Rajko Nahtigal (April 14, 1877, Novo mesto – March 29, 1958, Ljubljana) was a Slovenian Slavologist, philologist, linguist and academic. He also contributed to the field of Albanianology.

Nahtigal was the first dean of the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, the first president of the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana and for a year rector of the University of Ljubljana. Scholar of Old Slavic language and literacy, history of Slavic languages, Old Russian literature and the Russian language. He was a noted scholar of the Old Church Slavonic Prayer Book (1941/42) and the Old Russian Epic Poem on Igor’s March (1954). His book “Slavic Languages” is still one of the reliable sources for Slavic philology. 

Contribution to Albanianology

In 1916-1917 he was a participant of the “Literary Commission” of Shkodra, which aimed to further solve the problems of the Albanian language, after the Congress of Bitola. In the framework of this activity, the Slovenian albanologist developed a huge study activity. He drafted an opposition to the “Literary Commission” in the German language, which was published on August 17, 1917 with the title “Die Frage einer einerheitnen albanischen Sprache” (The question of the unification of the writing of the Albanian language). The essence of Nahtigal’s entire treatment was the argument to choose the dialect of Central Albania as representative. According to him, this had to be done for a number of reasons, which included the geographical aspect and its elaborate embodiment in texts by K. Kristoforidhi and other authors.

Nachtigali’s interest in the Albanian language resulted in the publication of several important studies and publications on the Albanian language and its history, such as: “Die Bildung der Possessivpronomina im Albanischen und ihre bisherige falsche Auffassung” (“Posta e Shqypnia”, Shkodër, April 28 1917) (Construction of possessive pronouns in the Albanian language and their wrong concepts so far); “Die Frage einer einerheiten albanischen Schriftsprache” (Graz, 1917); (The issue of the unification of the writing of the Albanian language) “O elbasanskem pismu in pismenstvu na njem” (Arhiv za arbanasku starinu, jezik in etnologiju I, Belgrade, 1923); (On the history of the alphabet of Elbasan).

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