Zur Epigraphik – als einem der Aufgabenbereiche der Philologie. Eine Fallstudie: Das Epitaph von Erasmus Hesse aus Benau/Bieniów (1566) / On Epigraphy – as One of the Fields of Philology. A Case Study: The Epitaph of Erasmus Hesse in Benau/Bieniów (1566))
DOI: 10.23817/lingtreff.27-1 (published online: 2025-06-25)
pp. 17–34
Keywords: epitaphs, inscriptions, Early New High German, translation of older texts
On the border of former Lower Silesia and Lower Lusatia, a number of epitaphs have been preserved, including tombstones with more extensive inscriptions, which may be of interest to linguists and language historians, even – as will be demonstrated in this article, among other things – must be. Their contents deserve a comprehensive, professional and above all reliable linguistic analysis, which is still lacking. The Lower Lusatian epitaphs were already the subject of historical research, but only the purely historical side of the entire complex of tasks that is inextricably linked to the research of epitaph texts can be considered fulfilled. The first of these aspects is the error-free reading and transliteration of the often already damaged inscriptions. The degree of completeness and correctness of the transliteration attempts of the epitaph texts in the graphemic layer is very inconsistent in previous analyses. Another area that represents a much greater disadvantage of previous publications are the translation attempts proposed there. Serious errors in the translation area, as well as mistakes and mostly completely misplaced subjective additions, mean that the interpretations of the epitaph texts proposed there can often not be regarded as translations, but at best as “information notes” on the content of the individual monument texts. Some of the distortions result from faulty transliterations, others from incomplete or incorrect readings, and others again from a lack of skill in translating older texts as well as a lack of knowledge of the nuances of Early New High German or from the neglect of stylistic questions. In this article, the author attempts for the first time, using selected source material from Benau/Bieniów (rural municipality of Sorau/Żary), to demonstrate in a philological manner and on the basis of independently prepared and discussed linguistic historical material how the previous shortcomings in the above-mentioned studies should be remedied in a philologically oriented research project.
Texts published in the ‘Linguistische Treffen in Wrocław’ are available in the Open Access on the basis of the CC BY-SA license.
