Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/179

 io«> s. iv. AUG. 19,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 143 AN EARLY LATIN-ENGLISH-BASQUE DICTIONARY. I HAVE recently found in this library, among the MSS. of Edward Lhwyd, the author of * Archseologia Britannica' (1707), an attempt at a Latin-Basque dictionary. It is written on the interleaves of a copy of Plunket'a (unpublished) Latin - Irish dic- tionary. It was not compiled by Lhwyd himself, who as a philologist was more than a century in advance of his time, whereas the compiler had not even an elementary knowledge of Latin. His work, however, is interesting as the first attempt to construct a Basque dic- tionary of any kind, and in judging of its shortcomings this fact must be borne in mind, as well as the more important one that at the date of its compilation the principles of Basque grammar were absolutely unknown. In fact, no one had the least conception of an agglutinative language such as Basque is. The compiler founded his work on the translation of the New Testament by I. Lei^arraga, printed at La Rochelle in 1571 (reprinted Strassburg, 1900). This was trans- lated from the Genevan French Testament. Taking this, then, as his basis, the com- piler collated it with the English Authorized Version, equating English and Basque words on the assumption that the two versions (English and Basque) corresponded word for word. It is obvious that such a method was full of pitfalls, into which the compiler frequently fell. For example, in St. Matt. xvi. 3 the French has "tempete" (=Qreek vtifuuv), which Leicj-arraga renders tempestate. The English version, however, has two words, "foul weather,1' so our compiler writes, "feedus, foul, tempestate." (The references, here and elsewhere, are mine.) Again, in St. Matt. ix. 24, where the A.V. has "they laughed Him to scorn," and the French, " ils se inoquoient de lui," the Basque is "truffatzen ciraden har^az." Hence the compiler equates ha,rr.a,z, which means " de lui," with " contemptus, scorn." Again, he enters in his list, " Absentia, absence, bilha gabilen." These words mean "they sought," but were clearly suggested by St. Luke xxii. 6, where the A.V. has "[sought to betray him] in the absence of the multitude," while, the French is "sans enaente." The compiler, not understanding the Basque words, thought they must corre- spond to the English word last in the verse. Wherever, as in these instances, a word occurs in the English version which has v T nothing corresponding to it in the French, and consequently none in the Basque, he was hopelessly puzzled. But, further, he desired the leading words in his dictionary to be Latin. Accordingly his next step was to look for the Latin equivalents of the English words, and for this purpose he con- sulted an English-Latin dictionary, probably Littleton's, which was in vogue at the time. Being ignorant of Latin, he confounds nouns and verbs; giving, for example, " Mitist tame, hetzenda" (i.e., "hetzen da," "se dompte"), which he found in James iii. 7, " is tamed," A.V. English words also—like in spelling but different in meaning—are confounded. Thus we have " Perdo, loose, lachaturen " (from St. Matt. xvi. 19), " loose " being in Littleton an alternative spelling of "lose." "Loose" is, of course, right for "lachaturen," which is a borrowed word. So the widow's "mite" becomes acarus, and " reins " = " renes " becomes retinacula. In these cases the Basque correctly represents the English, "mite" being pefa chipi, and " reins," f/uelfurruiuic. A curious result of the compiler's ignorance of Latin is that he gives us some very rare Latin words or significations; for example, " improles, childless." This is in Holyoke and in Littleton, the former referring to "Gloss." as his authority. It is found, in fact, in a Greek-Latin glossary in Labbe. Another instance is " striymentum, string," also in Littleton. The blunders are numerous and porten- tous ; nevertheless, it is possible to eliminate them, and a reversing Basque dictionary of any kind is so difficult to procure that I have gone to the trouble of doing this, using, as far as practicable, the compiler's alpha- betical arrangement, and supplying refer- ences to Leicjarraga's N.T. The resulting- vocabulary I hope to have some opportunity of publishing. Meantime, I may mention that I have been able to make some trifling additions to Van Eys's ' Dictionnaire.' For example, under tuilsarrak he says: " Selon P. [i.e., Pouvreau, ' Dictionnaire MS.'] ce mob signifie entrailles; et se trouve 2 Cor. xii., inais nous 1'avons cherche vaineraent." In fact, it is found in 2 Cor. vi. 12 (fialsurretan =" in visceribus "), and the " vi." has dropped out of Pouvreau. The singular, halsar, also occurs in Acts i. 18, and the plural again in Col. iii. 12; Philem. 7,12, 20, and in 1 John iii. 17. Again, ».v. bat, Van Eys gives " Bakoitz, g. [i.e., Guipuzcoan]...chacun." It occurs in St. Mark vi. 5, "eri bakoitz"="un peu de malades." Cf. "bakan, b.n. [bas-navarrais], rare.'