Font »Arvatica fra Divković«

Font »Arvatica fra Divković«

A font for Croatian Cyrillic

All font characters of the Croatian Cyrillic alphabet are based on graphic solutions which ones the ancient Bosnian writer Matija Divković used in his printed editions. Furthermore, many other works created by the Bosnian Franciscans have been printed using these graphic solutions in the past centuries. Thus, the shape of any letter is not fictional.

Only the orthographic system - especially the relationship of graphemes to phonemes - has been adapted to the actual conditions of the Croatian language in agreement with Prof. Mateo Žagar, PH.D, from the University of Zagreb.

Among other things, this font also includes two different glyphs for the old letter »djerv«: one for the sound ‹đ› and one for the sound ‹ć›, which also was derived from a variant of »djerv«.

To display the sounds ‹Lj› and ‹Nj› for which one Divković used »đl« and »đn« (according to Italian influence), this font uses diacritical marks above the letters »L« and »N«. These diacritics are in use after the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet, which also palatalize the letters »G« and »K« in the same way.

In the history of the Croatian Cyrillic script several solutions for displaying the sound ‹j› have been used but unfortunately not in a consistent manner. In order to clarify the issue, Prof. Žagar and me made an agreement regarding the use of the glyph »I/i« for the sound ‹j›, as it is known in the Slavic Cyrillic writing (e.g., in the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet).

This approach should help dispelling any possible doubts when reading the Croatian Cyrillic script.

The Font

Glyph Overview

The font contains the Croatian Latin script (column 1) and the Croatian Cyrillic script (column 2).
To illustrate the differences, the Serbian Cyrillic script, which is not included, is shown here in column 3.
font_arvatica_fra_divkovic_1.jpg

Small italic "s" and "k"

Display of the grapheme group italic small »s« and »k« in Croatian Cyrillic:

Additional characters

Selection of additional graphemes for the Croatian Cyrillic alphabet in the font »Arvatica fra Divković«:


Created Type Specimen

Text in Croatian Cyrillic script:


Comparison with historical document

Comparison of a text created with the font “Arvatica fra Divković” with the historical original
nauk_karstianski.jpg

Futher Type Specimen (PDFs)

PDF-Examples prescribed with the font »Arvatica fra Divković
Nauk karstianski 1641 Article »Croatian Cyrillic« from Croatian Wikipedia Memorandum to the Croatian language
nauk_karstianski_-_font_fradivkovic.jpg hrvatska_cirilica_-_wikipedija.jpg promemorija_o_hrvatskome_jeziku.jpg


Type Design

Comparison of a selection of font glyphs with glyphs based on Divković from historical scripts:\

nauk_karstianski_1611_3_.jpg nauk_karstianski_1641_13_.jpg
nauk_karstianski_1641_10_.jpg
nauk_karstianski_1641_14_.jpg nauk_karstianski_1641_20_.jpg
nauk_karstianski_1641_21_.jpg


Instructions & Downloads

Keyboard layout for the Croatian Cyrillic alphabet


Installation and operating instructions

(Only available in Croatian)




Download

By downloading the font file the user expressly agrees to the license terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany.


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Licence: The exact wording of the license conditions can be found under the following link:
Creative Commons Namensnennung-Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 Deutschland Lizenz