Fypike gjorde selbureis i røytemåneden. Om Norsk-russisk ordbok av Vladimir Arakin: utvalg, kilder, målgruppe og formål

Resumé

Norwegian-Russian Dictionary by Vladimir D. Arakin (1963) was the first Norwegian-Russian dictionary of its kind, and for 40 years it was the only one. The dictionary contains approximately 77 000 entries, but it is strikingly inadequate. In addition to insufficient or positively misleading translations, it contains a certain amount of dialectal words, and archaic, obsolete or peculiar words, uncommon in Norwegian everyday speech. In fact, until 2003 (when a more reliable Norwegian-Russian dictionary was published), Norwegian students of Russian were strongly advised not to use Arakin’s dictionary. Instead, they had to use Swedish, Danish or English dictionaries. The source language in Arakin’s dictionary is outdated, whereas the target language pretends to be in keeping with its time. Thus, the dictionary is unsuitable as a practical tool for learners of Norwegian and Russian. Apart from the curiosities, the author has included highly specialized terminology. In this field he was certainly ahead of his time, as there is still a great need for specialized dictionaries between Norwegian and Russian. For all its deficiencies, Arakin’s dictionary has still obtained somewhat of a cult status among Slavists in Norway. Who was Arakin? For whom and for what purpose did he write his dictionary? Why did he include so many peculiar words, and where did he find them? In this paper I have tried to find answers to these questions.