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Tugboat, Volume 17 (1996), No. 1 29 Croatian Fonts Darko Zubrinic The TUGboat, Volume 17 (1996), No. 1 29 Croatian Fonts Darko Zubrini´ˇ c The aim of this note is to inform the interested reader about the possibility of obtaining several new fonts: Croatian Glagolitic (round – sometimes called Bulgarian glagolitic, angular, Baˇska tablet, cursive, ligatures, the Baromi´c broken ligatures, calligraphic), Croatian Cyrillic, ste´cak ornaments and Croatian wattle patterns. They represent a considerable extension of the first version of Glagolitic fonts I created in 1992 (see [2]). Bearing in mind that the Croatian Glagolitic script has a long history of at least 11 centuries (from the 9th to the 20th), it is not surprising that there exists a large variety of handwritten and printed versions. The author has created several major fonts of type using this script. • The so-called “round type” font, together with the corresponding numerical values, is shown in Figure 1. In some documents there appear additional versions of some letters, e.g., the “spider-like h” >.The tops of letters appearing in this font are aligned. The “hanging style” of the round glagolitic can be svoem illustrated e.g., by b3y etva, ,as it appears on the Kiiv folia (the first folio is from Croatia, written in the region of Dubrovnik, 11th century; the remaining six are from Czechia, 10th century). • The font of the Baˇska stone tablet (carved in around A.D. 1100 on the island of Krk) is shown in Figure 2. 30 TUGboat, Volume 17 (1996), No. 1 There are also earlier monuments from the 9th A A1 O O80 century that mention Croatian kings and dukes, B B2 P P90but written in the Latin script and in the Latin V V3 R R 100 language. G G4 S S 200 The reader will notice that several Latin and/or O I M N D D5 Cyrillic letters appear in the table: , , , , T T 300 V T, (= V). This is only one among numerous E E6 U U 400 ˇ proofs of the parallel use of three scripts (Glagolitic, Z7 F F 500 Latin, Cyrillic) and three languages (Croatian, 9 Dz 8 H H 600 Church Slavonic and Latin) in Croatia. The three- Z Z9 Q ω 700 script and three-language character of the Croatian ¨ Y I10 ˇ ´ Middle Ages is a unique phenomenon in the history S´c, C 800 I I20 of European culture (see [1]). C C 900 J Dj 30 ˇ C 1000 A O K K40 ˇ A1 O80 S 2000 B P L L50 B2 P90 7 4, semivowels V R M M60 V3 R 100 W Ja, Je G S N N70 G4 S 200 2 Ju D D5 T T 300 E Figure 1: Croatian Glagolitic “round type” E6 U U 400 ˇ Z7 F F 500 x a, A1 o, O 9 O80 Dz 8 H H 600 b B2 p Z P90 Z9 Q ω 700 V v, V3 r ¨ ˇ ´ Y R 100 I10 S´c, C 800 g G4 s I S 200 I20 C C 900 d D5 T t, ˇ , J T 300 Dj 30 , C 1000 e E6 u ˇ K U 400 K40 S 2000 ˇ Z7 h L H 600 L50 ^ semivowel z Z9 ˇ ´ M S´c, C 800 M60 Ja, Je ¨ y I10 c N C 900 N70 Ju I i, I20 ˇ , C 1000 k K40 ˇ S 2000 Figure 3: The angular form of Glagolitic l L50 4 3, semivowels • Since the 12th century the Glagolitic script M m, M60 w Ja, Je has survived only in Croatia. Until that time it N n, N70 Ju existed also in some other regions, e.g., Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania and Ukraine, when it was nasal “en” Figure 2: The font of the Baˇska stone tablet replaced by the Cyrillic script, and also in Czechia. In Croatia there developed the so-called angular The Baˇska tablet is one of our most important form of Glagolitic, shown in Figure 3. Its golden 2 cultural monuments (2×1m ). The reason is that it period falls between the 12th and the 16th centuries. was written in the Croatian language (with elements After that a decline of this script ensued, as a result of Church Slavonic) as early as the 11th century. Its of the penetration of the Ottoman Empire. text comprises more than 400 letters and contains • the earliest mention of a Croatian king written in the Croatian Glagolitic has hundreds of interesting Croatian vernacular: Z”v”nimir”, kral” hr”vat”sk”¨ı ligatures. Some of them are shown in Figure 4. (Hrvatska = Croatia), i.e., Zvonimir, the Croatian It is striking that a printed Glagolitic book, the king, or in the Glagolitic: Brozi´c breviary from 1561 (1081 pages), has as many as 250 ligatures. z3v3nimir3 • Unique in the history of European printing is the creation of the so-called Baromi´c broken ligatures. kral3 hr3vxt3sk3y TUGboat, Volume 17 (1996), No. 1 31 of Congress in Washington you can see a sample ol of the first Croatian incunabulum, printed in 1483 4 8 am jur oli tl (unfortunately, it is not known where precisely). Six copies are in Croatia, two in the Vatican Library, " bl jutr olju to one in the National Library in Vienna (Austria) 9 : bo ko ot tr and one in the Saltykov Sˇˇcedrin Library in St. Petersburg (Russia). It was the first book in the . br li pl tv history of European printing that was not printed C go lo po tvo in Latin characters, as well as the first incunabulum 3 / D gr lt pod tvr not printed in the Latin language. Probably the most valuable Croatian Glagolitic 1 ! F ho lv pot vd book is the Missal of Hrvoje (1404), held in the 2 E hr lju poto vl Library of Turkish sultans (Topkapi Saray) in Con- stantinople. il ljud potr vo A Croat, George (Juraj) de Slavonie, or de $ ili ml povr vod Sorbonne (14th/15th century), a professor at the 0 it mlˇc pr vr Sorbonne in Paris, left us several valuable Glagolitic manuscripts written by his hand; they are held - 5 > iˇze mo prv vt today in the Municipal Library in Reims (France). ; A jaˇze ms pt zl One of them contains a prayer, “Our Father”, with which we would like to illustrate the Croatian 6 7 = jeje mˇz so zo Glagolitic: * ? jeˇze no ti zr e na 6 i e esi nanebesih6 * sveti se ime e*idi cesarso oe * budi Figure 4: Some Croatian Glagolitic ligatures O vola o ko nanebesi inazei* lib The idea was to add one half of a letter (say H na vsedanni dai nam'ga danas i :pusti A B A of ) to another (say ), to obtain a broken nam' dl'gi na e * ko e i mi :pu aem' A ligature (B – ba). Other combinations are also a im6 * i nevavedi nas' v' ˇ dl'ge dl nikom n D L L possible with D ( ,D), ( , Z), ( ,L), napast' * a iz'bavinas' od neizni N V T T V ( ,V), ( , T). Broken ligatures were used in the Baromi´c Missal, the incunabulum printed • In the 16th and 17th century some calligraphic in the Croatian city of Senj in 1494 (last year Glagolitic letters began to appear in Croatian we celebrated its 500th anniversary). Only three printed books: samples are preserved: one in the Saltykov Sˇˇcedrin V D Z I A (A), (V), (D), (Z), (I), Library in St. Petersburg (Russia), one (the only L M N P K (K), (L), (M), (N), (P), complete copy) in the Szeczenyi Library in Budapest ˇ S H (Hungary), and one in Croatia on the island of R (R), (S), (H), (C). Cres. When looking at the text containing Baromi´c • There are thousands of cursive Glagolitic docu- broken ligatures, one has the impression that this ments, bearing witness above all to the Croatian incunabulum was handwritten. A few examples: language and its very early use in official docu- AROMI DAD MOLITVA B (Baromi´c), (rain), ments, and to the highly organized civil life in the (prayer). Middle Ages. Probably the most important is the Hundreds of Croatian Glagolitic texts, both Vinodol Code from 1288. Also very important is handwritten and printed, the oldest from the 12th the Istarski razvod from the 14th century, written century, are held in national museums in more than in the region of Istria in three official copies: in the 20 European countries, and also in the USA.* Latin and German languages (in Latin script), and A reader living in New York can see the in the Croatian language (as was expressly stated), beautiful Croatian Missal from around 1410 in the using the Glagolitic script. It defined the borders Pierpont Morgan Library (reprinted by the Martin between different rulers in Istria. Equally impor- Sagner Verlag, Munich, 1976). In the Library tant are the city statutes of many Croatian cities written in the Glagolitic, the earliest dating from * I would like to take the opportunity to appeal the 14th century. A variant of the cursive Croatian to readers: if you know of any Croatian Glagolitic documents held privately, please inform me. 32 TUGboat, Volume 17 (1996), No. 1 A A O O O A1 O80 A A O P P B B B P B2 P P90 B R R V V V V R V3 R R 100 S S G G T G G T S G4 S S 200 >, 5 D, D U U E D D E T D5 T T 300 F F , , Zz E E H U E6 U U 400 H 9 DZ ˇ Q OT F F Z7 F 500 Z Z ˇ ˇ S´c, C I I 9 9 H Dz 8 H H 600 C C 2 , Dj ˇ Z Z C Q Z9 Q ω 700 K K ˇ S ¨ L Y Y ˇ ´ L I10 S´c, C 800 ^ semivowel L LJ I I J, & C I20 C C 900 ja M M ju J J ˇ J30 C 1000 N N N NJ K K ˇ K40 S 2000 L L L50 ^ Ja, Je Figure 6: Croatian Cyrillic M M M60 _ Ju GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG HHHHHHHHHHH N N N70 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Figure 5: A variant of cursive Croatian dancers: Glagolitic, with the angular form for com- parison Glagolitic is shown in Figure 5 (we provide also the lkkkkkd angular type for comparison): human-like figures: ubrini An example: Darko .
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