LingVaria (Nov 2023)
Nie tylko Bulla gnieźnieńska. O znaczeniu dokumentu fundacyjnego Zbyluta (1153) dla polskich badań historycznojęzykowych
Abstract
NOT ONLY BULL OF GNIEZNO: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ZBYLUT’S FOUNDATION DOCUMENT (1153) FOR POLISH HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC RESEARCH. PART 3: TOWARDS TRANSCRIPTION This article is the third part of a series dedicated to the documents sharing the name of “Zbylut’s foundation document”. The aim of the first part was to bring the three 12th-century documents into the field of interest of philologists and to review the historical literature with a view to identifying threads that may be relevant to philological (historical-linguistic) research, while the second part brought ananswer to the question of the relationship between the surviving documents, the degree of imitation between them, and the number of writers who were their authors. The present, third part, shows how complicated (and sometimes impossible) it is to get to the wording of the Zbylut document’s records and what procedures are used to do so. A comparison and analysis of selected records from the oldest three documents indicates the place of graphic substitution, the custom of redrawing records and the Latinization of records in the hierarchy of successive filters imposed on the record. We have also tried to show how making different assumptions leads to completely different readings of the same name and to different hypotheses about the presumed sound of its name. We have also discussed the consequences of “translating” a name written in simple graphics into the modern alphabet with which, according to the essence of transcription, ancient phonetic features were to be expressed, and which, aswe often get the impression, is no better suited for this than the graphics used by 12th-century scribes. We also took up the theme of the indispensable cooperation of historians and philologists in finding out the truth hidden in the oldest records of Polish proper names.
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