Čeština Daniela Adama z Veleslavína

The book analyses the Czech language of Daniel Adam from Veleslavín (1546-1599), the educator, historian, publisher, printer and organizer of Prague’s cultural life in the second half of the16^th century. Linguistic research is based on a clearly defined material base of texts whose author is most likely Veleslavín. Exceptionally, a manuscript record is included, the autograph of Daniel Adam of Veleslavín. We use it almost exclusively in spelling analyses. The rest of the material base consists of printed texts that Daniel Adam certainly initiated to a great extent. These are mainly prefaces to published works signed by himself or by himself and a co-author. Also reprints of older works belong to this category. Veleslavín significantly updated and corrected the Czech language of these. The analysis of the language is our main goal. However, as on the one hand the facts known about his life are fragmented and often questionable and on the other hand his work became later so reputable in Czech culture, we also included a biographical chapter. The core of the book are the analytical chapters on individual structural levels: spelling and typography, morphology, vocabulary and word formation, composition and style. These chapters, with many quotations from Veleslavín’s texts are complemented by a chapter summarizing the findings on all structural levels. We see Veleslavín’s Czech in the dynamics of the development of language and try to capture its features in relation to Old Czech, as well as in relation to the state of the modern language. Special attention is paid to characteristic features of the Czech of humanistic period. We confront our findings with, among other things, contemporary language manuals and with the language of the most prestigious work of the 16^th century, Bible kralická.

The book was published in cooperation with the Akropolis publishing house and the Czech Language Institute of the CAS. Financial support was provided by the Czech Science Foundation.