Its name is derived from Adam Bohorič, who codified the alphabet in his book Articae Horulae Succisivae. It was printed in 1583 and published in 1584. The Bohorič alphabet was first used by the Lutheran preacherPrimož Trubar, the author of the first printed book in Slovene. However, Trubar did not follow strict rules and often used alternate spellings for the same word.
Characteristics
The alphabet consists of 25 letters in the following order: a b d e f g h i j k l m n o p r ſ ſh s sh t u v z zh
The Bohorič alphabet differs from the modern Slovene alphabet in the following letters:
majuscule
minuscule
IPA
modern Slovenian
Z
z
c
ZH
zh
č
S, Ş
ſ
s
SH, ŞH
ſh
š
S
s
z
SH
sh
ž
In the early Bohorič alphabet, some letters shared majuscule forms:
I was the majuscule form of i and j
V was the majuscule form of u and v
S was the majuscule form of s and ſ
SH was the majuscule form of sh and ſh
There were other differences from the modern Slovene orthography. The schwa sound preceding R was strictly written with the letter E, while in modern Slovene the E is omitted : the Slovene name for the city ofTrieste, Trst, was thus written as Terſt, the word for "square" was written as terg, etc. One-letter prepositions, such as v, s/z, or k/g were written with an apostrophe: thus, the phrase "in Ljubljana" would be written v'Ljubljani instead of modern Slovene v Ljubljani, "to my place" would be k'meni instead of modern k meni, etc.
Historical development
Bohorič's alphabet was first codified in 1584 by the Protestant author Adam Bohorič in his book Articae horulae succisivae, considered to be the first grammar book of the Slovene language. It was based on the Latin script adopted from the German by Primož Trubar since 1555 and then used extensively for almost thirty years. It differed somewhat from the original alphabet, partly also due to changes introduced by Sebastjan Krelj and Jurij Dalmatin. It was used in Dalmatin's first translation of the entire Bible to the Slovene. Although the Counter-Reformation destroyed completely the Protestant religious community in the Slovene Lands, the alphabet was taken over by Catholic authors, most notably by the Roman Catholic bishop of Ljubljana Thomas Chrön. In the 17th and early 18th century, very few literary texts were written in Slovene; nevertheless, Bohorič's alphabet remained in use throughout this period. Slovene names in Valvasor's German-written book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, for example, were all rendered in this script. In the late 18th century, with the revival of Slovene, Bohorič's script came back into general use. It was modernized by 18th-century philologists Marko Pohlin and Jurij Japelj. By the end of the 18th century, it was fully accepted by the Enlightenment intellectuals around Sigmund Zois. With the authors Anton Tomaž Linhart and Valentin Vodnik, it became an established tool of literary expression again. The Bohorič alphabet was quite successful, but it suffered from a number of flaws:
Slovenian has eight vowels, but the Bohorič alphabet only has five vowel characters.
The combination "sh" could be read as two separate letters or as a digraph.
The script remained unchallenged until the 1820s, when there were several attempts to replace them with phonetic alphabets. The two most famous attempts were made by Peter Dajnko in 1824 and Fran Metelko in 1825. These attempts, sponsored by the philologist Jernej Kopitar, were however fiercely opposed by the Romantic intellectual circle around Matija Čop and France Prešeren. This debate over orthographic reform became known as the so-called Slovene alphabet war. By the mid-1830s, the supporters of Bohorič's script gained their battle against the innovators, also with the support of the Czech linguist František Čelakovský. However, criticisms of the bohoričica script remained alive. In the 1840s, the editor Janez Bleiweis proposed a compromise solution by introducing a slightly modified version of the CroatianGaj's Latin alphabet for his journal Kmetijske in rokodelske novice. Very quickly, this solution was accepted by all sides, and by 1848/1850, Gaj's reformed alphabet completely replaced Bohorič's script.
Attempts at revival
Suggestions to revive the Bohorič script were advanced in the 1980s. Several people suggested that a modified version of the script should be revived for IT purposes because the first computers for general use could not handle non-standard Latin characters. In the 1990s, a "reformed Bohorič alphabet" was adopted by a group of authors around the journal . This has been the only attempt to revive the Bohorič alphabet and has gained no attention outside the editorial board of the journal.
