h of the article by EI Demina “ON THE FIRST EXPERIENCE OF CODIFICATION OF THE BULGARIAN LITERARY LANGUAGE OF THE RENAISSANCE. CONCEPT Yu. I. VENELINA "from the collection" Yu. I. Venelin in the Bulgarian Revival”. The executive editor of the collection is Doctor of Philology GK Venediktov. The Russian Academy of Sciences. Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies. Moscow 1998.
(I will explain. The tricky and incomprehensible term "codification", literally - "lingual. The ordering of the norms of the language and their fixation in reference books, dictionaries, grammars, etc.", scientists call the process of creating a new language. Under the "era of renaissance" means "Bulgarian revival ", ie the 19th century.)
“Since the mid-30s of the XIX century. Bulgarian society is seized by the idea of creating a single standardized literary language for the nation, developing a "common grammar for the whole of Bulgaria," which everyone must follow in their writings. " This idea was first clearly formulated by Neophyte Rylsky in the Philological Preliminary Notice to his Bulgarian Grammar (1835), which contains a theoretical basis for the practical solutions proposed by the author to create the norms of the literary language of modern times. The grammar of Neofit Rylsky is “the first systemic essay dedicated to the emerging Bulgarian national literary language. This is the first (note - in Bulgaria - ED) grammar that documents and "materializes" the presence and real existence of the national Bulgarian literary language,what he was at the beginning of his true creation ("true si citizens") what Neophyte of Rylsky imagined him to be"
The stage of convergent development begins, the rivalry of the normalizing attitudes of various schools of organization of the literary language - "Church Slavonic", "Slavic-Bulgarian", "Novo-Bulgarian", as a result of a complex, indirect development and, what is especially important, the feedback between the written usus and the written norm in the third quarter of the XIX in. culminating in the creation of the modern Bulgarian literary language.
The tendency towards the formation and improvement of a single literary language of the nation in the 30s of the XIX century. took place among other Slavic peoples, in particular, Russian. However, the decision of the Russian Academy to send a representative to Bulgaria to study the Bulgarian language and compile its grammar was not prompted by the knowledge of the situation described above and the desire to "help" the Bulgarian people in solving the most important task for them, one of the dominants of the Renaissance. The decisive role was played by the rather strengthened in Russian society in the 20-30s of the XIX century. interest in the history and languages of foreign Slavic peoples and, especially, in Bulgarian.
A short overview of the peculiarities of Bulgarian grammar with the addition of several texts in Bulgarian, which appeared soon, in the same 1822, in Vienna, was compiled by Vuk Karadzic on the basis of the southwestern (Razlozh) dialect [9], as well as general information about the presence of an adverb in Bulgarian language, received by P. and Keppép during his travel in 1822 across Transylvania, only increased the interest in the issues of Bulgarian grammar. It is with this goal in mind that the Russian Academy in 1830 sent to the trans-Danube lands a young Bulgarianist Y. I. Venelin, who had already appeared in print with the noted publication “Ancient and modern Bulgarians in their political, folklore, historical and religious attitude towards Russians” (M., 1829).
According to the original version of the scientific travel program, compiled by Venelin, "the traveler should study the Bulgarian language in a synthetic and analytical sense, that is, review its grammar, properties, syllable, connection and its relation to the Little Russian, Carpathian and Great Russian dialects." In the final version ("Instruction"), significant additions were made: "While driving through the Transdanubian regions, the traveler, in addition to historical and philological and archaeological research, will mainly study the Bulgarian language, collect all possible information regarding its adverbs, paying attention to the root words, of which not in Russian, but only derivatives and complex ones remained. Compile a grammar and a small Bulgarian dictionary with examples of narrative prose."
Acquaintance with the "Grammar of the present Bulgarian dialect", submitted by Venelin to the Council of Moscow University in March 1834, shows that, in principle, Venelin strove to fulfill the instructions of the "Instruction". Thus, along with an overview of Bulgarian grammar by parts of speech, in Venelin's work we find a lexicographical section in which some words of the Bulgarian language (nouns) are compared with Russian ones, and a list of some borrowings from Turkish and Greek is also given; an opinion is expressed about the relationship between the Bulgarian and East Slavic languages. In the text of the Grammar, we also find some fragmentary information about certain Bulgarian dialects, although due to circumstances Venelin, as you know, had to limit the route and duration of his journey,and he obtained dialectal data mainly from conversations with Bulgarians who came from different localities. Attached to Grammar and "Reader" - "a sample of narrative prose."
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What are the reasons for these changes?
First of all, a sharp change in Venelin's idea of the task before him is connected, apparently, with a direct acquaintance with the linguistic, historical and cultural situation in Bulgaria. Venelin was captured by the general spirit of the Bulgarian Renaissance. He managed to grasp and try to implement the leading tendency of the Bulgarian literary and linguistic development towards the unity of the norms of the national literary language through the creation of a common grammar for the whole of Bulgaria. It was this consideration that formed the basis for the concept of the modern Bulgarian literary language, which he developed, attempts to normalize and codify it through grammatical description and create a “sample” of the text processed according to the proposed norms.
But, of course, there were other reasons for changing Venelin's plans, reasons of an objective nature, which is usually not taken into account when critically evaluating his grammar. (…)
Complete article here