Dini, Pietro, U. ALILETOESCVR: linguistica baltica delle origini (review)

Abstract

Slavonic and East European Review, 93, 2, 2015 Reviews Dini, Pietro, U. ALILETOESCVR: linguistica baltica delle origini. Books & Company,Livorno,2010.844pp.Illustrations.Figures.Notes.Bibliography. €50.00 (paperback). Thebookunderreviewisanastoundingaccomplishmentinthefieldoflinguistic historiography, not only of Baltic but also Slavic languages. Chronologically, Dini’s compendium covers the sixteenth century when the first texts in Baltic languages came to light and the foundations of future Baltic linguistics were laid out by such prominent Renaissance figures as Jan Długosz, Maciej z Miechowa (Miechovita) and Michalo Lituanus (p. 22). The book comprises eleven chapters, including an epilogue, followed by a list of primary sources and an extensive bibliography. The chapters deal, among other topics, with the Slavic and ‘Quadruple’ theories of the origins of Baltic peoples and their languages (pp. 50–146, 237–80), descriptions of Samogitia (pp. 281–340), descriptions of Prussia and theories about Prussian (pp. 339–45), the diversity of Livonian languages (pp. 447–524), the Latin theory (pp. 525–68), the Illyrian theory (pp. 569–618), descriptions of Sambia and denominations of amber (pp. 619–50), and the Hebrew theory (pp. 651–96). The title of the volume is a puzzle that is explained in chapter five which is devoted to the languages of historical Livonia (today’s Estonia and Latvia). The acronym ALILETOESCVR is excerpted from Leonhard Thurneysser’s Onomasticon(1583)andrepresentsacontractionofthenamesoffourofLivonia’s languages: Liuisch (Livonian), Letisch (Latvian), Oes[t]nisch (Estonian) and Curisch (Curonian) (p. 482). By contrast, Laurentius Müller (1585) distinguished only Estonian, Livonian and Curonian (pp. 485–86). The history of Baltic linguistic ideas in Dini’s magnum opus opens with an exposition of the earliest, Slavic theory (p. 49). This theory goes back to Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the future pope Pius II, who in his treatise De Europa (1458) identified a language used in the Grand Duchy of Lithuanian as Slavic (sermo Sclavonicus) which was divided into several ‘sects’ (in varias divisa sectas) (pp. 50–52). Among Piccolomini’s followers, Dini analysed the works of Giacomo Foresti(1506,1513),HartmannSchedel(1493,1497),GeorgAlt(1493)andJohannes Cochlaeus (1512). Most interesting is a subchapter that examines ‘reactions’ against the Slavic theory (pp. 104–22). The most compelling counterarguments were adduced by the Polish philosopher and scientist Jan ze Stobnicy in his treatise De Europa (1512). He argued that the local Slavs (Ruteni) used a language which was comprehensible to other Slavic peoples but not to the Lithuanians (Lituani) who spoke a different language; additionally, the Ruthenians had adopted the Greek Church while the Lithuanians had remained pagans until Jagailo (p. 107). Contrary to Piccolomini, who assumed that Slavic was used in the whole of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Stobnica emphasized that this REVIEWS 339 language, whose letters were different from the Latin, Greek and Hebraic, was primarily spoken by Rutheni […] gens barbara (p. 108). In his Historia Polonica (published in 1614–15), the Polish historian Jan Długosz defended the Roman origin of Lithuanians dating to the period of Pompeii and Caesar (pp. 154–55). To prove this, he made use of the language of Lithuanians and Samogitians that might have originated from a certain branch of Latin. Among the continuators of Długosz, Dini mentions Zaccaria Ferreri (1521), who connected the toponyms Lithuania with the l’Italia (pp. 164–66), Johannes Behm (1625), Marcin Cromer (1555) and the Polish historian Marcin Bielski (1551, 1554, 1564), who argued that the Lithuanian people were descendants of the Goths (pp. 187–88). A special place is devoted to Maciej Stryjkowski, the first representative of ‘Panbaltism’, who in his treatises, O Początkach (About the Beginnings, 1576– 78) and Kronika (Chronicle, 1582), defended the thesis ‘jeden naród, jedna mowa’ (one people, one language) in reference to Lithuanians, Courlanders, Latvinas, Samogitians, Jatvingians, Polovcians and Prussians, and their languages as found within the boundaries of Poland-Lithuania (pp. 208–14). Inchapterthree,whichinvestigatesthe‘Quadruple’theory,Dinidiscussesthe linguistic ideas of another Polish thinker, Maciej Miechovita. In his Tractatus de duabis Sarmatiis (1517), Miechovita introduced the concept of ‘linguagium Lithuanicum quadripartitum’, according to which the Lithuanian language encompassed Jatvingian, Samogitian, Prussian and Latvian (pp. 237–40). In fact, the Polish historian presented the Lithuanian language as uniform and quadruple at the same...