Y. 



Yale t This -word following a title or within pa- 

 rentheses after a note indicates that a copy of 

 the work referred to has been seen by the com- 

 piler in the library of Tale College, New 

 Haven, Conn. 



[Tankie-witch (Feodor) de Mirieivo.'] 



CpaBHHTe^JbHblH I CJOBapb I BCfeXl I aSblKOB'bH 



Baptiifl, I no a36yiHOMy nopfl4Ky | pacno.io- 

 meeaufi. | Hacib nepBaaf-qeTBepTafl] | A-4 

 [C-0]. 1 

 B^ CaHKraneinep6ypr6, 1790[-1791]. 



Translation: Comparative | dictionary | of 

 all I languages and dialects 1 in alphabetical 

 order | arranged. | Part first [-fourth] A-D 

 [S-Th]. I At St. Petersburg, 1790 [-1791] 



4 vols.: title verso blank 1 1. text pp. 1-454 ; 

 title verso blank 1 1. text pp. 1-499 ; title verso 

 blank 1 1. text pp. 1-518 ; title verso blank 1 1. 

 text pp. 1-618, 4°. 



About two hundred and seventy-four lan- 

 guages and dialects are here represented, of 

 which twenty-five are American . Among the 1 at- 

 ter are the HHDHBecKn (Chippewa), 4e.jaBapCKH 

 (Delaware), IIIaBaacKn (Shawnee), Haptiie 

 Hapo40B'b ua ptK* /^ejaBapt (dialect of the 

 people on the river Delaware), and Hap'64ie 

 HapojOBT) Ra pfeK-fi IIIaBaHO-fe (dialect of the 

 peopleon the river Savannah). Numerousworda 

 of the three first named are scattered through 

 the work, which is printed entirely in Russian 

 characters. The last two appear mostly in the 

 first volume. Each page is divided into three 

 columns, the first containing in alphabetical 

 order the words of various languages, the sec- 

 ond showing the Russian equivalents, and the 

 third giving the names of the languages repre- 

 sented in the first column. This edition was 

 edited by Feodor Tankiewitch. One thousand 

 copies were printed. 



Copies seen: British Museum, Eames. 



The work of which the above is a re-ar- 

 rangement was begun by the empress Cather- 

 ine II of Russia in the summer or autumn of 

 1784. After laboi ing on it personally for about 

 nine months, she called Prof Peter Simon Pallas 

 to her aid, and ordered him to digest the mate- 

 rial and prepare it for the press. On the 22d of 

 May, 1785, a circular or prospectus of the work 

 was issued ; and in 1786 a Modele du vocabu- 

 laire, qui doit servir a la comparaison de totites 

 les langties, 4 11. 4°, was printed, and sent out for 

 the purpose of obtaining additional in formation. 



One copy or more of this specimen was for- 



Yankiewitch (F.) — Continued. 



warded to General "Washington, through the 

 Marquis de Lafayette, with a request for some 

 authentic vocabularies of the North American 

 Indians. The receipt of this application was 

 acknowledged on May 10th, 1786, by General 

 Washington, who wrote on the 20th of the fol- 

 lowing August to Capt. Thomas Hutchins, en- 

 closing the printed specimen, and asking for 

 vocabularies of the Ohio Indians. A few months 

 later, November 27th, 1786, hearing that 

 Richard Butler had been appointed Superin- 

 tendent of Indian Affairs, General Washington 

 wrote to him, requesting him to obtain the 

 printed form from Capt. Hutchins, and to col- 

 lect the desired information. A little more 

 than a year passed before the material was 

 ready. On the 20th of January, 1788, Washing- 

 ton transmitted to Lafayette a vocabulary of 

 the Shawanese and Delaware languages, col- 

 lected by Mr. Butler, together with a shorter 

 specimen of the language of the southern 

 Indiana by Mr. Benjamin Hawkins. 



In the meantime, by order of the empress, 

 work on the great comparative vocabulary had 

 been rapidly hurried on. The first section was 

 completed and published, with Latin titles pre- 

 fixed, Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia com- 

 parativa; augustissimae cura collecta, Petropoli, 

 1786-1789, 2 vols.4o. (Eames) It comprised 

 words in 51 European, 137 Asiatic, and 12 Poly- 

 nasian languages, with the numerals at the end 

 in 225 languages, all in Russian chaiacters. 285 

 selected words were treated separately, 130 in 

 the first volume and 155 in the second. The 

 Russian word was placed at the head of each 

 list, and followed in numerical order by the 

 names of the 200 lauguages, each with its 

 equivalent word in one line. 



The second section, which was intended to 

 comprise ihe American and African words, in 

 one volume, was never printed. This was due 

 to a change of plan. The empress, it seems, 

 was not satisfied with the result. She now 

 wished to have all the words arranged in one 

 general alphabet, irrespective of language. As 

 Prof Pallas was busily engaged in other scien- 

 tific labors which had been assigned to him, the 

 services of Feodor Tankiewitch de Miriewo, 

 director of the normal school at St. Petersburg, 

 were immediately called into requisition. Un- 

 der his direction all the material in print and 

 manuscript was recast, the American and Afri- 

 can words included, and the whole published 

 In four volumes, as described above. 



541 



