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Publications de l’Association Finlandaise de Linguistique Appliquée 57. pp. 252–257.
LATVIAN BILINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHY
– TRADITION AND CHANGE
Andrejs Veisbergs, University of Latvia
The present paper deals with the historical background of Latvian bilingual lexicography
and the changes that have occurred in the 90s. Latvian dictionaries have historically been
bilingual and for several centuries made by non-Latvians. The last century has seen a
change in the pattern with dictionaries compiled by Latvians and aimed solely at Latvian
speakers. Dictionaries were also used as an instrument for language purism. The
changes in the 90s – democratization of the language and the influence of English –
have resulted in a gradual break with prescriptive lexicography. Yet, the study of the field
shows that despite relatively successful lexicographical work, the lack of a Latvian corpus
and of a consensus on the prescriptive versus descriptive issue seriously hampers the
development of modern dictionaries in Latvia.
Keywords: Latvian, lexicography, bilingual dictionaries, prescriptivism, purism, corpus
The peculiarities of Latvian lexicography are mainly historically and socially
conditioned and they can be summed up as follows:
• it is almost exclusively bilingual,
•
•
to a large extent it has been divorced from the real language
it has been purist dominated.
It is usual to date Latvian lexicography from 1638, when the first dictionary
was published (Mancelius 1638) containing about 6000 words. It was to
develop the link between the church and the peasant nation, between the
German speaking clergy and Latvian-speaking people, that the first
dictionaries were actually created. The following two centuries saw the
same: the dictionaries were made by the German speakers as well as
aimed at the German speakers, so they were monodirectional. This
situation lead to two variants of Latvian. The peasant people were
259
speaking one language at home and another in communication with the
non-Latvian governors in the official spheres – the court, the church, the
administration, the manor. Only the second variant of the language had its
written variant and it was reflected in the dictionaries. The situation began
to change in the middle of the 19th century when the so called Latvian
national awakening started. The dichotomy of the language was noticed.
The dictionaries of the second half of the 19th century were produced by
the Latvian speakers (Valdemârs 1872) and accordingly tended to reflect
the language spoken by Latvians more. However, the struggle waged
against German and Russian dominance, and its influence in the language
also transferred purism in the language to the making of the dictionaries.
The gulf bet-ween spoken and written language continued to exist. Only by
this time it was not the semi-German versus Latvian variant but real,
colloquial language versus official and purified one. Thus started the
historical pattern for Latvian lexicography – it’s explicitly bilingual
(multilingual) tradition which lasted for more than 300 years (of the 10
published dictionaries in the 17–19th centuries all were bilingual or
multilingual). Also, the term ‘dictionary’, for an average Latvian, would be
associated with a bilingual dictionary only. This is typical of small nations
where the main purpose of a dictionary is seen in sustaining contact with
other bigger and more expansive cultures. And naturally the main contact
languages dominated in lexicography, e.g. 1900–1961:
German – Latvian
Latvian – German
Russian – Latvian
Latvian – Russian
English – Latvian
Latvian – English
Lithuanian – Latvian
12
8
11
7
14
3
1
(17 editions)
(9)
(3)
(2)
(6)
(5)
A decent Latvian – Estonian dictionary had to wait until 1967, despite the
geographical proximity. A Latvian – Swedish dictionary in Latvia appeared
only in the 90s, a Latvian – Danish dictionary in 1995, a Latvian –
Norwegian dictionary in 1998, a Latvian – Finnish dictionary in 1997 (Pajula
1997).
Even the first big comprehensive general explanatory Latvian
dictionary (Mülenbach 1923), in six volumes, is in fact a bilingual book with
definitions in German and examples in Latvian. It contains the most
comprehensive stock of Latvian for the time, German in explanations
allowed the foreigners to use it as a bilingual dictionary, and Latvian was
260
put in framework of comparative linguistics internationally. In a way it was
an attempt to reach out to a broader audience.
The other tradition is that of purifying, improving and normativizing,
which starts only in mid-19th century. This tradition affects not only
bilingual but also, and much more so, explanatory dictionaries. For
example the above mentioned Mülenbach’s dictionary is clearly
prescriptive (suggesting that it has been aimed at Latvian users). It
reflected the written and spoken language of the end of the 19th century,
carefully weeded of undesirable elements, internationalisms, later
borrowings, in a way creating a monument to the “right”, unadulterated
Latvian. As such it set the pattern for other dictionaries as well – the
following bilingual dictionaries, although adding the terminological
component, carefully avoided substandard layers of lexis – loans,
colloquial, slang, taboo and vulgar words. For example, the most popular
form of Latvian greeting since the 50s, “£au” (in fact a loan from Italian),
appeared first in the Latvian-Swedish dictionary (Krasti a 1996) and then
the Latvian-English dictionary (Veisbergs 1997). It cannot be said that the
dictionaries have been divorced from life entirely; in a way they reflect
what numerous Latvians even today see as two parallel languages existing
side by side – the right and the wrong one. Taking into account that, in
Latvian history, dictionaries have always been very much the symbol of the
official and approved on the one hand, and the desired and correct on the
other, they are, as it were, caught between the purist tendency and the
objectively changing language.
The changes of the 90s called forth an amazing change in language
and to some extent also in its lexicographical reflection. Two profound and
far reaching processes came under way:
•
democratization of the language (written and spoken) with all its positive and
negative effects. Abolishing censorship and passing over to a market economy
in Latvia meant abolishing linguistic censorship and to a great extent editing as
well. So the written word has come to reflect the real / spoken language. The
media are full of new words, old “bad” words, the language has become much
more open to change, variation, wordplay and new patterns.
•
the English influence. The greatest change since the regaining of
independence (the singing revolution) has been an increased importance of
English, which has become an active direct contact language as well as an
intermediate contact language. It has also substituted Russian as a model
language for terminology and word formation, e.g. instead of two-component
phrases and backclipping compounds, so characteristic of Russian,
261
compounds, blends and conversion cases, characteristic of English, have
become more usual (Veisbergs 1997).
Because of the sudden and fast overhaul of the language, some linguists
(Údris 1997) suggest that lexicographical work should stop for a time, until
the language stabilizes.
Since the collapse of the old system, long term dictionary projects
have suffered a typical setback. The new dictionaries are now worked out
in a rather fast speed by freelance lexicographers or experts of some
sphere, financed by various companies, and as a result creating a
fragmentary and unnecessary variety of terminology. For the general
scene it should also be stated that all the big dictionaries are
monodirectional – targeted exclusively at the Latvian audience. I will focus
on English dictionaries as these have been seriously reworked.
The most typical changes in bilingual dictionaries are the following:
•
Freer reflection of lower layers of vocabulary – colloquial, slang, taboo:
The English – Latvian dictionary (1995) was the first to introduce, in the English
part, words belonging to the substandard register, which in the soviet system
was taboo. So most of the four letter words in English can be found, but they
are prudishly supplied with neutral or even scientific Latin counterparts in
Latvian, e.g. prick sl. penis (penis), crap vulg. mèsli (dung, rubbish), shit vulg.
mèsli, súdi (dung, shit)
•
Borrowings are less ostracized, where Latvian wording sounds ridiculous or
where foreign loans have become accepted: file – fails, cheeseburger –
£ìzburgers.
•
Compilers also had to deal with a new problem. Because of the transorientation
of Latvian towards English as the main contact language instead of Russian,
the category of false friends has become very volatile. Many former EnglishLatvian false friends (Veisbergs 1994) have picked up the English meaning and
are now true equivalents: capacity, ambulance, decade, to arrest, romance.
One can look on this as a massive interference that has to be countered by
dictionaries or as an inevitable language change that dictionaries have to
document.
•
The idea of revised editions published yearly or biennially seems to have struck
root at least for the English dictionaries. Thus the English-Latvian dictionary
(1995), published 30 years after the previous one, has had a second edition in
1997. The Latvian-English dictionary (1997) undergoes revision to be published
in 1999. It had a similar prehistory – the previous dictionary published (Turkina
1982) was a slightly updated edition of the 1963 dictionary (Turkina 1963).
262
The Latvian – English dictionary created a set of different problems. The
main problem for lexicographers here lies in there being no reliable basis
on which to build the Latvian part, as there is no corpus of Latvian.
Colloquial Latvian has not been registered nor thoroughly described. The
terminology sphere, after 50 years of Russian dominance, is limited,
glossaries compiled during the soviet times are Russian-based and, in any
case, outdated. The new term glossaries are in-house publishings that
differ from one ministry, bank or company to another. A multitude of terms
is being coined – militaries, banking, maritime affairs, the new spheres:
computers, EU. So there is an enormous overlapping and redundancy, e.g.
software - programmatúra, programnodrošinâjums, programmu
nodrošinâjums, softvèrs; multiplier – reizinâtâjs, reizulis,
multiplikâtors. While there is no corpus, much of the decision of what is
correct and used is unfortunately determined by intuition.
•
The colloquial element was another aspect that underwent serious change.
Numerous phrasal verbs were added in the English part, formerly disregarded
as too colloquial. In this dictionary also colloquial and rude Latvian words foršs,
baigi, dimbâ, purns, £alis, kúlis, fenderèt, £au were not feared, and exact
English counterparts were provided.
•
Strong emphasis was put on combinatorics or collocability, grammar notes, link
elements (prepositions) as the dictionary is mainly used for translation and the
users, unfamiliar with the target language, have to be helped in their choice of
surrounding words. Semantic equivalence does not always imply
communicative equivalence, and thus contextualization is very important for the
success. Understanding of how the words are used in context is an element of
a learner’s dictionary that has been absorbed by the new type of active bilingual
dictionary (Svensen 1993: 87).
•
Increase in the number of synonyms with their semantically different scope and
attenuation has led to a more frequent labelling and differentiation by means of
explanations. Paradoxically, the dictionary includes many obsolete English
words which are frequently used in Latvia (and found as first counterparts in the
previous dictionaries). Their simple loss would be misunderstood and now they
usually come at the end of the synonym row, supplied with the label obsolete.
Some minor points that distinguish the new generation of dictionaries front matter seems to get shorter, no doubt reflecting a common sense
approach and evidence of the reluctance of users to refer to it. Both
dictionaries are simpler, more user–friendly, more explicit (van der Meer
1996: 193–194), with fewer subject labels and codes.
263
CONCLUSIONS
The overwhelming problem of Latvian lexicography is a lack of a true list of
words and their meanings, reflecting the Latvian lexicon. This and the
conflicting (prescriptive versus descriptive) ideas of what the language
is/should be like seriously hamper the development of lexicography. The
only radical solution, in my opinion, is a Latvian corpus that would, in
quantitative terms, show what the language is really like. Proceeding from
the corpus, various modern dictionaries could be compiled covering the
necessities of communication of today.
References
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Mancelius, G. 1638. Lettus, das ist Wortbuch. Riga.
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Pajula, M. 1997. Latviešu-somu, somu-latviešu vârdnìca. Rìga: Norden.
Svenson, B. 1993. Practical lexicography. Principles and methods of dictionary-making.
Oxford.
Turkina, E. 1963. Latviešu angîu vârdnìca. Rìga: LVI.
Turkina, E. 1982. Latviešu angîu vârdnìca. Rìga: Avots.
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