CROATIAN
LITERARY LANGUAGE IN THE 18TH CENTURY*
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Journal
of Croatian Studies, XXVIII-XXIX, 1987-88 – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of
America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by
permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.
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Standard languages of Europe were
formed at different historical periods ranging from the Dantean times in Italy
to the twentieth century when Macedonian, a number of Caucasian, Uralic, Altaic
and other standard languages of the Soviet Union were formed. In Romance and
Germanic worlds the most important period in the development of their standard
languages was the 16th century, when the Renaissance and Reformation movements
were at their peak. In the history of Slavic standard languages some major
events took place in the 18th century, and for some of them it was the most
important phase in their history. That is the reason why at the Seventh
International Congress of Slavists in Warsaw one of the major topics was the
sociolinguistic situation in the Slavic countries in the 18th century, and why the
majority of papers from all the participating countries dealt with this
question.
If we apply the somewhat vague
term "Croatian Literary Language" to cover both the written languages
from the past and the contemporary standard language of the Croats, the history
of the Croatian Literary Language can be divided into six periods, some of
which consist of more than one phase. In this historical perspective the 18th
century emerges as the most important point, which divides the first three
periods (i.e., the prestandard history) from the latter three periods, which
are characterized by the gradual formation of the latter three periods, which
are characterized by the gradual formation of the present-day Croatian standard
language.
A. Prestandard history:
First period:
— Medieval Croatian writing
— Development from the acceptance
of Glagolitic script in the 9-10th centuries until the end of the 15th century
— Dominance of the čakavian
dialect in writing and strong influence of the Croatian Church Slavic (with
increasing secular usage)
— Appearance of the Cyrillic and
the Latin alphabets in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively
— Development of regional
literatures in the 16th century (which adopt the intellectual linguistic adstratum
of the medieval writings but drop the accumulated linguistic substance)
— Balance between čakavian,
štokavian and kajkavian dialects in writing and between čakavian and
štokavian in belle lettres
— Formation of two Croatian
territorial complexes: northwestern (northern čakavian-kajkavian), and
southeastern (southern čakavian-štokavian)
— Gradual disappearance of
Glagolitic script
— Formation of several regional
written languages based on various subdialects of all three major dialects
— Development and multiplication
of regional literatures and regional written languages in the 17th and the
first half of the 18th centuries.
— Livelier contacts among the
latter
— Prevalence of the štokavian
dialect in the southeastern territorial complex
— Slow decline of čakavian
and the Western type of Cyrillic alphabet in the second phase (the first half
of the 18th century)
— Unification of the kajkavian
written language
— Neo-štokavian expansion in the
southeastern territorial complex, i.e., its influence on the čakavian
territory and the influence of neoštokavian on non-neoštokavian written
languages, primarily on the language of Dubrovnik
B. History of the Croatian
Standard Language:
— Ikavian and ijekavian types of
neoštokavian as the exclusive written language in the southeastern territorial
complex in the second half of the 18th century and the first decades of the
19th century
— Beginnings of standardization of
this language and its increased influence in the northwestern territorial complex
— Relatively quick but not
widespread enough standardization of kajkavian written language and its
orthographic standardization
— Total victory of the Latin
alphabet in the southeastern territorial complex with substantial tendencies
towards orto graphic convergence
— Widening of functional potential
of both Croatian super-regional written languages in the process of
standardization accompanied by weakening or stagnation of their purely literary
function
— Croatian National Revival (Preporod)
and its development till the end of the 19th century
— Annexation of the northwestern
territorial complex to the southeastern
— Important advancement of
neoštokavian as the only Croatian standard language
— General orthographic reform
— Gradual disappearance of
ijekavian-ikavian duality in the first phase of the fifth period
— Struggle between various
proposals about the ideal type of the Neo-štokavian standard (so-called
language schools—the schools of Zagreb, Zadar, Rijeka)
— Struggle with the remnants of
language regionalism Struggle between the proponents of ethymological vs.
phonetic onthography
— Change in the physiognomy of
neoštokavian
— Final victory of the phonetic
orthography at the turn of the century
Sixth Period:
Developments in the 20th century
— Unification of the standard
language
— Apparent orthographic
oscillations
— Awareness of the necessity for a
stable Croatian neo-štokavian norm which became actual in the 60's Formation of
neo-čakavian and neo-kajkavian dialectal literatures at the beginning of
the century and their constant development, which is a distinctive
characteristic of the present-day situation in the Croatian language and
literature
This periodization clearly shows
the place which the 18th century occupies in the history of the Croatian
literacy and in the prehistory and history of the Croatian standard language:
the first half of the 18th century is the last phase of the third period and,
therefore, represents the end of prestandard history; the second half of the
18th century is the first phase of the fourth period and, therefore, represents
the beginning of standardization. It is important to note that the middle of
18th century marks the end of the processes which had begun at the turn of 15th
and 16th centuries, i.e., in the second period.
The several centuries-long
development of the medieval Croatian writing (a period longer than the period
since the discovery of America) was interrupted and its results completely
lost. The catastrophe was survived only by the cultural-linguistic adstratum
developed in the Middle Ages (abstract vocabulary, elements of terminology,
syntax, phraseology, etc.). This adstratum will later become a part of
the regional Croatian written languages and will function as a bond between them.
The processes which started after the breaking point caused by the Turkish
invasion were, as I mentioned earlier, finished in the middle of the 18th
century: this point in time marks the beginning of a new development, this time
supra-regional, which will also be interrupted in the third decade of the 19th
century. However, this time the painful break was conscious and it meant the
abandonment of the Kajkavian written language, which was at that time already
at an advanced stage of standardization. The middle of the 18th century,
therefore, is a central point between the two painful moments: it marks the end
of the medieval and the beginning of the modern Croatian linguistic history.
Not many nations have had such a complex and tragic linguistic and literary
history.
The middle of the 18th century
was, therefore, an important, maybe the most important, breaking point in the
history of the Croatian language. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of
this paper, this century was a crucial period in the history of almost all the
Slavic languages, in each of them in a different way. That is why I would like
to give an outline of these processes in other Slavic countries before I
concentrate on the more detailed analysis of this period in Croatia. This approach
is relevant for two reasons: (1) it will give a wider perspective to the
analysis of the Croatian situation, and (2) the history of Croatian literary
language abounds in various influences, analogies and parallel processes to
those in other languages. This complex relationship of Croatian to other Slavic
languages is much richer than is normally the case in the Slavic world.
Slavic languages generally belong
to one of the two major types with respect to their history: the first type
includes languages for which the question of the relationship toward the local
or the Russian variant of the Church Slavic language (or both) remained the
central problem till the 18th or even 19th century; the second type includes
the nations for which this question was resolved at the very onset of their
literacy, or nations which never had to face this problem directly. The first,
i.e., Eastern, group includes the East Slavic languages and the Bulgarians,
Macedonians, Serbs and Montenegrins, while the West Slavic nations and
Slovenians comprise the second or Western group. The Cyrillo-Methodian
tradition gave to each of the Slavic literary traditions, either directly or
through some other Slavic intermediary (Southern, Czech, Russian, Croatian)
such a range of possibilities in the development of their lexicon, semantics,
derivation and phraseology that it simply does not have a parallel in Europe
(Latin is an all-European tradition). While for the second group the discussion
ends with this statement, for the languages of the first group we must add that
the Church Slavic tradition turned into a thousand-year-long obstacle, which
was imposing its own (ortho)graphic models and which, at the threshold of the
modern epoch, almost triggered the development of diglossia (in Ferguson's
sense). Because of this difference, the 18th century was different in these two
groups.
In Poland we have relatively the
simplest and the most positive case. Here we find the only more or less western
European type, which was merely waiting for modernization and
polyfunctionalization of the standard language established in the 16th century.
In Czech, Upper and Lower Lusatian and Slovenian, the situation is different;
all of them had some kind of a standard language (Czech established in the 15th
and the other three in the 16th centuries), which was in a stage of decline or
stagnation in the 17th century. In the 18th century, we can see the struggle to
stop this trend and to neutralize the negative sociolinguistic consequences.
That is why there are many more abrupt changes and reforms with different
results than in Poland. In Bohemia and Slovenia this stagnation caused the
development of similar general substandard languages. In Slovakia in the second
half of the 18th century there coexisted three competing idioms: beginnings of
a standard language based on West Slovak created by Bernolák, the Slovak
variant of standard Czech, and an east Slovak (Calvinistic) written language
which was at the first stage of standardization. This disbalance, together with
the development of mid-Slovak solution — the establishment of a standard
language based on the mid-Slovak spoken language, which was accomplished by
Stur in the 19th century. In Pomorania the choice was between germanization, or
their own (practically Kashubian) standard, or the development of a
Polish-Kashubian hybrid, or the acceptance of the Polish standard. The decision
was made in the 18th century in favor of the first and the last solutions. The
later Kashubian literary renaissance, which took place at the end of the 19th
and in the 20th centuries, was no longer a question of a standard language, but
remained rather at the literary level.
In the Eastern group Russian is
principally different from other languages. There were only two components in
the game here: Russian (East Slavic) and Church Slavic (South Slavic in its
russified form). In all other cases there were four components: local variant
of Church Slavic, Russian variant of Church Slavic, local language, and
Russian. This is true for all these languages, despite the differences in the
relative quantitative and qualitative roles of those componenents, since the
South and East Slays certainly had a different relationship toward the Church
Slavic and Russian components. These differences, together with different
sociolinguistic and extralinguistic circumstances, created different situations
in these countries in the 18th century. Russian was in the best position in
this group: the centuries-long, relatively stable and uninterrupted development
of an amalgam of Russian Church Slavic and Russian based on the dialect of
Moscow, ended during the course of the 18th century and was definitely
standardized at the beginning of the 19th century. Therefore, the Russian
situation, in spite of different language material, was identical to that in
Polish. In Byelorussian, the amalgam such as the one in Russian (but on much
smaller scale) was achieved already in the 16th century, but it stagnated in
the 17th century and practically disappeared at the beginning of the 18th
century. Because of the stupor in the 18th century and the influence of other
Slavic languages (Polish, Russian), Byelorussian standard language in the 19th
century started from a completely new position, being based on the so-called
vernacular. Ukrainian had a similar history, but the contrasts were much less
extreme, and there was an East-West polarization. In Bulgaria and Macedonia
these processes had a "natural" course, but with different intensity
and rhythm and with different degrees of Russian Church Slavic and Russian
influences. A specific "Balkan" grammatical structure, together with
difficult extralinguistic circumstances in both 18th and 19th centuries, made a
solution such as the one in Russian impossible, while the differences between
Bulgarian and Macedonian situations resulted in almost opposite final
solutions. In Bulgaria, a rather happy compromise took place in the last
quarter of the 19th century. In Macedonia, the standard language was based on a
purely, vernacular base starting at the beginning of the 20th century, with
full realization in the 1940's. In Serbia a very strong penetration of Russian
Church Slavic and Russian influences at the beginning of the 18th century
prevented the stabilization of Serbian Church Slavic. This was an amalgam based
on a neoštokavian, mostly ekavian, dialect which could have in the course of
this century, with generally more favorable circumstances, developed into a
modern standard language. However, the newly formed four-fold hybrid (so-called
Slavjanoserbski) could not have developed into a standard language. There were
two reasons for this: first, this language was more different from both Church
Slavic and Russian, especially phonologically, than any other štokavian idiom;
and second, because one century is too short a period for such a process to be
accomplished. That is why already in the second decade of the 19th century
Karadžić initiated a new standard language based entirely on the
neoštokavian vernacular. This process will be finished by the mid-19th century
with the ekavian-ijekavian duality unresolved (the situation characteristic of
present-day Serbian standard as well).
In this paper so far I have
introduced two values: periodization of the Croatian literary language in the
vertical temporal dimension, and the classification of Slavic languages in the
horizontal temporal dimension of the 18th century. Two things are immediately
obvious: 18th century in Croatia was not much like the 18th century in any
other Slavic country, and the Croatian vertical development was so different
from all the others that it can-not be included in either of the two types we
introduced. For Croats the question of the Church Slavic influence ceased to be
a general problem at the end of the 15th century, i.e., half way between this
occurrence in the Eastern and the Western groups (it remained a problem in
individual regional languages till the 18th century).
This means that, with respect to the
basic criterion used for the division of the Slavic languages, Croatian
occupies a middle position. According to other parameters which define the two
types of standard Slavic languages (including transitional cases), Croatian
does not have many typological parallels in the Slavic world either, in spite
of the fact that, as I have already mentioned, Croatian relations with some of
these languages were numerous, diverse, multidirectional and many-sided. In
other words, Croatian literary language is characterized by the following
characteristics in its own specific historical development and in the
physiognomy which resulted from it:
(a) Middle position with respect to the Slavic groups and equal
relation to their members
(b) A number of specific extralinguistic factors which
influenced the development of literacy (incongruity both with countries
occupied by the Turks and with countries in the domain of medieval history,
Mediterranean characteristics, and the extreme political-territorial division
related to all of the above)
(c) With respect to the literary function, analogy with the
West-European, especially Mediterranean situation
(d) Dialects spoken by Croats belong to the same diasystem as
the dialects spoken by Serbs, Montenegrins and Muslims in Bosnia and
Hercegovina.
These characteristics, which
define at the same time the substance and the structure of dialectal basis and
the development of Croatian literary language, also determined the concrete
form of Croatian in the 18th century. Moreover, all the consequences of these
facts received their final form exactly in this period. This includes the
choice of the dialectal base among all the dialects in the diasystem mentioned
under (d), which, lacking a better and more accurate name, we will call Croato-Serbian
(or Serbo-Croatian). The choice fell upon the Western neoštokavian dialect of
the ekavian and west ijekavian types. This neoštokavian literary language of
the 18th century was the first Croatian supraregional literary language after
Croatian Church Slavic, which had stopped fulfilling this role at the end of
the 15th century.
This choice ended the period of
the Croatian regional literary languages, which lasted through the 16th, 17th
and the first half of the 18th centuries, i.e., second and third period of my
periodization. Neoštokavian standard is today the standard of Serbs,
Montenegrins, Muslims in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and the Croats themselves,
even though these nations went through this process later than the Croats
(Serbs, for example, in the second decade of the 19th century), and despite
some differences in the form of the neoštokavian dialectal base (for Serbs
ekavian and commonijekavian, for Montenegrins east-ijekavian, for Muslims
ikavian and common-ijekavian).
Obviously the above picture is
very complicated and, moreover, pretty much opposite the traditional
philological ideas about this question. This means that the understanding of
the 18th century in the history of Croatian literary language is difficult for
two reasons: the facts are complicated in themselves, but it is also necessary
to overcome inaccuracies and false interpretation which are established in
Yugoslav and international philology. Sometimes even the most basic elements of
the language situation are misinterpreted. One such misinterpretation is that
Serbs, Montenegrins, Muslims in Bosnia and Hercegovina and Croats use a
standard language based on neoštokavian, because they use dialects of the same
diasystem. This is a false explanation: while it is a fact that all of these
nations chose as the dialectal base for their standard language more or less
the same (i.e., neoštokavian) dialect, which is a part of that diasystem, the
choices were made at various times, under different circumstances and with
different motives. The choice could have gone in a different directions, for
example, a non-neoštokavian or a non-štokavian dialect, or even some amalgam
with a Church Slavic component. Only Muslims in Bosnia and Hercegovina did not
have even a hypothetical possibility for a different choice (except, maybe,
regarding the alphabet, which is also very unlikely).
This is why the 18th century
played a crucial role and why I have put the Croatian situation in a general
Slavic framework and why I have presented a historical development of the
Croatian literary language. Having this background in mind, we can now
formulate our thesis and evaluate it with both traditional and unorthodox
interpretations. The thesis is as follows:
"In the middle of the 18th
century Croatian literary language had two forms: neoštokavian (with
ijekavian-ikavian duality) in the southeastern territorial complex and
kajkavian in the northwest. Both of them were in the process of
standardization. Both of them were the heirs of numerous regional languages which
were developing since the beginning of the 16th century: čakavian,
kajkavian and (neo)štokavian. The neoštokavian language of this period was the
same language of present-day Croats."
First objection:
Neoštokavian was generally accepted on the entire Croatian territory only in
the third decade of the 19th century. This observation is correct. However, the
existence of a standard language is counted from the time when it started to be
a written language, with the contemporary substance and structure, with an
evolutionary development (which means that there were no abrupt changes in its
form), and from the time it started to be codified, either spontaneously or
through consciously prescribed rules. Example: it is widely accepted that
standard French with its present (neo-French) structure and substance has been
developing since the 15th - 16th centuries, but it became general French only
one or two centuries later when it took the place of Provençal and Latin in
Southern France (Occitanic region). If the French are willing to make their
standard language two centuries younger, than Croats could sacrifice some
eighty years!
Second objection: Second
objection: In the period from the middle of the 18th century till the third
decade of the 19th century, the grammatical and phonetic forms were still
uncoordinated, unperfected and uncodified. This is true, because the
neoštokavian literary language at the time was still in the process of
standardization, and can be called a standard language only conditionally. However,
in other European languages in which the status of a standard language has
never been questioned, the situation was often similar to this. Besides, the
differences in details of neoštokavian norm of Dubrovnik, Lika, Bosnia and
Hercegovina and Slavonia were not greater then than in the period from the
1830's till the end of the 19th century, if we have in mind various
"schools" and norms created by groups gathered around certain
individuals for Zagreb and Rijeka schools even the neoštokavian character can
be questioned). The existence of a codified norm is not a condition for a
standard language. Standard English does not have one even today in the sense
that the majority of "continental" languages have it (actually,
Croatian does not have it, either). In other words, if this was a precondition,
then the beginning of the Croatian standard language would be at the turn of
the 19th into the 20th century and not in the third decade of the 19th century;
or we would not even have a standard language today.
Third objection: In
Croatian neoštokavian the ikavian-ijekavian duality existed until the period of
the National Revival. This is also true and, moreover, this duality is found
even in the second half of the 19th century, so that even in the 1870's a complete
edition of the Bible appeared in ikavian. On the other hand, in the Serbian
variant of the neoštokavian standard the ekavian-ijekavian duality exists even
today and still nobody has ever doubted the existence of the Serbian standard
language. Similar situation can be found in other standard languages or their
variants. Examples: a zone with or without a phonetic [z] in standard Italian;
the zone with the initial sequence /zh-/ or /sx-/ in standard Czech; the zone
with different sandhi rules in Polish, etc.
Fourth objection: The
alphabet and orthography were not perfected till the National Revival. This is
again true and, moreover, they remained as such till the end of the 19th
century, and a relatively large number of details are still awaiting the final
solution today. On the other hand, in written neoštokavian, the second half of
the 19th century was the period of intensive convergence in (ortho)graphic
details. In this period (fourth period in my periodization) an almost
completely unified writing system was achieved, with only 1-3 variant
graphemes, and the orthography was also more or less unified basically on the
phonetic principles. In any case, in the period the Revival till the end of the
19th century (our fifth period) this situation is not much better (6, written
forms for /3/, tj, d, /r/ and even /1/ and /ń/: till the second half of the
19th century even /č/, /ž/, /š/, /ć/, /3/). As far as the orthography
is concerned, the situation was actually worse, with oscillations between moderately
phonological (popular term "phonetic") to moderately morphonological
(popular term "etymological"). Finally, the existence of a standard
language is nowhere counted from the point at which its final (ortho)graphic
physiognomy was established, i.e., from the time that it is developing in a
purely evolutionary manner. In the course of the history of a standard language
even the alphabet itself can be completely changed, not only graphics or
orthography. Turks certainly would not agree to count the history of their
standard language only since 1928 when the Latin alphabet replaced Arabic,
which was a much more drastic change than any Croatian (ortho) graphic reforms
in the last centuries.
Fifth objection: The
substance and the structure of the dialectal base are not the same in the 4th
period and in the period after the Revival. This is simply not true. One can
even say that the development between the 4th and 6th periods had a more
evolutionary character than the development between the 5th and 6th periods.
The period between the third decade and the end of the 19th century is a
deviation, because the language of the "Illyrians" and the Zagreb
school was sometimes closer to some regional languages of the 17th and the
first half of the 18th centuries than to the spoken language of the fourth
period and the standard language.
This is not hard to prove. With
the photo copy of edition of Danica everyone can see that its language was far
from the standard neoštokavian. If we, however, read Kačič or
Reljković, the impression is completely different, and notably more
acceptable, which is also easy to prove. No one doubts that there was an
evolutionary development in the Serbian standard language since Karadžić.
Let us take two texts, one by Kačić and one by Karadžić.
Kačić's was taken from Razgovori, 1756 edition, and Karadžić's
from Srpski rječnik, 1818 edition, i.e., it is 62 years later than
Kačić's. Both texts are prose, both reflect the same society, their
content is similar (kidnapping), so we can compare their language without
worrying about the thematic or formal factors. Let us read Kačić's
text first:
... Martin
Glumčević sam otide u Duvno, dovede jedno tursko dite i prodade ga za
sedamdeset groša, ma da bude umio, bi i za pet stotina, jer biše sin jednoga bega
bogata. Ali za nasmijati se,
potribno je kazati vas dogadaj! Otide Martin u Duvno, kazuje se da je prosijak
iz careve zemlje; dolazi k jednomu begu bogatu i moll ga da se dostoji uzeti ga
za svoga dvornika, koju milost lasno imade od bega. Stoji dakle s njime
nikoliko vrimena ištuči prigodu kako bi mu nešto od fajde odnio. U to
vrime od svoga dvorstva biše razmilovao sina svoga gospodara, i otijući
jedan dan otići u diva s konjima, moli begov sin oca svoga da ga pusti
poći s Martinom u planinu. Beg, ne moguči izači ditetu iz atora,
pusti mu na volju, i otide s Martinom u planinu. Ali Martin, videči se
slobodan i daleko od dvora begova, naprti dite na konja, doma ga u Makarsku i
prodade istomu ocu za sedamdeset groša. Ma slano plati posli. Kada Martin popi
i izide ono sedamdeset groša, opet ide u tursku zemlju iznova se naimati.
Namira se na Turke i pitaju ga: "Odkolem si siromaše?". Odgovara i
laže da je iz Glamoča. Pitaju ga: "Jesi li gladan?". Odgovara na
primorsku: "Nisam od jučer bokuna okusio". Kada Turci 1.1§e ovu
rič "bokun", poznadoše da je morski čovik i da je uhoda,
svezaše ga i povedoše u sužanjstvo, od koga za izbaviti se bi usilovan dati pet
stotina groša. To bi bokun i najam! (Stari pisci hrvatski, knj.
XXVII, 1942, str.81).
Now Karadžić's text:
U Srbiji i današnji dan otimaju devojke. Mlada momčad vrlo rado idu u otmicu, i testo nude jedan drugoga: "Ajde more da ti otmemo tu, onu, devojku." U otmicu se ide s oružjem kakogod na vojsku. Kašto otmičari dovrebaju đevojku kod stoke, kad pode na vodu, pa je uvate i odvedu; a kašto udare na kuću noću (kao ajduci), pa obiju kuću i svežu đevojatkoga oca i braću, dok nadu devojku i odvedu. Kašto se pobiju đevojatka braća i rodaci s otmičarima i bude mesa dosta: kao što je u Jadru (u selu Klupcima) 1805te godine poginuo đevojtin brat i jedan otmičar; i devojku opet nijesu mogli oteti. Zato otmičari ne smiju lasno da udare na kuću, de znaju da ima mnogo roda u devojke, a osobito de je selo složno: zašto i seljaci, kako stanu puške pucati i utini se buna, spopadne svaki svoju pušku pa tri u pomoč. Svemu je selu sramota, kad se iz sela otme devojka, a otmičarima još veća, kad se vrate jalovi. Kad otmičari dokopaju devojku u ruke, onda je več ne će ostaviti, makar svi izignuli: ako li se devojka stane zatezati i neće da ide, onda je vuku za kose, i dera štapom kao vola u kupusu. Otmitari ne smiju ići s devojkom momačkoj kući: zašto pođu kašto seljaci, s rodom đevojatkim, za njima u poćeru; nego je odvedu u šumu, i tamo je vjentaju u kakvoj kolibi (pudarskoj pastirskoj), iii de oko bukvića. Pop mora vjenčati, ako mu se i ne će: zašto oče da ga biju. Kad dode poćera u selo, onda svi, otkud su otmičari, izidu preda nji lijepim načinom i grade mir. Ako se tako pomire, dobro; ako li rod đevojatki ode kadiji na tužbu, onda moraju doei i otmičari s devojkom. Kad ugleda mati devojku na mešćemi, a ona se stane busati rukama u prsi, i jaukati: "Kuku mene! evo roda moga." Kad se potnu suditi, kadija najprije pita devojku: Ili je sila, draga volja? Ako reče devojka, da je sila, i da ona ne će s onim momkom življeti ni danas ni sjutra, makar je svu isjekli na komade, onda zlo po otmičare: moraju ležati u apsu i plaćati globu. Ako li devojka rete (kao što ponajviše biva): "Nije sila, veće draga volja: ja ću za njim i u goru i u vodu", onda otmičari dadu štogođ kadiji, pa se pomire s đevojačkim rodom, i odvedu devojku kući te tine svadbu.
Najviše se dogodi te otimaju devojke, kad
momak zaprosi devojku pa mu je ne dadu; a kašto je i ne prose (kad znaju da je
ne će dati), nego upravo otidu i otmu, a momak je nije ni video.
Đevojke otimaju ponajviše momtad, koja nemaju roditelja, ako i imaju, a
oni i ne slušaju, nego se skiću kojekuda; a za poštena momka i od poštena
roda slabo če kad oteti devojku, niti će takovi momak ići u otmicu.
(V. S. Karadžič, Srpski rječnik, 1818, Beograd 1966, str. 429-430).
Only a stubborn person would deny
the fact that these two languages have the same status. Even though the first
text is 62 years older, in some details it is even closer to contemporary norm:
for example the sound h (uhoda) which Karadžić didnot have in 1818
(that is why i in the last sentence "a oni i ne slušaju" should be
read as a pronoun ih 'them' and not as a conjunction 'and'); Karadžić's
forms devojka, poćera, are very far from contemporary norm, etc. It
is understood that Kačić's text has been transcribed into
contemporary Croatian alphabet, but in our discussion of the 4th objection we
showed that is not very relevant. We have, I believe, also solved the question
of ikavisms.
Let us now take an example of
poetry from Slavonia. I randomly selected a few verses from Antun
Kanižlić's (1699-1777) poem "Sveta Rožalija" published in
1780 in Vienna:
"Je
li još, tko znade, uskočica živa?
Ako i dopade zla, sama je kriva.
Nek na vrata grada tuda sad brez kosâ
hodeći
od glada mre gola i bosa!"
Majke
srdce meko opet se povme,
zacviliš: "Sto reko, o žalosti crne!
Ah, nisam
li mati ja, i ona koja
to morebit
pati, nije li kći moja?
Kako bi to
bilo? Ja zlatom odivam,
častim,
pitam tilo, što želim, uživam,
a kći, moja krvca, gola je brez ruha,
uboga bez drvca i gladna brez kruha!"
U ovoj žalosti jer se sva smućivaš,
Majku od milosti u pomoć zazivaš,
gdi u crkvi puku pruža iz nebesa
blagodarnu ruku od mlogih čudesa.
(Stari pisci hrvatski,
knj. XXVI, 1940, str.65)
It is completely wrong to claim
that this is not the same language as the present-day standard language, or
that in other European languages the differences between two stages separated
by two hundred years are smaller. For the most developed languages this might
be true, but if we take languages of comparable size in terms of number of
speakers, importance and physiognomy, the differences are either similar or
larger or sometimes much larger. It is, to say the least, inconceivable that
some linguists would apply special criteria to such an average case.
From everything said so far we can
conclude that the 18th century was a truly breaking point in the history of
Croatian literary language: in the middle of this century neoštokavian Croatian
written language (ikavian and ijekavian) was established and it entered the
standardization process in the entire southeastern area. At the time it was the
only written language in this area. After the Revival it replaced the kajkavian
written language and became the standard language of all Croats. This means
that in the purely linguistic sense the 18th century was more important than
Croatian National Revival in the third decade of the 19th century. Of course,
the Revival was more important in cultural, social, political and national
sense, but in the linguistic sense it meant only two things: 1) the spreading
of the already existing neoštokavian written language in a territorial sense
(in kajkavian area) and a functional sense; and 2) the reform of the
orthography and the creation of conditions for general acceptance of this
reform by all Croats. That is why, for example, for Dubrovnik's Antun
Kaznačić (1784-1874) as a writer and cultural worker the Revieval
meant only a change of orthography, but not the language.
The last question we have to
address is: Should we have stopped at the 18th century? Couldn't we have moved
the beginning of present-day Croatian neoštokavian standard even further in the
past in order to include such great writers as Gundulić or even
Držić? We will address this question, if only in general terms, since it
has both principled and practical relevance.
The answer to this question is no.
It is necessary to match the periodization of the Croatian literary language
with those of other European languages. If the same objections as those above
were raised regarding some of them, the majority of the periodizations would
have to be revised, and not in their favor. We must apply in all cases the same
standards: nothing more and nothing less!
After the period of the Croatian
Church Slavic literature in the 16th and 17th centuries (second and third
periods in my periodization), there appeared a number of regional Croatian
written languages. Several of them were in the southeast area (southern
ćakavian-štokavian) which, from the mid-18th century was completely
covered by the supraregional neoštokavian written language (the same language
which in the third decade of the 19th century became the language of all
Croats). That is, therefore, the first difference: supraregional vs. regional.
The regional languages in the
southeastern area were both čakavian and štokavian. Leaving čakavian
aside, in the second period (16th century) there were only two štokavian
languages, both of them non-neoštokavian: the language of Dubrovnik a
nonneo-štokavian dialect with ikavian-čakavian elements, and, at the end
of this period the Bosnian language, a non-neoštokavian East Bosnian
(ijekavian-šáakavian) dialect. Both of these languages should obviously remain
in the prehistory of Croatian standard language, because of their regional
status and because of their non-neoštokavian character. The second feature
means that the development from them to the modern standard language could not
be evolutionary, but was a change in substance and structure. In the third
period (17th and the first half of the 18th centuries) beside čakavian,
there were a number of štokavian regional languages: the language of Dubrovnik
(ijekavian, in the process of neoštokavization); Dalmatian (ikavian, of early
neoštokavian character); Bosnian (ikavian in the early phase of the so-called
mixed ijekavian-ikavian in the process of neoštokavization, or of early
neoštokavian character); Slavonian (ikavian, non-neoštokavian Slavonian dialect
with local and Bosnian neoštokavian elements). These štokavian written
languages of the third period should also be left in the prehistory of
neoštokavian standard, because of their regional character, while it is not
certain that their physiognomies would necessarily require this.
There is no doubt that, for
example, Gundulić's language was already very close to the standard
neoštokavian. If this were not true, Mažuranić, the writer of Smrt
Smail-age Čengića, would have had a hard time finishing Gundulić's
Osman. However, this similarity is not sufficient. In all four štokavian
regional languages from the third period the dialectal base is limited to a
single region, in all of them we find elements of non-neoštokavian and even
nonštokavian character, while neoštokavian elements are not yet mature. All of
this prevents us from considering any of them as an evolutionary predecessor of
the supraregional neoštokavian of the fourth period.
I am using here two criteria:
regional vs. supraregional character of the language, and the nature of the
dialectal base. These two criteria are related: at the time of regional
literatures (second and third periods), the Croatian intellectual community
consisted of writers, not their audiences. Each group of readers needed only
their own literary language. In the mid-18th century the audiences are
integrated, at least in the southeastern area, as much as it was possible at
the time. That is why the supraregional neoštokavian could replace all
previously existing čakavian and štokavian languages. In order to perform
its function on such a large area, it needed standardization and that is why
already at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries there were
some attempts to codify it in various textbooks, grammars and dictionaries.
These were very different from the similar works in previous periods. In the
last decades of the 18th century in Vienna there was a commission consisting of
a poet from Lika, a church dignitary from Zagreb, some Slavonian experts and
Stulli from Dubrovnik. This commission was working on an alphabet and an
orthography for Stulli's dictionary. For the history of Croatian literary
language the work of this commission was much more important than any other
meeting in Vienna or anywhere else.
To conclude: out of the six
periods in the history of Croatian literary language only the last three, from
the 18th century till now, represent the history of the standard Croatian
neoštokavian language. This is true only for the language itself. As far as the
superstructure (especially lexico-terminological and phraseological) is
concerned, the prehistory of the modern standard language goes back to the
first Glagolitic texts. This history was very difficult, full of losses, such
as the one from the turn of the 15th to the 16th centuries, and sacrifices,
such as the abandonment of the almost formed standard language by the
kajkavians. I do not intend to claim that only Croats had a difficult history.
Such was the history of the Serbian language as well: as we have already said,
at the end of the 17th century the results of a centuries-long Serbian Church
Slavic tradition were lost and in the 19th century it was necessary to abandon
the Slavjanoserbski language, together with all the hopes that went with it. And
both times it meant a completely new start. We are dealing here with two
histories which, as the result of their difficulties, call for respect. It is
very wrong to think that either of them can be made easier if the other one is
shown to be even more difficult than it actually was.
* This paper
was presented at the 19th National Convention of the AAASS in Boston, on
November 8, 1987, sponsored by the Association for Croatian Studies.