Mihaela Matešić

JEZIK I PRAVOPIS: TEORIJSKO-METODOLOŠKI PRISTUP PRAVOPISNOM NORMIRANJU

In the Croatian tradition of writing orthographic books, the relationship between the language levels and their norms in the area of orthography was defined as far back as the study Nauka o pravopisu jezika hrvackoga ili srpskoga (fonetickom i etimologijskom) by M. Kusar appeared.(Dubrovnik,1889). This study greatly influenced Ivan Brozs Hrvatski pravopis (1892), and thanks to the half a century long domination of Broz–Boranic’s orthography, this approach has been deeply rooted in the methodology of writing Croatian orthographic reference books. It is significant that in the attempts during the 20th century to change the orthographic standard (and these were primarily motivated by socio-political reasons), only individual orthographic solutions and/or concepts changed, while the methodology of writing orthography books remained unchanged. This methodology, on the one hand appreciated as Croatian and traditional and, on the other insufficiently explored, was also used in the orthographic editions of the reference book written by S. Babic, B. Finka and M. Mogus. However, in the mid 1980s, a significant methodological shift was brought about by the Anic and Silic’s orthographic reference book, in which the un-orthographic was excluded from the orthographic norms. However, this new concept gave rise to new issues, such as the attitude towards the tradition of writing orthographic reference books, as well as to a completely new issue – the communicative quality of the orthographic reference book. The codification of the orthographic norm was the first area which the Croatian studies experts presented to the general public; it was also an area in which they had an opportunity and the obligation to become democratic, and to communicate not only with professionals but with the general public as well. As a normative area in which the professional (represented by the writer) and the user who is not necessarily a philologist, meet, orthography in the future will have to find a way how to coordinate both – it will have to further improve the orthographic norm and develop the popular-scientific discourse with the aim of improving the general knowledge of orthography of the Croatian standard language.