Rozmova. Besĕda. Das ruthenische und kirchenslavische Berlaimont-Gesprächbuch des Ivan Uževyč by D. Bunčić H. Keipert (review)

Abstract

SEER, Vol.84, No. 2, April2006 Reviews Buncic, D. and Keipert, H. (eds). Rozmova.Beseda.Das ruthenische und kirchenslavische Berlaimont-Gesprachbuch desIvan Uzevyc. Sagners Slavistische Sammlung, 29. Otto Sagner, Munich, 2005. Iii + 287 pp. Notes. Bibliography .?6o.oo. THE publication of this manuscript, which has been kept at the National Library of France, is more than three hundred years overdue. This is a translation of the best-selling phrasebook of Antwerp schoolmaster Noel van Berlaimont (d. I531) into the lingua popularis (Ruthenian)and linguasacra (Church Slavonic) by Ivan Uzevyc. He has been known primarily as the authorof Grammatica sclavonica which, extant in two copies from I643 and i645, was finally published in Ukraine in I970. The phrasebook, Rozmova-Bese'da, has circulatedin photocopies since the late I970S and was analysedin a series of articlesby Mychajlo Zovtobrjuch.In the late I99os, Zovtobrjuchwas followed by another Ukrainian scholar, Petehyryc,who published several short studieson the vocabulary,paleographyand phonetics of the phrasebook.The currentedition of Rozmova-Beseda by Buncic and Keipert crowns the effortsof a handful of their predecessors,while shedding light on some controversial aspects of the traditional interpretation,as discussed in a study by Keipert in 200I. The book opens with an extensive, more than fifty-page introduction, giving a detailed examination of Uzevyc's manuscript, its paleography an(1 orthography(pp. xiii-xxv), supplementedby an extensive bibliographyof the relevant publications, as well as a comprehensive list of abbreviationsand a page concordance ('Seitenkonkordanz')to six representative editions of the Berlaimont-Colloquia (pp. xlvii-vi). All this allows the editorsto substantiate several hypotheses, crucial for furtheringour knowledge of Ruthenian and the Meletian version of Church Slavonic of that time. Thus, contrary to Zovtobrjuch, who dated the manuscript back to I575, Buncic and Keipert posit this year not as the date of its completion but as the terminus postquern Uzevyc might have made his translation(p. vi). Having comparedthe parallel text in several editions of the Berlaimont-Colloquia, the editors also assert that the Ruthenian and Slavonic parts were most likely translatedfrom the Latin text of the Berlaimont, publishedin I6I3 either in Delft or the Hague (pp.xxix-xxxii ) In additionto the Latin text, which evidentlyservedas a basisfor Uzevyc's translation,the editorsreproducedin the book a parallelPolish text from the I646 Warsawedition of the phrasebook.The resultingfour-languageinterlinear collationwill appeal to Slavists.What is remarkablefor the lingua popularis is that we deal here primarilywith the spokenvarietyof Ruthenian. Divorced objectively from a possible Church Slavonic adstratum,the Ruthenian text revealscharacteristicfeaturesof the vernacular,presumablyof that spokenby Uzevyc himself. Even a cursoryglance at the parallel Polish and Ruthenian texts, made independently from the Latin original, shows the extent of the Polishlanguage interferencein Ruthenian of that time, firstof all in its syntax REVIEWS 307 and vocabulary. Still more arrestingare phonetic features of the Ruthenian languageof the manuscript,testifyingto its somewhatmixed Ukrainiandialect basis, which may reflect the author's Volhynian provenance. On the one hand, there are a sizable number of Polissian (northernUkrainian)features, e.g., mesec" 'month' (9r, 6ir, 63v),pameti(gen.) 'memory', deseti (gen.) 'ten' (4v) and other forms with the e-reflex of , in unstressedposition, sto 'that' (4r), o(t)kul''fromwhere' (6r)(cf. MUkr. otkul', MoUkr. vidkil'), chgybet" 'spine'(38v), attested also in Jakub Gawatowicz's interludes, permeated with Volhynian features. On the other hand, there are numerous southern Ukrainian forms like sco'what' (3v, U2r), pogadkom" (instr.sg.)'order'(5v)with the palatalizedr', kozdyj'each,every' (69r)(cf. MBel. kazyj MoBel. kozny) and vsch"(gen.) 'all' (62v)to cite a few. Most remarkableis dopjuro 'now' (7r)with the 'u-reflexin place of the etymologicalo,althoughthismay be a Polishborrowing(cf.dopiero W, i4b), modified according to the rules of Ukrainianphonetics. Overall, this is a well-crafted edition with a broad target readership in Slavic studies. An indexverborum would immensely enhance the value of the publication for scholars. There is a confusion of publication dates under Petehyryciggga (p. xliv)and, strangelyenough, the 'Russian-like'renditionof a Ukrainianname under Panasenko I974(p.xliii)next to the Ukrainianrendition of the firstand patronymicnames of Zovtobrjuchin his Russian-language article, published in Moscow in I978 (p. xliv). Yet these minor flaws do not detractin a majorway from the exemplarycontributionmade...