Middle Elvish dictionary

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The Middle Elbian Dictionary (MeWB) records the dialectal vocabulary of an area that includes the northern Harz , Anhalt , the Magdeburg Börde , the Altmark and the Jerichower Land , a strip east of the Elbe with Brandenburg dialect. This closes a large gap in the comprehensive lexicographical recording of German dialects, because the MeWB establishes the connection between the Brandenburg-Berlin , Upper Saxon , Thuringian , Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg dictionary .

Characteristic

The MeWB is one of the so-called large-scale dialect dictionaries of German and is therefore based on a scientific basis. It reflects the state of language in the first half of the 20th century; Historical documents are only received if they can be assigned to documents from this period.

The processing area does not represent a uniform linguistic landscape. In addition to the juxtaposition of receding Low German and advancing Central German dialect , the Low German area itself, which takes by far the largest part of the processing area, shows clear differences. This resulted in the decision to use a double key word approach: The Low German documents are cited as constructs in normalized Low German (based on Middle Low German ), the Central German documents are used in the standard language (factually analogous). If there is Low German and Middle German evidence for a word meaning, the Low German lemma acts as the main lemma, the standard lemma as the reference lemma.

history

The MeWB owes its creation to Karl Bischoff . In 1935, Bischoff was initially commissioned by Walther Mitzka to create a dictionary for the Low German part of the Province of Saxony, later the area was expanded to its present size. He undertook this task mostly alone and without any noteworthy state support and continued it through the war years with meticulousness and great personal sacrifice. With an extensive questionnaire survey and the evaluation of other accessible sources, he created a rich material base. The progress of the work came to an abrupt end in 1958 when Bischoff left what was then the GDR.

With the establishment of a job in Halle in August 1992 - initially linked to the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig - Bischoff's work could be continued. Volumes H – O (2002) and A – G (2008) were compiled under the direction of Gerhard Kettmann. After his death in 2009, Hans-Joachim Solms took over the management of the project, which has been part of the 'Old German Studies' chair at the German Institute of the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg since 2000. An online version of the two published volumes has been freely accessible since November 2018.

Material base and sources

The MeWB's documentary material comprises around 250,000 document slips, which often already contain a large number of individual documents.

The evidence comes from questionnaires and individual direct surveys, as well as excerpts from dictionaries, local grammars and dialectological literature as well as from historical sources and dialect literature. Some private collections have also been incorporated.

Publication status

literature

  • K. Bischoff: The Middle Elbian Dictionary. In: Essays of the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Humanities and Social Science Class. Vol. 1984, No. 7, Mainz 1984, pp. 5-49.
  • G. Kettmann: The Middle Elbian Dictionary. In: Correspondence sheet of the Association for Low German Language Research. 1 (1994), pp. 6-9.
  • G. Kettmann: The Middle Elbian dictionary - history and status of the work. In: Saxony and Anhalt. Yearbook of the historical commission for Saxony-Anhalt. on behalf of the Historical Commission ed. v. J. Hartmann, 20 (1997), pp. 155-173.
  • o. N .: Middle Elbian dictionary. In: Scientific Lexicography of German. on behalf of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences ed. by Thomas Städtler, Heidelberg 2003, pp. 299–308.
  • Ulrich Wenner: The Middle Elbian Dictionary. In: Sachsen-Anhalt Journal 29 (2019), no. 4, pp. 6-7.

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