Publication details
Jazyk Jesliček F. Bridelia
| Title in English | The Language of the Jeslicky by Fridrich Bridelius |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Listy filologické |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | development of Czech language; the Czech language of Baroque period; Czech hymns |
| Description | The language of the new hymns in Jesličky draws on the tradition of the highly developed Czech language of the late 16th century; this is clearly visible in the range of effects produced by the sound shifts experienced by Czech during the Early Modern era, enabling a degree of stylistic differentiation (ý > ej, ú- > ou-, é > í and prosthetic v-). The morphology and syntactic structure of the new hymns includes some of the changes which affected spoken Czech in the 17th century and which penetrated into the written language only slowly – the blurring of gender differences in the nominative plural declension of adjectives and pronouns, the unification of instrumental plural adjectival and pronominal suffixes in the form -ma, the stabilization of the form si as the dative of the genderless reflexive pronoun se, etc. However, in addition to these features, the texts of Jesličky also preserve certain traditional linguistic forms typical of written communication: the masculine and neuter instrumental plural of the type pány / městy, the genitive plural suffix -ův of the type pánův, the third person singular present tense form of the athematic verb jest, etc. This symbiosis of progressive and traditional forms in the texts not only shows that the author of the hymnal was attempting to use a high style that was at the same time comprehensible to contemporary readers; it also confirms that post-White Mountain authors drew naturally on the language of the previous era and developed it creatively, well aware of the wide functional range of linguistic means at their disposal. The language of Jesličky contains a minimum of clearly dialectal or potentially dialectal forms, which can be localized in Central and Eastern Bohemia. |
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