Old Church Slavonic and Glagolitic memes I made myself years ago

The letter "A" in the shape of a cross - the basic Christian symbol - is the first letter of the Glagolitic script. Some scholars searched for the origin of the letter "A" in various oriental alphabets, but most likely it is the symbol. As every Christian prayer begins with the sign of the cross, the Glagolitic alphabet does it as well. The numeric value is "1", and the Old Church Slavonic name sounds "azъ" which means "I or me".

Glagoljaški anđelići

Since the winter solstice comes, decided to draw Morena, Slavic goddess of winter, sorcery and death.

According to reconstructed myth, Morena is the wife of the spring god Jarilo, but come winter kills him due to his infidelity, making a house from his bones and turning into a terrible crone, thus precipitating the yearly life-death cycle.

To celebrate the end of winter, there are various rituals throughout the Slavic world which include the drowning or burning of an effigy of Marzanna, recreating the cycle once again.

This particular piece was inspired both by orthodox religious icons and Macedonian folk garments, in particular bridal gowns which seemed appropriate, in this case bridal gowns from Galichnik and Skopska Crna Gora.

I included the sickle and pine branch as symbols for the seasons, as well as martinki, a seasonal ritual celebrating the end of winter in Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

Codex Marianus

Writing in a dead script ... because is cool

Glagolitic script is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica.

Tattoo by Dare

Decided I’d take a notebook, and every time I have some useless rant I’d write it in there, but in the Glagolitic script/alphabet!

This way, I can blow off some steam, as well as repeat Glagolitic so I’ll remember it better. I’m not even angry by the time I’m done with it (Glagolitic is… a bit slow to write, a bit clumsy). I’m going to try and do this for Ogham so I can learn it too!

Captions from a Gospel lectionary that belonged to duke Albert the Old of Pomerania, printed in Croatia in 1563. The language is Croatian Church Slavonic in the angular Glagolitic script.

(link to complete scan of the book)

The Glagolitic letter for "v" has the numeric value 3. Its shape consists of typical small circles placed at the top and the connecting line pointing downwards and back. Some scholars point out the possible similarity with the Latin "v", but it may be rather coincidental since no important influence of Latin script to Glagolitic is attested. The Slavic name of the letter is vědě which is an archaic form of 1st person sg. the present tense "I know". The first three names of Glagolitic letters - azъ buky vědě - give a perfect sense: "I know the letters", and show that the Slavic names were also meant as a mnemotechnical tool.

Made an icon of my Church Slavonic OC

The other day i started writing a d&d/general fantasy setting based on 9th-10th century Slavic regions where the sheer amount of Fucked Up Creatures in Slavic folklore is caused by the whole area being connected really closely to the Feywild

I kinda forgot about it but i should get back on track with that

that post about tes linguistics made me remember a tiny detail in witcher that i'm obsessed with for no good reason

according to canon, there was a different writing system on the Continent than whatever is being used by the time of the books - in Sword of Destiny, Eithné asks Geralt "Can you read old runes?" and she mentions 'old kings no one remembers the names of' as well, because the piece she wants Geralt to read comes from the Craag An cemetery.

And we don't have any idea how these runes might look like, because that sentence Geralt indeed could read, despite being one of the most recognizeable lines from the entire series, is etched onto a goblet from which he and Ciri drink the Water of Brokilon, and literally no one bothered to adapt this with the correct water container.

If cdpr's "current" alphabet is basically glagolitic, it really does make you wonder what the "old runes" might've been like, but because the Water of Brokilon in gwent is gathered into a lameass bowl in its card art, there's not much to go off, apart from maybe the little bits on graves in blood&wine since there are some not in glagolitic. there are only like two or three sets of these characters. but it's something!

i should go and research european writing systems from before the ole slavic esperanto for some inspiration (because i refuse to just slap elder futhark or smth on it and call it a day) but i'm also the half-assed post person so this is what i got for now, yelling about how no one drew a goblet.

The two things pinned in my clipboard so i can use them whenever the need arises