The Orthography of Saint Sava’s Writings
Authors:   University of Belgrade, Savić Viktor ,   Serbian Language Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Published: October 2022

After the publication of the famous study by A. Belić “Učešće sv. Save i njegove škole u stvaranju nove redakcije srpskih ćirilskih spomenika” [The Role of Saint Sava and His School in Establishing a New Recension of Serbian Cyrillic Texts, 1936], the belief that Saint Sava reformed the Serbian orthography according to the principles adopted on Mount Athos (where he lived between 1192 and 1207) became widely adopted. Belić came to this conclusion relying on the orthography of the Typikon of Karyes, where he believed to have identified “the master’s hand” and where, according to him, Saint Sava’s “reform” was carried out “the most radically”. Belić attributed the diversity of the orthographic practice in the late 12th century and in the early decades of the 13th century to Saint Sava’s flexibility. The research carried out in recent decades has rendered it implausible that Sava wrote the Typikon of Karyes, but this text is still associated with his time and probably with him personally. So far, the only major text that is reliably directly associated with Saint Sava has not been properly exploited. It was discovered after the publication of Belić’s study, namely in 1951. It is the founder’s inscription in the Studenica monastery (1208/1209). There are several minor inscriptions associated with Saint Sava which are orthographically consistent with this one. The analysis of the Studenica inscription shows that in principle, Saint Sava’s orthography did not change on Mount Athos. His orthography is secular, formed in the Raška court scriptorium and identical to the orthography of the Charter of Ban Kulin (1189), which in terms of typology belongs to the changing orthographic pattern identified in the two Serbian founding charters of the Hilandar monastery – Simeon Nemanja’s (1198/1199) and Stefan Nemanić’s (ca. 1200). After Saint Sava’s departure from his homeland, this pattern continued to develop. In this context, it may be concluded that the orthography that was until recently tentatively designated as the “Zeta-Hum” (or “Hum-Bosnian”) orthography was actually “Rascian” in its earlier phase. This also means that the term “Rascian orthography” must be redefined. The material preserved in this small corpus does not provide answers to all questions; there are major limitations as regards the marking of palatal groups, the transformation of which is crucial for understanding the development of orthography. Although this is not the main subject of this paper, we can now see more clearly how Saint Sava could have influenced the consolidation of orthography in Serbia under the Nemanjić dynasty in the 13th century – not by imposing his personal pattern (certainly until 1208/1209), and, most probably, not by “favouring one of the existing patterns in use”, but by linking the Serbian Church with the Hilandar monastery and the Karyes cell (and later with the Middle East), thereby opening up Serbian culture to the main religious and literary currents. In the Slavic environments, these were associated with the Cyrillic alphabet, which was at that time largely independent of the Glagolitic writing and orthographic system.