Baška tablet
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Baška tablet (Bašćanska ploča) include two early inscriptions of medieval Croatian language, dating from the 11th century or years between 1105 and 1200. The first major tablet is rather conserved and mostly legible, and from the second one initial fragment only is partly interpretable.
Both tablets were found in the paving of the Romanesque church of St. Lucy (Sveta Lucija) in Jurandvor village near port Baška on the island of Krk in 1851, and subsequently also some fragments of another similar tablet there were unearthen. Since 1934 the first major original has been kept in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb.
The inscribed stone slab records King Zvonimir's donation of a piece of land to a Benedictine abbey in the time of abbot Drzhiha, for the building of a new royal church. Both inscriptions are written in the Glagolitic alphabet in old Croatian, which is essentially an archaic variant of Chakavian dialect, so spoken up to 1980ies in the adjacent hamlets Batomal and Šuraj in Baška valley.
Both tablets are considered to be the written birth certificate of the Croats, as the name Croatia and adjective Croatian (king) are mentioned twice for the first time in the Croatian language. Despite the fact of not being the oldest Croatian Glagolitic monuments (the minor Valun tablet and Krk inscription are older and certainly appeared in the 11th century, and Plomin tablet is recently radio-dated even in 7th century - Mužić 1998), Baška tablets constitute a major text of 14 rows, written in an archaic local dialect of Baška valley; this is nevertheless called "the jewel of the Croatian language" and the "baptismal certificate" of Croatian literary culture.
Except Branko Fučić, other former interpreters of this tablet were at least partly influenced by recent Yugoslav ideology of 20th century; thus they mostly translated its text by means of Church Slavonic but consequently neglected the real archaic speaking of local indigenous villagers at Baška: the most divergent ones in this island tablet of Adriatic neglected 8 true Chakavian characters of Glagolitic script (ae, kh, tj, uo, w, y, etc.), and instead grafted there some Serbian Cyrillic characters e.g. Mateo Žagar (cf. his link at foot).
Since B. Fučić who included at least partly the Chakavian dialect in his translation - now the indigenous professor Mitjel Yošamya from Baška in 2004 published a voluminous monograph on this topic; related comparative text is elucidated in exhaustive details mostly by means of the archaic speaking of local villagers at Baška. Due to this last effort, both inscriptions can be now exactly translated in English as follows:
- Cross, year 1105, in the name of Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. I abbot Drezhiha, wrote this about the plot of land which was given by Zvanimer, the Croatian King, in his days to St. Lucy (Sv. Lucija) and witnesses [are]: Desimer, Prefect of Krbava, Martin of Lika, Privaneg, clerk of Vinodol, Jacob on this island. If anyone denies it, let him be anathemized by the God, by 12 Apostles and 4 evangelists and St. Lucy, amen. Anyone who lives here, let prays God for them. I abbot Dobrovit built this church with my nine brethren in 1190, at the time of Prince Kosemat who ruled the whole Littoral. In those days Mikula was in Otochec with St. Lucy together. (note: the last remark of Dobrovit was inscribed subsequently in a pure vernacular variant).
Now follows a first partial translation of the legible initial fragment of second Baška tablet; its text is a continuation of the major one: I abbot ... prayed from ... (king) Zvonimir ... St. Lucy ... this crucifix ... Croatian ... year 1200 (?) ... (further text is illegible or lost in fragments) - translation by M. Yošamya 2004.
[edit] References
- Yošamya, Mitjel & Yošamya A.Z. Bascanski besidar: the tsakavism of Baška. Scientific society for Ethnogenesis studies & Club of Croatian editors, Monograph 1, 979 pages, Zagreb 2004.
