Antonín Machek - Portrait of Josef Jungmann

Josef Jungmann (16 July 1773 in Hudlice, near

Beroun Beroun (; german: Beraun) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 20,000 inhabitants. It lies at the confluence of the Berounka and Litavka rivers. Beroun creates a conurbation with Králův Dvůr, former p ...

– 14 November 1847 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

) was a Czech poet and linguist, and a leading figure of the Czech National Revival. Together with Josef Dobrovský, he is considered to be a creator of the modern

Czech language Czech (; Czech ), historically also Bohemian (; ''lingua Bohemica'' in Latin), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech Re ...

Life

Jungmann was the sixth child (out of ten) of a cobbler. His father was of

Bohemian German German Bohemians (german: Deutschböhmen und Deutschmährer, i.e. German Bohemians and German Moravians), later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part ...

descent and his mother was of Czech descent. The children grew up speaking both languages at home, which contributed heavily to Jungmann's later role as a revivalist of the Czech language. In his youth, he wanted to become a priest. After he completed grammar school in 1788-1792 however, he went on to study Philosophy and Law. Beginning in 1799, he started teaching at the local

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

("Gymnasium") in

Litoměřice Litoměřice (; german: Leitmeritz) is a town in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 23,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. The town is the seat ...

(''Leitmeritz''), which had a German majority at that time. In 1815, he moved to Prague, where he worked until 1845 in the Old Town Academic Grammar School as a Czech professor. He earned a doctorate in Philosophy and Mathematics in 1817; he was the dean of the Faculty of Arts in 1827 and 1838. In 1840, he became the rector of

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , under ...

Work

Jungmann was a rigorous advocate of the rebirth of the written Czech language. In contrast to his teacher, Josef Dobrovský, he also wrote his works in Czech. In 1805, he published a translation of Chateaubriand's "Atala". By this, he intended to prove that the Czech language is suitable for complicated artistic texts. Later, he published translations of Johann Wolfgang Goethe,

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...

and

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

. His translation of ''Paradise Lost'' by Milton was called by Derek Sayer "the cornerstone" of the modern literary Czech language. Jungmann's original poems are few, but include two early Revival sonnets and the short narrative poem Oldřich a Božena. In following years, he published a series of polemic texts, most notably the "Talks on Czech Language". In 1820, he published "Slovesnost", which was a kind of a stylistic textbook. In 1825, a "History of Czech literature" followed. His most important work is the Czech-German dictionary in five volumes (1834–39). In this dictionary, he laid out the basis for the modern Czech vocabulary. In order to achieve the stylistic range of vocabulary he desired, for poetic effect, and in order to expand the lexical resources of Czech, Jungmann revived archaic words, for which he studied historical documents, or borrowed from other Slavic languages, and created neologisms. Many of his words became a permanent part of the language. Jungmannova Street and Jungmannovo náměstí (Jungmann's Square) in

are named after him; the square contains a large statue of Jungmann. There is also a Jungmannova Street named for him in the

Petržalka Petržalka (; german: Engerau / Audorf; hu, Pozsonyligetfalu) is the largest borough of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Situated on the right bank of the river Danube, the area shares a land border with Austria, and is home to around 100,000 ...

district of

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approximately 140% of ...

, Slovakia.

Literature

* Antibohemia, 1814 * Historie literatury české aneb Soustavný přehled spisů českých, s krátkou historií národu, osvícení a jazyka, 1825 **''History of Czech Literature, or Systematic Survey of Czech Writings, with a Short History of the

Nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by th ...

, Enlightenment and

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

'', 1825 * Krok * Nepředsudečné mínění o české prozódii, 1804 * O jazyku českém, 1806 **''On the Czech Language'', 1806 * O klasičnosti literatury a důležitosti její **''On Classical Literature and Its Importance'' * Oldřich a Božena, 1806 * Rozmlouvání o jazyku českém **''Talks on the Czech Language'' * Slovesnost aneb Sbírka příkladů s krátkým pojednáním o slohu, 1820 * Slovník česko-německý, 1834-1839 (5 dílů) **''Czech-German Dictionary'', 1834-1839 (5 editions) * Slovo ke statečnému a blahovzdělanému Bohemariusovi, 1814 * Zápisky, 1871 **''Notes'', 1871

Biographies

*Emanuel Chalupný: Jungmann, Prague 1909 *Julius Dolanský: Jungmannův odkaz (Z dějin české slovesnosti), Prague 1948

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jungmann, Josef 1773 births 1847 deaths 18th-century Bohemian people 19th-century Czech people 18th-century linguists 19th-century linguists 18th-century Bohemian poets 19th-century Czech poets Linguists from the Czech Republic Czech language activists Czech lexicographers Czech male poets People from Beroun District 19th-century male writers Language reformers 18th-century male writers Burials at Olšany Cemetery German Bohemian people