Almanac "Zora" as a Harbinger of a New Codification of the Slovak Literary Language

Abstract

This article examines the history of the creation of the “Society of Slovak Language and Literature Lovers” which existed in Buda and Pest from 1834 to 1850, as well as the language of the almanac Zora, which was the first publication that simultaneously printed texts in the Czech language and the Anton Bernolak literary language. The first two issues of this publication (1835, 1836) indicate the beginning of a rapprochement in the language of Catholics and Protestants, as shown by the active inclusion of elements of Central Slovak origin in the texts. At the same time, Michal Godra, the editor of the first two issues, even published language recommendations to the authors, which could be considered a pre-codification of the new Slovak literary language based on the Central Slovak dialect. Comparison of the language used by Protestant and Catholic authors shows that they used different strategies when the language was Slovakised. If the Protestants addressed the Central Slovak dialect directly, although preserving some Czech elements which were lost in Slovak writing, the Catholics mainly followed Bernolak’s codification using — in a number of cases — elements which were virtually absent in his literary language. The linguistic material of the almanac Zora reveals the reasons for Ludovit Št.r’s codification: the reformer based his system exclusively on the Northern idioms of the Central Slovak dialect, ignoring actual language use. Compromise between the Catholics and Protestants was reached in 1852, when the Slovak literary language was enriched by Central Slovak peculiarities characteristic of either Catholics or Protestants. All the elements of Central Slovak origin which were unused by either Protestants or Catholics, but were present in Štúr’s codification, were removed from the literary language.