Wendisches oder slavonisch-deutsches ausführliches und vollständiges Wörterbuch: eineHandschrift des 18. Jahrhunderts. Part 11, Vols 1-2 (R-Z) by Georg KörnerReview by: Gerald StoneThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Oct., 1981), pp. 588-589Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4208389 .

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588 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

over vowels, especially -ou-, but also over post-consonantal -1-, and sometimes over -n- and -v- in positions where, intriguingly, Serbian Church Slavonic later tends to insert a fleeting vowel, e.g. Zizn ', Ijubi;'.

While for an individual volume one would have liked fuller supporting material, this edition, used in conjunction with other available works, offers a most accessible and reliable version of what is clearly an important text. Oxford A. E. PENNINGTON

K6rner, Georg. Wendisches oder slavonisch-deutsches ausftihrliches und vollstdndiges Worterbuch: eine Handschrift des I8. Jahrhunderts. Part Ii, vols I-2 (R-Z). Published with a preface by R. Olesch. Slavi- stische Forschungen 28/II. Bohlau Verlag, Cologne, Vienna, 1980. vii + I,I85 pp. DM 354.

THIS is the second and final part of an eighteenth-century Upper Sorbian- German dictionary, reproduced photomechanically from the MS. The first part (consisting of three volumes) was published in 1979 (see my review in SEER, vol. 59, no. I, 1981, PP. 72-73). The complete work consists of 2,353 pages, but a good number of these are either blank or only partly used and the principle of remaining completely faithful to the MS has entailed the inclusion of blank pages in the published version. The varying extent to which the pages are filled makes it hard to estimate the total number of entries with any accuracy, but it probably approaches 20,000.

A particular virtue of the dictionary lies in the fact that it records an unequalled number of words from the period before attempts were made to assimilate Sorbian to the other Slavonic languages by means of Slavonic loan-words. There is thus every reason to believe that all the words included here were actually used in the vernacular in the eighteenth century. We can thus see, for example, that at least some of the Slavonic names for the months (e.g. smaZnik 'June', &enc [sic] 'August') are not nineteenth-century puristic inventions. Conversely, the absence here of words (such as wuspech 'success', zamgr 'intention', wumjelstwo 'art') generally believed to be the work of purists is useful corroborative evidence.

Many of the entries are quite elaborate, giving not only German equivalents, but also derivatives, phraseology, and explanations of various kinds. The etymologies, naturally enough, do not correspond to present- day notions, but there is much material here which will be of use in future etymological research. Several Lower Sorbian words and words from the transitional dialects are included, e.g. swaiba [sic] 'wedding', which is glossed not only with 'Hochzeit' but also with the interesting dialectal form 'die Schwappe'. Some of the words recorded here have since fallen out of use altogether, such as Xebrak 'beggar' and Zebric 'to beg'. By the mid-nineteenth century these two words were restricted to the Wojerecy (Hoyerswerda) area, but the latest volume of the Serbski r66ny

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REVIEWS 589 atlas (vol. 7, Bautzen, I980, P. 7) shows that the only verb surviving with this meaning in the second half of the twentieth century is prosye/pJosyl.

K6rner, who was a German, lived from 17I7 to I772. His work on this dictionary must have covered many years. A note at the end of the MS states that it was completed on Ash Wednesday, 4 March I767, and that addenda were made up to 7 June 1768.

Oxford GERALD STONE

de Bray, R. G. A. Guide to the East Slavonic Languages. Guide to the Slavonic Languages, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded, Part 3. Slavica, Columbus, Ohio, I980. 254 pp. Bibliography. $22.95.

ALTHOUGH Professor de Bray's Guide to the Slavonic Languages now comes, for economic reasons, in a form reproduced from typescript and in three separate parts, Slavica are to be congratulated on keeping this standard reference work available despite the recession in academic publishing. In the part under review here the author has made substantial revisions to the sections on Russian and Ukrainian. (The Byelorussian section was thoroughly revised for the I969 edition.) The bibliography has also been brought up to date.

In the Russian section the introduction has been expanded to include an outline of the historical development of the language prior to the eighteenth century - a notable omission from the earlier editions. The paragraphs on Slavonic characteristics have been fleshed out with additional examples and the list of features characteristic of Russian extended. Apart from an enlargement of the lists of adverbs and con- junctions, changes in the morphology section are minor; it is a pity that the opportunity was not taken to revise the rather thin section on the declension of nouns, which is dealt with much more fully for Ukrainian and Byelorussian.

The main changes in the Ukrainian section consist in a substantial rewriting of the pronunciation, correcting some earlier errors (e.g. concerning p and the chuintantes), and a complete rewriting of the dialects section in line with current thinking on their subdivision. As with Russian, the list of adverbs and conjunctions has been enlarged. Some errors and omissions remain, however, particularly in the list of features shared with Byelorussian. Thus it is incorrect to suggest (p. I I 6) that Byelorussian feminine nouns retain a vocative singular and the list should surely include such a distinctive feature of the two languages as the adjectival agreement with the numerals 2, 3, 4 in the nominative case and the 'false dual' forms associated with it.

In the Byelorussian section, too, some inaccuracies and inconsistencies survive from the I969 edition. For example, -At should not be added to the masculine nominative singular of active participles (p. 239) and it is irritating to find HecUi (correctly) on pp. 240-4I, but elsewhere HaCuf

(pp. I91, 229-31, 235).

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