Should there be a nation ashamed of being ignorant of her own law,

                                  especially our folk, that not in alien, but in own tongue its statute

                                            hath, and any time can fathom how to fend off the wrong.

                                                      From the address of Leŭ Sapieha to all the estates,

                                                                                                      Statute of 1588

One of the basic goals of the journal ‘Praŭnik’ is the elaboration of the legal nomenclature of the Belarusian language. Within this section we are proud to introduce:

1) the bibliography of the sources on judicial terminology, –   primarily of the lexicographical ones. Below you can make yourself familiar with the corresponding table. Unfortunately, almost all those sources are hardly available for a common lawyer with an exception of the juridical encyclopedic dictionary which was issued in 1992 and can scarcely be regarded as a worthy source at the present-day time. That’s why we are planning to input their scanned PDF versions on the web-pages of our journal.      

2) the table of disputable, multiform, mal-equivalent legal terms, the usage of which for a long time has been dependent on russification restrictions. We are planning to broaden constantly the list of terms represented here. We are also inviting our distinguished readers to join our lexicographical adventures through putting forward their variants of translation, notes, opinions and proposals of new words for public discussion and voting for the best variants in the respective section of our Internet-forums (“The Judicial Terminology – let’s develop it together”). This also deals with the list of lexicographical sources. If you do notice some legal edition which hasn’t undeservedly been included into the table, we shall be grateful if you let us know about this (praunik@praunik.org)    

3) “short manual of a lawyer”, in which we attempt to illustrate the most common mistakes of Belarusian-speaking lawyers and give certain advice on the ways to avoid them. We invite you to visit our web-page as far as this section is planned to be constantly growing.

Besides, we are planning:

1) to present a short legal dictionary of Latin terms & expressions on the pages of this section;

2) to present series of articles on judicial lexicography of the 20s of the 20th century (short period of the “Soviet promotion of the Belarusian language” which ended up in the 30th with most severe Stalin repressions towards all national activists), to the legal terms of the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Litva) and to the Al-Kitabs (Muslim texts written in old Belarusian), to the Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian parallels in the usage of legal terms as well as to the analysis of the judicial nomenclature functioning in the current press;

 
3) to elaborate an English-Belarusian Legal dictionary;

4) to introduce a list of the manuals for lawyers which has been edited in Belarusian.

№	Dictionary	Notes
1	Беларуская навуковая тэрміналёгія. Вып.10. Тэрміналёгія права / Ін-т Беларускае Культуры. Праўная сэкцыя. Аддзел першы. Сэрыя V. Кніга 10. – Менск, 1926. – 104 с. – На вокл.: Тэрміналёгія права = La termonologie du droi.	Worked up by Mikoła Hutkoŭski. The project was considered and accepted by the Terminology Committee of the IBC humanities section, composed of Ivan Łucevič, Kanstancin Mickievič, Jazep Losik, Sciapan Niekraševič, Uładzisłaŭ Čaržynski,Mikoła Hutkoŭski. Russian-Belarusian Dictionary. Comprises 3135 terms. An appendix: a list of public offices. A dictionary of Belarusian terms.
2	Станкевіч Я. Некаторыя праўніцкія тэрміны беларускія = Some legal Whiteruthenian Terms / Крывіцк. Навук. Таварыства Пранціша Скарыны. – Ню-Ёрк, 1953. – 84 с. – Біблягр.: с. 8 (10 назв.)	A Belarusian-Russian Dictionary, examples from Belarusian literature. An appendix: a roll of Russian terms.
3	Слоўнік юрыдычнай тэрміналёгіі: Беларуска-Расейска-Польскі / Апрац. А.Галяк. – Б.м., [1994]. – 80 с.	typewrited and later lithographied
4	4. Лойко М.О., Штоп И.И. Краткий русско-белорусско-английский словарь для юридических институтов и факультетов / Грод. гос. ун-т. – Гродно, 1997. – 130 с.	about 3500 terms.
5	Юрыдычны энцыклапедычны слоўнік /Беларуск. энцыклап.; Рэдкал. С.В. Кузьмін, Я.В. Малашэвіч, Г.А. Маслыка, С.П. Самуэль, І.Ф. Сашчэка, В.І. Семянкоў, С.Ф. Сокал, М.А. Ткачоў, І.П. Хаўратовіч, І.А. Юхо. – Мн.: БелЭн, 1992. – 636 с.	An appendix: Russian-Belarusian Dictionary of Legal Terms

Review of the article. Full version available in the Belarusian part of the journal:

The article comprises three parts: (1) introduction of the terminological goals of the journal ‘Praunik’, (2) table of the disputable, multiform, mal-equivalent legal terms, and (3) presentation of the “short manual of a lawyer” where the usage of certain terms is being described in details. 

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