engleski

Glagolitic Script in Contemporary Croatian Semiotic Landscapes

As one of three scripts used in Croatian history, the Glagolitic script holds a special place in Croatian culture and national identity. Although it has not been used productively in Croatia for more than a century, in recent years it has become more visible in the public space, both on objects of material culture (Oštarić, 2018) and on inscriptions in the LL. Apart from tattoos, graffiti, and occasional public signage we can also find Glagolitic in schoolscapes, where students regularly create Glagolitic-related artwork in their art classes. This revival of the script can be seen today in those parts of the country where historically it had been used for centuries, as well as in institutions, buildings, and monuments of national importance in areas where it had not been used in the past, such as in the nation’s capital. This contribution will present the analysis of the use of Glagolitic in the semiotic landscape of Croatia, based on the collection of LL signs photographed in the September of 2020. The photographs were taken during fieldwork in central and northern Istra, in Rijeka, Senj, Otočac, Zadar and Biograd na Moru, as well as on islands such as Pašman, Pag, Krk, and Cres. The paper will also present the findings of semi-structured interviews conducted with participants involved in the design, production and setting up of LL signs, mayors, teachers, and representatives of educational institutions. The combination of two datasets will help us understand and describe the role of Glagolitic in the contemporary public space of Croatia and explain the reasons for the recent increase in its visibility, while putting it in the context of worldwide use of opaque scripts for symbolic purposes, such as in the examples of Japanese Kanji or Chinese on tattoos, or Celtic-type fonts in the Irish LL (Kallen, 2009).

Glagolitic script, linguistic landscape, semiotic landscape, Croatia

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