Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
6. References
7. Illustration sources
1. The Backbone of a Language: The Story of the
Serbian Alphabet
In order to create any type of dictionary one needs a reformed and
systematic aplphabet
The story of contemporary Serbian (cyrilic) alphabet begins with Sava
Mrkalj (1783-1833) – built on the Adelung’s principle “Write as you speak and
read as it is written” and having a complete one-to-one congruence
(phonemic principle)
Mrkalj’s work was continued and refined by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
The alphabet was finished in the year 1836 by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
when the letter “H” was introduced
“…having in mind the success of Serbian literature I cannot use any other
alphabet but the one of Mrkalj, because the easier and purer than this one
cannot exist.” (Stefanović Karadžić, 1814)
2. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
Illust. zrcalo.me
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787 Tršić, Serbia – 1864
Vienna, Austria)
The official reformer of Serbian language
Named “Vuk” meaning “wolf” in Serbian, because of the superstitious views
of his parents
Collected Serbian fairy tales, songs and riddles
Schooling in a monastery and Belgrade Higher School
The creator of the first grammar (“Pismenica serbskoga jezika”, 1814) and
the first dictionary (“Srpski rječnik istolkovan njemačkim i latinskim riječma”,
1818) of Serbian language
The year 1987 was proclaimed the year of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić by
UNESCO
Chosen as honorary member of numerous European academic institutions
(Illust. Wikipedia)
3. First Serbian Dictionary
Created in 1818 by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić under the name “Srpski rječnik
istolkovan njemačkim i latinskim riječma” (“Serbian Dictionary paralleled with
German and Latin words”)
Collected words in the span between the years 1815 and 1818
The dictionary contained 26.270 headwords
The translation of words into German and Latin was accomplished by a Slovene
Linguist Jernej Kopitar
This edition of the dictionary was accompanied by a small Serbian grammar
It is written in the language of ordinary Serbian people, using the reformed cyrilic
alphabet, and contains vulgarisms and swear words
It included the letter “H” in the words, but there was no section with words
starting with “H”
Illust. digital.bms.rs
4. Second Serbian Dictionary
Actually the second edition of the First Serbian Dictionary
Published in 1852 and contained 47.427 headwords which were accented
Both dictionaries, besides being lexicographic works, are also a testimony
of the life of ordinary people in Serbia at that time
The work describes the tradition, rituals, folk costumes, socioeconomic
constellations, nature, tools etc. of one period of Serbian history
Resembles the Grimm Brothers’ “Deutsches Wörterbuch” because of the
narrative explanations of the words
Represents every aspect of Karadžić’s work (ethnology, philology, history)
This work together with Karadžić’s translation of the New Testament and
the collection of Serbian folk wisdom creates the foundation of the
standardized contemporary Serbian language
Illust. Stefanović Karadžić, 1852
Goodbye to (Printed) Dictionaries
Special thanks to Toma Tasovac, Director
of DARIAH-EU and Belgrade Center for
Digital Humanities, for providing me with
useful information about the “Raskovnik”,
a platform whose establishing he initiated!
5. Serbian Lexicography: Contemporary digitization