Vuk Stefanović Karadžić

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić , in Serb Cyrillic ВукСтефановићКараџић (born the November 7th 1787 with Tršić in Serbia - died the February 7th 1864 with Vienna), was a writer and a Serb Linguiste . He was the principal reformer of the literary language Serbe.

Having learned how to read with the Monastery of Tronoša, he was largely autodidact. He took share with the Serb insurrections, starting from 1804 against the abuses the Janissaire S, then against the Othoman capacity , and we left a detailed report of it.

He is the author of the famous formula - “Write as you speak” ( Пишикакоговориш ) - slogan which animated the reform of the Serb literary language. This one was still an alternative of the old man Slavon, the liturgical language of the orthodoxe Slaves , founded on an old Slavic dialect medieval and diffused by the disciples of Cyrille and Méthode, that the majority of the people ânonnait in the churches but included/understood very little and did not read. With the assistance of the Slovenien linguist Jernej Kopitar, at Vienna, Karadžić set up a modern Serb literary language by reforming the Cyrillic alphabet used by the Serbes, following the phonetic principle “a sound - a letter”, only the length of the vowels not being reproduced. That brought it considerably closer to the language of the people, more specifically of a dialect used in Herzégovine Eastern.

This reform also influenced the choice of a Croatian literary language, which was written in Latin characters, and where each Latin letter had its counterpart into Cyrillic, and reciprocally. Karadžić was indeed, with Đuro Daničić, the principal signatory of the Agreement of Vienna of 1850 which, encouraged by the Austrian authorities, threw the foundations of the future common language Serbo-Croatian, from which various alternatives are spoken in Serbia-and-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzégovine and Croatia today. This correspondence between the two languages makes it possible from now on to also write the Serb one in Latin characters, practical which, in 1967, made certain intellectuals Croatian anxious for the survival of a distinct Croatian language, in Yugoslavia.

This is why the French use, which was at the beginning of the 20th century to transcribe the Serbe like one transcribes the Russian , is to write more and more in the orthography of origin, even if it is at the expense of a correct pronunciation - today, in the absence of diacritics, one writes in French “Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic”, whereas hundred years ago one transcribed it “Vouk Stefanovitch Karadjitch”.

Another famous formula of Karadžić was “Serbes, all and everywhere” ( Србисвиисвуда ), title of a text published in 1849 where he affirmed that all the speakers of the speech chtokavien were Serbes, only divided by the religion, inviting them to link the following the example of Albanian which, in spite of the Othoman system of the millet , were the only people of the Balkans to carry out their national unit compared to the language, without religious distinction.

Although it had there a later division of the Catholique S, orthodoxe and Musulman S employing the speech chtokavien, the motivation of Karadžić, by writing this text, was only animated of a fraternal feeling, antagonism dividing the Slaves today not existing south at that time.

Works

Mala prostonarodna slavenoserbska pјesnarica . Vienna, 1814. Compilation of Serb popular poems.

Pismenica srpskoga jezika , Vienna, 1814. The first grammar of the language Serbe, that Jacob Grimm translated into German.

Srpski rјečnik , Vienna, 1818 (increased edition with Vienna in 1852). Dictionary of Serb with translations in German and Latin, and of many historical and ethnographic notes.

Srpske narodne pјesme , Leipzig and Vienna 1823 - 33, in four volumes (increased edition with Vienna in 1841). It is this exemplary collection of Serb popular poems which drew for the first time the attention to the author, including abroad

Srpske pjesme iz Hercegovine , Vienna, 1866. Compilation of Serb poems of Herzégovine, translated into several languages.

One can still mention his translation of the New Testament ( Novi zavjet ) as a Serb contemporary, published in Vienna in 1847.

External bond

The foundation of Vuk

See too

Museum of Vuk and Dositej with Belgrade
Foundation Vuk in Belgrade

Be-X-old: ВукКараджыч

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