Kroatiskhet mellan uttal och rötter : En studie av stavning och politik i två nationalistiska kroatiska exiltidskrifter från 1980-talet

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how different orthographies have functioned as ideological and political markers in postwar Croatian diasporic media. In the thesis, I illustrate how the orthographies of nationalist magazines Poruka Slobodne Hrvatske and Hrvatsko Pravo differed in the mid-1980s. I also analyze how these differences can be explained using sociolinguistic theory which considers orthographic systems to be symbols carrying historic, cultural, and political meaning. My comparison shows that the two magazines primarily differed in their spelling of the long yat reflex, in their spelling of consonants that are subject to voicing assimilation and in their spelling of silent consonants. While Poruka used phonemic spelling which is customary in Croatian, Pravo utilized root spelling (‘korijenski pravopis’). Root spelling is an etymological and morphological orthography previously used by certain Croatian 19th century authors and in the so-called Independent State of Croatia, established during World War II in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. According to my analysis, the magazines’ orthographic choices can be perceived as political statements, signifying approval of different branches of Croatian nationalism (revolutionary or moderate) and of different eras of Croatian history (such as the Independent State of Croatia in contrast to the 1970s Croatian Spring reform movement). The reluctance of the Pravo to use conventional phonemic Croatian orthography is possibly due to this orthography’s connection with the work of Serbian language reformer Vuk Karadžić, whose views are sometimes associated with Yugoslavism or Greater Serbian ideology. It is also possible that root spelling is preferred due to it being perceived by its proponents as older and therefore more authentic. The adversaries of root spelling have, conversely, considered it archaic, artificial, and tainted by its historical association with right wing extremism and Axis collaboration.