Franc Serafin Metelko

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Example of Metelko's proposed script - a poem by Valentin Stanič

Franc Serafin Metelko (14 July 1779- 27 December 1860) was a Slovene Roman Catholic priest, author and philologist, most famous for his proposal of a new script for the Slovene language, called the Metelko alphabet, which was ment to replace the traditional Bohorič alphabet, used since late 16th century.

Metelko was born in the village of Škocjan, in what was then the Duchy of Carniola in the Habsburg Monarchy. He studied theology and philosophy in Ljubljana. In 1814 he was ordained priest and in 1817 he started teaching Slovene at the Lyceum in Ljubljana.

In 1825, he published a book in German entitled Lehrgebäude der slowenischen Sprache im Königreiche Illyrien und in den benachbarten Provinzen or "Textbook for the Slovenian Language in the Kingdom of Illyria and Neighboring Provinces". Following the advice of the liguist Jernej Kopitar, his newly coined alphabet (which soon became known as the metelčica or "Metelko's alphabet") was phonetic, with each character corrisponding a sound in the spoken language. It was also quite complicated, containing a significant number of unneeded characters, some of which he took from Cyrillic alphabet. Besides, Metelko based his phonology on his local Lower Carniolan dialect, which was not acceptable for most of contemporary Slovenian authors.

Metelko's proposal further aggravated the so-called "Slovenian Alphabet Strife", started by Peter Dajnko's quest for a new, more phonetic alphabet, replacing the traditional bohoričica. Metelko's main opponent, philologist Matija Čop convinced the renowned Czech scholar František Čelakovský to publish a devastating critique of Metelko's alphabet, which undermined the possibilities of its success. Čop also persuaded the local Austrian educational authorities to ban Metelko's alphabet from schools, which they did with an official decree in 1833. The "Alphabet Strife" nevertheless continued until the 1840s, when a slightly modified version of Gaj's Latin alphabet was finally adopted, which is still used to this day.

Metelko's alphabet remained in the public memory because of a satiric poem by France Prešeren, entitled Al' prav se piše kaψa ali kaſha ("How to Write the Word Porridge"), in which criticised the Alphabet Strife issue of being a non-sense.

Metelko was otherwise a known collector of folk songs and an amateur poet himself. A street in the center of Ljubljana, the Metelkova ulica, is named after him.

He died in Ljubljana.