Andreja Žele Inštitut za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana Murko's Lexicology as a Synthesis of Linguistics and Ethnology Prispevek z leksikološkim izhodiščem skuša Matijo Murka predstaviti predvsem kot jezikoslovca, ki je v svojih etnološko-jezikoslovnih razpravah problemsko ovrednotil jezikoslovne, predvsem etimološke, dialektološke, pa tudi nekatere pravopisne razlage/rešitve svojih dveh učiteljev, F. Mik- lošiča in V. Jagica, pa V. Oblaka, K. Štreklja, J. Kolhirja idr.; predstavil in ovrednotil je tudi slo- varsko delo V. Karadžica, A. Murka in F. Miklošiča. The paper, ta king lexicology as its starting-point, aims to present Matija Murko primarily as a linguist who in his ethnological-linguistic studies critically evaluated linguistic, especially etymo- logical, dialectological, and also as some orthographical explanations/solutions offered by his two primary mentors F. Miklošič and V. Jagic, as well as by V. Oblak, K. Štrekelj, J. Kollar, etc. He al- so presented and evaluated the lexicographical work of V. Karadžic, A. Murko and F. Miklošič. Murko linked his ethnological field-work with questions of Slovene termino- logy-he studied the justifiability/suitability of the use of Slovene and Slavonic lexis in Slovene, Croatian and Serbian folk poems, including etymological discussions of the terminology in presenting so-called material cu1ture, e.g., in his article on the Slovene house. He tackled questions concerning the development of linguistic register in Slovene and other Slavonic languages, and thus linked linguistics with language policy. 1 Murko's scientific and methodological principles In the l880s Matija Murko began to carry on the scholarly work of his teacher, F. Miklošič, the true initiator of comparative Slavonic linguistics. Murko encouraged his students to engage in philological study in the broad sense, including literary history, and he was interested in cultural phenomena and problems throughout the Slavonic region. While in Vienna he displayed a deepened interest in Slavonic folk poems.1 In a variety of texts Murko regularly stressed the value and importance of philology in the broadest sense: national and comparative literary history, cultural and political history, and ethnography; however, he was also concerned with so-call- ed pure linguistics. Although Murko's philology was lively , contemporary, and relevant, he could still be methodologically characterized as a dedicated positivist and optimistic realist who believed in the Renaissance of Slavonic studies? With his broad view of linguistic, literary and ethnographical problems among all the Slavs, he worked with 1 He experienced considerable support in this area. Murko was encouraged in his study of folk poems by Fran Miklošič, the Germanists Richard Heinzel and Erich Schmidt, and later by Vatroslav Jagic. During his time in Russia (1887-89) his interest in the folk poem was supported by Aleksandar N. Veselovskij in St. Petersburg, F. J. Buslajev in Moscow and A. N. Pypin. 4 Slovenski jezik - Slovene Linguistic Studies 4 (2003) equal zeal in the extensive area of Slavonic ethnology and ethnography, studying the relationship between material and spiritual culture. In compiling the Rukovet' slo- vanske Jilologie (Handbook of Slavonic Philology), as a counterweight to the Grund- riss der slavischen Philologie, he endeavoured to go beyond bio-bibliographical methods, i.e., he aimed to write informative and comprehensive work with a com- pact synthesis of research done up to that time in all fields. Murko's linguistic and methodological activity can be considered in thematic divisions: 1. the idea of Slavon- ic reciprocity; 2. biographies of forgotten linguistic/cultural writers; 3. suppressed language cultures among the Belorussians, Ukrainians ("Little Russians"), and Lus- atian Sorbs, 4. the linkage between philology and material culture, i.e., the fruit ful project Worter und Sachen, a periodical of which he was a co-founder. 1.1 Murko warned that the German attitude towards the Slavonic languages would not be as many imagined or even desired, and consequently he recommended the study of as many Slavonic languages and cultures as possible (Murko 1937a: 487). He considered Kollar's proposition (Murko 1937a: 7l)-that every Slavonic linguist as well as every historian should have a command of all the Slavonic languages-both de- manding and understandable, and substantiated it with a generalized assertion of comparative linguistics. 1.2 In connection with the necessity of knowing as many Slavonic languages as po s- sible Murko emphasized the great importance of Slavonic ethnography, where the work of collecting material (one of his basic activities) was highly significant for a knowledge of the Slavonic nations, their life, and activity (Murko 1937a: 489). He added that ethnography could not simply be the work of individuals, but must be organized in such a way that the nature of "national material" be established and described, and also where it is found-everything, in fact, must be recorded and de- scribed. His methods of complex research and recording of texts with phonographs and photographs have remained exemplary to the present day. 2 The evaluation of primarily linguistic works by his predecessors and contemporaries Murko typically wrote precise, leamed biographies and bibliographies of well-known contemporary and past linguists, but he generally rejected the bio-bibli- ographical treatment in modern histories of literature and insisted that such literary histories must show primarily the development of literature, synthesize its main problems and at the same time develop their own method (Murko 1911: 5). His ex- haustive study and evaluation of the work of J. Kopitar, V. S. Karadžic, F. Miklošič, V. Jagic, V. Oblak, K. Štrekelj, J. Kollar, etc., gives proof of Murko's wide linguistic horizons and penetrating thought. In his writings Murko of ten stressed that he gained his firm linguistic Slavistic foundation directly from Miklošič. In his extensive and detailed biography and bibli- ography of Miklošič he additionally emphasized his teacher's invaluable contribution to Slovene lexicography. In commenting on the relationship between Kopitar and 2 Although precisely a Renaissance of Slavonic studies was not typical of the period 1890- 1914, which literary history labels a time of positivism and political realism (of modernized Aus- tro-Slavistic realism) among the Slavonic nations, when romantic pan-Slavism was already dying out (Slodnjak 1954: 41). A. Žele, Murko's Lexicology as a Synthesis of Linguistics and Ethnology 5 Miklošič, i.e., that of teacher-student, Murko attributes the comparative method in linguistics and, consequently, comparative grammar , to Miklošič and not to Kopitar as Miklošič's teacher. Murko was also well acquainted with the work of Miklošič's student V. Jagič, who together with his immediate predecessors would constitute "a triumvirate of the Viennese or Austrian Slavicist school" (Slodnjak 1954: 70). Among other things he mentioned Jagič's lexicological work. Certainly trio Kopitar-Miklošič-Jagič, accord- ing to Murko's statements, e.g., in Russia, represented in the Slavonic world the con- cept of the Viennese or Austrian Slavicist school. As aSlavicist with a pan-Slavonic education, Murko did not limit himself only to Slovene Slavicists in his bio-bibliographical studies. Among foreign Slavicists and eminent men in general in the Slavonic world he presented the Czech lawyer and philologist Josef Konstantin Jireček, who was primarily an editor of old Czech texts, a literary historian , a grammarian , and a dialectologist. With his commentaries on Oblak's linguistic work (Oblak having been Jagič's student), Murko pushed aside his own knowledge of phonetic and phonological prob- lems. Ris comments on Oblak's dialectological studies show his linguistic-ethnological appreciation; he also admired the early correspondence between V. Oblak and J. Baudouin de Courtenay (Murko 1937a: 265). In discussing Oblak's work, Murko in- directly brings into the foreground his own conviction that the explanatory key for the great majority of linguistic phenomena in the Slavonic languages and in Slovene lies in a good knowledge of dialects and dialectal speech. In his presentation and commentary of the pair Oblak-Škrabec (a1though this mostly involved interpreta- tions of what was already known and thus only partly Murko's own judgments are given) his good knowledge of development al Slavonic phonetics is apparent (Murko 1899: 182-83). Murko also acknowledged that Oblak's follower K. Štrekelj had a solid know- ledge of living Slovene dialects. In fact he highly valued Štrekelj's philological breadth and the way he linked extensive philological knowledge in different areas of activity-in phonology, morphology, syntax and sematics (Murko 1962: 165). Thus, for example, he ascertains how etymological knowledge ser ved him in explaining ortho- graphical questions in the commentary to Levec's orthography, and he planned the eagerly anticipated historical grammar of the Slovene language, which was supposed to be the basis for all school grammars. As a philologist Murko linked both linguistics and ethnology, thus he could distinguish in a scientifically critical way between ethnological and linguistic study. For example, he deemed Antun Mihanovič merely an etymologist, one who never engaged scientifically in phonetics. As a kind of synthesis of ethnology and linguist- ics he also discussed Jan Kollar, who in Murko's opinion wrote the most com- prehensive dictionary of "Indian, Gypsy and Slavonic words having the same mean- ing" (1839), and wondered how such a faithful defender of pan-Slavicism and "Slav- onic reciprocity" could find the mother of the Slavonic Slavs in the goddess Suaha or Swaha (Murko 1937a: 95-97). Still more interesting for him was the explanation that Svaha derives from the interjection svaha, which in the St Petersburg Sanskrit dictionary is explained as aZtes Wunschwort: glUcklich, giinstig; aZs ZuruJ Heil! Segen! Murko further commented that among some uncritical researchers of Kollar's 6 Slovenski jezik - Slovene Linguistic Studies 4 (2003) work, the unsubstantiated idea about the Indian origin of the Slavs and the identi- fication of Slavonic mythology with Indian was held for an unusually long time (Murko 1937a: 97;1962: 60). In Murko's opinion the ideal Slav for Koll