CROATIAN-SLOVAKIAN DICTIONARY PRESENTED IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, Feb 13 (Hina) - A Croatian-Slovakian dictionary was presented in Zagreb last Wednesday. The dictionary entitled "Chorvatsko-Slovensky Slovnik" was compiled by Jesuit Ferdinand Takac, a Croat born in Hrvatski Grob, Slovakia. #L# The book has 50,000 entries, phrases from everyday life, notions from science and professional activities, including religion. The dictionary, published by the Croatian publishing company "Skolska Knjiga", includes two grammar books at its end - on grammar in the Slovakian and Croatian languages. Slovakian grammar is indented for Croatians while Croatian grammar is for Slovakian users of this dictionary. Presenting Takac's dictionary, which is the first of this kind to be included in the Croatian lexicography, Dubravka Sesar, said it was the crown of the long-standing work of an enthusiast whose profession was not linguistics. This dictionary will be very useful both to Croatian and Slovakian philologists, she said recalling that the department of the Slovakian language and literature was established at Philosophy Faculty of Zagreb University two years ago. There are also words from substandard languages, apart from the standard. In addition, the dictionary is very valuable because it presents the vocabulary of the Croatian community in Slovakia, including Croatian archaisms, various borrowing words and the dialect they are still using. Speaking of the life of the dictionary's author, Vladimir Horvat said Takac had been born in Hrvatski Grob, Slovakia, 1920. He studied at law school in Zagreb until 1944. After that Takac worked as a journalist in Slovakia and later was a correspondent from Belgrade. In the wake of the Bolshevist take-over of the then Czechoslovakia, he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1955. Shortly after that he was apprehended and sentenced to eight years in prison. After being jailed for five years, he was amnestied. In that period he worked as a worker for removing glitches of elevators. Takac was the first editor-in-chief of Catholic newspaper in Slovakia. Horvat said Takac had started his work on this dictionary while translating books from Croatian in Slovakian. He worked on the dictionary 18 years. Takac also prepared a dialect dictionary of his hometown, Hrvatski Grob, and this book will be soon issued. Stressing that his hometown, Hrvatski Grob, is the northernmost place in Europe where Croatian is spoken, Ferdinand Takac said the Croatian language and customs in Slovakian villages and towns were preserved thanks to the Catholic faith of the Slovakian Croats. Speaking of his enduring work on the dictionary, Takac mentioned an interesting event. In 1977 he offered the dictionary to the Bratislava-based 'Pedagoska naklada' to publish it, but the publishing house said it would issue it on condition that it was entitled "Serbocroatian-Slovakian" dictionary. Takac refused that condition explaining them that there was no such languages just as there was no Czechoslovakian language. "The dictionary has waited for its times. Times have home for my dictionary," the author said at the book's promotion. (hina) ms