Imparare a leggere nel XV secolo: considerazioni sul lessico tecnico di Ettwas von bůchstaben della Ausburger Fibel

Abstract

Codex Nr. 128 in the Kestner Museum in Hannover is a miscellaneous volume including a printed work (i.e. the Titulaturen-Büchlein by Marx Ayrer) bound together with manuscript texts on grammar, rhetoric and alphabets. The codex was probably assembled at the initiative of its first owner, the German merchant Claus Spaun, who might have wished to put together works which could be useful for a first theoretical and practical approach to literacy in vernacular, i.e. in German, and offer a vademecum providing guidance to a correct handwriting but also to the principles of letter writing. This miscellany includes a theoretical introduction to the letters of the Latin alphabet and their classification, known as Ettwas von bůchstaben which is based on Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae, and a practical section, the so-called Augsburger Fibel, namely a tabula with sentences, compound words, two short prayers, mnemonic lines, and a schema of syllables. Both texts might be considered among the first didactic works written in German in the late fifteenth century with the purpose to teach how to read and write in German. This essay intends to offer an outline of the two above-mentioned works. The analysis of the technical terms, that is the grammatical and linguistic words, employed in both treatises, is meant to offer a contribution to German lexicographic studies.