Translated special literature – Heinrich Kawall and his book „Dieva radijumi pasaule” (“God’s creatures in the World”)

Abstract

The study provides an insight into the life history of a Baltic German pastor H. Kawall and illustrates his contribution into the knowledge transfer in the field of botany and during the early stages of the Latvian botanical terminology development. Mainly his work “God’s Creatures in the World” („Dieva radījumi pasaulē”, 1860), which is the Latvian translation of the book “Die Naturgeschichte für Kinder und Elementarschüler, oder erster Unterricht über das Mineralreich, Pflanzenreich und Tierreich, mit über 300 kolorierten Abbildungen” (1855), is described in the study. The study discusses translation strategy used by H. Kawall in the Latvian translation when searching for equivalents of German botanical terms and thinking about the addressee of his work. The Latvian botanical terms used in H. Kawall’s work are also analysed in relation to the contemporary botanical terminology. The research of older translations is instrumental in understanding the history of translation; the findings of the research are useful for contemporary translation practice.