Is the Influence of Jurij Juričič, a Chakavian, on the Development of the Slovenian Literary Language Underrated?

Abstract

Jurij Juričič, the author of the third longest Slovenian printed work of the Protestant period, has long been overlooked in Slovenian linguistics, and his linguistic innovations have been labelled as a digression in the context of the 16th century Slovenian literary language. The paper discusses the continuity or discontinuity of words in selected dictionaries up to the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of 100 selected lexemes that in the 16th century appear only in Juričič’s Postilla (1578). The results of the analysis answer the question of the influence of Juričič’s main work on the development of Slovenian literary language vocabulary outside the context of the Slovenian Reformation—namely a) to what extent the selected lexemes were adopted into the modern Slovenian and b) whether we can confirm their continuity with the 16th century or whether they were introduced into modern Slovenian independently of Juričič in the process of Slavisation in the 19th century.