MARKUS KÖHBACH, STEPHAN PROCHÁZKA, GEBHARD J. SELZ, RÜDIGER LOHLKER REDAKTION:
VERONIKA RITT-BENMIMOUN
104. BAND
WIEN 2014 IM SELBSTVERLAG DES INSTITUTS FÜR ORIENTALISTIK
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Varia D o e r f e r , G e r h a r d ; K n ü p p e l , M i c h a e l : Armanisches Wörterbuch. Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2013. 532 S. ISBN 978-3-88309-834-0. 70,00 €. This volume continues a series of publications, the main goal of which is to make accessible the many works left unfinished by the late Göttingen scholar Gerhard Doerfer (1920-2003) in the framework of the ambitious project “Nordasiatische Kulturgeschichte”. Specialists in Tungusic studies are most certainly well acquainted with this initiative, as some important contributions were produced under its sponsorship (e.g. G. Doerfer/W. Hesche/H. Scheinhardt, Lamutisches Wörterbuch, Wiesbaden 1980), and it is thanks to the tireless efforts of Michael Knüppel, one of Doerfer’s former students, that we can still profit from it. During the last decade or so, Knüppel laboriously recovered, completed, and sometimes even reconstructed, the original plans and guidelines outlined by Doerfer, in order to get works which right now are something more than auxiliary tools in Tungusic linguistics (e.g. G. Doerfer/M. Knüppel, Etymologisch-ethnologisches Wörterbuch tungusischer Dialekte (vornehmlich der Mandschurei), Hildesheim/Zürich/New York 2004) published at last. The main goal of this book is to gather and organize in a systematic fashion all the available materials of the so-called Arman language, a Tungusic variety which became silent in the 1970s. It was originally spoken in a very small pocket in the region of the river Arman (Russian , Japanese ቿወኻከ) at the Okhotsk Coast, surrounded by East Ewen dialects (Kolyma, Okhotsk, Ola). Arman speakers called themselves ääwnä, plural ääwnäl, and called speakers of the Ola region (whose dialect was taken as a basis for the literary Ewen language) oros, plural orosol, lit. ‘those having reindeers’ (in its turn, Arman speakers were referred to by the latter as mänä, i.e. ‘(the) settled (ones)’). Our knowledge of Arman stems almost in exclusivity from a single work: L. D. Rišes’ Ph.D. thesis, Armanskij dialekt èvenskogo jazyka (oerk grammatiki, teksty, slovar’), defended in Leningrad in 1947. All subsequent publications about the Arman language have exploited it to a greater or lesser extent. Six sections follow after the table of contents (p. 5) and the preface (pp. 7-8): I. Introduction (pp. 9-34), II. Arrangement of the dictionary (pp. 35-36), III. Bibliographic abbreviations (p. 37), IV. References (pp. 39-42), V. Arman-Russian-German dictionary (pp. 43-372), and VI. German index (pp. 373-532). The latter is an invaluable tool for those who are going to make use of the dictionary with some frequency. The authors must be congratulated on this, as the custom of compiling such indexes has regrettably fallen out of practice. The introduction covers well the basics of Arman. Certain aspects of it, however, deserve some comments. To begin with, it would have been instructive for the casual reader to give a brief account of the polemics surrounding the linguistic status of Arman, as it is not universally acknowledged that Arman is a “language”. Both L. D. Rišes, the scholar to whom we owe the privilege of knowing about Arman, and V. I. Cincius, an authority not only of Ewen, but of everything Tungusic, always referred to Arman as a dialect of Ewen, though they admitted its many peculiarities (see the East-West-Arman dialectal division already described in L. D. Rišes, “Nekotorye
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dannye po zapadnomu dialektu èvenskogo jazyka”, Uenye zapiski 3, 1955, pp. 179203, esp. 179-180). Curiously enough, the first scholar to argue about the pertinacity of Arman from a historical and comparative viewpoint was G. Doerfer (timid, if not just unsubstantial, allusions were made by other scholars, among them K. H. Menges or K. A. Novikova, see relevant passages on pp. 9 and 12, respectively, in the book under review), who quite accurately foresaw what an important contribution Arman could make to our rather narrow understanding of Northern Tungusic. Doerfer’s opinions in this respect – especially the one expressed in his seminal paper “Classification Problems of Tungus” (in M. Weiers, ed., Tungusica, vol. 1: Beiträge zur nordasiatischen Kulturgeschichte, Wiesbaden 1978, pp. 1-26, esp. p. 10) where he correctly observed that Arman is a sort of transitory variety between Ewenki and Ewen (this is perfectly illustrated on p. 20 of the book under review with very iconic lexical comparanda, which we can expand here to highlight the differences between the varieties involved, e.g. West Ewenki ñööltin ~ ñuëltin ‘sun’ >> Literary Ewen [= eastern dialects] ñööltn >> Arman yoolte >> East Ewenki dialectal continuum yultän ~ ñultän ~ dilacaa >> Literary Ewenki [= southern dialects] dilacaa ~ siguun) – were generally well received outside the Soviet Union and, consequently, have since been echoed in some important publications on Northeast Eurasia history and linguistics, e.g. J. Janhunen’s Manchuria: An Ethnic History (Helsinki 1996, p. 67). In spite of few supporters only, Russian scholars remain rather unconvinced by Doerfer’s (or other scholars’, for that matter) arguments and continue treating Arman as an aberrant dialect of Ewen. Krejnovi belonged to those who most fiercely challenged the idea of Arman being a linguistic autonomous system, and, for many, the verdict which he gave in “Iz istorii zaselenija oxotskogo poberež’ja. Po dannym jazyka i fol’klora èvenskix selenij Arman’ i Ola” (in: D. A. Ol’derogge, ed. Strany i narody Vostoka, vol. 4: Strany i narody bassejna Tixogo Okeana, Moskva 1979, pp. 186-201) has not lost its validity. Japanese scholars, as (the majority of) their Russian counterparts, are skeptical on the language status of Arman and they have, so far, ignored the issue (see i.a. J. Ikegami, “Tsung su no hensen”, in Tsungsu no kenky, T ky 2001, pp. 397-445, esp. 436-445). Krejnovi’s argumentation is fairly unbalanced, because he put too much emphasis on the similarities of Arman with the surrounding (East) Ewen dialects, which he explains only by invoking inheritance, leaving no room for other possible explanations, e.g. diffusion from Arman, or secondary influence from (East) Ewen. The ambiguity of the situation can be easily illustrated: let us take the word abalt [2] ‘feeble-minded, imbecile’ (figures in square brackets refer to item numbers in the book under review). This form does not show the typical Arman metathesis, which has taken place in the unmodified base abla [5] ‘small; little, less’ < *abl < Northern Tungusic *ab l < Proto-Tungusic *abul. ‘lack; deficiency’ (as in Arman adla ‘net’, cf. Literary Ewen adl, East Ewenki adal, West Ewenki adol < Northern Tungusic *ad l < PT *adul. ‘net’; see [33] adla), hence the exceptionality of the modified (derived) form abaltï (the regular outcome would be †ablatï, as in ablajï ‘little; less’; see [6] ablaj , cf. Literary Ewen ablc, East Ewenki abalac < *ab l+ > West Ewenki abolot id.). It is thus legitimate to assume that Arman abaltï either resulted from contamination with the corresponding Ewen term in the surrounding dialects
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or is an irregular outcome of the metathesis rule (this is not uncommon and goes along with typical patterns of lexical diffusion, e.g. pejorative or tabooistic terms are left unaffected, see [247] aval ‘tumor’, instead of **avla, etc.; note also that metathesis takes place in Auslaut, and it logically does not affect verbal bases, therefore one could speculate that the verbal base abal- [1] ‘to be insufficient, be short of’ generalized over the nominal base). Irrespective of the interpretation we endorse at the end of the day, it should become obvious that there are different ways to approach the problem. Generally speaking, the distinction between “languages” and “dialects” has become an infamous, if not just irksome, issue in Tungusic linguistics. All specialists seem to agree on the existence of at least ten varieties (Ewenki, Ewen, Negidal, Solon, Udihe, Oroch, Nanay, Ulcha, Orok, and Manchu), some of them showing remarkable dialectal exuberance (Ewenki, Ewen, Nanay, and Manchu). Problems become apparent with the interpretation of such an exuberance: most specialists get entangled with the use of the terms “language” and “dialect” whose geopolitical intricacies and negative effects for the practice of linguistics are well known. Notwithstanding this, the interpretation is straightforward to those who devote their time to historical and comparative linguistics, as Doerfer did: if a given variety contributes enough valuable information to shed some light on historical facts, then it is quoted separately, as is done in the case not only of Arman, but also of Oroqen, Kili, Kilen, certain Spoken Manchu dialects (in clear opposition to Sibe), etc. On the other hand, it cannot be emphasized enough that the main concern of the first generations of Russian tungusologists was to document these languages and provide the necessary means to guarantee their survival, for example, by developing educational materials. In light of these facts Cincius’ comparative (not etymological!) dictionary, a not inconsiderable amount of materials of which were straight-from-the-field, should be cautiously approached when making historical inferences. Coming back to the introduction of the book under review, it also attempts at showing through current research and historical documentation why Arman deserves to be treated as an autonomous system within Tungusic (pp. 9-22). Regrettably, the discussion revolves on the historical attestation and development of /s-/ (e.g. Literary Ewenki hiisäcin ‘evening’ vs. Arman sisäätnä) and /l-/ (e.g. Literary Ewen nam ‘sea’ vs. Arman lam) which, though philologically speaking a very interesting issue, it is not enough to provide the reader with a general view of the main features distinguishing Arman from the rest of the Northern Tungusic languages. The most remarkable Arman specific sound changes and phonetic particularities are the following: (1) the metathesis already mentioned in Auslaut (tendency to preserve open syllables in non-monosyllabic words, although there are exceptions): *CaCaC > CaC(C)a, e.g. Literary Ewen äwn ‘Ewen’ vs. Arman ääwnä ‘Arman’; (2) loss of the velar fricative in Anlaut: *x- > Ø, e.g. Literary Ewen xüüsï ‘swan’ vs. Arman üüsï id.; (3) retention of *s- in Anlaut, e.g. Literary Ewen hamaan ‘shaman’ vs. Arman samaan id.; (4) *-Cr- > -Cc-, e.g. Literary Ewen olr ‘fish’ vs. Arman ol’cï id.; (5) weakening of *c > s, e.g. Literary Ewen kubc ‘all’ vs. Arman kupsä id.; (6) *ñ > y, e.g. Literary Ewen ñööltn ‘sun’ vs. Arman yoolte id.; (7) retention of PT *w- in Proto-Tungusic *waa- ‘to kill’ > Literary Ewen maa- vs. Arman waa- id. From the previous list, sound change (1) is by far the most pervasive one, the effects of which
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being more obvious in morphology (sporadic cases of lexical metathesis have been described in West Ewen dialects, see Krejnovi, op. cit., p. 196). Metathesis is one of the factors that led to massive analogical restructuration, e.g. possessive endings in the plural: 1PL +vna, 2PL & 3PL +tna, cf. Literary Ewen 1PL.exclusive +vun, 1PL.inclusive +t, 2PL & 3PL +tan (p. 28), etc. As far as grammar is concerned, a brief comparative Arman-Ewen-Ewenki sketch is offered on pp. 22-29 in the book under review, and three Arman texts with German translation are reproduced on pp. 30-33 for illustrative purposes. All this information is taken from L. D. Rišes’ article “Osnovnye osobennosti armanskogo dialekta èvenskogo jazyka” (Doklady i soobšenija Instituta Jazykoznanija AN SSSR 7, 1955, pp. 116-146), which is a very good summary of her own Ph.D. thesis mentioned above. Other morphological peculiarities of Arman include the loss of the exclusive/inclusive distinction in the 1PL personal pronoun and its corresponding nominal/verbal endings, generalization of +l as the dominant nominal plural marker (even with Nº-bases) and the merger of the first and second imperative endings (J.A. Alonso de la Fuente, “The first imperative of Tungusic”, Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 129, pp. 7-34, esp. p. 20). All these features, both phonological and morphological, unambiguously set apart Arman from the rest of Ewen dialects and, at the same time, they show that Arman is a highly innovative component of the Northern Tungusic branch. Incidentally, it would have been certainly advisable to describe in greater detail some of the Western sources containing Ewen materials referred to on pp. 13-19, as not all of them are well known, even among specialists. For example, until very recently, Lindenau’s Arman materials, which rank among the oldest ones, were hard to come by (the bulk of them belongs in Lindenau’s report “Beschreibung der Peschie Tungusen, oder so genannte[n] Lamuten, zu Ochot. 1742”; see now Ia. I. Lindenau, Opisanie narodov Sibiri (pervaja polovina XVII veka). Istoriko-ètnografieskie materialy o narodax Sibiri i Severo-Vostoka, perevod, podgotovka teksta, primeanija i predislovie Z. D. Titova. Magadan 1983, on Lindenau on pp. 6-17, Arman vocabulary on pp. 71-76), and even for those who had a chance to read basic literature on the history of Tungusic linguistics (see i.a. V. A. Gorcevskaja, Oerk istorii izuenija tunguso-man’žurskix jazykov, Leningrad 1959, esp. pp. 6-9, 16-17, and similar works), it will remain unclear who this Lindenau is (namely, Jakov Ivanovi/Johann Lindenau [1700/1710-1795], a Russian-born Swedish member of the Second Kamchatkan expedition, also known as the Great Northern Expedition) and why we can find Arman materials at all in his writings. The dictionary itself contains a total of 3571 items. These have been extracted from the sources described in the introduction – mainly the Russian-Ewen dictionary by V. I. Cincius and L. D. Rišes (Russko-èvenskij slovar’, Moskva 1952) and the comparative dictionary edited by V. I. Cincius (Sravnitel’nyj slovar’ tunguso-man’žurskix jazykov, 2 vols., Leningrad 1975-1977) – , including four words in N. V. Sljunin’s Oxotsko-kamatskij kraj (Sankt-Peterburg, vol. 1, p. 376; the given page is reproduced on p. 34) and the obscure Arman word mentioned in Majewicz’s edition of B. Pisudski’s Tungusic materials (The Collected Works of Bronisaw Pisudski, vol. IV: Materials for the Study of Tungusic Languages and Folklore, Berlin 2011, p. 1206; see [2691] ourf’a = ävärgä-). All entries are numbered to make cross-reference easier
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(as is done in other dictionaries belonging to the same series), and include Russian and German translations. In sum, this is a very welcome contribution that should help, among others, in the organization and systematization of Tungusic linguistic materials. It may also spur some fresh discussion about the intricacies of language/dialect classification and historical and comparative linguistics in the domain of Tungusic studies. The number of typos and misprints is within the reasonable (note, however, that the passage on p. 13 “...in den russischen Quellen des 12. Jh. unter der Form...” should read “17. Jh.” instead). The book, technically speaking, is well produced, with clean pages and a pleasant typeface. José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente (Cracow)
G o l d e n b e r g , G i d e o n : Semitic Languages, Features, Structures, Relations, Processes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. xix+363 S. ISBN 978-0-19964491-9. 75,00 £. Das aus 16 Kapiteln bestehende Buch kann man als in zwei Teile – einen allgemeinen und einen Grammatikteil – gegliedert betrachten. Der allgemeine Teil umfasst die Kapitel 1-6 auf insgesamt nur 63 Seiten. Trotz der Kürze gelingt es Goldenberg, dem Leser zahlreiche wesentliche Informationen über die alten und modernen semitischen Sprachen zu geben. Dies beinhaltet sowohl einen Überblick über ihre zeitliche und geographische Verbreitung mit interessanten Details zur Sprach- und Forschungsgeschichte (Kapitel 2, S. 10-20), Sprachverbreitungskarten, Sprachkontakte untereinander und mit nichtsemitischen Sprachen, die Sprecherzahlen für die vier größten gesprochenen semitischen Sprachen (Kapitel 3, S. 21-29) und ihre Schriftsysteme (Kapitel 4, S. 30-43), als auch sehr nützliche und praktische Hinweise auf einführende Werke und grammatische Beschreibungen (Kapitel 2) und sogar eine Liste mit einer Auswahl an Wörterbüchern (S. 20). Ferner diskutiert der Autor in Kapitel 5 (S. 44-57) die Probleme der genetischen Klassifizierung der semitischen Sprachen und macht den Leser im Kapitel 6 (S. 5863) auf einige fundamentale Erklärungsansätze aus der Geschichte der semitischen Sprachwissenschaft aufmerksam, darunter die Erklärung einer flektierten Verbalform als einer dimorphemen Struktur durch die mittelalterlichen arabischen Grammatiker (S. 61) oder die Erklärung des Adjektivs aus den äthiopischen Grammatiken als einer Struktur mit einem implizierten pronominalen Kopf (sämayawi ‘himmlisch’), äquivalent zu Konstruktionen mit einem sichtbaren pronominalen Kopf zä- (zä-sämay ‘das des Himmels’) (S. 60), die als Grundlage seiner eigenen Analysen des prädikativen bzw. attributiven Satzverhältnisses dienen. Im zweiten Teil, Kapitel 7-16, behandelt Goldenberg die verschiedenen Teilbereiche der Grammatik, die thematisch angeordnet sind. Dabei ist die Absicht des Autors, wie er im einführenden Kapitel (S. 2) erläutert und auch schon seine Wahl des Untertitels zeigt, vor allem wichtige linguistische Merkmale, Strukturen, Relationen und Prozesse, die charakteristisch für die semitischen Sprachen sind, darzustellen und zu diskutieren. Die untersuchten grammatischen Einheiten werden jeweils mit Beispielen belegt, die in Umschrift und mit einer Interlinearübersetzung versehen sind.
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