14-06-2023, 10:11 PM
Hi, there,
I have examined the manuscript you mentioned and a few of other Czech manuscripts from the mid-15th century and came to conclusion that the language is neither Czech, nor Croatian, but Slovenian. Since all three languages originate from the Old Church Slavonic, they have many common words and grammatical features, but there is clear difference. By then, Czech was well developed written language with well established grammar and German writing convention. Croatians used Glagolitza in Croatian language, which was still similar, but the division is also clearly noticable. The Glagolitic script had a separate letter for each sound, including for long and short vowels and semi-vowels. When the words were written in Latin, the semi-vowels, not having equivalent letters in Latin, were dropped, but in 16th century Slovenian writing, the missing semi-vowels and unstressed vowels were replaced with full vowel. Also, the letter y was changed to i or j, the w into v, u or l, the q was replaced with kv. It took some time before those letters completely disappeared from Slovenian writing. Also, the short words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, which were previously written together with the next word, were separated with a apostrophe. No diacritic markers were used, which resulted in many similar words, pronounced differently.
I have examined the manuscript you mentioned and a few of other Czech manuscripts from the mid-15th century and came to conclusion that the language is neither Czech, nor Croatian, but Slovenian. Since all three languages originate from the Old Church Slavonic, they have many common words and grammatical features, but there is clear difference. By then, Czech was well developed written language with well established grammar and German writing convention. Croatians used Glagolitza in Croatian language, which was still similar, but the division is also clearly noticable. The Glagolitic script had a separate letter for each sound, including for long and short vowels and semi-vowels. When the words were written in Latin, the semi-vowels, not having equivalent letters in Latin, were dropped, but in 16th century Slovenian writing, the missing semi-vowels and unstressed vowels were replaced with full vowel. Also, the letter y was changed to i or j, the w into v, u or l, the q was replaced with kv. It took some time before those letters completely disappeared from Slovenian writing. Also, the short words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, which were previously written together with the next word, were separated with a apostrophe. No diacritic markers were used, which resulted in many similar words, pronounced differently.