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New Information on the Slavonic Sources of the Oldest Romanian Psalters
Abstract
The oldest Romanian Psalters, which are actually the oldest Romanian language monuments, date back to the 16th century, and they include four manuscripts and four printed documents. Based on their redactional features, the texts are divided into two groups, A and B. Previous research has linked these Psalters to Codex Bucurestinus and the archaic versions of the Slavonic Psalter. Our investigations have shown that the source of the oldest Romanian Psalter is a Slavonic Psalter related to Belgrade Psalter (13th century). The Romanian version bearing these particularities, conventionally called A, constitutes the source of the Hurmuzaki Psalter and the Psalter from Voroneț. Version A was later revised according to a Psalter related to the Oxford Serbian Psalter (14th century) and resulted in version B, which constitutes the source of the Scheian Psalter, the Moldavian Psalter and the printed Psalters. Some clues identified in the oldest Romanian Psalter point to a connection to the archaic and commentated Psalters. These elements seem to originate in the Slavonic version, which is present in the antigraph of the Hurmuzaki Psalter.
It is often said that early Romanian biblical translations from Church Slavonic follow the source texts slavishly. This is believed to be especially true about the 16th century Romanian Psalters, a group of seven texts (both printed and hand-copied) descending from a single translation. Indeed, these texts stay close to their Church Slavonic originals in topic, lexical content, and orthographical rules. However, we aim to describe how the 16th century translators and redactors dealt with Church Slavonic structures that could not be easily adapted into Romanian by means of formal equivalence. The Slavonic present participle, which appears plenty in the Slavonic Psalter, was chosen as litmus test. While theoretically having a formal correspondent in Old Romanian (the gerund), the Slavonic present participle has a range of uses and meanings that the Old Romanian gerund lacks. Thus, Romanian scribes must depart from the comfort of formal equivalence that calques and loans provide and choose the translation that convey meaning. The dynamic equivalence is obtained by selecting different solutions: gerunds, adjectives, objects and, most often, clauses, especially relative ones. Rendering participles with clauses (i.e. adjectives with verbs) forces the translator to make decisions going beyond the Slavonic participle itself. The analysis shows a tension between betraying the Slavonic text as little as possible and rendering it to the best of the redactor’s ability.
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Belgrade Psalter, late 13th century. Serb. Fragments in five
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CP
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CP1
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CP2
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