Bogoslav Šulek (born Bohuslav Šulek; April 20, 1816 – November 30, 1895) was a Croatian
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
,
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
and
lexicographer
Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines:
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries.
* The ...
. He was very influential in creating Croatian terminology in the areas of social and natural sciences, technology and civilization.
Early career
Šulek was born to an
ethnic Slovak family.
He was born in
Sobotište (then known as Szobotist), in the
Nyitra County
Nyitra County (; ; ; ) was an administrative county ( comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory lay in what is now western Slovakia.
Geography
Nyitra County shared borders with the Austrian land Moravia and Trencsén County, Turó ...
of the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...
(present-day
Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
) where he attended primary school. He studied at the
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...
lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Basic science and some introduction to ...
in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
. He decided not to become a
pastor
A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...
, but was unable to continue his studies in
Jena
Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
, so he came to his brother in the
Croatia
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...
n town of
Brod na Savi in November 1838. Soon thereafter, he made contact with
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; ; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origin
He was born in Krapina ( ...
, the central figure of the Croatian
Illyrian movement
The Illyrian movement (; ) was a pan-South-Slavic cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of the 19th century, around the years of 1835 t ...
, and in autumn 1839 started working as a printer for
Franjo Župan in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...
.
He started writing for Gaj's papers in 1841 and was the editor-in-chief of the illegal paper ''Branislav'', printed in
Belgrade
Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...
, in 1844–45. He was the editor of Gaj's ''Novine Horvatske, Slavonske i Dalmatinske'' (Newspaper of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia) from 1846 to 1849, ''Slavenski jug'' (Slavic South) in 1849, and ''Jugoslavenske novine'' (Yugoslav Newspaper) in 1850. During the 1850s he wrote many textbooks (e.g. ''Learning to Read'', ''Children's Primer'', ''Natural Sciences for Primary School'', ''Plant Studies for High School'' etc.). At the same time, he was writing a German-Croatian dictionary. He also wrote against the linguistic policy of the linguist and folklorist
Vuk Karadžić
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...
.
Šulek held pro-
Yugoslav views.
He died in Zagreb.
Ancestors of Bogoslav Šulek:
:hu: Schulek család (felvidéki)
Work
From 1858 till 1865, Šulek was the editor of ''Gospodarski list''.
He was one of the initiators of ''Pozor'' magazine (1867). He was an exceptionally prolific journalist and scientific propagator. In 1868 he issued his most famous political work, ''Naše pravice. Izbor zakonah, poveljah i spisah, znamenitih za državno pravo kraljevine dalmatinsko-hrvatsko-slavonske od god. 1202 - 1868'' (Our Rights. A Selection of Laws, Charters and Documents Important for the State Right of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, 1202–1868). He was a member of the
Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts and its secretary from 1871 till his death. He was promoted into a doctor of sciences in 1867 on the basis of his study of
Ruđer Bošković.
Influence on Croatian terminology
Šulek supported linguistic principles of the
Zagreb Philological School and promoted
Croatian linguistic purism. For his work he has been described as the "father of Croatian scientific terminology".
He liberally coined
neologisms
In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
and borrowed words from other
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...
to serve as replacements for non-Slavic
loanwords
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
. When a
Shtokavian
Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige supradialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin stand ...
word for a loanword was not available, he drew upon
Chakavian
Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic supradialect or language spoken by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmatia, Istria, Croatian L ...
and
Kajkavian
Kajkavian is a South Slavic languages, South Slavic supradialect or language spoken primarily by Croats in much of Central Croatia and Gorski Kotar.
It is part of the South Slavic dialect continuum, being transitional to the supradialects of Č ...
lexical stock, and when those were insufficient he borrowed words from other Slavic languages such as
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
,
Slovak,
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
and
Slovene, or proposed his own neologisms. His activities often drew him to conflict with
Croatian Vukovians who advocated pure folk language and derisively called his neologisms and borrowings ''šulekizmi'' ("Šulekisms").
Despite their initial unpopularity, most of Šulek's new vocabulary slowly entered into common parlance of Croatian upper classes throughout the 20th century; many of these words are nowadays considered standard Croatian expressions for various concepts.
Most of his coinages used in modern Croatian include words in
chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
(''kisik'' "oxygen", ''vodik'' "hydrogen", ''dušik'' "nitrogen") and other technical fields (''plin'' "gas", ''plinomjer'' "gas meter", ''narječje'' "dialect", ''glazba'' "music", ''skladba'' "composition", ''obrazac'' "template; form", ''sustav'' "system", ''tlak'' "pressure", ''tlakomjer'' "
barometer
A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...
", ''zemljovid'' "map", ''uzor'' "role model", ''pojam'' "concept", ''tvrtka'' "company", ''uradak'' "piece of work", ''zdravstvo'' "healthcare").
Works
* ''"Deutsch-kroatisches Worterbuch - Njemačko-ilirski rječnik"'', I. - II. (Zagreb, 1860) - German-Croatian Dictionary
* ''"Hrvatsko-njemačko-talijanski rječnik znanstvenoga nazivlja"'', I. - II. (Zagreb, 1874/75; reprint: Zagreb, 1995) - Croatian-German-Italian Dictionary of Scientific Terms
* ''"Jugoslavenski imenik bilja"'', (Zagreb, 1879.) - Yugoslavian Plant Lexicon
References
Sources
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sulek, Bogoslav
1816 births
1895 deaths
People from Senica District
Slovak Lutherans
Croatian Lutherans
Scholars from the Austrian Empire
Linguists from Austria-Hungary
Lexicographers
Croatian philologists
Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery
19th-century Lutherans