[13]
Vuk Stephanovitch Karadshitc,[14] in his successful attempts to
reduce a language, which hitherto had been merely an unwritten dialect
of the common people, to certain general rules and principles, had,
besides the more philosophical part of the work, also to adapt the
Slavonic alphabet to his purpose. The mixed and unregulated language,
which up to his time had been employed, had been written alternately
with the Old Slavonic and the Russian letters. To the Russian
language, with its multitude of sounds, the latter is perfectly
suitable; in Servian, however, several letters could be easily spared;
while others had to be added. Some change of the alphabet seemed
therefore necessary. As those Servians among whom Vuk was born, and
among whom chiefly he had gathered the treasures of remarkable poetry,
which serve as so beautiful a base to their young literature, all
belonged to the Greek or Oriental Church, he seems never to have
thought of the possibility of adopting the Latin alphabet, which had
already served for several centuries for the once flourishing
literature of their Catholic brethren, who spoke essentially the same
language.
We are ready to acknowledge that the Slavic alphabet, as arranged by
Vuk, is better adapted to express the sounds of the Slavic languages,
than the Latin; it is at once simpler and richer.
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