Original scientific paper
The language of the Passion according to St. Matthew in the Croatian Glagolitic Missals
Marinka Šimić
Abstract
The linguistic analysis of the Passion according to St. Matthew in the Proper of the Season in sixteen Croatian Glagolitic Missals - fourteen handwritten and two prineted: Vat4 (Borg. illirico 4), Nov, Ber, Hrv, Roč, Lab1, New, Vat8 (Borg. illirico 8), Vb1, Vb2, Oxf1, Oxf2, Koph, Lab2, P and Senj, has shown considerable linguistic differences in spite of the fact that the Proper of the Season is the oldest and the most standardised part of any Missal. A detailed analysis has been done on the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexical level. A statistical method was applied with the results in percentages illustrated by tables. According to semivowel symbols, the semivowel might have had the vowel value only in the two codices: Vat4 and Oxf1. Unlike the semivowel, "jat" was not only a grapheme but it had the vowel value in the majority of the Missals. Two tendencies were noticed concenring "jat": 1. Ekavism had greater influence than ikavism in all the texts, even in Vat4 (with "jat" best preserved, that is in the Old Church Slavonic norm). 2. The Missals with only a formal use of symbols for the semivowel, also use the symbol "jat" formally. The morphology of the Passion texts in all the Missals is older than the phonology. Among the Missals any significant difference cannot be noticed because all of them have equally preserved the older morphology. However, there were innovations introduced in some instances in the more recent Missals, for example the pronouns in Hrv, New and Senj. Here are some archaic linguistic characteristics of the verb morphology of the text of the Passion According to St. Matthew: the asigmatic aorist, present passive participlle and inflexion of the present active participle.
Further on we tried to answer the question: what kind of a relation is there between the Borg. Illirico 4 and the other Missals as well as among all the Missals. The analysis shows that only New differs most from the oldest text. But as far as the lexical inventory and phonology (the consonant cluster žd) are concerned it is Hrv that differs most from the oldest Missal.
The well known north and south group division of the Croatian Glagolitic liturgical books has been tested on the basis of the research of the Passion According to St. Matthew. The result confirm the division: Vat4, Lab2, Koph, Roč and Lab1 belong to the north, Oxf1, Ber, Oxf2, Vb2, Vat4, Vb1, Nov, and P are somewhere in the middle, while Senj, New and Hrv belong to the south group.
Many factors influenced the formation of the language of the Croatian Glagolitic liturgical books: the date of the source from which it was copied, the author's education and his rapport toward the language or its norm, the place of origin, etc.
At the end all the analysed Missals are described according to the most important language characteristics: the vocalisation of semivowel, jat, the consonant cluster žd, the interrogative-relative and relative-interrogative pronouns, imperative, imperfect, as well as the syntactic and lexical characteristics.
The Passion According to St. Matthew from the Glagolitic Missal Borg. Illir. 4 is transliterated in the Latin alphabet.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
15045
URI
Publication date:
30.9.2000.
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