Russian-Zyryan dictionary of Lepyokhin–Undolsky: To the history of discovery and study
Authors:   Komi Science Centre, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Fedyuneva Galina V. 
Published: September 2024

The publication summarizes the history of studying one of the main documents of the historical lexicography of the Komi language - the Russian-Zyryan dictionary-phrasebook, discovered by academician Ivan Lepekhin during his expedition in 1771. In terms of structure and lexical composition, the document was studied in the middle of the last century, but the history of its discovery, origin and attribution (authorship, possible source, etc.) have not yet been the subject of special research. The authors touch upon one of the important aspects of this problem, namely, the problem of identifying lists and establishing earlier sources of the dictionary. They comprehensively analyze the manuscript of the Zyryan-Russian dictionary-phrasebook in the archival collection of Vukol Undolsky. This manuscript is traditionally considered an independent list going back to some kind of an original common with the Lepyokhin dictionary. The document is considered from the point of view of its origin and relation to Lepyokhin’s dictionary-phrasebook; the processed vocabulary material significant for their identification is introduced into scholarly discourse. The analysis showed that the structure and content of the compared dictionaries are almost identical. A large number of errors, distortions of Komi words, inaccurate and incorrect translations, missing words, etc., common to both dictionaries, were revealed. The discrepancies in the compared texts are insignificant. These include: (a) Komi words, erroneous spelling in which is explained by the fact that they are transmitted from a language unknown to the copyist; (b) Russian words and borrowings, in which the copyist’s correction was made; (c) most of the discrepancies concerning the merged/separate spelling of Komi words are explained by the peculiarities of the copyist’s handwriting and his spelling preferences. Indirect evidence in favor of the author’s version is also provided by other Komi materials from the Undolsky collection, which are generally comparable with the expedition materials of Lepyokhin. This is the Komi-Permyak dictionary, written down personally by Lepyokhin in the Komi-Permyak village Selishchi, the names of the letters of the ancient Permyak alphabet and the count in the Komi-Zyryan language, published in “Daily Notes”. The comparative analysis of the dictionaries of Lepyokhin and Undolsky, according to the author, does not allow us to make an unambiguous conclusion about the recognition of the above dictionaries as independent lists from an earlier original. Almost all the discrepancies in the texts of dictionaries, the totality of common errors, inaccuracies and distortions of Komi words, as well as indirect evidence of Undolsky’s familiarization with the expedition materials on the Komi language published in Volume III of “Daily Notes”, testify in favor of the fact that the dictionary in the Undolsky collection is a handwritten copy of Lepyokhin’s dictionary. The author declares no conflicts of interests.