Tautas valodas paraugi 17. gadsimta Kristofa Fīrekera vārdnīcas manuskriptos

The article examines the illustrative data contained in the manuscripts of Christoph Fürecker’s dictionary (mid-17th century): collocations, phrases, sentences, which, as the natural flow of the language, the numerous synonyms, and dialectisms show, were mostly not copied from written sources, but heard by the people. The article arranges these phrases into specific thematic groups, giving an idea of 17th-century Latvian life and language. Some explanations of the meaning of words or obscure phrases that are no longer used or are less frequently used today are given. On the basis of the data, the variety of context (everyday, historical, cultural, etc.) of the phrases contained in the manuscripts of Fürecker is studied and described; where possible, the areal distribution of the vocabulary contained in the phrases is determined. The descriptive, comparative and philological methods are used in the article. The article concludes that the phrases contained in the illustrative data are well understood by the modern Latvian reader, but they still contain some grammatical constructions that are different from the modern language; there are several lexemes that are not known in the literary language today. Today, this manuscript can be used not only for the study of 17th-century lexis and grammar, but also for information about Latvian life at that time, including Fürecker himself. The lexis used in the manuscripts of the Fürecker’s dictionary shows that: 1) the author included in his manuscripts not only expressions from the Dobele or Nereta area, but also language samples from more distant regions; 2) it is possible that some of the lexemes in the manuscripts had a wider usage in the 17th century than in the first half of the 20th century, when they were included in Kārlis Mülenbachs’ Dictionary of the Latvian Language or its supplements.