Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.17234/Croatica.69.12
REVISED TRANSLATION OF THE KAJKAVIAN BOOK OF JOB
Barbara Štebih Golub
; Institute of Croatian Language, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
During the 19th century, there were two attempts to translate the Bible into the Kajkavian literary language. The first attempt was associated with Bishop M. Vrhovac, who gathered six translators for the task, and the second with I. Kristijanović.
The link between these two attempts is the Book of Job, which was translated by I. N. Labaš as part of Vrhovacʼs initiative, while Kristijanović edited his translation. The subject of this paper is the circumstances surrounding the creation of the translation and its edited version, as well as Kristijanovićʼs changes to Labašʼs text.
While Labaš wrote his translation in the Kajkavian script typical of the early 19th century, Kristijanović wrote his changes in a new script, Gajica, which indicates that he worked on the text no earlier than 1847, as he began to print his texts in the new script from 1848 onwards.
It is also the only manuscript text of Kristijanović written in Gajica known at this time. Kristijanovićʼs changes to Labašʼs text on the phonological and morphological level are insignificant: in only a few places he changes the reflex of jat in the negated forms of the auxiliary verb "biti" ("to be"), while the form of the relative pronoun for the nominative masculine singular which he consistently replaces with "koj".
The most numerous interventions are at the syntactic level (changes in word order, replacement of the participle with a finite verb and the related untying of the participle group, avoidance of the relative pronoun at the beginning of the scentence). Namely, Labaš adhered very faithfully to the Latin template, while Kristjanović, although he uses such syntactic calques himself, tried to bring the translation closer to "the spirit of Kajkavian". The changes at the lexical level reveal that Kristijanović, as an erudite and as a stylist, was guided by two criteria: accuracy and aesthetics.
Keywords
kajkavian literary language; Book of Job; Ivan Nepomuk Labaš; Ignac Kristijanović
Hrčak ID:
341289
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2025.
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