Kristi Viiding
MA in Classical Philology 1997, PhD in Classical Philology 2002 in University of Tartu (Estonia). 1996-2017 - teaching Latin language, Roman literature and Neo-Latin literature in University of Tartu (Estonia). Since 2017 Senior Researcher in Estonian Academy of Sciences Under and Tuglas Literature Centre (Tallinn, Estonia). Since 2018 General Secretary of the International Association of Neo-Latin Studies. Main fields of research: Neo-Latin literature around the Baltic Sea in the 16th and 17th century
Address: Tartu, Tartumaa, Estonia
Address: Tartu, Tartumaa, Estonia
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Her story also illustrates the ability of women to collaborate as an editor, both as a learned woman who could compose Latin dedications and a businesswoman who could financially and organizationally engage in publishing books.
Her story also illustrates the ability of women to collaborate as an editor, both as a learned woman who could compose Latin dedications and a businesswoman who could financially and organizationally engage in publishing books.
The study of the stages of creation of the Lutheran vernacular Word of God in the territory of Estonia has to date focused on texts in Estonian and been based on a premise taken from written sources, whereby a hierarchical segregation of linguistic communities in the territory of Estonia can be observed from the 16th century onwards. Such written sources include printed texts, primarily early ecclesiastical literature, hymnals, translations of parts of the Bible, as well as manuscripts, e.g. petitions and correspondence; and unsystematically and on rare occasions, visitation protocols as well. These can be used to draw conclusions on the use of language in services and other auditive religious proceedings. However, thus far there has been no systematic study of whether, when and what kind of changes the Reformation entailed for language written on objects and architectural elements within the church, i.e. in epigraphs.
The aim of this article is to analyse how the linguistic needs of churchgoers with different mother tongues were met in the interior space of churches used by diff erent congregations in Estonia and Livonia following the Reformation. The main question looks at when, if at all, the Reformation gave rise to a multilingual church space similar to multilingual ecclesiastical literature. The article includes an introduction on the place of multilingualism in mediaeval epigraphs. Subsequent analysis examines what role, if any, Latin as the earlier ecclesiastical
language retained in the epigraphs of Lutheran churches. Thirdly, the article also considers how Estonian came to be used in epigraphs: whether it manifested in monolingual epigraphs or within multilingual ones, and when and where this took place. In order to determine the start and regularity of linguistic changes triggered by the Reformation, these research questions should help to analyse whether the Lutheran focus on language was realised simultaneously at both the auditive level
and the level of visual representation, or whether language was treated differently depending on the medium.
The materials of the article comprise all Latin epigraphs and multilingual
epigraphs with Latin segments (81 multilingual epigraphs from a total of 440) collected between 2014 and 2018. This is a systematic collection of mostly unpublished epigraphs found today in Lutheran churches and museums in Estonia, or which have been preserved as earlier recordings.