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‘I want to buy it’ in the Albanian glossary of Arnold von Harff 1
Author(s) -
Maynard Kelly Lynne
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.2009.01220.x
Subject(s) - glossary , transliteration , section (typography) , fifteenth , linguistics , history , german , extant taxon , meaning (existential) , argument (complex analysis) , vocabulary , phrase , literature , classics , computer science , philosophy , art , biochemistry , chemistry , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , operating system
The first written snippets of the Albanian language are found in writings from the fifteenth century. One of these is the small vocabulary list with Ripuarian German glosses collected by Arnold von Harff in 1497. In this paper I argue that the Albanian phrase written by von Harff as must be transliterated as Old Albanian duo t’a blej (= Standard Albanian dua ta blej ) and translated as ‘I want to buy it’. It should not be surface‐read as Standard Albanian do ta blej , a syntactic future tense construction meaning ‘I will buy it’; therefore, it should not be used as evidence that a feature of the Balkan Sprachbund, future‐tense‐with‐‘will’, had already spread to North Albanian dialects by the late fifteenth century. To situate the argument, I first give background information on von Harff, his travels, and his book, including an annotated list of the twelve extant manuscripts known. I also give and describe von Harff’s Albanian section and provide his entire Albanian glossary with transliteration and translation notes.