A Chapter from the History of Latin Lexicography in Slovenia (On the Publication of Wiesthaler’s Latin-Slovene Dictionary)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/keria.9.2.51-92Keywords:
lexicography, Latin language, Slovene language, vocabularies, historical presentationAbstract
Despite the evidently thriving lexicographical activity in Slovene medieval monasteries, the first attempts at Latin-Slovene dictionaries are not found earlier than in the works by Slovene Protestants. In the history of Slovene lexicography, a place of honour is held by the German humanist Hieronimus Megiser, the first to collect systematically a large portion of Slovene vocabulary and use it in his lexicographical work. However, three Slovene attempts to supply a Latin-Slovene dictionary (by Matija Kastelec, Gregor Vorenc, and the Rev Hipolit) failed. The first serious attempt to finally provide the Slovenes with a dictionary was made in the 1870’s, under the editorial guidance of Janko Pajk, but the work was never published and the lexicographical materials are lost as well. The first Latin-Slovene dictionary actually published was Latinsko-slovenski slovnik za tretji in četrti gimnasijski razred [The Latin-Slovene Dictionary for the Third and Fourth Gymnasium Forms ] (1882), the team project of dedicated teachers. Lexicography was long hindered by financial difficulties, by the lack of properly qualified workers willing to engage in such projects, by Austrian pressure, by the unfavourable social status of teachers, as well as by other factors. The situation, however, changed in the year 1894, which witnessed the beginnings of the most comprehensive Latin dictionary – and one of the largest lexicographical projects in Slovenia ever – under the supervision of Fran Wiesthaler. The first part of the project was finished immediately before World War I, which prevented its publication. The first volume (the entries from A to facilis) was published in 1927, after which time the work remained at a standstill for over 60 years. Despite the editor’s lifelong work on the project, he did not live to see its complete publication.
Work on the dictionary was revived by the publishing house Kres in 1990. In 2007, after 17 years of work and 4,087 pages in six volumes, the project has reached completion after 113 years.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in Keria by Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia). Author’s name will be evident in the article in journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
