So ƚa grafìa latina de i Slavi darente caxa

“Something should also be said about the theses that

exaggerate the perfection of the monographemic system. Such a system

was first devised in Croatia by Pavao Vitezović, but the implementation

of this system remained in his manuscripts.

Vitezović’s solutions were taken over by Ljudevit Gaj in 1830. The

principle that a single phoneme is used for a single grapheme is good and

economical, but the principle alone cannot be considered ideal.

Theoretically, it does not matter whether we use a grapheme with a

superscript or subscript diacritic mark, or whether we add another

grapheme that cannot be realized in the speech sequence to the existing

grapheme. The diacritic mark has the same function as an added letter.

Our old writers and linguists pursued the possibilities of unambiguous

writing, and their efforts were aimed precisely at achieving as much

uniformity in conscious normative interventions as is necessary to avoid

any ambiguity. Superficial research may assume that their graphemic

suggestions contain different recordings of the same phonemes, but it is

necessary to repeatedly re-read the works of our old writers and linguists

and use detailed analyses to point to the uninterrupted flow in the

development of the Croatian Latin script.”

Croatian Latin Script Throughout the Centuries

Loretana Farkaš

University of Osijek