 265-86) examine cases of syntactic interference. Hertford College GERALD STONE Oxford

Aslanoff, Serge. Manuel typographique du russiste. Documents pedagogiques de l'Institut d'etudes slaves, 28. Institut d'etudes slaves, Paris, I986. 255 pp. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Fr. 8o.oo.

To editors, proof-readers, and librarians struggling to bring order and consistency to an article, a book, or a library catalogue, the words of Trediakovskij quoted at the beginning of Aslanoff's treatise will ring all too true: justifying his plan (in I 748) to discuss at length the apparent minutiae of capitalization and spelling, he exclaims: 'tta meloc' ves'ma krupna!'. Aslanoff points out in his introduction that, with the development of such techniques as electronic publishing, authors today frequently take upon themselves the functions once performed by compositors, editors, and proof-readers and communicate directly with the readers of their texts. Thus it is more important than ever before that the author should share at least some of Trediakovskij's concern with typographical detail - hence this manual is aimed at the Russianist author himself, as well as the editorial intermediary. Moreover, in Aslanoff's view, computer technology has by no means made redundant the need for accurate, consistent and aesthetically pleasing presentation of a text - even if, as is the case with transliteration from cyrillic to roman script, it is sometimes necessary to accommodate a small armoury of diacritics in the presentation.

The book is designed for French authors and editors working in the field of Russian studies, which obviously reduces its relevance to the English reader to some extent. However, the display and discussion in one volume of so many aspects of Russian style and usage, and the coverage of the various transliteration systems used now and in the past, combine to make this a useful and thought-provoking manual.

The work is divided into two broad sections. The first deals chiefly with the various systems of transliteration, the citation of book and journal titles, and abbreviations and acronyms. In discussing transliteration, the author favours the 'continental' system, based on the norm first established by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in I954, and revised in I968. This is the system in commonest use in West European countries, and is especially favoured by Slavists themselves, though its extensive use of diacritical marks makes it formidable to the general reader and difficult and costly to handle and display in computerized systems. Aslanoff mentions the 'isolation' of Anglo-Saxon Slavists, resulting from the powerful influence of

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