Vocabulary for Human Anatomy in the Earliest Slavonic Translation of Books of Samuel and Kings

Abstract

The present study aims at exploring the metaphrastic practices of the early Slavonic scribes when faced with the task of translating texts containing lexemes from the field of human anatomy and the related cultural imagery that was often hard to convey in the still young Old Bulgarian literary language. Primarily based on material from the Slavonic translation of the Books of Samuel and Kings, which occurred around the verge of the 10th century, the study also draws on examples from other relevant Old Bulgarian literary sources of the same period, such as the Old Bulgarian translation of the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius. The examples from the Books of Samuel and Kings are taken from the chronographic redaction of the Old Testament book as presented in the Chronograph of the Archive (Jewish Chronicle or Chronographia Judaica), a large chronographic compilation of Bulgarian origin, surviving in a 15th century Russian copy.