The Bohorič alphabet was an orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 used for the Slovene language between the 16th and 19th centuries. Its name is derived from Adam Bohorič

Adam Bohoric

Adam Bohorič was a Slovene Protestant preacher, teacher and author of the first grammar of Slovene.Bohorič was born in the market town of Rajhenburg in the Duchy of Styria, on the border between Lower Carniola and Lower Styria...

, who codified the alphabet in his book Articae Horulae Succisivae, published in 1584.

The Bohorič alphabet was first used by the Lutheran preacher Primož Trubar

Primož Trubar

Primož Trubar or Primož Truber was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of the Slovene Lands, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first Slovene-language printed book...

, the author of the first printed book

Katekizem

Catechismus in der windischenn Sprach or shortly Catechismus , is a book written by the Slovene Protestant preacher Primož Trubar in 1550. Along with Trubar's 1550 book, Abecedarium , Catechismus was the first book published in Slovene...

 in Slovene. However, Trubar did not follow strict rules and often used alternate spellings for the same word.

The alphabet consists of 25 letters (including 3 digraphs

Digraph (orthography)

A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...

) in the following order:


a b d e f g h i j k l m n o p r ſ ſh s sh t u v z zh


The Bohorič alphabet differs from the modern Slovene alphabet in the following letters:

Bohorič alphabet

majuscule	minuscule	IPA	modern Slovenian
Z	z	/ts/	c
ZH	zh	/tʃ/	č
S, Ş	ſ	/s/	s
SH, ŞH	ſh	/ʃ/	š
S	s	/z/	z
SH	sh	/ʒ/	ž

(In these cases, the values of the Bohorič letters somewhat resemble German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.)

In the early Bohorič alphabet, some letters shared majuscule forms:

• I was the majuscule form of i and j
• V was the majuscule form of u and v
• S was the majuscule form of s and ſ
• SH was the majuscule form of sh and ſh

There were other differences from the modern Slovene orography. The schwa

Schwa

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...

 sound preceding R was strictly written with the letter E, while in modern Slovene the E is omitted: the Slovene name for the city of Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

, Trst, was thus written as Terſt, the word for "square" was written as terg (instead of the modern trg), etc. One letter prepositions, such as v (in), s/z (with), or k/g (to) were written with an apostrophe: thus, the phrase "in Ljubljana" would be written v'Ljubljani instead of modern Slovene v Ljubljani, "to my place" would be k'meni instead of modern k meni, etc.

Historical development

Bohorič's alphabet was first codified in 1584 by the Protestant author Adam Bohorič

Adam Bohoric

Adam Bohorič was a Slovene Protestant preacher, teacher and author of the first grammar of Slovene.Bohorič was born in the market town of Rajhenburg in the Duchy of Styria, on the border between Lower Carniola and Lower Styria...

 in his book Articae Horulae, which is considered to be the first grammar book of the Slovene language. It had already been used extensively for almost thirty years before that by several Slovene Protestant authors, most notably in Jurij Dalmatin

Jurij Dalmatin

Jurij Dalmatin was a Slovene Lutheran minister, writer and translator.Born in Krško in around 1546, Dalmatin became a preacher in Ljubljana in 1572. He was the author of several religious books, such as Karšanske lepe molitve , Ta kratki würtemberški katekizmus , and Agenda...

's integral translation of the Bible, published the same year as Bohorič's grammar book (1584).

Although the Counter-Reformation

Counter-Reformation

The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

 destroyed completely the Protestant religious community in the Slovene Lands

Slovene Lands

Slovene Lands or Slovenian Lands is the historical denomination for the whole of the Slovene-inhabited territories in Central Europe. It more or less corresponds to modern Slovenia and the adjacent territories in Italy, Austria and Hungary in which autochthonous Slovene minorities live.-...

, the alphabet was taken over by Catholic authors, most notably by the Roman Catholic bishop of Ljubljana Tomaž Hren. In the 17th and early 18th century, very few literary texts were written in Slovene language; nevertheless, Bohorič's alphabet remained in use throughout this period. Slovene names in Valvasor's German-written book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola

The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola

The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola is Johann Weikhard von Valvasor's most important work on history and natural history of his homeland Carniola, a central part of the present-day Slovenia and Istria in Croatia....

, for example, were all rendered in this script.

In the late 18th century, with the revival of the Slovene language, Bohorič's script came back into general use. It was modernized by 18th century philologists Marko Pohlin

Marko Pohlin

Marko Pohlin , was a Slovene philologist and author. He is generally considered the first exponent of the Age of Enlightenment in the Slovene lands....

 and Jurij Japelj

Jurij Japelj

Jurij Japelj, also known in German as Georg Japel was a Slovene Jesuit priest, translator and philologist. He was part of the Zois circle, a group of Carniolan scholars and intellectuals that were instrumental in the spread of Enlightenment ideas in the Slovene Lands...

. By the end of the 18th century, it was fully accepted by the Enlightenment intellectuals around Sigmund Zois. With the authors Anton Tomaž Linhart

Anton Tomaž Linhart

Anton Tomaž Linhart was a Slovene playwright and historian, best known as the author of the first comedy in Slovene, Županova Micka...

 and Valentin Vodnik

Valentin Vodnik

Valentin Vodnik was a Slovene priest, journalist and poet from the late Enlightenment period.-Life and work:He was born in Šiška, now a suburb of Ljubljana, then part of the Habsburg Monarchy...

, it became an established tool of literary expression again.

The script remained unchallenged until the 1820s, when there were several attempts to replace them with phonetic alphabets. The two most famous attempts were made by Peter Dajnko

Peter Dajnko

Peter Dajnko was a Slovene priest, author, and linguist, known primarily as the inventor of an innovative proposal for the writing system for Slovene: the Dajnko alphabet ....

 (Dajnko alphabet

Dajnko alphabet

The Dajnko alphabet or dajnčica was a Slovene writing system invented by Peter Dajnko. It was used in from 1824 to 1839 mostly in Styria ....

) in 1824 and Fran Metelko (Metelko alphabet

Metelko alphabet

The Metelko alphabet was a Slovene writing system developed by Franc Serafin Metelko. It was used by a small group of authors from 1825 to 1833 but it was never generally accepted....

) in 1825. These attempts, sponsored by the philologist Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Bartol Kopitar was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna...

, were fiercely opposed by the Romantic intellectual circle around Matija Čop

Matija Cop

Matija Čop , also known in German as Matthias Tschop, was a Slovene linguist, literary historian and critic.- Biography :...

 and France Prešeren

France Prešeren

France Prešeren was a Slovene Romantic poet. He is considered the Slovene national poet. Although he was not a particularly prolific author, he inspired virtually all Slovene literature thereafter....

, resulting in the so-called Slovene alphabet war ( or črkarska pravda). By the mid 1830s, the supporters of Bohorič's script gained their battle against the innovators, also with the support of the Czech

Czech people

Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

 linguist František Čelakovský

František Celakovský

František Ladislav Čelakovský, also known by the pseudonym Marcian Hromotluk, was a Czech writer and translator.-Life:...

. However, criticisms of the bohoričica script remained alive.

In the 1840s, the editor Janez Bleiweis

Janez Bleiweis

Janez Bleiweis was a Slovene conservative politician, journalist and public figure. He was the leader of the so-called Old Slovene political movement. Already during his lifetime, he was called father of the nation....

 proposed a compromise solution by introducing a slightly modified version of the Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet for his journal Kmetijske in rokodelske novice

Kmetijske in rokodelske novice

Kmetijske in rokodelske novice , frequently referred to simply as Novice , was a Slovene language newspaper in the 19th century, which had an influential role in the Slovene national revival....

. Very quickly, this solution was accepted by all sides, and by 1848, Gaj's reformed alphabet completely replaced Bohorič's script.

Problems

The Bohorič alphabet was quite successful, but it suffered from a number of flaws:

• Slovenian has eight vowels, but the Bohorič alphabet only has five vowel characters (this flaw is shared by modern Slovenian orthography).
• The combination "sh" could be read as two separate letters or as a digraph
  Digraph (orthography)
  A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
  
   (although this is relevant for only a handful of words, such as shujšati 'to lose weight').
• It did not distinguish vowel length (nor does modern Slovenian orthography).
• It did not distinguish tone (nor does modern Slovenian orthography).

A debate over orthographic reform (known in Slovene as the abecedna vojna or 'the alphabet war') took place in the 1830s. After experiments with the Metelko

Metelko alphabet

The Metelko alphabet was a Slovene writing system developed by Franc Serafin Metelko. It was used by a small group of authors from 1825 to 1833 but it was never generally accepted....

 and Dajnko

Dajnko alphabet

The Dajnko alphabet or dajnčica was a Slovene writing system invented by Peter Dajnko. It was used in from 1824 to 1839 mostly in Styria ....

 alphabets, around 1850 Slovenians began using the Gaj alphabet already in use in Croatian

Croatian language

Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...

 (and modeled on the Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

 one).

Attempts at revival

Suggestions to revive the Bohorič script were advanced in the 1980s. Several people suggested that a modified version of the script should be revived for IT purposes because the first computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

s for general could not handle non-standard Latin characters (i.e., č š ž). In the 1990s, a "reformed Bohorič alphabet" (in fact, it merely replaced č š ž with ch sh zh and thus did not follow the Bohorič orthography at all) was adopted by a group of authors around the journal SRP. This has been the only attempt to revive the Bohorič alphabet and has gained no attention outside the editorial board of the journal.