Professional paper
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.47960/3029-3103.2026.12.101
Linguistic Features of the Charter of the First Bosnian King Tvrtko I Kotromanić Issued to the Ragusa Citizens, Written in Žrnovnica on April 10, 1378
Marijana Galić
orcid.org/0000-0001-7538-9311
; Srednja strukovna škola Posušje
Abstract
The charter of the first Bosnian king, Tvrtko I Kotromanić, belongs to the corpus of Cyrillic medieval Bosnian and Humian administrative documents. The charter was written on April 10, 1378 in Žrnovnica, and completed on June 17, 1378 in Trstivnica. It was written by the chief of Government and consists of 42 lines. This is the most ceremonial charter of Tvrtko, written in Croatian Cyrillic script (bosančica). It is currently kept in the State Archives in Dubrovnik. With the charter, King Tvrtko I Kotromanić renews and confirms the privileges of the previous rulers to the Ragusa citizens, reflecting his political power and relations with Ragusa. The language is adapted to the administrative style of the medieval Bosnian chancery, which had strict rules for drafting documents according to the linguistic standard of the time. The charter reflects the vernacular language with Old Church Slavonic elements. The paper analyses the linguistic features of the charter through graphology, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon.
Keywords
charter; Croatian Cyrillic script; language; graphology; phonology; morphology; syntax; lexicon.
Hrčak ID:
351275
URI
Publication date:
1.7.2026.
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