Slovene Janez Ziga Valentin Popovic (1705–1774), professor of German at the University of Vienna during the reign of Maria Theresa, left, among other manuscripts, a draft dictionary with some thousand Slovene and other Slavic words kept in the National and University Library in Ljubljana. Popovic's work, which represents the beginnings of Slovene dialectology and the pre-scientific search for etymologies, has been drawn and used by many (Marko Pohlin, Anton Breznik). |