Talk:Serbo-Croatian/Archive 6

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Archive 1

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Opinion

I think this is dead or no more existing language since 1990 and that should be in the article. In my opinion there is no relevant fact that will prove existance of this language any more because relevant countries where this language was used now proclaime croatian language, serbian language, bosnian language... etc. as official languages of countries, and recognize minority languages as croatian language, serbian language, bosnian language, montenegrin language in their countries. There is no recognition or approval of serbocroatian language in Croatia, Serbia, BiH, Montenegro as spoken language. What I want to say it only exists in books writen till 1990 whith several exceptions during 90´. People of Croatia speak and write croatian language, people of Serbia speak serbian language....etc., this language could be called serbocroatian (taking in opinion that almost 45 years were talking a fusion of croatian language and serbian language), but since the people of Croatia, Serbia, etc. don´t call it this way, it´s dead language. Answer? --Domjanovich (talk) 11:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Short answer: Your opinion is simply wrong. Slightly longer answer: such views are sociolinguistical; linguistics, which studies the structure of language(s) without admixing things like politics, clearly shows this to be a single language, alive and kicking, such being independent of any standardization or official recognition. --JorisvS (talk) 12:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Both views are valid. Pushing one side is just plain onesidedness. This is not the policy of Wikipedia. Vodomar (talk) 22:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes and no. Sociologically, yes, Croatian is a language, no-one you've discussed with so far denies this and the article should discuss this. Structurally (and that's what linguistics is about), however, it is not and "simply" a standard variety of the (pluricentric) language English calls Serbo-Croatian and this should be made clear in the article. So no, no pushing one view aside but simply putting it in the correct perspective. --JorisvS (talk) 23:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is here to accomodate both veiws, and both need to be represented. If this is placed in the article plus that it is a common english expression (in the majority of countries) will spare everyone with this endless debate. Let the reader decide. This is what Wikipedia is about 01:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vodomar (talk • contribs)

I´m sorry but I simply don´t understand why that (dead language) is not fact for article use. I repeat myself; Croats claim croatian language, Serbs claim Serbian language, Bosniacs bosnian language, etc. no one of them claims Serbocroatian or recognise it for one of minority used languages (Example Croatia;like italian language in Istra region, serbian language for Serbs in all Croatia, or example Serbia; croatian language for Croats minority in Vojvodina region). So if no one claims it and recognise it, what is it? I think serbocroatian language developeted merging croatian language and serbian language, also died ("demerged" in croatian language and serbian language) when Croatia claimed inndependece (when Yugoslavia "died") since no one says that they use it, or that books are writen in that language, it doesn´t exists. Right? And that should be in article? Did croatian language and serbian language continued progress in all fields related to language since 90´s? I think they did! Did the same progress made serbocroatian language? I don´t think so! Since no one has been using it in that way and contributing to develope it. Language that is not used or progressed in last 20 years I would say it´s dead. Right? --Domjanovich (talk) 11:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There's no point in repeating yourself, for that doesn't make it any more true. You're mixing up the defunct Yugoslavian (bi)standard, which unfortunately also goes by the name Serbo-Croatian, with the real linguistic entity that (in English) is called Serbo-Croatian (Croats and Serbs understand each other just fine!). There are countless real languages that don't have any official recognition, minority or otherwise. Existence out there in the real world is not contingent upon any claims or recognition. --JorisvS (talk) 11:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What you're talking about are language standards, but this article is not about a standard language. Apart from the standards, these are all the same language, the English name of which is "Serbo-Croatian". — kwami (talk) 11:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the Croatian census thrown around earlier recorded speakers of both Serbocroatian and Croatoserbian. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So, if I understand corectly, what u say Kwami is even if no one in related countries (Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and BiH) does not recognises serbocroatian language as official/unofficial language in any form, the only thing important is that english readers of wikipedia recognize (see it) croatian language, serbian language....etc. as (one) serbocroatian language is by it self enough to call that language a living one? Right? User JorvisS can u explaine what u mean when u say: Existence out there in the real world is not contingent upon any claims or recognition.? Did u mean NONexistence? How can language exist in real world if there is no country/people to recognize or claime it in any form? Because SC language maybe exists in some form integrated in croatian language, serbian language,... but if they claime it as (croatian language, serbian language,....) part of their own whith distinction what is croatian part of language and what is serbian part of language, then where is it? I don´t get it. Is it alive, is it dead, is it used in some form I don´t understand? --Domjanovich (talk) 13:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

We don't have good words for this in English, so we use German. Serbian and Croatian are separate ausbau languages: they're separate standards. However, they're a single abstand language: they're mutually intelligible, to the point that sometimes Serbs and Croats can't tell themselves apart (unless of course one speaks Čakavian, but let's suppose they were born and raised in the same village in Herzegovina). Both points of view are legitimate, but they consider different things. Politically, socially, psychologically, sociologically, they're different languages. But to an objective observer, they're basically the same thing. Now, in a classification of languages, like in the infobox in our language articles, we consider how closely languages are related. Croatian and English are both Indo-European (IE), but that's where they part ways. Croatian and Russian are both IE and Slavic. Croatian and Bulgarian are closer: they're both IE, Slavic, and South Slavic. Croatian and Slovenian even closer, IE, Slavic, and Western South Slavic. Croatian and Serbian are even closer, in a group I'll call "X". So, what is X? The group that includes English and Croatian is Indo-European; the group that includes Russian and Croatian but not English is Slavic, the group that includes Slovenian and Croatian but not Russian or Bulgarian is Western South Slavic; we need a name for the group that includes Serbian and Croatian but not Slovenian. The traditional and most common word for this in English is "Serbo-Croatian". (Sometimes people call it Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Montenegrin, but that gets awkward.) It's fine to note that "Serbo-Croatian" is not recognized as a language, but then Slavic is not recognized as a language either, and that doesn't mean that Slavic doesn't exist. The 1993 language law of BiH put it this way: there is a single national language, which goes by the names Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian. I think that's how most English speakers would see it. — kwami (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Never was any such "law" passed. Please give us the exact text of the apparent "law". Slavonic languages are a group - not a language. There is no such thing, as the "single national language" of Bosnia and Herzegovina. -- Ali Pasha (talk) 14:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me guess--Ali Pasha, you're not a linguist so you didn't understand anything that Kwami just wrote. You need to actually read Kwami's post, Ali Pasha, and try to understand it because your posts are clearly not based on any actual understanding of linguistics or the science of language relationship and classification. We're not dealing with Croatian politics here. This is linguistics. Kwami's post is one of the clearest expositions of the problem that we've had in a few days. --Taivo (talk) 14:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure, Ali, the it was published in the Sluzbeni list Republike Bosne i Hercegovine 18/93. It says, in translation, "In the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Ijekavian standard literary language of the three constitutive nations is officially used, designated by one of the three terms: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian."

Since that time, of course, Sarajevo has decided that these are three different languages, but that just goes to show how subjective the whole thing is. — kwami (talk) 14:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I think I got it now. So, as long as Croatian language, Serbian language, Bosnian language and Montenegrin language exists they will provide fact (related to abstand and ausbau) that Serbocroatian language is not out of use (dead language) because it is fully integrated in all of this languages, even if that same language is stuck in 20th century, whith no one to develop it and use it (fact that something is writen in it). Simple yes or no? Thank you. --Domjanovich (talk) 17:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes to the first half (statement), No to the second half (reasoning). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I still want to clarify what I said above. I meant my above statement as written (Existence out there in the real world is not contingent upon any claims or recognition.). Let me give you an analogy that should be easy to understand: "The Moon exists out there in the real world, not contingent upon any claims or recognition.". The Moon is out there no matter what people believe or name it, and the exact same thing is true for Serbo-Croatian: all these people speak a certain way irrespective of what they believe or what it is named. --JorisvS (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

JorisvS, the analogy with the Moon does not stand - the definition of Serbo-Croatian should be abstand language like Kwamikagami said, and that is what it is. Serbo-Croatian is not a living language !!! Vodomar (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Abstand has nothing to do with being living. Standard SC is defunct, but colloquial SC is alive and well, 15 million strong. — kwami (talk) 20:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Vodomar, you are incorrect. As an abstand language, Serbo-Croatian is not extinct or dead. It is the common label for the mutually intelligible non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects. As mutually intelligible dialects, then they have a single language label and that label is "Serbo-Croatian" in English. As an ausbau label, it is no longer used since Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia have each labelled their version of the Shtokavian dialect separately. But it is clearly and unequivocally an abstand language as the most common English label for the mutually intelligible non-Slovenian dialects of Western South Slavic--Kajkavian, Chakavian, and Shtokavian. --Taivo (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You are continuously pushing that Serbo-Croatian is a language where it it not !!! It is a group name. 211.30.149.162 (talk) 07:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Anon IP, a group of mutually intelligible dialects (Kajkavian, Chakavian, and Shtokavian) is always called a "language", not a "group", therefore Serbo-Croatian, as the name of the mutually intelligible non-Slovenian Western South Slavic dialects, is a language. --Taivo (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

No, actually the analogy is quite perfect. An entity's level of abstraction is not relevant here. And as said, SC is very much alive. --JorisvS (talk) 13:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

So can we put in the artical fact that serbocroatian language as it is in his original (standard) form no longer existing or out of use in meaning that in recent time there is no literary work writen in it (I say this because I didn´t find any book from area of former Yugoslavia edited in last 20 years in which is stated that is writen in SC language) but still in use as part of standard croatian language, serbian language, montenegrin language etc. and in spoken form of this languages or not? I´m leaded by things u Kwami, Taivo and Chipmunkdavis told. --Domjanovich (talk) 16:50, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I completely understand what you mean by "as part of standard..." "Serbo-Croatian" is still used in English as the name of the language that comprises all the non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects--Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian. Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian are all derived from the Shtokavian dialect. The use of "Serbo-Croatian" for the common literary language of Yugoslavia has been replaced by using "Bosnian", "Croatian", and "Serbian" for the literary languages of those nations and ethnic groups. --Taivo (talk) 17:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

This fascinating rumination is characteristic of a Croatian nationalist. Let's analyze it a bit and expose the underlying logical flaws as an exercise:
I think this is dead or no more existing language since 1990 - According to a typical person from the Balkans (Croats included), languages as well as nations are created by a decree in a bijective 1:1 relation. If there is no political entity sustaining the language, it doesn't exist. Language "die" and get "created" ex nihilo by acts such as rewriting a few words of the constitution, by e.g. changing Croatian or Serbian to Croatian. The king is dead, long live the king! The fact that people speak and write in 1991 exactly the same way as they did in 1989 doesn't matter. Now, it's "different". Really different.

because relevant countries where this language was used now proclaime croatian language, serbian language, bosnian language... etc. as official languages of countries - unless it's proclaimed by the government, it doesn't exist. Let's ignore the fact that there are thousands of languages in the world, and 99% of them are not official in any sovereign country. Let's ignore the fact that the former Western variety of Serbo-Croatian and modern-day "Croatian" are 99.99% identical. Let's ignore the fact that mere name change - a terminological issue - does not necessarily project as a real change in usage, as the language is actually spoken/written. Let's ignore the fact that a language is by UN charter a human right, not subject to regulation, and that official language merely deals to dealing officially with the state and its institutions, and not to personal usage.

There is no recognition or approval of serbocroatian language in Croatia, Serbia, BiH, Montenegro as spoken language. - Here you can see nationalist egocentricism at work. Speakers "own" the language, and have the exclusive right to discuss its terminology (naming), its classification in genetic/historical linguistics, and its relation to neighboring languages. If the state doesn't "approve" the existence of a linguistic entity, you cannot possibly be speaking it. Even if you truly imagined that you do!!! (Like some of the Croatian linguist actually argue). No statist stamp on your statement? Sorry, doesn't exist.

What I want to say it only exists in books writen till 1990 whith several exceptions during 90´. - And to this day in English, German, Russian, Dutch and many other languages, all of languages relevant for Slavic studies. Not everyone shares your particular viewpoint on term's usage. It's really not controversial in other languages. You want to make it appear so by demonizing everybody who uses it, claiming that he's a "Yugounitarist" or "supporter of Greater Serbia" or whatever, but it usually falls on deaf ears because the rest of the word doesn't care about your tribal grudges.

People of Croatia speak and write croatian language, people of Serbia speak serbian language....etc. 18th-century romanticist-nationalist notion of country=language=people still alive and kicking in the 21st century Balkans. Of course, the only exception to this formula is Bosnia, a region which both Croatian and Serbian extremist claim historical "right" to (and which Milošević and Tuđman tried to actively butcher and annex in the 1990s), where all the three peoples are intermixed in significant numbers. But, there lies the rub: if the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina speak different languages along ethnic lines, why is any different in Serbia or Croatia? Of course, that would render the original formula logically inconsistent, so lets ignore it altogether.

but since the people of Croatia, Serbia, etc. don´t call it this way, it´s dead language - In other words, it's merely a terminological perception. But you can give this guy one credit: he truly believes that the rest of the world should follow terminological shifts occurring in a particular language that they have a word referring to, and make necessary adjustments.

The problem with folks such as Vodomar, Domjanovich, Roberta F. etc is that 1) they generally have no knowledge of linguistics 2) they are self-proclaimed nationalists arguing for a particular political cause . In this issue, they are fighting not for NPOV on the article's treatment, but for their identity, for the convictions and creed it is composed of. Telling them "you know, Croatian is really the same thing as Serbian" is to them equivalent to stating "you know, Croats are really the same people as Serbs". It's an argument you cannot win, because they will never concede and admit that the identity is by definition a matter of point of view. They will abuse your time and energy reiterating the same stupid claims over and over again, without ever getting any of counter arguments. Arguing with them is a waste of time - just ask for credible English-language references or ignore them completely. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:17, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you User:Ivan Štambuk for explaining to me my nationalistic POV since I have allready proclaimed myself on your talk page. Since you called me a nationalist, which I personaly consider is a personal atack because in your "twisted" mind it means the worst of nationalistic stands and not the elaborated one I puted on your talk page, I have some names for you to: friend (hrv.prijatelju), brother (hrv.brate), fellow (hrv. druže, meni draže; čovječe, jer ovo prvo često ima negativne konotacije), mate, colleague.... so do you like it or you think I´m not worth enough to call you like that. I come from part of Croatia that has significant number of other ethnic groups of people, no mather what ethnic group they belong I call them same names I just called you now. My best friend and my colleagues from work (moja braća) are Serbs, I would give blood under my neck for them and they would for me, they are proud Serbs, I´m proud Croat. I hate no one I just love my country. I don´t deserve to be called like that whith prejudices that name Croat gets whith word nationalist, which you dear Ivan Štambuk raise by this statement.

I have asked a simple question; looked for answer to improve wikipedia article. You didn´t agree about my opinion, we came to conclusion of debate and that´s it, all facts stay like it is article. I became little smarter. :) --Domjanovich (talk) 10:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

map 2

If anyone wants to jump in, I'm having a weird dispute at File talk:Serbo croatian languages2006 02.png with the original creator of the national-varieties map. He claims that "Bosnian" and "Bosniak" are separate languages just because the Montenegrin census allowed either name, and is deleting (his own) sources from the map and then tagging it as unsourced. — kwami (talk) 11:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Because Serbian, Croatian and Bosniak are Bosnian languages. Serbian language originates from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is also an official language of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (constitutional amendment XXIX), so it can be called Bosnian. The same can be said about modern Croatian. --Pepsi Lite (talk) 23:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So Pepsi Lite is using "Bosnian" to refer to Serbo-Croatian and "Bosniak" to refer to "Bosnian". Ahem! So the Croatians call Serbo-Croatian "Croatian", the Bosnians call Serbo-Croatian "Bosnian", and the Serbians don't care (yet). LOL. Pepsi Lite, you are just wrong. "Bosnian" and "Bosniak" are exactly the same thing--the Bosnian national variant of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian. --Taivo (talk) 00:12, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Bosnian and Bosniak are not exactly the same thing in the countries of former Yugoslavia. We are having a problem here with this article by confusing 2 different things. Serbo-Croatian can mean 2 different things:

The Yugoslav standard (in vocabulary, grammar, etc.).
Group of languages/dialects that in the geographic area of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro that linguists like Greenberg use.

The solution is to split this article into 2 to describe 2 separate things, and have this article be a disambiguation page. --Pepsi Lite (talk) 06:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Every language name means both of those things: a particular dialect raised to the level of a supraregional, national standard, and a collection of dialects spoken on a particular territory. Ča, Kaj, Što and Tor dialects have all respective individual articles that talk about them, and speak of their relations to other dialects of the SC area, as well as other to which they are much more related (Kajkavian to Slovenian dialects, Torlakian to Bulgaro-Macedonian) There is not really much to speak about all of them together other than what is already presented in the current article. We have a comparative specimen of transcribed speech, short discussion of historical relations and mutual influences, and that's it. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

When I think of Serbo-Croatian, I think of Serbo-Croatian literary language. When a person buys an English-Serbo-Croatian dictionary (or an other kind of dictionary), they will not find Kajkavian, Čakavian, Torlakian or Old-Štokavian words or grammar. This definition that American linguists use for Serbo-Croatian is foreign to me and many people in former Yugoslavia. Americans say that Serbs and Croats speak the same language because it originates from the same place: Tršić, and has nearly identical grammar. If Croats raise another dialect to a national standard (like Dubrovnik Štokavian), then Serbo-Croatian language disappears (the way American linguists seem to think a language is). --Pepsi Lite (talk) 09:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I might buy the possibility of an anti-nationalistic use of the term in Bosnia (like saying I speak "American", without specifying if I mean American English or American Spanish), but in Montenegro? In any case, if that's how the term is being used, the editor should be able to find some refs. — kwami (talk) 04:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Split the article?

I'd like to raise this possibility again. Do people think it would be a good idea to split the article, with Standard Serbo-Croatian (or some similar name) for the defunct Yugoslav bi-standard and much of the debate concerning it, and retaining this location for the abstand BCSM / SCBM naš language, with only a summary of the Yugoslav stuff? There would be a hat note saying s.t. like This article covers the de-facto language variously called Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin. For the former standard language of Yugoslavia, see Standard Serbo-Croatian.

Note: this proposal is not about renaming this, the main article, only about splitting it. Please do not bring the other debate here (unless it's actually relevant, such as 'we don't need to split if we call it X'). If I see demands that we rename the article, that 'Serbo-Croatian does not exist!!!!!', or similar rants, I will delete them as disruptive. — kwami (talk) 10:17, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The issue is going to be what content should be located at which article. Standard Serbo-Croatian will, of course, discuss the history of the literary standard of Yugoslavia. This article, will, of course, discuss the non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects, their locations, etc. But where does the grammatical discussion go? I fear that the grammar discussion of common Serbo-Croatian will become schizophrenic--split between the two articles. Does this article become the "reconstructed" common grammar? Does the other article contain everything grammatical that was published before 1995? Does all the grammar remain here and only the political/sociological issues go there? Before splitting, we need a clear delineation of what goes where, I think. --Taivo (talk) 11:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The grammar goes to Serbo-Croatian grammar. Croatian nationalists already tried to unsuccessfully fork duplicates (Grammar of Croatian language, Croatian grammar - see history) but the "attacks" have been fended off. See also talk page for the loads of brain-dead shaming language and arguments that Serbo-Croatian "does not exist". The grammars of modern B/C/S/M are 99.9% the same. Phonology - identical, accentuation - identical, inflectional morphology - identical, derivational morphology - a few different morpheme pairs (-irati : -isati, -telj : -lac etc. but with many exceptions), syntax - a single difference worth mentioning (conjunction da in one particular construct). At any case, these are already covered in the article Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Such an article would be basically about the sociolinguistic concept (thus only the political/sociological issues would move) and what remains here about the language structurally (which includes grammar, though this is already split off, so having only a short summary here suffices). I'm definitely pro, since these are two different concepts (and whose mixing up has caused so much debate already). I would suggest a name containing Yugoslav(ian), as that makes it more obvious what that article will be about and AFAIK is also common English. --JorisvS (talk) 12:57, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

There is little difference between former Yugoslav "bistandard" and the current situation. The former "Western variety of Serbo-Croatian" aka "Croato-Serbian" and modern "Croatian" are 99.999% identical. The name may have changed, but it's the same thing. The term standard Serbo-Croatian is also a bit problematic due to low usage. However, I think that there would be benefit separating purely linguistic for political-historical stuff, similar to how we have in Chinese language : Standard Mandarin, or Arabic language : Modern Standard Arabic. This article is already excessively political in character, ridden with various nationalist points of views and stupid generalizations, sorely lacking citations for many dubious claims. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The grammars of modern Croatian language, Montenegrin language, Bosnian language and Serbian language are not the same. Phonology - identical? Accentuation - identical???? Are you kidding? Inflectional morphology - identical? Derivational morphology? Syntax - a single difference??? The former "Western variety of Serbo-Croatian" aka "Croato-Serbian" and modern "Croatian" are 99.999% identical? Ivan Štambuk, how many entries has Vladimir Brodnjak's pocket edition of Rječnik razlika između hrvatskoga i srpskog jezika (Dictionary of differences between Croatian and Serbian language)? 637 pages! Pocket edition has derivations eliminated, that means that instead of 4 words, only 1 appears! Therefore, your theory about "same 99.999%" is a proven lie. 637 pages of differences in a pocket edition!!! And there's more about the differences in book by Miro Kačić: Croatian and Serbian: Delusions and Distortions, Novi Most, Zagreb, 1997.

Further, Yugounitarists derogated Croatian language (Ranković and company) to a level of "regional dialect" or "variant". Yugounitarists violently oppressed Croatian science and scientists. They had to be careful when expressing uniqueness of Croatian language, since they risked being tagged by Yugocommunists as "nationalists" "counterrevolutionaries" "enemy reactionary force" "foreign spies". Ivan Štambuk, have you ever left your chair? When was the last time when you went on street and talked with other people? Kubura (talk) 00:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of this as being the abstand article, including dialects that don't take part in any of the standards. Yugoslav standard Serbo-Croatian, or whatever we call it, would deal with attempts at unifying the language, fears/complaints of Serbian domination of Croatian, and the subsequent breakup, and would parallel Bosnian language and the other national forms. Much of the 'present situation' section deals with standard SC rather than the language as a whole, and so might be better off over there. There may not be a whole lot to it; its primary purpose might be simply to point it out to objectors: no, you're talking about that SC, this is something different. — kwami (talk) 13:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

But in Yugoslavia languages weren't unified. There were two (or three according to some) literary variants, equally valid in usage, today roughly corresponding to modern Croatian and Serbian. None of them was given preference, and they weren't mixed (the transitional areas are the exception). The whole "unitarism" thing is a one big myth. Communist paid special attention to nurture multiculturalism. In Istria kids were taught Italian and Serbo-Croatian, and in multiethnic Vojvodina there were 5 official languages. The myth of "suffering" and "oppression" is characteristic of nationalism.

But why stop at Yugoslavia anway? The bulk of the relevant history occurred in the 19th century. That's when different philological school competed with different dialects to create a supraregional standard. Everybody lost (Ikavians Štokavians, Kajkavians, Pan-South-Slavic Illyrians, Slavoserbian..) except for Neoštokavian guys. That's when it was really turbulent and when today's Serbo-Croatian standard was forged. By the early 20th century it was already game over. Communists only picked up on the situation on the field that was left after the one and a half century of efforts to create a literary language. Perhaps what we need is the article History of Serbo-Croatian, dealing with historical-political stuff of the pre-19th century (when those territories where still parts of Ottoman Empire, Venice and Austria-Hungary), 19th century nationalist revival, and the 20th century changes in regimes and perceptions. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a definite - split the article. There was a Yugoslav standard Serbo-Croatian that was out there and used and there was the pre Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian which was used as a term in a loose way as was not used that widely until just before the First World War. Yes you can talk about the History as well - why not, but yes there should be an article about the abstand language. If this is done then we can have clarity and some closure on some points of this subject. Having it all in one just muddies up some of the issues and causes so much noise in the chat space. This way the debate of the use of the Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian Standard can be on those pages, as well as the different debates on the History of Serbo-Croatian and the abstand which can not be denied as it is commonly found in English literature. Forking it makes absolute sense. Vodomar (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear, this (without renaming) is the article on the abstand language. The new article will be the one on the ausbau language--Standard Serbo-Croatian is probably the best option (I don't think we need to add the term "Yugoslav"). Before splitting, however, we need a good delineation of what stays here and what goes there. --Taivo (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree Tavio, the new article needs to properly define the term and if it is done in the right way, we will have less noise. Other articles will develop over time. Vodomar (talk) 08:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ivan, whose opinion I've learned to respect, raises some pertinent objections; otherwise the split would appear to have support depending on how we split it.

Ivan, if we incorporated the points you've made into the lede of such an article, would you still object to the split? — kwami (talk) 06:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, be brave. That is the moto of Wikipedia. Why do we need Ivan's blessing to go ahead. Vodomar (talk)

Ivan's objections make sense, the distinction should be clear. The split sounds good, similar to the recent Malay article changes I'm supposing Kwami? Of course, a summary would still be needed in this article. Yugoslav Serbo-croatian might be a better title, as suggested above, similar to American English.Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Vodomar, we don't need Ivan's blessing, but it would be nice to get as many people in agreement as possible. If his objections were silly, I would ignore him, but they're not, and I think they should be taken into consideration. It would be unprofessional to have an article on a register that never existed, so IMO if we do split, we should make it clear that SC was always a Serbian+Croatian bistandard. It would be to some extent redundant with the Serbian and Croatian articles, and so should presumably cover sociolinguistics more than standardization. I'd like Ivan's input on that—yours too, of course! — kwami (talk) 10:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Including some "Yugoslav" determiner in the name would be silly if a substantial portion of the issues surrounding the ausbau language are pre-Yugoslavian (though we would need appropriate redirects). Based on the title, a "History of Serbo-Croatian" would not be about the ausbau language per se and would include things about the language pre-ausbau as well as not include (or at least in principle) some ausbau-related issues that are not so much history-related. The title should be as accurate as possible in telling that it would be about the ausbau language. --JorisvS (talk) 11:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion of articles: Serbo-Croatian ausbau, History of Serbo-Croaitan and Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian standard. In the Serbo-Croatian ausbau the article should have the definition that covers all the variant names that exist around plus the name Central South Slavic diasystem and state that the term is used to desciribe the language situation in Serbia, Croatia, BiH and Montenegro and that the term Serbo-Croatian is not used in the affected countries because of the negative political co-notations (references to Greater Serbia and repression under Kingdom of Yugoslavia and SFRY). History will talk about history and the Yugoslav standard will talk about the Yugoslav standard of 1954 to 1991. The article should be written in neutral tone, taking into consideration all of different opinions that are out there. This will give the most comprehensive unbiased view of the subject and if a reader wishes to explore it further there won't be any mind shoving POVs Vodomar (talk) 22:17, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I think I've said it before, but I'm against the split, at least under so vaguely defined scopes. The situation fails the rule of thumb that you can clearly name and define the scope of the target article; to, me, it seems artificial, in order to solve POV problems with an article, and move it to a sub-article instead. In other words, it is not a natural editorial decision (such that would occur in a paper encyclopedia with a small tim of editors), but an attempt to resolve an internal Wikipedia conflict. Which is usually a Bad Thing™. This article should be mostly a summary-style anyway, with grammar and phonology already in respective articles; what is left should describe the history and sociopolitic stuff, mainly. Note that we already have under-developed Shtokavian dialect article, which could have better info about dialectology stuff. No such user (talk) 06:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be defined by how we do similar articles. This article should be done up like English language, that is an article about the language as a whole. The split article should be done up like American English or British English, an article about the standard (or group of dialects, with neither American or British English being particularly standardized). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Now I don't follow you. This article now is mostly like English language: a summary of history and all variants, while Serbian language and Croatian language are akin to American English and British English. There wasn't really such thing as "standard Serbo-Croatian": actually, there was a "western variant" (Croatian) and an "eastern variant" (Serbian), (and a specific language policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina) which were a bit more convergent than the two languages are today, but are hardly worth a treatment in a separate article. This is all tied together: dialectology, history, politics, and should be treated together (until we come to define the specifics of national variants). No such user (talk) 07:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Well if it doesn't deserve its own article, the historical aspects would need to be explained elsewhere. I suppose the information could go on the Serbian language and Croatian language page, saying they were the eastern and western dialects, but why don't I see that happening... Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Historical aspect, in my opinion, should go here. As long as it does not become too long, in which case a summary-style solution should be applied. But we're not there yet. No such user (talk) 09:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, IMO scope wouldn't be too difficult to say: this would be about the abstand language, or Serbo-Croatian structurally, and we would split off the ausbau language parts, just like there are separate articles on the Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, and Serbian ausbau languages. Everything that isn't about SC structurally would then go to the sociolinguistic article (ausbau). For me this isn't about satisfying some POV, but to unravel two distinct (though related) concepts. While I'm not too familiar with the early standardization attempts, AFAIK there was something common (some?) people were eager to establish back then, something ausbau not simply Croatian or Serbian, with things like the Vienna Literary Agreement. --JorisvS (talk) 15:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Central South Slavic diasystem and Kwamikagami's WP:INVOLVED

Where did Kwamikagami get the idea about this [1]?
Please, see the edit summary. How does he know what does the term Central South Slavic diasystem talks about? Did he read any books?
This is ignoring of dispute resolution process [2]. Please, take a look how many "citation needed" tags has he removed.
This stinks like "it has to be my way" "my words are unquestionable" "who cares for naive users that play by the rules". Kubura (talk) 00:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

This is where WP:AGF comes into play. Whether an article with little citations has dozens of citation needed tags or a single header tag, the meaning is basically the same. You can disagree with the choice, but it's thin evidence for making a case that Kwami is acting in bad faith.

That said, Kwami does have a problem with properly citing information from time to time. Kwami, I don't doubt the integrity of your edits, but adding information without in-article citation (e.g. here) doesn't help editors trying to verify information later on. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Kubura, "involved" means that I shouldn't block you myself if you violate the limits on this page, not that I can't edit. "Involved" means that I am editing.

Aeμ§oeš, yeah, we could use that ref, or probably find a better one, but it's not normally necessary to ref the lede. Though this isn't a normal article, and we'll probably need a ref to justify saying the sky is blue. I'll add it to the article. — kwami (talk) 07:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not necessary to ref the lead because its assumed what's in the lead will be referenced in the article. Unfortunately with all the lead fixation going on, it's hard to be sure of this for those articles. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

In controversial matters, citations are needed. This also applies to the lead (WP:LEADCITE). 212.10.95.14 (talk) 10:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Good to know. Last time I took an article to FA it was just the opposite. — kwami (talk) 11:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Extra sections

As part of the Serbo-Croatian article there must be a subsection with the genetic linguistics and sociolinguistic analysis. This would be fair to all the reader Also the section Name should be renamed The name controversy . All viewpoints should be present, let the reader decide. Also Kwamikagami since you are a main contributor in the South Slavic linguistic space it is a conflict of interest for you to have placed the article in a special state, as well as conduct reverts of some of the edits (vandalism/graffiti reversals are fine) Vodomar (talk) 10:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Vodomar, do not accuse Kwami of things that he has not done. The only "special state" that this article is in is that it is semi-protected. It isn't at the present time under the 1RR restriction that Croatian language is under (and Kwami didn't place it under 1RR, Courcelles did). Kubura is acting like a child falsely accusing those who don't share his POV of all sorts of things that they aren't guilty of. You have not done that in the past, so please don't follow Kubura's disruptive lead and start false accusations yourself. There are enough admins watching this discussion who aren't involved that if Kwami actually does something inappropriate, they will see it themselves. --Taivo (talk) 13:01, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that this controversy over the reference of the name in English should be clarified in the body of the article. I assume that we are in agreement that there are two references for "Serbo-Croatian" in English--one is the name of the language that comprises the mutually intelligible non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects, the other is the name of the official standard language of Yugoslavia based on Shtokavian that is now called Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. The former is alive and well, the latter is depricated and no longer used. --Taivo (talk) 13:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

just out of curiosity -- if the term "serbo-croatian" is still in use in linguistics, are there terms that specify the other variants as well, such as "croato-croatian" and "serbo-serbian"?esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 21:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(Standard) Croatian and (Standard) Serbian. — kwami (talk) 22:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok so do you agree there is space in this article to talk about the name controversy and to give the two explanations that is genetic and socio-linguistic view of the term Serbo-Croatian. Also the term Serbo-Croatian should also say this talks about the language group as separate from the Serbo-Croatian used in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and SFRY. My appologies to Kwamikgami. If we have an agreement, then we can go ahead and do some editing. Vodomar (talk) 22:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I once proposed that we split this article, with Standard Serbo-Croatian for the Yugoslav-era standard and this article specifically for the Serb-Croat-Bosniak dachsprache. I didn't garner any support, but I still think it's a good idea.

I think discussion of the controversy up to a point is desirable. It shouldn't dominate the article, though, since the article is supposed to be about the language. If it gets too long, the controversy section should be split off to an article of its own. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. If the discussion begins to take up more than a paragraph, or begins to send tentacles into other parts of the article, then it should be a separate article. --Taivo (talk) 04:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Having a short paragraph is good enough. The controversy about the name has the result of many countless kB on this talk page. This needs to be laid to rest. The split-up has support and it would be welcomed by everyone who participates in the debate on this subject. This would also make a good separation of the two issues. Tavio I do not like to be compared to other users, I work on my own. I show respect to everyone, and it based on merit. Vodomar (talk) 09:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Vodomar, the proof is in the pudding. You have, indeed, shown a willingness to work toward consensus here. --Taivo (talk) 11:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Since the split was rejected once, I'll make a proposal below for formal discussion.

Yes, although we haven't always worked well together, you have shown that you're able to work with opposing points of view.

You might want to propose the wording for a paragraph that's not already or not sufficiently covered by the 'present situation' section. — kwami (talk) 10:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement "differences between British and American English is the same as the difference between Serbian and Croatian language" is fallacy that is evident from following example:

"Salt (NaCl) is chemical compound of sodium and chlorine and is soluble in water, which has chemical formula H₂O, and consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen", and this sentence is same in both British and American English.

In Croatian it would be:

"Sol (NaCl) je kemijski spoj natrija i klora koji je topiv u vodi, čija je kemijska formula H₂O, i čine ju dva atoma vodika i jedan atom kisika", and in Serbian it is:
"So (NaCl) je hemijsko jedinjenje natrijuma i hlora, i otopiva je u vodi, koja ima hemijsku formulu H₂O, sastoji se od dva atoma vodonika i jednog atoma kiseonika".

Even ignorants which claim that "differences between British and American English is the same as the difference between Serbian and Croatian language" can see actual similarity of British/American and differences between Croatian and Serbian languages. --Roberta F. (talk) 12:03, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Roberta, it's easy to cherry-pick sentences that have identical British and American variants, but slightly different Serbian and Croatian variants. "Put the spanner in the lorry's boot" and "Put the wrench in the truck's trunk" are also radically different between British and American English, but they're still the same language. Indeed, a quick perusal of the Dictionary of American Regional English shows thousands of lexical differences between mutually intelligible subdialects of American English. Your example proves nothing. Reliable scholars and sources uniformly say that Serbian and Croatian share a very high degree of mutual intelligibilty. Indeed, these sources show that a Croat living on one side of the street and a Serb living on the other side of the street wouldn't know that one was speaking Croatian and the other was speaking Serbian because the difference is ethnically based, not linguistically based. --Taivo (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I hate it when Croats use ironic answers. --Pepsi Lite (talk) 12:59, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Dude! Like throw the fuckin wrench in the trunk o' the truck!

Toss the bloody spanner in the lorry's boot, won't you ol' chap?

See, two completely different languages! English is spoken in England! — kwami (talk) 10:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

numbers 1-10: jedan, dva, tri, četiri, pet, šest, sedam, osam, devet, deset - all the same

verb "to be" in present: sam, si, je, smo, ste, su - all the same

basic body parts: ruka, glava, noga, leđa, zub, oko, nos, usta, prst, koljeno, etc. - all the same

Swadesh list has 99 same entries out of 100.

On the other hand, 9 out of 10 Croats on the street don't even know what natrijev klorid is. From their viewpoint you might as well used any obscure scientific term and ask them what does that term mean, and if they said no (as they would in 99% of cases), you could use it as a proof that it's "different language".

The differences between languages are not measured in vocabulary. They are measured in their structure - the grammar. As long as the core of the grammar is the same - which is the same of modern Serbo-Croatian varieties all drawing on the same dialectal basis - lexical deviations are irrelevant. Either complete or minor. And the differences between American and British English are much larger than that of between modern Serbo-Croatian varieties. You're confused with orthographical differences which are trivial in character, can be intuitively learned and recognized, but don't present any communication obstacle. kemija : hemija, klor: hlor etc. Serbo-Croatian has phonological orthography and sounds are written as they are spoken, whilst English has etymological-morphological orthography and they are written not as they are spoken, but according to their history. The differences between English varieties are much bigger than it can possibly be conveyed by writing, while SC differences are as big as much as it could possibly be conveyed by writing.

Besides, anybody familiar with linguistics would also ask about similarities in inflection and syntax. Are klor and hlor, kemijski and hemijski reaaally so different? They have the same accentuation klȏr /klôːr/ : hlȏr /xlôːr/, kémījskī /kěːmiːjskiː/ : hémījskī /xěːmiːjskiː/, and the same inflection in dozens of different forms, see: wikt:klor#Serbo-Croatian wikt:hlor#Serbo-Croatian, wikt:kemijski#Serbo-Croatian : wikt:hemijski#Serbo-Croatian. The differences are simply dwarfed by similarities, which you completely ignore. Those two sentences of yours have all the same inflectional morphemes in every single bloody word. Some of those differences are completely artificial: in both Croatian and Serbian Serbo-Croatian topiv and otopiv are valid and synonymous words, činiti and sastojati se mean a bit different things, but are synonymous and mutually exchangeable in either variant in this particular meaning, and the same goes for the syntactical formation koja ima kemijsku formu and čija je kemijska formula are also perfectly valid in both variants. But this is quite cunning of you. You deliberately used different conjunctions that govern different cases, so that it would appear more "different". Not to mention that in Serbian example you used forma instead of much more common formula, whose sin is that it is the same as Croatian....

Look Roberta, nobody here disputes that differences exist - they do, and even in Communist Yugoslavia that was acknowledged, and tho different literary forms were equally fostered and legally recognized. The problem is that these differences in purely linguistic terms don't account much. I'm sure you attach much patriotic zeal to "proper" words, but you must understand that not everybody shares the same sentiments. Those differences are no different in magnitude than those of other pluricentric languages with different national varieties such as English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Hundustani, Armenian etc. Playing dumb and insisting that they "truly are" in presence of a knowledgeable speaker that is willing to expose your deception is pointless. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:14, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Thought this ref might be of some interest:

Janneke Kalsbeek, 1998, The Čakavian dialect of Orbanići near Žminj in Istria

[intro] Linguists need a label to enable them to refer to SCr, and in Slavic studies as conducted outside the former Yugoslavia, the compound label "Serbo-Croatian" has traditionally served as a neutral designation. However, the use of such compound labels has tended to raise protests among speakers of the language, who have learned to perceive compounds as carriers of a political message which many people do not like. [...]

"The linguist will say: there is a single lingistic system and two norms. If language means 'linguistic system', there is only a single one. If language means 'norm', there are two. But the public demands from him an unambiguous answer to the question 'Is it one language or two?' They believe that their ethnic identity depends on it and everything has been done to incite them to believe that." [...]

Although I realize that some speakers of the language will object to my use of the label "Serbo-Croatian" I trust that they will understand that no practical alternative is currently available and will keep in mind the traditional nature of the designation: "Among foreign linguists, the most usual term is Serbocroatian, following the principle by which various compound linguistic terms are formed on the basis of their most extreme members, e.g. the Indo-European languages [...]

A couple other comments were interesting re. our ongoing debate:

Standard Croatian and Serbian are based on a form of the central dialects of Štokavian, as codified by Vuk Karadžić and other nineteenth-century scholars (both Serbs and Croats), initially on the basis of Vuk's own idiolect.

and

Kajkavian possesses features which clearly distinguish it both from "Čakavian"/"Štokavian" and from adjacent Slovenian. ... Čakavian and Štokavian together make up a continuum.

— kwami (talk) 17:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"Myth"

Ivan Štambuk wrote above "The whole "unitarism" thing is a one big myth. Communist paid special attention to nurture multiculturalism. In Istria kids were taught Italian and Serbo-Croatian, and in multiethnic Vojvodina there were 5 official languages. The myth of "suffering" and "oppression" is characteristic of nationalism."
Ivan Štambuk, please: write this in a letter to the Croatian daily newspapers. Go public. Feel the challenges of the real world. Feel the challenges of scientific community. Don't hide behind Wikipedia and virtual world.
There's a ton of material written about the Dorian Gray of Yugo-"multiculturalism". Tip: were the Croats and Albanians the absolute majority of Yugoslav political prisoners? Why there were only "ustashi" words, but not "chetnik" words? Why Yugoslav authorities persecuted solely Croatian scientists and writers because they wanted to "separate Croatian and Serbian" and "to profound the differences between Croatian and Serbian"? Why there was no Serbian scientist/writer that was persecuted because of that? Why Croats were emphasising that Croatian ≠ Serbian, unlike Serbs?
When was Croatian official in Vojvodina? When it stopped to be official?
When was "Serbo-Croatian" learned in Istria? SR Croatia knew only Croatian language and 1971-1989 "Croatian or Serbian" (in SR Serbia, Yugoslav Army... was "Serbocroatian").
Štambuk cited magazine Jezik from 1960's. In those years authors mentioned the examples of degradating of Croatian to bare "regional dialect", compared to Serbian language, that was treated as "one and true standard". Kubura (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Croats, when do you plan to undo the damage caused by Ljudevit Gaj, Tomislav Maretić and others? When will you guys undo Đuro Daničić's change of dj to đ? --Pepsi Lite (talk) 09:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Pepsi Lite, you've posted your message in the wrong section. Kubura (talk) 23:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Kubura, I have no desire to teach you basic history. I suggest that you read some books on the issues involved and ask older and knowledgeable Croats that have lived in the times of "repressive" Yugoslavia. It's really interesting how vast majority of them have positive memories about it. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

if with "vast majority" you mean two of the three people you talked to, then yes. otherwise, you should yourself follow the advice you gave above.esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 20:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

alt dialect map

Other than the fact that SC is called "Croatian", might this map of the dialects before the migrations (left) be more accurate than the pastel-colored one we currently have (right)? I'm thinking of the Ča-Kaj border. (Though the southern end of Chakavian is suspiciously current in both maps.) — kwami (talk) 15:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Kwarami, left map is more correct. You can see here [3] that I opened discusion on croatian Cha-Kaj dialect border, but it was not answered. Right map shows current border of Kajkavian dialects on which was superimposed ancient westerm borders ow western shtokavian (with some errors). Dialects of Gorski Kotar and Ozalj are kajkavized chakavian (in 17th, 18th and begining of 19th century when Kajkavian was official in "Civil Croatia" and that territory was part of it). Dialects of Banovina were kajkavian and lower pounje before the migrations as those areas were part of Zagreb diocese and there was rich church literaly legacy in parishes around Dubica and Kostajnica....

Also eastern border of western shtokavian in the right map is incorect. It is more eastern and area around Boka kotorska was part of western shtokavian as well as parts of western Syrmia around Ilok which were part of Vuka županija, and which included parts of which is today Serbian Syrmia. Border of dialects in Herzegovina was near old Travunia - Zahumlje border (near Ljubinje), and town of Srebrenica and parts of Semberia were also part of western Shtokavian... Čeha (razgovor) 08:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

So the "Croatian" map is more accurate, apart from it not being Croatian? We could redo it on a map of all the republics. Do you have any refs that could be used to cite it? It only sources itself. — kwami (talk) 06:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You've got book of Josip Lisac [4], see also borders of western and eastern shtokavian in Boka (Boka had majority of catholics at that time). Also here are discussed eastern borders of kajkavian dialect before great migrations which are thought to include most of Zagreb diocesse. Although there are also opinions that it's borders were more eastern (till Požega and Brod) there are not many concrete evidences for that thesis [5]. Past borders between Kajkavian and Chacavian dialects are also discussed on those pages, but probably more literature you can find in Croatian highschool textboox and Ozalj circle (that's 2.nd or 3.rd grade) pages. As I wrote before dialects in Gorski kotar and Pokuplje are kajkavized chakawian dialects. Ozalj circle was a circle of Croatian nobility which tried to write in that kajkawized chakavian, as hybrid dialect with properties from all 3 Croat dialects (also it is important to state that was ikavian :).

As for the language name, we will not agree so it is useless to waste words. The matter is that those were the borders of its dialects at the time, and that's the only thing important, so you can fix the pastell map.... Čeha (razgovor) 15:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so pretty much all of BiH was Croat at the time? — kwami (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ozalj literary circle used an artificial literary language, not spoken, and was practiced in a tiny geographical area and temporal period, by a small group of writers. I can confirm that the map on the right is more or less completely in sync with the map in the Josip Lisac's book, page 164. To my knowledge, is no such thing as "Kajkavianized Chakavian". Lisac's map colors the Montenegrin part of Boka kotorska as Eastern Štokavian. I must also express my suspicion as regards the motivations of Čeha's comments: he seems to be more inclined to color the maps along ethnic/religious lines, rather than along real-world isoglosses. These ancient maps area are a result of an approximating reconstruction, not a fieldwork synthesis. The differences between Western and Eastern Shtokavian were relatively minor at that time - mostly in accentuation and some inflectional endings. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:03, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ozalj Literaly circle used combined literaly language which was mostly made of that dialect (it also included some tracts of other croatian dialects, but it's core was Ozalj dialect). As I said before that data can be found in any Croatian high school book.

Štambuk, if you did not hear for it it does not mean that it does not exists. Kajkavized Chakavian in Gorski kotar and Pokuplje is common knowledge, thing which is learn in high school :) those are transitional dialects which were kajkavized in the time till the 19th century and theirs borders are the same as the borders of civil Croatia [6], as official Croatian was Kajkavian. Rijeka and seaside around the Kvarner bay was not entire time part of the Croatia, and had a separate bodies so the Chakavian dialects stuck there (you can found maps of borders between Rijeka and civil Croatia in old Yugoslav Atlas). Borders of civil Croatia in 18th century in the area of Gorski kotar are "roughly" borders of Kajkavian dialect. Differences between Western and Eastern Shtokavian at the time are found in wording, greek inflouences, etc. Western Shtokavian was (at least partly) Schakavian while Eastern was not. Also Western Shtokavian possesed transitional Chakavian features.... I'm not going to answer ad hominem attacks. As for source map, are you sure? Because descriptions on those pages should have been taken from that map, and than that is not the same border.

Kwamikagami are you realy trying to discuss ethnogenesis on the territory of BiH at the language grounds? Čeha (razgovor) 09:54, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh I do remember learning about ozaljski književni krug in high school. But that was all there is to it - a literary, not spoken language, used in a particular timeframe by a small circle of writers. It is an artificial literary language, not something that you can color on a dialect map. It's completely irrelevant and I don't know why you're bringing this up at all. I'm sure it fits nicely into some pan-Croatian fantasy of "tridialectalism" but it's irrelevant.

As I said, to my knowledge there is no such thing as "Kajkavianizad Chakavian". If you are referring to transitional areas where dialects exhibiting characteristic isoglosses of both Cha and Kaj dialects are spoken - that's an entirely different thing. Such things are expected as the entire South Slavic area at that period made a big dialect continuum. But when you say "Kajkavianized Chakavian" it implies a Chakavian substratum sprinkled with Kajkavian words, and as I said to my knowledge there is no such thing. You're making that nonsense up. I have Lisac's and Moguš's monographies on Čakavian dialects and nowhere is that even mentioned. Moguš explicitly states that all the transitional dialects with Čakvian basis but a few typically Kajakvian isoglosses are traditionally classified as Čakavian (..u mnogim mjesnim govorima na graničnim područjima mogu čuti poneke štokavske ili kajkavske crte, odnosno ima govora gdje je čakavsku bazu prekrila ova ili ona nečakavska izaglosa. To su prijelazni govori koje obično nazivamo čakavsko-štokavskima ili čakavsko-kajkavskima. Budući da su u takvim govorima čakavske karakteristike u većini, smatramo ih čakavskima pridružujemo ih "klasičnim" čakavskim govorima.)

Rijeka today is completely Štokavianized, and soon all of the Kvarner will be too. Čakavian and Kajkavian are going the way of the dodo, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it :>

As I said, the differences between Western and Eastern Štokavian are primarily in accentuation and the preference for some inflectional endings. It's interesting how you bring the "Greek influence" into equation. You simply can't help your self to fit these isoglosses into some kind of civilizational, cultural, ethnic border too. You repeatedly mention religion of the speakers, medieval kingdoms, civilizational influences (Eastern are more "Greek" = Orthodox, while Western are more "Romance" = Catholic). I am sorry to disappoint you but this is very far from reality. Linguistic isoglosses seldom correspond to ethnic borders. That's because imaginary collective identities such as nation, ethnicity or religion are usually superimposed on real-world differences which are much older than them. Both Croats and Serbs would like to claim "historical right" on those Western Štokavian chunk of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but we simply can't let such Greater X myths slip through and present them as historical facts.

You can find Lisac's map from the book scanned here.

Yes some (but not all) Western Shtokavian speeches shared some isoglosses with some (but not all) neighboring Čakavian dialects. Interestingly yat reflex of /i/ is not one of them, despite popular belief - these were independent innovations. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Your POV about Ozalj litteraly circle.

Unfortunaly number of speakers of Chakavian is shrinking (today it probably just covers parts of Istria and some islands and a few remote villages in Lika and Pokuplje). Number of Kajkavian speakers is on the other hand stagnating as a lot of people in northwest Croatia still uses kajkavian. Spoken Croatian on the national television is highly influenced by Zagreb dialect which shows some characteristics of Kajkavian (is in some ways transitional Kajkavo-shtokavian) and dialectal speach is still spoken in some towns like Varaždin, Čakovec and Krapina. So, fortunately Kaikavian is not yet gone the way of dodo :) And some words of Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects are in common usage in Croatia.

Well those things as borders of kingdoms and their feudal overlords did influence the life of the people. For example border of Pannonian Croatia and Styria was near Ptuj in 9th century. Today the border betven Croatian kajkavian dialect and Slovenian is on the state border...

And of history of Bosnian and Herzegovia I can quote Malcom in which he says that people of Bosnia and Herzegovina were akin to people in today's Croatia and if were not for Turks they would probably still be the same people. But that are what if's, and of course there is the difference between nations and peoples (nacija i naroda). But none of that has anything to do with languages (Skandinavian,Dutch-German, East Slavic,or any other language continuum can show that). Only important thing here is that there is a difference between western shtokavian and eastern shtokavian dialect. Political conotations of such things should not be solved on wikipedia. Čeha (razgovor) 09:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Ozalj literary circle what what its name says it was - a literary circle of idle nobles, who in between killing serfs and catering to Church wrote some poetry in an artificial literary language. It was never spoken, and such Frankensteinian efforts to mix dialects were not repeated elsewhere. I'm sure it's nice to fit it into some grand theory of Croats finally achieving a "century-old dream" of what should be the real Croatian standard, but it's just fantasy. This is not my POV these are facts, check your history books.

Kajkavian is only spoken in villages in Zagorje. I've lived in Zagreb for 6 years, nobody speaks Kajkavian there, not even in the outskirts. Spoken Zagrebian is Štokavian phonetically infulenced by Kajkavian substratum: e.g. there is no difference between /č/ and /ć/, no differences in vowel lengths, stress-based accentual system. Kajkavian lexical items are rare (even kaj is rapidly being replaced by što/šta, because >60% of people living in Zagreb are immigrants from other regions. mostly non-Kajkavian). All Kajkavian speakers are bidialectal, and they use their mother dialect only when interacting with close family or relatives over the phone etc. With rising urbanization Kajkavian will also go the way of the dodo, although not as fast as Čakavian (whose speakers are in much more economically disadvantaged position). Yes depending on the region there are many local dialectalisms...but almost none of them enters Croatian standard. Standard is a supraregional, neutral form of a language understandable and used by all speakers. These words are therefore sub-standard.

Yes there were differences between Eastern and Western Shtokavian. They don't exist today because dialectal map is quite different, and the dialects have changed a lot. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

In reality Što/Šta is rapidly replaced by Kaj combination, if you ever heard of Zagreb city speak you would be awear of that. Take just example of Zagreb major and his "kajkavization". In Zagreb and surounding area lives and works between 1/4 and 1/3 of Croatian population so it is normal to have some inovation in the spoken language. As for Croatian standard is not just easternherzegovian neoShtokavian but did include words from all three dialects in it's lexic as it do now. I'm certain that you can take any of the newer dictionaries and found words wich are not part of Shtokavian dialect. --Čeha (razgovor) 10:50, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

While I agree with most of what you said, the claim that Kajkavian is only spoken in Zagorje is a gross exaggeration. One needs to only venture a couple of kilometers outside of city limits to see that Kajkavian is indeed still used by people. Provided the communities (towns or villages in Prigorje) only have a minority of Štokavian immigrants, Kajkavian will still be used as a means of everyday communication although, obviously, if speaking with a "foreigner" the person will naturally switch to Štokavian unless the person in question is a centenarian or close to being one. Tty29a (talk) 16:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Rubbish. We have no real idea what the borders of Croatia in the 9th cenutry was, especially Pannonia which was pretty much a constant conflict zone between Avars, Franks, Bulgars, then Magyars. Archaeology shows that it was scarcely populated before the 10th century. And Malcolm is a 'pop'- historian. No one considers him a serious historian. Again,we know next to nothing about what precise language was spoken in Bosnia in 9th century, let alone what custms they had and how they identified themselves as. Bosnia, the region itself, is not even mentioned until the 10th, and then, in one sentence. So please, use caution against making totally unsubstantiated statements Hxseek (talk) 11:24, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Originaly, Bosnia was just small state around Vrhbosna (today's Sarayevo). In 9th century there were no today's dialect, dialectalization in Cha/Shto/Kaj happened only latter (12-13 century) and these upper maps speak about 15 century situation. There is plenty of data in that centuries to speak about situation in BiH at that time. So please do read what I've wrote. As for earlier times majority of "serious" historians do put territories of today's BiH in western, Frankish sphere and majority of that area was part of Split diocenese. Anyways, please stick to the subject, and comments like "rubbish" stick to yourself.--Čeha (razgovor) 10:50, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "most of BiH" was in Croatia 9th century ? Only north-western Bosnia. Herzegovina had 3 independent duchies - Pagani, Zachlumia, Travunia. Northern Bosnia - a grey zone, who knows. Bosnia central - around Drina, probably part of Serbia in 10th century Hxseek (talk) 12:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Careful. The post-1990 version of history pushed in Croatia is one of a massive Croatian state up to the Drina. This Tolkien Kingdom was mostly created by liberally "filling-in the blanks" in the real record while taking (irredentist) Croatian myths as the basis (most of which originate from the 19th century). The only period during which we actually know Croatia probably extended through most (not all) of modern Bosnia (not Herzegovina) was during a part of the reign of King Peter Kreshimir. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 12:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, stop trolling. Map is about 15th century, has nothing to do with 9th century, nor state borders. If you wish to discuss 9th century croatian borders go to it's pages. Same goes for "Tolkien Kingdom". --Čeha (razgovor) 12:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Btw Hxseek, I see that you do not know where river Vrbas is situated [7]. Try google maps. Very good tool. This on the map is Una. Your map [8] is also very interesting. If you have any geographical questions I'll be glad to answer it to you on appropriate pages. Same goes from Director (and it's Tolkien's kingdom:) --Čeha (razgovor) 13:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Now, my post was not trolling, your post however is uncivil in its unprovoked attack. Please see WP:Wikiquette. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Director, sorry for the comment (my error), but this discussion really has nothing to do with this pages. Hxseek you made error on that map, marking different river (100 km difference). But as I said this should not be discussed here. Stick to the topic.--Čeha (razgovor) 10:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes. The political borders were fluctuant, and poorly recorded in the deep interior in early stages (ie 9th and 10th century). Only along Dalmatian coast do we have better knowledge. Some of the maps created even by well respected scholars were quite politically motivated, both from Croatia and Serbia - both occupying most of Roman Dalmatia. Only now are some scholars starting to de-construct some of the ideological overtones in early Slav history, so Director is correct in his statement. Anyway, this does not necessarily match what people actually spoke. In the 9th century, Slavic was still being consolidated in the Balkans. Ofcourse, we know a lot more in later periods, I don't disupte that. But we should not connect the dialect people spoke with some sense of greater ethno-political affinity. Existence was very parochial even as late as 15th century Hxseek (talk) 02:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

"The post-1990 version of history pushed in Croatia is one of a massive Croatian state up to the Drina" - Direktor lies here. There is no such version pushed in Croatia. But according to historical sources, the most of B&H WAS Croatian territory in the 9th century. 78.3.120.112 (talk) 11:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

and your objective, reliable sources for this statement are what, anonymous IP ?HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

Slovenia

Wrong [9]! It was obligatory for slovenian people to learn (to know) SC language while Yugoslavia existed. They learned it in school over 20 years, it was language used while serving obligatory army for men (lasted 12 months and longer). Posibility that population over 35 years of age doesn´t know SC language is small. In my opinion they know it, do they speak it I don´t think so, because, I think they equalize it whith Croatian language and state it as it. If I´m wrong, please elaborate!

Population that lives in Slovenia and speaks language clasifided as serbocroatian language should hardly be called imigrants.--Domjanovich (talk) 12:17, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Wrong. "SC" in Slovenia was identical to "SC" in JNA (Yugoslav army) - pure Serbian. Even today when Slovenes come to Croatia and start to speak "SC" they speak Serbian language. That's why we (Croats) constantly warn them not to use name 'slovenački' for their Slovene language when they come to Crotia, since Slovene language has the same name in Croatian and Slovene languages - slovenski; slovenački is Serbian name for Slovene l.

"SC". Why SC in brackets? Beacuse such language doesn't exist. All practical use of "SC" in former Yugoslavia was use of Serbian language! 78.3.120.112 (talk) 08:03, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Serbian is a standard form of SC, like Croatian. --JorisvS (talk) 14:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Croatian is South Slavic language, not SC. 78.0.134.118 (talk) 11:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Please stop the nonsense, anonymous IP "78...." - look to the top of this talk page and let that statement sink in to your mind. SC is the term that is used here until the majority linguistic/scientific community changes its mind. Nationalism serves no purpose in scientific descriptions.HammerFilmFan (talk) 12:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

But it does not change the fact that for most Slovenians it is a second/foreign language. I would venture a guess that number of L2 English speakers in Slovenia is roughly the same as number of L2 Serbo-Croatian speakers -- does that make English as a "language of Slovenia"? Since some 80+% Finns speak it, does English make a "language of Finland"? Russian as a "language of Estonia"? Etc. I'm not sure what are (and if there are any) criteria for qualifying into Category:Languages by country, but I would say it is a sufficient number of native speakers and/or officialdom at some level. I don't have a particularly strong opinion, but for me it just does not pass the threshold. No such user (talk) 12:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, Russian is listed as a "language of Estonia" (even though it doesn't have any official status there). Though I wouldn't consider the amount of people who learned SC in school as an argument, but rather the amount of immigrants from SC speaking countries who speak SC natively (and the number of those reaches >5%) Edit #2: FWIW, Turkish is also listed as a language of Germany. Tty29a (talk) 13:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

What about that shared dialect? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)If commonplace in Slovenia merely because they had to learn it in school etc., then the category shouldn't be here. However, the Languages of Slovenia article suggests that there are descendants of the Uskoci who still speak SC natively, in which case the category seems valid. --JorisvS (talk) 13:03, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

That's why I've added it. There are four villages in White Carniola, where people are descendants of Uskoki/Uskoci and speak a variant of the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language (as stated in the source given in the article Languages of Slovenia). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 13:16, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a Czech village in Serbia, but it (rightfully) isn't listed as a language of Serbia. And that nice factoid about 4 Serbo-Croatian villages in Slovenia should be moved away from the lead per heavy WP:UNDUE -- you cannot put 4 villages with ~~1000~~ 300 people total to the lead of an article about the country of 2 million. Back to Slovenia, there is a number of immigrants (>5%) and their descendents who natively speak Serbo-Croatian, but then, there are also as many in Germany, Austria, or Australia. Does not break it up for me still. No such user (talk) 13:24, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about Czech people in Serbia, but Serbs in White Carniola used their language in schools, in churches and in public life in general.[10] It was a written language. The Serbian group in Slovenia was formed in several migration waves since the 16th century. According to the Slovenian 2002 census, around 1.9 % (38.964) declared to be Serbs. After the Slovenians themselves, Serbs so appear to be the largest ethnic group in the country. And another significant minority are Croats. [11] According to the 2002 census, the population of Slovenia is very homogenous - Slovene is the first language of 87.7% of the inhabitants. It is followed by Croatian language (2.8%), Serbo-Croatian language (1.8%), Serbian language (1.6%) and Bosnian language (1.6%).[12] Italian and Hungarian language, protected by the Constitution of Slovenia, have lower numbers of native speakers but are nonetheless included in the category Languages of Slovenia. I think this is enough to include the category 'Languages of Slovenia' here and to mention these languages in the lead of the article Languages of Slovenia. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 14:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. No such user (talk) 14:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Chakavian in Dalmatia

Upon seeing these two maps I thought it might be useful to point out that they are seriously flawed/outdated. The Chakavian dialect is NOT spoken in Split and most of Dalmatia and has (rather sadly) been gone from these areas for almost 40 years. I have never, ever even heard the dialect spoken by anyone other than elderly people in the (smaller) island towns. The dialect of the people in Split, Zadar, Šibenik predominantly uses "šta" (rather than "što" or "ča"). It's quite a misrepresentation... --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

It is not really true. I'm Čakavian speaker and everybody still speeak it on the island where I live. When I come to the city I change my speaking to some kind of Čakavian/Štokavian admixture and that is actually what is spoken in Split, Šibenik and Zadar. It's not enough only to say što or šta to speak Štokavian. Honestly only administrators really speak Štokavian in Dalmatia. By vocabulary speeches in these cities are still more Čakavian based than Štokavian based. That's why other Croats immidiatelly know who is coming from Dalmatia. 78.3.120.112 (talk) 07:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It may be more informative to have several maps (if someone could make them) by which we could show the historical evolution of the territory of the various dialects. This way the fairly recent marginalization of (especially) Chakavian could be made much more obvious. --JorisvS (talk) 13:47, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

January 2011

There's an entry stating this supposed "language" is being regulated by: Council for Standard Croatian Language Norm and Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language. That, of course, is false since these bodies regulate Croatian and Serbian, respectively. So, not Serbo-Croatian, not Croato-Serbian, but Serbian and Croatian. Simply said, that particular entry is misleading.

Aside from that, as long as you people use highly controversial and loaded words (i.e. Serbo-Croatian), you'll be experiencing never-ending flame wars here, with perpetrators being both nationalists and leftist chauvinists. It will never stop. Those who think it will either live in some constructed reality of their own (username Stambuk comes to mind) or are plainly naive.

Use Central South Slavic instead, because it separates language from ethnicity (so that Bosniaks and Montenegrins are not unfairly excluded from the name), and it is increasingly used by Croatian linguists as a more neutral term (e.g. by Josip Lisac in Hrvatska dijalektologija 1 and by Ranko Matasović in Poredbenopovijesna gramatika hrvatskoga jezika).

In the end, to quote Fran Kurelac: »Po jeziku narodi gospoduju, kada im ga oduzmeš, sluguju!« —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.138.171.52 (talk) 20:16, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

How is using English in an English encyclopedia a "joke"? I agree that there are many ignorant or reality-challenged editors who will continue to froth at the mouth over this article, and perhaps changing the name would stop that. But there is no good alternate in English. "Central South Slavic" is not acceptable for various reasons mentioned above, and even if it were, the common term continues to be SC. Also, your own argument is illogical: the regulators do not regulate this language, but they would regulate it if we were to change its name? That makes no sense. — kwami (talk) 05:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Man, can't you read? That guy addressed two separate issues; first about the fact that Croatian institute and its Serbian counterpart regulate two separate languages, and second about the name SC being inadequate. I believe there was little point in stating the obvious here, but I also reckon it will have no effect since mods here are hell bent on pushing their POV, at least where it concerns their thesis that Serbian and Croatian are one language.161.53.243.70 (talk) 09:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Not mods, but multiple reliable scholarly sources link Serbian and Croatian as two varieties of a single language. --Taivo (talk) 10:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The only joke here is the continued insistence of nationalist separatists (distinct from nationalist "uniters") to insist that separate standard languages mean the same thing as separate languages. These individuals or IPs are hell-bent on advancing a politically-motivated idea that Serbo-Croatian did not exist but have no answer why the majority of scholars in the English-speaking world use the term "Serbo-Croatian" of their own will, beyond the latent suggestion that scholars outside the Balkans who are reliable sources which we follow, can only be brainwashed by ideologues advocating Greater Serbia. In any case Croatian and Serbian have no such "luck" of being decisively separate languages (i.e. 'Abstand' ones. However the case for them being even 'Ausbau' is questionable) since the standardization drawn on the Eastern Hercegovinian sub-dialect of Neo-Shtokavian Ijekavian as used initially from Dubrovnik to Užice and crossing modern-day Hercegovina and Montenegro still dominates all aspects of the standard languages, notwithstanding the renewal of local attempts to pass off or re-cast standard languages of a pluricentric language as 'Abstand' languages proper.

There is nothing inconsistent with more than one language standardization authority regulating a pluricentric language. Such an authority deals with a STANDARD LANGUAGE, which is distinct from a LANGUAGE. Trying to map language academies to respective languages is not a reliable way to deduce the existence of separate languages. If we use the suggested logic of 1:1 mapping of "language" to a language academy or standardization authority, then for example what to make of Spanish which is regulated by 21 national language academies in addition to the Real Academia Española in Spain? Of course there are also languages that lack standardization authorities. Would it be correct to conclude that there is no standard in any of those languages, or that those languages can't even exist?

"Central South Slavic" for better or worse has gained little currency outside Croatian linguistic circles. The only alternative term for "Serbo-Croatian" that has gained even a modicum of recognition in the English-speaking world is "BCS" (now arguably "BCMS"), but this particular term is already mentioned in the introduction of this article. Vput (talk) 04:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

An enjoyable read

Not really about the article, but since this talk page has already became a chat room, I'll abuse it a bit myself: Teofil Pančić's column in today's Vreme, on a practical proof of absurdity of language division, concerning the NIN Award. In Serbian only, though. Or Serbo-Croatian? Or... ? No such user (talk) 08:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Fun, and perhaps a good ref for Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. — kwami (talk) 08:46, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Kwami jesi li pročitao članak?--Sokac121 (talk) 20:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I skimmed it over. — kwami (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I doubt he can read Serbian. Or Croatian for that matter.78.0.208.32 (talk) 19:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I imagine there are many people raised since the breakup of Yugoslavia who are not bilingual in Serbian and Croatian. Poor people: when they cross the border, they are unable to communicate with anyone. Maybe they need to resort to English or Russian to speak to their former countrymen? — kwami (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I've just read the article and the language it is written in is unmistakably Serbian. This is not to say it is unintelligible for Croatian readers (assuming they are old enough to be acquainted with some Serbian structures, such as 'da' + verb etc.), except for some words, although it is considered and recognized as Serbian because of its peculiarities. That's just sociolinguistic reality on the ground, and it also works vice versa. Apart from that, the author equates Croatian with standard Croatian (or maybe with Štokavian), totally ignoring the fact that there also exist two virtually non-intelligible Croatian macro-dialects. 161.53.243.70 (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, he's not ignoring them, they just aren't terribly relevant to a commentary on the literary standards. Submissions to the NIN awards are of course normally going to be written in the standard language, apart from dialogue. Perhaps he wouldn't object to Croatian entries being disqualified if they were written in Kajkavian, but sees no reason to disqualify those written in Standard Croatian. The point is well made; it's as if a British literary award were not open to American or Australian entries because they aren't written in "English". — kwami (talk) 09:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Burglenland Croatian is another standard Croatian language. Is it also irrelevant? Anyway, the author of that text is clearly not unbiased, so I don't see why should this article include a reference to his personal opinion.161.53.243.70 (talk) 17:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's irrelevant. It has a tiny speech community, no prestige and institutional support, and it's going the way of the dodo in the near future, just like 99% of all the other languages. A novel written in Burlenland dialect is unintelligible to the vast majority of Croats. It's "Croatian" only by the shared sense of common identity - which is arbitrary at any case. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

In reference to the actual article (sorry to distract from your WP:NOTAFORUM violation :p) it should still be pointed out that the original Yugoslav division of Serbo-Croatian and Croato-Serbian was not absurd, at least nothing in the range of the current Bosnia-induced silliness. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Croatian Sign Language or Yugoslav Sign Language

I hope that someone here will know about this first hand, or at least have access to RSs.

AFAICT, there was one deaf sign language used in the former Yugoslavia, with the 1st school started in Slovenia, and the second in Croatia. There was an attempt at unifying the regional school-based differences in 1971, but no-one seems to know if it got anywhere. (Many SLs have a distinct variety for each school for the deaf, or for each cluster of schools if they're close enough for regular contact by the students. This includes ASL and Chinese SL and many others.) Anyway, the one ref I can find says there is "no problem" with comprehension between the varieties used in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. (No mention was made of Macedonia, so I don't know what to do with Macedonian Sign Language.)

The law in BiH states that the deaf have the right to interpretation between "sign language" and spoken BCS, and between spoken BCS and "sign language"; also, that the Commission on SL needs to reflect the ethnic composition of BiH. It would certainly seem from this that there is no "BoSL", "HrSL" or "SrSL" in BiH at least.

Can anyone confirm of disprove that SlSL, HrSL, SrSL are a single language? Is MaSL also a variety? Is the term YSL obsolete? If so, what is used instead? — kwami (talk) 00:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

They're not single language - except if you think they're same nation, which is very untrue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.164.230.205 (talk) 21:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Being of the same nation has nothing whatsoever to do with whether these are the same language or not. Just like Croatian, Serbian etc. are the same language, while the people form different nations. --JorisvS (talk) 21:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)