Montenegrin language

Montenegrin
Црногорски Crnogorski
Native to	Montenegro
Native speakers	about 144,838 people; some 22% of the population of Montenegro (2003)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western South Slavic Serbian Montenegrin
Official status
Official language in	Montenegro
Regulated by	not regulated
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sla
ISO 639-3	srp – Ethnologue identifies it as an alternate name of Serbian

Montenegrin language (Cyrillic script: Црногорски језик, Latin: Crnogorski jezik) is the name given to the Ijekavian-Shtokavian dialect spoken in Montenegro. Generally, it is recognized as a variant of the Serbian language, but some Montenegrins refer to their specific dialect as a language on its own. Since 2004 the Montenegrin administration has slowly promoted the idea of a Montenegrin language into the public, a movement which has its origins as far as 1993. As of Montenegrin 2006 independence, there is an ongoing controversy over the subject, culminating with its proclamation as the official language of Montenegro in the new Constitution on 22 October 2007.

Language standardization

In January of 2008, the government of Montenegro formed the Council for codification of Montenegrin language which aims to standardize the Montenegrin language according to international norms. Proceeding documents will, after verification, become a part of the educational programme in Montenegrin schools.
The members of the Council for codification of the Montenegrin language are:

• Branko Banjević, writer and President of Matica crnogorska
• Dr. Rajka Glušica (University of Montenegro, Faculty of Philosophy, Nikšić)
• Milorad Stojović, literary critic
• Mirko Kovač, writer and academician
• Mladen Lompar, writer and academician
• Rajko Cerović, literary critic
• Čedo Vuković, writer and academician,
• Zuvdija Hodžić, writer and academician
• Dr. Milenko Perović (Faculty of Philosophy, Novi Sad)
• Dr. Zorica Radulović (University of Montenegro, Faculty of Philosophy, Nikšić)
• Dr. Tatjana Bečanović (University of Montenegro, Faculty of Philosophy, Nikšić)
• Dr. Igor Lakić, Deacon of the Institute for Foreign Languages, Podgorica
• Dr. Adnan Čirgić (University of Montenegro, Faculty of Philosophy, Nikšić)

President of the board, Adnan Čirgić, announced that two new letters shall be formally included into the Montenegrin language: Ś and Ź..

Official status and speakers' preference

The language remains an ongoing issue in Montenegro.

In the previous census of 1991, the vast majority, 510,320 or 82.97% of Montenegrin citizens, declared themselves as speakers of the then official language: Serbo-Croatian. The 1981 population census also recorded a Serbo-Croat-speaking majority. However in the first Communist censuses, the vast majority of the population declared Serbian their native tongue. Such is also the case with the first recorded population census in Montenegro, in 1909, when approximately 95% of the population of the Princedom of Montenegro declared Serbian their native language. According to the Constitution of Montenegro, the official language of the republic, since 1992, is Serbian of the Ijekavian standard. After World War II and until 1992, the official language of Montenegro was Serbo-Croat. Before that, in the previous old Montenegrin realm, Serbian was the language in usage. The Serbian language was the officially used language in Communist Montenegro, until after the 1950 Novi Sad Agreement that defined the Serbo-Croat, and "Serbo-Croatian" introduced into the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro in 1974. In the late nineties and early twenty-first century, organizations promoting Montenegrin as a distinct language appeared, and since 2004 the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro regime introduced the term to usage. The new constitution, adopted on 19 October 2007, deemed Montenegrin to be the official language of Montenegro.

The most recent population census conducted in Montenegro was in 2003, when it was still in its state union with Serbia. According to it, 144,838 citizens or 21.53% of the population declared "Montenegrin" their native language. After Milo Đukanović's regime conducted the act of deleting Montenegrin citizens living abroad, the official number that was published was 136,208, comprising 21.96% of the total population. The speakers' statistics is as follows:

• 106,214 Montenegrins (77.98%)
• 13,627 Slavic Muslims (10%)
• 12,549 Bosniacs (9.21%)
• 1,375 Croats (1.02%)
• 2,443 others (1.79%)

In 2003 401,382 or 59.67% of Montenegrin citizens declared the official Serbian their native tongue. After the deletion of citizens abroad, the final published figure was 393,740 or 63.49% of the total population. The following is the speakers' statistics:

• 197,684 Serbs (50.21%)
• 156,374 Montenegrins (39.72%)
• 8,696 Slavic Muslims (2.21%)
• 2,723 Bosniacs (0.69%)
• 2,529 Croats (0.64%)
• 1,705 Yugoslavs (0.43%)
• 24,029 others (6.1%)

Later President Filip Vujanović claimed that over 60% of Montenegrin population would support his proposal for mix, "MonteSerbian language" or "Serbo-Montenegrin language" (crnogorsko-srpski jezik, srpsko-crnogorski jezik). A poll from late 2007 shows the declaration of language of the population:

• Serbian - 49.6%
• Montenegrin - 34.9%
• Serbo-Montenegrin or MonteSerbian - 4%
• others - 3.6%
• Mother tongue - 7.8%
• undecided - 7.8%

Some people may compare the situation with Montenegrin to the positions of Croatian and Bosnian, and even come to the conclusion that the position of Montenegrin fully parallels the positions of the others. However, there are significant differences between the three: while Croatian and Bosnian have been standard languages and official languages since decades, standardization and official status is a recent phenomenon for Montenegrin.

Mijat Šuković, a prominent Montenegrin lawyer, wrote a draft version of the constitution, which passed the parliement's constitutional committee. Šuković suggested Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro. The Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, had a generally positive attitude towards the draft of the constitution, but did not address the language and church issues, calling them symbolical.

The ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro and Socialdemocratic Party of Montenegro supported the idea of plainly renaming the country's official language into Montenegrin, meeting opposition from the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro, the People's Party, the Democratic Serb Party, the Bosniak Party, the Movement for Changes as well as the Serb List coalition led by the Serb People's Party. However, a referendum was not needed, as two-thirds majority of the parliament voted for the Constitution, including the ruling coalition, Movement for Changes, the Bosniaks and the Liberals, while the pro-Serbian parties voted against and the Albanian minority parties abstained from voting. The Constitution was thus ratified and adopted on 19 October 2007, recognising Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro.

Linguistic considerations

Montenegrins speak subdialects of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian languages:

• East Herzegovinian dialect (in the west and northwest, similar to the one spoken in most of Eastern Herzegovina, Western Serbia and Dubrovnik area) and
• Zeta-South Sandžak dialect (spoken in the rest of the country).

Alphabet

• Abeceda: A B C Č Ć D Dž Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P Q R S Š Ś T U V W X Y Z Ž

The proponents of the separate Montenegrin language tend to prefer using Latin alphabet over the Cyrillic, which was traditionally used in Montenegro before 2006. The Cyrillic letter З /z/ is retained but with the value /dz/.

Literature

Many literary works of authors from Montenegro provide examples of the local Montenegrin vernacular. The medieval literature was mostly written in Old Church Slavonic and its recensions, but most of the 19th century works were written in some of the dialects and speeches of Montenegro. They include the folk literature collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and other authors, as well as books of the writers from Montenegro, such as Petar Petrović Njegoš's Gorski vijenac (The Mountain Wreath), Marko Miljanov's Primjeri čojstva i junaštva (Examples of Humanity and Heroism), etc. In the second half of the 19th century and later, the East Herzegovina dialect, which served as a base for the standard Serbo-Croatian language, was often used instead of the Zeta-Sanjak dialect, characteristical for most speeches of Montenegro. Petar Petrović Njegoš, one of the most respectable Montenegrin authors, changed many characteristics of the Zeta-Sanjak dialect from the manuscript of his Gorski vijenac to those proposed by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić as a standard for the Serbian language. For example, most of the accusatives of place, used in the Zeta-Sanjak dialect, were changed by Njegoš to locatives, used in the Serbian standard. Thus the stanzas "U dobro je lako dobar biti, / na muku se poznaju junaci" from the manuscript were chaged to "U dobru je lako dobar biti, / na muci se poznaju junaci" in the printed version. Other works of later Montenegrin authors were also often modified to the East Herzegovinian forms, in order to follow the Serbian language literary norm. However, some characteristics of the traditional Montenegrin Zeta-Sanjak dialect sometimes used to appear as well. For example, the poem Onamo namo by Nikola I Petrović Njegoš, although it was written in East Herzegovinian Serbian standard, contains several Zeta-Sanjak forms: "Onamo namo, za brda ona" (accusative, instead of instrumental case za brdima onim), and "Onamo namo, da viđu (instead of vidim) Prizren", and so on.

Language politics

Most mainstream politicians and other proponents of Montenegrin language simply state that the issue is chiefly one of self-determination and the people's right to call the language as they want, rather than an attempt to artificially create a new language when there is none. The Declaration of Montenegrin PEN Center states that "Montenegrin language does not mean a systemically separate language, but just one of four names (Montenegrin, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) by which Montenegrins name their part of Shtokavian system, commonly inherited with Muslims, Serbs and Croats". Introduction of Montenegrin language has also been supported by other important academic institutions, such as the Matica crnogorska, although meeting opposition from the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Some proponents go further. The chief proponent of Montenegrin is Zagreb-educated dr Vojislav Nikčević, professor at the Department of Language and Literature at the University of Montenegro and the head of the Institute for Montenegrin Language in the capital Podgorica. His dictionaries and grammars were printed by Croatian publishers as the major Montenegrin publishing houses such as Obod in Cetinje opted for the official nomenclature specified in the Constitution (Serbian until 1974, Serbo-Croatian to 1992, Serbian until 2007). Nikčević advocates amending of the Latin alphabet with three letters Ś, Ź, and З and corresponding Cyrillic letters Ć, З́ and S (representing IPA: [ç], [ʝ] and [ʣ] respectively).

Opponents acknowledge that these sounds can be heard by many Montenegrin speakers, however, they do not form a language system and so are allophones rather than phonemes. In addition, there are speakers in Montenegro who don't utter them and speakers of Serbian and Croatian outside of Montenegro (notably in Herzegovina and Bosanska Krajina) who do. In addition, introduction of those letters could pose significant technical difficulties (Eastern European code page ISO/IEC 8859-2 does not contain letter З, for example, and the corresponding letters were not proposed for Cyrillic).

Montenegro's former prime minister Milo Đukanović declared his open support for the formalization of the Montenegrin language by declaring himself as a speaker of the Montenegrin language, in an October 2004 interview with Belgrade daily Politika. Official Montenegrin government communiqués are given in English and Montenegrin on the government's webpage. The official web page of the President of Montenegro states that it is provided in "Montenegrin-Serbian version" (Crnogorsko-srpska verzija).

In 2004, the government of Montenegro changed the school curriculum in such a way that name of the mandatory classes teaching the language was changed from "Serbian language" to "Mother tongue (Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian)". This change was made, according to the government, in order to better reflect the diversity of languages spoken among citizens in the republic and to protect human rights of non-Serb citizens in Montenegro who declare themselves as speakers of other languages.

This decision resulted in a number of teachers declaring a strike and parents refusing to send their children to schools. The cities affected by the strike included Nikšić, Podgorica, Berane, Pljevlja and Herceg Novi.

In 2007 a 27-year old Bosniak, Adnan Čirgić, earned a PhD in the University of Zagreb Philological Faculty on the thesis "The Speech of Podgorica Muslims". Montenegrin parliamentary Speaker Ranko Krivokapić has congratulated Cirgic, for becoming the very first Professor of the Montenegrin language and Literature.

See also

• Dialect continuum
• Montenegrins
• Differences in standard Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian

External links

• "What Language Do Montenegrins Speak?", Aida Ramusovic, Transitions Online, 16 April 2003.
• Template:Sr icon "Govorite li crnogorski?", Violeta Arsenić, Vreme, 4 March 2000.
• Montenet.org: Language in Montenegro
• Standard Language as an Instrument of Culture and the Product of National History, Pavle Ivić
• Montenegrin language on Montenegrina
• Česa

Examples of nomenclature

• Official page of President of Montenegro with Crnogorsko-srpska verzija or 'Montenegrin-Serbian version' in top left corner
• Official page of Montenegrin Government with CRNOGORSKI or 'Montenegrin' in top left corner
• Former page of Montenegrin Government (between 2000-2001) with srpski or 'Serbian' at the bottom