Stjepan Babić’s understanding of the origin of the Croatian language and the choice of linguistic registers when translating from Sanskrit

In his contribution to the commemoration volume Čuvar hrvatskoga jezika / Guardian of the Croatian Language in honour of Stjepan Babić, Mario Grčević addressed the very important topic of Stjepan Babić’s Contribution to the Discussion on the Origin of the Croatian Literary/Standard Language. As the title suggests, he addressed the discussions between Dalibor Brozović, Mate Šimundić, Radoslav Katičić, and Stjepan Babić on the origin of the Croatian standard or literary language. In these discussions, Brozović established that the Croatian Neo-Stokavian standard language was essentially already present in the writers of the 18th century, thus overturning the ideologically based interpretation according to which it was introduced only in the 19th century in the time of Karadžić and Gaj. In doing so, Brozović introduced and advocated the term “standard language” into Croatian linguistics, instead of “literary language”. This certainly made his thought more precise. Babić, however, gradually discovered arguments that the standardization process could be recognized as early as the 17th and even 16th century in the Croatian language. He preferred to call the language the Croatian literary language rather than the standard language, although he considered that term to be a synonym. This is partly the difference in argumentation. Recently, in the Croatian Language Act and, especially, in the conclusions of the Croatian Language Council, we decided to make a distinction between the terms “Croatian language”, “Croatian standard language”, and “Croatian literary language”. This distinction brings additional order into the debate between Babić and Brozović. Another difference between them was, as Grčević has pointed out, in Brozović’s “overestimation of the term Neo-Štokavian in the standardization process”. It could be said that Katičić happily accepted Brozović’s thesis about the beginning of standardization in the 18th century, as evidenced by the articles that Grčević cites, but that by his book Croatian Language he had essentially switched to the side advocated by Babić. In addition, it is worth introducing Vladimir Horvat and his research on the work of Bartol Kašić into the discussion. I will first try to clarify the terms that our eminent linguists used in this discussion. And then show how, when translating Sanskrit literature into the Croatian literary language, I experienced the need of the linguistic, formal and stylistic richness of the entire Croatian literature, at least since the 16th century, in order to adequately, and even accurately, translate the contents and literary values of the original. I was afraid that from the point of view of the Croatian followers of Vuk Karadžić, „vukovci“, who still rule the subconscious of Croatian linguists, my translation effort would be either condemned or passed over. However, contrary to my expectations, Croatian literary circles have already awarded these translations three prizes for literary translation. If there can be a research experiment in linguistics and philology, then I could say that the reception of my translation experiment confirmed Babić’s theses on the origin of the Croatian literary language.