Glagolitic? Who knew a 9th-century alphabet would serve as the buzz word for my latest Smithsonian group as we traveled through Croatia?

Briefly defined, Glagolitic is the earliest known version of a Slavic script. The name of this curiously decorative alphabet comes from the old Slavic verb “to speak” or “to utter”—a meaning still reflected in today’s Russian word for “verb” glagol (глагол).

The Glagolitic alphabet was crafted in the 860’s AD by two Greek brothers from Thessaloniki. Serving as missionaries, Cyril and Methodius needed an alphabet for the purpose of bringing Eastern Orthodox Christianity into the Southern Slavic lands. According to tradition, Cyril receives the credit for developing Glagolitic as a language sophisticated enough for transcribing liturgical and biblical texts, rather than using Greek or Latin.

Some scholars place Glagolitic’s origin before the 9th century, perhaps as early as 400 AD. But I find more interesting the fact that Glagolitic survived until the 19th century (!) as an official language in certain parts of the world, notably the Dalmatian coast of modern-day Croatia. Today, that alphabet is enjoying a kind of pop Renaissance . . . but more about that in a minute. 

Shortly after Glagolitic’s creation, a second new alphabet called Old Church Slavonic (OCS) was crafted for liturgical use in Slavic lands. Scholars are confident that it post-dates Glagolitic for several reasons, including the discovery of parchments wherein the older Glagolitic had been scraped off and newer Old Church Slavonic letters added.

Starting in the 10th century, Glagolitic and Old Church Slavonic flourished. They were chosen by developing churches across the Slavic world as alternatives to Latin or Greek. That choice often indicated a desire to maintain theological independence from Roman and Byzantine hegemony.

But ultimately the Latin alphabet and the influence of Rome won out in the Slavic West, replacing Glagolitic in nearly every region. Old Church Slavonic became the standard for liturgical use in the Slavic East, forming a nearly complete basis for the modern Russian alphabet (Cyrillic) still in use today.

I never studied Glagolitic. But long ago, I took a class in Old Church Slavonic. As a graduate student at the University of North Carolina I was racing to gain higher proficiency in Russian so as to compete for a US government grant to the Soviet Union—the only route available to me at the time to study there.

As the OCS classes got harder, I did a dumb thing: I dropped the class, rationalizing that such an old liturgical language had nothing to do with my (then) research interests, namely Soviet music (particularly the composer Sergei Prokofiev).

Wrong. As it happened, my dissertation ended up with a focus on late 18th-century Russian music, including sacred music (which did involve Old Church Slavonic texts). I played another round of “OCS catch-up” years later when I decided to launch a graduate course on Russian Orthodox Church Music at Southern Methodist University. What can I say?

Glagolitic, on the other hand, has never really been necessary in my work, nor was there any formal way for me to study it back in grad school. But these days, Glagolitic is making a kind of comeback. Not only have scholars discovered new information about this beautiful script and language, but people living where Glagolitic defined their early culture seem to be embracing it as a national symbol.

Fast-forward to Croatia and a specific proof of this renewal: Gift shops. Yes, you now can find items with Glagolitic in museum gift shops. Isn’t that the epitome of significance in today’s marketplace?

So, while busing through Croatia, on the lookout for things connected to Glagolitic, what did we find? Well, in one shop, in Pula, we hit the jackpot, locating not just fake-parchment copies of the Glagolitic alphabet but small ceramic tablets showing the letters. And we found jewelry, lovely silver jewelry with individual Glagolitic letters hung as pendants or turned into bracelets and earrings. If we’d had had more time to scour more shops we might have found T-shirts with phrases in Glagolitic or mugs, purses, and belts decorated with the script.

Quite a few in my group embraced the silver letter-pendants. I was a sucker for the fake-parchment alphabet chart. After all, I already had on my wall at home a shoe-box sized, fragile pottery reproduction of the Baška Tablet, a gift brought to me in 1998 by a marvelous Croatian graduate student who lived with us while pursuing her MBA.

The original Baška Tablet is a rectangular stone the size of a dining-room table. It dates back to 1100 AD and contains a secular text in Glagolitic wherein the word Croatian appears for the first time. I didn’t see how silver jewelry would complement my wall plaque reproduction. But the “parchment” copy? Yes.

Since returning home, I’ve been thinking more about language. For Croatians, Glagolitic provides an historical touchstone for a culture battered by a centuries of political upheaval. For English-speakers who enjoy a tradition stretching back to Chaucer, it is hard to imagine such situations where languages come and go. Or circumstances where an alphabet would be artificially created and implemented for territorial, military, or religious purposes.

I have trouble imagining the all too-common situation where a person’s native language (e.g. Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian, Croatian) would have been suppressed and supplanted by the language (Italian, German, Hungarian, Turkish) of the conqueror. I sometimes forget, too, what a powerful economic tool English is: a language that people world-wide study as a prime tool in their quest to realize their dreams.

Students here in the United States are not always well instructed as to the beauty and power of the English language or, for that matter, any language. Many do not realize that languages are the biggest key in unraveling a region’s history or understanding its culture. As we watch our own language changing on what seems a daily basis to accommodate the latest fads and political correctness, we would do well to take a longer view and appreciate its cultural and historical value.