# Languages and politics.



## wviz

Artificial languages (not Esperanto 

Hi all. I would like to hear from you, what do you think about creation of new languages because of political reasons?

Look at the former Yugoslavia. First it was only Croat-Serbian; Serb-Croatian and Slovenian.
Then we had Macedonian, soon after the ww2.
After the war in Balkans Slovenian and Macedonian are still there, as well as Serbian and Croatian, although separate. 
But now we have to more: Bosnian (Bosnjak) and Montenegrin.

I believe that everyone has right to call their language the way they want.
But it is very bad to lose from the eyesight-linguistic science!

First of all, we need to know ethnic structure and country borders that not follow that.
Language does not know for country borders. The very some dialect can be found in 3 states, spoken by 3 ethnic groups.

Lets make an example. City of Banja Luka, Bosnia.
Same street, house next to house. Bosnian Muslim, Serb and Croat families live there. 
Ask them what language they talk.
Croat will say-Croatian; Serb-Serbian and Muslim-Bosnian or Bosnia.
The most absurd thing is that all speak the same dialect of that region.
Them means that in Croatian capital they speak different Croatian, and in Serbian Capitol of Belgrade they speak different Serbian.

Slav Muslims in Serbia are claim now that they speak Bosnian. 
Again they neighbors, Serbs speak the very same dialect-but they speak Serbian.
In Croatia, Serbs are speaking Serbian, but its sounds very the same as Croatian in that region. It is the same dialect as Croatian, and not the Serbian in Serbia.
Same story with Croats in Serbia.
*Script*

Though all could theoretically use either, the scripts differ:

official language in Croatia use exclusively the Latin alphabet
official language in Bosnia and Herzegovina uses both Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet
official language in Serbia uses both Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet
In history, Croats, Serbs and Montenegrins have used glagolica script; Croatian form was mostly "squared", while Serb form was "mostly" rounded. Still, both peoples unrarely had mixed forms of glagolica letters used. Glagolica is oldest South Slavic script.
Bosnians have also used script, that was less standardized, so it had more versions and names: bosanica (means the script that was originally from Bosnia), begovica (used by Bosniak nobility), bosančica. In some regions of Croatia, it was used until 1860's.
Bosniaks used arabic script.


I know this is very confusing, but my point is-that is very the same language with different dialects.
Tragically comedy gets more actors with Montenegrin and possible Voyvodian
I know, many people will be uppset now. 
The various nonsense differences aren't linguistically based, but important as is the symbolic value that is assigned to them by their ethnically, religiously, socially and politically diverse group of speakers.
But science needs and fact need to to come at the first place, not some close minded nationalistic ideas!

Nice maps of ex-Yugoslavia (ethnic, dielsects, borders)

http://lrrc3.sas.upenn.edu/popcult/MAPS/srbcroat/


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## Roi Marphille

wviz said:
			
		

> I believe that everyone has right to call their language the way they want.
> But it is very bad to lose from the eyesight-linguistic science!


Dear wviz, 
Wellcome to the WR Forum! and thanks for your explanation. 
I trully understand your point and I agree with you. 

To mix politics with language is common everywhere. 
This is an extremely sensitive topic for many people. 


Catalan language is facing similar problems in València where a Political Party is stating that they speak another language called Valencian, even knowing that it is the very same language!. This is something that makes me feel very sad. It is something linked to Political interests and their goal is to destroy the language first and create hatred feelings between Catalònia and València. So sad. 
And yes, the name of the language is important. Call it whatever you want but don't go against what it is obvious, they are the same language. 
Anyway, I don't want to talk about it because I'm getting depressed.

My support and understanding to you
Kind Regards
Roi


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## alby

Hi wviz!

I actually totally agree with you, its the same language with different dialect, depends of the region.
Bosnian language never existed before the war it was mixture of serbian and croatian (and it still is). 

Nataša


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## Christoph

I imagine that the proclamation of those supposedly distinct languages is a matter of national pride and a step towards independence and does not have to be necessarily a nationalistic issue. So, from a politicial viewpoint there may be some benefit or need for a folk to create its own identity. But the creation of these 'novel' languages rather hurts from an economic viewpoint: it generates a lot of burden with regard to education and economic trading.

There are some similar experiences I've made growing up in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Some claim that Swiss German is its own language. One can say so if you analyse the language/dialect in detail, but it serves in the end to distinguish itself from those little-liked northern neighbors (Germans) I think. In the eastern part of Switzerland, they attempt to rescue the 'Rumantsch' (4th official language in CH) from extinction; although Rumantsch seems to be indeed its own language.

But isn't the language/dialect distinction also a matter of focus? If you go into linguistic detail you'll always be able to discern more languages. So where would you draw the boundaries? I'm not so sure that 'linguistic science' can serve as such a neutral observer. Even linguistic experts (that's us isn't it? ...grin) may debate on this to a great extent.

Christoph


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## panjabigator

The same thing occurs in India.  Everyone wants to assert their identity, and a lot of times, deeming something a dialect implies that its not as good as the standard version.  Many Hindi speakers speak "Hindi dialects" which are far different from the standard Khadi Boli dialect of Hindi/Urdu, and unfortunately, these languages are not being passed down.  I have sooo many friends who parents speak Punjabi (although it is not a Hindi dialect), Bhojpuri, Rajasthani (many varieties), etc. and they only speak Hindi with the children.  Why?  Stigma of being a village dialect, I guess. But if people can be bilingual, I really dont see what the problem is...


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## emma42

A Bosnian Muslim (non-religious) lives down the road from me and I refer to his language as either Serbski or Hrvatski or the combination that translates as Serbo-Croat (sorry, can't remember the word).  And every single time I say any of the three above, he says "Same,same thing".  Just a small contribution.


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## tvdxer

I agree with you, wviz.  It is very silly how Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians will claim to have there own languages.  It's somewhat like the American South forming a confederation and calling their language "Southern" or something.  Another one: "Highland Scots" and English.  I'm not sure on this, and our resident Scots could probably help me out, but it seems to me that the two languages are the same, with "Highland Scots" being a very differentiated accent of English.  It might be Scottish nationalism that attempts to separate it from English.


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## Brioche

tvdxer said:
			
		

> I agree with you, wviz. It is very silly how Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians will claim to have there own languages. It's somewhat like the American South forming a confederation and calling their language "Southern" or something. Another one: "Highland Scots" and English. I'm not sure on this, and our resident Scots could probably help me out, but it seems to me that the two languages are the same, with "Highland Scots" being a very differentiated accent of English. It might be Scottish nationalism that attempts to separate it from English.


 
The linguistic situation in Scotland is complicated.
In Roman times, as far as we know, the people in the north of Britannia spoke Celtic languages of the Welsh/ Cornish family.

From about the 6th century, the north-west of Britannia was invaded by Scoti from northern Ireland, who brought with them their Irish Celtic language.  At roughly the same time, the east of Britannia was invaded by Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings and Danes, who brought with them Germanic languages. 

Just as the Angle invaders gave their name to Angle-land = England, so the Scoti invaders gave their name to Scotland.

So, if you were in present day Scotland a thousand years ago, the people in Strathclyde, Galloway and Cumbria would have been speaking  Welsh language/dialects; the people in the east and south-east would have beenn speaking Northumbrian English dialects, called Inglis; and the people in the north-west, the Highlands and the Islands would have been speaking Gaelic languages/dialects closely related to northern Irish Gaelic.
The Great Glen was roughly the dividing line between English and Gaelic.

After defeating the English attempts to rule their land, the peole in SE Scotland did not want to be speaking "English", and appropriated the name Scots or Scottis for their Northumbrian dialect of English. The "real" Scots, the Gaelic language of the original Scoti was labelled "Erse" (a corruption of Irish).

The naming the Anglo-saxon language of Lothians "Scots" was essentially a political decision.


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## Etcetera

And let me put in my two pennyworth.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a hard situation with languages in Ukraine and Byelorussia (I don't want to talk about other countris of the former Soviet Uniob, because I know too little about them). Of course, these two countries wanted their citizens to speak Ukrainian and Byelorussian correspondingly. But the actual state language there was Russian! There were many reports of treats of those who dared speak Russian in streets, for example, about the situation in Ukrainian Lvov - there the nationalists were very strong. 
So, when about four years ago I went to Odessa with my Father for a couple of weeks, I felt really nervous, because I knew no Ukrainian. My Father's of Ukrainian origin, but to my knowledge, he haven't spoken Ukrainian since he moved from Odessa to St. Petersburg in 1981 or so. But, surprisingly for me, people in Odessa not only didn't show any annoyance with my speaking to them in Russian - they spoke among themselves in Russian! I spent in Odessa two weeks, and I heard no single word in Ukrainian. In Kiev, the situation is quite different, though. 
I know also that in Estonia the government tries to make all the citizens speak Estonian only, and all those who want to get a job must pass an exam in Estonian. Well, in my opinion, such demands are quite reasonable, but the Estonian government's methods are just odd.


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## panjabigator

So the bilingual Russian population is mainly found with the older generations (education pre 1991)?


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## Etcetera

panjabigator said:
			
		

> So the bilingual Russian population is mainly found with the older generations (education pre 1991)?


Why, there's a lot of young people who're actually bilingual. For example, I have several friends who live in different cities of Ukraine (one in Kamenets Podolsky, three others in Kiev). They're of the same age as I am, about 20-22 years, and they speak both Russian and Ukrainian very well. 
It is, to my knowledge, a rather common situation in Ukraine, when a young person speaks Russian at home, with his parents and grandparents, but switches to Ukrainian at school or University. 
One of the friends of mine I've mentioned above is currently studying at Kiev University, and she says she often speaks two languages at time: Russian to a friend from a Russian family, and Ukrainian to a friend who's a native Ukrainian.


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## panjabigator

Etcetera said:
			
		

> It is, to my knowledge, a rather common situation in Ukraine, when a young person speaks Russian at home, with his parents and grandparents, but switches to Ukrainian at school or University.



Is that due to the Soviet influence?  Were people forced to speak only in Russian and not in their mother tongue?  I have heard that some countries adopted the Cyrillic script and abandoned the Arabic one, even today.


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## Etcetera

panjabigator said:
			
		

> Is that due to the Soviet influence? Were people forced to speak only in Russian and not in their mother tongue? I have heard that some countries adopted the Cyrillic script and abandoned the Arabic one, even today.


Well, I'm too just young to remember anything about the language politics in the Soviet times. It seems to me that there could be two (or even more) state languages in every state: Russian and this state's language, for example, in Ukraine there should be two official languages, Russian and Ukrainian. But most people there actually spoke Russian... and at schools children usually had at least two languages, Russian and the language of the state they lived. For instance, my Father had to learn both Russian and Ukrainian at school (English was the third language he got). 
I don't know actually if people were _forced_ to speak Russian only, but we know about the politics of the Soviet Union enough to guess.  

As for the use of Ciryllic alphabeth... You probably mean Western-Asian countries, e.g. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. To my knowledge, there (in these two countries, at least) Cyrillics is still used; but in Armenia and Georgia specific alphabeths are used.


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## panjabigator

Thanks  I'll do some searching on wikipedia to find out about other states.


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## Etcetera

You're welcome.


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## se16teddy

Brioche said:
			
		

> After defeating the English attempts to rule their land, the peole in SE Scotland did not want to be speaking "English", and appropriated the name Scots or Scottis for their Northumbrian dialect of English... The naming the Anglo-saxon language of Lothians "Scots" was essentially a political decision.


 
I don't know to what extent, if any, it was a 'political' decision to LABEL the variety of English spoken in Scotland as 'Scots'. But I think it is important to point out that, however political its label, Scots thrived for centuries as a tongue independent of mainstream English not only in poetry and song but also in institutions such as Scottish law, and continued to thrive well after the union of England and Scotland, and continues to thrive in some contexts to this day as a beautiful alternative to mainstream English that we can all enjoy. Very different, then, from Macedonian, which is a language created for the sole purpose of making the political point that Macedonians are different from Bulgarians. http://www.robertburns.org/works/282.shtml


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## emma42

They were, Etcetera.  The Ukrainian poet, Irina Ratushinskaya, was imprisoned for writing poetry in her native language.  She was only released in the 1980s.


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## Etcetera

Oh my. I've never heard about Ratushinskaya. 
That's why I was so careful when speaking about the situation in the Soviet time. I know relatively well what is the situation in Ukraine now, because we're often talking about it with me Ukrainian friends. But of the Soviet time I know next to nothing.


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## emma42

hi Etcetera.  I only know about Ratushinskaya because I heard her poetry on BBC radio, shortly after her release and I was really struck by it - even in translation.  I then found a biography of her.  There are loads of other cases, but can't say I am an expert!


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## Mac_Linguist

wviz said:


> Then we had Macedonian, soon after the ww2.



 The Macedonian dialects were codified into a standard language after WWII. It was, after all, an artificial process as every other standardization is - Vuk Karadžić's reforms of Serbian, for example  - but completely ignorant that you call it "_creation of new languages because of political reasons_".



se16teddy said:


> Very different, then, from Macedonian, which is a language created for the sole purpose of making the political point that Macedonians are different from Bulgarians.



Maybe you haven't heard of the pre-war playwrights Vasil Iljoski (1902), Anton Panov (1906), Risto Krle (1900), and the poets Kočo Racin (1908) and Kole Nedelkovski (1912).

Or even earlier, the lexicographer Gjorgija Pulevski (1817) who published "A Dictionay of Three Languages_ - Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish_" in 1875. What about his "Macedonian Song Book" published in 1879, or his "Macedonian Grammar" in 1880.

And even earlier, the monk Partenij Zografski (1818) who published two textbooks "in the Macedonian dialect"[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]_._

The lexicographer [/FONT]Dimitrija Čupovski (1878) also the founder of the Macedonian Literary Society (1890-92) who produced the first Macedonian-Russian dictionary.

What about Dimitrija Miladinov (1810), his brother Konstantin (1830), Rajko Žinzifov (1839), Grigor Prličev (1830), Andreja Damjanov (1813), Marko Cepenkov (1829), Kuzman Šaparkev (1834), Atanas Badev (1860), Vojdan Černodrinski (1875), etc.

The classical texts from the 10th and 11th centuries; Codex Zographensis,  Codex Assemanianus,  Psalterium Sinaiticum -  texts showing "specifically Macedonian phonetic features".

Translations of the sermons of the Greek writer Damascene Studite (1700s) "reflecting vernacular Macedonian features."

 I take great offence to this historical revisionism - this is definantly not a place for politics!


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## emma42

Hello, Mac Linguist and welcome.  Please don't take offence - continue to educate us as you have just done.  I know next to nothing about Macedonian and Macedonian literature and you have enlightened me.


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## invictaspirit

Is this thread creep?

What do folks think about *minority language* speakers insisting that the *majority language* incorporates a lot of minority words?

Some Welsh nationalists do this now. I have been told by some Welsh people that, *when speaking English*, I should call Wales 'Cymru', I should call the Swansea 'Abertawe' and so on. To me this is utterly ridiculous. I have asked these Welsh folks whether or not they have taken a cruise on the Dunav through Magyarorszag, or visited the beautiful islands of Hrvatska. Blank looks every time. For some Welsh people, only Welsh names should be used in English. Other languages do not count in their eyes. They never visit Moskva, only Moscow. They wouldn't dream of saying Warszawa, only Warsaw.  They happily say 'Hungary' in English. But we must say _Cymru_ and _Caerdydd?_


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## Outsider

invictaspirit said:


> Is this thread creep?


What does that mean?


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## emma42

I wondered the same, outsider.


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## se16teddy

Mac_Linguist said:


> The Macedonian dialects were codified into a standard language after WWII. It was, after all, an artificial process as every other standardization is - Vuk Karadžić's reforms of Serbian, for example  - but completely ignorant that you call it "_creation of new languages because of political reasons_".


Thank you, Mac_Linguist: I am sorry if my comment caused offence. I had not heard your side of the argument before: I had only heard the issue discussed with a Bulgarian bias, as typified by this web page. http://www.kirildouhalov.net/links/macedonia.html


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## Athaulf

invictaspirit said:


> What do folks think about *minority language* speakers insisting that the *majority language* incorporates a lot of minority words?
> 
> Some Welsh nationalists do this now. I have been told by some Welsh people that, *when speaking English*, I should call Wales 'Cymru', I should call the Swansea 'Abertawe' and so on. To me this is utterly ridiculous.



This has indeed been an irritating trend in recent years, but it's by no means limited to local minority languages. All over the world, people are now suddenly starting to be "offended" by centuries-old foreign geographical names for cities and countries, as if the use of such names itself somehow made one guilty of various real or imagined historical wrongs. This sometimes leads to absurd insistence on new, supposedly more faithful transliterations of geographical names that go utterly against the phonology of English and other Western languages, or the replacement of traditional names by completely new ones that are no better in this regard. (And in some cases, I'm seeing indications that the actual residents of the cities and countries in question are often not nearly as enthusiastic for such changes as the politically correct crowd in the West.)

The greatest irony is that various politically correct types who are promoting such changes with enthusiasm often themselves use on a daily basis words that are infinitely worse by their own criteria when one examines their history and etymology. But of course, their general ignorance of linguistic and historical matters allows them to remain in a state of self-righteous bliss. (To take just one example, if various traditional geographical names are offensive because of their colonial history, then I should have every right to burst into apoplectic rage whenever I read or hear the word "slavery.")


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## zazap

Christoph said:


> Some claim that Swiss German is its own language.



From what I understand, Swiss German is quite different from "official" German.  There's a similar situation in Québec, because we learn to write Académie Française French but we speak in a different way. We call it all French.  But then you have "different" languages like Dutch and Flemmish, which I think are "the same language"...Or not!  
Complicated topic.


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## Maja

alby said:


> I actually totally agree with you, its the same language with different dialect, depends of the region.
> Bosnian language never existed before the war it was mixture of serbian and croatian (and it still is).


Here, here!!!
I absolutely agree.



Etcetera said:


> After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a hard  situation with languages in Ukraine and Byelorussia (I don't want to talk about  other countris of the former Soviet Uniob, because I know too little about  them). Of course, these two countries wanted their citizens to speak Ukrainian  and Byelorussian correspondingly. But the actual state language there was  Russian! There were many reports of treats of those who dared speak Russian in  streets, for example, about the situation in Ukrainian Lvov - there the  nationalists were very strong.


I agree with you Anna. I met one Lithuanian guy and although he knew  Russian very well, he wasn't so inclined to speak it nor did he have a good  opinion of the Russians. 
However, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian etc. are  different languages from Russian. Situation in my (ex)country is a bit different (or say worse, regarding this issue) because we basically all used Serbo-Croatian (apart from Slovenia and Macedonia) for many many years, and all of the  sudden people refuse to speak it, or get offended if you suggest so they speak it.


emma42 said:


> A Bosnian Muslim (non-religious) lives down the road  from me and I refer to his language as either Serbski or Hrvatski or the  combination that translates as Serbo-Croat (sorry, can't remember the  word).


 The name is (was) the Serbo-Croatian language.


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## Athaulf

Maja said:


> The name is (was) the Serbo-Croatian language.



Actually, if you want to be _really_ precise, the official name was _srpshohrvatski-hrvatskosrpski jezik_. The closest possible thing to a literal English translation would be -- I'm not making this up!  -- _Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian language_.

Alternatively, it was sometimes also called _srpski ili hrvatski_, which translates to _Serbian or Croatian_, but I clearly remember being taught the above name at school as official.


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## Athaulf

Maja said:


> However, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian etc. are  different languages from Russian. Situation in my (ex)country is a bit different (or say worse, regarding this issue) because we basically all used Serbo-Croatian (apart from Slovenia and Macedonia) for many many years, and all of the  sudden people refuse to speak it, or get offended if you suggest so.



Also, what you write here leaves an incorrect impression (which I'm correcting purely for the sake of precision) that people no longer use some former unified standard "Serbo-Croatian." Even in Yugoslavia, each of the four republics in which this language was official (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro) used a different standard for official purposes (administrative, legal, business, educational, scientific...), and these different standards are mostly identical to what are nowadays considered as distinct languages of those states. 

Whether the differences between those standards are large enough to consider them as separate languages, that is of course an issue of definition, not fact. The similarities and the overall level of mutual intelligibility are certainly large enough to consider them as local variants of the same language, but on the other hand, there are also significant differences in some areas. However, distinct standards are not a novelty introduced only after the breakup of Yugoslavia, but have existed ever since those standards emerged in the 19th century.


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## Maja

Athaulf said:


> Also, what you write here leaves an incorrect impression (which I'm correcting purely for the sake of precision) that people no longer use some former unified standard "Serbo-Croatian."


You are right, of course. Thanks for pointing it out to me. I badly  expressed my thoughts (without noticing it) so I apologize for the incorrect  statement.  
What I meant to say was that they get offended if smo said they  speak Serbo-Croatian. 
I edited my post.


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