Ján Dekan K Vývoji Jazyků

In 1951, in the period after Stalin’s intervention against Marrism, young Slovak archaeologist and historian Ján Dekan published a study Za stalinské riešenie otázok etnogenezy [For the Stalinist Solution of the Questions of Ethno-genesis]. The present paper shows that hidden behind the Marxist terminology, a worth reading and worth considering work on the topic of the rise and development of languages can be found. With the help of the concept of four paradigms of historical (historical-comparative) linguistics, Dekan’s study is evaluated as a text fitting into the revisionist paradigm, characteristic by the assumption of a balanced role of divergence and convergence in language development. Further relationships of the Dekan’s work to other theories and principles of language development are discussed