12.1204, Review: Tulpule & Feldhaus, Dictionary Old Marathi

Wed May 2 04:02:22 UTC 2001

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-1204. Wed May 2 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.1204, Review: Tulpule & Feldhaus, Dictionary Old Marathi

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1)
Date:  Tue, 1 May 2001 15:52:58 -0500 (CDT)
From:  Elena Bashir <ebashir at midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject:  Review of Tulpule, S.G. and Anne Feldhaus, A Dictionary of Old Marathi

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Tue, 1 May 2001 15:52:58 -0500 (CDT)
From:  Elena Bashir <ebashir at midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject:  Review of Tulpule, S.G. and Anne Feldhaus, A Dictionary of Old Marathi

  Tulpule, S. G. and Anne Feldhaus  (2000) A Dictionary of Old
  Marathi, Oxford University Press, South Asia Research
  Series, ISBN 0-19-512600-9.  807 pp. + xlviii

  Elena Bashir, Department of South Asian Languages and
  Civilizations, The University of Chicago

  The Old Marathi (Central Indo-Aryan) stage extended from the
  eighth century (CE) through the middle of the fourteenth
  century (CE); however its literary output dates mainly from
  the last seventy-five years of this period.  Old Marathi is
  distinguished from the Maharashtri Prakrit and ApabhraM$a
  stages which preceded it, and from the Middle Marathi (ca.
  1350-1800) stage which followed.  According to the authors
  of the dictionary, based on the sources available, there
  seems to have been relatively little dialect variation in
  Old Marathi (xxiv-xxv).

  The principal editor of the dictionary, Shankar Gopal
  Tulpule (1914-1994), was a pre-eminent scholar of Marathi
  and the author of numerous works on Marathi literature and
  language, particularly religious texts.  The second editor,
  Anne Feldhaus, has authored books on Marathi culture and
  translated several texts from Marathi.

  This dictionary is designed to be used by both scholars and
  speakers of modern Marathi who want to read Old Marathi
  texts.  It contains approximately 26,000 [my estimate]
  entries based on approximately 18,000 files [according to
  the editors], which are drawn from a corpus of both
  inscriptional (stone and copper plate) and literary sources,
  mostly poetry.  According to the authors, it covers "all
  known inscriptions and literary sources from the Old Marathi
  period (xiv)."  The introduction includes discussion of the
  texts of the source materials, and a complete list of the
  sources used for the dictionary (xxxv-xxxviii).  The
  dictionary under review was envisaged by the principal
  editor as one step toward the eventual compilation of a
  dictionary of Marathi on historical principles.

  The authors have excluded most words, including Sanskrit
  tatsamas which are the same in Modern Marathi as in Old
  Marathi, and refer the reader to *Molesworth's Marathi-
  English Dictionary* (1831, 1857) or *MahaaraaSTra $abdako$a*
  (1932-1950) for such words.  They have, however, included a
  few basic words common to Old Marathi and modern Marathi to
  show the continuity of their usage (xiv).  Also included are
  some words common to Old and modern Marathi which show
  orthographical variation in Old Marathi.

  The structure of an entry is as follows.
  -  Entry word (in Devanagari, boldface type)
  -  Transliteration of the entry word using standard Indo-
  Aryanist notation (in parentheses)
  -  Abbreviation indicating the grammatical category of the
  entry word.  Nouns are labeled for gender - masculine,
  feminine, or neuter; pronouns for gender, person, number and
  type (e.g. demonstrative); and verbs as transitive,
  intransitive, passive, or causative.  Adjectives are
  identified by number or gender if they are attested in only
  one form.
  -  Etymology, indicated for those words the origin of which
  is fairly certain (in square brackets).  In some cases, this
  information includes both the language and the relevant
  words from that language; in others the language only.
  Cross references to Turner's *Comparative Dictionary of the
  Indo-Aryan Languages* are not given.
  -  Attested meanings of the word in Old Marathi.  Meanings
  are given both in modern Marathi and in English.  Meanings
  are numbered, in logical rather than chronological order,
  and metaphorical usages are so indicated.
  -  Sometimes, indications of technical, or exclusive
  regional senses.
  -  Citations from sources illustrating the use of the word
  in the specific meaning, and naming the source and location
  of the citation.  Multiple citations are arranged with
  inscriptional citations preceding literary examples,
  otherwise in chronological order.  Citations are selected to
  include the earliest occurrence of a word in Old Marathi,
  and for verbs, to illustrate as many different forms of the
  verb as possible.  Verb forms are not, however, analyzed,
  i.e. not specified with regard to categories such as tense
  or aspect. Citations are given in the original Old Marathi,
  without translation into modern Marathi or English.

  Idioms are treated as sub-entries under one of the words
  contained, usually the verb.

  Since during the Old Marathi period, there was no
  standardized spelling, orthographical variation is the rule
  rather than the exception.  Specific types of orthographic
  variation  are discussed, along with the treatment they are
  given in the dictionary,  In general, each spelling variant
  is given a separate entry word with cross references to
  other variants.

  The introduction to the dictionary includes a list of types
  of previous lexicographical work on Marathi and Old Marathi.
  Importantly, it includes discussion of each of these source
  types, with critical commentary on them.  There are sections
  on the origin and development of Marathi and on the elements
  of the Old Marathi lexicon.

  Given that this is the first dictionary of its nature and
  scope for Old Marathi, and the completeness and
  meticulousness of the scholarship, this dictionary will
  certainly become a standard reference work, with a place in
  every major reference collection and in the personal
  libraries of scholars of South Asian languages.  In
  conjunction with Master's *A Grammar of Old Marathi*, It
  will greatly facilitate historical studies of Indo-Aryan
  languages, particularly historical lexicology.

  References cited

  Daate, Ya$vant RaamkRSNa, CintaamaN Gane$ Larve, Aabaa
  Caandorkar, and CintaamaN $ankar Daataar.  *MahaaraaSTra
  $abdako$a*.  7 volumes plus supplement.  PuNeM:
  MahaaraaSTra Ko$amaNDaLa Limited, 1932-1950.

  Master, Alfred.  1964.  *A Grammar of Old Marathi*.  Oxford:
  Oxford University Press.

  Molesworth, J.T., assisted by George and Thomas Candy.  *A
  Dictionary, MaraaThii and English.  Second edition, Bombay:
  Bombay Education Society, 1857; corrected reprint, Poona:
  Shubhada-Saraswat, 1975.

  Turner, Ralph Lilley.  1966. A Comparative Dictionary of the
  Indo-Aryan Languages.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

  Biographical sketch of reviewer:  Elena Bashir

  Elena Bashir has her Ph.D. in Linguistics from The
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1988).  Her dissertation,
  "Topics in Kalasha Syntax:  An Areal and Typological
  Perspective" is based on field work on Kalasha, a Northwest
  Indo-Aryan ("Dardic") language spoken in Chitral District of
  Pakistan.  That work has led into ongoing involvement with
  the languages of Pakistan including Bashir's current work on
  Khowar.  She is currently teaching Urdu at the University of
  Chicago.

  Note to readers:  In the Marathi words in the titles of
  books and authors' names, upper case letters represent
  retroflex consonants, except when they stand as the first
  letter of a proper name; <$> represents the voiceless
  palatal sibilant; long vowels are represented by geminating
  the vowel letter, e.g. <aa> = 'long a'.

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