Studia Slavica Savariensia 2000./1 [antikvár]

Marko Jesensek GREEK, LATIN AND GERMAN SYNTACTIC INFLUENCE ON SLOVENE GOSPEL TRANSLATIONS IN THE 18™ CENTURY 1 Introduction 1.1 During the course of historical development of Slovene literary language from the oldest prayer formulas that are still preserved18 up to mid- 19th century we observe four variants of literary Slovene.19 These were in the beginning restricted mostly to the ritualistic language, but became stanardized in the 16th, (the Caraiolan, the Carinthian, the Central-Styrian variants) in the 18th (the Prekmuije variant), and in the begining of the 19th century (the Eastern-Styrian varint). They were established as two types of literary language, i. e. the Central-Slovene and the Eastern-Slovene literary language. Their coming into existence is the result of two dialects, the Alpine and the Pannonian Slovene20 and of their thousand-year long separate development in the German and in the Hungarian cultural and political spheres respectively. From the 12th century on, the contacts between Slovenes in these two countries were very weak. The state and administrative as well as feudal and Church borders between the two parts accelerated the formation of distinnct cultural and linguistic areas, i. e. the Central-Slovene21 and the Eastern-Slovene22 one. 18 The Freisling manuscripts /Brizinski spomeniki/, the Ratece manuscript, the Sticna manuscript, the Stara gora manuscript. 19 The Carniolian, the Carinthian, the Styrian and die Prekmurje variants. See M. Orozen, Variantni razvoj slovenskega (knjiznega) jezika od srednjega veka do Kopitarja. In: M. Orozen, Poglavja iz zgodovine slovenskega knjiznega jezika, Ljubljana 1996, pp. 103-112. 20 M. Jesensek, Jezikovni sistemi v slovenskem (alpskem in panonskem) govornem obmocju. In: Jezik in slovstvo 37 (1991/92), pp. 173-181. 21 The Central variant developed in the Alpine Slovene linguistic territory, first in the Benedictine, Cistercian and Carthusian monasteries, which were religious, cultural and educational centers, and from the 16th century on as part of the so-called regional languages of Carniola, Carinthia and Styria. M. Orozen, Molitveni obrazci starejsih obdobij v osrednjeslovenskem in vzhodnoslovenskem knjiznem jeziku. In: M. Orozen, Poglavja iz zgodovine slovenskega knjiznega jezika, Ljubljana 1996, pp. 80-113. 22 The Eastern Slovene literary language developed as part of the Pannonian dialectal group in two separate cultural spheres. These were artificially separated from each other. The Prekmurje and the Porabje on the left bank of the Mura river were divided between the Hungarian diocese of Gyor and the Croatian-Kajkavian diocese in Zagreb. The eastern Styrian and Prlekija region between the Mura and the Drava originally belonged to the Salzburg archdiocese and was in terms of state administration part of the Styrian 77