Talk:Serbo-Croatian/Archive 7

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Youtube lecture

There is link for one you tube lecture that hold dr.Anita Peti-Stantic Fulbright scholar, Tufts University, and associate professor of South Slavic Languages, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. Co-sponsored with the Southeastern Europe Study Group, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. The lecture is long, but it should look to the end because it could be useful for editing the article. ((( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5hp8YHOL8&feature=relmfu ))). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MirkoS18 (talk • contribs) 14:45, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

"30–50 symbolic words they use to show what good Croats they are" (1h05). Interesting.

Q&A starts 1h09.

50–60m: The SC myth: SC was a single literary language. Now that people are not exposed to both standards daily in the news, they have difficulty, and young people cannot read texts in the other standard, due to differentiated academic vocabulary.

The Croatian myths: 1) Serbian and Croatian standards are based on different dialects, and there is a clear boundary between Serbian and Croatian dialects. 2) The Croatian literary language dates to the 18th century.

— kwami (talk) 18:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Another deluded statist that thinks that they can actually dictate how people speak/write, that they have some kind of a legal basis to create "language policy" (which they don't), or that the question of which words people use can be influenced by anything other than their free choice. This is a typical example of an ivory-tower dwelling academician detached from reality, paid by the government (with my tax money, yuck) to promote the same all lies that have over the years taken root as self-evident "truths", never questioned or scrutinized but simply used an axiomatic framework to construct more elaborate notions of a Croatian language, culture, identity.. Immediately under the surface, it's all rotten to the core. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:45, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

note to self-the Fulbright Scholarship is 'rotten to the core' - gotcha HammerFilmFan (talk) 10:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

What Ivan Štambuk is alluding to is that Peti-Stantić is more or less trying to give academic respectability to the party line in Croatia that Croatian is a separate language from Serbian. Her Fulbright scholarship is great and all, but such awards or honors are not automatically indicative of academic integrity. If you watch her entire lecture, she advances the idea that Croatian and Serbian must ultimately be separate languages yet she arguably undermines her integrity by pointing out the nationalist motivation for this idea when she states: "30–50 symbolic words they use to show what good Croats they are". In addition she is considered to be a mainstream Croatian linguist and this means that she is generally aligned with the prescriptivists in Croatia (e.g. Babić, Brozović, Katičić, Moguš) whose work as state-supported language planners is to ensure that the Croatian standard be expressed in a way that is distinct or even unintelligibly divergent from the Serbian standard in keeping with the idea that language serves as a marker of national identity/allegiance. So despite the aura of academic objectivity or integrity her lecture is thus actually a product of conflating political considerations with selected or mismatched observations (e.g. "young people can't read texts in the other standard, due to differentiated academic vocabulary" - As a viewer of the lecture, I note inwardly that "texts" by definition aren't filled exclusively with academic vocabulary. Therefore if you restrict the definition of "texts" to ones on highly technical matter (as Peti-Stantic is quietly doing), not only will outsiders speaking another "language" have difficulty, but a young Croat without specialized education would struggle to understand a text on an experiment in nuclear chemistry written in "Croatian" by a Croatian scientist. What kind of specious reasoning is she trying to impress on the audience? Vput (talk) 15:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are not right when you tell that we are little forced in this way. Of course that we as ordinary people can call the language that we want, like Tre monkey in see or sth... But she does not even attempt to deal with that. This lady works in science. Therefore she uses the method incomprehensible, irrelevant or even annoying to other people. She should seek the truth, and not meet nationalist wishes. I think there is the misunderstanding. We need to decide if we want to scientifically accepted work or work that would outflank the current demands of some groups. Enjoy people :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MirkoS18 (talk • contribs) 00:15, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

This lady works in science. Therefore she uses the method incomprehensible, irrelevant or even annoying to other people. - would you care to elaborate more on this conclusion regarding the incomprehensible methods you mention? Hope you enjoy as much as I do. --Biblbroks (talk) 00:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This stuff is like crabgrass, it just never dies! BALKAN PEOPLES - PLEASE TRY AND GET ALONG! NATIONALISM AND HURT FEELINGS ARE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS TO SCHOLARSHIP/SCIENCE! Don't you think that your part of the world has many more FUNDAMENTAL problems to deal with, like economics, for starters? Leave this stuff to objective linguists and address other issues. Thank you, signed: the rest of the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HammerFilmFan (talk • contribs) 23:17, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

HammerFilmFan, when you are mentioning this stuff and describing it as crabgrass, are you referring to stuff which perhaps only the rest of the world can objectively "handle" and address? Or perhaps even implying that other issues which, as i understand, are by your suggestion to be addressed by BALKAN PEOPLES have no connections at all with this stuff? Regards, from the part of this world, by biblbroks (talk) 08:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

need IPA fix

I converted the heading of Bunjevci to IPA, but I don't know the tone. — kwami (talk) 17:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. In turn, could you please comment on WT:IPA for Serbo-Croatian#Mid or open-mid?. No such user (talk) 06:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Misleading

In part of article states:

"According to data collected from various census bureaus and administrative agencies the total number of native Serbo-Croatian speakers in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro is about 16 million."

Since there is no any references that provides information which bureaus and agencies collect and publish that informations this is misleading. Refering to some agencies and bureaus gives fallse security sense that this information is given by some reliable source (state bureau or agencie), which is not truth. If I may say that no census bureau published information that there is any speaker of SC language since 2001 at least in Croatia (question about language was in 2001 population census questionnaire and it is one of questions in 2011 population census). --Domjanovich (talk) 14:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Rewritten. It would be interesting to gather the data on how many persons actually declare their language as 'Serbo-Croatian', though I don't have the time at the moment. No such user (talk) 15:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it would. (I`ll try to find it. If I find it, it will be for Croatia only since that information is only accessible to me.) --Domjanovich (talk) 16:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

To determine the number of people who speak the Serbo-Croatian language, all one has to do is add up the number of people in that part of the world who are listed in national censuses as speaking "Serbian," "Croatian," "Bosnian," or "Montenegrin." Tell me, if the United States passed a law in which it declared the nation's official language was "United Statesian," would the rest of the world list our language as such, or would they continue to recognize the fact that "United Statesian" is English, and list it as such in reference books? They would recognize our right to call our language whatever we wanted to, but in their reference books, it would still be called what it's been called for a millennium. And the same goes here. There was a Serbo-Croatian language long before there was South Slav ultranationalism that made all of you insist on your own name for the same language. Jsc1973 (talk) 05:46, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

It would be important to you to determine this if you came to England and wouldn´t understand the forming of sentences, words, or pronaunciation of some words, and that is what comes on line of dispiute when someone says "It is the same language". And you don´t get it because your english language is almost 90% same as all english spoken over planet Earth, but when that ratio would fall below that (around 70% to 80%) I think you would have something to say about that. --Domjanovich (talk) 08:36, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

• The ratio is below 70 percent for several regional dialects of Arabic, but they're all still called Arabic. The only one that has a different name is Maltese, because Maltese is almost as much Italian as it is Arabic. But that's beside the point because the correlation between any dialect of Serbo-Croatian, compared with any other, is not below 70 percent. Jsc1973 (talk) 14:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

• From this statement I can only say that your not on right lead because Arabic is not English or SC, Arabic language is to closley corelated whith religion, Arabic is language of religion more than language of nations, modificiations/dialects of Arabic are more related to historical development of the same (one) language on different areas, than on difference of two languages.--Domjanovich (talk) 07:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry to bump in like this, but I felt I had to comment on this because I find it interesting and somewhat peculiar. Domjanovich, I think that your comment about Arabic language comes from the presumption that Arabic is one language that developed on different areas while Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, etc. are different languages - perhaps from the start. If a person turned it otherwise - that Arabic is one "macrosomething" consisted of several sublanguages/variants/languages like Serbo-Croatian supposedly is, than the situation with Arabic language would be somewhat similar, I think, as now is the situation with Serbo-Croatian. My opinion is that your argumentation relies on the hypothesis that if members of different nations/ethnicities speak a similar language then they actually speak different languages (perhaps because of potentially different historical development), but I am not sure everybody would agree with such a hypothesis. Anyway even if the historical development of those languages/variants is different that doesn't mean that the language is different. There must be something in the mutual intelligibility argument, I think. Regards, --biblbroks (talk) 19:57, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

• Nice from you to bump in, because you put the piont on what I was talking about. Because of this hypothesis that everyone doesn´t agree whith it, everything remains the same, even if it is not the same in real state of mind when you put all in order, all of that as result of presumption made long time before. Arabic language would instantly disolve in several languages when it wouldn´t be so closely related whith religion, and when it would be more demograficly/ethnicly influenced, and no one could say anything to say that languages made from it aren´t different or separate. Don´t you think so? --Domjanovich (talk) 10:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• I'm sorry because I don't understand some of your words. What do you mean by everything remains the same, even if it is not the same in real state of mind when you put all in order, all of that as result of presumption made long time before. As far as dissolution of Arabic language is concerned I'm not sure I would agree with you that Arabic would dissolve in several languages given the condition you mention, because I'm not certain how this would happen. Neither am I certain that it hasn't already happened. Also, why wouldn't you look at Arabic as several languages already given the current situation that several spoken varieties of Arabic aren't mutually much intelligible - or as the article states some are even incomprehensible to the speaker of another? It seems to me as if you apply different criteria when comparing variants of Serbo-Croatian with variants of Arabic. Perhaps I am missing something. Regards, --biblbroks (talk) 15:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Now I am going to jump in to my own mouth because I said that information was not published, it was! [1] This is table of languages spoken in Croatia by native speakers. It is data gathered as answer to question Nr. 22 [2] of 2001 population census questionnaire in Croatia and by it 2 054 (hrvatsko srpski) + 4961 (srpsko hrvatski) persons declared that they speak by native SC. --Domjanovich (talk) 17:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible to put this reference(s) in article? --Domjanovich (talk) 12:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps as a comparison to some Yugoslav-era censi data where it would be of interest, to illustrate how these "different languages" keep popping out in line with the appearance of statist apparatus sustaining them. We don't want to give readers a false impression that only those who actually declare to be speaking SC on some piece of paper are the ones actually speaking it. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Nice one, "statist apparatus"! Ivane Štambuče now you claim that Hrvatski zavod za statistiku is publishing artificial data? OK. I think this self proclamation of people is most relaible source of existance SC/C/S language. You claim that you speak SC. Then you do. I claim that I don´t speak SC (I speak some other (croatian) language). Then I don´t speak it. Or is it possibile that the language you speak no longer exists in any form whith 7015 native speakers, and mine whith over 4,5 milion does. --Domjanovich (talk) 11:09, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

You speak the same language as Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins, regardless whether you believe it or not, regardless whether you call it by the same or different name. You are an individual and as such have no influence of the emergent phenomena such as a natural language, which is created and which evolves spontaneously by the nongvernable interaction of its speakers. How much useless the results compiled by DZS are is in fact confirmed by the fact that they actually provided both Srpskohrvatski and Hrvatskosrpski as a mother-tongue option to choose from, and that all beside the options for srpski, hrvatski and bosanski. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:35, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I would like to comment on this. There was a (population) census in Croatia during 2011. On that census, one question was about native tounge. "Croatian" was the only one offered option. After I declared myself to be a Croat, I was not asked about my mother tounge (which would be Serbocroatian) but it was noted that my mother tounge is "Croatian". Therefore, census data should not be interpreted as Domjanovich does. Although I consider Serbocroatian to be my mother tongue, I call it very often simply "Croatian". However, I still keep in my mind that "Croatian" is just one variant of Serbocroatian.31.147.107.88 (talk) 20:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Ivane Štambuče, this is not answer to my question, this is reply to my proclamation, please don´t do that because it changes nothing about that statement. Again you state that DZS publish artificial data?! About question given in census; form of questionnaire is made to be simple, and in country where is aspected that most of people (over 80%) speaks one (croatian) language it is not posibile to put the list of 20 languages and made questionnaire simple. About "hrvatskosrpski" and "srpskohrvatski"; it is weird to me that you are not familiar whit the fact that there is language called "hrvatskosrpski" - which means croatian language influenced whith serbian language in oposite of "srpskohrvatski" - which means serbian language influenced whith croatian. Why? I recon because two diferent languages influenced on eachother because they are diferent. Since (you say that) DZS provides artificial information that means anything and everything. --Domjanovich (talk) 08:36, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

You might as well give up. You can pretend that you speak a different language from the Serbs all you want in Croatia, just like the government of Moldova likes to pretend they don't speak Romanian. The rest of the world isn't going to buy it, though. Jsc1973 (talk) 14:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I really need to give up to try to explaine anything someone like you. Why do you put everything out of perspective, trying to explaine something/everything whith state of mind of "rest of the world" (obviously refering to native english speakers only like they are mandatory to resolve any issue that is ever come in question in the world). --Domjanovich (talk) 07:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Domjanovich, we go by reliable sources. Numerous reliable sources demonstrate that Serbian and Croatian are one language in all but name. The fact that many SC speakers do not accept that is of course relevant for their sociolinguistic identity as separate languages, but it's irrelevant for language classification. — kwami (talk) 16:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Do US-ians have a theory on why Serbian and Croatian are one language? --Pepsi Lite (talk) 03:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean? — kwami (talk) 05:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

That what is irrelevant for language classification, has made on wiki talk pages of those languages history (questions of dispiute) worth of new original research made by (referenced) reliaible linguists. Not for SC but for every language by it self and reason to made a general rewiew of their research results. Because this is becoming apsurde, talk pages miles long, few relevant conclusions, argumentation by sources made 150 years ago whith presumptions, prejustices, influences.... whithout any indications that informations we put in article are in reality correct. --Domjanovich (talk) 10:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Dom, what is and is not a language is largely a matter of opinion. Opinions are not "right" or "wrong". We report on what is. For the majority of linguists – nearly all of them in the West – SC is a single language dialectologically, and only distinct languages sociolinguistically. Thus that is what we say. — kwami (talk) 17:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Your comment, Domjanovich, doesn't make any sense in English. --Taivo (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Kwami'last statement hits the nail on the head, and the article alreadzy explains that. So we're good. We should also keep the historical sociolinguistic dimension in mind and not look at the present day situation in isolation. Related languages and dialects are always converging and diverging. In the 7th century or so, there was a widespread 'Slavonization' of the Balkans, and a subsequebnt divergence toward more localized forms as each area developed its own Medieval state and constructed a more standardaized idiom. In the 19th & 20th century we again had convergence - sociological, ideological and political. Now there is again a divergent stage. Slovenski Volk (talk) 11:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The first time this convergence happened was in the 19. century with the birth of the Yugoslav idea. Never before in history (from the 7. century which marks the coming of croat people to this area where we are now, or 8. and 9. century when serbian people came) there was any recording about a unified language. Also it should be noted that SC wasn't recognised in SFRJ as a formal language, because every state had the right to use their own language in communication. The only language that was in use in all republics was "croatian *OR* serbian" meaning both languages were equally important. It also should be noted that neither of the languages developed in the same conditions: while croat language was mainly influenced by the italian, german and hungarian languages, serbian was primarily influenced by turkish and bulgarian. As far as grammar is concerned - well of course the grammar will be similar, we all come from the same ethnic group. But if the argument is valid here, it should also be valid for Belarus and Russia, for example. It's the same situation, but there we have 2 different and distinct languages? And I'd say there is an even more resemblance between belarussian and russian language, then there's between croatian and serbian. Someone here talked about english and the variants of english. True, it's the same language, and yet there are many differences between US english, british english and australian english that they are practically independent from one another. I really don't see the point in creating something that never existed and lamenting. Serbo-croatian would exist if and only if croats or serbs were a subset of each other, thus being the same people but with different dialects where both groups are of equal size. Here, this is not the case. Serbs and croats are two different people, we don't have the same history, we weren't influenced by the same foreign countries or by the same church for that matter. ibazulic (talk) 2:27, 23 July 2011 (CET)

• Not true. Only a fanatical U.S., British or Australian nationalist would try to argue that their version of the English language was "practically independent" from the others. Yes, there are differences in local dialects, and different words here and there, and we can never agree on how to spell colo(u)r. But I have no problem communicating with a Briton or an Australian, or reading texts in those dialects of English. No one in their right mind would call any of those dialects a separate language. Jsc1973 (talk) 11:35, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, this is the segment of the Constitution of the Socialist federal republic of Yugoslavia, article number 246: All languages of all nationalities or ethnic groups and their writing systems are *equal* on the teritory of Yugoslavia. All republic languages are officialy in use in Socialist federative republic of Yugoslavia.

I know, the translation is poor, because it's almost 3 AM, but it does show that even in communist era, the difference between croatian and serbian languages existed and was noted. (talk) 2:52, 23 July 2011 (CET)

No, it doesn't. There is not a word there about "Serbian" and "Croatian" and their linguistic relationship. It's just vague political speech, not an accurate linguistic appraisal based on any scholarship whatsoever. --Taivo (talk) 01:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

1st of all, I'm not here to start any flame wars, but to objectively state the facts as they are. While the Yugoslavia existed, our parents probably spoke Serbo-Croatian. But with the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbo-Croatian also divided into several languages, because, if it hadn't, woudln't children in Croatia and Serbia learn Serbo-Croatian in school? You could try to reason with this and say "yes, but they all sound the same". This might be the case, but you could also say that for almost all languages of Northern Europe. You can't say that Croatians are being nationalists because they learn Croatian in school, that would mean their government is nationalist.

For example:

First I'll have some bread and milk for breakfast, then I'll go to the cinema, and then I'll have rice with tomato ketchup and a carrot for lunch. I will watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Croatian: Prvo ću doručkovati kruh i mlijeko, a zatim ću ići u kino, a onda ću ručati rižu s kečapom od rajčice i mrkvu. Gledat ću Harry Potter i Plameni Pehar.

Serbian: Prvo ću da doručkujem hleb i mleko, a zatim ću da idem u bioskop, a onda ću da ručam pirinač s kečapom od paradajza i šargarepu. Gledaću Hari Poter i Vatreni Pehar.

Altough the point of the Serbian sentence could be deciphered by a Croatian child, I can assure you that a Croat doesn't know what bioskop, pirinač or šargarepa mean. Now, this comparison of mine probably won't have any effect, but I wonder: when Croatia enters the EU in 2013, which language will be written in the entrance of the European Parliament? I think Croatian. --109.60.111.217 (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 80.108.234.175, 30 September 2011

in the "demographics" paragraph, mention the croatian minority in austria's easternmost province of burgenland: In Austria's province Burgenland, there is a small but traditional croatian minority, speaking it's own burgenland-croatian dialect. See the "Burgenland" page.

80.108.234.175 (talk) 20:53, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:16, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Untrue!

This language is not spoken in Croatia. 78.2.88.77 (talk) 18:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

LoL --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 19:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, persistent little anonymous nationalist. Wrong, but persistent. Sort of like that cockroach who won't eat the bait you've set out. --Taivo (talk) 20:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

"Ovaj jezik se ne govori u Hrvatskoj" would be how the IP's sentence would look in the Croatian standard, while "Ovaj jezik se ne govori u Hrvatskoj" is how it would be written in the Serbo-Croatian standard prior to the 1990 split. Did you note the difference? :) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 20:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Ај ноут д дифренс. Уан из ин "чакавска латиница", ди адер ин "кајкавска" латиница". Ор из ит "бошњачка/босанска" енд "црногорска"? Нау ит гот ми ол конфјузед. --biblbroks (talk) 23:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

"Lijepo" and "lepo". Direktor, can you notice the difference? 78.2.88.77 (talk) 00:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

In other words, no more difference than between English in Atlanta, Georgia and English in Dallas, Texas. Not much. --Taivo (talk) 00:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Wtf? If they are similar that means they are the same languages?! That means that Slovenian is Serbian?! 93.137.54.242 (talk) 01:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want an overview of what a language is, language is a good place to start. For more technical detail, see abstand language. — kwami (talk) 02:07, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, and if you want to teach someone what language is (and differences between two languages) than learn it/them. 93.137.54.242 (talk) 02:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Neutral linguists are fairly unanimous--Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are four mutually intelligible varieties of one single language divided by ethnic extremism. We call that one language "Serbo-Croatian" because it's easier to say than "non-Slovenian West South Slavic". Get over it and do something constructive with your time. --Taivo (talk) 03:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Uot's vid dis "lepo" end "lijepo"? I nou ov bout verienc in Srbien, Kroejšn, Bosnien end Montenegrin. If ju don't, den ju don't nou jor lenguidž det uel. Or du ju? --biblbroks (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Poznaš li ti biblbroks? "Lepo" se kaže u hrvatskom jeziku, ali to nije tzv. srpskohrvatski nego hrvatski ekavski govor štokavskog narječja (na području sjeverne Slavonije) ili hrvatski ekavski govor čakavskog narječja (na području Istre i Kvarnera). Razumiš? Or šud aj sej Get det? 78.3.45.62 (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

"Lepo" se kaže u hrvatskom jeziku, ali to nije tzv. srpskohrvatski nego hrvatski ekavski govor štokavskog narječja (na području sjeverne Slavonije) ili hrvatski ekavski govor čakavskog narječja (na području Istre i Kvarnera).

Ali Hrvatski književni jezik je proizašao iz štokavskog narječja. Ja sam mislio da se na wikipediji govori o književnim jezicima. Očito se prevarih. <sarcasm>Siguran sam da moja profesorica iz hrvatskog u gimnaziji, koja je studirala gramatiku i književnost hrvatskog jezika, nema pojma o tome kad kaže da srpsko-hrvatski ne postoji.</sarcasm> Kako to da onda u zagrebačkim gimnazijama ne učimo srpsko-hrvatski? Jedno je biti nacionalist, a sasvim drugo biti realan. S obzirom da sam rođen tijekom Domovinskog rata, siguran sam da ne znam kako je bilo prije, no ne slušam cajke i Tomphsona tako da nisam neki delikvent koji niš ne radi (bez uvrede onima koji vole cajke i Tomphsona). Zapravo sam odlikaš, no, oprostite mi najljepše Vas molim, na tome što smatram da Držić i Marulić nisu svoja djela pisali na srpsko-hrvatskom. Pozdrav.--109.60.111.217 (talk) 20:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

My humble translation: Term "Lepo" is used in Croatian, but that is not the so-called Serbo-Croatian but Croatian Ekavian speach of Shtokavian dialect (in the region of northern Slavonia) or Croatian Ekavian speach of Chakavian dialect (in the region of Istra and Kvarner Gulf). So you confirm my claim that "lepo" is Croatian? I really don't get it now: which language is "lijepo" then? --biblbroks (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Damn. Nisam znao da je tako lako praviti se glup. You get my words? Ever heard about dialect(s)? Jesi upoznat s terminom narječje? You understand what my last post means? Read it again, several times if it takes, maybe you'll understand. Until then, don't talk nonsense. 78.3.45.62 (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

"Narječje" as in dialect? Or "govor" ("izgovor") as in speach/pronunciation/form? I am not sure about the English term though, but BCS(М) uses "govor" or "izgovor" for the Ikavian, Ijekavian (Jekavian) and Ekavian, and "dijalekat", "dijalekt", "naričje", "narječje", "narečje" for Chakavian, Kajkavian and Shtokavian. That is, more or less, AFAIK. How far do you, more or less, know? Ne mora se znati da je lako praviti se glup da bi se znalo da je još lakše praviti se lud. Isn't it? --biblbroks (talk) 23:21, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Kako samo mudro ideš sa teme. I usput izbjegavaš odgovor. Ali to ne umanjuje neistinitost tvoje izjave. Nego, da ja to skiciram. Ako stanovnik slavonske Podravine govori "lepo" znači li to da on priča srpskohrvatskim? Pošto ti je teško izreći (napisati) odgovor, ja ću reći. Ne, to znači da on priča ekavskim (iz)govorom štokavskog narječja. Dakle, hrvatski jezik; štokavsko narječje; ekavski govor. Is that clear enough? 78.3.45.62 (talk) 00:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

What answer have I avoided? I suppose you wanted to say that I avoided a question i.e. I have avoided answering. Right? Nije valjda neki tvoj odgovor bio lansiran ka meni a ja ga eskivirah? Čini mi se da nam u našem sporazumevanju ne valja ta kombinacija ijekavskog i ekavskog govora - da probamo ikavski? Mislim dok još koristimo štokavštinu. Or shall we try talking completely in Serbo-Croatian instead of Croatian? Anyway, how do you suggest to bridge this communication, not gap, but abyss? An abyss made by you knowing something because you're being sure `bout it, and by me lying `bout it because of you telling me what the truth is. --biblbroks (talk) 14:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I think govor might be best translated as 'accent', as AFAIK it's a distinction of pronunciation rather than of vocabulary or grammar.

Anyway, the original claim that (Serbo-)Croatian is not spoken in Croatia is just silly. — kwami (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

There's the problem "I think...". You think. That means you are not sure, you don't know. Let me tell you instead. "Govor" can not be translated as "accent". Therefore, as far as you know is (kind of) misleading. "Govor" can be translated as "speech", and "accent" means "naglasak". This kind of article (and everyone else) shouldn't be based on "as far as I know" and "I think..." but on "I know" and "I'm sure". That is the major problem. When someone who is sure tells you how it is you call them unconstructive and silly. That are very valid arguments (notice the sarcasm). 78.3.45.62 (talk) 01:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

So, all Croatian linguists are wrong, because you "know" while they only "think". I think we've come across a larger problem here. Be sure to contact the Croatian Academy and inform them that Ijekavian is not a govor because you would not translate that as "accent" in English. I'm sure they'll find that a convincing argument as to how they should speak Croatian. — kwami (talk) 01:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

"Govor" translates excellently and means "speech", plain and simple. The uses of the two are virtually identical. In English and Serbo-Croatian both, depending on the context the word "speech" can refer to an accent or dialect, e.g. "Southern speech is considerably different than that of New York." Also, I have to point out that IP's outbursts in Serbo-Croatian are quite offensive. I think this thread should be closed and deleted or archived per WP:NOTFORUM. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 03:00, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't use "speech" for that. The linguistic term is "accent", and I think that is probably the common expression as well. — kwami (talk) 04:04, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes of course, "accent" is a better term just as "naglasak" would be a better term in Serbo-Croatian, however the point I am making is that the word "govor"="speech" can potentially be used in such a capacity, i.e. to refer to an accent. I cannot emphasize enough that the two words are almost completely identical in meaning. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 14:04, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have noticed that a lot of our articles spoke of ijekavian and ekavian "speeches", which is terribly unclear. I've gone through and changed that to "accents". — kwami (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Za Boga miloga, if you're going to argue about the meaning of the word "speech", go somewhere else. Otherwise, use wiktionary. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/speech I usput, there's no definition of an "accent" there for the word speech, only speech as the ability to speak and speech as a message given by the e.g. politicians to the public. Not like anything of this matters, in about 100 years or so everyone will be speaking English and other languages will be forgotten IMO.--109.60.111.217 (talk) 21:08, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I wish you were a bit slower, Kwami. While I'm not a native speeker of English, I find the word "accent" unacceptable in this context, as it first and foremost denotes stress, second a manner of speaking, and only marginally pronunciation of certain phoneme. A quick Google Books search shows that the most common term used to denote Ekavian, Ijekavian and Ikavian is pronunciation. "Ijekavian pronunciation" produces 187 GB hits, "Ijekavian speech" 33, and "Ijekavian accent"... mere 1. No such user (talk) 08:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

See accent (linguistics). I've linked it in a few cases. An 'accent' is a variety less divergent than a dialect. The English equivalent to ijekavian–ekavian is perhaps the division into rhotic and non-rhotic accents, which get lots of hits under that term. Neither causes significant problems with comprehension, unlike Shtokavian–Kajkavian, and both cut across dialect boundaries. "Pronunciation" is overly ambiguous: it could mean just about anything.

I've found a nice summary in of all things Political discourse in transition in Europe, 1989–1991:

Serbo-Croat is usually divided into three dialects: štokavski, kajkavksi, and čakavski. ... the standard Štokavski dialect can be divided into three groups, or 'accents'. These are: ekavian, ijekavian, and ikavian.

Of course, if you're speaking of a writing system, 'accent' has a different meaning, as it does if you're speaking of stress or pitch. But when speaking of varieties of a language, this is what it means. — kwami (talk) 09:05, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, you need to back up that with something more than assertion. Why, then, none (well, I'll give you one) of the relevant literature uses the term "Ijekavian accent"? Let us not invent the terms when they are not necessary. I find the term "Ijekavian accent" alien and confusing. Particularly in the context where we also speak about pitch accent and stress accent and Shtokavian accentuation. We say that Old Shtokavian has three accents, and then talk about Ijekavian, Ekavian and Ikavian accents, and those are not the same. No such user (talk) 11:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Except that dialects are not divided into "pronunciations", so the article as it currently stands is factually wrong. What say we change the first instance to a link? So,

the dialects are divided into Ikavian, Ekavian, and Ijekavian accents, with the reflects of jat being /i/, /e/, and /ije/ or /je/ respectively.

That can't possibly be ambiguous. The rest we can leave as is. — kwami (talk) 12:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, deal. I could argue that the sentence above is not quite accurate, because jat reflex division can be analyzed as either orthogonal to dialectal division (e.g. there are Chakavian subdialects with ekavian and ikavian reflex), or applicable only to Štokavian. However, it's somewhat nitpicking. No such user (talk) 12:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Good. I don't mind nitpicking, since we are an encyclopedia, but I don't follow. As it currently stands, we speak of "the dialects" being so divided, without specifying which; Chakavian is so divided, even if not always presented that way, Kajkavian I think is not, Shto is, so there's no factual inaccuracy, is there? — kwami (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian - POV-tag

This article will be renamed to appropriate modern standards actually existing, namely B/S/C. Serbo-Croatian is a biased communist relic, and most importantly defunct. Nowhere is it recognized as official and nowhere can you tick it in a consensus form. MarcRey (talk) 18:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC) 23:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I would like to inform everyone that I now control a user account on which you may contact me. I did also add a POV-tag yesterday which was promptly removed without further notice by user:Kwamikagami. The fact that user:Kwamikagami and a couple of others have had this issue on the table before does not make it a closed subject protected from further scrutiny. Once the rights of my new account have been updated I will extend the POV-tag to the Serbo-Croatian language article which in reality should redirect to a page with either of the following titles: 'Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian' or 'official language standards of former Yugoslavia'. If any user conflicts with the POV-tag (a right of Wikipedia editors) I shall file a request for the supervision of the articles in question and ultimately a lock-down if necessary. MarcRey (talk) 07:47, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You say you've been here 7 yrs, but you are apparently unfamiliar with WP naming conventions. We use the WP:COMMONNAME in English. The common name in English for this language is "Serbo-Croatian". There really is no other. Nobody says "I speak Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian" or "I speak official language standards of former Yugoslavia". Until they do, those titles are not appropriate. (And of course the latter is incorrect because it's the wrong topic as well.) — kwami (talk) 07:57, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

What people choose to call things on a colloquial level is irrelevant in encyclopedic contexts, but if you wish to lead the discussion on that level I am convinced no one claims to speak Serbo-Croatian any longer, nor B/S/C, but either Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian separately. Neither have I come across the use of "Serbo-Croatian" in any official setting for the past 10 years. WP:COMMONNAME would not justify incorrect, and outdated, usage despite a supposed occurrence of wide-spread use. If it had, many of the articles on Wikipedia could be given the slang counterparts which are definitely more frequent in everyday language. The POV-tag has been once more removed. If this repeats for more than three times I will be urged to proceed with matters at the office of bureaucrats. To clarify, I am not here to distance the Bosnian language from either Croatian or Serbian, they are the one and same language. But it has been agreed that Serbo-Croatian is an invalid term, and communist relic, which fails to shed objective light on the language of Serbs, Croats and Bosnians/Bosniaks, namely excluding the latter. This has been the cause of armed conflict and the abolishment of Serbo-Croatian as an official standard some 20 years ago. MarcRey (talk) 08:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not "slang", and it has not been "agreed" that it is invalid. You say it's one language, but we need a name for that language. The only name in current use is "Serbo-Cratian". Yes, people may avoid saying it in many situations, but when they do speak of it, that's the name they use. And I don't see how its a "Communist" relic when English usage dates to the 18th century. — kwami (talk) 08:50, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to English usage of "Serbo-Croatian" in the 18th century? —Pepsi Lite (talk) 09:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Morfill, 1883, Slavonic Literature. Quoted in the OED.

Sorry, I'm getting dysnumeric. 19th century. — kwami (talk) 09:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

What name did they use for this language before 1883? —Pepsi Lite (talk) 10:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"Illyrian", AFAIK. I'm not sure. — kwami (talk) 10:12, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Croats used to call this language "Illyrian", never Croatian before 1850. Let us call it "Serbian phonology" then everybody will be happy! —Pepsi Lite (talk) 10:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Ironically, calling it Serbian phonology would be more accurate than Serbo-Croatian, because unlike Serbo-Croatian Serbian exists. MarcRey (talk) 18:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

It has come to be a slang since it is defunct, abolished, disqualified. Call it what you like. And it is preposterous to maintain that a subjective , unofficial, term should be used simply because there is no better way of naming these languages. This article could have been as easily named Phonology of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian but I suspect some users insist on Serbo-Croatian since it efficiently omits Bosnian and portrays it as sprung out of Serbian and Croatian. Fishy business. Pepsi, it would not matter if he found a source proving the usage of Serbo-Croatian in the 18th (or rather 19th) century since it would not have been standardized or official anyways. And definitely not justifying the omission of Bosnian from the name. In the 18th century, for example, Bosnia enjoyed a greater independence than Serbia or Croatia and the Bosnians (Muslims) surely did not choose to refer to their language as either Serbian or Croatian. Bottom-line is, the term Bosnian language (as well as Serbian and Croatian) has been in the scope for several hundreds of years before Serbo-Croatian ever saw daylight due to nasty political bias. MarcRey (talk) 09:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

So, if I have an opinion that is incompatible with your political goals, then I must be in some kind of conspiracy against you?

Your opinions about a word are not evidence, and that is not our naming policy. — kwami (talk) 09:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

It is funny you consider the integrity of the Bosnian language to be a political issue, which in turn is quite revealing of your discrediting attitude towards the originality of the Bosnian language. Views which do not come as any surprise from someone who eagerly wishes to introduce a new (or discontinued, depending on how you wish to observe it) classification standard on Wikipedia. To be frank, your last comment was not of any contribution to the discussion and I take it as a sign of your unwillingness to objectiveness. In due time I will present as part of this discussion contemporary sources (apparent axioms) on why your actions are completely biased and ludicrous in the year of 2012. I suspect many well-read non-Yugoslavian people, predominantly from the western civilization, would not have any difficulties to penetrate the error of your editorial claims, but unfortunately 95% of the users editing ex-Yugoslavian articles are ex-Yugoslavians themselves. In the meantime the POV-tag returns. I shall immediately withdraw my demands for this tag if the current title of the article is replaced with the appropriate one: "Phonology of the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian language". Inside of the article you may gladly explain that the previous classification for these languages was Serbo-Croatian, and that this term enjoys some continued use. Naturally, this discussion also goes for the Serbo-Croatian article and I will paste this discussion over there in a short while. MarcRey (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

@MarcRey. Calling any aspect of the Serbo-Croatian language "Serbian" is just nonsense, since both Croats (such as Ljudevit Gaj) and Serbs (such as Vuk Karadzic) participated in its standardization in the second half of the 19th century, and both Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, and Montenegrins all use it. What must be understood here is the numerical disproportion between Serbs and Croats: Serbs outnumber Croats by about 2:1. Hence, some Serbs often liked (and still do) to refer to Serbo-Croatian as simply "Serbian". That of course, is but one small step apart from the Greater-Serbianism of the 1990s wars, which claimed that basically all Croats are really Serbs "but just don't realize it" (to quote Vojislav Seselj's deposition at the ICTY). In fact the Serbian Radical Party, which (while it is kept out of power by a western-supported liberal coalition) has more seats in the Serbian parliament than any one individual party, still officially maintains as part of its policy that Croats and Bosniaks are unwitting Serbs of different religious denominations (Catholicism and Islam respectively).

The point I am making is that in the 19th century up until the 1940s (and in good part all the way up to the 1990s) Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks considered they were in essence one nation. The difference is that Serbian nationalist factions (though not all Serbs!) considered this to be the "Serbian" nation and language, due to their numeric predominance, while Croats preferred new umbrella terms like "Slavonic" (pre-1840s) "Illyrian" (up to 1918), "Serbo-Croato-Slovene" (1918-1929), "Yugoslav" (1929-1992) etc. It is important to note, however, that all these terms: "Slavonic", "Illyrian", "Serbo-Croato-Slovene", "Yugoslav" (and even sometimes "Serbian" in the context of some Serbian nationalist linguists), all refer to one and the same language who's most common name in English today is "Serbo-Croatian". That this is due to its usage in SFR Yugoslavia throughout the second half of the 20th century is beyond doubt, however that is an entirely irrelevant fact with regard to WP:COMMONNAME and the title of this article.

As for the Serbo-Croatian language being "abolished", I think you will find that scientists all round the world could not care one whit what petty declarations Balkans politicians and linguists may publish to spite their neighbors. And it is the consensus in the scientific community all-round the world that determines Wikipedia content. You may also find that only in the Balkans do politicians consider themselves empowered to "abolish" and "declare" languages as they feel necessary, and that such a ridiculous practice is virtually unheard-of elsewhere. The "Bosnian" language established by the Bosniak ethnic group is no less a mere standard of Serbo-Croatian than "Serbian" and "Croatian". The fact that you may personally find the most common English name for the language "offensive" is nobody's concern but yours. -- Director (talk) 19:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to when Vojislav Šešelj claimed that "all Croats are really Serbs". This is the first time I hear about it. —Pepsi Lite (talk) 20:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to inform everyone.. um, not that its relevant, but Vojislav Šešelj is the current leader of the Serbian Radical Party, on trial on charges of genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

@Pepsi Lite, I recommend you review his ICTY deposition on YouTube [3][4][5] (particularly the last link) where he discloses his party's position on the "union of all Serbs" and its intention of "convincing Croats they are Serbs". To be precise, he does not consider "all Croats" to be Serbs, he considers the vast majority of Croats to be Serbs (those who speak Shtokavian), while he considers those who speak Kajkavian to be "actually Slovenes". He also considers Chakavian to be the "real" Croatian language, but he does not state that the Chakavian-speakers are "real Croats". Chakavian, of course, is spoken by very, very few people since its sort of archaic (my grandfather spoke it, my father knew a few words, I know even fewer). In this he is entirely in-line with Vuk Karadzic. Who was the most prominent of the 19th century Serbian intellectuals insisting that the common South Slavic language is, in fact, "Serbian".

His views are actually rather interesting, and he's not altogether wrong... I do agree that Yugoslavs are on the whole a single nation with a single language, but I'm afraid I disagree with him on the issue of the name of said nation/language. I do not consider myself "Serbian" :) -- Director (talk) 20:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

As an addendum I will write-down the list of historical terms used for this same language. It is a rather complex issue since it is intertwined with the impossible quagmire of Balkans politics. But here goes, for the record:

• "Slavonic" or "Slovinic". Essentially meaning simply "Slavic", these terms are used prior to the late 18th century. "Dalmatian" [6] was another term. These terms do certainly apply to modern Serbo-Croatian, but since they'tr not strictly defined, whether they apply also to the precursors of modern Slovene and Macedonian varies.
• "Illyrian language" is a term derived from the (erroneous) 18th century notion that South Slavs are in fact descendants of the ancient Illyrians (note Napoleon's Illyrian Provinces). The use of the term "Illyrian language" was made popular by the Illyrian Movement of the early 19th century. The Illyrian Movement was based in Croatia (part of Austria-Hungary at the time) and was led by Croatian intellectuals (though members of the movement of course considered themselves "Illyrians"). This term does certainly apply also to Slovene (many Slovenes were prominent members as well), and probably Macedonian as well.
• "Serbian language". Parallel with "Illyrian" (in the mid-19th century), the term "Serbian" was used by Serbian intellectuals in the (politically separate) Principality of Serbia itself. In Serbia, however, the Illyrian movement was also very popular, so both terms were used. This term did not apply to Slovene, but did apply to what is now Macedonian speech.
• "Croatian or Serbian language". Since the Illyrians basically demanded a union of all South Slavs ("Illyrians") into a separate new country, they were not very popular with Austrian authorities, so they were banned and eventually petered-out. The term "Croatian or Serbian" was used officially by Austro-Hungarian authorities throughout (all the way to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary). In the now-Kingdom of Serbia the term "Serbian" eventually gained predominance. However, no distinction was made by anyone between "Croatian" and "Serbian" (or Bosnian). This term did not apply either to Slovene or Macedonian.
• "Serbo-Croato-Slovene language" (1918-1929) and "Yugoslav language" (1929-1941). A South Slavic state was founded after WWI. Between 1918 and 1929, the state was called "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes". In 1929 it was renamed into "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", and held that name up until its destruction by the Axis during WWII in April 1941. Consequently, the names used in this period were "Serbo-Croato-Slovene language" and "Yugoslav language" after 1929. It was also the official policy of the state in this period that all South Slavs (apart from Bulgarians) are one nation, also named "Serbo-Croato-Slovene nation" (1918-1929) and "Yugoslav nation" (1929-1941). "Serbian" was now abolished as a term for the whole language (it was only to be used again in the 1990s by Serbian nationalist radicals).
• "Serbo-Croatian language" (1945 on). After the war the new socialist Yugoslavia was established. Where the expelled royalists insisted there was one nation, the new Yugoslav authorities established five: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, and Macedonians. For the first time, Slovene was separated as a language, while a new, separate, Macedonian language was also declared. The Yugoslav authorities did not recognize the Muslims in Bosnia as a separate nationality just yet, while Montenegrins identified culturally with the Serbs very closely - and so the language was now named the "Serbo-Croatian language". Later, the Bosnian Muslims were declared the sixth nation of Yugoslavia. The Bosnian Muslims were not yet called Bosniaks, as they are now: they were referred to up until the 1990s as the "Muslims by Nationality". No insistence was made to rename the common language in accordance with this change (into the "Croato-Muslim-Serbian language" or something of the sort).

Essentially in response to the revival in the late 1980s of old Serbian nationalist claims that "Serbian" is actually the name for the common language, and that Croats and Bosnian Muslims are thus also really "Serbs", Croatian and Bosnian nationalists (after coming to power in Croatia and Bosnia), declared their languages separate from Serbian entirely. This is now also taking place in Montenegro.

The Bosnian "Muslims by Nationality", it must be noted, also declared themselves to be Bosniaks in the early 1990s. Serbs of course also changed the name of the language to "Serbian language", but among Serbs it is very much a matter of political opinion whether that term refers also to Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin, or whether it really is separate from them. The other nations, of course, consider it nothing short of a threat to their national independence to make the claim that they share a common language with the Serbs. The very notion, while obviously accurate, is absolutely odious to Croats, Bosniaks, and to a lesser degree to Montenegrins (Serbs and Montenegrins were on the same side in the '90s wars).

As far as the history of the language is concerned, the one real, major change than needs to be recorded is the shifting policies on whether Slovene and Macedonian are part of the greater language. Whenever the languages were merged with Serbo-Croatian (the Illyrian movement, Kingdom of Yugoslavia), they were treated as dialects. The Slovene language and the Macedonian language were only definitively broken away by the communist authorities after WWII. To be sure, before this juncture, the standardized official language was really that one which we refer to as "Serbo-Croatian" today. Slovene and Macedonian were considered to be provincial variants, (and they are very similar to SC).

These were all different names for one and the same language, that's the crucial point. A language that could not settle on a name - simply because the people who speak it do not have a name for themselves they all agree on and can identify with. We tried "Illyrians", "Serbs", "Serbo-Croato-Slovenes", and "Yugoslavs" thus far - none were accepted by the people in general. "Serbo-Croatian" is simply the latest of the many names we tried to use for the language, as we can see, it is also very far from perfect and is unacceptable to many, and so it goes on. On Wikipedia however, what matters is English language usage. Apologies for the TLDR post :) -- Director (talk) 20:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Whoah, looks like I might've torpedoed the discussion with my massive posts, apologies. :) -- Director (talk) 14:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the only way to settle this is to call S-C "north-central-Balkan language not mutually intelligible with Dracula" - there, that should shut-up-the-nationalists. Glad to be of help. HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

How dare you call us Croats Balkanites! Croatia is not in the Balkans, we're civilized, Austro-Hungarian folks! xD Nice try, though. -- Director (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

If the convention is to name a language after its largest component, then it would be "Serbian". If after its genetically most diverse component, it would be "Crotian". If we are to use a name that both would agree on, then we need to paraphrase. (Not surprisingly, Serbs will tend to agree with the first convention, and Croats with the second.) Or, if we define language by narrow mutual intelligibility, we could call it Shtokavian, avoid "Serbian" and "Croatian" altogether, and note that Croats speak three related WSS languages and that Serbs do not have a distinct language. Of course, common usage in English continues to be SC or even more awkward paraphrases such as B/C/S. — kwami (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Well I have to say, as a Croat, I've never heard of anyone proposing "Croatian" as the name for the common language that would apply to the speech of Serbs, Croats, etc. Croatian nationalists tend to emphasize the differences between Croats and Serbs, as opposed to Serbian nationalists which tend to claim Croats and Serbs are the same thing - Serbs. For my part, I think "Serbs" are the eastern part of "Nation X" and "Croats" are the (smaller) western part of "Nation X". Bosniaks are a group primarily defined through their religion, they are members of "Nation X" who, through centuries of Islam, have developed their own semi-separate culture (though many are atheists today). Montenegrins are more of a regional identity within "Nation X", such as Dalmatians.

Perhaps we should recommend "Language X" as the name :). -- Director (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I remember a Croat on one of these discussions saying the language is really Croatian, because Serbian is just a subset of one of the three Croatian dialects, and therefore only "Croatian" applies to the language as a whole. Which would be entirely correct if it weren't also an ethnic designation. — kwami (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

An interesting theory :). What I meant was I never heard anyone with authority make such a claim. Sure, Serbian nationalists like to claim "its all Serbian", but they're in a decided numerical majority. Croats are by no means the majority (even together with the Bosniaks), and in addition their thinking leans towards preserving their cultural distinctiveness from the numerically superior Serbs. So those are two reasons why "Croatian" is even less likely to be used than "Serbian".

You know, the root of the problem here is that, for the majority of the 19th century, Croats enjoyed a rather significant cultural "advantage", being part of the more advanced Austro-Hungarian Empire, as opposed to the decrepit, semi-medieval Ottoman Empire (the "Sick Man of Europe"). Croatian mentality developed something of a weird "arrogance", and the idea (in the mid-19th century) was that Croats would actually lead the new "Yugoslavia" or "Illyria" in spite of their numerical disadvantage (being more "intellectualized" in the relatively more modern Austria). Perhaps had the Central Powers won WWI the Austro-Hungarian Empire might've annexed Bosnia and Serbia and something of the sort might've happened within that Empire. Of course, what actually happened was that the Serbs united the South Slavs under their monarchy in 1918. This final "disappointment", a feeling of "cultural superiority" over the Serbs, and the threat to this supposedly "more advanced", "Austrian-ish" culture from the numerically-superior Serbs, in a quite blatantly Serb-controlled union, - created a great deal of resentment. It really marked the start of anti-Yugoslavist/anti-Serbian sentiment in Croatia (those two are always intertwined). Had the roles been reversed, had the Croats emerged from the Ottoman Empire, in addition to being numerically inferior, I venture to speculate they would probably have been swallowed-up.

But there I go monologueing again... :) -- Director (talk) 21:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Innovations

"However, the literature still insists on the genetic unity of 'Central South Slavic', which, in this sense, is most commonly called 'Serbo-Croatian'. By that it is implied that 'Central South Slavic' is a phenomenon of the same level like, for example, Russian or Czech language, which is most certainly incorrect; in the case of other Slavic languages we can determine common innovations in all of their dialects (and in them alone). The latter is impossible in 'Central South Slavic'.

All that actually means that Croatian language has a double identity: as a standard language, it originated from genetically the same dialect (štokavian) as other 'Central South Slavic' dialects, but the genetic origin is not important for determining the identity of a standard language. In the genetic sense, Croatian does not represent a valid classification unit because Kajkavian and Čakavian are equally 'Croatian' as Štokavian. That itself means that it is nonsensical to talk about the genetic unity of Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian in the sense of a language spoken by all Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins. Common ancestral language, from which all Serbian, Croatian, Bosniak and Montenegrin idioms (and only them) originated, simply never existed."

This is an excerpt from 'R. Matasović: Poredbeno povijesna gramatika hrvatskoga jezika'. It would be nice if the points from the first paragraph were incorporated into the article, in order to clarify the linguistic situation to the interested reader.93.138.79.205 (talk) 11:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The position of Croatian linguists is made perfectly clear. It is not shared by the scientific community at large. -- Director (talk) 16:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Primary language

Serbo-Croatian is "the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro"? Can somebody please provide a reference for this statement? I added request for reference but somebody simply deleted it without providing one. Thanks!Bizutage (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The references for that blatant fact have been provided ages ago, and are practically everywhere in the article. -- Director (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Well as blatant as it may seem to you, when visiting Wikipedia articles for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, they all state that their primary languages are Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian. Serbo-Croatian is not mentioned as the primary language in any of them. That means that either something is wrong with those three articles and needs to be corrected, or something is not quite right with this one. That opening sentence is quite prominent and important so please provide a reference - even if it may seem as a blatant fact to you. Thank you! Bizutage (talk) 10:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Correction - sorry, it is mentioned in Bosnia and Herzegovina article, but not in the article for Serbia, Montenegro or Croatia.Bizutage (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sigh, you're right - something is indeed wrong with those articles. The consensus in the scientific community at large is that Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are one language that is today most commonly known as "Serbo-Croatian". However, due to the complexities of Balkans national policies, all of these countries have declared their own languages a few years ago. Most linguists in those countries support this breaking-off of various "new" languages, and the public usually feels very strongly indeed about this. In the simplest terms: Serbs and Croats were engaged in bitter war very recently and they want nothing to do with each-other, so they declared "separate" languages in wartime. These standards are practically identical and are entirely mutually intelligible. A Serb could speak to a Croat for hours and not notice they (supposedly) speak a "different" language.

The reason why those articles state such claims is that Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, people from various countries almost always write their respective articles, and user "consensus" can often override sources (even though it shouldn't, of course). And this is a strong "consensus". Tell an average Croat he speaks Serbo-Croatian and you will surely insult him, perhaps even risk a punch :). -- Director (talk) 11:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

When listing the official language of a country, we tend to use its official name in that country. And officially, the different literary standards are different languages. But when saying where this language is spoken, we're still going to list the countries where it's spoken. If the US and UK fell out, and declared that their national languages were now no longer "English" but "American" and "British", we'd still list them as countries where English is spoken. — kwami (talk) 11:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

kwami, admittedly I did very little sources research on this subject... linguistics are rather outside the scope of my knowledge. However, if the sources are indeed (as was my impression) by and large supportive of a single Serbo-Croatian language, rather than the four separate ones, - then we really ought to do something with regard to bringing a number of other articles in-line with sources and policy. -- Director (talk) 15:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I half agree with you. Language is what linguists study, but it's also what people speak. It's also about identity. Sociolinguistically, they're different languages, even if genealogically they're a single language. From my POV, a literary standard is not a "language", it's just a standard. But for many people, that's what a language is. Saying SC is the official language of Serbia etc. would be a bit like saying there are no such thing as "Serbs" and "Croats" because DNA tests show them to be indistinguishable. There's more to ethnicity than DNA. — kwami (talk) 16:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I agree with you there, but shouldn't the Croatian language article, for example, state that Croatian is a standard of Serbo-Croatian? -- Director (talk) 11:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I thought it did. If not, I think it should. — kwami (talk) 12:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The difference between the Croatian language article and the other three is that in the other articles, "Serbo-Croatian" is in the first clause of the first sentence, but in the Croatian article it's the second sentence. It's there, it's just not as prominent as in the other "language" articles. --Taivo (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Hm. The article's lede in essence states that the "Croatian language is a standard language", while according to this article it is "a standard of the Serbo-Croatian language". There's been some wordplay over there with the lede. The second sentence states "They are varieties of the Serbo-Croatian language..". "They" who? Somehow the lede at no point states "Croatian is a standard/form/variety of Serbo-Croatian". Believe you me, that's no accident - and that article is one place where that should be outlined clear as day. -- Director (talk) 14:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

So I edited the first paragraph of Croatian language to better match the text at Serbian language and Bosnian language. Set your stopwatch to see when the first revert is made and outraged comments start to appear on the Talk page. --Taivo (talk) 14:27, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Already running.. :) -- Director (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it was a bit shy of three hours before the first revert and the violation of WP:1RR was not a surprise at all. --Taivo (talk) 18:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I've added "(variant of Serbo-Croatian)" to the infoboxes of Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro. I've also brought the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Srpska articles in-line with the sources at the main Bosnia and Herzegovina article. -- Director (talk) 16:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I just want to mention that Serbo-Croatian is not used today anymore, at least as an official language. It would be pov push to claim otherwise. Serbo-Croatian is a standard form, established like that for the SFRJ. Sure, it did existed before, but not after collapse of Yugoslavia. Last year this language was official was 2006, prior the new constitution of Serbia. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 16:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Uh-huh. Thank you for enlightening us, WhiteWriter (noone ever mentioned that before :)). This project, however, does not follow in any way the proclamations of various Balkans governments, but rather the (international) scientific community - i.e. the sources. -- Director (talk) 17:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, can you then point me with any source that claim that Serbo-croatian language is still in use? P.S. Montenegrin language is form of Serbian, and not Serbo-croatian. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 19:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

All the sources listed in the article, WhiteWriter. Serbo-Croatian is still used by millions of people in the Balkans. Speakers simply label it by their religio-ethnic label of choice, but it's one language. --Taivo (talk) 19:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I am well aware of your attitudes and sources presented in article, but i am afraid that we have here classical case of WP:OR. Is Serbo-Croatia used today officially by any relevant academy, institution or government? Answer is not, it looks like. So it is only wikipedia construction to say it is used, actually. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 19:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter one little bit what any "academy, institution, or government" says is its official position. Not one bit to Wikipedia. All that matters is that linguistic sources predominantly call this single language "Serbo-Croatian". Wikipedia is not the organ of official policy of any government. It reflects common usage in the relevant scientific field. And the relevant usage in linguistics for naming the non-Slovenian West South Slavic language is to call it "Serbo-Croatian". Thus, all the speakers of the mutually intelligible lects "Bosnian", "Croatian", "Serbian", and "Montenegrin" are speakers of "Serbo-Croatian". That's not "original research" unless you want to willfully ignore the evidence. Here's just one piece of evidence. A little bit ago I pulled J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams' The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (2006, Oxford) off the shelf. Right there on page 722 is the index for "Serbo-Croatian" forms found in the volume. Next I pulled down James Clackson's Indo-European Linguistics, an Introduction (2007, Cambridge) and found the cladistic tree on page 11 where "Serbocroatian" is one of the nodes. Next comes Carlos Quiles' A Grammar of Modern Indo-European (2007, Dnghu) who uses Serbo-Croatian throughout starting at page 49. Three for three. --Taivo (talk) 19:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I fail to understand this "used today officially by any relevant academy, institution or government" argument. Why, is Quenya used today officially by any relevant academy, institution or government? I am not sure if it is, yet this fictional language of Middle Earth has its ISO 639-3 code. Also, is Interlingua used today officially by any relevant academy, institution or government? I dunno, yet this conlang not only that it has a ISO 639-3 code, but its creator(s) has/have a WP page: International Auxiliary Language Association. Further, is Esperanto used today officially by any relevant academy, institution or government? Well, according to its article it is regulated by Akademio de Esperanto. Not only that, but in 1996 the number of its native speakers was between 200 and 1000 - at least according to the article Esperanto. Anyway, I'd say that this "relevant academy, institution, or government usage" argument is rather questionable... to the least. --biblbroks (talk) 21:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a language?

This article seems to describe Serbo-Croatian as just a language but looking up people like Nikola Tesla it is used as an ethnicity or origin[7]. Is that usage correct? If so shouldn't it be mentioned? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 12:46, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

No, because it was not (and certainly is not now) a common usage. Even if you look at that Google Books page you listed, the majority of those items use "Serbo-Croatian" in a linguistic meaning, not an ethnic one. --Taivo (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks but could could you provide citation for use either way? really wasn't looking for an opinion. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 17:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Just look at your Google Books search. All but one of the sources listed there use "Serbo-Croatian" as a linguistic label, not as an ethnic label. Not my opinion, your very link proves it. --Taivo (talk) 20:57, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think "Serbo-Croatian" was ever used as a name for an ethnicity. The name was introduced in the period immediately after WWII as the latest (in a rather long line) of terms for the language of Serbs and Croats. Montenegrins were recognized as its speakers as well, but they were (and are) a rather small ethnic group that identified very closely with Serbs so that wasn't a problem. Bosniaks (or Bosnian Muslims) were not considered to be a nation until 1963, so they also did not figure into the name. My point is that the name itself reflects the multiple ethnicities that speak it.

Tesla was an ethnic Serb from Croatia, or more accurately, the Croatian Military Frontier (which was an independent military province formed out of the territory of the Kingdom of Croatia for defense against the Ottomans, that was under the direct control of the Austrian emperor). Whether "Serbo-Croats" should be considered a single nation is a different matter altogether, but they (we) are not ;). -- Director (talk) 21:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Đuro Daničić

Đuro Daničić was Serbian linguist, not Croatian. He was not part of Illyrian movement. As far as I know he proposed few new letters for common Croatian and Latin alphabet, and that was all connection. Of course he was proponent of Serbo-Croatian language, but proponent from Serbian side. Could someone edit article in that sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.165.250.75 (talk) 15:16, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Error in reference

Note 16, "Mladenovic. Kratka istorija srpskog književnog jezika. Beograd 2004, 67" should read "Milanović, Aleksandar. Kratka istorija srpskog književnog jezika. Beograd 2010, 67". Aleksandar Milanović, the author of this short history, has been confused with the eminent philologist Aleksandar Mladenović. Chukuriuk (talk) 19:18, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Serbian language and Croatian language are TWO SEPARATE languages

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

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Serbian language and Croatian language are TWO SEPARATE languages !

See documents: http://hrv.nsk.hr/dokumenti/Sluzbeno-prihvacanje-izmjena-ISO-639-2-Registration-Authority.pdf http://www.ielanguages.com/eurolang.html http://www.humanjourney.us/detail/indoEuropeMap.html Now languages map of Europe http://indo-europeanlanguages.blogspot.com/ Indo-European languages: http://www.danshort.com/ie/iesatem.htm http://www.humanjourney.us/detail/indoEuropeMap.html Regular languages: http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/ http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_changes.php http://www.ethnologue.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.45.219.214 (talk) 15:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It is jokes or politic tragicomedy

Serbo-Croatian is not linguistic name, that is history politic duble name for two different national languages. Today it is joke from oldest linguists ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.45.219.214 (talk) 15:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

POV pushing is not welcome on Wikipedia. Please also note the template in the header of this talk page. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 15:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

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

Bosnian language

A sentence in the article say: "Since independence, Bosnian has likewise been established as an official standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina." This is wrong, the Bosnian language was spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina long before, the first Štokav dictionary was the Turkish - Bosnian dictionary written by Muhamed Hevaij Uskufi in 1631, who was from Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I demand for this sentence to be removed or changed! 80.80.40.208 (talk) 21:01, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Sources? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 21:29, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Demand? Read WP:CONSENSUS. --Taivo (talk) 22:30, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I demand a medium-rare steak right now! . . . sigh - see, anon IP, that doesn't work on Wikipedia either. Nationalist-pushing POV claptrap is not going to work here.HammerFilmFan (talk) 14:18, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The difference between Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin…

…are on the same degree of the ones between American English, British English, Canadian English and Australian English.

As the same way that most of Americans, British, Canadians and Australian do not need interpreters to talk with each other, and no subtitles are necessary in movies made in America for British audiences, or British movies for Australian audiences and so on.

As far as people know, is the same thing when a Serbian talk to a Croatian or a Bosnian talk to a Montenegrin. And movies made in Croatia does not need subtitles to be understood in Bosnia.

So… for the absolute majority of linguists OUTSIDE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA, Serbo-Croatian still exists as ONE language, intelligible between the peoples of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.

What makes “Serbo-Croatian” offensive to former Yugoslavs is that a Serb Orthodox churchgoer prefers to die than to acknowledge that he speaks the same language of the Croatians who believe in the Roman Catholic Church or the Bosnians who fast during Ramadan.

THE DIFFERENCE IS (only) RELIGION.--201.81.237.228 (talk) 03:33, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

That and the incredible hostility between much of the populations of these nations due to the Yugoslav wars of the Nineties, which sometimes gets in the way of science.HammerFilmFan (talk) 13:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the consonant đ

I believe the example that is given in the article (that the consonant đ is pronounced like the J in Jews) is incorrect or rather vague. If I was a non-native speaker of Serbo-Croatian, I would come to the conclusion that the consonants dž and đ are pronounced the same way, although this is clearly not the case. In my opinion, the British pronunciation of the word deuce would be a much better example. Again, this is only my opinion, so I guess someone with a little more experience would have to verify this. 109.165.238.244 (talk) 22:39, 1 November 2012 (UTC)Juka

That (~[dʲ]) would be a very different sound from đ ([dʑ]). --JorisvS (talk) 22:47, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly what I was trying to explain. Most people pronounce the word Jew as /dʒuː/, and this doesn't sound anything like the consonant đ found in the Serbo-Croatian language. 109.165.238.244 (talk) 22:56, 1 November 2012 (UTC)Juka

Yes, you're definitely right about that. --JorisvS (talk) 23:17, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Current nationalist sentiment over the name

There is a difference between these two statements:

• Because of the nationalism of the past, modern speakers don't like the name and want language names to match nation names
• Modern speakers don't like the name because they want language names to match nation names

The second is true, but the first isn't. These people want separate language names because of contemporary nationalistic sentiment not because of nationalism from the 19th century. The name "Serbo-Croatian" would be controversial among native speakers today whether or not nationalistic sentiment had spawned it in the 19th century. --Taivo (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. There are no significant separate 19th century Croatian or Bosniak nationalist movements. There was a separately Croatian nationalist movement (led by Ante Starcevic), but it was negligible in importance. Specifically Bosniak nationalist movements were, to the best of my knowledge, non-existent. In fact, I think its safe to say that, throughout the Balkans, 19th century nationalism was predominantly "Yugoslavist", unitarianist nationalism, essentially advocating the view that all Yugoslavs are members of one nation that should unite. At first the nation was called "Illyrians", then they slowly switched to "Yugoslav", while in the Kingdom of Serbia the view that this nation are all "Serbs" was entertained as well.

In short: very few people among 19th century Balkans nationalists would object to the notion of a single language (or indeed, a single Yugoslav nation). Though they would probably prefer to call it "Illyrian" or "Yugoslav", or simply "Serbian" - and would probably include Slovene and Macedonian in it as well. The name "Serbo-Croatian" was introduced in the second Yugoslavia (second half of the 20th century), to differentiate from the Slovene and Macedonian languages which were granted an independent status at that time. -- Director (talk) 12:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Constitution of Yugoslavia can hardly be seen as a nationalist-POV source

• In 1918 the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was founded. It declared that it had one official language, Serbo-Croato-Slovene. This language included modern-day Serbo-Croatian and both Slovene and Macedonian (as sort of "dialects", I suppose).
• In 1929 the state was renamed into Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and this same above language was renamed "Yugoslav language".
• After WWII, in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav language was split into Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene - which were the three official languages of that state.

-- Director (talk) 12:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You wrote "(...) were the three official languages of that state", therefore it is false to describe the Serbo-Croatian as "the" (implying the only one) official language. According to the 1963 and 1974 constitutions of the SFRY the Serbo-Croatian was *not* "the" (only) official language: the Slovene language was one of the official languages, too, as well as the Macedonian one. The Serbo-Croatian was one of them. Please see the sources.

• 1963 Constitution of the SFRY, Article 131 in English language. Wikisource.
• 1974 Constitution of the SFRY, Article 246 in Serbo-Croatian. Wikisource.
• 1974 Constitution of the SFRY, Article 246 in Slovene language. Wikisource.

DancingPhilosopher ^{my talk} 13:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Whatever the two of you decide, the statement in the article needs to be kept simple, not the complex one that I edited out. --Taivo (talk) 14:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

@DancingPhilosopher, whom are you arguing with? Isn't it obvious I agree with you? Yes, even though Serbo-Croatian most certainly was the most important and the most prominent of the three official languages (almost exclusively used in all federal institutions), it obviously was not the only official language of the post-WWII Yugoslavia. My post was in response to Taivo's edit in which he has introduced the statement that Serbo-Croatian was "one of the official languages of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia". I also agree with Taivo that a simple addition will be sufficient here. -- Director (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Refs in lead

Now that the article is stable, I removed most of the refs from the lead. They don't belong there, per WP:LEAD. If needed, they can always be rescued and used in the text. I left refs for a couple statements (date of standardization, generally goes by a different name).

I've deleted the claim that it was once the only pluricentric lang within a single state. First of all, that would still be true, and not only in Bosnia. Secondly, it's not true: Hindi and Urdu are both official and both promoted in India. — kwami (talk) 03:58, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

History

I've merged the Serbian and Bosnian history here (the Serbian history section is now empty, as there was nothing specifically Serbian about it), and removed the duplicated 'early history' part of Croatian, since there's been no reason given to keep it there.

The remaining part of the history in the Croatian article is almost entirely about the history of the SC language in Croatia, not about the development of a separate Croatian language. It looks like most of it should be merged here as well. — kwami (talk) 12:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I would keep only the part about the 'Illyrian period' for the time being, as that might be linked to the emergence of what became modern Standard Croatian, unless someone can explain why it isn't. --JorisvS (talk) 16:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Regulation

It is not regulated by Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics and Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language, croatian and serbian languages are but not serbo-croatian. Serbo-croatian is one of few standards (Croatian, Bosnian, Serbo-croatian, Serbian,... ). It was historically standardized but today it is not. Serbo-croatian is a historic language construct. In language family tree it is not ancestor of Croatian or Serbian or any of theese, it's a compilation. 89.172.255.136 (talk) 15:31, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Croatian, Serbian, etc. are just standardized forms of the language that is called Serbo-Croatian. This means that each national institute regulates its own particular standardized form of Serbo-Croatian. --JorisvS (talk) 15:59, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Language compilation Serbo-croatian does exist but it is not regulated by any body today. Serbian and Croatian as individual languages are regulated but Serbo-croatian as a standardized language construct is not regulated by any body. 83.131.255.148 (talk) 19:57, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Serbian and Croatian are not languages, they're part of one and the same language. --JorisvS (talk) 17:42, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Croat anon IP - we go by what the linguistic Reliable Sources say for the article. Yet again. For the 2,873rd time.HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Serbian and Croatian are indeed languages, and very much so. The eponymous language name per nation is the most commonly used term accordingly, and this phenomenon stretches to Bosnian and Montenegrin (and the Bunjevci language too). With Pan-Slavism pushed to one side and only looking at the case scientifically and linguistically, these languages - through personal choice of where speakers base their standards - maintain close enough links to achieve the pluricentric umbrella Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serbian. But it is still wholly accurate to refer to the individual standards as languages, after all, they each have status somewhere. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 02:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

No they're not. They are easily mutually intelligible, and hence (part of) the same language, by definition of the word 'language'. They are distinct standardized forms of the language that in English is called Serbo-Croatian. Official status is irrelevant to something being or not being a language. There are tons of very distinct languages that have no official recognition anywhere. --JorisvS (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm with the anon and Evlekis here. Although we can classify Serbo-Croatian as one genetic language, the fact is that it is not one standard language (as we acknowledge in the lead). The standard "daughter" languages are regulated separately. Stating in the infobox that it is regulated by Serbian and Croatian councils is misleading: it would imply that it is somehow "jointly" regulated (like Spanish language), which is not true. Maybe we could just say "multiple institutions separately", but it would be better that we just erase the entry and explain the situation in the text. No such user (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. Do you think this edit of mine solves it? --JorisvS (talk) 17:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's what we do w Hindustani. — kwami (talk) 20:24, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the free and benevolent organisation, managed by pro-bono individuals, which I respect, but also a main source of information for our children and other non-local interestees. with that in mind I strongly propose to delete the entire notion of Croatian-Serbo (Serbo-Croatian) "language" as there has never been such apart of being offitialy recognized by ex Yougoslavia, but never taught in schools. We could have as well named it english-american or any other synonim with any logical reason. We each learnt and spoke our own language but called it (was the only legal way to) this "language". Considering there will never be a peace on this topic, until our govermental institutions agree and send offitial national standpoint, I strongly motion that all related articles are permanently deleted. AGM, Split, Croatia

Yes, Wikipedia is not tied to any governmental regulation, nor to any nationalistic POV. The fact is that there is a single non-Slovenian West South Slavic language whose most common name in English is "Serbo-Croatian". Thus we have an article that covers that language, its dialects, and the three national standards based on the Shtokavian dialect. Live with it. --Taivo (talk) 14:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Precisely to avoid any nationalistic POV I asked to remove this and like articles; there has never been any type of common language, just a mix up called by two equal names, Croatian-Serbo and Serbo-Croatian, respective of the area of the usage. I agree to have the notion in wikipewdia about the synonim, but this is not common language. Should you requre additional education on the topic, take one before lecturing others. Being a volunteer, which I respect, does not mean having right to be wrong in spite of the obvious, and in addition, scientific facts. You have the responsibility that reaches much beyond your nose. Accept it or be fair and withdraw. I am sure I speak for both nations here, Croatian and Serbian. A.Matejcic, Split — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.122.194 (talk) 11:10, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, you're the one who is quite wrong about this. There has been and there still is a common language. This language is spoken from Croatia to Serbia and everything in between, but does not have a common standardized/official form, but that is completely irrelevant to it being a language. That it generally goes by different names in the respective countries is also irrelevant. What is relevant is that speakers from Croatia have no trouble understanding speakers from Serbia, and vice versa. In English, this common language is called "Serbo-Croatian". --JorisvS (talk) 11:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)