Talk:Croatian language

1RR

This article has become another battleground. Enough is, quite frankly, enough of the edit warring, as the article is now protected for the fourth time since July due to it. We're going to try something new. Starting now, this article; under the discretionary sanctions authorised in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia; is hereby placed on a 1RR restriction. This means one revert, per user, per day. This restriction is per person, not per account. The most obvious vandalism is excepted from this restriction, and I do mean obvious. This restriction applies to all users, and I will place an edit notice of this for the article. Any appeals should be directed towards my talk page in the first instance, or Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement in the second. Courcelles 11:52, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

The above timestamp has intentionally been moved forward 15 years, to stop automatic archival. True timestamp: Courcelles 11:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Moving material to Serbo-Croatian

It looks like there's a healthy edit war over the issue of whether to move a large chunk of the article to Serbo-Croatian (diff). I don't have an informed opinion on the matter, but the interested parties should probably talk it out here before more reverts are made. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:30, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

If sourced information can be added to Serbo-Croatian, that's fine, but removal of sourced material from this particular article is not warranted.--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:45, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The material has been stable here for years, so we should discuss before making an edit like that that will raise so many hackles. AFAIK, the early history we're talking about was mostly in what is now Croatia. Was Serbian/Bosnian even relevant at that time? However, SC is the language and the main article. We shouldn't have it at both places, as a content fork. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'm quite concerned about accuracy of the Serbo-Croatian article - the Ethnologue defines Serbo-Croatian as a macrolanguage (as reflected by ISO 639 macrolanguage article too), i.e. not a language strictly speaking - therefore the specific article does not accurately reflect reliable sources. I suspect the change, when introduced in the Serbo-Croatian article, will provoke an edit war so I don't particularly care to edit that one, but perhaps this particular article would benefit from the information.--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

@Tomobe, the fact that Ethnologue lists Serbo-Croatian as a 'macrolanguage' is purely political. The standardized forms (i.e. Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian) are only marginally different and easily mutually intelligible, akin to British and American English. --JorisvS (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

@Kwami. The notion of a 'Croatian language' like the one in this article is closely related to standardized Croatian. Although the early history of Serbo-Croatian has been here for years, it is misplaced, because it is relevant to the language (i.e. Serbo-Croatian), not to (standard) Croatian. --JorisvS (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

@JorisvS. It could be equally argued that "Serbo-Croatian" was a reflection of political circumstances. The point is that the Ethnologue as a WP:RS clearly defines SC as a macrolanguage and both that source and ample others (EU included) define Croatian language as a separate one. Yes, Croatian and Serbian languages are related. Yes they are mutually intelligible. But they also have a degree of differences. Some sources define them as dialects of SC, others (more contemporary ones) define them as separate languages. Recently the differences are more insisted upon, both in Croatia and in Serbia (official government tender documents are required in cyrillic script for instance) as well as in the EU. It is also a fact that a native speaker of Croatian with no formal education in Serbian will not be able to produce a proper text in Serbian (regardless of cyrillic script) and vice versa. I'm perplexed at wholesale copying of the Croatian language history material to SC article - how do you propose to find a WP:RS saying "Baška tablet is written in SC" or something to that effect? Or do you plan to claim SC=Croatian contrary to the sources? Contrary to what I said in the above post, I provided the source (Ethnologue) clearly supporting the claim that Bosnian and Serbian and Croatian are distinct (albeit closely related) languages.--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:29, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

@Tomobe03, Ethnologue/ISO 639-3 use "macrolanguage" in this case as a cover term for mutually intelligible varieties that might differ in orthographies, cultural traditions, ethnicity, etc., but not necessarily linguistically. In other words, the term "macrolanguage" in the case of Serbo-Croatian is a political compromise. You don't seem to understand how Ethnologue and the ISO 639 system works. It's done by proposal and compromise among interested communities, it is not a strictly scientific linguistic judgment. I've been trying for a couple of years to get a mess cleaned up on Puget Sound where there are four codes for only three languages (all of which are mutually intelligible), but can't make any headway with the ISO authority because the tribes involved won't budge and they have financial stakes in all four codes. So don't make a purely linguistic argument based on Ethnologue unless there is corroborating evidence of a scientific linguistic nature (which the EU isn't). Serbo-Croatian is listed as a "macrolanguage" because it's one language with three national standards, two orthographies, three ethnicities, three religions, etc., not because there are three different languages. --Taivo (talk) 00:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

This is your interpretation (sayso) contradicting what the source explicitly says and therefore WP:OR apparently aimed at POV-pushing. This is wiki and not a place for OR or your interpretation of which sources are suitable or not outside what WP:RS allows (and bars). For instance, your dismissal of non-linguistic sources is odd as wiki must reflect all reliable sources giving them due weight per WP:DUE. Therefore feel free to say in this or any other article: this group of sources/linguists/whatnot says this and this group says that without dismissing either (as long they are not WP:FRINGE and EU official use certainly is not). Please restrain yourself from editorializing - including dismissing sources which do not suit your POV - as you did here in SC article, where you removed a referenced sentence perfectly accurately conveying claims explicitly stated in a RS, with an edit summary saying in effect "they did not mean so". The fact that the SC is generally pushed aside in favour of Croatian, Serbian etc. in real world also need be reflected by the article, your frustration about it won't save SC. Please try to understand that languages change, split, merge die out - in a word, develop. Were it not so, there would be no English or French or Czech or Slovak. I can see that you view Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages as some sort of nuisance to editors (Puget Sound case) requiring them to work harder when everything could be neatly done in a single word instead of three. It's ok for you to feel that way, but please note that the EU is not using "Croatian" as short for "Serbo-Croatian" ([1]) and that Serbia will undoubtedly insist that Serbian language become an official EU language too when it becomes a member state. I know some linguists will be particularly fond of separate languages and others will, like you, be partial to SC, but they built their careers on it. There's nothing wrong with it, report all their attitudes in the article(s), but you cannot base whole wiki article on a specific set of those, disregarding everything else simply because. If you wish to advocate your POV, and not reflect all RS, please consider writing a scientific article on linguistics of SC and seek a publisher.--Tomobe03 (talk) 01:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Linguistic sources are far more due than non-linguistic sources when discussing languages. CMD (talk) 01:50, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

@Tomobe03You clearly don't know anything about the nature of the ISO 639-3 (which is the primary source for Ethnologue's labels and classifications). My comments are not WP:OR because they are based on freely available definitions and descriptions of the ISO 639-3 system. And your comparison of Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian to English and French is laughable. Indeed, I'll laugh again. You simply don't understand the linguistic facts behind the varieties of Serbo-Croatian. --Taivo (talk) 02:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a language of which both Croatian and Serbian are ethnic terms. This language has no good name. We use SC here on WP. Whether the name is a political creation is irrelevant: the language isn't the name.

Now, this article is not about standard Croatian, but about all varieties of SC spoken by Croats. AFAIK, the early development of literary SC took place outside the Ottoman Empire. Since this is what we are covering in the 'early history' section, I can see why it might go here. On the other hand, it is the history of the SC language, so it could go there as well. This is comparable to the history of Hindustani, which one could argue should be the history of Urdu. (Hindi history only goes back a century, like AFAICT Serbian history does.) I reverted the recent restoration of the material, and then reverted myself, as I think we need some intelligent discussion on the issue. Intelligent. Much of the discussion on these articles has been idiotic, and any argument based on the claim that SC was "invented" etc. are not worth responding to. Most of the linguistically informed editors seem to support the move. I'd like to hold off to see what those supporting its retention here have to say.

Just to clarify, SC is the abstandsprache. Standard Croatian is an ausbausprache. The Croatian covered in this article is neither: it's not really a language at all, but the speech of an ethnicity. (I can understand the argument made earlier that this article should be restricted to the ausbausprache, but that's a different discussion.) — kwami (talk) 02:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with specific linguistic terms, so I've been trying to steer clear of these endless flamewars (which are another inherent reason to steer clear), but I saw Tomobe03's complaint and given that I know that he's generally acting in good-faith, I can't really stand idle while he's bashed for apparently trying to apply the basic principles of the verifiability policy. What should be in the article called "Croatian language" is not what we decide, but what's in reliable sources. We shouldn't even be deciding on whether there's a 1:1 mapping between the meaning of the term "Croatian language" and the meaning of the Croatian term "hrvatski jezik" - instead a secondary source should be found that makes that mapping for us, and cited. If there's a discrepancy in the sources between the two, we should describe it; even better, if there's a source describing such a discrepancy, we should cite it. That is the only way to keep some sanity in the matter. I like the call for intelligent discussion, but I fear it will soon devolve into a less intelligent discussion, like most before it - everyone who has enough free time to write something on Talk can better invest that time in finding a reliable source to use to support any claims they wanted to make on Talk - in the article space, where it's actually useful for the encyclopedia. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Joy completely. Regarding greater weight of linguistic sources in language related articles - that's fine too. But there are ample linguistic sources claiming that Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages are distinct languages rather than mere dialects just as there are those claiming otherwise. Ignoring one group in favour of the other is textbook POV-pushing. Non-linguistic sources should not be dismissed, but given due weight per WP:DUE. Trends - increasing or decreasing use of one or the other in real world (for instance census results where population is free to declare which language they speak) - should also be noted if the article is going to be comprehensive and objective. It is not for me or any self-declared expert to understand linguistic background of this or any other language here precisely because that leads to interpretation of sources - and that is WP:SYNTH at best and WP:OR at the worst - and POV-pushing.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

They're not even that: The standards are the same subdialect (Eastern Herzegovinian) of the same dialect (Shtakovian) of the same language. The distinction is ethnic and social, not grammatical or phonological. Croats and Serbs can't even tell their languages apart half the time. They are different standards: that's what the distinction between abstand and ausbau I linked to above refers to. — kwami (talk) 20:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

This is just insane. The scholarly linguistic sources are clear on this matter, and you have two very respected linguists on Wiki, one a univ. professor! - trying to steer this ridiculous re-occurring nationalist nonsense back to where it belongs, and yet even that apparently is not enough. Please. Enough. HammerFilmFan (talk) 14:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Au contraire: rather, it is insane to claim that every point debunking the myth that purely scientific/linguistic criteria are applied here, is rooted in Croat nationalism. This policy only goes to show the delusional nature of certain zealots who propagandize "Serbo-Croat," and Fejstkajkafski's insightful comment was very telling in that regard. I do commend Tomobe03 and Joy [shallot] for their level-headed approach in view of the situation. esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 14:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, boy. This is terrible. Who would have thought that Croats revenge-trolling amongst themselves would lead to this? --Pepsi Lite (talk) 12:14, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

JorisvS erased history of Croatian language, did not explain why. Baška tablet is one of the first monuments containing an inscription in the Croatian language, dating from the year 1100. It can not be a part of the history of Serbo-Croatian language. What is the origin of Serbo-Croatian language? In the 18 th century. It is scientifically impossible to connect the 11th and 18 century.--Sokac121 (talk) 14:45, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

You non-linguists simply don't have a good handle on the linguistic facts here. Sokac, that comment is rather naive. In 1100 that monument was not written in modern Croatian or modern standard Croatian, it was written in the common non-Slovenian West South Slavic language. The name that modern linguists use for that language is "Serbo-Croatian". It wasn't called "Serbo-Croatian" in 1100, of course, but that is the term that modern linguists use for that language. --Taivo (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

That your information about Baška tablet is wrong, incorrect. Of course it was written in Croatian language, because it is the most important source of Croatian language, that is reason it is called gemstone of Croatian language. Your problem is ignorance of the Croatian language and content of Baška tablet. --IvanOS 15:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand my comment, IvanOS. Modern Croatian did not exist in 1100. If you think that it did, then you appear to have a woeful lack of understanding about language and linguistics. What existed in 1100 might have been called "Croatian", but what it was in actuality was non-Slovenian West South Slavic, in other words the language from which the Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian subdialects all descended. If you want to call it "Croatian", then fine, but a Serb would be equally justified in calling it "Serbian" and a Bosniak calling it "Bosnian". It is one language and 900 years ago the varieties of non-Slovenian West South Slavic were even closer to each other than they are today. It would be much more accurate to tell us whether that monument represented pre-Shtokavian, pre-Chakavian, or pre-Kajkavian rather than using the non-linguistic label "Croatian". Whatever variety it was in 1100, it was not modern Standard Croatian, it was either common non-Slovenian West South Slavic or it was early Shtokavian, early Kajkavian, or early Chakavian. That's what you don't seem to understand. It was no more Croatian in the modern sense than the language of Beowulf was "English" in the modern sense. --Taivo (talk) 17:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

but what it was in actuality was non-Slovenian West South Slavic, in other words the language from which the Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian subdialects all descended.

Being that you're a linguist, I hope you're aware of the fact that there was no "common" Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian idiom, separated from Slovene, one from which all of SC would have descended. Slovene, Kajkavian, Chakavian and Shtokavian separated at around the same time, respectively. . A "non-Slovenian West South Slavic from which all Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian subdialects all descended" simply didn't exist. West South Slavic, on the other hand, did.

Saying that a Serb or Bosniak would be, for example, equally justified calling the Baška tablet Serbian or Bosnian only makes sense if we're to relativize all ethnicities and their historical landmarks, in which case we might as well call the Freising Manuscripts Serbian as well (after all, Slovene didn't exist just yet), although somehow I have doubts you'd agree with that. Furthermore, I'm not sure why it would have to be Croatian in the modern sense. Applying modern terminology anachronistically only causes even more head-aches. Seeing as even local historians agree for the overwhelming part on what each of them considers their share of history (Serb historians don't considers the Baška tablet to be Serbian or part of their history) as well as what made up their cultural and language roots, I don't see why the term Serbo-Croatian would be applied in such a fashion at times when it neither existed nor the people formed a tight linguistic or cultural union. Using the term Croatian in this article does not in any shape or form disrupt consensus, that of the current modern standard being called Serbo-Croatian by linguists, much like applying the label Low Franconian to idioms out of which Afrikaans sprang, but whose speakers hadn't moved to South Africa, doesn't disrupt the consensus on Afrikaans being a separate language. We don't apply the latter anachronistically to Low Franconian idioms in Netherlands/Belgium/Germany. Fejstkajkafski (talk) 13:25, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Those are good points. Considering that we generally use the term "Croatian" in the modern sense, and not provide any warning when we're not, would it be better to simply call the language Chakavian, Shtokavian, etc., as the case may be? Or West South Slavic where we can't determine? Even if we avoid both the names SC and C, it would seem that the SC article is the place for this, as that is specifically the union of Shto+Cha+Kaj, regardless of whether the distinction between that and Slovenian is artificial. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Taivo weak these arguments. That's what you're bragging that linguist, no argument. You can not impose your views--Sokac121 (talk) 19:37, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course he can, if his views are those of linguistic sources. My question is this: in the era we're talking about, where there already separate Serb and Croat ethnicities? Or were the people simply Slavs? I don't know enough about the ethnogenesis in the region to know whether this is similar to those editors who speak of "Pakistan" in the year 1600.

IMO, if the Serb/Croat divide goes back this far, and the details of this history are all on the Croat side, then it's simply a question of whether this article or the other is the better location. However, if the divide doesn't go back that far, then it definitely does not belong here. Not unless by "Croatian" you include Serbian. — kwami (talk) 20:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Kwami, a bit above you said "Now, this article is not about standard Croatian, but about all varieties of SC spoken by Croats.". What would be the unique (i.e. non-forked) content for this article besides Standard Croatian? --JorisvS (talk) 23:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Articles frequently overlap. Hindi and Urdu do, as do several other cases like this. I don't have a problem defining a language ethnically, as long as we're clear that it is not a language in the more familiar sense. What we have now is common usage. If we did narrow the scope to standardized Croatian, we'd need to be clear that we were not covering all the lects that Croats speak. But currently our Serbian article is not about the standard language either, and we don't seem to have a problem with that. — kwami (talk) 02:26, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

But we don't have an article on Standard Croatian etc. like we have for General American. Would there be enough material for an ethnically defined "Croatian language" and a separate one on Standard Croatian? --JorisvS (talk) 18:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

My forté is history, not linguistics, so I can only really help in that respect. @kwami: there is no divide. The first Croatian language defined as "separate" was actually declared in 1941 by the ultranationalist Ustase government, and was gone between 1945 and 1991. An official Croatian language viewed as separate from SC has existed for about 25 years all put together. That is to say, SC in one form or another was not the language for about 25 years of history.

The terms "Croatian language" and "Serbian language" were certainly used well before 1991, but basically as different names for the same language, never in the sense that they are separate languages. Until the Croatian national identity came under (a pretty real) threat of assimilation by Serbs in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, noone in their right mind even considered the possibility that Croatian is an entirely separate language from Bosnian or Serbian etc. Certainly not the Illyrians and other 19th century linguists. So far as I'm aware, even 19th century Croatian nationalists (Party of Rights; never held power) advocated a revival of a Greater Croatia, but did not actually declare that Croatian is a separate language from Serbian (they referred to the whole mess as "Croatian", much like the Serbian Radicals call it "Serbian"). Officially, in Austria-Hungary, the language was called "Croatian or Serbian", etc.. (I'll try not to go off on a tangent). Its really just a national identity thing.

Imo just make this article on Croatian Standard and move all else to SC. As long as there's ambiguity there'll be conflict. -- Director (talk) 18:24, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

So there's nothing more to tell about an ethnically defined "Croatian language" than Standard Croatian plus the bit about the speakers' personal views about "Croatian" that should be noted in an article about Standard Croatian anyway? --JorisvS (talk) 10:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Just one picture, it destroys all lies!

Director does not tell the truth. Census of Kingdom of Slavonia and Croatian 1910. (Austro-Hungarian). Croatian language there before 1941, Croatian and Serbian separate. Direktor certainly understand Hungarian language? --Sokac121 (talk) 19:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Mhm. And here's a couple more pictures that "Destroy the Lies!!" [2][3]. I don't know where you got that pic, but I actually did read-up on Austro-Hungarian census data. Now, maybe I'm wrong in my above assertion, its an obscure issue I am not particularly familiar with, but I do have secondary and primary sources behind what I'm saying and what I would like to see - is sources that show someone in Austria-Hungary actually claimed that these are separate languages. Linguistically (because that's what we're talking about), rather than simply using different names. A whole list of very different names were used for Serbo-Croatian and its variants literally since time immemorial.

What really matters is whether the variant referred to as the Croatian language really has explicitly been treated as a separate language by linguists in the past. For example, if you're a linguist, and you want to record the Slavic language used in the inaccessible backwater that was the Balkans (Croatia included), you'll treat it in your publication and you might call it the "Croatian language" (or the "Illyrian language", etc. etc.) - but that does not mean you necessarily maintain that it is separate somehow, from the practically identical variant spoken further into the peripheral "wildlands" of the Ottoman Empire. Now, very few people seriously documented the languages of this area before the late 18th century, and when they did - they usually called it the "Illyrian language" or "Slavonic language". In the first half of the 19th century, the Illyrian movement, actually headquartered in Croatia-Slavonia, aggressively advocated both political and linguistic unitarianism. It may be possible that in the latter half of the 19th century some Croatian linguists actually maintained Croatian was "separate" from Serbian - but even if they did, which I doubt, I'm reasonably certain they were a minority with no official standing. But, while I won't say its utterly impossible, the WP:BURDEN is squarely on such a claim. -- Director (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

That sounds very much like Hindustani, where before the divide of religious nationalism, Muslims often called their language "Hindi" and Hindus often called it "Urdu". (Wouldn't expect an exact parallel here, since S and C are geographically distinct.) If you can find a ref that the names were largely interchangeable before a certain date, that would be an excellent addition to the SC article. — kwami (talk) 00:27, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Fejstkajkafski and Director appear to have the most informed opinions on this. — kwami (talk) 07:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah Direktor has the most information, but wrong. I had to share his thoughts with members of Croatian Wikipedia :XD [4] I can not believe that he believed kwami. funny xD, lol, :D, :S, ;D--Sokac121 (talk) 15:09, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

*sigh* I told you two days ago that the idea that we need discussion is pointless, and two days later you're having to analyze the discussion to find which parts were intelligent :) Nobody actually needs a Usenet-style discussion here, instead we need people to make useful edits to the encyclopedia. We already know how that should be done. It doesn't involve the display of most kinds of opinions on Talk (there are places where editorial decisions can be made based on opinions - this is not such a place). It doesn't really involve having to analyze discussions based on opinions, because makes people's spend time, time that could have been spent on making useful edits. Please, let's move away from this largely unproductive model. There is no apparent proof that it actually contributes to the improvement of articles. For example, I see 16,477 bytes of new Talk here in those two days, but nothing of comparable value in the article (there's a single small copyedit by JorisvS). There isn't even an observable potential: I see no reason to believe there's a correlation between someone reading all this text and the probability that they'll make some referenced contributions to the article. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't really help, Joy. We're facing a problem.. how do you propose to solve it? -- Director (talk) 17:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I already said how to solve it - follow the fine policy and cite sources for everything. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:22, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally folks, here's a translation of the thread Sokac121 linked above. The conversation is between User:IvanOS, User:Sokac121 and LeoZ (who I don't think has an account over here):

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I don't know if anyone read the article on the English Wikipedia, but there in the first sentence it states: 'Croatian (hrvatski jezik) is the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Croats.' Also the English Wiktionary only has Serbo-Croatian.

I'm no expert, and even though some kind of Serbo-Croatian is still spoken, ie. Croatian polluted with Serbian, that article is a disgrace, impertinent, and spits in the face of the ten-century-long development of the Croatian language.

Any comments on that? -LeoZ (razgovor) 06:53, 20 January 2013 (CET)

Not only did we read it we fought against it happening, unfortunately we failed to defend the Croatian language. So we gave-up on that article. -Šokac ℗ 11:39, 20 January 2013 (CET)

As Šokac said, we tried to change it, but we failed because several foreign users (e.g. Kwamikagami) persistently maintain the position that Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, and Serbian are actually the Serbo-Croatian language. This state of affairs was much aided by a few "our" (i.e. Croatian) users (e.g. DIREKTOR, etc.), who actively and openly fight against Croatia and the Croatian language by writing such nonsense. We were in error to have given up on correcting that nonsense, but that can easily be rectified: we need to include even more of us in that struggle, and we must not give up until we get what we want, the truth about our language. Maybe then those yugonostalgics will give up and understand they are wrong. --IvanOS 16:15, 20 January 2013 (CET)

Denial of the Croatian language continues. The latest in the string of absurd edits was posted by JorisvS (from the Netherlands), who transferred the information on the Baška tablet from the Croatian language to the Serbo-Croatian language article [5][6]. With that he also replaced the word Croatian with Serbo-Croatian (The beginning of the Croatian written language can be traced... > The beginning of written Serbo-Croatian can be traced...), which will make the uninformed think that this Serbo-Croatian came into being in the 9th century, which of course isn't true. I was undoing those edits, but then some foreigner Taivo and the aforementioned DIREKTOR reverted me. This obviously won't go as long as I and another user fight against it. Therefore I repeat and request that as many users as possible join in on this. If anything is unclear, you can come to me. Thank you in advance! --IvanOS 19:55, 29 January 2013 (CET)

The Baška tablet is part of the South Slav languages, what Croatian got into you, there was no modern Croatian back then. Says Joris :). Well who even argues that modern Croatian existed in 1100, and the man is a linguist, this is paranormal. And then the Serb pepsi appears all excited and saucy and says Croats are trolling, and later on the Serbian Wikipedia it turns out as if we destroyed the Serbian language.--Šokac ℗ 21:14, 30 January 2013 (CET)

User:DIREKTOR thoughts of the 22nd century!?!

• Croatian language as a separate language was declared in 1941 by Ustaše authorities
• the official Croatian language is 25 years old
• before 1991 Croatian and Serbian were never seperated
• officially, in Austria-Hungary, the language was called "Croatian or Serbian"
• and there's much more ... :xD

P.S. Direktor for president [with "president" written in a garbled Serbian variant form] --Šokac ℗ 15:59, 1 February 2013 (CET)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Gripping stuff. I particularly like the canvassing and ridicule.. -- Director (talk) 19:16, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't appreciate it, either. In particular, have warned IvanOS on en: time and time again about his egregiously nationalist edits, and they've done very little to assuage my concerns - this kind of blatant canvassing just adds to the list of transgressions that seems to be putting him on a straightforward path to a topic ban. I have observed Sokac121 to be more patient than IvanOS on en:, which you can see above, too, and I'm willing to tolerate his crass comments under freedom of speech just like I'm willing to tolerate your inferences about Croatian as a concept being inextricably linked to 1941 (I trust you realize how that can be considered insulting).

In any case, I understand why it is desirable to provide a history section in the Serbo-Croatian article, but why is necessary to do it in such an egregiously inflammatory manner? Some of those mass search&replaces are really ridiculuous. The references to the Vinodol Codex are a) broken links, so it's obvious nobody actually read them b) [7] [8] - clearly aren't using the term Serbo-Croatian. That's a classic case of a WP:SYNTH violation. Either these Croatian sources should be used to describe what they actually describe, or they shouldn't be used at all. There's also another reference to Encyclopedia of the languages of Europe that I didn't try to verify because it's not available online, but it should be verified as well.

I think it's necessary to remind everyone that we're dealing with an article that has the most unflattering distinction of being the the first ever indefinitely restricted under WP:ARBMAC, so the standard of behavior here really needs to made to match that, and then some - avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. When there's apparently a public feud between en: and hr:, any impropriety, real or perceived, is going to be off-putting. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

It's terrible how article has changed in a short time. What has changed in the world, whether by prominent linguists learn something new. This explanation [9] very nice (kwami: exactly: there has been no decision to keep this duplicate here.) And who decided to move?. I thought that wikipedia is not a place to publish their own ideas.--Sokac121 (talk) 20:04, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Sokac, I have to be blunt. As far as I'm concerned you're completely discredited here in terms of good faith, and are not the one to lecture people on "pushing their own ideas". And considering how obviously poor your English skills are, I sincerely advise you to retire. -- Director (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

English skills aren't the problem. He could write in Croatian if he had a good point to make, or good references to share. — kwami (talk) 18:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The ruling at the top of the Talk Page on this article should be clear to all:

" Croatian is a standardized register of a language which is also spoken by Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins. In English, this language is generally called "Serbo-Croat(ian)". Use of that term in English, which dates back at least to 1864 and was modeled on both Croatian and Serbian nationalists of the time, is not a political endorsement of Yugoslavia, but is simply a label. As long as it remains the common name of the language in English, it will continue to be used here on Wikipedia. " - And that's how it is. By every academic standard, linguistic and history. HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. This is just a claim, nothing more -- don't try selling it as an absolute truth, as the opposite view is just as legitimate -- by every academic linguistic or historical standard. esse quam videri - to be rather than to seem (talk) 08:49, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Not at all, the opposite is actually only based on wishful thinking. --JorisvS (talk) 11:10, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

meh, that's a rubbish definition. sounds like some artificial, synthetic language. languages are not determined ONLY by their objective linguistic properties. and hardly anyone uses the standard Croatian outside formal communication anyway, with people preferring their organic idioms), so basically this article covers just a fragment of what Croatian really is. regarding the "common name", I guess it will forever remain confined to some obscure academic circles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.136.123.109 (talk) 16:57, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Wrong, anon IP. If you are talking about "organic idioms", then you are not talking about Croatian, but about one of the three non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects--Shtokavian, Kajkavian, and Chakavian. These are the three constituent dialects of non-Slovenian West South Slavic. Standard Croatian is one of the varieties of Shtokavian, along with Serbian and Bosnian. The most common name for non-Slovenian West South Slavic in English is "Serbo-Croatian". From your own mouth has come the confirmation that "Croatian", meaning the range of dialects spoken by Croatians, is, indeed, also known in the wider linguistic community as Serbo-Croatian. --Taivo (talk) 12:54, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

among the linguistic community. among pretty much everyone else, it's known simply as Croatian. I really don't care about the formal classification of these dialects. in real world, as opposed to foreign academia, "Croatian" is not just a label attached to a set of idioms that ethnic Croats happen to use. these idioms coexist, interact and function as Croatian language (not some register, form of some other language, etc.), and their native speakers recognize them as such. and the borders are reasonably well defined, too. to deny this is to be out of sync with reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.1.168.177 (talk) 21:38, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Democracy is not an argument. People are generally uneducated and quite dumb when it comes to scientific matters, particularly those that run counter to the established nationalist creed which the respected populace have been subjected to ever since the banana-state Croatia has emerged, and their "opionion" should generally be ignored, or at most stated as an entertaining fact of massive delusion and identity hysteria. There is no Croatian "idiom" that exists disentangled from the Bosian/Serbian/Montengrin idiom - they all form organically one and the same entity, the same subdialect of the same dialect, and no amount of arbitrarily drawn borders on the map can change that. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

In your wet dreams, maybe. Perhaps we should all abandon our organic identities and reestablish a new sacred Yugoslavia.

Understanding

I do not understand why we are so eager in our insistence to call Croatian language Serbo-Croatian when there are no reason for it, nor French, nor Italian, nor German Wikipaedia, calls Croatian language a Serbo-Croatian. We need to understand poor Croats and their wish to saperate their language from Serbian, which is not so hard if we try. Thus it whould be much easier for Croats, and for us, to call Croatian language just South Slavic.

Anonymous

Croatian is not strictly South Slavic. South Slavic has two branches--West and East. Croatian is in the West. West South Slavic has two branches--Slovenian and everything else. There are only two languages in West South Slavic. The question has always been, "What do we call non-Slovenian West South Slavic?" There is only one name available to linguists that covers the three main dialects of non-Slovenian West South Slavic (Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian). It is "Serbo-Croatian". It's not hard to get your brain around and it doesn't matter that the other Wikipedias do. In English, non-Slovenian West South Slavic is most commonly called "Serbo-Croatian". --Taivo (talk) 23:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

It is characteristic of some wikis, due to the unfortunate historical legacy that their respective countries carry, as well as inordinate amount of "tolerance" towards distinctiveness which EU policies and official creed mandates, to be excessively politically correct when it comes to charged issues involving language/identity/sovereignity. Fortunatelly English Wikipedia as a project trully international in scope can afford itself to call a spade a spade, and cut through otherwise impenetrable amounts of PC BS. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:33, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

To call West South Slavic language Slovene, and everything else, is complete idiotcy, there are not only two languages in West South Slavic but three, Štokavian (Sroatian, Serbian, Montenegrian, Bosnian), Kajkavian (Slovenian, Croatian) and Čakavian (Croatian). So if there is language so called Serbo-Croatian, then there must be language called Sloveno-Croatian, because Kajkavian dialect of Croatian language differs from Slovenian in a same amount as modern standard Croatian differs form modern Serbian. By this politics of some Serbo-Croatian language, his native speakers (Serbs, Bosniaks, Montenegrians) do not speek or understand ther own language (none Štokavian speakers, except Croats understand Kajkavian and Čakavian dialects, and they are in need of translation) that is why Croatian language is unique (Croatian language is Kaj-Što-Čakavian), while Serbian, Bosnian... are all Štokavian, while Slovenian is Kajkavian language. This is something no one seems to understand. By this logic then Sloven language is also Serbo-Croatian.... this all is just nonesense. I really don't understand why there is such eagerness to call Croatian language a Serbo-Croatian. Have anyone read Držić, Marulić, Gundulić, Zrinski, Frankopan, Brezovački, Krleža? If had he will see that Croatian language in his pure, historic form is so much more rich, stylistic and linguistically diverse that Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrian, Slovenian languages combine. 46.229.244.246 (talk) 21:09, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

You are right anonymous. It is a real shame that Croats didn't choose Kajkavian as their standard language, as then they will be screwing around today with Slovenians instead of us Serbs. --Pepsi Lite (talk) 22:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Just goes to show how little the anon IPs from Croatia actually know about language. Slovenian is not Kajkavian. It shares some features with Kajkavian, but it is not Kajkavian. In their mindless attempts to distance themselves from the fact that Croatian and Serbian are virtually identical, they'll pursue and espouse any unscientific nonsense that their handlers invent. --Taivo (talk) 00:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

There are some serious issues in understanding, far as my eyes see, Taivo in actuallity knows very lettle about West South Slavic languages and complex history they had. First of all from very early age there are only three nations and ethnic grups in Southern East Europe there where Bulgarians, Serbs and Croats (Slovenians did not exist before 19th century, nither did Bosniaks, nor Motenegrians, nor Macedonians) and of course nither did they languages. Second Slovenian is not Kajkavian, OK nither is Serbian Štokavian, Serbian language is Serbian, Slovenian language is Slovene, and they both have one major dialect, whilest Croatian language have three major dialects (that is what you as I see do not understand).

Serbian: Danas je lep dan.
Slovenian: Danes je lepi dan.
Croatian: Danas je liep dan. Danas je lip dan. Danes je lepi dan.
English: Today is a beautiful day.

46.229.244.246 (talk) 01:29, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Typical nationalist POV nonsense. You simply don't know what you're talking about and don't know what constitutes linguistic evidence or linguistic facts. Standard Croatian, Standard Serbian, and Standard Bosnian are all virtually identical variants of Shtokavian. Denying this is simply blind ignorance. You're just throwing around nationalistic nonsense and thinking that constitutes facts. I'm done responding to your lack of linguistic understanding. --Taivo (talk) 07:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Again complete misunderstanding. I was never tallking about Standard Croatian, Standard Croatian is more or less completely identical with Serbian, Bosnian... I was tallking about Croatian language, Yes the language spoken among people, not some idiotic standard, that in Croatia does not exist, the only one using the standard is media and government, no one speaks Standard, Standard was in the first place made only because of some Yugoslav unity, that is why today in Croatia the standard language is more Serbian then Croatian. The Croatian language in his pure form is completely different form Serbian, but You wouldn't know that, would you. You are very smart and You know all differences between Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian language (very interesting since You don't speak either of them). Have You read Croatian books, poetry... and then compared to Serbian, to Slovenian? Far as I know Serbs can't read Croatian poetry, unless they have a meter thick dictionary, and even then they would miss much of it.

Serbian and Standard Croatian: Dugo sam se bojao i nadao, slovo sam nadi, strahu dao; srce je prazno, srećno/sretno nije, natrag nadu i strah si želi.
Slovenian: Sem dolgo upal in se bal, slovo sem upu, strahu dal; srce je prazno, srečno ni, nazaj si up in strah želi.
Croatian Što: Sam se dugo ufao i se bojao, slovo sam ufu, strahu dao; srce je prazno, srjetno/srjećno ni, natrag si ufanje i strah želi.
Croatian Ča: San se duga ufa i se ba, slovo san ufu, strahu da; srce je prazno, srićno ni, natrag si uf i strah želi.
Croatian Kaj: Sem se dulgo/dolgo ufal/upal i se bojal/bal, slovo sem ufu/upu, strahu dal, srce je prazno, srečno/srećno ni, nazaj si uf/up i strah želi.
English: I have long hoped and feared, I give letter to hope, to fear; heart is empty, it is not happy, it wants back its hope and fear.

46.229.244.231 (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Continuing to write sentences in these dialects is not proper linguistic evidence. It shows that you don't really understand the science behind it. --Taivo (talk) 22:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Tell me please, what would be proper linguistic evidence. I really don't understand your eagerness to deny existance of Croatian language. Croatian language is made of his three major dialects, and it is not a language which was artificialy made in 20th century. Serbian language has only one dialect, as well as Slovenian. One dialect of Croatian language is very similar to Serbian (Štokavian), one is very similar to Slovenian (kajkavian), and the third Croatian dialect is somewhere in between. If there weren't any nations, there would probably be three languages, one Kajkavian, one Štokavian, one Čakavian, unfortunately this is not the case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.229.244.231 (talk) 23:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Your nationalism is simply misplaced. Serbian and Bosnian are both Shtokavian as is standard Croatian. What you are really demanding is that Serbian and Bosnian be called "Croatian". That's not the name most commonly used in English for the non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects. That most common name is "Serbo-Croatian". You're just being blinded by your desire to make Croatian more important than any other Balkan nationality. Get over yourself. You absolutely don't know what you're talking about when it comes to linguistic science. We've discussed this with other blind nationalists over and over and over again. Read back through the discussion here and at Serbo-Croatian language, Serbian language, and Bosnian language. You're just repeating the same tired old nationalist non-linguistic drivel. --Taivo (talk) 02:51, 16 March 2013 (UTC)