From Latin to Croatian Church Slavonic in the digital era

Abstract

The Old Church Slavonic Institute in Zagreb is the central Croatian scientific institution for the study of the Glagolitic script and the Croatian Church Slavonic language. The Glagolitic script was the first writing system used by Croats to write their mother tongue from the 10th century onwards. The preservation of the Glagolitic script is one of the distinctive features of Croatian Church Slavonic that sets it apart from other redactions of Church Slavonic. Another characteristic is its affiliation with the Western (Roman Catholic) rite, which is reflected in the fact that most Croatian Church Slavonic texts were either translated from Latin or adapted to Latin models and the language reflects numerous Latin structures (e.g. passive periphrastic, accusative and infinitive). On the other hand, this language is specific due to the inclusion of many spoken (Chakavian) features. The presentation will introduce this script and language and its relationship to Latin and then present the activities of the Old Church Slavonic Institute in the field of digital humanities. The DigiSTIN project (Development of the Digital Infrastructure Model of the Old Church Slavonic Institute – https://stin.hr/en/content/digistin-en/), in the framework within which most of the digital content is developed, will be presented. The presentation will include games for learning Croatian Church Slavonic and the Glagolitic script, the status of the e-version of the Dictionary of Croatian redaction of Church Slavonic, e-grammar and different digital content for the popularization of this language and script.