Jernej Kopitar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Jernej Kopitar (born 21 August 1780 - 11 August 1844) was a Slovene linguist.

Kopitar was born in the small Carniolan village of Repnje near Vodice, in what was then the Habsburg Monarchy and is now in Slovenia. After graduating from gymnasium in Ljubljana, he became a home teacher in Sigmund Zois' house, and later his personal secretary and librarian. In 1808 he moved to Vienna, where he studied law. At the same time, he developed an interest in the comparative analysis of Slavic languages, to which he would devote all his later life. He became employed as a librarian and later an administrator at the Vienna Court Library.He later become the chief censor for books written in Slavic languages and Modern Greek.

Among European linguists, he was considered a valued scientist and thinker. In 1808, he published the first grammar of Slovenian language, called Grammatik der slavischen Sprache in Krain, Karnten und Steyemark ("A Grammar of the Slavic language in Carniola, Carinthia and Styria"). In his work Glagolita Clozianus (1836), he published the first critically revistied, translated and annotated version of the Freising Manuscripts, the oldest known work in Slovenian language and the first work in any Slavic language written in Latin alphabet. In the same work, he advanced the so-called Pannonian Theory of the development of Old Slavic language - a theory which is now again in vogue through modern paleolinguistic studies and arhaeology.

He later shifted his attention to the education of a younger generation of linguists, who were developing grammars, textbooks, pushed for orthographic reform, and collected Folk literature. Due to these efforts, he was given a Chair in Slovene Language in the Ljubljana Liceum in 1817.

In the 1820s and 1830s, Kopitar became involved in the so-called "Slovenian Alphabet Strife". He supported the orthographic reforms of the old bohoričica script, advanced first by Peter Dajnko and then by Franc Serafin Metelko. Kopitar's main opponent in the strife was the philologist Matija Čop. Čop convinced the renowned Czech scholar František Čelakovský to publish a devastating critique on the alphabet reform, which undermined Kopitar's authority. The strife was resolved with the compromise adoption of Gaj's Latin alphabet. Čop and Kopitar disagreed also on the issue of whether the Slovenes should develop their own national culture. Kopitar favoured the gradual evolution towards a common literary language for all South Slavic peoples, with Slovenian remaining the colloquial language of the peansantry. Čop, on the other hand, insisted on the creation of a high culture in Slovenian, which would follow the contemporary literary trends. One of the main supporters of Čop's project, the poet France Prešeren, sharply criticized Kopitar's views, which led to frequent confrontations between the two.

While Kopitar's influence in his native Slovene Lands diminished, he gained influence among other South Slavic intelligentsia, especially the Serbian one. He influenced Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in forming a new standard for the Serbian literary language, based on the common use.

He is buried in the cemetery Navje in Ljubljana.