Filología de calendario (1903), d'Antoni M. Penya i Ildefons Rul·lan: un glossari filolològic i etnopoètic sobre el calendari

Abstract

In 1903, Antoni M. Penya and Mn. Ildefons Rul·lan jointly published their third work related to oral literature: Filología de Calendario (Calendar Philology), a work that is difficulty to classify yet that has important philological and literary content. Specifically, the volume relates the terms referring to meteorological weather and the calendar (calendar, day, moon, etc.) with songs, proverbs and riddles —both in Catalan and in other Romance languages— that contain the word that the authors want to describe.

In the introduction, Rul·lan and Penya express their goal of making a comparative collection: ‘the only way to study languages with some benefit’. Then they present the Catalan orthographic rules that they will use for the volume, and finally, they explain the contents. The importance of the book lies in the number of materials it presents (approximately 250 songs and 550 proverbs) and its contribution to the field of comparative paremiology. That is why, in this article, we highlight the value of this work, and especially the folkloric materials (songs, sayings and riddles) it contains, as well as the authors’contribution to Catalan folklore.