engleski

The Undead Language: Latin, Church and the Standardisation of Croatian

Even though it had ceased to be a native tongue during the first millenium of the common era, Latin continued to be used extensively in large parts of Europe as the language of religion and learning until deep into the eighteenth century (Burke 2004). As such, it often served as a vehicle of social projects, be they undertaken to preserve the existent state of affairs or to promote new ideas (Waquet 2001). During most of the early modern period the territory of the present-day Croatia – land placed at the crossroads between Western and Eastern Europe and Ottoman Empire – was in the situation of a triglossia, involving the main international language (Latin), the language of a dominant political power (Italian, German, Hungarian, or Turkish, depending on region), and the local vernacular as the L-code. Towards the end of the period Latin was rapidly losing its domains of use, while the remaining varieties competed for the social prestige. In difference to the trends in the rest of Europe, the use of Latin had a crucial role in the formation of the modern Croatian nation. On the one hand, the Roman Catholic Church, to which the majority of Croats have belonged, has been the only global institution that retained Latin in its official use. On the other, Latin was the official language in Croatia until as late as 1847, and the language of school instruction until 1850 (Rapacka 2003). Taking in account the standardisational routines in early modern Europe, as well as specific features of the language of religion (Samarin 1976), the paper will survey various types of Latin texts produced by ecclesiastical institutions among Croats and examine their impact on the social setting that eventually led to the standardisation of Croatian language in the nineteenth century. Special attention will be given to the interplay of the religious, political and linguistic factors, as well as to the types of influence exerted at different hierarchical levels of Church organisation. The analysis will aim at giving a more complete picture of the significance a dead language had in the shaping of a modern linguistic standard.

Roman Catholic Church; Latin; Croatian; standardisation

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