Varifrån kom svenskan? : Om den svenska vokabulären i en fyrspråkig ordbok utgiven i Riga 1705

Sammanfattning: In 1705, a four-language thematic dictionary was published in Riga, Wörter-Büchlein, wie etzliche gebräuchliche Sachen auff Teutsch, Schwedisch, Polnisch und Lettisch zu benennen seynd. Its structure is almost identical to a dictionary published by the same printing house in 1688, Vocabularium wie etzliche gebräuchliche Sachen auff Teutsch, Lateinisch, Polnisch und Lettisch auszusprechen seynd. In the Wörter-Büchlein, Latin has been replaced by Swedish. The purpose of this dissertation is to illuminate this Swedish vocabulary.Significant attention is given to the usage of the Wörter-Büchlein as well as its general and specifically publishing historical context. As to the origins of the Swedish vocabulary, it is concluded that the person traditionally assigned as the author of the Wörter-Büchlein, Liborius Depkin, had nothing to do with the Swedish vocabulary. Rather, its author had Swedish as a native language. In the compilation, this anonymous author used two of the languages in the 1688 dictionary: German and Latin. Many of the Swedish equivalents were obviously derived from an older Latin-Swedish dictionary, Johannes Wolimhaus’ Enchiridion dictionarii from 1652. However, the author also often contributed to their formation and from this, his profile can be sketched. At the same time, the compositor can be seen to have had considerable influence in the shaping of the Swedish vocabulary. Even if certain of the inconsistencies must be ascribed to the author’s lack of attention or his uncertainty regarding written Swedish, many of them can also be ascribed to the fact that the compositor had not mastered the Swedish language.