The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century). Digitally annotated and aligned corpus (eRomLex)

Project title: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century). Digitally annotated and aligned corpus (eRomLex)
Project Code: PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0517
Time Frame: 01.11.2020-31.10.2022 (24 months)
Funding Authority: Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI)
Approved Budget: 408.560,00 RON

Project Team

Dr. Mădălina-Andreea Ungureanu – Project Leader (”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Department, madandronic@gmail.com)
Dr. Ana-Maria Gînsac – Project member (”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Department)
Dr. Mihai-Alex Moruz – Project member (”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Faculty of Computer Sciences)
Dr. Iosif Camară – Project member  (”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Department)
Dr. Elena Tamba – Project member (Romanian Academy of Iași, ”A. Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology)
Dr. Cecilia Maticiuc – Project member (”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Faculty of Letters)
PhD Student Ioan-Mihai Felea – Project member (”Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Faculty of Letters)

Project Abstract

The expansion of Catholicism and Protestantism in Eastern Europe in the first half of the 17th century determined a strong reaction of the Orthodox clergy, which led to the emergence of numerous Slavonic linguistic instruments, among which the Slavonic-Ukrainian Lexicon by Pamvo Berynda (Lexikon slavenorosskij i imenь tlьkovanije, Kiev, 1627). Considering the close relations between the Romanian states and Ukraine, Berynda’s lexicon had a strong impact in the Romanian space, which resulted in  six Slavonic-Romanian dictionaries, all manuscript. Although they are the oldest Romanian bilingual dictionaries, and thus of great importance for Romanian culture. 

The project proposes an online comparative edition of these Slavonic-Romanian lexicons. The lexicons will be displayed online, in a digital comparative edition, with an interface that will allow complex queries, combining the information available in lexicons and searching for parts of words. The comparative approach will allow establishing the relations between them, whether they are independent or copies of the same source. This online edition will be a very useful tool, easy to reach by lexicographers, specialists interested in old Romanian corpora and other aspects pertaining to their exploitation and will make available to those interested, as open access corpus, this important and almost unknown part of the Romanian cultural heritage.

Objectives

The main objective is providing a digital comparative edition of the Slavonic-Romanian lexicons in the 17th Century. We have planned an on-line comparative edition because a completely digitized version allows the exhaustive data extraction and comparison, which will never happen in the case of a classical edition (printed on paper). One can obviously argue that a digitized edition provides an efficient rendering and exploitation of the linguistic content while running the risk of obscuring the image of the text seen as an object (by reorganizing its content). However, our priority is to be able to examine the linguistic content in order to provide answers to the questions and hypotheses we have advanced so far. More precisely, our aim is to gain perspective upon the lexicographic network and the scholars’ workshop from the school in Târgoviște. The database will allow constant updates with other texts as well as the linking to other dictionaries.

Another objective is establishing relations with foreign research teams focusing on old lexicography and thus providing a framework for understanding the way in which linguistic information and models circulated in the pre-modern epoch, în Central and Eastern Europe.

Expected Results

The main result of the project is the comparative digital edition itself, which will allow further observations on the relations between the lexicons and also between them and other texts written in the same period, whose paternity is still controversial. The results of these observations will be published in articles and disseminated in conferences. The project will also propose a method for the setup of an aligned database that might be connected to the already existing electronic Romanian dictionaries (CLRe, eDTLR), supplementing the linguistic information they contain and will initiate a more extensive approach meant to produce processed and annotated digitised corpora of old Romanian to which these lexicons could be connected in order to emphasize translation practices, and specific uses of the linguistic material; these aspects could clarify some origin-related issues formulated up to the present date and which are difficult to check by means of classical text interrogation methods. 

The results of the workshop we will organise in the first year of the projectwill be published in a collective volume, by which we intend to offer a perspective on the specificity of the old lexicography in Central and Eastern Europe.

Project Plan

2020

• Step 1: documenting; setting the bibliography (I)
• Step 2: elaboration of the website
• Step 3: elaboration of a filing format that would allow the processing of files
• Step 4: gradual processing of files as they are received from the transcribers (I: documentation)
• Step 5: storing the files in TEI-P5 format so that they can be subjected to indexation and interrogation (I: documentation)

2021

• Step 1: documenting; setting the bibliography (II)
• Step 2: obtaining the lexicons, basic image processing (processing, ordering)
• Step 3: establishing the interpretative transcription norms
• Step 4: transcription and filing of the lexicons; collection of title words from Lex.Ber. and the translation of definitions into Romanian or their annotation
• Step 5: gradual processing of files as they are received from the transcribers
• Step 6: storing the files in TEI-P5 format so that they can be subjected to indexation and interrogation;
• Step 7: validation of entries, correction of errors, permanent updating of the database
• Step 8: revision of the transcriptions and database and setting of texts (I)

2022

• Step 1: revision of the transcriptions and database and setting of texts (II);
• Step 2: validation of entries, correction of errors, permanent updating of the database (II);
• Step 3: elaboration of a web interface that would allow complex query as well as the display and export of the results
• Step 4: elaboration of introductory studies
• Step 5: completion of the platform, final correction of texts.