Pan-Slavic grammars

[Loren A. BILLINGS]

Dear colleagues,

The following was posted to the Linguist List recently and might be of
interest to Slavists.  Please don't reply to the list (because the original
poster of this query may not be on SEELangs) or to me (I'm just passing it
along).  --LAB

Date:  Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:21:56 +0200
From:  Wilfried Pieters <Wilfried.Pieters at ping.be>
Subject:  Qs: all-Slavic language; guest=child

- ---- I would be grateful for any information received about the
following two topics.

(1) all-Slavic language

In 1793 the Slovene Blaz Kumerdej wrote a "Krainisch-Slawische
Grammatik" which is an attempt at a grammar of an all-Slavic language,
based on Slovene. In 1807 his compatriote Jurij Japelj wrote a similar
attempt ("Slawische Sprachlehre, das ist vollstndiger Grammatical
Unterricht von der krainerischen und windischen Sprache, wie sie in
Krain, in dem sterreichischen Littoralli, in der Grafschaft Grz, in
Steiermark und Krnten gesprochen wird, oder vielmehr gesprochen werden
sollte, dann wie sie von den Kroaten, Dalmatiern, Slawoniern, Bhmen,
Polen und Russen leicht verstanden werden kann"). As it is clear from
the title of the last work, the idea is that such pan-Slavic language
should be understood by all the Slaves. As far as I know, both works
were never printed and remain in manuscript.  Already earlier, in the
17th century, the Croat Juraj Krizanic created a pan-Slavic language;
two grammatical works written in 1666 were published in 1859 in
Moskva.

I wonder if, apart from those three mentioned, there were similar
attempts at all-Slavic language grammars, especially in the 17th and
18th centuries, but also in other periods.

[...]

I welcome your answers at my email address (answer me please in your own
language if your mother tongue is any european language, I don't like
"english only").

I will send summary of answers to the list.

Najlepsa hvala! Hartelijk dank!

Wilfried
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Wilfried Pieters & Majda Pieters-Mavri
Lektorja slovenskega jezika (Universiteit Gent)
Vertalers (Slavische talen, Estlands, Roemeens)
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