ALEKSANDER BRÜCKNER: ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE POLISH LANGUAGE [1927].

Description

This is the first edition of a fundamental work of Polish linguistics – the first ever complete etymological dictionary of the Polish language and one of the first studies of its kind in European Slavic studies . The author, Aleksander Brückner (1856-1939), an outstanding Slavist, historian of Polish literature and culture, professor at the University of Berlin, described as a “polyhistor”, “titan of scientific work” and “giant of Polish science” .

The work contains more than 5850 entries explaining about 26,260 lexical units . The dictionary is distinguished by the author’s characteristic archaic style and unusual alphabetical order (e.g. ch after h, ś between s and sz) . It also includes 27 “cross-sectional treatises” on such topics as Deity, Cattle, Home, Fauna and Flora, Personal Names, Calendar, Bullion, Music, Hunting, Vessels, Beer, Kinship, Slavs, Clothing, Armor, Folk customs and others .

The publication is dedicated “to the memory of the greatest Slavist František Miklosich” . It is not only an invaluable source of knowledge about the origin of Polish words, but also a testimony to the erudition and passion of its author, who in his inquiries reached out to the Proto-Indo-European language and compared Polish words with their equivalents in Greek, Latin, German or Indo-European languages .

330-23-A-Z