The literary and linguistic norm of the 18th century Franciscan writers – a constituent of the language codification process

Based on the language of 17th century Bosnian Franciscan literature and enriched with features of the Neo-Štokavian folklore koine, the language of the 18th century writers represents a consistent system. Although it was not subject to willful codification, the language of the 18th century writers has codification elements. This is primarily implied by functional distribution, pronounced independence from common speech, especially on the syntactic level, compulsory use for all users and specific prescriptiveness in grammar handbooks of the time.