The historical language records of Yakut at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and their significance for the historical-comparative lexicography of Yakut

Michael Knüppel

The historical language records of Yakut at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and their significance for the historical-comparative lexicography of Yakut

(66th Annual Meeting of the PIAC Göttingen, 2024)

There are a number of “turning points” in the historical lexicography of Yakut, which can often be linked either to specific periods in the history of research and key dates or to specific works resulting from such research. Such “turning points” include, for example, the earliest recording of Yakut lexemes by N. C. Witsen at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, the actual beginning of Siberian studies, which is associated with names such as D. G. Messerschmidt and Ph. J. v. Strahlenberg, or the publication of the first Yakut grammar (and the first dictionary) by O. N. v. Böhtlingk (1851). However, the transition from the 18th to the 19th century, with its accumulation of travelogues, across whose texts numerous Yakut lexemes are scattered, as well as the “Vocabularien” often appended to them, also represents such a high point in the history of the historical lexicography of Yakut. It is not so much the dictionary of Catherine II the Great (which appeared under the name of P. S. Pallas), J. C. Adelung’s “Mithridates” or H. J. v. Klaproth’s “Asia Polyglotta”, all of which drew mainly from older collections, that should be considered here, but rather the travelogues of the time and other writings that emerged from the relevant contexts. On the one hand, the records from the “Secret Astronomical and Geographical Expedition for the Exploration of Eastern Siberia and Alaska” (1785–1794) – also known as the “Billings-Sarychev Expedition” – should be mentioned here, i.e. the works and records of M. Sauer, M. Robek (~ Rohbeck) and C. H. Merck, but also materials such as the diary of J. Redowsky written during his journey from Irkutsk to Kamchatka in the years 1806-1807. These historical documents of the Yakut lexicography of this period are of particular importance to us, for example, in that they contain both material in which there is little or no influence from Russian (for example, in the case of the records from the expedition mentioned above), but also material in which we can already recognise a certain number of Russian borrowings. In the lecture, the speaker will give an overview and a research-historical contexts from which these materials originate.