Attitudes of Vojvodina Slovak writers toward Slovak language codifications

Abstract

This contribution addresses the relationship between Vojvodina Slovak writers and the issue of Slovak language codification in the second half of the 19th century. It is based on the thesis that a literary language is one of the most important elements in the process of nation-building and that its establishment is politically, historically, and linguistically crucial. The study examines the awareness of the Lowland intellectual elite regarding the language situation in Slovakia, as it developed in the 1840s and 1850s, marked by the 1848/1849 revolution in the Austrian Empire. A chronological analysis of the relationship between Slovak elites from the Lowlands and two codifications of literary Slovak – Ľudovít Štúr’s (1843) and Michal Miloslav Hodža and Martin Hattala’s (1851, known as the Hodža-Hattala codification) – documents the confusing language situation in the Slovak context in the second half of the 19th century. The Hodža-Hattala reform was more or less successfully established in the journalistic discourse of Vojvodina Slovaks, but biblical Czech continued to dominate communication within the Evangelical Church.

Keywords

• dolná zem – “low land”
• language situation
• language codification
• ľudovít štúr
• hodža-hattala reform