Croatology, Vol. 14 No. 1, 2023.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.59323/k.14.1.12
On the Language of the First Burgenland Croatian Books (Duševne Pesne 1609 and 1611)
Gerhard Neweklowsky
; University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Abstract
Grgur Mekinić is the author of Croatian hymns printed in Western Hungary (today Burgenland, Austria) in 1609 and 1611. The songs are translations of
German, Latin, and Hungarian Protestant hymns. We do not know where Mekinić came from, he did not stem from Western Hungary (Burgenland). He was
a Protestant pastor who wanted to disseminate the new faith among the Western Hungarian Croats. Mekinić’s efforts, however, failed, since the vast majority of Western Hungarian Croats remained Catholic. The language of the hymns is the Ikavian-ekavian subdialect of Čakavian Croatian. In Mekinić’s language there are some local Burgenland Croatian features like jime „name“ or gljedat „look“, there are many typical Čakavian phonetic, morphological and lexical features. However, there are also lexical items which can be considered Slovenian. In this article Mekinić’s language is compared with Burgenland Croatian including their old literature, then the Čakavian Postilla of 1568, and other dialect material. It can be said that Mekinić’s hymns are the first two books of the Burgenland Cro-ats, but they do not represent the beginning of their literature, since they were forbidden by the Catholic Church and afterwards entirely forgotten. The uninterrupted Burgenland Croatian literature begins more than a century later.
Keywords
Burgenland Croatian language; oldest printed books; Protestant hymns; Čakavian dialect; Ikavian-ekavian subdialect; Western South Slavic dialectology
Hrčak ID:
306411
URI
Publication date:
1.7.2023.
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