Authors

Discussion

In this paper, we will present a digital humanities project conducted in the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics in Zagreb under the title “Retro-digitization and Interpretation of Croatian Grammar Books before Illyrism”.

The project, which is grounded in the research practices of linguistic scholars, aims to create a link between historical linguistics and contemporary computational approaches to research methodology. The central idea of the project is to create a model for the retro-digitization of the chosen eight pre-standard Croatian grammars (written from the 17th until the 19^th century). The retro-digitization of Croatian grammar books implies the transfer of printed media to computer-readable and searchable text. In this project, it also includes a multilevel mark-up of transcribed or translated grammar text using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) module. The main challenge of the project is the fact that the TEI module for grammars has not yet been established, so our work in establishing this standard may have a significant impact on similar undertakings in the future. The next step of the project is the creation of a Web Portal of Pre-standard Croatian Grammars, on which both the facsimiles and the digitized text of the grammars will be presented. The importance of this project is significant for linguists and philologists but also for historians and those interested in cultural heritage in general.