Material about last residues of Cyrillic cursive (bosančica)

Abstract

The author deals with the problem which took rise in Bosnia when the Cyrillic cursive (bosančica) went out of use after it had assumed some special characteristic there. In the year of 1939 Fehim Efendić, the custodian, was conducting some research on the problem, continued to a certain degree by Vojislav Bogičević in 1952 and 1953. The author has also gathered some data on the problem. From the examples given in the paper we come to the conclusion that the Bo snian Cyrillic cursive has completely gone out of use save for very few individuals that are still familiar with it.

According to the same data the Cyrillic cursive among Bosnian Muslims used to be most widely spread in bey families and only exceptionally in some middle-class families, too. The cursive was especially well known by women and therefore it used to be called women's writing. Since the 16th century onwards and up to now it has been called bosančica. Other terms for it are also the Arabic or even Croatian writing.