The Lexical heritage of the Gennadievsky Bible of 1499 in Russian writing (from the perspective of lexicographic descrip­tion)

Abstract

The Gennadievsky Bible of 1499 (GB) is the first complete Russian Bible compiled from preserved manuscripts of an earlier time with the addition of new translations made from Latin. The lexical richness of GB is described in detail in the Dictionary of the Russian language of the XI–XVII cen­turies. Using the example of a lexicographic description presented in the last four editions of the Dictionary (29 issues — 2011, 30 issues — 2015, 31 issues — 2019, 32 issues — 2023), an attempt was made on the basis of the used quotation material to identify five lexical layers dating back to translations from Greek, Hebrew and Latin. The lexical and semantic hapax legomena (the only uses) are described separately, both relating to the old translations and to the “Latin” part of the GB. The issue of etymological translation of proper names and geographical names in GB is also touched upon. The proposed perspective of consideration made it possible to show the uniqueness and significance of the thesaurus wealth of GB.