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(Ortho)graphic Reforms in Croatian Glagolitic Texts

The Glagolitic script was created for the Old Church Slavonic phonological system, which considerably differs from the system of Croatian Church Slavonic. Croatian (mostly Čakavian) sound changes also affected the Church Slavonic language, which was used in Croatia. As a result, some Late Common Slavic oppositions, which were characteristic for OCS, have been neutralized, and some Glagolitic letters became phonologically nonfunctional, i.e. they were left without the corresponding sounds. Such letters have either been eliminated from the inventory or gradually changed their function. The author determines that major (ortho)graphic reforms have been carried out at the beginning of the 12th century, in the second half of the 13th century, in the second half of the 14th century, and at the beginning of the 16th century. At the beginning of the 12th century the letters for nasal vowels, as well as the letters Z,  and the digraphs for jery have been eliminated, and the letters m and  (štapić) have been imported from the Latin script. In the second half of the 13th century the letters , ,  and M have been eliminated, and  (apostrophe), f and e have been introduced. The function of the letters I and Y was reduced, and the function of štapić and apostrophe regulated (štapić appears in the place of strong jers, and apostrophe in the place of weak jers). The letter j begins to appear for Common Slavic *dj, instead of žd, and strong jers were substituted by a. Towards the end of the 14th century the roles of I, Y, [ and  have been redefined. From that time I was used as the only sign for number 10, and Y only as an initial letter. Štapić occurs almost mechanically at the end of the word, and the apostrophe was used without any strict rules. In non-liturgical miscellanies from the 16th century the jer signs (štapić and apostrophe) were completely dropped, and the letter  begins to designate the sound [j]. Since these reforms coincide with the major revisions of the Croatian Glagolitic liturgical books as well as with the major paleographic turning points in the development of the Glagolitic script, the author concludes that these reforms weren’t spontaneous and accidental, but planned and systematic.

Croatian Church Slavonic language; Glagolitic script; orthography

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