South Slavic Languages at the Turn of the 19th Century between Individual Development and Pan-Slavism (A. Bezenšek and His Jugoslavjanski stenograf)

Abstract

The recent article discusses the ideas of the Slavic philologist and cultural activist, Anton Bezenšek (1854-1915), concerning cultural and linguistic alliance of the South Slavic Slavs. In his journal, Jugoslavjanski stenograf, published in four Slavic languages firstly in Zagreb (1876-1878) and then in Bulgaria (1880-1896), the author proclaims uniformity in ortography of Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Bulgarians through introduction of a common South Slavic stenography. Inspired by the idea of successful acquisition of more than one South Slavic language Bezenšek uses certain strategies for impruving reader's languagecompetence, which are based on the lexical collocations in the actual usage rather than on the traditional description of some grammar structures. In this context, his publications provide the ideas for creating a potential supra-ethnic auxiliary language, whose norm would be devised by analogy with living languages as well as by a synthesis of their most similar properties.