The Influence of Kajkavian Prayer Books on the First Translation of Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Old Slovenian Literary Language of Prekmurje

The article deals with the influence of Kajkavian prayer books on the first translation of Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Old Slovenian Literary Language of Prekmurje by M. Kuzmic in the second half of the 18th century. Due to the centuries-long presence of the extensive Kajkavian literature - especially the ecclesiastical, intended for various pastoral needs - the influence is not negligible. Moreover, the transition between Prekmurje Slovene dialect and Kajkavian is not always clearly evident, which in turn means that it is often not easy to distinguish between direct influence and parallel development resulting in the same or very similar linguistic phenonema. This called for the system of linguistic facts (for example, the absence of diphtong ej - even in long syllables - as the result of the development of the Proto-Slavic yat (*e) in Kajkavian with regard to Prekmurje Slovene dialect) to be used in the analysis. Thanks to those facts it is possible to argue that Kuzmic's text is closer to translation than not - despite obvious connections with the Kajkavian translations of Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The analysis of the phonetic (partly also word-forming, syntactic and lexical) level in particular supports the thesis about the genuine translation from the Kajkavian to Prekmurje Slovene dialect linguistic system; in addition, a full translation, and not just a transcription or an adaptation (correction) of the Litany text in the Kajkavian prayer books, is present in 16 places.