engleski

Commodification of the Glagolitic script in contemporary Croatian material culture of multilingualism

The Glagolitic script was the first script used in the history of Slavs for literacy in their own languages. Although a great majority of Slavic nations abandoned it after some time and introduced the Cyrillic or Latin script, it was used in Croatia until the first decades of the 20th century, simultaneously with different varieties of the Latin script. However, in recent years there has been a noticeable revival of a symbolic usage of the script in Croatia, included in school curricula as a significant component of the Croatian cultural heritage. Letters of the script have also found their place on logotypes of numerous national institutions, on various products, such as souvenirs, wine bottles or key rings, as well as on art objects, in graphic design, and inscriptions in the public space. Since the Glagolitic script hasn’t been used productively in Croatia for almost a century, the present-day usage is entirely symbolic. In this paper I analyse the significance of the Glagolitic script for contemporary Croats and their identity and I will explain the process of commodification of the script and its usage in tourism. This paper draws on the increasing body of literature on the commodification of language in the context of the globalised new economy and on the literature on the material culture of multilingualism. The material culture of multilingualism is defined as “a specific blend of materialities, originating from many cultures which constitute a multilingual society” (Aronin and Ó Laoire 2013: 228). The materialities that will be analysed as language-defined objects of material culture are graffiti and inscriptions on municipal buildings, photographs of souvenirs, memorabilia, wine bottle labels, all collected or photographed in the wider Zadar area in Croatia.

commodification of language, Glagolitic script, material culture, multilingualism, tourism, public space

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