Talk:Croatian language/Archive 5

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Request for comment

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.
Note: I am closing this RfC, because the process has evidently been marred by political advocacy and canvassing, and the style of "debate" being conducted in this section is now not likely to lead to any better-informed consensus. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and "yes" or "no" votes that are not based on policy-conformant arguments and reliable sources can and will be ignored. Apart from a lot of hot air and political posturing, I can see no tangible argument having been brought forward why the abundantly attested term "S.-C.", as used by reliable present-day academic discourse, should not be used here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:01, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Should reference to Croatian being part of Serbo-Croatian be removed? --Taivo (talk) 15:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

  • No. Thousands of linguistic and pedagogical references in English over the last century have called the single language that comprises Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian "Serbo-Croatian" and it is listed in ISO 639-3 as the macrolanguage label encompassing all three. A brief list of references is here. Indeed, the literary varieties of Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian are all even derived from the same dialect of Serbo-Croatian rather than from different dialects. English-speaking readers will be looking for references to "Serbo-Croatian" and not to "Croatian", "Serbian", or "Bosnian". In fact, as the lead is usually rewritten by the Croatian nationalists pushing their POV, they imply that "Croatian" is the proper cover term. By the dictates of WP:NCON, the most common English term based on English usage prevails, and that is "Serbo-Croatian". This is the unacceptable version denying the existence of Serbo-Croatian. This is the linguistically accurate version. --Taivo (talk) 15:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, it should be removed. "Serbo-Croatian" haven't existed before Novi Sad Agreement. Croatian language is at least one thousand and two hundred years older than "Serbo-Croatian".--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 15:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No, the two varieties are closer than Bernese German and Zurich German. Of course the relationship between the languages has to be mentioned. Nationalism is in the wrong place here. I myself am rather irrationally nationalistic as far as my Swiss German language is concerned, but that doesn't make me barmy enough to deny that it is in fact German. Perfectly pointless to argue for a "Yes" here. Trigaranus (talk) 16:36, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No. Removing it would be lying. The linguistic reality of the situation is that there is such a thing which in English is called "Serbo-Croatian" and of which Croatian, Serbian, etc. form part, which is supported by our NPOV sources. Not mentioning this would be distorting the truth = lying. Note to the defenders from the Balkans: This issue has absolutely nothing to do with whether you should or should not have your own state. There are also Flemish nationalists, even though Flemish is a variety of Dutch and everyone acknowledges this. --JorisvS (talk) 16:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment (since I'm addressing the question behind the question, rather than the question itself) - This article and Serbo-Croatian language describe the situation as one wherein Croatian, etc. are dialects of a single Serbo-Croatian language as opposed to them being varieties of a Serbo-Croatian macrolanguage. There's no objective criterion for this distinction and if we have two conflicting viewpoints in academia--even if the conflicting viewpoint comes primarily from Balkan-language linguists in the last two decades--the information should be presented in a way that's neutral. The article is poorly sourced and largely presents the viewpoint of Croatian as a language that has been separate from other varieties for over a thousand years (I'm not sure if the articles on Bosnian and Serbian. also present this viewpoint). This is largely an WP:NPOV issue, though it can be addressed through citations. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 19:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
All three of the derivative articles seem to take the point-of-view that they are the "original" language and the other two are derivatives of it. The package is not well-conceived or executed. The Serbo-Croatian article is probably the most linguistically accurate of the lot. --Taivo (talk) 19:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No It should be made clear that Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are languages in the sociolinguistic sense of ethnic identity, not formally or dialectologically, that they are not even separate dialects. Having separate articles suffices to indicate a distinct identity; the ELL2 doesn't even bother with that. Plenty of refs from ELL were posted on the SC talk page (archived here.)
As for which is the "original", SC seems to have originated in Croatia, where there is still the greatest dialectical diversity. (Much of the Shtokavian-speaking area--much of Serbia--is relatively recently settled by Slavs.) But that isn't the same as saying Croatian is original, because all SC dialects are called "Croatian" when they're spoken by Croats. If we're going to go on formal grounds, the only way for Croatian to be original is for SC to be a synonym of Croatian, in which case either Serbian is a form of Croatian and most Croats speak that form, Serbian (which indeed is what some nationalist Serbs of the past have said), or Serbian is not a language at all, but only Croatian as spoken by Serbs. The only way for Serbian to be original is if Chakavian and Kajkavian are Serbian, which I don't think even nationalist Serbs would claim. AFAIK, it's true that Illyrian & SC were an attempt by Serbs to assimilate Croats and Slovenes (and maybe Bulgarians?), as Croats have complained. However, it was also an attempt by Croats to forge a single language from Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian. If we reject SC on historical grounds, then we're rejecting Croatian as a unitary language as well.
I'm reposting Ivan/NoSuchUser's link above.[1] Worth reading for the political/historical background of the debate. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes The Croatian (Hrvatski) is a South Slavic language and it belongs to that group. One should not label it Serbo-Croatian in a manner that it over rules it's history. Croatian predates Serbo-Croatian. The Serbo-Croatian is a modern standard form that was created in the 19th Century. Croatian goes back centuries. It is unencyclopedic to do so--Sokac121 (talk) 21:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes - Serbo-Croatian is a political and a macrolinguistic construct, Croatian and Serbian existed long before and they still exist on their own now. Vodomar (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC).
  • Comment. I am afraid that the positions in this dispute are being entrenched, and that the conflict escalates because nobody is seeking for compromise anymore, but only seeking for support for "their" version of the lead (interestingly, the body of the article, completely unsourced, is almost left untouched during the last few months). I am reluctant to participate in such atmosphere. I wish to echo Aeusoes1's comments, and state that more nuanced approach is called for: we should simply avoid unambiguously commencing ourselves to either of positions "Croatian is a form of Serbo-Croatian" or "Croatian is an independent south Slavic language", but seek for more NPOV and descriptive approach. It is a multi-faceted issue, and a black/white resolution is definitely not called for. If I must say: No, reference to Serbo-Croatian in the lead should not be removed, but I don't think that it was the right question to ask: sorry for being blunt, but it looks like one of loaded questions stated in various referendums prior to Yugoslav wars. No such user (talk) 06:37, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes - Because of Novi Sad Agreement. Because of all Croats, Serbs, and others that spend time in jail for not wanting to use SH language during existance of Jugoslavia. Because of wikipedia and facts, and not POV of some users that dont speak a single word of Croatian or speak a kvazi language Serbo-Croatian. --Domjanovich (talk) 08:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes This censnus gives a clear quantification Republic of Croatia - Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Otherwize wiki presents only the POV of a few linguists. Due to this quantification 4.265.081 people speak croatian and 2.054 people speak "SC". --Croq (talk) 08:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
National censuses on language use that do not rely on third-party linguist census-takers, but on self-identification are famously unreliable. --Taivo (talk) 13:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'm not wikipedian, so I cant't vote, but here is my answer on all those "completely mutually inteligible" definitions from a few mostly non-informed among you who are not even speakers of any of these languages.
"Hrvatski i srpski jezik razlikuju se na glasovnoj, morfološkoj, tvorbenoj, sintaktičkoj i najviše na leksičkoj i stilskoj razini, oko 20 posto" (S. Babić). Translation: Croatian and Serbian languages are different in phonetical, morphological, transformal, syntaxical and mostly lexical and stylish level, around 20%. This comment of linguist S. Babić, an author of "Croatian literar grammatics, (1992)" goes for differences between standard Croatian and standard Serbian.
Comparation:
Communication works because Spanish and Portuguese share around 80% of their vocabulary, and most of the same grammatical structures, things like the endings on nouns and verbs. [2]
So it is similar situation with Spanish and Portugese. If you can invent Serbo-Croatian, idiom spoken by noone, then you should invent Portugo-Spanish too. You can always defend it with "it is node between something and something". The real question is: what is your motivation to erase Croatian language which is existing and developing for more than 1.000 years? And replace it with ill-defined quazi-idiom which was always related only to political issues in the Balkans and Central Europe in last 100 years and never got "materialised" in form that can be spoken by anyone??? 78.0.139.158 (talk) 09:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC) One more detail: Serbian standard is based on Eastern Shtokavian, Croatian standard is Western Shtokavian. These Shtokavians are not the same! It's not one dialect as Kwami says. And Kwami doesn't even speak any of it! 78.0.139.158 (talk) 09:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Such claims have been refuted numerous times. All four standards, incl. Serbian and Croatian, are based on Eastern Herzegovinian Shtokavian, and we have other refs that contradict most of the supposed differences between these registers. What's left is almost entirely lexical, and then in learned vocab. Serbian allows both ijekavian and ekavian in the standard, whereas Croatian allows only ijekavian, but both languages have both reflexes outside the standard. — kwami (talk) 10:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
And all the linguists here know that, when measuring mutual intelligibility, there is a difference between two people who can't understand one another and two people who don't want to understand one another. --Taivo (talk) 12:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes. This can be understood as a provocation, and Wikipedia does not need that. I think everyone will be happy if that would change as it was before.--Wustefuchs (talk) 14:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
What is a provocation is the demand here that the common language of Croatians, Bosnians, and Serbians be called "Croatian". And, no, everyone will not be happy with a linguistically inaccurate article. --Taivo (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it is not common language of Croats, Bosniaks (not Bosnians) and Serbians... it is only language of Croats. --Wustefuchs (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

  • Yes. Serbo-croatian is nothing more than a failed experiment which tried to unite two much older languages, which in term have similarities because of historical (political) reasons.--Saxum (talk) 16:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
We're not talking about that Serbo-Croatian, we're talking about the other one. I know, having the linguistic concept and the failed Yugoslav (bi)standard both called Serbo-Croatian is quite confusing. --JorisvS (talk) 16:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Actually, name of the other one is very poorly chosen. ISO 639-3 standard therefore use hsb identification instead of old sh (srpsko-hrvatski, Serbo-Croatian in English), so there is nothing confusing, but poor choice of name for macrolanguage is so obvious that ISO 639-3 standard deprecated it's identifier. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 17:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
It having some language code is quite irrelevant to the issue here, we're not discussing those, were discussing the names, and having the same name for two distinct concepts easily confuses people. And actually, the name of the "other one" was in use long before the communist era. What is unfortunate is that the Yugoslav (bi)standard came to be known (also) under this same name and not merely under "Yugoslav(ian)" or something like that. --JorisvS (talk) 22:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes. So-called Serbo-Croatian is the political project, it started as political decision. No speaker until then called its mother tongue as SC. SC is an attempt to violently unify Serbian and Croatian, at the expense of Croatian. Linguistic submission of Croatian, degrading it to mere "regional dialect in Croatia". Things are worse since that project negates 2 other languages: Bosnian and Montenegrin, treating them as some Serbian dialect. Word "Croatian" in "Serbo-Croatian" is just a mask: that project obliterates Croatian, project of "Serbo-Croatian" is Greater Serbianist project. The last bastion of Yugocommunism, led by Greater Serb hegemonists. Greater Serbian (Milošević's) aggression on Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1991 had its "scientific" preparation with "there's no special Croatian language, it's all the same language, Serbo-Croatian (since 1986 requests were more daring "it's all Serbian language")//"Croats are merely Čakavians and Kajkavians (sometimes Greater Serbianists directly declared Kajkavians as Slovenians)" "there're no Štokavian Croats" (or completely declaring all Croats as Serbs), with usurpation of Croatian cultural heritage through lies, misinterpretations, filtered information, hidden truths... About "common term in English": There's English-speaking world outside of USA and British Commonwealth. There's a good reason why many non-English scientific works have summary in English, or why many non-English-speaking countries have scientific magazines written in English. Wikipedia cannot ignore that just because "these aren't from USA and British Commonwealth". Otherwise, stinks like ethnic segregation. Is en.wiki "WASP sources only" "non-WASP sources forbidden"? If en.wiki is going to ignore the science of small peoples, if it intends to ignore the scientific approaches from the non-English-speaking world (remember that "brain drain" goes from Eastern Europe to the West, not the other way around), if it intends to stubbornly defend the scientific fallacies from 19th century and to selfsatisfiedly close itself in its dome of glass, it'll more and more lose any credit. Kubura (talk) 00:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No. In addition to the comments by Taivo, kwami, JorisvS and Trigaranus, detaching Croatian from Serbo-Croatian would distort the language history of the Balkans. A symbolic detachment has already been used as a prerequisite for Croats in insisting that their ethnic group had nothing to do with the codification efforts of the 19th century for Serbo-Croatian. Conversely it feeds well into the Croatian nationalist attitude of denigrating the Serbs and reducing Serbo-Croatian to an extension of Greater Serbianism. In addition, such a detachment also allows nationalist Croats to deny the contributions of some of their ancestors who were involved in something that was later held to contradict the Croatian historical narrative or ethnic consciousness. The Croatian nationalists want to cut their noses to spite their faces by basically covering up or minimizing the influence of Ludevit Gaj and especially Ivan Maretić, the latter of whom did much of the spade work in making sure that the Croats would even have a standard language which they use to this day. Vput (talk) 01:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No, for the umpteenth time.. Even a number of Croatian linguist (before 1990, basically all of the Croatian linguists!) treat Croatian as a form of B/C/S/M complex, under the name of Serbo-Croatian or whatever. Modern national standards created in the last 20 years are all the same subdialect (Eastern Herzegovinian) of the same dialect (Shtokavian dialect). They cannot be "different languages" by definition. They especially cannot be "different languages" (being completely mutually intelligible and having 99% the same grammar) while at the same time Čakavian+Kajkavian+Croatian Štokavian are by some nationalist/ethnic criterion treated as "one language" ("Croatian"), and those 3 have very little in common and are not mutually intelligible. We need to depict reality as it is, not provide some politically correct coverage of it, wondering if it hurt someone's feelings. This article is already heavily slanted to Croatian PoV, and this is an important first step in disinfecting the article from nationalism that will hopefully in the near future usher in other major revamps. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes Serbo-Croatian is an invention which can be located in the first third of the 19th century (Grimm, Kopitar) & was accepted, with various degrees of (un)ease until the breakup of Yugoslavia. It's a dated concept which falsifies languages history-as in, say, August Leskien's primer to this hybrid "language", or in a few other obsolete textbooks. Since this is a vote, and perhaps a good part of voters hasn't heard rational arguments, I'll number a few:
1) Croatian and Serbian are intelligible to a high degree. But, Danish and Bokmal Norwegian are so to even higher degree, as are Hindi and Urdu. And yet, no one- except a few weirdos- tries to reduce them to offshoots of a single language (Dano-Norwegian, Urdu-Hindi).
2) languages can be considered both as systems of dialects and standard languages. As a system of dialects, Croatian is composed of three dialects (Čakavian, Kajkavian and Western parts of Štokavian); Serbian of one, Eastern subdialects of Štokavian plus peripheral Torlak. As far as standard languages go, Croatian and Serbian are typologically-structurally the same according to typological linguistics or linguistic typology (of course, not on dialectal level). And- this is also true for aforementioned languages (Bokmal Norwegian and Danish, Urdu and Hindi- one might add Indonesian and Malay)- yet, from various classifications, one can see that no one tries to put Malay and Indonesian, or Hindi and Urdu, under the "umbrella" of an "over-language" (macro-language). When I say no one, I don't take into consideration dated texts or some loonies that stick to these concepts for whoever knows reasons. So, we're done with typological linguistics. What about theoretical linguistics ? It is composed of- there is not consensus yet- phonetics, phonology, morphology, word-formation (in Slavic languages not reducible to morphology), syntax, stylistics, lexicology and, perhaps, semantics. For complete picture one might add script and accentuation. Across these various fields, Croatian and Serbian differ ca. 20-30%, most visibly in script, accentuation, word-formation, syntax, stylistics and lexicon.
3) one can frequently encounter deluding analogies for Croatian and Serbian (various standardized forms of English, Spanish, French, German,..). This is misleading since there hasn't ever been a "mother" language or cultural matrix out of which emerged these "variants" of policentric/pluricentric languages (as is the case with American and British English, Austrian and Swiss German,..). Croatian and Serbian are not variants of a policentric language-i.e.realizations of one language- but different languages (one might call them cultural, Ausbau, whatever..).John Milton and John Locke belong to both British, Australian and American English. Marko Marulić and Marin Držić belong only to Croatian language, not to Serbian.
I could write on and on, but this suffices. If someone is incapable of comprehending this- it's out of malevolence, not ignorance. Mir Harven (talk) 10:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Once a reader gets rid of the 20% of Mr Harven's response that is invective, they are left with half of the remainder being exaggeration and manipulation of unrelated facts, and the rest being unverifiable assertion. His claim that Serbian and Croatian differ by 20-30% is complete fabrication without any basis in fact. His claim that only "loonies" group Hindi and Urdu together is patently false and easily disproven. Those are only the two most egregious falsifications. --Taivo (talk) 13:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
This "comment" does not contain any argument. Pre-eminent Croatian linguists & lexicographers like Dalibor Brozović, Radoslav Katičić, Stjepan Babić and Tomislav Ladan have ascertained that Croatian and Serbian differ in ca. - minimum- 20% in their respective linguistic contents. And who are you to negate this ? Which are your sources that, perhaps, claim otherwise ? And what authority re Croatian language, its structure, history and the rest do these unnamed sources possess ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mir Harven (talk • contribs) 15:06, 9 October 2010
See: Argument from authority. Brozović, Katičić and co. are proven history fabricators. Just because they say something, it doesn't mean that it really is true. The differences among B/C/S standards are fairly trivial from a linguistic perspective: grammar is 99% the same (same phonology, accentuation, inflection, minor differences only in derivational morphology and a few particular syntactical constructs), and 99% of all real differences are completely regular and intuitively understood by all the native Serbo-Croatian speakers, and not greater in scope that differences between American ad British English. Your problem MH is that you only treat "proper" Croatian-only sources as authoritative, and rest are somehow "wrong".. We cannot simply follow such unilateral approach to such complex matter. Wikipedia regulations such as WP:NPOV require us to present it from a neutral perspective, and the main interpretation should follow the general consensus (not general Croatian consensus, but general consensus in the field worldwide). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Commissary-talk here again, I see. Well, let's go: 1) it is true that authority per se is invalid in sciences. But- linguistics is not an exact science-like physics and chemistry- but a humanist discipline where things are not nearly as clear as in more exact fields. Einstein was wrong re gravitational constant; Kelvin about the age of the planet Earth; Wolfgang Pauli about Dirac's relativistic equation for electron. In each & every case their positions & arguments were shown to be false, and the results were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and accepted-gradually- by virtually entire scientific community. 2) your claim that "Brozović, Katičić and co. are proven history fabricators" is, of course- a misinformation. First- who has "proven" this ? Second- this unnamed person who has, according to you, "proven" this- which are their credentials ? What have they published about Croatian language ? Which is the status of the published work of this unnamed person in linguistic community ? Which one ? Who in the world- outside of Croatia- is better informed about Croatian language than Croatian linguists ? Who are these people, and how did they acquire their knowledge of Croatian ? 3) Of course, the "99% similarity" is yet another nonsense. In some fields the difference is relatively easy to quantify, for instance in lexicon. One need only count the words. So, in 100.000 entries dictionary-putting aside Roman/Cyrillic difference, and ekavian/ijekavian spelling- the difference is ca. 30.000 words. Many are virtually unintelligible to the "other" speaker- for instance, the word for Bethlehem, which is Betlehem in Croatian, and Vitlejem in Serbian (not to mention scientific, technical or philosophical terminology). In the accentuation area the "difference" is hard to "measure", but it may be anywhere between 10% and 80%, which can be ascertained by boring counting of differently accentuated words in standard textbooks-of course, only these words which exist in both languages. As far as syntax goes- Serbian normative syntax, authored by Piper, Antonić et al., cannot even in theory be applied in Croatian elementary schools, since it abounds in syntactic structures ("Evo ga otac") which do not exist in Croatian language. But, as I've said- malevolence, malevolence,... Mir Harven (talk) 14:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
The scientific standard is just as clear in the social sciences: it is exactly the same. The only thing slowing progress in these fields is the feelings that keep seeping into the theories. In fact, theoretical physics itself isn't immune to this anymore, with a lot of metaphysics finding its way into it, purely due to these feelings, eliminating most progress in the field for the last 20 years or so. --JorisvS (talk) 23:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Couldn't agree more. Superstrings and M theory are examples of amusing aridity one gets when speculation is taken for scientific theory.And- couldn't agree less with regard to "social" and "humanist" sciences (Psychology- for instance, theories of Personality, or linguistics and Linguistic typology).They all (one might add Sociology and Literary theory) are efforts in understanding of the world, but not "true" sciences in satisfying commonly accepted requirements -for instance Popper's falsifiability (in evaluation of the existing theory, not the way a theory arises). Mir Harven (talk) 08:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
The only way to have progress in any science is through dispassionate systematic research and discussion of arguments, no feelings allowed. Sorry to debunk your idea that linguistics should respect speakers' feelings regarding their language (sociolinguistics should investigate these feelings, again with the same standards). And regarding natives' authority on "their" language: Koro is a language recently discovered in India; not closely related to any other language, its speakers believed it to be a dialect(!) of Aka, among whom they live. --JorisvS (talk) 23:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
What "feelings" are you talking about ? Perhaps those of Yugo-nationalists ? But, not to divert attention: your "example" of Koro language (or dialect) is simply ludicrous. First- why would anyone accept the notion that this language (or dialect) is, say, dialect, and not a language ? Who, with what criteria, can assert that ? Do you really believe this ? If you do, then you're uneducated re basic linguistic proposition- there is no way to distinguish a language from a dialect. (A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy) Second- how can this situation be compared with that of Croatian language, which contains written texts -at least- 900 years old, and rich vernacular literature- sacral and secular, philology, historiography, translations, dictionaries, grammars, technical writing, ...? Who are these foreign linguists who have examined Croatian fundamental texts ? What have they published and established re Croatian basic texts (say, Bartol Kašić's "Roman Rite" or Ivan Mažuranić's "German- Illyrian Dictionary") ? Where did- I repeat- they learn Croatian ? Do they know how to answer numerous questions about Croatian syntax, semantics, dictionary, phonology,..? Frankly- this is leading to the place called Absurdistan. Mir Harven (talk) 08:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
You're missing the point. The point is to illustrate how native speakers can be quite unaware of/wrong about what language they speak. Having a literary tradition is irrelevant to this. If you want to learn more about Koro's situation, just follow the references on the page, for example this one.
I'm talking about all feelings, whether these be of pan-Yugoslavicists or of Croatian nationalists.
There is a scientific criterion to distinguish languages from dialects: it is called mutual intelligibility. The only thing is that it is not a dichotomy, but a continuum, making borderline cases difficult. Croatian-Serbian-etc. are not such a borderline case, however. As for "Language=dialect with army&navy?": What about the thousands of languages without an army or navy? --JorisvS (talk) 10:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes. Serb-Croatian is a constructed language. It was created in the 19th century. The history of the Croatian language should be respected. Sir Floyd (talk) 14:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes "Assume good faith," the Wikipedian recension of the Christian saying "Judge not and you won't be judged."
Your insistence on cold linguistics, dear fellow foreigners, does not speak in your favor -- or Wikipedia's. The question here is subtle and emotionally charged; the answer is not to be found in linguistics. It is well known by now that a language is a political thing. From west Poland to east Russia is a continuity of dialects ; the isoglosses are gradated. Still the Poles have their own state and language, the Ukrainians theirs (and try to tell them differently!) and the Russians theirs. Evidently this notion of language is not a weapon for extremists, the way you try to push it, but a thing of real and tangible value, and a matter of pride.
In view of this we must admit and understand that the separate articles for these varieties exist because their speakers, as a matter of national pride, separate themselves from each other. This is easy to understand, in view of the war. Not the fiercest enemy of "Serbo-Croatian" will ever in his heart deny that there is almost no difference between the way he and his neighbors speak; but he will claim the right to name his language as he pleases, and justly. Who are we to tell him different? If he wanted to write that Croatian is a part of Croato-Serbian, you could call him a nationalist; he wants nothing like that. Do we, who watched the war from the side, know better how to make peace than those who lived through it? Or are they so coarse that they need us to tell them what to feel?
It is academic frigidity, and rather undemocratic, to neglect this reality and push the linguistic circumstances to the fore. The war is over; it pertains to the locals to make the peace. Leave the body of the article alone; create a linguistic category where it belongs, in the language-tree, and call it "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian" or whatsoever you please; but leave to these people their rights. --VKokielov (talk) 22:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
You'll say that all I've said is opinion. It is, and most of all this opinion ought to stand out: that it is condescending and undemocratic to trample the feelings of locals by pushing upon them our mentality, and that a dubious one -- dubious exactly because it tramples their feelings. --VKokielov (talk) 22:43, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Funny but also morbidly illuminating in its sincerity. Here we have an article dealing with language, yet there's the insistence that we must NOT use linguistics to inform the content, description or analysis. This is just like saying that an article dealing with a mathematical phenomenon should not be informed by relevant concepts in mathematical theory, but rather with psychology of users or even literary theory for example. Vput (talk) 22:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, Vput. Academic frigidity is also a sin, and has always been. Watch that Wikipedia doesn't become notorious for it. (And there is an evident difference between neutrality, which reconciles, and frigidity, which alienates.) --VKokielov (talk) 23:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
The opinion of linguists is frigid exactly because it doesn't take into account the FEELINGS of the people whom its conclusions directly concern and touch. --VKokielov (talk) 23:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
"Feelings", VKokielov, have nothing whatsoever to do with science. Do you want a psychologist designing your computer? No. This is a language article. The science that informs us about language is linguistics. We have reliable scientific references to back us up. Your tears are not sufficient counter argument. --Taivo (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • @RfC: It should be removed. "SC" never really existed as a single language. Now described as a "macrolanguage" of Serbia (Ethnologue, 2006). Also, "SC" in "SFRY" existed only in SR Serbia - as the name for Serbian language. It was "official" in Serbia up to 2006. -- Ali Pasha (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
The user Ali Pasha is a single purpose account established just for the purpose of commenting here. See this. I suggest that an admin watching here check to see if this new user is a sock of another user here. --Taivo (talk) 12:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Even the user:Chipmunkdavis has/had rather strange edit pattern [3], but I don't accuse him for being WP:SPA. Look at his presence: few edits, absent for months, few edits, than explosion on article Serbo-Croatian since 17 July 2010; until then, no particular interest. Strange for non-speaker. In fact, edit wars!!! 7 reverts on 18 July!!!!? 10RR 23:05 17 July-00:09 19 July (10RR in 24h 5 min). And then on 23/24 July (4RR on 23 July). And he got away without ARBMAC? Please, type ctrl+F and "Undid revision". Whome was he helping to avoid 3RR? Was someone hiding behind that name, while keeping the master account "clean of edit wars"? Kubura (talk) 05:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Wrong question. Time and time again, I see the same kind of silly flamewars, each with its own little pointless twist, based on whichever set of preconceptions. When an English-speaking reader comes to the page called Croatian language, we know only that they were looking for what "Croatian language" means. Ditto for Serbo-Croatian. Since this is not the simple English Wikipedia, rather it's the one that supports non-trivial sentences :) and given the topics' obvious intricate connection, to explain one without ever mentioning the other would be a problem, yet to explain one by simplistically reducing it to a version of the other would also be a problem. What the latest argument here really seems to be about is how exactly to phrase the lead section. How about we actually discuss that in a form less antagonistic than a yes/no poll? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes - There was no "Serbocroatian" before Novi Sad Agreement. It was an unsucessuful attempt of unification. Some users argued that Serbocroatian is existing since 19th century. It existed only in heads of some linguists, but it was never an official name or an official language anywhere. Croatian, not "Serbocroatian", was one of official languages in Austria-Hungary guaranteed also by Croatian–Hungarian Agreement. Was that also a "political decision"? I don't think so. Read the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language. Were this intellectuals "Croatian nationalists"? Krleža for exemple also signed that and we can't call him "nationalist", just the opposite. --Flopy (talk) 09:03, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Others' comments

Then, you should be consistent: there is more "mutual intelligibility" between standard Macedonian and Bulgarian, but no one tries to put them under umbrella of Bulgaro-Macedonian. Other examples I've already mentioned: Danish and Bokmål, Hindi and Urdu, Indonesian and Malaysian- and in no language classifications are these languages put under artificial umbrella language. The best example is ISO_639_macrolanguage#List_of_macrolanguages where only Malay macro-language is inscribed, along with some hbs "Serbo-Croatian"- but not artificial "Dano-Norwegian" (but a bivariant Norwegian language composed of Nynorsk and Bokmål). Also- there is no macro-language for Urdu and Hindi, languages even more mutually intelligible than Croatian and Serbian on colloquial level. I think that: 1) I've answered your objections with regard to the criterion of mutual intelligibility- it's not sufficient, you see, 2) also, it's evident that this business of joining and dividing languages in linguistic atlases and classifications is a question of purely political-economic power & influence.
And- yes, we do have army & navy, although in a pretty rag-tag condition. Mir Harven (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
You have done a pretty poor job so far answering my objections. And I am consistent. The differences between Bulgarian and Macedonian and Danish and Norwegian, which both limit mutual intelligibility, are far greater than those between Croatian and Serbian. If you'd take Chakavian as your standard, we would all accept Croatian as being different from Serbian (just like we have with Macedonian). As for Hindi&Urdu and Indonesian&Malaysian, these are, just like BCMS, different standard forms of the same language, called Hindustani and Malay respectively. As for the SIL's 639 codes, don't be blinded by them, these are just as often non-scientifically motivated. As for your rag-tag army: please first read my comment about it above. --JorisvS (talk) 14:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Since this is a "blued" part, no sense in prolonged answering. 1) Bulgarian and Macedonian are more mutually intelligible than Croatian and Serbian. The choice of dialect does not have crucial bearing on the intelligibility- but, you probably don't know Croatian linguistic history to comprehend this. Suffice to say that Croatian writers like Pavao Ritter Vitezović (who wrote in admixture of Čakavian, Kajkavian and Štokavian) or Fran Kurelac (who wrote in a private language, essentially Čakavian grafted onto Church Slavic with many Štokavian elements) are almost completely intelligible to the modern Croatian reader- unlike, say, Bosnian Muslim writer Hasan Kaimi (who wrote in Štokavian, but with many Turkish and Arabic loan-words) or Serbian Dositej Obradović (who wrote in slightly Russianized Serbian Štokavian vernacular, tainted with Church Slavic neologisms). Intelligibility is not the result of "dialect", but of absence of loan-words, dialectal provincialisms and communication of speakers in closely related dialects areas. 2) You didn't understand Danish- Norwegian argument (macro-language is Norwegian, and not Danish and Bokmal), nor Hindi and Urdu (they are not put, in linguistic classifications everyone points to, under umbrella of a macro-language). Well, this is pretty clear. Who has ears ..Mir Harven (talk) 15:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


Name Issue

I'm going to summarize what I see as the problem here.

  • At the beginning of the 20th century there was a group of mutually intelligible dialects here that belonged to a language we'll call "X".
  • There were religious divisions within these dialects into Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim communities, but the religious boundaries did not coincide with dialect boundaries.
  • Early in the 20th century, these dialects came to be spoken in a single united country--Yugoslavia.
  • One of the dialects was chosen as a national literary standard and called "Serbo-Croatian".
  • At the end of the 20th century, this single country was divided and the area of language "X" was divided between four countries--Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia.
  • The boundaries of these four countries do not coincide with any dialect boundaries of language "X".
  • All four countries use as a literary standard the dialect chosen for "Serbo-Croatian".
  • Each of the four countries has adopted a different name for the literary standard of that country--"Bosnian", "Croatian", "Montenegrin", and "Serbian".

So there is a language that needs a name. That language has several dialects that are mutually intelligible and is spoken in four different countries. The country boundaries do not coincide with any dialect boundaries and all four countries have chosen the same dialect as the literary standard. That language was named "Serbo-Croatian" in the 20th century and is still usually called that in English. So what do we call that language? That seems to be the fundamental question here. Common English usage is clearly "Serbo-Croatian". Mongrel forms are beginning to appear such as "Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian", etc. --Taivo (talk) 13:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a pity the powers that be in all 4 countries didn't think of a suitable name at the time (Bocromoser?) but unfortunately we can't invent one.Fainites barleyscribs 21:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I suppose that it's telling that the biggest point of dispute centers around the name. The original codifiers could find more agreement and compromise when deciding which features from Neo-Štokavian would be standardized. I would suggest "BC(M)S" or "Bosnian/Croatian/(Montenegrin)/Serbian" as an alternative since it appears to have some currency outside the Balkans as an alternative to "SC" or "Serbo-Croatian". What's also interesting is that these politically-correct terms are treated in the singular just like "Serbo-Croatian" (A construction such as "BCMS is spoken..." accurately treats the variants as really one language and strikes a compromise between recognizing standard languages and showing that the intra-variant differences are dwarfed by the similarities). Unfortunately adding Bosnian and Montenegrin to the mix extends the term, and also shows the effects of reconciling Balkanization with the findings of comparative Slavonic linguistics. This form of agglutination in the nomenclature could unwittingly be part of an analogy which could offend the very Croats who are presently so insistent on the separation from Serbian. There's nothing stopping speakers of other Štokavian sub-dialects from elevating their sub-dialects to standard languages that are insisted upon as being separate from (or mutually unintelligible to) the existing BC(M)S/SC. The Bunjevci of northern Serbia and Šokci of southern Hungary in theory could do such a thing if their regional allegiances would develop into more ambitious ones for statehood or at least greater autonomy. These scenarios would then likely upset Croats who subsume these people into their ethnos and thus speakers of Croatian dialects. BBCMSŠ anyone?
A term such as "Eastern Herzegovinian" is even better for me than BCMS, SC and similar terms as it's less associated to a nation-state or ethnic consciousness. Alas it's outside the public eye by being confined mainly to studies in Balkan dialectology and again incompatible with the 19th century ideal treasured by nationalists that there must be as many languages as nationalities. The refusal to admit the presence or even concept of a pluricentric language in the region is morbidly fascinating from a linguist's point of view and highlights a gulf between the outlook of influential linguists in the Balkans and that of their counterparts outside the Balkans. In other words, the impasse will remain as long as those outside the Balkans strive to adhere to "unsexy" but depoliticized means of classification using methods in genetic linguistic analysis while those in power (this includes people in education, for where else would children pick up these nationalist ideas?) in the Balkans strive to adhere to "sexy" but politicized means of classification as used in sociolinguistics.Vput (talk) 23:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Hmm. All in all it doesn't sound like "Bocromoser" is going to be a winner. I have been following this debate for a while and it is difficult to see how to reconcile nationalist and linguistic approaches.Fainites barleyscribs 21:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

1RR Warning

User:Jack Sparrow 3 has violated the 1RR restriction for this article. I placed a warning on his talk page. --Taivo (talk) 14:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

UN promotes language diversity, en.Wikipedia obliterates?

[4] "February 21 marks International Mother Language Day. The UN-sponsored event, observed every year since 2000, aims to promote linguistic diversity and protect the heritage of the world's 6,000 remaining languages".
As it seems, en.wiki does the opposite [5] [6] [7] [8]. Kubura (talk) 05:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

And from the same article: "Egon Fekete, a linguist in Belgrade, says most academics still say a single language is spoken in the Balkans -- albeit one with numerous dialects." --Taivo (talk) 06:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Kubura, if you wish to promote Croatian linguistic diversity, you should be working to save Chakavian and Kajkavian. They are in danger of extinction, and pretending that Shtokavian is a different language when spoken by Croats than by Serbs does nothing to preserve Croatia's linguistic and literary heritage.
You could start by developing the Chakavian dialect and Kajkavian dialect articles as befits their cultural and historical importance, rather than wasting time telling English speakers how to speak their language.
Hm, perhaps I could write a newspaper article, "Croatian nationalists obliterate Croatian language in favor of compromise with Serbs", illustrating how upon independence Croats prefered to continue with their supra-ethnic Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian dialect of Shtokavian rather than reviving those pure Croatian dialects. — kwami (talk) 06:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
If the Croats were so inclined to be high-minded, then lest they forget to preserve the Torlak used by the Krashovani, or the Štokavian sub-dialect of Bunjevac_dialect. There are even fewer speakers of these than of Chakavian or Kaykavian. Vput (talk) 06:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Vput, Bunjevac dialect is the very same Štokavian subdialect of Croats from Zagora, Lika, W. Herzegovina and parts of W. and Central Bosnia. Kubura (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Ummm... it goes a little beyond that as the map shows. [9]
Bunjevac is classified as a subdialect of Neo-Štokavian-Ikavian. PEOPLE living in Zagora (almost certainly self-declared Croats), Lika (this would include what few Croatian Serbs remain in the region, in addition to Croats), western Herzegovina (this would cover citizens who would consider themselves Bosniaks, in addition to Bosnian Croats), western and central Bosnia (same situation as in western Herzegovina) and Vojvodina (the Bunjevci) use this subdialect.
Another way to look at the same thing is to divide Štokavian-Ikavian into Old Štokavian Ikavian (in this case Slavonian whose native speakers are almost always Croats and may secondarily consider themselves Slavonians (Slavonci)) and New Štokavian-Ikavian (in this case Bosnian-Dalmatian whose native-speakers include Bosniaks, Bunjevci in addition to Croats. Croatian Serbs cannot be excluded outright either as native speakers of this sub-dialect because not all Croatian Serbs have disappeared from Lika since the 1990s.)
The bottom line is that it's simplistic to associate Neo-Štokavian-Ikavian exclusively with Croats, and to insinuate that because Bunjevci speak the same as some Croats living elsewhere, therefore the Bunjevci and their language are extensions of Croatdom. Funny, how if we do a similar sleight of hand with Croats and Serbs who natively speak Eastern Herzegovinian instead of Croats and Bunjevci natively speaking Bosnian-Dalmatian, some Croats come rushing in professing outrage at the nerve of an outsider finding links to a demonized neighbour. Vput (talk) 01:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, plese, take a better look at that article [10].
Look at the co-talkers. In the section "Similar, But Different" are from Croatia, linguist Živko Bjelanović (from Split) and academist August Kovačec. They told it so nicely "The people of Bosnia -- meaning Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs -- could each say they're speaking their own, individual language. They say that it's their national language, and that it's not for Europe, Belgrade, or Zagreb to decide differently...The same is true for Montenegrins. If they think Montenegrin is a distinct language, then basically it is. If on the other hand they decide to share a language with Serbs or Croats, that would work just as well. But the tendency here is to see each of these languages as special and distinct."
On the other hand, the co-talkers in the second section are from Serbia, linguist Egon Fekete (Belgrade) and Zoran Hamovic (director of ...Belgrade-based publishing house).
Compare these attitudes. Who says what. The authors of the article also had to ask Bosniac and Montenegrin scientists, to complete the picture. I hope this helps.
BTW, Kwami, you've told me above "You could start by developing ...rather than wasting time telling English speakers how to speak their language." But on the other hand, you find yourself competent to hold lectures (of the language you don't speak) to the mother tongue speakers of that very language? Interesting contradiction. Kubura (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

What you're pointing out is the difference between defining languages sociolinguistically and formally. See ausbausprache and abstandsprache. Sociolinguistically, Croatian is a separate language. That's why we have this article: the very existence of this article is confirmation of your POV. However, your POV isn't the totality of reality: formally Croatian is the same language as Serbian, and if you do not want to accept SC as a language, then there is no Croatian or Serbian, as the only viable languages are Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian. That is, Croats speak three languages, one of which they share with the Serbs. But that would be OR, so we're back to Croats speaking one language which they share with the Serbs. Formally, that is, by abstandsprache.
No contradiction. I don't tell you what to call my language in Croatian (you could call it American, English, or British--I don't care), yet you're telling me how I must speak my own language. Sorry, that's not going to fly, and you haven't even provided an alternative, despite requests from many of us to do so. — kwami (talk) 01:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Clarifying the Issue (again)

A lot of bandwidth has been spilled above in tangential issues that are not exactly related to the issue at hand. This discussion:

  • is not about whether or not Croatian should have its own article
  • is not about whether or not Croatian should be called a "language" in its own right
  • is not about the history of 19th and 20th century language policy in the Balkans
  • is about what to call the (macro)language that comprises the mutually-intelligible Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian speech-forms (whether we call them "languages", "dialects", whatever)

This article isn't going to go away, neither is the Serbo-Croatian language article or Serbian language or Bosnian language. But the disputed language name in the first sentence will be something acceptable to all. The fact that these speech-forms are mutually intelligible is well-sourced. The literary varieties are all derived from the same sub-dialect of this (macro)language. But the Croats keep avoiding the fundamental question--what do you want to call the (macro)language that comprises all these mutually-intelligible languages? Hindi and Urdu are called "Hindustani" in linguistic literature. Danish-Bokmal-Swedish are called "Dano-Norwegian" or "Dano-Swedish" or "East Scandinavian". What do you want to call this (macro)language? And "Croatian" isn't an option. Saying that "Croatian" is ancient is meaningless because all human languages (except Creoles) are "ancient" in the sense that they all go back in an unbroken chain to the first language in Africa. Saying "Croatian is the ancestor language" is like saying all Indo-European languages derive from Sanskrit or that English was the name of the first human language. Croatian today is not the same language spoken 1200 years ago in the Balkans that was probably close to Proto-West South Slavic anyway. Instead of ranting about "Serbo-Croatian", give us some referenced alternatives. --Taivo (talk) 16:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's been established that the only common SC term for the language, apart from various compounds, is naš jezik, which has the difficulty of not being used in English. AFAIK, the only non-jargon English terms are compounds like Serbo-Croatian (rarely if ever Croato-Serbian), Serbo-Croat, Serbian/Croatian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian, Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/(Montenegrin), Croatian-Bosnian-Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian or Serbian, etc. There's also Central South Slavic and Middle South Slavic; cf. South Central Slavic, which includes Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, and Central Slovak (Russian language journal 54:177), and central South Slavic (lower case 'central'), which is Shtokavian (Heuvel & Siccama, 1992, The disintegration of Yugoslavia, p 5). — kwami (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
The vast majority of English speakers have absolutely noting against the term Serbo-Croatian. Even the majority of the Serbo-Croatian speakers have nothing against it (you don't see many Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins opposing the term here, do you). The only ones who find the term "problematic" are some Croats - specifically Croatian right-wing nationalist extremist that are well-organized and recruited to "fight" here from Croatian wikipedia (if I translated some of the "motivational messages" in Croatian wikipedia's central discussion board that get regularly posted you wouldn't believe the amount of populist rhetoric it's filled with - the pro-SC apologists from this talkpage are frequently mentioned as "foreign mercenaries", and they openly discuss writing to the president to complain about their cause). Even within Croatia, there are a number of linguists and writers who openly endorse the term. The majority of the population of today's Croatia was taught in school for 8/12 years a subject called Serbo-Croatian language. The terminological dispute exists solely in their heads, because they subscribe to the old 19th century formula of language=nation=country. You can see that quite clearly e.g. in this comment: "There are no Serbo-Croatian people!". They truly earnestly believe that stating that Croatian language is a part of Serbo-Croatian clade (together with Serbian/Bosnian/Montenegrin) somehow implies that Croatian people (Croats) are somehow "genetically related" to Serbs/Bosniaks/Montenegrins, which invalidates their already quite fragile sense of identity. While you might be surprised with numerous references to history in their discourse, this comes as no surprise to anybody who has any in-depth knowledge of the region: the time is still in the Balkans, and these people quite literally live through history every day. What happened 15 or 65 years ago is more discussed than current events, and all the current events are perceived through the lens of history. Any attempts to reason the dispute from a neutral perspective are doomed to fail. They simply don't want to see anything Serbo- in the article and don't care if the rest of the planet doesn't share their isolationist sentiments. The fight for "separate Croatian language" translates in their mind to "fight from Serbian oppression", despite the fact that there are no Serbs here. We have all been "brainwashed", it's just that we don't know it! Anyways, the alternatives having any actual usage in the English literature are 1) Serbo-Croatian 2) BCSM. I vote for option 1) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
You make it sound like you're a brave crusader against some sort of a redneck meme, but the current intro is just plain not mainstream. If you were just being contradicted by a handful of wacko Wikipedians, then the former would be the simple explanation, but there is ample documentation available to show that it's actually the majority of Croatians, including most Croatian linguists, who have various levels of discontent with the old language nomenclature, and in turn simply use the new nomenclature. For many people, their preference for the new terminology isn't a religious issue, it's simply based on the fact that it reminds more of the Danish vs. Norwegian situation than of the 1950s. Many if not most English speakers who have contact with Croatian in the real world will also use the new nomenclature, likely for the same reason. The article should document that. Trying to restore the old nomenclature serves little benefit and instead just incites endless flamewars. Give it a rest. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Have a look at Talk:Serbo-Croatian_language/Archive_3#.22SC.22_in_post-Yugoslav_English. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

first subsection that proposes new intro wording

How about this?

Croatian ([hrvatski] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is the language of the Croatian people.[1] It is spoken in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and neighbouring countries, as well as by the Croatian diaspora worldwide. The literary and standard language is based on the central dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, and more specifically on the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect, which also forms the basis of the official standards of Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. Of the other Serbo-Croatian dialects, two, Chakavian and Kajkavian, are spoken exclusively by Croats, and there are a few Croatian speakers of a third, Torlakian; all dialects are called Croatian when spoken by Croats. More generally, these four dialects, and likewise the four national standards, are commonly subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English, though this term is controversial because it reminds many Croats of the Serbian dominance of Yugoslavia,[2] and paraphrases such as "Bosnian-Croatian-(Montenegrin-)Serbian" and "Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/(Montenegrin)" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles.

— kwami (talk) 22:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I would remove explicit mention of "Bosnia and Herzegovina" in the first sentence since using "and neighbouring countries" already includes B and H. Vput (talk) 22:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
I included Bosnia because a large number (17%) of Bosnians are Croats, whereas in other countries it's under 1%, and because one of the moieties of that country goes by the alt name of the "Bosniak-Croat Federation". AFAIK Herzegovina is seen as a core area of the Croat nation, whereas Croats in Serbia and Austria are seen as peripheral minorities not fundamental to Croat identity. — kwami (talk) 22:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
That paragraph works for me. And, Ivan, if the Croat editors here are "summoning the nation" to come here to fight the battle against the cold-hearted linguists, then that constitutes canvassing and leads to blocks and bans. It's not healthy for Wikipedia and they should be reported if that is, indeed, what is happening. --Taivo (talk) 23:10, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes it's good, though it could use a little copy-editing for those less familiar with the issues. For example, is this The literary and standard language is based on the central dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, and more specifically on the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect, referrring to 4 separate dialects or one? Also, In one place you refer to Official standards. In the next you refer to national standards.Fainites barleyscribs 11:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
This is clearly more sensible than the current enforcing of the old nomenclature right in the first sentence. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
I added this, with two trivial changes (kept South Slavic and kept S-C ref tag), but Taivo reverted it saying it's "not". What's wrong? (Other than an apparent sense of WP:OWN?) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:27, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Those were not "trivial changes". The whole issue is that Croatian is not directly a "South Slavic language", but is part of a complex of mutually intelligible speech-forms that constitute a single mutually intelligible language commonly known in English as Serbo-Croatian. Kwami's version was much clearer in that without putting the name "Serbo-Croatian" in the first sentence and calling the speech of the Croats a "language" in the first sentence. --Taivo (talk) 12:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Uh, are you listening to what you're saying? Croatian is, according to this interpretation, not directly a South Slavic language, so saying it's a South Slavic language at all is wrong and has to be reverted? Seriously? What's next, should we remove the Slavic language marker from Russian language intro because it must only be referred to as an East Slavic language rather than overly generic Slavic? What possible purpose does this behavior serve? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Joy, the problem isn't saying that it's SS. No-one disputes that. The problem is that some editors are use that wording to deny that it's SC, to claim that it's no closer to Serbian than it is to Bulgarian. Imagine if Serbs wrote "Croats live in Croatia!" (true enough) in order to deny that there are any Croats in Bosnia; then when we revert, they call us stupid for denying that Croats live in Croatia. It's not what's being put in that's the problem, but what's being taken out. — kwami (talk) 14:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Which is why the note of the S-C classification still remains included in that same intro. We're not writing the intro in order to appease whatever other editor's POV, but to convey information to readers. South Slavic parentage of Croatian is a true factoid, and then there are two competing interpretations of its further classification. Saying that is informative to the reader and is not controversial per se. To provide one interpretation and censor the other out, in fear of the first one getting censored out, well, that just doesn't make sense. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:03, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Which two competing classifications? AFAIK, the only thing that might be debated is whether Kajkavian is truly Croatian or better considered Slovene, or whether the three Croatian "dialects" are best considered separate branches of (W)SS, or whether everything from Slovene to Bulgarian should be considered a single diasystem, etc, but we don't discuss any over those. Croatian being SC is not contested by any reasonable source that I'm aware of apart from that; the only problem has been the name we use. — kwami (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
The first competing classification is that the proper(TM) lineage goes Slavic -> South Slavic -> Western South Slavic -> Serbo-Croatian (or whatever we call the group) -> Croatian. The second competing classification is that the proper(TM) lineage goes Slavic -> South Slavic -> Western South Slavic -> Croatian. One is unacceptable to some people, the other is unacceptable to some other people. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Please provide RS's for the second classification. Not ones that don't bother with all the intermediate steps, but ones which actually classify Serbian Shtokavian and Croatian Shtokavian as separate branches of SS equidistant with Slovene, Bulgarian, etc. If there is no linguistic dispute about this, then it's not scientifically controversial, and shouldn't be presented as such. — kwami (talk) 16:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Note, I corrected the above, I forgot the "Western" part. The Ethnologue reference from the article does that, and local Croatian sources do so, too - I guess based on Babić/Finka/Moguš and such. The Western group included the S-C happy family as well as Slovenian. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:45, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

second subsection that proposes new intro wording

here is my variant of kwami's introduction, with the citation replaced by Lockwood. --VKokielov (talk) 02:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Croatian ([hrvatski] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is the language of the Croatian people.[3] It is spoken in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and neighbouring countries, as well as by the Croatian diaspora worldwide. Historical circumstances have had the result that Serbs, Bosniaks, and many Croats speak a linguistic unity which may be dispassionately called the Shtokavian dialect; the term "Serbo-Croatian" used by linguists and by the socialist Yugoslav government, is seen as controversial after the war and was never the usual name for any of the languages in the mouths of its speakers. Lockwood (1972), speaking of the socialist standard, writes: "But the new standard was at once affected by provincial peculiarities, morphological as well as lexical, associated with the two rival cultural centers, Belgrade and Zagreb (Agram). As a consequence, two somewhat differentiated forms of the literary language are found today, Serbian and Croatian. Speakers will normally declare themselves to be using one or the other fo these, the collective Serbo-Croatian being more a linguist's term than a popular name." [4] Today, as before, the term our language (naš jezik) is used informally by speakers to refer to the speech of the Shtokavian area, whereas hrvatski refers to the national language of the State of Croatia and the official language of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Unfortunately, that is factually and implicationally incorrect in a number of points: Chakavian and Kajkavian are not part of the Shtokavian dialect. "Historical circumstances" is a meaningless but misleading phrase. "Serbo-Croatian" is more than a term used by linguists and the Yugoslav govt, just as "Croatian" or "jezik" are. (I assume you would object if I said "the term 'Croatian' is used by linguists and by the socialist Yugoslav government".) The controversy over the name, and certainly quotations, belong in the text, not the lead. Etc. The end result is that your version is an opinion piece that belongs in an editorial column, not an encyclopedia.
That said, the quote might be a good one to incorporate into the text. — kwami (talk) 05:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

map

Is this map from the dialect articles accurate?

File:Croatian dialects3.PNG

— kwami (talk) 19:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

A better, and more accurate (and sourced) map would be File:Serbo croatian dialects historical distribution.png. I suggest it be used as a replacement. Note that this is a map of dialects as of 5 centuries ago, prior to the gradual migrations of Štokavian speakers caused by Turkish incursions. I don't think however that it is of much relevance to this article, because at that period in history there was no Croatian state or national consciousness yet. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
I was thinking of its use in the dialect articles.
I added a modern dialect map to the infobox. I labeled it "Serbo-Croatian dialects in Croatia"; I didn't want to say "Croatian" because it includes Serbs in the east (also, I don't know in which way Shtokavian can be called a specifically Croatian dialect), but that might spark another edit war. — kwami (talk) 21:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
As Ivan has touched on, File:Croatian dialects3.PNG takes into account more recent geopolitical sensibilities. In Croatian descriptions it is common to divide Shtokavian geographically (and you can probably see where this is going. Bosnians and Croats are under "Western Shtokavian", Serbs are under "Eastern Shtokavian"), yet this method loses its power or accuracy when put under linguistic (particularly dialectological) analysis.
The starkest or most frequently-used linguistic divisions within Shtokavian are either accentual (Old Shtokavian stress can fall on any syllable while stress on the final syllable is unknown in New Shtokavian) or by reflexes of "yat" (which we know as "ekavian", "ikavian" or "(i)jekavian"). There are other isoglosses within Shtokavian such as the one that considers if older *-že- has changed to -re- or if all of the endings in the peripheral plural cases have syncretized or not, yet they are usually of interest to dialectologists and have not gained traction among native-speakers as ways to classify the sub-dialects. In any case this map eschews those forms of treatment and so I would treat it with some caution. I haven't been able to trace the source of the map apart from seeing that it's linked to the article on Shtokavian at hr.wikipedia.org. Coincidentally or not, this linguistic map also aligns rather neatly with the attitudes of people espousing "Greater Croatia" whereby virtually all of modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina is by some "historical right" part of the Croatian nation-state. Vput (talk) 21:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what I was worried about. I've replaced the map. — kwami (talk) 21:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
I bet that just as some see "Greater Croatia" on it, others see "Greater Serbia" (along the Karadžić's reasoning "all Štokavian speakers are Serbs"). I'm not really familiar with those differences between "Western Štokavian" and "Eastern Štokavian" of the 16th century, but those differences don't matter much today anyway because the dialectal picture is totally different. The whole purpose of that map is to show how Štokavian dialects have spread throughout the history at the expense of other dialects. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
File:Serbo croatian dialects historical distribution.png
Description English: Distribution of central South Slavic dialects before 16th century migrations.--Sokac121 (talk) 23:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
You keep saying "South Slavic", "South Slavic", as if anyone ever denied that it's South Slavic. Of course it's South Slavic. So what? — kwami (talk) 00:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
On this one I'd give Sokac121 a slight benefit of the doubt because of the appellation as "central South Slavic" (although even this is splitting hairs, because South Slavic is usually divided into eastern and western parts, with Slovenian and BCMS/SC making up the western part). Vput (talk) 00:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Map File:Croatian dialects3.PNG deals with historical distribution of dialects that are the part (or parents, if you like it) of Croatian language. Kubura (talk) 05:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I will answer Vput when I have a real keyboard. But understand that no one "canvassed" me. I am an enthusiast, and a foreigner like you. I came because I wanted to turn your attention to the essence of the dispute. You are arguing about names. Names are words, and like all words they may be deeply offensive. And you are frigid when you use linguistic arguments to defend a name, still more as an outsider to whom the name is a hollow sound. You have no part in this fight and no right to speak at this tribune. --97.238.214.37 (talk) 00:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC) --VKokielov (talk) 01:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you a lawyer or something? It has nothing to do with a "right" or a "tribune". We're talking about changes and content in an online encyclopedia article about a standard language, for crying out loud. Vput (talk) 01:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
now you've hit the nail on the head, it seems to me. To you that's all it is. To these people it is a degradation and a condescension. If that isn't obvious, read again what they wrote, and ask yourself why they wrote it, instead of writing them off as "nationalists". I would wager that these "nationalists" know more Serbs than you do. --VKokielov (talk) 01:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
But that's irrelevant. We don't adjust reality to accommodate people who have difficulties with it. Under Homo sapiens, we list the genus under primates regardless of the fact that many people find it extremely offensive to be told that they are apes. Some people may still find it offensive to be told that the Earth isn't the center of the universe, but we're not going to be wishy-washy about the wording of Solar System to accommodate them. Now, if those Croats with hurt feelings can come up with a compromise name for their shared language that makes sense in English, we'll take it under serious consideration, but, AFAIK, there is no such name.
Likewise, there are some supra-nationalists who insist that there is no such thing as Croatian, or Serbian, there's only the common language, but we don't accommodate them by deleting this article either, because sociolinguistically there is a Croatian language, even if it can't be defined cladistically. — kwami (talk) 01:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't have anything left to say -- you've snatched my words away. do you really suppose that the absolute truth in facts must be said, UP FRONT, there where it wounds the sight of people who've lost friends and relatives in the war? if you do, then only because you haven't penetrated the tragedy in all its proportions. do you think this is an argument about fancies or whims?! puh. God forbid a war like that should ever befall you.
if you want this article to be encyclopedic and at the same time sensible, arrange for an explanation. Explain in a periphrase that linguists consider the language part of Serbo-Croatian, and then make clear, as Lockwood writes, that "speakers will normally declare themselves to be using one or the other of these, the collective Serbo-Croatian being more of a linguist's term than a popular name." No one asks for more. --VKokielov (talk) 01:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
an absolute truth that, I add, is irrelevant to the question, because we are arguing about the name, not about the mutual intelligibility of Serbian and Croatian. --VKokielov (talk) 01:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
The question of naming is decided by what is common in English, and SC is common in English. It's not a linguistic term, but a popular one.
This is an encyclopedia. It's supposed to be the truth, not some watered-down approximation designed to avoid offending, or with the unsavory bits tucked in a corner where no-one will notice, no matter what atrocities people have experienced. If they're too traumatized to read it, then they shouldn't read it. I suppose we should water down instances of priests raping children, because otherwise it would be traumatic to the children who were raped? Just sweep it under the carpet so that no-one is offended? (Okay, that's not fair to the priests: what happened in the war was far far worse. But the ideal is the same.)
I agree that we should be clear that speakers generally identify themselves as speakers of C, S, or B. That is objectively true, and if it's not sufficiently clear, please try reworking the article accordingly. — kwami (talk) 02:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
In that case, VKokielov, it's all the more reason to stick to rigorous application of linguistic analysis and stick to things such as phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis. The name isn't irrelevant and none of us here (not even the "cold-hearted" linguists) have a problem with "Croatian". The trouble arises when the names acquire more value than the things which they refer to, and some names get deprecated to suit political agendas. It also leaves us with the apparent inconsistency of many sources which have used the name without malice even before (or after) that very name has been deprecated by some people (see how many comparative linguists and language professionals use the term "Serbo-Croatian" or "Serbo-Croat" when dealing with apolitical topics such as translation, prosody, etymology or morphology). It's a lot less political and of use to someone who's trying to understand the structure of the language, rather than come out taking sides in a debate that has been ongoing for many decades. Who'da thunk it that an article on language stick to linguistics? The article Ukrainian_language is probably closer to your ideal of an article on a language with its meandering into historical events, and focus toward portraying Ukrainian (and implicitly its speech community) as a victim of Polonization and Russification. Interesting, but secondary in an article that's supposed to focus on Ukrainian as a language/dialect/variant/communicative code. Vput (talk) 02:06, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
It's interesting how you VKokielov think that everybody who has lost somebody in the war is against the term Serbo-Crotian. Well of all three nations involved, Croats suffered the least casualties, and yet they're by far the most vehement and vocal opposition here. How do you explain that? Could it simply be that we're not dealing with a general Croatian sentiment as regards the appellation Serbo-Croatian, but rather a tightly-knit group of well-organized individuals pushing for their particular (nationalist) agenda? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, for what it's worth, I don't believe that "Serbo-Croatian" was deprecated after the end of Yugoslavia. I believe the Croats (and Bosniaks) when they say it was imposed at the beginning. Neither do I say you should delete the Serbo-Croatian article, though it would help to present things in perspective and without belittling the sentiments of the people who count in this discussion. I don't even want you to erase mention of "Serbo-Croatian." But I want it to stand further away, and, if it must be in the introduction -- if there's no getting around it -- then without a sales pitch and without making it look like we know better than they do. --VKokielov (talk) 02:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

and of course the Serbs minded it least of all; Belgrade was the capital and the numbers were theirs; not to mention that when the war got into full swing the Yugoslav units were full of Serbs and fighting for them. If the capital were Zagreb and the Bosniaks were counted Croats (as they had been, and not once before -- as during the second world war) then the Serbs would be arguing here instead of the Croats. --VKokielov (talk) 02:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

VKokielov, the only people "who count" in this discussion are the English speakers who will be reading this. That is our audience--our English-speaking readers. Not Croatians, unless they happen to be users of the English language Wikipedia. It doesn't matter one bit what Croatian speakers in Zagreb think about this. This is the English Wikipedia and will accurately use the common English terms for things. Wikipedia is not an arm of the Croatian government or any other government. It is a neutral encyclopedia, and as such, uses scientific accuracy as a measure of things, not "feelings". --Taivo (talk) 02:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
right. "scientific accuracy." again I raise it up: eugenics was also a science. do you really think there is such a thing as scientific accuracy in the humanities? hrh. --VKokielov (talk) 02:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
and lest someone take my hypothesis about Belgrade and the Serbs the wrong way: people are people. no one has the right to say he is holier: not the Serbs, not the Croats, not my Jews. but neither does anyone have the right to demean anyone else, and that is what you do when you don't take into account the motivation of the Croatian editors arguing against you here -- when you try to show them a fringe, a band of rascals who will overturn your sanctimonious, holy truth. They aren't; they are people who want to have a right to their own -- a people who have not had that right, except under that maniac Pavelic, for many, many centuries. --VKokielov (talk) 02:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Unless you have reliable sources and scientific references, VKokielov, then your comments are irrelevant. That's all there is to be said on the matter. Croatian emotions are not what Wikipedia, an encyclopedia with a neutral point of view, is based on. If Croatians are offended that the most common English term is used in the English Wikipedia, then they can go to the Croatian Wikipedia. --Taivo (talk) 04:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
There is no such things as "right for a language" VKokielov. Some Croats imagine that there is some kind of right for "linguistic self-determination" (much as there is a right for national self-determination), but there really isn't. It's imaginary, in their brainwashed heads. I've read about that pravo na jezik more times than you can possibly imagine, and haven't seen a shred of evidence supporting it. Snježana Kordić does an excellent job in dismantling that particular myth in her recent book Jezik i nacionalizam.
You speak about the term Serbo-Croatian being "deprecated" Really? You're a Russian, right? Last time I checked all the Russian Slavists and Slavic Studies departments on Russian universities were still abundantly using the term, as they have been continually for the last 2 centuries.
Your historical perspectives are also deeply flawed and biased. The term Serbo-Croatian originates in the early 19th century, long before Communist Yugoslavia was created in 1945. And even within Communist Yugoslavia numbers meant absolutely nothing - it was not a democracy, and rights of the constituent narodi/narodnosti were guaranteed by the federal/state constitutions. It was not possible for more numerous Serbs to "outvote" Croats or Bosniaks. Belgrade was chosen as the capital because it was the most populous city. I don't see how any of this has anything to do with this article though. But it's really interesting how you mention it to justify their actions. I wonder why don't you go a bit further down the history ladder and mention all those distinguished Croatian intellectuals of the 19th and early 20th century that were pivotal in the creation of Serbo-Croatian literary language as it is today? Why only mention these right-wingers who worship Pavelić/NDH and their purist separatism? We others are not "pure" Croats for you? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
"The term Serbo-Croatian originates in the early 19th century". Give us the source. And exact year.
Second. Who are those Croatian intellectuals that are mentioned here "who worship Pavelić/NDH and their purist separatism"?
You said that "Belgrade was chosen as the capital because it was the most populous city." In 1910., Zagreb had 136,351, in 1921 - 167,765 inhabitants, in 1948 - 356,529. Belgrade in 1905 - >80,000, in 1910 - >100,000, 1940 - >320,000 (with Zemun). It's more the case of succession of Kingdom of YU and the fact that Karađorđević dinasty wanted to have capital in their own country, Serbia, whose capital Belgrade was. And I'm not sure that Zagreb (neither Belgrade) was the most populated city in 1918 in area of later Kingdom of YU. Kubura (talk) 05:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

First of all: Wikipedia:Article titles (aka Wikipedia:NCON) regards only titles, not lede. This means that Taivo is way off course.
Also, the "SC" supporters just love Ethnologue, esp. 14th ed. when the publication listed "SRC" as "a language of Yugoslavia." This edition clouded the fact that that "Yugoslavia" was in fact Serbia and Montenegro.
The 16th ed. of said publication list the "language" (code: hbs) as "a macrolanguage of Serbia." Taivo simply omitted the fact that Serbo-Croatian was listed only under "Serbia". This means that some Serbian correspondents with SIL wanted to portray the Croatian language, as well as the Bosniak language as offshoots of "Serbo-Croatian" which is (as they see it) in fact the Serbian language. And what do you know, it's more than meets the eye. In the SFRY only SR Serbia used as the official language "SC", and continued to use it (constitutionally) up to 2006!
Who gave the right to Kwami to insist on false linguistic theories such as "macrolanguage" when he (or Štambuk) listed the Croatian language as part of "Serbo-Croatian" in the infobox? They like Ethnologue when it suits, but not when it presents the hard fact that Serbo-Croatian was only a name for the Serbian language (with some less internationalisms). They also just love that Croatia is as democratic as it is, so that every person had (in 2001 census) the right to declare its language as wished. But in the same time - deny any possibility to include the correct data in the pertaining article, while idly playing with figures and insting on 21 or even 23 million of alleged speakers of "SC".
Taivo lists some paper that were printed in times when the international community didn't know (or pretended to not know) what is going on. For up to 1999-03-25 the "SFRY" had its diplomatic representation in USA. The flag of "SFRY" was lowered in New York (in front of UN HQ) for the last time on 2000-11-01 (or the day before).
When would those "SC" supporter realise that what they advocate is completely false. WP:NCON has no bearings on the lede. The infobox contains fabrications. There was no proto-SC. Croats who started the notion of "Croatian or Serbian" haven't included Serbian words, but expressed political opinion (of that time frame). Ivan probably doesn't know that from 1965-04-05 at birth, citizens were registered at state offices - but without their nation listed, not even the nation of parents was listed. This practice existed even before that date, at employment, issuing of work permits, etc.
Would this mean that Croats (born between 1965-04-05 and 1990) aren't Croats? Obviously - it wouldn't, but for some discutants (here) everything goes. -- Ali Pasha (talk) 11:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

"Macrolanguage" is an invention of Ethnologue. We don't use it here. SC is simply an abstand language, whereas Croatian and Serbian are ausbau languages. That is, SC is a language on formal grounds, whereas Croatian is not, but Croatian is a sociolinguistic language, whereas SC is not. Simple enough. — kwami (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, you cite the Ethnologue as some reliable credible source, but when it does not suits you, you simply decline its terminology, just like that.
Who are those "we"? Don't hide behind "we". Those "we" are not all of us. Nobody WP:OWN owns this article, neither those "we".
So, are those "we"? World's most eminent linguists, Slavists, Croatists, so they can tell us which sources are good, and which not? Can you give us their names? Kubura (talk) 04:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Shtokavian/Štokavian

In this article, both Shtokavian and Štokavian are used. Similarly Chakavian and Čakavian are also both used. The two infoboxes use one each. Is there one which is preferable to use? It's probably best to use one, with the other version appearing in brackets after first use. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think any decision has been made on that. It's the diacritic debate, which seems unending. But since the articles are currently at the digraph spelling, it's probably better to use that here. — kwami (talk) 09:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Response from Suspected Sock Puppet

Note that Ali Pasha was just registered in Wikipedia as a single purpose account here. This response is clearly from someone who is an experienced user and not a new editor. Will one of the admins please examine this? It's clear that Ali Pasha is a sock puppet. --Taivo (talk) 12:06, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Taivo, please do not edit my contributions.
Taivo should stop. He knows what is the proper procedure, and if he believes that I am a sock of any of the users who participated in this discussion - he can ask to check - but in the appropriate place.
Furthermore, he should stop editing my edits (by placing them under headlines). Taivo is not the moderator of this discussion.--Ali Pasha (talk) 12:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
A majority of those who voted "yes" in the poll above were recruited from Croatian wikipedia, where there is a post inviting everyone to confirm their "Croatdom" by casting a vote here [11], and that under a thread that has been lingering in the central discussion board since July (administrators refuse to archive it so that they can recruit more "support"). If User:Ali Pasha is not somebody's sockpuppet (which I think it is), it's almost certainly somebody's associate canvassed here. The choice of a name Ali Pasha is indicative: perhaps they're trying to make it appear that he is a Bosniak by using an Oriental-sounding nickname, so that the excessive Croatian-only support for name change could be diluted. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment from a neutral party - Canvassing for support elsewhere will not help either side; please would participants in these discussions take note that simple strength of numbers will not decide this issue, only strength of arguments. Thank you. Keristrasza (talk) 13:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment - Štambuk is accusing us of extreme nationalism, but over the past year he has fought a vigorous campagin against the croatian language. Any person who does not share his point of view is met with a barrage of abusive words. He works like a man possesed, driven to wipe out any trace of the word Croatian as much as he can from en.wikipedia and from the wiktionary. Here is the list of words for which the defintions were destroyed by Ivan without consultation with others. --Roberta F. (talk) 16:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
I cannot be "destroying Croatian language" because that language doesn't exist. What was being done on Wiktionary, and was completed quite successfully, was unifying the separate treatment of B/C/S/M standards of Serbo-Croatian language under a single header. It significantly reduced redundancy and increased readability. By any measure, it was a right thing to do once the coverage of SC lexicon passed a certain threshold and a thorough overlap in content began to emerge. Ullmann's "recovery report" will forever remain a fantasy, and the bot "recovering" the obsolete entries will never be run because it's badly written and generates junk, and Ullmann's knowledge of Serbo-Croatian is zero so he cannot fix it. The outcome on SC vote was unfortunately inconclusive, but only because you "Roberta F." canvassed a bunch of editors from Croatian and various other pedias to oppose it (like your "Catholic brethren" from Poland..OTOH it was quite lovely sight to see people who can't otherwise stand each other much standing against a "common enemy"!), and there was no voting eligibility guidelines in practice at the period, but which was rectified later in this vote which you also unsuccessfully tried to sabotage (in anticipation of the next UnifiedSC vote which you'd then be unable to tilt). If anyone is "abusive", it's your clique which repeatedly invokes ancient history and politics as arguments. If anything, I am orders of magnitude more civil than you are on your home wiki, where I'm repeatedly painted with delightful epithets such as bolesnik mesijanskog tipa, jugounitarist etc. So please look at yourselves first. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
The manner you address some users, the harsh language, nationalistic labelling and assumption of conspiracy should not be tolerated on en:wiki or on the street. Threatening someone with death, and then just shrugging it of as a figure of speech, is also something unwarranted. Is really anyone who is pitted against you in an argument deserving to be hit always below the belt, the distance of the wikipedia and the nonsanctioning of your behaviour has only given you wings to become bolder and meaner in your addresses to any user who dares to write someting about Serbo-Croatian and connected articles. Wikipedia is not yours and it is not mine, it is there for everyone - but you constantly bully anyone who dares to think differently. --Roberta F. (talk) 15:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Ivan, you wrote "I cannot be "destroying Croatian language" because that language doesn't exist.". Which language was official in Croatia, when it was in Austria-Hungary, Croatian or "Serbocroatian"? It was one of them. Could you give me the sources for "Serbocroatian"? My source is for example the Croatian-Hungarian Agreement (read the text of Agreement) for "non existing" Croatian. --Flopy (talk) 09:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I red it for you:
  • ....izvornom i hrvatskcom sastavku takodjer izdati i proglašenja radi saboru kraljevinah Dalmacije, Hrvatske i Slavonije što prije poslati.
  • U svemkolikom obsegu kraljevinah Hrvatske i Slavonije službeni je jezik hrvatski toli u zakonodavstvu, koli u sudstvu i upravi.
  • Za organe zajedničke vlade ustanovljuje se takodjer hrvatski jezik službenim jezikom unutar granicah kraljevinah Dalmacije, Hrvatske i Slavonije.
  • Predloge i spise u hrvatskom jeziku sastavljene; pa iz kraljevinah Hrvatske i Slavonije na zajedničko ministarstvo podnešene, imade to ministarstvo primati i rješitbe svoje na istom jeziku izdavati.
  • ...da se zastupnici istih kraljevinah tako na zajedničkom saboru kako i u delegaciji mogu služiti i jezikom hrvatskim.
  • Na zajedničkom saboru stvoreni i podpisom Nj. c. i kr. apošt. Veličanstva providjeni zakoni izdavat će se za kraljevirte Dalmaciju, Hrvatsku i Slavoniju u izvorniku hrvatskom i odaslati saboru tih kraljevinah.

This was written in 1868. An official document, an agreement. It was officiacly also written by "Croatian nationalists" and sanctioned by King. --Flopy (talk) 09:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

What is this language that you cite Flopy? Is it "Croatian"? I'm no so sure, because most of our fellow Croats would have a hard time understanding words such as as svekomlikom, obsegu, kraljevinah, toli, koli. In fact, if you translated it to modern language, it would be (almost, yat variants and few lexical pairs such as službeni : zvanični aside) the same in B/C/S. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
You wrote just in order to write something. Nothing else. It's Croatian from the middle of 19th century, the source is clear: official language in Croatia was Croatian, that has nothing to do with "službeni" - "zvanični". You didn't answered my question and you didn't give the sources for "Serbocroatian" in 19th century and I gave anofficial source for Croatian. Even more: in 1847 the Croatian Parliament decided that Croatian is the official language in Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia instead Latin. Croatian, not "Serbocroatian". So, please, don't try to obscure the facts. I want to see your sources, I gave you 2 sources so far. --Flopy (talk) 19:00, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

-

"Our fellow Croats" - when did you become a Croat, "Ivan"? And who gave you the right to speak for the most of Croats?--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 19:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm a Croat by nationality and ethnicity. By the power of reason I have a right to speak in the name of the enlightened and dispel all the propaganda and lies hindering back the progress of species. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:32, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm writing to demonstrate that your arguments are fragile and in essence - worthless. You're giving examples of "Croatian" which majority of the modern-day self-styled Croats can't even read. It's 100 times more different from modern "Croatian" than modern "Croatian" is different from "Serbian". For any practical purpose - it proves nothing.
Your clinging to the notion of an "official language" - worthless construct linguistics-wise, is indicative of a statist mindest. Flopy, there is no such thing as an "official language" with respect to how people speak. It is however characteristic of regimes violating basic rights and liberties, whereby you are required to follow some prescribed from of a communication code imposed by an authority (some kind of a prestigious dialect) in order to enjoy services provided by money that has been coercively taken from you. Think about it Flopy: there are thousands of languages in this world, and only two hundred-something nation-states, meaning that 99% of them are not official (and of those that are official, there is lots of redundancy: e.g. English alone is official in 53 countries). Does it mean that they do "not exist" ? Gees, tell it to the millions of their speakers. Besides, the freest and greatest countries in the world, such as USA, Great Britain or e.g. Germany, do not have constitutionally-mandated "official language". They do however have a form of de facto lingua franca, but nobody will sue you if you don't speak "properly". Compare that freedom-minded mentality to that of yours Flopy. Remember when that scumbag Vice Vukojević of the Croatian Constitutional Court back in the days of Tuđman's dictatorship tried to pass a law by which anyone not using their prescribed "standard Croatian" would be forced to pay a hefty fine? That's not freedom Flopy, that's slavery and serfdom. Speaking of which, we might as well add that Croatia (an administrative region of Austria-Hungary at the period) was still a feudal hellhole by the mid-19th century, with Latin as the official language of the parliament (the first who dared to used Slavic speech was Sakcinski in 1843), with the overwhelming majority of the population being illiterate, obediently working as serfs and paying their monthly tithe to the Vatican mafia. So color me unimpressed by your sources, I think of them nothing but irrelevant to the point of the discussion. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:32, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I want to discuss with sources, but you officialcly don't have any of it, so you write essays (again). As soon as you started writting about "Vatican mafia" I knew you don't have any arguments. Such strong words didn't impress me. You are writting about dictatorship and that Croatian as a standard languauge has been forced in the 1990-s. You gave me one more argument. What was the Novi Sad Agreemnt? Freedom? Wasn't forced? That wasn't dictatorship? 1847 Croatian Parliament forced Croatian to speak Croatian and in 1954 it has been made free? Very good Ivan, just continue to give me more arguments. I can't wait. But remember, strong words may impress some other, me not. Sources against sources. --Flopy (talk) 08:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Decrees of a bunch of feudal landowners are not a valid source. See: WP:SOURCE. Neither they are indicative of the contemporary linguistic trends, as I've argued above. Neither does "officialdom" matter much, esp. so in the Balkans where the average lifespan of a country is 20-30 years.
1954 Agreement was basically a confirmation of established literary practices. Read Croatian writers from pre-1954, and post-1954. See any major difference? No. You shouldn't simply cling to some arbitrary pieces of paper as if that presents some ultimate proof of something. I know historians like to see the world in terms of agreements and contracts between peoples, but Jesus Flopy, we're talking about language here, not army, trade, parliaments or whatever. Identities and countries come and go, but languages are much less agile. You yourself were born in a country called Yugoslavia, but in your ID card/papers it says "country of birth: Croatia". The point is: so what? Yes Croatian linguists were pretty much free language-wise. They (Matica hrvatska) abolished the cooperation on the second volume of Serbo-Croatian dictionary with Matica srpska. They voted on Deklaracija opting for separate "Croatian literary language. All that without anyone losing so much a single hair of their bald heads. Doesn't really sound like totalitarian dictatorship to me. In Tuđman's Croatia sentiments were much more worse towards those not enjoying the support of the regime. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Again your essays and personal political attitude. The falsification of history, under Tuđman it was dictatorship and in Xugoslavia it was freedom. A joke of the year. But this dooesn't provoke me at all, if that is your intention. I feel nothing then commiseration. Nothing was established before 1954. Politic forced the thing. There was't feudalism in 1868. My sources are very much valid because you and your follower are claiming all the time "SC" is existing since 19th century (1850) and my sources are proofs it was not so. We are talking about language, yes. So, the official language was not and isn't, by your opinion, the language of common people. Argumentum ad absurdum. "SC" is not "the contemporary linguistic trend". "SC" was a product of politic and its propaganda not Croatian what you are claiming all the time. --Flopy (talk) 14:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ E.C. Hawkesworth, "Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian Linguistic Complex", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition, 2006.
  2. ^ Radio Free Europe - Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Or Montenegrin? Or Just 'Our Language'? Živko Bjelanović: Similar, But Different, Feb 21, 2009, accessed Oct 8, 2010
  3. ^ E.C. Hawkesworth, "Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian Linguistic Complex", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition, 2006.
  4. ^ W.B. Lockwood, A Panorama of Indo-European Languages, p. 162, Hutchinson University Library, London 1972.
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