Peter Dajnko


Peter Dajnko was a Slovene priest, author, and linguist, known primarily as the inventor of the Dajnko alphabet, an innovative proposal for the Slovene alphabet. Dajnko was also a proficient beekeeper and wrote the first book about beekeeping in the Slovene language, titled Čelarstvo.

Life

Dajnko was born in the village of Črešnjevci near the town of Gornja Radgona, in what was then the Duchy of Styria in the Habsburg Monarchy. His parents was Filip Dajnko winegrower and Marija Korošec. After finishing high school in Maribor, he studied theology and philosophy at the University of Graz, where he graduated in 1814. He returned to Gornja Radgona, where he was a chaplain until 1831, when he moved to Velika Nedelja to be the parish priest. He died in Velika Nedelja.

Work

In 1824 Dajnko wrote a book in German called Lehrbuch der windischen Sprache. There, he proposed adoption of a new alphabet for Slovene, which was to replace the traditional Bohorič alphabet, used since the late-16th century. Dajnko wanted to improve the script because of its problems with writing of sibilants. He used his alphabet in all his books published since 1824. In 1825, Franc Serafin Metelko came up with a similar proposal, complicating the issue. The Dajnko alphabet, which was introduced to schools in 1831, was fiercely opposed by and Anton Martin Slomšek. After 1834 it gradually came out of use with the adoption of a slightly modified version of Gaj's Latin alphabet as the new Slovene script, and in 1839 it was officially abolished.

Works