# Status of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian  (BCS) Standard Language



## sokol

To not go off-topic in this thread I'll open a new one for which the question should be:

*What is the Status of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian standard language *(let us use the abbreviation coined by Athaulf, that is BCS, for convenience) *and how did it change in the last two decades?*
Additional question, what about Montenegro: how is the standard language called there, today?

Note please: this is about the *status of standard languages* and NOT dialect, also this is NOT about actual varieties of the standard language but about _what status they have in the different regions and nation-states, _also about changes of status.

As a starting point I will give a very short summary of this article:
 Daria Sito Sucic 1996: The Fragmentation of Serbo-Croatian into Three New Languages; in: Open Media Research Institute Prague; www source 1996; published in the periodical Transition 2/24, Prague, 29.11.1996
Please keep in mind that this article was written in 1996 and that the situation has changed since. Here now a summary of Sucic's article (if you are interested in the historic context you'll have to read the full article and, preferably, more background literature) - I have added some thoughts of my own and one addition of Athaulf in the other thread, these are put in red to clearly separate them from *Sucic*'s thoughts:

1.) Of old there exist two varieties of BCS, eastern and western, Serbian = *eastern *on the one hand and *western *= used by Croats, "Western" Serbs (Bosnia, Hercegovina), Bosnian Muslims and Montenegrins.
The *eastern *variety = Serbian traditionally is written in *Cyrillic *though they also use *Latin *script, in the former Yougoslav Republic Montenegro the standard language also was called Serbian (and officially written in Cyrillic); the *western *variety = Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and also Serbian however also used both Cyrillic and Latin.
[My comment: as far as use of script is concerned I've once talked to a Bosnian woman who was raised in "old" Yougoslavia - in 1998 she was about 35 years old; she has told me that in school they've learned both Latin and Cyrillic script in Bosnia, with no concern of ethnicity, and that they've all written them fluently. Later I've also found statistics that supposedly in the 1980ies in Bosnia use of script was almost equally divided - that is, almost 50:50% - but the source for that I don't have at hand.
*For convenience* let us call the *eastern variety **Ekavian *and the *western variety **Ijekavian *_(and please let us not split hairs over Ijekavian vs. Jekavian);_ the reason for these names is of no concern here: if you know the languages you know about it, if you don't you don't need to know. ;-)]

2.) The official name of the language was *Serbo-Croatian* or Croato-Serbian, and both Latin and Cyrillic script were in equal use. [My comment: Croato-Serbian = Hrvatskosrpski was preferred by Croats, and also only Hrvatski or Srpski were used; I think the official formula was "Srpsko-Hrvatski ili Hrvatsko-Srpski jezik" that is "Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian". "Equal use" probably was not very good formulated by Sucic; even in Serbia to my knowledge Latin script was widely used, so Latin script probably was more common, though since the war Cyrillic script became more popular with Serbs, as far as I know.]

3.) In august 1995 (four years after the Croatian Declaration of Independence) two draft bills on language were put forward but were rejected by *Croatian*parliament (their aim was a more etymological writing on the one hand, going back to the fascist Croatian regime of World War II, and the banning of "Non-Croatian" words. Even though the bill was rejected this was a turning point in language politics of Croatia. [and here follows a direct quote from Sucic:] "That is not just an academic exercise -- in Zagreb today, anyone using words regarded as Serbian risks not getting a loaf of bread in a shop or a train ticket at the station." [My comment: this was the case in 1996, _according to Sucic,_ but I don't think that this still is the case; of course this would be for native speakers to say. Anyway, Croatian language certainly always was more puristic than Serbian, and I can very well imagine that Croatian purism did increase significantly as a consequence of the conflict - as Sucic says in his article.]

4.) On the other hand, in *Serbia and Montenegro* Cyrillic script more and more became an important symbol for Serbian nationality, while there is little language planning from Serbs - as opposed to the Croats. [Athaulf already has said exactly the same in the other thread, so there's already a native speakers comment on that. Further Sucic states that ...] ... in Serbia and Montenegro language did not really change as a consequence of the conflict.

5.) In *Bosnia-Hercegovina* before the war members of all ethnicities spoke the same Bosnian variety (and dialects), it was impossible to divide ethnicities by language, therefore nationalists did create borders on purpose. Officially the language of Bosnia-Hercegovina was re-named by a bill in 1993 into "Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian" with both scripts still being equal, officially.
5.a) *Bosnian Serbs* made the most radical move with introducing Ekavian = the eastern variety, and some radical nationalists in Banja Luka allegedly even demanded that students have to write English and German language (sic!) in Cyrillic letters, and also banning of "Turkish" and "Croatian" words was proposed. [Athaulf already has commented in the other thread that this is not the case any more; Bosnian Serbs have returned to Ijekavian standard language in Cyrillic script.]
5.b)* Bosnian Croats* claimed that they "now" spoke "Croatian" which wasn't so radical a move as many Croatians, especially the ones living in Hercegovina, have become "Croatisised" already before the war to a degree. [Athaulf already confirmed in the other thread that Croatians in Bosnia indeed use Croatian standard language.]
5.c) *Bosnian Muslims* were the most tolerant in language issues; in the census of 1991 [my comment: I don't know if this was before or after the Declaration of Independence, but to my knowledge it should have been before - to my knowledge the last Yougoslav census to be held took place shortly before the beginning of the hostilities] most Bosnian inhabitants (regardless of nationality) stated to speak "Bosnian language". But Bosnian didn't catch as an unmarked name for the "language spoken in B.-H." because Muslim linguists tried to create a special Muslim standard language. [Athaulf refers to that on the other thread - Bosnian = only the region, the state, and Bosniak = the nationality, but Athaulf also mentioned that nowadays Bosnian Muslims approximately use as a standard language the variety used by Bosnians of all ethnicities before the conflict. And my own comment on that: during my researches on Bosnian in the late 1990ies I found some sources really trying to establish a "Muslim" standard language like Sucic says, but I had the impression that this probably wasn't main-stream even in Bosnia.]

*----- End of summary -----
*The following are a few final comments of my own, to make this easier to understand for people *not *familiar with the situation of BCS standard language (and varieties); I am aware of the fact that native speakers certainly would have to say more on that than I do (and that they are very welcome to correct my faults ;-):
*- Census in Yougoslavia:* In Yougoslavia at census you had to name your mother tongue; apart from ethnical names also "Yougoslav" was possible (which meant something like "over-national"), and "Bosnian" I think only was introduced for the 1991 census (please correct me here ;-). Giving a language was something like "voting" vor a language, "voting" for an ethnicity - it was of great significance and not a marginal choice. And it _was _a choice (especially with "Yougoslav" and also with mixed marriages of which there were many, in some regions).
*- Religion and Nationality:* In the BCS area religion _was and is _what "makes" your nationality, this even was so in Communist Yougoslavia, however strange this may sound. Therefore, for example, Catholics living in Kosovo "voted" for Croatian in the Census even though ethnically they probably were Albanians assimilated to BCS a few centuries ago (same for Catholics in Vojvodina even though they ethnically were not Croats but possibly assimilated Hungarians or Germans), and Orthodox Christs in Slavonia "voted" for Serbian even though they probably were descendants of "Ruthenians" (Ukrainians, Belorussians) who immigrated in the 18th century and now were assimilated to BCS. Even devote communists voted for those "religious" ethnic groups although in Tito's Yougoslavia the vote for neutral "Yougoslav" ethnicity was promoted.

Comments now, please. And please try to keep the cultural perspective in mind, and the two questions at the beginning of the thread.


----------



## venenum

Interesting topic, interesting summary of the article, but somewhat flawed, I'd say.... I'll try to give my point of view on some "murky" details.



sokol said:


> 2.) The official name of the language was *Serbo-Croatian* or Croato-Serbian, and both Latin and Cyrillic script were in equal use.



Off course everyone had to read and write both scripts fluently, or they couldn't finish elementary school, since, for example, in all of the Croato-Serbian language course readers, part of the texts was in Latin, and part in Cyrillic script . It was the same all over former Yugoslavia. But there was always only one used privately. For example, I've never seen my parents or grandparents write something in Cyrillic script, even back in the '80s. They also preferred books and newspapers in Latin script, although they would read Cyrillic ones occasionally. 
Everybody HAD to know both scripts, but no one could force people to use the "other" script even back then, so speaking about "equal use" of scripts seems a bit absurd from my point of view.
 




sokol said:


> [and here follows a direct quote from Sucic:] "That is not just an academic exercise -- in Zagreb today, anyone using words regarded as Serbian risks not getting a loaf of bread in a shop or a train ticket at the station."



I can't say for sure if the situation has changed, and how big a change it is, because I live in Baranja, where the tensions still ride high, although the idea of "peaceful coexistence" has set its roots and people consider nationality to be less of a burning question than 10 or 15 years ago, but I believe you'd get your bread and the train ticket, especially in Zagreb. I find the example given amusing, since it doesn't mention that, for example, on the occupied territory you could, asside from not getting your bread or train ticket if you used a Croatian word, also get thrown out from the place, or even beaten up for using those words. 
Also, my grandpa has a story from the '70s, when he was in Belgrade on buisiness, and couldn't buy bread because he asked for _kruh_ and not _hleb_, and people wouldn't give him directions when he got lost if he used Croatian words when asking. So, it actually wasn't such a novelty in the '90s, as the author of the article would like us to believe.
 



> and some radical nationalists in Banja Luka allegedly even demanded that students have to write English and German language (sic!)in Cyrillic letters


 

That wasn't happening only in Bosnia, I remember such loony suggestions in Baranja, too.  




> But Bosnian didn't catch as an unmarked name for the "language spoken in B.-H." because Muslim linguists tried to create a special Muslim standard language.




Actually, what they did (as far as I'm familiar with the situation) is that they introduced into the standard vocabulary a wide variety of words which were until then regarded as "substandard", but were commonly used all over Bosnia (mostly of Turkish origin), and I presume (this is a wild guess, since I'm not that familiar with the recent development of Bosnian language) that they standardized the prosodic features of the language which are characteristic for Bosnia, and were considered substandard and dialectally marked in the "Croato-Serbian" language. (TV brings me to this conclusion, because they consistently use some accents and other features which don't actually fit with the standard I'm familiar with, but, as I've already said, it's a wild guess, since the language spoken on TV isn't exactly the best indicator of the standard language nowadays - someone watching Croatian TV-channels would think that the dialect of Zagreb has become the Croatian standard lately)





> same for Catholics in Vojvodina even though they ethnically were not Croats but possibly assimilated Hungarians or Germans, and Orthodox Christs in Slavonia "voted" for Serbian even though they probably were descendants of "Ruthenians" (Ukrainians, Belorussians)



Actually, besides Hungarians and Germans, there were a lot of Croats in Vojvodina, and also, a lot of Serbs in Slavonija - although the assimilation process was strong in the last 50 years, I don't think that anyone would declare him/herself as Croat only because he/she is a Catholic, or as a Serb just for being Orthodox.


----------



## sokol

venenum said:


> Interesting topic, interesting summary of the article, but somewhat flawed, I'd say.... I'll try to give my point of view on some "murky" details.


Thank you very much, that's what I have asked for. 
Of course Sucic's article was not formulated very accurate in some cases (and then I was forced to oversimplify obviously, a single post may not be longer than 10.000 letters, as I have found out).



venenum said:


> Off course everyone had to read and write both scripts fluently (...) But there was always only one used privately.


Yes I know (was obvious to me ), but thanks for mentioning it. (This was Sucic paraphrased.)



venenum said:


> They also preferred books and newspapers in Latin script, although they would read Cyrillic ones occasionally.


 [Shortened quote; of course this is about the 1980ies.]
That would have been my guess (which isn't mentioned in my post), and it is nice to have a confirmation.



venenum said:


> I can't say for sure if the situation has changed (...) but I believe you'd get your bread and the train ticket, especially in Zagreb.


That, too, is good to have confirmed: so the situation at least partially is back to normal.



venenum said:


> Also, my grandpa has a story from the '70s, when he was in Belgrade on buisiness, and couldn't buy bread because he asked for _kruh_ and not _hleb_, and people wouldn't give him directions when he got lost if he used Croatian words when asking. So, it actually wasn't such a novelty in the '90s, as the author of the article would like us to believe.


 Now this is completely new to me and very enlightening!

(About Bosnian Muslim language policy):


venenum said:


> Actually, what they did (as far as I'm familiar with the situation) is that they introduced into the standard vocabulary a wide variety of words which were until then regarded as "substandard", but were commonly used all over Bosnia (mostly of Turkish origin) (...)



Yes, some tried to re-introduce "Turkish" substandard vocabulary into the standard language, and also they tried to re-vitalise the very strong (very 'pronounced') pronunciation of /h/ as a velar fricative /x/ (which also would be standard pronunciation in Slovenian, for different reasons, while in BCS in many regions /h/ is only a glottal fricative or even has been dropped.




venenum said:


> Actually, besides Hungarians and Germans, there were a lot of Croats in Vojvodina, and also, a lot of Serbs in Slavonija - although the assimilation process was strong in the last 50 years, I don't think that anyone would declare him/herself as Croat only because he/she is a Catholic, or as a Serb just for being Orthodox.


Of course you are the authority here with you living in the region  - I have studied the census results for Yougoslavia from 1991 and found some "Croats" in Kosovo; further research indicated very strongly that these certainly were NOT Croatians who had migrated to Kosovo but local people speaking the local Serbian dialect.
Further, as in this region most people with Catholic belief were Albanians (there is a rather small Catholic Albanian community) and only over the border in Montenegro there are a few Catholic Slavs it could very well be possible that the mysterious "Croats of Kosovo" probably could be (ethnically) Albanians assimilated to Serbian language. That was where my example came from.
Unfortunately, no hard facts available on that - I haven't found any in literature in the 1990ies when I wrote my thesis (and I did not research this particular point since).

Thank you very much for your contribution, venenum, it did solve some riddles for me.


----------



## vput

I have spent some time in the Balkans and taught myself some BCS but I'm not a native speaker of BCS and I don't have any ethnic tie to the Balkans. Thus my comments may lack an intimate understanding in linguistic nuances as shown by people such as Athaulf, Duya, Poison or dudasd. Yet my "foreigness" also means that  I'm less forgiving of the nationalist chicanery involved in Balkan language planning as one form of nationalist language planning isn't automatically better than another.

Sokol, you may want to get the book "Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands" edited by Ranko Bugarski and Celia Hawkesworth. It has some interesting articles by linguists on how Serbo-Croatian is evolving into Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian.

Based on my discussions with Balkan friends and acquaintances as well as reading some material on the subject (not just Bugarski et al.'s book but also Sucic's article which I had first read a couple of years ago before giving a brief presentation on Croatian purism), here are some comments.

1) The status today of BCMS is that each variant has been elevated to a standard language. The comments by Athaulf and Sucic about who is more sensitive to the question of how distinct they are from each other are fairly accurate given my experiences. I found that my Croatian acquaintances (even ones who are relatively moderate) like to project the image that Croatian is distinct from all of the other variants and usually resort to sociolinguistic reasons for their view. (They are also more sensitive when foreigners use words that they consider to be Serbian and I was on the receiving end of such comments ). Mind you this kind of reasoning is odd if not puzzling to a lot of people outside the Balkans (but to a certain extent not in Scandanavia or to speakers of Hindi-Urdu or Indonesian-Malay) since we are aware that native speakers of English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese don't assign such a prominent role to sociolinguistics when proclaiming the existence of new languages.

On the other hand, my Serbian acquaintances tend to be less fussy about the intra-distinctiveness of BCMS (corroborating with Athaulf's observation). While Serbs usually have no problem calling the variants by different names, they often don't extend it to mean that they view the content of those standard variants to merit calling them different languages. They tend to assign a less prominent role to sociolinguistics when talking about BCMS which is closer to the reasoning used by speakers of those Western European languages that I listed.

I also know a couple of Bosnians. One of them is a "Bosniak" by virtue of her adherence to Islam, while the other is a Bosnian Serb. The comments by the latter interested me the most and demonstrated that the chauvinist attitudes in this language squabble haven't always emanated from Croats (even though they do occur more frequently in the world-views of Croats). As expected her native dialect was ijekavian, but she told me of times when ekavian speakers would accuse her of speaking bad Serbian or even of being less Serbian because her native speech didn't match the ekavian speech of Belgrade. She had the attitude that it didn't really matter how one spoke since Bosnia was so mixed. She added that trying to use the equation of one's language equalling one's ethnicity fell apart.

2) I believe that the underlying matter is that the governments of the ex-Yugoslavia and some of their citizens still apply the German concept from the 19th century of language being the soul of a nation. The argument is that if each nation is distinct, therefore each nation must have a distinct language. The corollary is that if people speak the same language, then they are the same nation. Neither interpretation admits a case where different nations can speak indistinct languages or the same language. Nationalists who advocate separation consider only the first interpretation while nationalists who advocate unity consider only the second interpretation. Neither side in power nor the respective language academies want to work toward the middle ground. What we have are standardized variants that are elevated to distinct languages (notwithstanding the near-identity of the variants) on the same level as languages (e.g. Polish and Slovak) that are not only standardized differently, but also have much lower or no mutual intelligibility. The separatists insist that the sociolinguistic reasons for differentiation trump virtual identity based on mutual intelligibility and a common dialectal base.


----------



## Athaulf

I've read the article in question, and what it says is mostly true, even though there are a few exaggerations and even outright falsehoods. 

The article greatly overstates the enthusiasm that common people had for the language engineering policies in Croatia in the 1990s. In fact, such policies have always been the target of jokes and derision for most people. It was never the case that "in Zagreb, anyone using words regarded as Serbian risks not getting a loaf of bread in a shop or a train ticket at the station". I know this from personal experience, since I moved from Bosnia to Zagreb during the war, and for a very long time, I couldn't help but constantly use many non-Croatian words, some of them sounding very "Serbian" to people from Zagreb. The worst incident I can remember was when my brother was once rudely corrected by a salesman in a store. 

This claim is a ridiculous fabrication:_Croats who have moved to Croatia from Serbia or Bosnia have to pass a proficiency exam in Croatian language and culture to obtain Croatian citizenship. Many of them fail, as it is nearly impossible to learn the new Croatian words as quickly as they are invented. 
_​I received Croatian citizenship in 1993, having moved there from Bosnia several months earlier, and I also know hundreds of people from Bosnia who moved to Croatia and received Croatian citizenship throughout the 1990s. I've never even heard of any such test, and in fact, it would run contrary to the policy of the Croatian government at the time, which was encouraging the settlement of Croats from Bosnia and Serbia in Croatia. 

Another complete lie:_In addition, university diplomas from other centers of the former Yugoslavia, such as Belgrade or Sarajevo, are not recognized in Croatia. 
_​This would be news for my mother, whose Bosnian diploma in engineering certainly didn't prevent her from getting several jobs in Zagreb in the 1990s, and for hundreds of other people I know who were in a similar situation. 

Also, the author overplays the seriousness of Bosnian Serbs' and Muslims' language engineering policies. Their respective attempts to imitate Belgrade speech or revive ancient Turkish and Arabic borrowings have never really been more than short tragicomic episodes. Furthermore, the claim that the differences between BCS varieties are limited to 3-7% of the lexicon is a gross underestimate, even when it comes to the differences between standard Croatian and Serbian, let alone the spoken language. (Of course, this is not to say that they aren't easily mutually intelligible.)


Having said that, the basic points of the article are true, although the author is trying too hard to hammer down some of her points.


----------



## venenum

sokol said:


> Further, as in this region most people with Catholic belief were Albanians (there is a rather small Catholic Albanian community) and only over the border in Montenegro there are a few Catholic Slavs it could very well be possible that the mysterious "Croats of Kosovo" probably could be (ethnically) Albanians assimilated to Serbian language. That was where my example came from.



And I found the solution of this riddle, too. I was some 90% sure they were really of Croatian origin, but I nevertheless consulted my good friend wiki: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janjevci or http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janjevci
they both agree that Croats from Kosovo - known as Janjevci - are descendants of traders and miners from Dubrovnik and Bosnia who came and stayed there around 14th century, but nevertheless kept their national identity instead of assimilating with the locals. 



> _In addition, university diplomas from other centers of the former Yugoslavia, such as Belgrade or Sarajevo, are not recognized in Croatia. _



This one is hillarious! I must tell a whole bunch of my colleauges (schoolteachers), and a couple of my former college professors that their diplomas aren't valid.


----------



## Athaulf

sokol said:


> [My comment: as far as use of script is concerned I've once talked to a Bosnian woman who was raised in "old" Yougoslavia - in 1998 she was about 35 years old; she has told me that in school they've learned both Latin and Cyrillic script in Bosnia, with no concern of ethnicity, and that they've all written them fluently. Later I've also found statistics that supposedly in the 1980ies in Bosnia use of script was almost equally divided - that is, almost 50:50% - but the source for that I don't have at hand.


I wouldn't say so. In Bosnia, the Latin alphabet was used in practice far more. I was growing up in Banja Luka in the 1980s -- a Bosnian city with a Serbian majority! -- and I clearly remember that well over 90% of public signs and inscriptions (advertisements, store fronts, public notices, posters...) were in Latin. Even on the TV, the subtitles were always in Latin. 

It is true that the equality of scripts was strictly enforced in school. As soon as we mastered both scripts, we were required to use a different one each week, interchangeably, and textbooks were in both alphabets. However, many grown up people's Cyrillic was rusty, and they found it easier to read (let alone write) Latin. 



> 2.) The official name of the language was *Serbo-Croatian* or Croato-Serbian, and both Latin and Cyrillic script were in equal use. [My comment: Croato-Serbian = Hrvatskosrpski was preferred by Croats, and also only Hrvatski or Srpski were used; I think the official formula was "Srpsko-Hrvatski ili Hrvatsko-Srpski jezik" that is "Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian". "Equal use" probably was not very good formulated by Sucic; even in Serbia to my knowledge Latin script was widely used, so Latin script probably was more common, though since the war Cyrillic script became more popular with Serbs, as far as I know.]


In Croatia, Cyrillic was never used to any significant extent. Kids would learn it at some point in school, but unlike in Bosnia, they weren't required to practice it afterwards. Thus, few people in Croatia were able to read Cyrillic as easily as Latin, and even fewer were able to write it.



> That is not just an academic exercise -- in Zagreb today, anyone using words regarded as Serbian risks not getting a loaf of bread in a shop or a train ticket at the station." [My comment: this was the case in 1996, _according to Sucic,_ but I don't think that this still is the case; of course this would be for native speakers to say. Anyway, Croatian language certainly always was more puristic than Serbian, and I can very well imagine that Croatian purism did increase significantly as a consequence of the conflict - as Sucic says in his article.]


As I've already commented, the author makes some exaggerations here.



> 5.c) *Bosnian Muslims* were the most tolerant in language issues; in the census of 1991 [my comment: I don't know if this was before or after the Declaration of Independence, but to my knowledge it should have been before - to my knowledge the last Yougoslav census to be held took place shortly before the beginning of the hostilities]


Yes, you are correct. 



> *- Religion and Nationality:* In the BCS area religion _was and is _what "makes" your nationality, this even was so in Communist Yougoslavia, however strange this may sound. Therefore, for example, Catholics living in Kosovo "voted" for Croatian in the Census even though ethnically they probably were Albanians assimilated to BCS a few centuries ago


Actually, to be precise, at least some of them supposedly trace their ancestry to settlers from Dubrovnik area who came there a few centuries ago. 

As for the rest of your comments,  which I snipped for brevity, I'd say you are correct.


----------



## Athaulf

venenum said:


> Actually, besides Hungarians and Germans, there were a lot of Croats in Vojvodina, and also, a lot of Serbs in Slavonija - although the assimilation process was strong in the last 50 years, I don't think that anyone would declare him/herself as Croat only because he/she is a Catholic, or as a Serb just for being Orthodox.



Actually, in Bosnia, this is what happened in many cases. For example, many Catholic Ukrainians and Rusyns, whose ancestors moved there in Habsburg times, gradually started identifying themselves with Catholic Croats around them (even though they were Eastern Catholic!). I know a few such people personally, who are 100% Croatized nowadays, but who still have clearly Ukrainian last names. I have no doubt that many members of Orthodox minorities have similarly come to identify themselves as Serbs. 

Generally, many people who nowadays consider themselves as Croats and Serbs (especially Croats) have close ancestors who were members of small Catholic or Orthodox local minorities, and who assimilated into the major ethnic group that shared their religion within a generation or two.


----------



## TriglavNationalPark

It's interesting to note that while Slovene and Macedonian were theoretically equal to Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslavia, the latter was, to paraphrase Orwell, considerably more equal than the others. In real life, Serbo-Croatian was privileged to a high degree.

For instance, if a Slovene speaker visited Zagreb or Belgrade, he would be expected to speak Serbo-Croatian (as it was then called), but if a Serbo-Croatian speaker visited Ljubljana, he was not expected to even *attempt* Slovene. In fact, some visitors were surprised if they received a response in Slovene rather than Serbo-Croatian.

All Slovenian elementary school students learned Serbo-Croatian (both Latin and Cyrillic scripts), but their counterparts in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro learned neither Slovene nor Macedonian.

Until 1968, the main evening news shown on Slovenian television was produced in Belgrade and broadcast in Serbo-Croatian, a language many people did not fully understand. Until the late 1980s, many TV programs were shown in Serb-Croatian without subtitles (subtitles of SC programming were largely limited to a few primetime shows).

If a Slovene traveling abroad needed assistance from her country's embassy, she was highly unlikely to receive help in her language.

The Yugoslav Army used Serbo-Croatian exclusively -- even the units based in Slovenia. The Slovenian public was furious when, in 1988, four Slovene dissdents, three of whom were civilians (one is now Slovenia's Prime Minister), were tried in Ljubljana before a military court -- in Serbo-Croatian.

This may all seem like minor complaints, but it was a huge issue for many Slovenes. After all, language has always been central to the Slovenian national identity, much like faith is central to, say, the Bosniak people. Some of these incidents were therefore resented by many Slovenes and became one of the factors behind Slovenia's growing dissatisfaction with the status quo in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s.

Of course, the situation in Socialist Yugoslavia was far better than in the pre-World War II Yugoslavia, when many centralist intellectuals wanted to impose Serbian on the Slovenian population and even some signs in Serbian (Cyrillic!) could be seen in the Slovene lands.


----------



## Athaulf

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Of course, the situation in Socialist Yugoslavia was far better than in the pre-World War II Yugoslavia, when many centralist intellectuals wanted to impose Serbian on the Slovenian population and even some signs in Serbian (Cyrillic!) could be seen in the Slovene lands.



Yes, the royal government of pre-WW2 Yugoslavia at some point even attempted to proclaim a common Serbo-Croato-Slovenian language. My grandfather's elementary school diploma issued sometime in early 1930s lists _srpskohrvatskoslovenački jezik_ as one of the subjects!  Macedonians were in an even worse situation, but I guess that's a topic for some other discussion...


----------



## TriglavNationalPark

Athaulf said:


> Yes, the royal government of pre-WW2 Yugoslavia at some point even attempted to proclaim a common Serbo-Croato-Slovenian language. My grandfather's elementary school diploma issued sometime in early 1930s lists _srpskohrvatskoslovenački jezik_ as one of the subjects! Macedonians were in an even worse situation, but I guess that's a topic for some other discussion...


 
I suppose this is the central difference between pre-WWII and post-WWII Yugoslavia as far as language policy is concerned: Before WWII, there was a concerted effort to create a "Yugoslav" national identity with a common or at least semi-standardized language (or to pretend that Slovene was just an archaic dialect). After WWII, the language inequalities were more a result of official apathy, the numerical superiority of Serbo-Croatian, and a general suppression of "nationalist" complaints -- rather than any attempt to replace Slovene with Serbo-Croatian.

Having said that, it's weird to look at official documents (passports, rail passes, etc.) from as late as the 1960 and see that were issued in Slovenia but in Serbo-Croatian.


----------



## Athaulf

TriglavNationalPark said:


> I suppose this is the central difference between pre-WWII and post-WWII Yugoslavia as far as language policy is concerned: Before WWII, there was a concerted effort to create a "Yugoslav" national identity with a common or at least semi-standardized language (or to pretend that Slovene was just an archaic dialect). After WWII, the language inequalities were more a result of official apathy, the numerical superiority of Serbo-Croatian, and a general suppression of "nationalist" complaints -- rather than any attempt to replace Slovene with Serbo-Croatian.



Yes, that's my impression too. I'm sure that in Tito's Yugoslavia, most of these policies that placed Slovenian in an inferior position were actually a consequence of bureaucratic laziness, inertia, and lack of resources, rather than any conscious attempts to treat Slovenian as inferior. Slovenian and BCS, while clearly distinct languages, are still mutually intelligible enough for many practical purposes, so that Party bureaucrats, who were planning and overseeing everything in the socialist system, would often figure that it's easier to inconvenience Slovenians by forcing them to deal with BCS than to inconvenience themselves by taking the responsibility to ensure the proper representation of Slovenian. Of course, it didn't help that complaints against such a situation could always be construed as "nationalism"...


----------



## sokol

You know the region very well, vput, much better than me.
By the way, I have found Sucic's article already sometime in the late 1990ies (my thesis I wrote in 1998 - I came across the article 1997 I guess). It wasn't on the internet then, yet. 


vput said:


> 2) I believe that the underlying matter is that the governments of the ex-Yugoslavia and some of their citizens still apply the German concept from the 19th century of language being the soul of a nation. The argument is that if each nation is distinct, therefore each nation must have a distinct language.


That is my impression too.
If you "don't have a language" you "have no nation" still seems to work in the region, in most heads at least.
Therefore you would have to name the language after the nation in order to being able to create it - we need not do this with German (there's still a Swiss and Austrian nation), nor with English (English, Scottish even, American, Australian, ...) or Spanish or many other languages.

By the way, I was in Ljubljana in 1997 where I took BCMS lessons (in Slovenian the subject still was called "srbskohrvatski"*) at the time and I wouldn't be too surprised if this hadn't changed since as the development of BCMS standard languages is no concern of Slovenia).
My teacher, Croatian born and raised, *insisted firmly* that "hrvatski ili srpski jezik" still is _one language and not to be divided into two_ (or more) _which exists in two (or more) standard varieties._ (What would become of Bosnian standard language was not very clear then - and probably still isn't -, and Montenegro at the time had yet no intentions of declaring independence, to my knowledge.)
She also insisted that her pupils shouldn't mix (of whom about half were Slovenian, the other half were migrants from the BCMS regions: Bosnians and Croats mostly, but also at least one Serb that I remember): *ne mješajte!* was her maxim. She tolerated any variety but insisted that her pupils do speak standard language because that is the language they are to learn in the course - and that they don't mix dialect and standard language but keep them "pure", respectively.

Of course this Croatian teacher already did live in Slovenia for some years, so probably she was not influenced by the linguistic mainstream to the same degree as her colleagues in the BCMS nation-states.
But her insisting to such a degree on a) that BCMS is "one language" and b) that each one is acceptable as long as you don't mix certainly is different from declaring Croatian (as you have experienced) a different language in its own right.

*) Pronunciation is pretty much the same as in BCMS, only Slovenian has more or less a  phonological orthography while in BCMS it is more phonetical.


----------



## sokol

Athaulf said:


> The article greatly overstates the enthusiasm that common people had for the language engineering policies in Croatia in the 1990s.


Thank you for your comments, Athaulf, I should have known that when I wrote my thesis in 1998. 
But also good to hear that basically Sucic's article has some foundations in reality and that he only was exaggerating; seeing the article in the context of the time - in the late 1990ies the wounds still were fresh (we even had minor riots between Yougoslav migrants in Vienna, between Serbs and Croats and Bosnians); everyone was exaggerating at the time. 


Athaulf said:


> Also, the author overplays the seriousness of Bosnian Serbs' and Muslims' language engineering policies.


I personally know only about Muslims' language engineering plans; I know some Bosnians living in Austria - none of whom is a "Muslim language" propagator, and in Ljubljana I have spoken to a Bosnian woman raised in a mixed environment who was - if anything - "more Bosnian Muslim"; for her the whole language thing made no sense at all, as far as she was concerned BCMS could and should have stayed what it was before the war.

As far as Latin or Cyrillic script is concerned, yes I know that it wasn't enforced in Croatia - that was the case in Bosnia only. But interesting to hear that even Banja Luka mainly used Latin in daily life.


Athaulf said:


> Actually, to be precise, at least some of them supposedly trace their ancestry to settlers from Dubrovnik area who came there a few centuries ago.


This is news to me, thanks - I haven't found that one when researching my thesis.


Athaulf said:


> Actually, in Bosnia, this is what happened in many cases. For example, many Catholic Ukrainians and Rusyns, whose ancestors moved there in Habsburg times, gradually started identifying themselves with Catholic Croats around them (even though they were Eastern Catholic!).


Another very interesting story! It is not so uncommon for people to react differently in different frames of reference - and Bosnia (with the Bosnian war) certainly is a different frame of reference as compared to Baranya and Vojvodina.


----------



## TriglavNationalPark

sokol said:


> By the way, I was in Ljubljana in 1997 where I took BCMS lessons (in Slovenian the subject still was called "srbskohrvatski"*)
> 
> *) Pronunciation is pretty much the same as in BCMS, only Slovenian has more or less a phonological orthography while in BCMS it is more phonetical.


 
The more common Slovene term for "Serbo-Croatian", even in 1997, was "srbohrvaščina" (or "srbohrvaški jezik"). "Srbskohrvatski" is just a close derivation of the BCS "srpskohrvatski".

BTW, the adjective "hrvatski" for "Croatian" was common in Yugoslav times, but "hrvaški" (which was always more common colloquially) is now the preferred Slovene form. The language is called "hrvaščina".


----------



## sokol

TriglavNationalPark said:


> The more common Slovene term for "Serbo-Croatian", even in 1997, was "srbohrvaščina" (or "srbohrvaški jezik"). "Srbskohrvatski" is just a close derivation of the BCS "srpskohrvatski".


You are the authority here of course  I wrote the terms as I remembered them, but it is also possible that some mixing-up of the two languages happened in my brain.

Also, in the late 1990ies Slovenian still seems to have had some words nowadays considered "Croatian" - words that aren't used any more nowadays. Language has changed, my competence of Slovenian has not (my knowledge of the language is of Slovenian of the mid-1990ies - and even older as I have read quite some Slovenian books written before 1991 -, no changes did happen in my brain ;-).


----------



## TriglavNationalPark

sokol said:


> You are the authority here of course  I wrote the terms as I remembered them, but it is also possible that some mixing-up of the two languages happened in my brain.


 
It's entirely possible that "srbskohrvatski" was used for the class you attended, since the word does sometimes appear in a Slovene context -- it's just not the most common or preferred term.



sokol said:


> Also, in the late 1990ies Slovenian still seems to have had some words nowadays considered "Croatian" - words that aren't used any more nowadays.


 
It's possible, but apart from a few exceptions, Slovene hasn't changed all that much since independence. Many Croatian and Serbian terms that were adopted before WWII in an attempt to create a "Yugoslav" identity were already purged by the 1960s and '70. Standard Slovene has always been a relatively purist language and the use of foreign borrowings when Slovene alternatives exist had generally been discouraged. Of course, this isn't to say that Slovene doesn't have many Croatian borrowings; even some everyday words, such as "promet" (traffic) and "nogomet" (soccer), have Croatian origins.


----------



## venenum

Athaulf said:


> In Croatia, Cyrillic was never used to any significant extent. Kids would learn it at some point in school, but unlike in Bosnia, they weren't required to practice it afterwards.



I beg to differ. The practice of the Cyrillic script was in fact insisted upon in Croatia, too. The schoolchildren learned the Cyrillic script in 2nd or 3rd grade (I don't quite remember), and the official curriculum for both elemenary and high schools proscribed the equality of scripts. The readers for the language classes (čitanke) had both scripts, and the reading assignments (lektira) were also equally divided between scripts - I've stumbled upon my dads collection of books for reading assignments - it was a set of books by the same publisher, and half was in Latin and half in Cyrillic script. The curriculum proscribed that half of the tests and written essays (zadaćnica) had to be written in Latin, and half in Cyrillic script. And how it realy went in the schools depended on the "orientation" of the teachers. Some teachers let their students use the script they were more comfortable with, others insisted on the Latin script, and yet others insisted on the Cyrillic script.


----------



## Athaulf

venenum said:


> I beg to differ. The practice of the Cyrillic script was in fact insisted upon in Croatia, too. The schoolchildren learned the Cyrillic script in 2nd or 3rd grade (I don't quite remember), and the official curriculum for both elemenary and high schools proscribed the equality of scripts. The readers for the language classes (čitanke) had both scripts, and the reading assignments (lektira) were also equally divided between scripts - I've stumbled upon my dads collection of books for reading assignments - it was a set of books by the same publisher, and half was in Latin and half in Cyrillic script. The curriculum proscribed that half of the tests and written essays (zadaćnica) had to be written in Latin, and half in Cyrillic script. And how it realy went in the schools depended on the "orientation" of the teachers. Some teachers let their students use the script they were more comfortable with, others insisted on the Latin script, and yet others insisted on the Cyrillic script.



I guess I was mistaken about this. But were kids in Croatia really required to actively write in Cyrillic throughout elementary and high school? Was there a requirement to switch between scripts on a weekly basis in every course, and were there Cyrillic textbooks in all subjects, as in Bosnia? From some people's stories, I got the (perhaps wrong) impression that in Croatian schools, after learning Cyrillic at some point, there was little requirement to use it in practice afterwards.


----------



## venenum

The scripts definitely weren't switched on the weekly basis (I believe this had to be both confusing and frustrating... I finished a couple of grades of elementary school according to Serbian curriculum, and German class was a nightmare, because I kept mixing Cyrillic and Latin letters all the time. ). I'm not sure if both scripts were required in every course (I'm a bit young, you know, what little I know, I know from stories of older people and from dad's student books I found on the attic, and books don't lie, do they? ) , but I'm positive about "Croato-Serbian" language classes - the books were in both scripts, respectively, and I'll never forget my aunt's story about one of her Cyrillic essays - she was supposed to read it in front of the class and she got an F because she couldn't read her own handwriting in Cyrillic script.  So, tests and essays were written in both scripts, and some teachers (probably Serbs) actually insisted that kids had to use Cyrillic script more often (hearsay, I'll admit, but I heard it a couple of times from several different people, and I don't think they actually sat down and matched their stories before they told them. ) The same teachers allowed only Serbian orthography, too, but that's a different topic.

Although, when I think about it, it's quite possible that the language and script policy was different in other parts of Croatia - Baranja was always a borderline case (pun intended), where people of several different nationalities fought their little war on every possible front, and both school and language were a particularly good battlefield.


----------

