Contribution of Ivan Gams to the Development of Slovene Karst Terminology

Razvitost znanstvene terminologije je eden od pomembnih kazalcev stanja v posamezni znanstveni veji. Zato je pomenila izdaja Slovenske kraške terminologije leta 1973 pomembno dejanje in prelomnico v slovenskem krasoslovju. Leto pozneje sta izšli tudi podobni terminologiji v srbskem in hrvaškem jeziku, vse to pa je bila posledica odločitve takratne Zveze geografskih organizacij Jugoslavije o jugoslovanskem znanstvenem simpoziju o kraški terminologiji, ki je bil v Ljubljani od 22.-23. oktobra 1971. Za vsem tem je stal prof. Ivan Gams, ki je bil ne samo pobudnik ampak tudi izvajalec te akcije. A tudi po njegovi pobudi so se slovenski krasoslovci v tem pogledu prebudili že deset let prej, leta 1962, ko je bil v okviru Geografskega društva Slovenije prvi posvet na to temo. Začetki samostojne slovenske krasoslovne terminologije segajo celo v drugo polovico 19. stoletja, ko so bili s prvim vodnikom o Postojnski jami avtorja Coste (1863), pisanim v slovenščini, postavljeni njeni prvi znanstveni temelji. Ivan Gams pa je skupaj s sodelavci pred tridesetimi leti z izdajo sodobno zasnovane Slovenske kraške terminologije, opremljene s tujejezičnimi sopomenkami, omogočil njen enakopraven mednarodni položaj ob boku drugih terminologij, s tem pa prispeval tudi k narodni in znanstveni samozavesti. The stage of the scientific terminology is by all means one of the indicators of the development of the scientific branch, to which it belongs. Therefore the publishing of the Slovene karst terminology in 1973 was an important event for further development of Slovene karstology. Still more, the efforts for a comparative national karst terminologies of former common state Yugoslavia were successfully achieved in publishing the Serbian and Croatian karst terminology also, a year later. In fact, the former Association of the geographical societies of Yugoslavia decided to give full support to its subcommission in preparing the project Karst terminology of the Yugoslave nations and to a joint Yugoslave symposium on Karst terminology, held in Ljubljana from 22-23th October 1971, both guided and organised by prof. Ivan Gams, who was also the original initiator of this idea. All this efforts were newertheless combined and connected with the international work of that time to find most appropriate terms and definitions for the karst phenomena and to make them comparable in terms of national terminologies. Ivan Gams was therefore not only a most important promoter of the Slovene karst terminology and one of the leading persons of the scientific karstology in the time concerned but was due to his global ideas also one of the central persons in the international karstology.