Slavica alphabet

Slavica was a proposed writing system for Serbo-Croatian language devised by Rajko Igić in his 1987 book, Nova Slovarica, published by Universal from Tuzla. The alphabet was a combination of Gaj's Latin and Serbian Cyrillic alphabets. It was intended to simplify writing in parts of Yugoslavia that utilised both of the alphabets in everyday communication. It was rejected for its artificiality at the time when the country was in middle of a major recession and political upheaval which ultimately led to its breakup.

Organisation

Slavica uses 17 Latin letters, with 8 Cyrillic letters used in the cases where the native Slavic Latin script uses diacritics and digraphs. Five letters common to both alphabets — a, e, o, j, and k — are also used in this new script. Therefore, Slavica follows the principle of one grapheme for one phoneme.

Implementation

The new alphabet was tested in 1988 and 1989 by students from the primary school Mate Balota in Buje, Croatia. According to media articles published in 1987 and 1988, it was especially attractive with people from Bosnia, Vojvodina and Istria. However, strong opposition was noted in these years by the Croatian media. Slavica was discussed both before and after the Yugoslav Wars in daily newspapers including (Večernje novosti, Front slobode, Dnevnik, etc.) as well as magazines, such (American Psychologist in 1999; Pregled, Sarajevo, 2005; Prosvjetna poslanica, Tuzla, in 2006), and various online outlets. References: Igić R. Nova slovarica. Tuzla, Univerzal, 1987. Igić R. Why not test reading in three alphabets. American Psychologist 1999;54:1130-2. Milivojevć D. Linguistics and politics in Serbo-Croatian textbooks and readers for English speaking students. Serbian Studies 1991;6:77-89.

External links

• Online converter to/from Slavica (expired domain)

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