Pshavian Vocabulary in Akaki Shanidze’s „Dictionary of Mountain Dialects“

Abstract

Among the Georgian mountain dialects, Pshavian is characterized at every linguistic level by distinctive idioms, a particular morphological structure, and a lexical fund rich in ethnographic and agricultural terminology. Akaki Shanidze›s Georgian Dialects in the Mountains (1915; 1984) is the first scholarly work to describe Pshavian alongside the other mountain dialects. The Dictionary of Mountain Dialects contained within it remains, to this day, the principal source for the study of the lexical fund of these regions. Drawing on the  rich  and  varied  Pshavian  vocabulary  preserved  in  A. Shanidze›s dictionary, this paper identifies and classifies domain-specific vocabulary, which is analyzed with reference not only to data from the other mountain dialects but also from other Georgian dialects. It further aims to demonstrate the extent of the influence exerted on the Pshavian dialect by the lowland dialects and by Central Georgian (Kartli-Kakhetian). The methods of analysis and synthesis, comparative method, and corpus-based research were employed in the course of the study. In working on the dictionary, an interesting and, at the same time, dynamic process emerged in the author›s (A. Shanidze›s) definition of lexical entries – namely, his metalexicographic commentary, which is expressly noted in the work. We consider this scholarly approach to be of practical value for contemporary specialists engaged in lexicographic work.