Bosnian Cyrillic

Bosnian Cyrillic
Type	Alphabet Cyrillic script
Languages	Bosnian
Time period	10th-18th century

Bosnian Cyrillic, widely known as Bosančica is an extinct variant of the Cyrillic alphabet that originated in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was widely used in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the bordering areas of Croatia (southern and middle Dalmatia and Dubrovnik regions). It was particularly used by the Bosnian Church community. Its name in Serbo-Croatian is bosančica and bosanica the latter of which can be translated as Bosnian script. Croat scholars also call it Croatian script, Croatian–Bosnian script, Bosnian–Croat Cyrillic, harvacko pismo, arvatica or Western Cyrillic. For other names of Bosnian Cyrillic, see below.

The use of Bosančica amongst Bosniaks was replaced by Arebica upon the introduction of Islam in Bosnia Eyalet, first amongst the elite, then amongst the wider public. The first book in Bosančica was printed by Frančesko Micalović in 1512 in Venice.

It is hard to ascertain when the earliest features of a characteristic Bosnian type of Cyrillic script had begun to appear, but paleographers consider the Humac tablet (a tablet written in Bosnian Cyrillic) to be the first document of this type of script and is believed to date from the 10th or 11th century. Bosnian Cyrillic was used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century.

Historically, Bosnian Cyrillic is prominent in the following areas:

In conclusion, main traits of Bosnian Cyrillic include:

The polemic about "ethnic affiliation" of Bosnian Cyrillic started in the 19th century, then reappeared in the mid-1990s. Without going into nuances and details, the polemic about attribution and affiliation of Bosnian Cyrillic texts seems to rest on further arguments:

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