Terms Denoting Persons in the Manuscript Dictionary of Law Terms (1920)

Abstract

When Lithuania declared independence in 1918, there was an immediate need for Lithuanian legal terminology. Soon, work began on the first legal dictionary – in 1920, the manuscript Russian-Lithuanian dictionary, titled Teisės terminų ir kitų reikalingų teismams žodžių žodynėlio projektas (Eng. The Project of the Dictionary of Law Terms and other Words Necessary in Court), was prepared. This is an interesting source that provides insight into the challenges of legal terminology management at the beginning of independence. This article examines terms and other words denoting persons included in this dictionary. The aim is to find out which terms for persons were considered relevant to legal language at the time and to discuss them systematically – to show which categories of persons are named in the dictionary. The study reveals not only the diversity of terms for persons, but also their uniqueness.