3 ms·
when you compare serbian and croatian and find them fairly similar it's worth keeping in mind that only holds true for the standard versions of those languages.
by marsa 5y ago
when you compare serbian and croatian and find them fairly similar it's worth keeping in mind that only holds true for the standard versions of those languages.
thing is these standard versions were developed and agreed upon more or less at a time -- mid 19th century and the whole nationalist movements thing in europe -- when there was a unitarian tendency among south slavic nations. so the standard versions are (1) essentially artificial, and (2) politically motivated to an extent.
once you get on the ground level of spoken language you find far more variance within each of the two -- the regional and even local dialects are very different from each other, to the point of seemingly being whole different languages were it not for the developed standard versions that tie them together.
- nradov 5y agoThe Croatian government is now trying to encourage more linguistic differentiation from Serbian by introducing neologisms that were never used in standard Serbo-Croatian.
- marsa 5y agowith little or no practical success. but yes, standard language development is essentially an ongoing political process imo. nation states trying to prove they're unique basically. i suspect this is the case all around the world to a greater or lesser extent.
- twelvechairs 5y agoYes but historic dialect boundaries didnt follow modern national boundaries at all - see link below https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokavian#/media/File%3AShtokavian_subdialects1988.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokavian#/media/File%3ASht...
- hutzlibu 5y agoWhich sounds like it contributed to the various wars on the Balkans.
- ggrrhh_ta 5y agoI don't know if you are referring to other languages also spoken in Croatia which are not Croatian (Istriot). They might not be the same language, but I would bet that if two speakers, one of Croatian (of the three main dialects), and one of Serbian, want to communicate, they will find very little difficulty (like between British English and American English speakers) in doing so.
- marsa 5y agothat's indeed very likely if they're using standard versions of their respective languages. but if someone from let's say east istria and south serbia communicated in the traditional local dialects spoken there there'd be a significant degree of confusion and misunderstanding between them -- that's my bet at least.
- ggrrhh_ta 5y agoYes, a Mancunian and a New Zealander might have similar if not more trouble.