On Saint Nicholai by the Pen of a Linguist

Abstract

On the Book Language and Lexis of the Holy Bishop St. Nikolai Velimirovich (A Differential Approach). Institute for the Serbian Language of SASA Monographs 34. Belgrade: Institute for the Serbian Language of SASA, 2022. 507 pp. ISBN 978–86–82873–86–0. Writing about the language of such a great author as the Saint Nicholai (Velimirovich) can be considered both daring and a gift. The courage to tackle the description of the language of such an extensive creative oeuvre grew and matured over the years in the associate of the Institute of the Serbian Language, SANU, today a scientific advisor — Dr. Vladan Jovanović. The monograph is the result of the author’s many years of reflection on the language of Saint Nicholai. As it is impossible to encompass the incomprehensible, it is understandable that a differential approach was applied, “which means that the linguistic material is viewed in relation to the state of the contemporary Serbian literary language — its literary-linguistic norms and use in the system of functional styles.” This means that the language in Bishop Nicholai’s works is viewed in a triangle: the language of the writer (parole), the language of the national community (langue), and the language of theological style. In other words, we got only a part and the beginning, we hope, of new challenges over the description of the language of this great All-Orthodox Saint. All those new, future researches will start on these foundations, from the views of the author who received the gift of being the first to monographically describe the language of the Serbian Chrysostom.