Geschichte der sorbischen Grammatikschreibung. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts by Sonja Wölke (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS !33 there is an incorrect alphabetical order in the references on p. 67. As stated by the editors, they 'kept different styles of transliteration of Cyrillic and adjusted them according to accepted standards' (p. 7). Yet for non-Cyrillic names, there is a disturbing inconsistency, as in the case of 'Al-Ghazzali' in Romanchuk's essay (pp. 148, 149, etc.) and the Index, and 'Al-Ghaz?lF in Taube's text (pp. 191, 194, etc.), although the Library of Congress lists this name as (al-)Ghazzal?. A more serious shortcoming ishidden in the titleof the book. The editors erroneously equate the Russian pozdnee srednevekov 'e, stretch ing, according to East Slavic historiography, from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century,with theLate Middle Ages in West European tradition, covering a time span between roughly 1300 and 1500. Save for the latter drawback, most shortcomings are relatively inconse quential and will not diminish the book's appeal to a wide range of scholars interested in the cultural and linguistic history of thatperiod, who will surely find it most stimulating and enlightening. Pace University, New York Andrii Danylenko W?lke, Sonja. Geschichte der sorbischenGrammatikschreibung. Von den Anfangen bis zum Ende des ig. Jahrhunderts.Schriften des Sorbischen Instituts, 38. Domowina, Bautzen, 2005. 304 pp. Bibliographies. Index. 24.90 (paperback). In 1650, or perhaps a littleearlier,Johannes Choinanus (1610-64), a graduate of the University ofWittenberg and a native-speaker of Lower Sorbian, without any precedent to guide him, set about writing the firstSorbian gram mar. That is the beginning of the story thisbook has to tell.More precisely, however, the story of Sorbian grammar-writing has three beginnings, embod ied in the grammars of Choinanus (1650), Georgius Ludovici (before 1673), andjakub Xaver Ticin (1679), for these threeworks do not form a progression. On the contrary, each one of them represents the beginning of a separate tradition. Choinanus came from the north of Sorbian territory, Ludovici from the south. Ticin came from roughly halfway in between. Choinanus and Ludovici were both Protestants, but they spoke different dialects and the linguistic gap between them was considerable, so their grammars laid the grammatical foundations for the separate Upper and Lower Sorbian literary languages (or variants). Ticin was a Jesuit. All three were priests and itwas missionary goals that stimulated the need to understand Sorbian grammar. The Reformation had come early to the Sorbs. In 1520 inPostwitz (Budestecy) Paul Bossack had preached theGospel and permitted his flock to receive communion in both kinds, but even by the end of theThirty Years War (1648), by which time 90 per cent of Sorbs were Lutherans, they still had neither the Bible nor even printed extracts from the Bible in theirmother tongue. They made do with homespun oral or manuscript translations fromLuther's Bible, improvised by theirpastors, some of whom were aided by the grammars of Choinanus and Ludovici, which circulated in manuscript copies. These translations varied a good deal and caused confusion. 134 SEER, 86, I, 2008 Ticin had plans for the re-conversion of his compatriots to theChurch of Rome and knew that his dialect, which was closer than Ludovici's to the Sorbian ofLower Lusatia, was justwhat was needed for thismission. He saw that a separate grammar of his dialect was necessary and in 1679 in Prague he published his Principia linguae wendicae, the firstprinted Sorbian grammar, laying down a framework for Sorbian literature of theCounter-Reformation. The Upper Lusatian States, realizing now that their Sorbian subjects, having no Bible of their own, were vulnerable to the blandishments of Rome, responded by appointing Paul Pr?torius to head a committee to produce Upper Sorbian translations of themain devotional texts.The committee used Ludovici's manuscript grammar and, showing a degree of pragmatism, used Ticin as well. It is inevitable that Sonja W?lke's subject should involve questions of historical dialectology, for in the seventeenth century itwas said that there were asmany dialects as therewere parishes and, though the dialectal features and their boundaries changed, this was still true 300 years later. Expert handling of the local and chronological variation underlying attempts to describe Sorbian grammar isone of the outstanding ingredients in thisbook's success. However...