Deutsch-Lettische Lexikographie

We may justifiably assume that 18th century German-Latvian dictionaries display both traditional and regional features of dual-language lexicography involving German. The present study draws on the findings of contact linguistics and sets out to define the place of one such dictionary (J. Lange's -Lexicon-) within this tradition of two-way lexicography and to pinpoint its regional characteristics. The results demonstrate that the work was influenced by the design of one-language German dictionaries. Its regional nature manifests itself in the vocabulary (e.g. handling of separable prefix verbs) and is grounded in influences from Lower German and Latvian.