BOOK ON CROATIAN LANGUAGE RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN GERMANY

ZAGREB, Sept 19 (Hina) - A German Slavist, Leopold Auburger, has recently issued a book entitled "The Croatian Language and Serbo- Croatism (unofficial translation)" in the German language. The book has been published by Gerhard Hess Verlag in Ulm on the Danube. Expounding the development of the Croatian language after the historical breakdown of Serbo-Croatian studies, the publisher described this book as a very useful contribution to the Croatian studies. Auburger wrote, in eight chapters, about the history of the Croatian language, its suppression by Serbo-Croat and the Croatian resurrection in the language and culture under tragic political circumstances. The author offered many scholarly facts but also his views on the topic of language and homeland. He paid homage to the Catholic Church, "the guardian of the ethnic individuality of Croats." A few days ago, Croatia's academician, Radoslav Katicic, gave an interview to the Split-based daily "Slobodna Dalmacija" commenting on Auburger's book. Katicic said that by his work, this German scholar warned that the entire plausibility of "Serbo-Croatism" nowadays just as in the last century had been achieved by narrowing views on the language, so that only phonemes, forms and a personal vocabulary are what counts. According to Katicic, how a language functions as well as the entire linguistic and cultural tradition are of importance for linguistic studies. By this book, Auburger gave a significant contribution to "burning problems of Croatism," the academician added. (hina) ms