The president of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU), Momir Đurović, said that the first volume of the Dictionary of the Montenegrin Literary and Folk Language needs "a little" improvement. Đurović called for comments to be submitted to CAN and promised that they would be professionally reviewed. "We publicly say that there are mistakes, but much less than what is said. We are ready, when we have gathered all the comments, for the Council to consider each one in an extended convocation and, if necessary, correct something, remove it, add it...", said Đurović in a guest appearance on Živa istina. Despite the shortcomings, Đurović believes that a good job was done, stating that the work of the Dictionary was approached professionally. He sees criticism as the result of campaigning and ignorance. "The book is very good, although many criticize it through the campaign. We approached this work very professionally in an environment that had no staff, that had never seriously collided with lexicography until this case. That's why there are so many criticisms out of simple ignorance," said Đurović and added that he would not retract the Dictionary. "Why, what are the mistakes? What are the arguments," Đurović asked.
The fact that, for example, the Meshihat of the Islamic Community condemned, as they judged, gross insults and falsifications against Islam and Muslims, published in the Dictionary, according to Đurović, is not a reason for the withdrawal of the first volume. When reminded that the term "muddy" is described quite inappropriately, with a sentence that mentions the cut off nose of a Muslim, Đurović says that mistakes occur. "Well, you don't understand that mistakes always occur. It's done the way it's done, it's not ideal, and that's what we said. There are mistakes and we will correct them, that's no problem," Đurović pointed out. In the dictionary, from A to V, there is no mention of Vojislavljević among the 12 thousand words. Đurović does not see a problem in that. "What is the problem, it was not in that edition, it will be corrected, it will be supplemented in the next edition. We didn't jump, but the corps jumped. No one intentionally skipped," said Đurović. However, Đurović says that all criticisms were answered very professionally and studiously. "It is true that there are one, two, three justified criticisms. We answered all criticisms in detail. I am convinced that the author's team completely realistically and reasonedly rejected prosaic criticism," said Đurović. However, the dictionary does not have the editor's signature. Đurović is not concerned by this, even though the Academy's Rulebook on Publishing Activities states that every publication must have an editor-in-chief and at least two reviewers. Đurović says that everything was done according to the Law, which is above the Rulebook. "I will tell you openly - we have nothing to hide. We could not find an adequate person to be the editor, then we consulted the Law, the publishers and we saw that it could work with the editorial team. That is the only reason," he explained. The work on the Dictionary for two years cost about 70 thousand EUR. "It is a very small circulation, negligible. It seems to have been photocopied in more copies than we published. The idea is to eventually publish the complete dictionary because, I hope, we will overcome these misunderstandings", he said. In the end, Đurović announced that he was satisfied with the Academy's contribution to Montenegro.
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