Jernej Kopitar
Encyclopedia
Jernej Bartol Kopitar (21 August 1780 – 11 August 1844) was a Slovene linguist
and philologist working in Vienna
. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna. He is perhaps best known for his role in the Serbian language reform started by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
, where he played a vital role in supporting the reform by using his reputation and influence as a Slavic
philologist.
n village of Repnje
near Vodice
, in what was then the Habsburg Monarchy
and is now in Slovenia
. After graduating from the lyceum
in Ljubljana
, he became a private teacher in the house of baron Sigmund Zois, a renowned entrepreneur, scientist and patron of arts. Kopitar later became Zois' personal secretary and librarian. During this period, he became acquainted with the circle of Enlightenment
intellectuals that gathered in Zois' mansion
, such as the playwright and historian Anton Tomaž Linhart
, the poet and editor Valentin Vodnik
, and philologist Jurij Japelj
.
, 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 Slovenian
grammar, called Grammatik der Slavischen Sprache in Krain, Karnten und Steyemark ("Grammar of the Slavic language in Carniola
, Carinthia, and Styria"). In his work Glagolita Clozianus (1836), he published the first critically revised, translated, and annotated version of the Freising Manuscripts
, the oldest known work in Slovene and the first work in any Slavic language written in the Latin alphabet
. In the same work, he advanced the Pannonian Theory of the development of Common Slavic - a theory that is now in vogue again through modern paleolinguistics
studies and archeology.
Under the influence of the efforts of a group of contemporary Carinthian Slovene philologists, especially Urban Jarnik
and Matija Ahacel
, Kopitar sought to educate a new generation of linguists who would develop grammars and textbooks, advocate orthographic reform, and collect folk literature. Due to these efforts, he was given a chair in Slovene at the Ljubljana Lyceum in 1817.
and then by Franc Serafin Metelko
. Kopitar's main opponent in the conflict was the philologist Matija Čop
. Čop convinced the renowned Czech
scholar František Čelakovský
to publish a devastating critique on the proposed alphabet reforms, which undermined Kopitar's authority. The issue was resolved with the compromise adoption of Gaj's Latin alphabet. Čop and Kopitar also disagreed on the issue of whether the Slovenes should develop their own national culture. Kopitar favored gradual evolution towards a common literary language for all South Slavic peoples, with Slovene dialects remaining the colloquial language of the peansantry. Čop, on the other hand, insisted on the creation of a high culture
in Slovene that would follow 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.
Politically, Kopitar was a supporter of Austroslavism
, a doctrine aimed at the unity of Slavic peoples
within the Austrian Empire
. He was also a staunch conservative, and supporter of the Metternich regime, with a paternalistic approach to the peasant culture. On the other side, Čop and Prešeren emphasized on the cultivation of the Slovene language as the means for the emergence of a lay Slovene intelligentsia that would foster and develop a specific Slovene identity within the framework of Slavic solidarity. After the "Alphabet War" in the 1830s, Kopitar's political and cultural influence in his native Slovene Lands
diminished significantly. At the same time, however, 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 common use.
Cemetery in Ljubljana
, at the edge of the former St. Christopher's Cemetery. A neighbourhood in Belgrade
, the capital of Serbia
, called Kopitareva Gradina
, is named after him.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and philologist working in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna. He is perhaps best known for his role in the Serbian language reform started by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić was a Serbian philolog and linguist, the major reformer of the Serbian language, and deserves, perhaps, for his collections of songs, fairy tales, and riddles to be called the father of the study of Serbian folklore. He was the author of the first Serbian dictionary...
, where he played a vital role in supporting the reform by using his reputation and influence as a Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
philologist.
Early life
Kopitar was born in the small CarniolaCarniola
Carniola was a historical region that comprised parts of what is now Slovenia. As part of Austria-Hungary, the region was a crown land officially known as the Duchy of Carniola until 1918. In 1849, the region was subdivided into Upper Carniola, Lower Carniola, and Inner Carniola...
n village of Repnje
Repnje
Repnje is a village in the municipality of Vodice in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia.In the centre of the village is Repnje Castle, built in the late 19th century and now housing a Franciscan convent with an adjacent church. The main church of the settlement is built on a hill above the village...
near Vodice
Vodice, Slovenia
Vodice is a settlement and municipality in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia, just north of Ljubljana.The Parish Church in the settlement is dedicated to Saint Margaret and is first mentioned in documents dating to 1118. It used to have a defensive wall around it to protect the population from...
, in what was then the Habsburg Monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
and is now in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. After graduating from the lyceum
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, he became a private teacher in the house of baron Sigmund Zois, a renowned entrepreneur, scientist and patron of arts. Kopitar later became Zois' personal secretary and librarian. During this period, he became acquainted with the circle of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
intellectuals that gathered in Zois' mansion
Zois Palace
Zois Palace is a mansion in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.The mansion was built between 1765 and 1770, combining older buildings, in the neoclassicist style. It is located on the bank of the Ljubljanica river...
, such as the playwright and historian 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...
, the poet and editor 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...
, and philologist 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...
.
Career as a censor and linguist
In 1808, he moved to Vienna, where he studied law. At the same time, he developed an interest in the comparative analysis of the Slavic languagesSlavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, to which he would devote all his later life. He became employed as a librarian and later an administrator at the Vienna Court Library
Austrian National Library
The Austrian National Library , is the largest library in Austria, with 7.4 million items in its collections. It is located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna; since 2005 some of the collections are located in the baroque Palais Mollard-Clary...
. He later become the chief censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
for books written in Slavic languages and Modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
.
Among European linguists, he was considered a valued scientist and thinker. In 1808, he published the first Slovenian
Slovenian language
Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
grammar, called Grammatik der Slavischen Sprache in Krain, Karnten und Steyemark ("Grammar of the Slavic language in Carniola
Carniola
Carniola was a historical region that comprised parts of what is now Slovenia. As part of Austria-Hungary, the region was a crown land officially known as the Duchy of Carniola until 1918. In 1849, the region was subdivided into Upper Carniola, Lower Carniola, and Inner Carniola...
, Carinthia, and Styria"). In his work Glagolita Clozianus (1836), he published the first critically revised, translated, and annotated version of the Freising Manuscripts
Freising manuscripts
The Freising Manuscripts are the first Latin-script continuous text in a Slavic language and the oldest document in Slovene.The monuments consisting of three texts in the oldest Slovene dialect were discovered bound into a Latin codex...
, the oldest known work in Slovene and the first work in any Slavic language written in the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. In the same work, he advanced the Pannonian Theory of the development of Common Slavic - a theory that is now in vogue again through modern paleolinguistics
Paleolinguistics
Paleolinguistics is a term used by some linguists for the study of the distant human past by linguistic means. For most historical linguists there is no separate field of paleolinguistics...
studies and archeology.
Under the influence of the efforts of a group of contemporary Carinthian Slovene philologists, especially Urban Jarnik
Urban Jarnik
Urban Jarnik was a Carinthian Slovene priest, historian, poet, author and ethnographer.He was born in the lower Gailtal in the Duchy of Carinthia. He served as a parish priest in several villages and towns throughout southern Carinthia, including Klagenfurt and Moosburg, which at the time still...
and Matija Ahacel
Matija Ahacel
Matija Ahacel, also known in German as Matthias Achazel , born Matija Kobentar, was a Carinthian Slovene philologist, publicist, and collector of folk songs....
, Kopitar sought to educate a new generation of linguists who would develop grammars and textbooks, advocate orthographic reform, and collect folk literature. Due to these efforts, he was given a chair in Slovene at the Ljubljana Lyceum in 1817.
Language reforms
In the 1820s and 1830s, Kopitar became involved in the so-called "Slovene Alphabet War" (Slovene: Abecedna vojna, or Črkarska pravda), a debate over orthographic reform. He supported radical reforms of the old bohoričica orthography, advanced first by Peter DajnkoPeter 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 ....
and then by Franc Serafin Metelko
Franc Serafin Metelko
Franc Serafin Metelko, also known as Fran Metelko was a Slovene Roman Catholic priest, author, and philologist, best known for his proposal of a new script for the Slovene called the Metelko alphabet, which was meant to replace the traditional Bohorič alphabet, used since the late sixteenth...
. Kopitar's main opponent in the conflict was the philologist Matija Čop
Matija Cop
Matija Čop , also known in German as Matthias Tschop, was a Slovene linguist, literary historian and critic.- Biography :...
. Čop convinced the renowned 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...
scholar František Čelakovský
František Celakovský
František Ladislav Čelakovský, also known by the pseudonym Marcian Hromotluk, was a Czech writer and translator.-Life:...
to publish a devastating critique on the proposed alphabet reforms, which undermined Kopitar's authority. The issue was resolved with the compromise adoption of Gaj's Latin alphabet. Čop and Kopitar also disagreed on the issue of whether the Slovenes should develop their own national culture. Kopitar favored gradual evolution towards a common literary language for all South Slavic peoples, with Slovene dialects remaining the colloquial language of the peansantry. Čop, on the other hand, insisted on the creation of a high culture
High culture
High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...
in Slovene that would follow contemporary literary trends. One of the main supporters of Čop's project, the poet 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....
, sharply criticized Kopitar's views, which led to frequent confrontations between the two.
Politically, Kopitar was a supporter of Austroslavism
Austroslavism
Austroslavism was a political concept and program aimed to solve problems of Slavic peoples in the Austrian Empire.It was most influential among Czech liberals around the middle of the 19th century...
, a doctrine aimed at the unity of Slavic peoples
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
within the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
. He was also a staunch conservative, and supporter of the Metternich regime, with a paternalistic approach to the peasant culture. On the other side, Čop and Prešeren emphasized on the cultivation of the Slovene language as the means for the emergence of a lay Slovene intelligentsia that would foster and develop a specific Slovene identity within the framework of Slavic solidarity. After the "Alphabet War" in the 1830s, Kopitar's political and cultural influence in his native 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.-...
diminished significantly. At the same time, however, he gained influence among other South Slavic intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
, especially the Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
one. He influenced Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić was a Serbian philolog and linguist, the major reformer of the Serbian language, and deserves, perhaps, for his collections of songs, fairy tales, and riddles to be called the father of the study of Serbian folklore. He was the author of the first Serbian dictionary...
in forming a new standard for the Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
literary language based on common use.
Death and heritage
Kopitar died in Vienna on August 11, 1844, reportedly with Karadžić standing at his deathbed. His tombstone is displayed in the NavjeNavje
Navje, formerly known as St. Christopher's Cemetery is a memorial park in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It is located in the Bežigrad district, just behind the Ljubljana railway station....
Cemetery in Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, at the edge of the former St. Christopher's Cemetery. A neighbourhood in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, the capital of Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, called Kopitareva Gradina
Kopitareva Gradina
Kopitareva Gradina is a square and an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad.- Location :...
, is named after him.