“Ins undeutsche gebracht”: Sprachgebrauch und Übersetzungsverfahren im altpreussischen ‘Kleinen Katechismus.’ by Pietro U. Dini

Abstract

Reviewed by: “Ins undeutsche gebracht”: Sprachgebrauch und Übersetzungsverfahren im altpreussischen ‘Kleinen Katechismus.’ by Pietro U. Dini Austra Reinis “Ins undeutsche gebracht”: Sprachgebrauch und Übersetzungsverfahren im altpreussischen ‘Kleinen Katechismus.’ By Pietro U. Dini. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2014. 133 pp. This volume is a collection of newly revised, previously published articles, each of which is a highly specialized linguistic study of a particular word or phrase in Abel Will’s 1561 translation of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism into Old Prussian. Old Prussian is a Baltic language which today is extinct; Will’s Catechism is the last and most extensive surviving writing in this language. Given the paucity of extant documents in Old Prussian, the translation of certain words, especially words that appear only once (hapax legomena) in the entire corpus of Old Prussian writings, has in certain cases proved difficult. In these essays, Dini seeks to shed new light on some of the old translation problems by means of a systematic three-way textual comparison of three early Baltic translations which, he says, has heretofore not been attempted (3). He compares Will’s Old Prussian Catechism with sixteenth-century translations of Luther’s Small Catechism into the other two Baltic languages, namely, Bartholomäus Willent’s 1579 translation into Lithuanian and the Latvian so-called Rivius-Catechism of 1586. A glance at Dini’s investigation of three Baltic translations of the German word “leyder” in the sentence “ich diene leyder vntrewlich [End Page 242] meinem Herrn” in the section on confession of sins will illustrate his method and conclusions. “Leyder,” Dini observes, is rendered into Old Prussian as “Deiwa engraudis,” and into Old Latvian as “dews ßeelo.” In the Lithuanian, the word is not translated; it is left out altogether. This, Dini observes, challenges the existing notion that the translators “simply” translated the German text word-for-word into the respective Baltic language. Additionally, it demonstrates that they were aware that the German “leyder” could have the meaning “Gott erbarms!” or “Gotterbarm!” (Eng.: “God, have mercy!”) (29–30). Due to its technical nature, this volume will be of interest primarily to scholars studying the Baltic languages and literatures and to historians researching the history of Christianity in the lands on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Its extensive bibliography, which brings together publications in numerous languages, among them German, English, Russian, Lithuanian, and Latvian, will alert such scholars to publications in languages other than those they may customarily use. To conclude, one very minor correction: “Vien tik” and “vien” (64) are Latvian, not Lithuanian adverbs. Austra Reinis Missouri State University Springfield, Missouri Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.