Dawne ortografie, gramatyki i podręczniki języka polskiego

Abstrakt angielski

Compendium linguae Polonicae in gratiam iuventutis Dantiscanae collectum (= A compendium of Polish for Gdańsk youth) by Nicolaus Volckmar is the first Gdańsk Polish grammar book the editio princeps of which was released in the city lying on the river Motława in 1594. The researchers of the history of the Polish language considered the study derivative and dependent on Polonicae grammatices institutio (= Lecture on Polish grammar) by Pierre Statorius-Stojeński. However, these opinions were revised over time. Although Volckmar took over the general arrangement of the material and numerous examples from his predecessor, he was not uncritical in doing so and selected some of the examples illustrating the discussed phenomena by himself, in particular where his language standard did not overlap Stojeński’s one.
Compendium… can be divided into two principal sections: one concerning orthography and partly phonetics and the other one discussing the generally defined word science (parts of speech, inflection and word formation). Nevertheless, the absence of a separate chapter on syntax is striking. Hence, the division is very close to the arrangement of the lecture on grammar adopted in popular textbooks of Latin signed with the name Aelius Donatus. This is probably the model from which Volckmar drew the idea to present his lecture in the form of questions and answers, which are characteristic mainly of Ars Minor. This teaching style is known also from catechism books, which might have additionally influenced the Gdańsk teacher.
Volckmar distinguishes three declensions of nouns and, guided by Latin patterns, he enumerates eight grammatical cases. Depending on the present tense indicative first person ending, he divides verbs into three conjugations: -am (e.g. czytam (I read)), -ę (e.g. proszę (I ask)) and -iem (e.g. rozumiem (I understand)).
Volckmar’s textbook arose from practical needs of the multicultural Gdańsk, the citizens of which were politically and economically tied with the Commonwealth, a large part of which was inhabited by speakers of Polish. Therefore, as a general rule, the author of Compendium… avoids any theoretical discussions and focuses on ensuring the greatest possible clarity and functionality of the textbook. However, he makes an interesting comment in the preface, where he quite explicitly divides language into two parts: vocabulary and grammar. His new textbook was to serve the purpose of mastering the latter component.

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