Monuments of Book Culture: Unique handwritten Yakut-Russian dictionary of 1877 found in Saint-Petersburg

A unique handwritten Yakut-Russian dictionary compiled in 1877 by Prokopy Poryadin was found in the scientific archive of the Russian Geographical Society in Saint-Petersburg.

The dictionary, after seven years of searching in the archives, was found by the Deputy Director of the Institute Olonkho (Yakut heroic epos), Athanasius Migalkin.

This dictionary of the Yakut Procopius Poryadin, educated in Kazan, consists of more than seven and a half thousand words. Poryadin completed his work on the dictionary in 1877 in St. Petersburg, submitted it to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and became its member.

The uniqueness of the finding is in the fact that the dictionary of Poryadin is written using the pronunciation, which existed in the mid 19th century, and compiled in a “clustered” way: a word and its derivatives. It is of great interest to linguists, because it includes words that are different from those of the modern Yakut language, and sometimes with opposing meanings.

According to Migalkin, the dictionary, which includes 187 handwritten pages, is in a good condition. The possibility of its reprint was also discussed.

This is not the first finding, indicating long-standing ties of Yakutia and Saint-Petersburg. This spring, at the Pushkin House were found Olonkho unique records of the Olonkho performance of 1901.