SOURCE: Toporišič, Jože. “Kopitar as Defender of the Independence of the Slovene Language.” In The Formation of the Slavonic Literary Languages, edited by Gerald Stone and Dean Worth, pp. 193-205. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1985.

[In the following essay, Toporišič details Kopitar's efforts on behalf of an independent Slovene language and culture.]

The late Professor Robert Auty dedicated a great deal of his scholarly attention to the languages of the Slavs who live more or less on the Pannonian planes and in adjacent areas to the south, west, and east. This is also the area which attracted the undivided attention of our Jernej Kopitar, whose endeavors to defend the independent individuality of the Slovene language will be the topic of our presentation today.

Jernej Kopitar was in love with the Slovene language. His love was unconditional and self-existent, but in due time he tried to give it objective foundations. Kopitar unconsciously fell in love with Slovene first of all because it was his mother tongue, i.e. it was a natural component of his happy youth, as witness the following words from his Selbstbiographie: ‘Als Jernej Kopitar etwa neun Jahre alt war und bereits die Heerde seines Vaters geweidet und gehütet hatte—welche Davidische Rückerinnerung an Berg und Wald noch immer unter seine angenehmsten gehört—fragte ihn einst der Vater (…)’ (1857:2). In Zois's circle, however, into which he definitively entered after he had finished high school, he also discovered what great zeal was shown for the Slovene language not only by baron Žiga Zois (a wealthy—by Slovene standards—sponsor who appointed Kopitar his secretary, librarian, and custodian of his mineralogical collections) but also by a number of older intellectuals that had gathered round Zois partly even before Kopitar's arrival (Anton Tomaž Linhart, Blaž Kumerdej, Jurij Japelj, Jakob Zupan, and especially Valentin Vodnik, to name the most important ones). And their zeal was there in spite of the deplorable fact which Kopitar would point out some time later: ‘(D)er gebildete Slave ist Deutsch gebildet, und ein Überläufer; slavisches Sprachstudium ist daher nur Sache irgend eines seltenen Diletanten, der seine Landsleute beynahe um Nachsicht bitten muss für diese seine Passion.’ (1857:6). Even more relevant to our problem is Kopitar's contact with the rich (for us) Slovene literary tradition since the sixteenth century, which was revealed to the knowledge-hungry young man in Zois's library. A special impetus also must have been the fact that Slovene was so appreciated by such a man of rank as Zois was at the time: ‘Baron Zois (…) lebte, als Kopitar in sein Haus kam, als der reichste und sonst in jeder Beziehung gebildeteste Mann in Laibach, verehrt und geliebt von klein und gross, wie er es auch im hohen Grade verdiente (…) Da Baron Zois selbst von der Mutter her das krainische vortrefflich sprach, auch gewöhnlich, wiewohl er damals nicht mehr ins Theater ging, für italienische Operisten irgend ein krainisches Couplet dichtete, dessen überraschendes Ertönen Parterre und Logen vor vaterländischen Freude ausser sich brachte, so versteht es sich von selbst, dass Sekretär Kopitar an all den Dingen Theil nahm.’ (1857:5).

Under these circumstances, the fact that Kopitar and the others fostered Slovene was probably also due to the natural psychological reaction of any noble mind faced by the misprized social status of a value such as one's mother tongue, which in all human justice should have been free, valued and on an equal footing—and yet was not. There is a pertinent passage about it in his Selbstbiographie: ‘Dazu verstand er keine Sylbe deutsch, als er von Repnje nach Laibach kam: aber die Lehrer der ersten Classe sprechen auch krainisch. (…) Sonst freilich lief es beim slavischen Knaben mitten unter spöttelnden Deutschen anfangs nicht ohne Heimweh ab: doch hatte die Mutter ihm das oft prophezeit (…).’ (1857:3). The same is indicated by Kopitar's paraphrase of Hipolit's lamentation over the linguistic fate of Slovenes wanting to educate themselves: ‘Der Vorwurf des unnöthigen Germanisirens in einzelnen Wörtern, und in Syntax, trifft, mehr oder weniger, alle unsre (meist übersetzende!) Schriftsteller. Um dieses, wenn nicht verzeihlich, doch begreiflich zu finden, setze man sich an die Stelle eines krainischen Scribenten. Im 8ten oder 10ten Altersjahre hat er den väterlich-Slavischen Herd verlassen, um in der Deutschen Stadt von Deutschen in Deutscher Sprache zum Deutschen Staatsdiener erzogen zu werden. Nun muss er seine Slavische Muttersprache, die er ohnehin in diesem Alter noch nicht in ihrer ganzen Fülle besitzen kann, mit Fleiss vergessen lernen, damit ihm hold werde die Herrscherin Teutona.’ (1808-9:53-4).

The same situation that was faced by Kopitar (and, before Kopitar, by the entire Zois circle) had been faced by our sixteenth-century Protestants, who had raised the under-privileged Slovene language into a literary means of expression. Like the Protestants, Kopitar was haunted by the thought whether the numerically and socially negligible Slovene speakers were even entitled to their lebensraum. Would it not be more sensible to become absorbed in the German-speaking multitude (or, for that matter, also in the Italian one, or the ‘Croatian’ one in the south)? Let us recall Kopitar's assertion that the educated Slovene was a deserter—potentially also in the southern direction, as witnessed already in the sixteenth-century by Krelj and, to Kopitar's mind, partially also by Dalmatin. Kopitar, however, had more sympathy with those who sought refuge in this southern direction than northward among the Germans: ‘(Krelj's) Dalmatisieren ist ein viel kleineres Übel als Truber's Germanisieren’ (1808-9:28) or: ‘(D)er Sprachfreund muss bedauern, dass Bohoritsch den von Postille Übersetzer (…) 1578 so aussichtsvoll betretenen Weg—die Krainische Sprache den übrigen Slavischen Schwestersprachen zu nähern, sie lieber aus diesen, als aus der Deutschen bereichern—nicht nur selbst nicht verfolgte, sondern sogar 1584 bey der Übersetzung der Bibel, den Dalmatin davon zurückrief’ (1808-9:53).

In my opinion the only desertion actually possible was to the German side; and even there only for an individual (especially one with a formal education) who mastered both languages—mastered, indeed, standard German far better than standard Slovene. The nation (or the people) in the mass had no such chance. It was made impossible, from the start, by the resistance of the Slovene-speaking community to learning other languages, since they lacked both the necessary energy and motivation. The educated Slovene was left with one single sensible solution: to help his own language community obtain a nation-wide literary standard, as efficient as possible in all its functions. Kopitar indirectly sets out the important role which language plays in the areas of business and military command (1811:126). Zois's translating Italian arias shows that it was also a matter of asserting in public the value of Slovene, especially its singability, a function in which Slovene (and Serbo-Croatian) could compete with Italian. In the Slovene lessons which he gave to the daughter of the military commander Count Bellegarde, Kopitar used Linhart's Matiček as a text for Slovene exercises. And for a poet there was an additional ‘coercive force’: it was only through his native language that he could assert his poetic genius (the case of Prešeren).

The Slovene intellectual worked for the cultivation of the Slovene language the more zealously because he loved his language as one usually loves what is one's own and as a cultured man ultimately respects every individuality, knowing it is, as they used to put it, God-given; he respects his language even more, because from it he received his youthful visions and experiences of the world as well as many other mental and spiritual values existing in the diversified environment of his family and his village, including the domains of religion and, to some degree, of cognition.

Thus Bohorič, in 1584 had written on the title page of his grammar: ‘Omnis lingua confitebitur Deo’ in various languages (Slovene: ‘Vsaki jezik bode Boga spoznal’)—justifying, no doubt, Slovene linguistic individuality; claiming, indeed, that had there been no Slovene language there would have been one less to worship God. A similar consideration related to the preservation of Slovene was expressed by Kopitar: ‘Man sieht, wir überlassen die Einführung einer einzigen Schriftsprache für alle Slavischen Stämme lieber dem allmähligen aber sichern Gange der Natur, als einem Nation-Concilio von Gelehrten aller Dialekte, womit sich Kumerdej und Japel trugen, und dergleichen Voltiggi (…). Nur ein gleichförmiges Alphabet! Alles übrige überlasset getrost der Natur’ (1808-9:205). And in another place: ‘Die Griechischen Dialekte flossen, nachdem Alexander sich an die Spitze der Griechen gestellt hatte, in eine Schriftsprache zusammen: so dürfte es einst den slavischen auch wieder ergehen. Nur wäre dann zu wünschen, dass diess entweder der alte cyrillische oder doch eines der jüngeren südlichen Dialekte wäre, die ihrer Natur nach freier von Härten sind als die nördlichen (cf. Schlösser). Sollte indessen das Glück selbst dem härtesten das Scepter geben, so fällt derselbe ja doch noch immer nach Jean Paul im Vergleich mit anderen Sprachen lieblich mild aus’ (1857:69).

The same thought about the untouchability of every language was to be repeated thirty years later by France Prešeren, commenting on Vraz's linguistic apostasy: ‘Die Vereinigung aller Slaven zu einer Schriftsprache wird wahrscheinlich ein frommer Wunsch bleiben. (…) Unterdessen auch verkehrtes Streben is besser als Apathie gegen alles Vaterländische’ (Letter of 5 July 1837, publ. in Prešeren 1966:197). And in another place: ‘Es hat den Anschein, als ob es dem Dr. Gai und anderen slawischen Literatoren mit der Idee Ernst wäre, dass die slowenische und illyrisch serwische Sprache in eine verschmolzen werden sollten, oder vielmehr dass der slowenische Dialekt als Schriftsprache aufhören und hinfüro nur mehr der serwische geschrieben werden sollte. Ich bin von der Unausführbarkeit dieser Idee subjektiv überzeugt, habe jedoch bis nun dieselbe auf keine Art bekämpft (…)’ (Letter of 19 July 1838—see Prešeren 1966:199). And finally in his P.S. (26 October 1840) to Smole's letter to Vraz: ‘Si Deus pro vobis, quis contra vos; bedenkt jedoch, dass auch ὁ Kρειsτòz getötet werden konnte, dass jedoch die Wiedererweckung als das grösste Wunder von dem Weltapostel Paul und von allen Weltaposteln mit Recht gepriesen wird, und dass Homer sagt, besser ein Schweinehirt zu sein als über alle Toten gebieten.—(…) Ich wünsche übrigens nicht nur dem Panslawismus, sondern auch dem Panillyrismus das beste Gedeihen; glaube jedoch, dass man bis zum Erntetag alles Aufgesprossene stehen lassen soll, damit der Herr (to Pαν) am jüngsten Tage das Gute werde von dem Schlechten ausscheiden können. Dein und des Slawentums aufrichtiger Freund.” (Prešeren 1966:203).

The same unconditional loyalty to the Slovene language was felt also by Kopitar; but it is very hard to prove it rationally to other people. Whenever Slovene intellectuals have tried to substantiate their love of their language in this manner they have failed to be sufficiently convincing, and often they have been uncritical.

Most convincing in this respect was Trubar, who simply professed that the poor Slovene people needed to be helped out of the intense worries of their irksome life, especially under the tough circumstances of incessant Turkish plunder and genocide, at least with words and advice.

The words of a Slovene text are here the savior of human souls; they are something ennobling, something that leads man out of what he has in common with animals, i.e. out of his purely physical existence and his struggle to maintain it, into his participation in spirituality. If Trubar simultaneously means that Slovene (or Serbo-Croatian) might serve as a medium of converting Turks to Christianity, whereupon they would certainly cease slaughtering and devastating Europe, it is only a superficially tangible argument for something which, in the face of what really makes the world go round, can hardly be taken in any serious way.

The second argument stemming from the sixteenth century is the argument of grandiosity. It was exploited by the author of the first Slovene grammar, Adam Bohorič, in 1584, who magnifies the importance of Slovene by holding it merely a part of, as it were, the most widespread contemporary language, extending from the Adriatic to the Pacific and from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean (and almost even to the North Sea) (1584). (This dithyrambic introduction of Bohorič is entirely ignored by Kopitar in his own grammar, most likely because of Bohorič's excessive uncriticalness.) We could also quote from Hipolit (1719), who, glorifying the Slavonic language, has in mind also the distinction of Slovene, this time not in terms of its geographic extension and populational strength but in terms of its structural value itself: ‘Igitur lingua Sclavonica, quam alii Illyricam vocant, originalis, perfecta, ab aliis independens est, neque orbata genuinis et propriis significationibus, quas vulgaris plebs optime novit’ (Kopitar 1808-9:78-9). There are other such passages in the same Introduction. And there is a similar one in Kopitar: ‘Der alte Europäische Volksstamm der Slaven, der Sprache nach sehr nahe verwandt mit dem deutschen und dem griechischen, zwischen welchen beiden er jetzt, und vielleicht von jeher, mitten inne wohnt, ist dermal fünfzig Millionen Seelen stark und könnte unter günstigeren politischen Bevölkerungsumständen auf dem ungeheuren Wohnsitze (halb Europa und ein Drittel von Asien) in wenigen Generationen sich leicht vervierfachen’ (1857:61).

Again, it is the ‘practical’ aspect that Kopitar underlines: Slovene will bring a traveller farther than any other tongue. And since it is a part of such a huge whole it must be entitled to existence; its practical usefulness invites foreign learners, including the Germans, whose language predominates so clearly over Slovene, especially in its social function. (Let us recall the occasion when Kopitar was held up to mockery by his German schoolmates, because he spoke Slovene—or bad German; and his description (after Hacquet) of physical violence to Slavs by German speakers (1857:127): ‘Ich könnte hundert Beispiele anführen, wie oft Deutsche in meiner Gegenwart wider alle Vernunft mit Worten und Schlägen diese unterjochten Menschen misshandelten, bloss weil sie ihre Sprache nicht verstanden.’)

In the beginning, Kopitar himself lacked any other justification for his loyalty to his small Slovene mother tongue but those that he found handed down from the past: ‘Wäre die Krainische Sprache in einem Winkel verborgen, wie Dalmatin (…) gesagt hat, so könnte man sie immerhin mit den mächtigern Nachbarinnen sich vermischen und endlich sich verlieren sehen: da sie aber ein alter∗ (∗Wir haben Wörter, z.B. slana (Reif, pruina), die sich nur in der altslavonischen Bibelsprache, und dem heutigen Servischen Dialekt, aber weder im Russischen, noch in den anderen Dialekten finden. Wir haben durchgängig den Dual in vollem Gebrauche.) und vielleicht der am meisten verfeinerte (von Härten befreite) Zweig der so weit verbreiteten Slavischen Sprache ist, so wär's doch Schade darum’ (1808-9:xlvii). This is Bohorič's and (even earlier) Dalmatin's argument of grandiosity, which involves practical consequences of this language being possibly a mediator in communication with a truly big language, e.g. Russian (the case of count Herberstein when he was deputy in Moscow in the sixteenth century: ‘Vor 250 Jahren war es unser Landsmann, Baron Sygm. v. Herberstein, Krieger, Staatsmann und Gelehrter, der als kaiserl. Gesandter in Moskau—dort den Nestor las (als Krainer konnte er ihn verstehen) und der erste den Ruf und den Ruhm russischer Jahrbücher ins Abendland zurückbrachte’ (1808-9:xiii)), and, through its relatives, Serbian and Old Slavic, an excellent communication tool in diplomacy, whether at the Turkish court or even in the intercourse between the Turkish and the German empires.

One more justification of Kopitar's love of Slovene (and South Slavic) seems characteristic of him: the authenticity of Slovene against mixed languages (Hipolit's argument) and, within the general Slavic language, also its refinement and closeness to Old Church Slavic—not only closeness but, to be precise, almost a legacy of a noble antiquity polished by Greek. Compare the following: ‘Überhaupt, da wir eine Originalsprache haben, halten wir uns lediglich an das Grundgesetz der Schrift: nicht mehr und nicht weniger Buchstaben (Lautzeichen) zu schreiben, als Laute in einem Worte zu hören sind (…)’ (1808-9:162). Kopitar could find the notion of Slovene as a primeval language in Hipolit's Introduction (1719), as our earlier quotation from Kopitar's grammar has shown. At first, Kopitar hesitated about which was closer to, and the direct descendant of, Old Slavic: Carantanian or Serbian (to which, at this stage, he ascribed also Bulgarian, as Dobrovský had); later, the only heirs presumptive were Carantanian and Bulgarian, while Slovene shared with Serbo-Croatian the attribute of being the most melodious among Slavic languages, all of them being melodious anyhow.

Kopitar likes to stress the advantages of Slavic, esp. Slovene, accent and phonology; this is what makes it/them superior to German as well as other western languages when it comes to imitating classical Greek and Roman meters or competing with Italian in the suitability for singing: here, Kopitar claimed, only Serbo-Croatian gets the better of Slovene. For the former statement compare the following: ‘(G)önnen wir dem Deutschen diesen kleinen Vorteil (sc. of having the accent on the root syllable—J.T.), wenn es einer ist, und trösten uns mit der Aussicht, einst in Griechischen Versmassen anders dichten zu können, als die Deutschen. Unsre Dichter werden nicht zu klagen haben wie Goethe

                    Ein Dichter wär' ich geworden,
Hätte die Sprache sich nicht unüberwindlich gezeigt'

(1808-9:256).

The Slavic language, South Slavic in particular, was extremely precious to Kopitar also as an acknowledged expressional device in art. Kopitar saw in folk-songs, esp. Serbian and Croatian ones, something by which Slavs had outshone self-conceited Western Europe and which was bringing them closer to the Ancient Greeks, who gave the world two unattainable types of art in Homer's epics: ‘Wenn man Herder's “Stimmen der Völker” für die Blüthe der Volkspoesie ansehen darf, so weiss Recensent nicht, ob irgend ein Volk des heutigen Europa überhaupt sich in dieser Rücksicht mit den Serben messen kann’ (1816:350). Under Serbs, to be sure, he understands all Serbo-Croatian-speaking Štokavians, and Bulgarians.

A less important justification for Kopitar's love of Slovene were the structural qualities which linked it to Greek and Latin. To the former it was linked by the dual, to the latter by lacking articles and expressing grammatical cases and persons by endings only (1808-9:xlvii). Such references to Greek are numerous and would deserve a separate discussion including his references to other languages. Exceptionally, Kopitar was proud also when Slovene happened to show an identical feature with Hebrew (1808-9:194). Behind all this was, of course, the idea that linguistic similarities could not be the only ones and that there existed potential comparability of mental make-up and of—dormant as it may have been—mental power.

Serving to defend Slovene as a language of a small nationality was, in its essence, also the emphasis which Kopitar put on Slovenian as the heir of Old Church Slavic, a language whose development had been directly influenced by Greek texts and the language structure displayed by them. That was a novel argument, one which Slovenes had not known before. Its rudiments are to be found already in Kopitar's grammar; however, his idea becomes clearer in his works which were published by Miklošič (Kopitar 1857) and later by Nahtigal (1944, 1945).

Today the theory of Old Church Slavic being Old Slovene may seem absolutely untenable. But one has to recognize the positive discoveries which the theory entailed, such as Kopitar's more elaborate thought about the christianization of the Pannonian Slavs preceding the arrival of the two apostles; or the fact that Methodius in his Pannonian archbishopric and even earlier had guided the Slovene population for quite a while, specifically round Lake Balaton; or the fact that the oldest OCS monuments contain words which were certainly never used by the Slavs round Thessalonica. Not to mention Kopitar's contributions to the history of the period—contributions which our historians have not yet fully recognized. Of course, one has to be just to Kopitar and one should not take Slovene in terms of its present position on the map (it is known that Kopitar's Slovene or Carantanian equals Carniolan plus Pannonian Slovenian plus Provincial Croatian) but in terms of the ninth century, before the arrival of the Hungarians, when Slovene and Bulgarian extended northward as far as the Danube around Budapest (note the survival of certain evident relations between South Slavic and a portion of the central Slovak dialects and maybe also Bulgarian). Kopitar's hypothesis was that Slovene and Bulgarian were original neighbors that only later came to be driven in two by Croats and Serbs, the separation being later made permanent by Hungarians settling Pannonia: ‘Die Sprache dieser Übersetzung, sie mag nun die Altmutter des heutigen sloveno-serbischen Dialektes oder die des slovenischen gewesen sein (für beides sind Gründe da) war auf dem Wege gemeinschaftliche Schriftsprache aller slavischen Volkszweige zu werden, wäre nicht das Schisma zwischen Rom und Konstantinopel ausgebrochen’ (1857:63). Or: ‘(D)a dieser (sc. Slovene—J.T.) Dialekt vielleicht Enkel des Kirchenslavischen ist, in welchem vor tausend Jahren die Brüder Cyrill und Method, welcher letzter Erzbischof in Panonien und Mähren war, die Bibel aus dem griechischen übersetzten’ (1857:195). And: ‘Wird aus dem Slavin wieder behauptet, dass das kirchenslavische nichts anderes als das altserbische sei. Recensent glaubt vor der Hand, dass die so wenig gekannten oder verkannten Winden, bei deren Vätern Cyrill und Method Missionäre und letzterer an die dreissig Jahre ihr Erzbischof gewesen, eben so viel wo nicht mehr Anspruch darauf haben. Die Abweichungen ihrer neuerer Mundart sind wohl nicht grösser, als im wahren serbischen (…) Es wäre sehr leicht möglich, dass auch die bulgarische Mundart der altslavischen noch näher wäre als die serbische’ (1814-15; 1857:286). And: ‘(Die) Anmerkungen (thun) der serbischen Sprache beinahe Unrecht, indem sie das altslavische (was denn doch nicht so ausgemacht altserbisch ist: die Geschichte spricht mehr für bulgarisch oder windisch) als Regel annehme’ (1814-15; 1857:292-3).

Let us also touch upon Kopitar's conception of Pannonian Slavs in connexion with his conception of Slovene. We have mentioned that this conception included Carniola, Hungarian Slovenia, and Provincial Croatia north of the Kolpa and the Sava, i.e. all Slavs using the question word kaj. As regards Slovene Croats, compare the following: ‘Aber Recensent protestiert wieder gegen die Benennung kroatisch und wird es so lange thun, bis man bewiesen haben wird, dass die windischen Comitate Agram, Kreuz und Varasdin und nicht Vielmehr die Grenz- und türkischen Kroaten die wahren Kroaten sind; denn die Sprachen dieser heutigen zweierlei Kroaten sind dialektisch verschieden; nur die eine kann die wahre kroatische sein, und alle Daten sprechen gegen die erstere für die letztere’ (1814-15; 1857:294). And more: ‘Die krainischen oder mit einem anderen alten Chronikennamen die Karentaner Slaven, die die Geschichte so wie die bulgarischen um hundert Jahre früher als die Kroaten und Serben in Illyricum findet (…) machen dennoch Krain, Kärnten, Steyermark, Provinzialkroatien und Westungern an anderthalb Millionen Seelen aus’ (1857:323).

He was explicitly aware of the fact that both the second and the third group of linguogenic Slovenes themselves reject the idea of oneness with Carniolans, i.e. ‘Slovenes’ in the restricted sense: ‘Zwar will der Steirer und der Kroate kein Krainer heissen und umgekehrt (und geographisch genommen haben sie alle Recht), aber die Sprache beweist unwidersprechlich, dass diese zerstückelten Reste eines vor und zu Karls des Grossen Zeiten mächtigen Stammes zusammen gehören: sie sprechen eine Mundart, die zwar (…) ihre Unterarten hat und haben muss’ (1857:323). This group is placed in opposition to what Kopitar pretty regularly calls Serbian, sometimes also Croatian or Illyrian, and which coincides with the question word što and, partly, also ča; in geographic-political terms, the ‘non-Slovene’ Croatian as opposed to ‘Slovene’ Croatian was demarcated by the so-called Vojna Krajina, formed in 1627. Kopitar objected to the Illyrian movement; if for no other reason, then because the Štokavian standard language of the Illyrian movement removed Croatian Kajkavians even further away from Slovene, and Kopitar believed the gap to be a final one. Moreover, he strongly objected to the gajica, the Croatian alphabet, due to its diacritic signs.

As is well known, Kopitar did not object to the cultivation of literary Kajkavian (nor did he object to the cultivation of Slavic dialects, i.e. languages), even though he believed that the dialects would at some time in the future amalgamate into one single literary language, in the manner of the different Ancient Greek literary traditions. Probably he expected such an amalgamation of his Carantanian sub-dialects as well, but that came to nothing as soon as Kajkavian Croats accepted a common standard language with Štokavians. On the other hand, Kopitar's expectations in connection with Hungarian Slovenes came to be realized, i.e. they joined the Slovene standard language, even though much later. In matters concerning Kajkavian, Kopitar gave too much emphasis to the linguogenic principle. The differences that decide the shaping of literary languages, happen to be political and social rather than linguistic, and this is no Slavic peculiarity. The disappearance of a separate literary language between Slovene and Serbian (Serbian at that time still being constituted in its modern form—a process to which Kopitar made a very efficient and useful contribution) nevertheless created a kind of disequilibrium, which is also why the need for an epicenter of linguistic standard differing partly from the Serbian one has somehow never stopped (this is also the root of the problem of the Croatian variant of the common language).

His concepts about Croatian Slovenians put Kopitar in a partial conflict with Dobrovský. The difference of opinion can be traced back to Kopitar's grammar, where he accompanied his presentation of Dobrovský's grouping of Slavic dialects into A and B with his own opinion that Slovene was not a part of Croatian (Dobrovský: ‘Die Kroatische (Sprache) mit dem Windischen in Krain, Steyermark und Kärnten’; Kopitar's footnote: ‘Wird vielleicht bey näherer Untersuchung anders befunden werden’ (1808-9:xix)). Kopitar also said that it would have been unjust to demand or wish that Slovenes should adopt the Kajkavian alphabet considering that the Slovene one was far better: ‘Dobrowsky's Slavin nämlich äussert S. 85 folgendes über unsere Orthographie: “Wenigstens kann ich doch fordern, dass sie (die Krainer und Winden) ihre Orthographie vorerst der Kroatischen näher bringen möchten.” Darauf antwortet der Meister: “Diess wünsche ich auch. Oder noch besser, ich wünsche, dass alle Slaven, die mit lateinischen Buchstaben schreiben wollen, nach einerlei Grundsätzen schrieben. (…) dass das Windische in Krain im Grunde nur eine Varietät des Kroatischen sey, die sich aber durch verschiedene Zufälle immer weiter von ihrer Schwester entfernte, und zu einer eigenen Sprache ausbildete, aber noch immer zur ersten Ordnung (d.h. zum Russischen, Kroatischen, Illyrischen) gehöre?” Wir bitten aber den verehrten Meister, diesen Gegenstand noch einmal vorzunehmen, und zu bedenken a) dass Kroatiens Bevölkerung von seinem gelehrten Freunde v. Engel nur auf 600,000 Seelen angegeben werde, während die Reste der Karantaner-Slaven in Inner-Oesterreich gewiss nicht unter 700,000 betragen; dass wir daher nicht wissen, warum man uns den Kroaten (die grössere Menge der kleineren) unterordnen will: wir sind auch historisch keine Kolonie von Ihnen: wie? wenn die Kroaten selbst in Rücksicht der Sprache theils zu den Dalmatinern, theils zu den Slavoniern, theils zu den Slovaken, und theils zu den Winden in Untersteyer verteilt werden, und in der Haupt-Classifikation der Slavischen Dialekte es statt Kroatisch heissen müsste Karantanisch? (…) b) Unsere Orthographie war schon A.1584 organisiert; in der Kroatischen unterschied selbst der brave Belostenez 1740 in ∫ila Ader und in ∫ilo Ahle den gelinden Zischer noch nicht vom scharfen: erst ganz neuerlich haben sie das ∫h von uns gelernt. c) So ist auch ihre Literatur noch viel ärmlicher als unsre: wir haben doch zwey Bibelübersetzungen, sie gar keine. d) Bisher sind also alle Umstände vielmehr gegen als für die Annahme der Kroatischen Orthographie: aber vielleicht ist diese an sich besser als die unsrige? Beyde sind Teutonischer Art, und jene wird wohl die bessere seyn, welche den ursprünglichen Bedeutungen der Lateinischen Buchstaben am wenigsten Gewalt antut? Wir bitten den Slavin, die Krainische und die Kroatische Orthographie aus diesem Gesichtspunkte zu vergleichen’ (1808-9:206-7). And indeed, in the second edition of Dobrovský's grammar we can find the Slovene language occupying an independent position: 1. Das Russiche, 2. Das Altslavische, 3. Das Serbische (Illyrische), 4. Das Kroatische, 5. Das Windische (in Krain, Steyermark, Kärnten) (1819:iv-v).

Kopitar, again opposing Dobrovský, also found Slovene no more Germanized than any other Slavic tongue (except maybe in the cities): ‘(W)ürde der Krainische Lexicograph den gesammten Sprachschatz wie mit einem Netze umfangen, und kein Wort, keine Phrase würde entwischen! Unsere Slavischen Brüder in Ost und Süd, die uns bereits für ganz germanisirt halten, und—wir selbst würden erstaunen über unsern altgeerbten Reichtum!’ (1808-9:56.) Discussing, in another place, Dobrovský's statement, ‘Der Slave kennt keinen Artikel. Germanisirende Dialekte, als der Windische in Krain, und der Wendische in der Lausitz machen hier eine Ausnahme, und verläugnen dadurch ihre echt Slavische Abkunft,’ Kopitar added the following commentary: ‘Nicht unser Dialekt, nur unsere ungeweihten Schreiber germanisiren.” (1808-9:215). And since Dobrovský—and not only he—denied the Slovene language ‘ihre echt Slavische Abkunft’, Kopitar hastened to repeat a number of times that Slovenes in this respect are no exception among Slavs, not even when one considers the amount of foreign elements: ‘Solarić hat aber auch die alte einseitige Verläumdung des krainischen Dialektes als des verdorbensten von allen, wiederholt, ungeachtet er so nahe an Krain lebt und sich leicht vom Gegentheile entweder aus Kopitar's Grammatik oder dem Neuen Testamente hätte überzeugen können. Soll denn immer nur nachgebetet, nie untersucht werden? Recensent getraut sich für jeden Germanismus des Krainers dem Böhmen und Polen mit einem, wo nicht zwei anderen, und dem Serben mit eben so viel Turkismen aufzuwarten’ (1814-15; 1857:289).

A special problem is Kopitar's defense of Slovene against unnecessarily adopted elements from foreign languages, especially from German. Kopitar was not blindly rejecting everything that had found its way into Slovene from elsewhere; he merely rejected what had crept in without being necessary, i.e. owing to the insufficient command of the Slovene language, whether in the spoken texts of Slovene townspeople or in the written texts of Slovene intellectuals. The following remark by Kopitar is worth quoting here: ‘Freylich liegt die Schuld nicht ganz an ihnen (sc. authors): es gibt keine Slavischen Unterrichts- und Bildungsanstalten! Unsere Schriftsteller sind lauter Autodidakten!’ (1808-9:215) (i.e. in the standard Slovene language). It is well known that Kopitar did a great deal to do away with such needless borrowing (suggestions to translate from Latin rather than German; contact with the genuine speechways of the country people; chairs of the Slovene language; a grammar; a dictionary; criticism of Slovene texts from the viewpoint of the foreign elements they contain; and the like).

In the end let us touch upon Kopitar's endeavors for all Slavs (or, at least, all those using the Latin alphabet; or, indeed, at least Slovenes) to write in the way that Cyril and Methodius had shown them in the ninth century, i.e. essentially in a phonological way, with one character for each phoneme. This necessitated the invention of special characters that were to be simple, distinct, easy to write, and stylistically congruent with the established ones—Latin in their essence. Kopitar believed that the Slavic (Cyrillic and glagolitic) alphabets showed the cultural supremacy of Slavs over the West-European ‘Teutonic’ spellers (and those Slavs who modelled their writing after them). When it turned out that it was not possible to find adequate Latin characters, Kopitar finally consented to accept Cyrillic (modified) ones, as had been anticipated in Slovenia by Popovič and in Bohemia by Dobrovský. This, too, is a problem calling for a separate presentation. Let me merely mention the fact that Kopitar's and Dobrovský's desire for a uniform writing system was, by and large, realized among the Slavs who use the Latin alphabet (with the exception of the Poles), and to a small degree even among those using the Cyrillic alphabet (partly used by the Serbs); despite the fact that the realization was brought about in the form of the rejected Czech system (with diacritics, partly even with digraphs). Pan-Slavic uniformity has only recently been achieved through the OLA phonetic alphabet, in which the only vocalic features that are symbolized by diacritics are the prosodic ones—as Kopitar had always wanted.

In potentia, Kopitar could have defended the individuality of the Slovene language also by his realization that Germans were successfully denationalizing Slavs by refusing to learn the language of the Slavic people into whose midst they had kept migrating as colonizers. Using one's own language consistently, thus forcing the foreigner to learn the language whose speakers surrounded him—this is a principle we Slovenes have not yet succeeded in living up to; the question is, in fact, whether we are sufficiently aware of that.

There are many other things that should be mentioned as possible contributions to Slovene national self-confidence and consequently to the defense of the Slovene language. One example is Kopitar's favoring the Slovene farmer over the German one in the way of natural talents or goodness of the heart: ‘Recensent fühlt sich versucht, aus eigener Ansicht und aus Geständnissen deutscher Reisender, selbst Hacquet's, eine Parallele zwischen dem deutschen und slavischen Bauer zu ziehen, die schwerlich zum Vortheile des ersteren auslaufen würde; doch er erinnert sich noch in rechter Zeit der Fabel vom Kampfe des Menschen mit dem Löwen; es wäre unartig im Reiche der Löwen den Menschen als Sieger zu malen’ (1811; 1857:131). To this we could add Kopitar's taking pride in the advanced approach of Popovič's grammar, which surpassed its contemporaries written by German authors; as well as his generally taking pride in the non-Teutonic Slavic original system of characters (in his time presented mostly through the Cyrillic alphabet), which he regretted to see being abandoned by the Rumanians in favor of a non-Slavic one, and a worse one at that (1812; 1857:241).

Kopitar's work, the subject of our discussion, signifies one of the indispensable pillars of Slovene awareness of their linguistic and also political individuality. As long as Slovenes care about one and the other—and the two are inseparable—we can only be glad of having Kopitar among us. Renouncing him we renounce also Slovene linguistic, cultural, as well as political individuality. Thereby we really renounce also Prešeren's and Cankar's ideas about the Slovene language, the Slovene nation and its culture (Toporišič 1981:401-2).

Works Cited

Dobrovský, J.

1819 Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache, Prague.

Kopitar, B.

1808-9 Grammatik der slavischen Sprache in Krain, Kärnten und Steyermark, Ljubljana.

1811 “Slavische Völkerkunde, Abbildung und Beschreibung der südwest- und östlichen Wenden,” Annalen für Literatur und Kunst, 3: 187-214.

1816 “Serbische Literatur, Narodna srbska pěsnarica,” Wiener allgemeine Literaturzeitung, 4: 314-33.

1857 Barth. Kopitars kleinere Schriften, publ. by F. Miklosich, Vienna.

Nahtigal, R.

1944 Jerneja Kopitarja spisov II. del, 1. knjiga, Ljubljana.

Prešeren, F.

1966 Zbrano delo, 2, ed. by Janko Kos, Ljubljana.

Toporišič, J.

1981 “Kopitar-Prešeren-Čop,” Obdobje romantike v slovenskem jeziku, književnosti in kulturi, Mednarodni simpozij v Ljubljani od 26. do 28. junija 1980, Ljubljana, 389-408.