Kajkavian Literary Language
Kajkavian is not only a folk dialect, but in the course of history of Croatian language, has been the written public language (along with the corpus written in Čakavian and Štokavian). Kajkavian was the last to appear on the scene, mainly due to economic and political reasons. While first Croatian truly vernacular Čakavian texts (i.e. not mixed with Church Slavonic) go back to the 13th century, Štokavian to 14th century, the first Kajkavian published work was Pergošić's "Decretum", 1574.
After that, numerous works appeared in Croatian Kajkavian literary language: chronicles by Vramec, liturgical works by Ratkaj, Habdelić, Mulih; poetry of Ana Katarina Zrinska, dramatic opus of Tituš Brezovački. Kajkavian-based are important lexicographic works like Jambrešić's "Dictionar", 1670, and monumental (2,000 pages and 50,000 words) inter-dialectal (Čakavian-Štokavian-Kajkavian, but based on Kajkavian idiom) dictionary "Gazophylacium" by Ivan Belostenec (posthumously, 1740). Interestingly enough, Miroslav Krleža's visionary poetic masterpiece, "Balade Petrice Kerempuha", 1936, drew heavily on Belostenec's dictionary. Croatian Kajkavian grammars include Kornig's, 1795, Matijević's, 1810 and Đurkovečki's, 1837.
Kajkavian literary language gradually fell into disuse since Croatian National Revival, ca. 1830-1850, when leaders of Croatian National Unification Movement (the majority of them being Kajkavian native speakers themselves) adopted the most widespread and developed Croatian Štokavian literary language as the idiom for Croatian standard language.
However, after a period of lethargy, the 20th century has witnessed new flourishing of literature in Kajkavian dialect - this time as Croatian dialectal poetry, main authors being Antun Gustav Matoš, Miroslav Krleža, Ivan Goran Kovačić, Dragutin Domjanić, Nikola Pavić etc.
Kajkavian lexical treasure is being published by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in "Rječnik hrvatskoga kajkavskoga književnoga jezika"/Dictionary of the Croatian Kajkavian Literary Language, 8 volumes (1999).
Latterly Dario Vid Balog, actor, linguist and writer translate the New Testament in Kajkavian.
Below are examples of the Lord's Prayer in the Croatian variant of Shtokavian, literary Kajkavian and a Međimurje variant of the Kajkavian dialect.
| Standard Croatian | Literary Kajkavian | Međimurje-Kajkavian |
|---|---|---|
|
Oče naš, koji jesi na nebesima, |
Otec naš, koj si na nebesi, |
Japa naš kteri si f 'nebesih, |
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