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Ass. Prof. Zorica Tomic, PhD

Belgrade University,

Faculty of Philology

LANGUAGE, ALPHABET AND CULTURAL IDENTITY:

THE SERBIAN CASE

Abstract:

Serbian Cyrillic script is one of the main cultural values of Serbian people, not only as their national alphabet, but also as one of the main graphic forms of Serbian spirituality. The history of Serbian Cyrillic script can be understood as a history of Serbian identity struggle and affirmation of Serbian culture. The biggest masterpieces of Serbian culture are written and printed on Cyrillic script. That is why giving up the use of Cyrillic can be interpreted as abandoning one of the most important parts of Serbian intangible heritage.

At the same time, wide and parallel use of Latin alphabet and its presence within Serbian culture can be seen as the real sign of Serbian fundamental and deep openness towards the vibrant and challenging intercultural communication with the world.

Key words: language, alphabet, cultural identity, Cyrillic script, Latin alphabet,

cultural heritage

If we accept the basic difference between categories of culture and

civilisation, already described in theory (Tomic, Z., 2001.), it follows that

language is the fundamental mean of human communication while the

alphabet is the main communicative mean of civilisation. In that sense,

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linguistic base and cultural history are two equal and important factors,

upon which is based the difference between language and alphabet.

The final phase of alphabetisation completed by the Greeks got its

realisation within two most widely spread alphabets - Latin and Cyrillic.

Both alphabets are used in Serbia, where Cyrillic has almost a millennium

long tradition, while Latin alphabet entered Serbian cultural space relatively

late, less than a century ago.

The development of Serbian literacy was deeply connected with

the great cultural turning point in the 9th century, when the Slavs begun

practicing the divine mass in Old Slavic language. Moravian ruler Rastislav

(846-870) asked Byzantine emperor Michael III to send Slavic speaking

Christian missionaries to Moravia. Even though Christianity was already

accepted in Moravia, Rastislav, understanding the need for deeper unity

within the Slavic community, comprehended the great importance of sermon

in native language.

On the other side, wisely projecting his political interests towards

the Slavic people of the Balkans, Byzantine emperor approved of the

mission thus making a visionary act which started the history of Slavic

literacy. “Old Slavic was added to the languages which were considered as

holy and then suitable for sermon (Greek, Latin and Hebrew). Two

missionaries, Thessalonica brothers (Constantine Cyril and Method) were

chosen for the mission. They are considered to be the founders of Slavic

literacy and literature” (Cigoja, B.,2008.).

With their assistants, Cyril and Method accepted Rastislav`s

invitation and in 863 went to Moravia (which is today a part of Southeast

Check republic) in order to preach sermons in native language, and later on,

to spread the influence of Byzantium and lessen the influence of German

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bishops and pilgrims. During that mission, Constantine, who got the monk

name of Cyril, had to design the letters of the new alphabet. The new

alphabet was based on the Greek alphabet. He formed new letters for the

vocals of Slavic language which did not exist in Greek. In the 19th century,

Slavic linguists gave the name Glagolic script to the new alphabet.

Besides the invention of the first Slavic alphabet adjusted to the

Slavic vocals, Cyril and Method translated selected parts of Gospel into the

Slavic language. By then, the Old Slavic language was established as the

first Serbian literature language. From the New Testament they translated

selected parts of Gospel and the Acts of Apostles which became the Selected

Gospel and the Selected Acts of Apostles. They also translated the Psalms of

the Old Testament. Cyril and Method named the language of these

translations Slavic. In contemporary science the accepted term is Old Church

Slavic, since that language was not colloquial, but only used in liturgy and

translations of Christian texts written in Greek.

CYRILLIC

Cyrillic is the second Slavic alphabet which was invented at the

beginning of the 10th century. Even though there are no exact facts about the

inventors of Cyrillic alphabet, we can assume that it was done by one of the

disciples of Cyril and Method. In spite of persecutions, one group of their

disciples reached Preslav, the historic Bulgarian capital. It is of main

importance that the Bulgarian state got the right to preach sermons in Old

Slavic language, and that is why the disciples of Cyril and Method were able

to continue their mission there.

In the first phase of their literacy Serbs used both Cyrillic and

Glagolic script, in spite of the fact that it was not an economic solution.

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Eventually, the daily practice brought to the use of a more functional

alphabet – Cyrillic. The advantage of Cyrillic was its great similarity with

Greek alphabet, which meant more intensive relations with Byzantine

culture and spirituality. For these reasons, as a formal alphabet, Cyrillic

became Serbian national alphabet. According to the historical documents

and monuments, we can claim that in XII century Cyrillic had the dominant

role in historic Raska, and was used in Dubrovnik, Hum and Bosnia, until

the Turkish invasion (Mladenovic, A, 1989).

From IX to XI century Serbian spiritual and cultural universe was

homogeneous, primarily thanks to the use of Old Slavic language, which

connected the great part of Slavic culture. That is why we could say that the

linguistic link implied the closeness among Slavic cultures, especially in the

Orthodox, Byzantine and generally Slavic cultural space.1

Serbian redaction of Old Slavic language, known as Serbian Slavic

language, till the third decade of the 18th century, when it dissolved,

changed a bit its grammatical and lexical structure. It must be emphasized

that because of certain modifications on different territories some

theoreticians presented the idea of Bosnian alphabet (bosancica scripture),

even though it is only a variation of Serbian Cyrillic known as western

Cyrillic, (ðorñić. P, 1987.)

The oldest monuments of Serbian Slavic language are dated by the

end of the 12th century. These are “Signatures of Great Duke Stephan

Nemanja and Count Miroslav”, “Signature of Count Miroslav”,

1 The great schism (1054) provoked the development of two different streams of Slavic

culture, marked in science as Slavia Orthodoxa (in East, amongst orthodox Slavs) and Slavia Latina (in West, amongst Catholic Slavs). Namely, according to that tradition,“there are two cultural zones in Serbo-Croatian language, which are meeting each other at the territory of former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina” (Cigoja, B., 2008.)

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“Miroslav’s Gospel” (the oldest preserved Serbian Slavic manuscript

written in Cyrillic, one of the world’s most beautiful manuscripts),

“Chilandar document of Stefan Nemanja”, and “Vukan’s Gospel”.

Serbian Slavic language for a long time functioned as the language

of Serbian literature. Beside the mentioned documents and scripts from the

12th century, Serbian Slavic language was the main instrument of Serbian

medieval literature, written by Stefan Nemanja, Saint Sava, Stefan the First

Crowned, Theodosius, Domentianus, Constantin Philosopher, as well as the

writers from Račani —Jerotej, Kiprijan, Gavrilo Stefanivić Venclović, who

worked in the first half of the 18th century.

However, in the third decade of the 17th century Serbian Slavic

was replaced by the Russian Slavic language, that was the Russian redaction

of Old Slavic language. After the Great Serbian Migration (1690) to the new

Catholic borders of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Metropolitan of

Belgrade and Karlovac, Mojsej Petrovic, asked for help from orthodox

Russian Empire and Emperor Peter the Great, requesting Russian books and

teachers who could spread orthodoxy in Slavic language.

The situation in Serbian culture was similar to the one mentioned

before with Moravian count Rastislav. The use of the Russian redaction of

Old Slavic language in Serbian culture from 1726 has two main

characteristics. One is dealing with the closer relations within the cultural

zone of the Slavia Orthodoxa while the other is connected with the

appearance of the new type of Serbian literature language – Slavic Serb

language.

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What was that language like?

That language was a mixture of popular spoken language from

Vojvodina region and Russian Church language. Actually it was the mixture

of popular language and the Serbian and Russian redaction of Old Slavic

language. The language of Russian redaction was not appropriate, because it

was not understandable for wider population.

Together with Russian books and language, two alphabets came in

Serbia: Russian Church Cyrillic and Russian Civil Cyrillic (born under the

reform of Peter the Great - 1768).

Serbian Slavic language was born within the need of Serbian

writers to write in a language which could be understood by much more

readers. It is accepted that the first published paper in Serbian Slavic

language was “Serbian Slavic magazine” published in Venice in 1768 by

Zachary Orfellinus.

Sava Mrkalj, one of the most educated Serbs from the beginning of

the 19th century was the first important reformer of Serbian Cyrillic. He

excluded all excessive letters from the Serbian alphabet. Until the main

reform of Serbian alphabet carried out by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic in the

middle of the 19th century, one of the specific characteristic of Serbian

language was diglossia, as a functional gap. One language was used for

official business communication, law and education, while the other one was

for colloquial use. Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic in his “Serbian vocabulary”

(1818.) applied Adelung’s rule “Write as it is spoken”, according to which

only one letter represents one vocal. That is how Serbian orthography

became almost completely phonetic, and maybe one of the most perfect in

the world.

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In 1815 the representatives of Serbian and Croatian intellectual

elite organised an informal meeting in Vienna (later called Vienna literary

agreement). They agreed upon the choice of Eastern Herzegovina dialect

and the universal use of orthography. The use of Cyrillic script was the only

permanent element in Slavic Serbian literacy. It was about to change with

the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.

The use of the Latin alphabet even among Serbs, who lived under the

Austro-Hungarian rule, was very rare.

The idea of replacement Cyrillic by Latin script became especially

actualized with the acceptance of Yugoslav ideology, and mostly with ideas

of cultural, linguistic and state communion with the Croats. The first

enthusiasm was soon left behind by the Croats, while the Serbs, particularly

in the period between the wars, accepted the use of Latin alphabet, more as a

fashion.

That trend was especially emphasized during the era of

Communism, when the acceptance of Latin alphabet was the mode of

expressing Serbian tendency for closer relations with Western parts of the

country, and also of strengthening the idea of state unity. Finally, when

speaking of regional alphabet distribution (Piper, 2003.), it is remarkable

that in the Western parts of Serbo-Croatian language zone the contact of

dominant Latin alphabet with Cyrillic was very weak, while in Serbia the

opposite was not the case. It was obvious that particularly in the last decade

of the 20th century the expansion of the use of Latin alphabet in Serbia was

very intensive.

Because of such practice and cultural policy which encouraged

equal status of both alphabets, many people living in Serbia today almost do

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not observe the difference between using Cyrillic or Latin script, no matter

in reading or writing.

CYRILLIC TODAY

In spite of the new Constitution (which was passed after Monte

Negro left the State Union) which proposes official use of Cyrillic, the two

alphabets tradition in Serbian language seems to back off in front of the very

intensive practice of Latin alphabet use. Even though Cyrillic script has

almost a millennium long tradition in Serbian culture, at the beginning of the

21st century, it is just an alphabet which is nominally primary, but, factually,

secondary.

One of the reasons for such tendency is based upon the fact that

during previous wars on the ex-Yugoslav territory, targeting Serbia as an

origin of all evils meant at the same time rejecting everything that had

national prefix. That “decontamination” wave, upon which the use and the

defence of national symbols were interpreted as a nationalistic, primitive,

retrograde and uncivilised “comeback to the Balkan liar” etc., presented the

decline of Cyrillic script as one of the collateral damages. Simultaneously,

there was widely encouraged scale of so called “European values”, which

were simply identified with the use of Latin alphabet.

In spite the fact that the use of Cyrillic is valorised, mostly

because it is the official alphabet taught in schools, used for books printing,

as well as for official documents and traffic signs, even though it is present

on 80% of all programs of National TV, in reality we are facing one

significant turning point in culture in which Cyrillic is withdrawing in front

of the more frequent use of Latin alphabet.

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Besides the fact that the problem was first noticed by the

professionals and then by media, it seems, on the other side, that the trend of

globalisation, primarily detected as the influence of foreign multinational

companies, imported to Serbia the new wave of fashionable “Latin-isation”.

Commercial use of Latin alphabet, used generally for foreign firms and

products, has become some kind of cultural imperative, through which

Serbian shops, products, firms and citizens should recommend themselves

for the membership in EU.

Moreover, the use of Latin alphabet in Serbia can be justified by

the orientation toward foreign languages in our educational system and by

the fact that both alphabets are taught in schools. But the pride of the

capacity to use both alphabets, gradually vanished, weakening the

“manoeuvring space” for Cyrillic script.

Under the cultural, political and ideological gap which appeared

after the wars in former Yugoslavia, term “Cyrillic” most often was used in

“pejorative mode” to denote its connection with Serbian “nationalism”.

Media and commercial communications had a leading role in that

ideological cluster by producing specific fascination with global trend as

well as a belief that approach to the modern and civilised world is easier by

rejecting the tradition.

That practice was carried out by big national brands that advertise

themselves in Latin alphabet. It is especially visible in the trend of “old

brands” modernisation (Tanasic, N., 2008.). One of the most controversial

examples is “Latin-isation” of “Knjaz Miloš” mineral water. Two century

long tradition of this national brand written in Cyrillic alphabet is replaced

with the new Latin script. This obvious rejection of national alphabet is a

paradoxical confirmation of giving up the tradition: first of all, this particular

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brand is named after the first modern Serbian ruler from the 19th century,

and secondly, in the year of the brand foundation (1811.), it was not possible

to use any other alphabet, but Cyrillic.

It is interesting that nowadays almost all billboards, except for

election ones, are written in Latin alphabet. Also, in many cases, names of

firms, university books, official declarations or official information

addressed to citizens or consumers, not to mention SMS messages, are

almost without exception, written in Latin alphabet.

PARADOX

Efforts to protect Cyrillic have pretty small echo in our public,

mostly because insisting on national alphabet is strongly connected with the

odious idea of “nationalism”. That is why the defence of Cyrillic script,

which is mostly carried out by the “nationalistic” organizations, is

considered to mean the aggressiveness of Cyrillic, while the Latin script is

experienced as tolerant, superior and indifferent (Tanasic, 2008).

This ideological construct, which does not interpret Cyrillic as the

official alphabet of Serbia, but as a Serbian alphabet, discourages other

nationalities living in Serbia to use it. Many Serbs also avoid use of Cyrillic

script for fear of nationalistic qualifications.

Besides, we add the fact that the “protection” of Cyrillic is rooted

in our educational system, and is confined mainly to the cultural institutions,

than its voluntary “ghettozation” has been one of the reasons for excluding

Cyrillic from everyday use. However we can notice the coincidence with the

use of Latin alphabet as a symptomatic choice of elitist “second Serbia”, that

is, Serbia which in suppression of tradition recognised its own chance for

entering the outer world.

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Today, Serbia is facing with an obvious phenomenon that many

big local brands, such as “Delta”, “Bambi”, ”Štark”, both for commercial

and global reasons, and the lack of sensibility for cultural and national

tradition, have accepted the Latin alphabet. Contrary to that, some of the big

international corporations understood the meaning and significance of

tradition. They have chosen the use of Cyrillic script as the sign of their

presence in Serbia. That is how, paradoxically, they became important

defenders of real Serbian “cultural brand”. Just to mention GOOGLE, NIKE

and PLAYBOY among others.

CONCLUSION

Serbian Cyrillic is one of the main cultural values of Serbian

people, not only by being their national alphabet, but also as one of the main

graphic forms of Serbian spirituality (Piper, 2003.).The history of Serbian

Cyrillic can be understood as a history of Serbian identity struggle and

affirmation of Serbian culture. The biggest masterpieces of Serbian culture

are written and printed in Cyrillic script. That is why the decline of the use

of Cyrillic can be interpreted as abandoning the most important part of

Serbian intangible heritage.

Serbian Cyrillic script has a very significant role and value for

Serbian people, in the same way as Greek, Arabic, Jewish, Japanese, Indian

or Chinese alphabets represent recognisable marks of national identities of

the mentioned cultures. As it was shown, Serbian Cyrillic represents deep

and profound relation between Serbian culture and impressive and rich

heritage of orthodox as well as Byzantine culture. Abandoning that tradition

could violate connections with our own past.

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But wide and parallel use of Latin alphabet and its presence within

Serbian culture can be understood as the real sign of Serbian fundamental

and overt readiness to remain open towards the vibrant and challenging

intercultural communication with the world.

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pismenosti do usvajanja Vukove književnojezičke i pravopisne reforme

(1868.godine), rukopis

Čigoja, B.,(2006.),Tragovima srpske jezičke prošlosti, Društvo za srpski jezik i

književnost Srbije, Beograd

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