The paper discusses the etymology of Slavonic loanwords found in a previously unpublished South-Western Karaim translation of the Book of Daniel copied into manuscript no. ADub.III.84. South-Western Karaims were surrounded by speakers of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian, with the linguistic contact instigating changes in Karaim over a period of several centuries. The present article focuses only on the Slavonic impact upon Karaim vocabulary and attempts to determine whether the borrowed words can be traced back to Polish, Ukrainian or Russian etymons. The loanwords are additionally compared with their counterparts in ancient Polish Bible translations.
The present paper delves into the exclusive South-Western Karaim translation of the Latter Prophets (ADub.III.83), a manuscript discovered in recent years in Poland. Copied by Jeshua Josef Mordkowicz (1802–1884) most probably in the latter half of the 19th century in Halych, this manuscript offers valuable insights into the phonological characteristics specific to Modern South-Western Karaim, distinguishing it from Mordkowicz’s earlier works. The paper includes details about the copyist’s background, a general overview of the manuscript including some of its distinctive phonological features, and provides a short excerpt of the text presented in transcription along with its English translation. The relevant parts of the facsimile are attached at the end of the article.
The article presents a lexical analysis of two manuscripts comprising Karaim translations of Tanakh. The first one, no. ADub.III.84, is written in South-Western Karaim and was copied in the second half of the nineteenth century, whereas the second one, no. BSMS 288, is written in Crimean Karaim and was copied in the second half of the eighteenth century. The research, performed based on Psalms 76–150, aims to determine the nature of differences in vocabulary selected for both translations and, consequently, discrepancies in interpretation of the Hebrew original text. In addition, the paper presents a transcription of Psalm 90 from the manuscript no. ADub.III.84, supplemented with a comparison with the manuscript no. BSMS 288 (in brackets) and a translation into Polish.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.