Prince Bagrat’s Cookery Book from the Linguoculturological Perspective

Abstract

Any culinary book, as a discourse representation of the food-related code of culture, contains significant culturological information. The interest to the book under analysis is enhanced due to several factors – this is the first Georgian culinary book, published in St. Petersburg in 1818. The book is written by the son of the last King of Kartli and Kakheti. The book describes European dishes introduced in Georgia via Russia and adjusted to the Georgian reality. In its turn, the above-mentioned arouses a linguistic interest with regard to the text, the most striking peculiarities of which are the influences of two languages – the original French and the intermediary Russian. These influences are present on the lexical and phonetical levels.

The paper analyzes the lexical-semantic groups of gastronyms, various barbarisms, their structure (foreign root + Georgian affix, foreign root + foreign affix + Georgian affix), orthography (stable and unstable phonemic structures) and functioning throughout the entire text (relation with the Georgian correlates, distribution and usage as a sole signifier for the proper signified).

Despite the obvious foreign influence, we can argue that Prince Bagrat did not make a literal translation of the foreign instructive texts. He adjusted them to Georgian reality. This can be proved by the usage of numerous lexemes which have no foreign equivalents.

Analysis of Prince Bagrat’s culinary discourse has yielded ample and diverse material for further research as well as for the compilation of the Dictionary of Gastronomic Culture.