Diacritical signs and signs of non-semantic accentuation in Old Czech manuscripts

Abstract

The article discusses the application of the principles of diacritical orthography in writing Czech words in the Latin treatise Orthographia Bohemica which contains instructions on how digraphs in Czech written texts should be replaced by diacritical signs. While many scholars consider Master Jan Hus to be the author, the treatise was copied by Kříž z Telče (Crux of Telč), a teacher and a priest, by hand into his manuscript convolute at the end of the 1450s. However, Kříž failed to write down the exemplary Czech words exactly according to the instructions in the treatise. At first sight, the signs above the letters seem chaotic and inaccurate. In medieval writings, signs carried out two main functions: first, a sign only accentuated a particular character (sign of non-semantic accentuation) and distinguished it from other, formally similar graphemes (e.g. <ẏ> versus <v>). Secondly, a sign provided a character with a different meaning (a diacritical sign) and a glyph with a sign represented a phoneme different than a glyph without a sign (e.g. <z> versus <ž>). An orthographic analysis of some Czech biblical manuscripts from both the first and the second half of the 15th century has revealed that scribes used these two systems of accentuation at the same time and combined them. That is why the c /t͡ s/ and č /t͡ ʃ/ consonants recorded in the Orthogpraphia Bohemica treatise as either <c> or <ċ> or <č> graphemes cannot be considered a simple scribe’s mistake but rather, a reflection of a different scribal usage.