Modern Serbian Lexicography:

Early Beginnings and

Contemporary Digitization
Nikola Zdravković (EMLex)

Dictionary Day at the USC

Santiago de Compostela, 14 December 2018
 Table of Contents

1. The Backbone of a Language: The Story of the Serbian Alphabet

2. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
3. First Serbian Dictionary
4. Second Serbian Dictionary
5. Serbian Lexicography: Contemporary Digitization
5.1 The Main Goals of “Raskovnik”
5.2 The Compilation Process of “Raskovnik”
5.3 Ideas for the Improvement of “Raskovnik”

6. References

7. Illustration sources
 1. The Backbone of a Language: The Story of the
Serbian Alphabet
In order to create any type of dictionary one needs a reformed and
systematic aplphabet
The story of contemporary Serbian (cyrilic) alphabet begins with Sava
Mrkalj (1783-1833) – built on the Adelung’s principle “Write as you speak and
read as it is written” and having a complete one-to-one congruence
(phonemic principle)
Mrkalj’s work was continued and refined by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
The alphabet was finished in the year 1836 by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
when the letter “H” was introduced
“…having in mind the success of Serbian literature I cannot use any other
alphabet but the one of Mrkalj, because the easier and purer than this one
cannot exist.” (Stefanović Karadžić, 1814)
2. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić

Illust. zrcalo.me
 Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787 Tršić, Serbia – 1864
Vienna, Austria)
The official reformer of Serbian language
Named “Vuk” meaning “wolf” in Serbian, because of the superstitious views
of his parents
Collected Serbian fairy tales, songs and riddles
Schooling in a monastery and Belgrade Higher School
The creator of the first grammar (“Pismenica serbskoga jezika”, 1814) and
the first dictionary (“Srpski rječnik istolkovan njemačkim i latinskim riječma”,
1818) of Serbian language
The year 1987 was proclaimed the year of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić by
UNESCO
Chosen as honorary member of numerous European academic institutions
(Illust. Wikipedia)
 3. First Serbian Dictionary
Created in 1818 by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić under the name “Srpski rječnik
istolkovan njemačkim i latinskim riječma” (“Serbian Dictionary paralleled with
German and Latin words”)
Collected words in the span between the years 1815 and 1818
The dictionary contained 26.270 headwords
The translation of words into German and Latin was accomplished by a Slovene
Linguist Jernej Kopitar
This edition of the dictionary was accompanied by a small Serbian grammar
It is written in the language of ordinary Serbian people, using the reformed cyrilic
alphabet, and contains vulgarisms and swear words
It included the letter “H” in the words, but there was no section with words
starting with “H”
Illust. digital.bms.rs
 4. Second Serbian Dictionary
Actually the second edition of the First Serbian Dictionary
Published in 1852 and contained 47.427 headwords which were accented
Both dictionaries, besides being lexicographic works, are also a testimony
of the life of ordinary people in Serbia at that time
The work describes the tradition, rituals, folk costumes, socioeconomic
constellations, nature, tools etc. of one period of Serbian history
Resembles the Grimm Brothers’ “Deutsches Wörterbuch” because of the
narrative explanations of the words
Represents every aspect of Karadžić’s work (ethnology, philology, history)
This work together with Karadžić’s translation of the New Testament and
the collection of Serbian folk wisdom creates the foundation of the
standardized contemporary Serbian language
Illust. Stefanović Karadžić, 1852
Goodbye to (Printed) Dictionaries
Special thanks to Toma Tasovac, Director
of DARIAH-EU and Belgrade Center for
Digital Humanities, for providing me with
useful information about the “Raskovnik”,
a platform whose establishing he initiated!
 5. Serbian Lexicography: Contemporary digitization

Multiple dictionaries, including both of those written by

Karadžić, are part of the Serbian digital lexicographic
platform named “Raskovnik”
Started in November of 2015 – Serbian Ministry of Culture
and Informing, Center for Digital Humanities and DARIAH-
RS
Project of the Institute of Serbian language of SASA
(Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Projected completion date - unknown
 5.1 The Main Goals of “Raskovnik”

Establishing a dictionary platform for digitization and connecting various

dictionaries of Serbian language (historical, dialectal, terminological etc.)
Multiple and comparative searchability of all of the dictionaries in the
database (not only by lemmas but also by morphological and grammatical
forms, definitions, examples etc.)
Encouraging the research of Serbian lexicon and qualitative improvement
of Serbian lexicographic theory and practice
Development of the language tools for computer linguistics and for the
needs of the library systems (indexing, text annotation, making of thesauri)
Popularization of Serbian language and culture
 5.2 The Compilation Process of “Raskovnik”
Coded using the recommendations of TEI (Text Encoding
Initiative)
Establishing a search engine which allows searching by lemmas
or by full text (using filters such as: only in the definition, only in
the example etc.)
Innovative concept of dictionary slices which represent only one
chosen part of the lexicon which then can be searched as a mini-
dictionary (example: Curse words in Karadžić’s dictionaries) –
dictionary also as an exploratory and not only a look-up tool
Creating a possibility of geolocation of the dialectal material
using maps as a visual interface in order to access lexical material
Illust. raskovnik.org
Illust. raskovnik.org
Illust. raskovnik.org
Illust. raskovnik.org
Illust. raskovnik.org
 5.3 Ideas for the Improvement of “Raskovnik”

Search option for collocations

The content of the entries could be lemmatized so that
the definitions or examples can be found only by
entering a desired lemma
Since the site is available in English, German and
Serbian incorporating Russian as the widely spoken
Slavic language would lure numerous slavists
Your suggestions?
 6. References
Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović: “Prvi srpski bukvar” (“First Serbian ABC Book”).
Vienna, 1827.
Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović: “Srpski rječnik istolkovan njemačkim i latinskim
riječma” (“Serbian Dictionary paralleled with German and Latin words”): Second
Edition. Vienna, 1852.
Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović: “Srpski rječnik istumačen njemačkim i latinskim
riječma” (“Serbian Dictionary paralleled with German and Latin words”): First
Edition.Vienna, 1852.
Klajn, Ivan: “Gramatika srpskog jezika” (“Grammar of the Serbian Language”).
Belgrade, 2005.
Stanojčić, Živojin; Popović, Ljubomir: “Gramatika srpskog jezika” (“Grammar of
the Serbian Language”). Belgrade, 1992.
Tasovac, Toma: PPT Presentation “Izazovi digitalizacije” (“The Challenges of
Digitization”). Belgrade, 2018.
 6. References
The “Raskovnik” Platform: www.raskovnik.org. (accessed during the period
between 20.11.2018 and 10.12.2018)
 7. Illustration sources

Slide 4: Vuk Stefanovic Karadžić – www.zrcalo.me

Slide 6: Institutions – www.wikipedia.org
Slide 8: First Serbian Dictionary – www.digital.bms.rs
Slide 10: Second Serbian Dictionary - Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović: “Srpski
rječnik istumačen njemačkim i latinskim riječma” (“Serbian Dictionary
paralleled with German and Latin words”): First Edition. Vienna, 1852.
Slide 11: DARIAH Serbia – Butigan Vučaj, Tamara: PPT Presentation “From
Digital Library to Digital Humanities and back“ . Jasna, 2017.
Sldies 16-20: Raskovnik Platform – www.raskovnik.org