Numismatics
500th anniversary of the birth of Adam Bohorič (2020)
Adam Bohorič was a protestant schoolteacher and the author of the first Slovenian grammar. He was born around 1520 near Brestanica, and died in exile in Germany on 20 November 1598. He enrolled at the arts faculty in the German town of Wittenberg on 18 October 1548, where he studied linguistics and music, and had a lifelong involvement in church singing. Between 1551 and 1563 he ran a private Latin school in Krško, which was attended by Jurij Dalmatin among others. After bidding farewell to the school in Krško, he was the head teacher of a church school in Ljubljana between mid-1566 and 1 August 1582, and again between April 1595 and July 1598 owing to staff shortages. He also wrote the school rules, in which Slovene was granted the status of the language of conversation and of study.
While working in Wittenberg, where he helped Jurij Dalmatin with the final revisions to his bible, in 1583 he finalised his own Articae horulae succisivae de Latino carniolana literatura (known in English as Free Winter Hours), which was published in January 1584 and marks an important milestone for the Slovene language. With its spelling, morphology and codification, Bohorič established the theoretical foundations of the language. The grammar also proposed the Bohorič alphabet, which with minor modifications was used for written Slovene until the middle of the 19th century. Only 26 copies of the grammar, which was written in Latin, have survived. It was translated in 1987 by Jože Toporišič, a Slovene linguist.
To mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Adam Bohorič, the Republic of Slovenia is issuing a commemorative coin. The design features a multilingual slogan from the title page of Bohorič’s grammar, Proste zimske urice (Free Winter Hours), which captures the essence of his work in a few words. The multilingual nature symbolises the duality of Bohorič’s contribution to Slovenian culture. The Slovene part of the slogan is rendered in the Bohorič alphabet, while the Latin inscription represents his contribution to the international academic realm.
Suggested by: Jože Nemec
Designed by: Lana Semečnik, Velenje
Minting: Mincovňa Kremnica š.p., Kremnica, Slovakia
| Commemorative coin | Commemorative coin - proof |
| Nominal value: EUR 2 Issued: 990,500 coins |
Nominal value: EUR 2 Issued: 2,000 coins |
| Issue date: 23. 12. 2020 | Issue date 23. 12. 2020 |
New national side of the commemorative 2-euro coin intended for circulation and issued by the Republic of Slovenia to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Adam Bohorič - Official Journal of the European Union, 2020/C 301/08.
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