Work
Jungmann was a rigorous advocate of the rebirth of written Czech language. In contrast to his teacher, Josef Dobrovský, he also wrote his works in Czech. In 1805, he published a translation of Chateaubriand's "Atala". By this, he intended to prove, that the Czech language is suitable for complicated artistic texts. Later, he published translations of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and John Milton. Jungmann’s original poems are few, but include two early Revival sonnets and the short narrative poem Oldřich a Božena.
In following years, he published a series of polemic texts, most notably the "Talks on Czech Language". In 1820, he published "Slovesnost", which was a kind of a stylistic textbook. In 1825, a "History of Czech literature" followed.
His most important work is the Czech-German dictionary in five volumes (1834-39). In this dictionary, he laid out the basis for the modern Czech vocabulary. In order to achieve the stylistic range of vocabulary he desired, for poetic effect, and in order to expand the lexical resources of Czech, Jungmann revived archaic words, for which he studied historical documents, or borrowed from other Slavic languages, and created neologisms. Many of his words became a permanent part of the language.
Jungmannova Street and Jungmannovo náměstí (Jungmann's Square) in Prague are named after him; the square contains a large statue of Jungmann.
Read more about this topic: Josef Jungmann
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