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Regarding Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin (done in order of population size)... native speaker here. These are four names for one and the same language

Regarding Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin (done in order of population size)... native speaker here. These are four names for one and the same language - in a sense that American, Canadian, British, and Australian are the same language. What one says they speak is usually indicative of the nationality they choose to belong to. Those that say they speak Serbo-Croatian are usually those that in some sense identify as Yugoslavian or "undeclared" with respect to nationality. Curiously, Yugoslavian (meaning south slavic) as a language never officially existed, although this would probably best describe it. In ex-Yugoslavia there is a rather pronounced distinction between citizenship and nationality. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) this distinction is actually enshrined into the constitution. Moreover, in BH all official documents must be translated into 3 constituent languages. As a funny example of this see how cigarette packets look in BH [1]. In all three instances they say exactly the same thing. NOTE: Cyrillic alphabet, as used in Serbia, has an isomorphic relationship to the Croatian latin alphabet (this same latin alphabet is official in the Serbian "language" too, although it is not called Croatian). To get an entertaining idea about how complicated things are in BH see [2] or [3]. [1] https://www.globaltobaccocontrol.org/tpackss/share-pack/pack/4368/drina-bosnia-and-herzegovina-4368 https://www.globaltobaccocontrol.org/tpackss/share-pack/pack... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO0rEwwyB0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO0rEwwyB0g [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCEYDdMue-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCEYDdMue-8

sgnnseven 6y ago
> In ex-Yugoslavia there is a rather pronounced distinction between citizenship and nationality. As a Yugoslav war refugee, this is spot on. Small sidenote: Even if all of these languages are effectively one big "super-Balkan" language it is a _very_ divisive point from an ethnicity perspective given the number of conflicts this region has had over the centuries. While it's not my cup of tea, the reality is that people from the Balkans will often judge others from that region (both positively and negatively) based on these almost-imperceptible language differences since they signal to the listener some degree of ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic level, and education level.
- mushbino 6y ago
  This has been my experience traveling in ex-Yugoslavia. It's exactly the same language, but It's difficult getting anyone to admit that for the reasons you stated. They really didn't have any interest in being grouped together in any way. Though, almost everyone I spoke with who remembered Yugoslavia said they missed it and things were better back then. It could just be rose colored glasses though.
adimitrov 6y ago
We linguists have a saying. A language is a dialect with an army. There are, perhaps, few places where this is more true than in the Balkans. At least none come to mind.
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  "A language is a dialect with an army and navy." -- Max Weinreich
  - FreshFries 6y ago
    In the article, Weinreich presents this statement as a remark of an auditor at a lecture series given between 13 December 1943 and 12 June 1944: A teacher at a Bronx high school once appeared among the auditors. He had come to America as a child and the entire time had never heard that Yiddish had a history and could also serve for higher matters.... Once after a lecture he approached me and asked, 'What is the difference between a dialect and language?' I thought that the maskilic contempt had affected him, and tried to lead him to the right path, but he interrupted me: 'I know that, but I will give you a better definition. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.' From that very time I made sure to remember that I must convey this wonderful formulation of the social plight of Yiddish to a large audience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...
- medo-bear 6y ago
  I'm not a linguist but I think it would be useful to have a unifying term for these languages. If I say that I speak 4 languages at a native level, referring to the languages listed in the parent post, it's not exactly the same (to put it mildly) as someone speaking Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Czech at a native level, even if these languages too come from the same family. As an anecdote, a friend once told me, that to really speak a language you must be able to understand jokes and poetry in that language. I tend to agree. With that in mind it's worth mentioning that to a great extent people from Serbia, Croatia, BH, and Montenegro listen to the same music, read the same literature, and tell the same jokes
velcro 6y ago
Thats only partly true on a very broad macro level - for example someone mentioned Kajkavian, which is dialect of Croatian but sounds a lot more Slovenian :) In fact its the dialect spoken by the majority of people in Croatia (even though Stokavian is the "official" Croatian) and sometimes argued to be more than just a dialect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajkavian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajkavian Personally I always found the comparison "Croatian vs. Serbian is the same as US English vs. British" a great oversimplification. It's not just an intonation or alphabet, it's also a lot more different words (that might mean the same things) than for example between the variants of English. Yes, people understand each other - but they're also attuned to all the different dialects within the "main language groups" so they actually know/learn more words for same objects (for example Croatians will be happy to list different words for bread/tomatos/etc i.e. synonyms that they might know the meaning of but don't necessarily use daily - and those different synonyms depending on the dialect might be closer to Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian or old Austrian). In a way I think this invalidates the premise of the article - that there is "a peculiar form of theater going on" and that the governments are pretending by needing court translators. If the countries are using not only different alphabets, but in part also different words (even though that other surrounding countries might somewhat understand those different words) - whats a viable alternative then?
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  British, American and Australian use different words too, and even have different meanings for the same words (eg. fanny, boot, thongs). Yet anybody requesting translation between these would be laughed out of court, and rightly so. Also, doesn't your claim that BCS speakers are attuned to different dialect groups and understand their terms even further undermine the claim that there's an actual need for translation? By and large, speakers of English aren't (although thanks to Hollywood everybody knows some American), but an Aussie in NYC or a Brit in Melbourne is not going to have any real issues communicating.
  - velcro 6y ago
    Yes of course there are synonyms in all languages - but I specified "a lot more words". If you look at the link I included in my first reply under "vocabulary comparison" you'll see an example of what I mean. And thats just the biggest one - there are islands in Croatia where I (as a native speaker) might have better luck understanding Czech than the local variants. Don't think that undermines my claim at all - they understand the words because they're familiar within the slavic language group in general (even though they might be derivations and used or spelled differently). Its like saying Italian/Spanish are the same because speakers might understand words between them. With the translation argument - you also of course have to ignore the fact that Serbia writes in cyrillic and Croatia in latin alphabet.

sgnnseven 6y ago

> In ex-Yugoslavia there is a rather pronounced distinction between citizenship and nationality. As a Yugoslav war refugee, this is spot on. Small sidenote: Even if all of these languages are effectively one big "super-Balkan" language it is a _very_ divisive point from an ethnicity perspective given the number of conflicts this region has had over the centuries. While it's not my cup of tea, the reality is that people from the Balkans will often judge others from that region (both positively and negatively) based on these almost-imperceptible language differences since they signal to the listener some degree of ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic level, and education level.

mushbino 6y ago
This has been my experience traveling in ex-Yugoslavia. It's exactly the same language, but It's difficult getting anyone to admit that for the reasons you stated. They really didn't have any interest in being grouped together in any way. Though, almost everyone I spoke with who remembered Yugoslavia said they missed it and things were better back then. It could just be rose colored glasses though.

adimitrov 6y ago

We linguists have a saying. A language is a dialect with an army. There are, perhaps, few places where this is more true than in the Balkans. At least none come to mind.

kubanczyk 6y ago
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy." -- Max Weinreich
- FreshFries 6y ago
  In the article, Weinreich presents this statement as a remark of an auditor at a lecture series given between 13 December 1943 and 12 June 1944: A teacher at a Bronx high school once appeared among the auditors. He had come to America as a child and the entire time had never heard that Yiddish had a history and could also serve for higher matters.... Once after a lecture he approached me and asked, 'What is the difference between a dialect and language?' I thought that the maskilic contempt had affected him, and tried to lead him to the right path, but he interrupted me: 'I know that, but I will give you a better definition. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.' From that very time I made sure to remember that I must convey this wonderful formulation of the social plight of Yiddish to a large audience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...
medo-bear 6y ago
I'm not a linguist but I think it would be useful to have a unifying term for these languages. If I say that I speak 4 languages at a native level, referring to the languages listed in the parent post, it's not exactly the same (to put it mildly) as someone speaking Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Czech at a native level, even if these languages too come from the same family. As an anecdote, a friend once told me, that to really speak a language you must be able to understand jokes and poetry in that language. I tend to agree. With that in mind it's worth mentioning that to a great extent people from Serbia, Croatia, BH, and Montenegro listen to the same music, read the same literature, and tell the same jokes

velcro 6y ago

Thats only partly true on a very broad macro level - for example someone mentioned Kajkavian, which is dialect of Croatian but sounds a lot more Slovenian :) In fact its the dialect spoken by the majority of people in Croatia (even though Stokavian is the "official" Croatian) and sometimes argued to be more than just a dialect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajkavian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajkavian Personally I always found the comparison "Croatian vs. Serbian is the same as US English vs. British" a great oversimplification. It's not just an intonation or alphabet, it's also a lot more different words (that might mean the same things) than for example between the variants of English. Yes, people understand each other - but they're also attuned to all the different dialects within the "main language groups" so they actually know/learn more words for same objects (for example Croatians will be happy to list different words for bread/tomatos/etc i.e. synonyms that they might know the meaning of but don't necessarily use daily - and those different synonyms depending on the dialect might be closer to Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian or old Austrian). In a way I think this invalidates the premise of the article - that there is "a peculiar form of theater going on" and that the governments are pretending by needing court translators. If the countries are using not only different alphabets, but in part also different words (even though that other surrounding countries might somewhat understand those different words) - whats a viable alternative then?

howlgarnish 6y ago
British, American and Australian use different words too, and even have different meanings for the same words (eg. fanny, boot, thongs). Yet anybody requesting translation between these would be laughed out of court, and rightly so. Also, doesn't your claim that BCS speakers are attuned to different dialect groups and understand their terms even further undermine the claim that there's an actual need for translation? By and large, speakers of English aren't (although thanks to Hollywood everybody knows some American), but an Aussie in NYC or a Brit in Melbourne is not going to have any real issues communicating.
- velcro 6y ago
  Yes of course there are synonyms in all languages - but I specified "a lot more words". If you look at the link I included in my first reply under "vocabulary comparison" you'll see an example of what I mean. And thats just the biggest one - there are islands in Croatia where I (as a native speaker) might have better luck understanding Czech than the local variants. Don't think that undermines my claim at all - they understand the words because they're familiar within the slavic language group in general (even though they might be derivations and used or spelled differently). Its like saying Italian/Spanish are the same because speakers might understand words between them. With the translation argument - you also of course have to ignore the fact that Serbia writes in cyrillic and Croatia in latin alphabet.