JUNGMANN, JOSEF, an eminent Bohemian lexicographer and bibliographer, was born at Hudlitz, near Beraun, on the 16th of July 1773. His father was a peasant, who specially occupied himself with the management of bees, and Jungmann, who early showed a literary turn, had much to struggle with in devoting himself to his favourite pursuits. His example appears to have produced an effect on others of the family, for Antonin, a younger brother, became a physician, and Jan a priest. The German language was introduced into the schools of Bohemia in 1774, and Jungmann, though from his name he was evidently of German de=cent, and though, as his after life evinced, he had talents for acquiring languages, seems to have felt as a peculiar hardship the necessity he was under of obtaining a mastery of German. He made it the main business of his after life to restore and promote the study and cultivation of the Bohemian language, which, in his boyhood, was almost abandoned to the use of the peasantry, and which, owing in a considerable degree to his exertions, is now the ordinary language of Bohemian authors, who were formerly accustomed to employ either German or Latin. Ho studied first at Beranu, and then at the University of Prague ; and In tho year 1709 obtained an appointment as teacher of grammar at the gymnasium, or grammar school, of Leitmeritz, where he devoted part of his leisure to giving gratuitona instruction in Bohemian. While at Leitmeritz lie translated several specimens of English poetry—Pope's 'Eloise,' and Messiah ;' Goldsmith's 'Edwin and Angelina ; ' Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard;' and above all the 'Paradise Lost,' which was completed about 1804, but not published till 1811, and which came to a second edition in 1843, in the Nowoceskii Biblioteka,' a collec tion of the Bohemian classics. In 1815 he was transferred to Prague as professor of Latin at the grammar school of the Old-Town, of which, in 1834, he became the prefect, or principal. Iu 1840 he was chosen rector of the university, an office which was delivered to him by his brother Antonin, who had occupied it the year before, while his brother Jan read high mass as part of the ceremonies. Antonin, who has written several medical works in Bohemian, has also pub lished an essay on the Sanscrit language, and Jan is likewise an author in the native tongue. In 1845 the infirmities of age compelled Josef to retire from the management of the gymnasium, but ho was still occupied with correcting works for the press at the time of his death, on the 16th of November 1847. He had for several years been an object of affectionate veneration to tho Bohemian public.
Jtingmann is the author of two works which are certain to preserve his name. One the Slownik Cesko-Netnecky,' the great Bohemian Dictionary, in five quarto volumes, comprising at least four thousand pages of close print in double columns, is a stupendous monument of zeal and diligence, which the Bohemians proudly place by the side of Johnson and Adelung. The only other dictionary of a Slavonic lan
guage which can be compared to it is the Polish of Linde, which is indeed more rich in points of derivation and comparison. In uniformity with its title, 'Bohemian-German Dictionary,' equivalents to the Bohe mian words arc giveu in German in this elaborate work, but the main mass of information which it contains is only accessible to the Bohemian scholar, and even the Preface is given solely in Bohemian. This dictionary, which passed through the press between 1835 and 1839, was published at the expense of the Bohemian Museum, and in an imperial decree which was issued soon after its appearance, it was directed that the orthography adopted by Jungmann should be taken as a standard iu the schools of the country. The triumph however was a short-lived one, for already in 1842 the Museum had adopted another system of orthography, to which Jungmann was obliged to conform in other works issued under its auspices, hoping, as he tells us in his 'History of Bohemian Literature,' that this new system might be the last. This 'History' is his other great labour, and it is a most useful compilation to all who take interest in a curious branch of literary research. The first edition, which was issued in 1825, was out of print for several years befora the appearance of the second, which Jungmann was engaged upon at the time of his death, and which was published in 1849. It is not so much what its title indicates as a complete Bohemian bibliography. The narrative portion, which Is somewhat dry, hardly occupies a tenth part of the work, the remainder is a complete and minute enumeration of every book iu the Bohemian language, printed or manuscript, of which Jungmann could acquire information, from those of the earliest period, the manuscripts discovered by Hanka [HANKA], to the year 1846. He even had the patience to form a list of the separate articles in periodicals, so that, with the assistance of very copious indexes, a reader may ascertain iu a few minutes, which of the works of Dickens, Scott, and Shakspere were translated into Bohemian by the year 1846, who were the trans lators, and when the versions appeared. The miscellaneous writings of Jungmann were collected in one volume, and published by the Bohemian Museum in 1841. They mainly consist of translations from English, French, and German, but there are some essays on tho favourite subject of his native language, which are curious in matter and animated in manner.