I’m sick and tired of foreigners and even natives debating on whether Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are the same language and how different they are; that there are fewer differences between them than between American, Australian, British and whatever English.
In short: they are different, but very similar lingoes; definitely more different than different varieties of English. Anyone who says differently (considering English and Serbocroatian comparison, that is), either doesn’t speak English or Serbocroatian; take your pick 🙂
You can look at Serbocroatian as a macrolanguage with three standards (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) and a bunch of dialects.
Now, a bit of further elaboration 🙂
First, you must distinguish a dialect from a standard language. I’m saying this because I’m sick of people – especially natives who think Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are one and the same – saying the three are dialects of the same lingo when they are most certainly referring to standards. I mean, people who don’t know even such a basic distinction actually presume to tell anybody what certain languages are and aren’t! How self-absorbed can you get?! Dialects of a certain lingo can very so much that there is virtually no mutual ineligibility between a speaker of a certain dialect and a speaker of another even though the language in question is the same. That would be why (most) lingoes have a standard language or, in cases like Serbocroation, more than one. I would call the various standards of English just variations because, accents aside, standard English in the US, UK, Straya etc. doesn’t differ that much (spelling differences are minimal and neither are reflected to pronunciation nor to accent). The point is that a Yank would read a text the same regardless of the standard or spelling employed and it would take you a rather long time to identify where the text came from; eventually you might realize, but only if vocabulary and/or phrases of a certain region were frequently used. Same goes for Aussies and Brits. For example, how would you, as a native speaker, say color? How would you say colour? When I read a Serbian text, on the other hand, the person listening to me realizes I’m reading Serbian rather quickly.
Serbocroatian is a shining example of standard languages and dialects. So, there are three standards – Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian – which are very similar and totally mutually intelligible, and loads of dialects which often ain’t that similar; they can differ so much that there can be barely any – if any at all – mutual intelligibility even in the same country (namely in Croatia). The most important matter to point out here is that dialects do not follow (political) borders and when people identify their lingo, they usually identify it with their ethnicity. That’s why a Bosniak in Sarajevo‘s going to say he speaks Bosnian, a Croatian that he speaks Croatian and a Serb that he speaks Serbian even though everybody in Sarajevo speaks the same (although people might use Croatisms or Serbisms more often in their speech to emphasize they’re either Croatian or Serbian). Basically, spoken language takes structure and vocabulary from an area where people (that is, speakers) live despite how they call the language they speak. That’s why, people in areas such as the aforementioned Sarajevo (Bosnian capital), usually just call their lingo “our language”.
Moreover, a Croatian from northern Croatia and a Croatian from Dalmatia, don’t understand a word of their spoken lingo despite they both claim to be speaking Croatian (as I said, this is why standardized languages exist 😉). A little extension: a Croatian and a Slovene around the border speak the same yet the Croatian says he speaks Croatian (and turns to standard Croatian when he needs to) and the Slovene says he speaks Slovenian (and turns to standard Slovenian when he needs to). Standard Croatian and Standard Slovenian ain’t mutually intelligible, so the two guys wouldn’t understand each other if they were speaking standard lingoes (without additional language learning that is 😉). But while the mentioned Northener and Dalmatian don’t understand each other’s dialects, they use the same standard lingo to communicate.
In terms of English, the UK has a lot of dialects. As I’m but a humble foreign speaker and, therefore, not a Brit, I can’t really say how big those differences are and ask British readers to confirm the claim 🙂 I know, though, that I understand shit when a Londoner speaks his slang and when a Glasgower speaks his, and I’m pretty sure the two would understand shit of what each is saying (mkay, probably more than me since they are English speakers, but still…)
All in all, dialects and standard languages are a different matter. Savvy? 🏴☠️
So while standard Bosnian, standard Croatian and standard Serbian are mutually intelligible (because all Serbocroatian standards are based on the East Hercegovian dialect, but were developed in two main cultural centres which were separated by a country border at the time), dialects can differ a lot and mutual intelligibility is not the only criterion to distinguish lingoes. Would you say that Hindi and Urdu are the same? Bulgarian and Macedonian? Indonesian and Malaysian? Danish, Norwegian and Swedish? Those are just examples I can think of.
Moreover, although we – Bosniaks, Croatians and Serbs (and Montenegriners) – all understand each other perfectly, the structure of Standard Croatian and Standard Serbian can differ a lot; aye more than American 🇺🇸 Australian 🇦🇺 British 🇬🇧 Also note that the differences between various English standards can mostly be attributed to the lingo being spoken natively around the globe, (Tell me again. What’s the distance between the US and the UK? UK and Straya? US and Straya?) Serbocroatian, on the other hand, is spoken in a rather small compact area (namely Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro). Just check out the map below: 😉
Before Montenegriners 🇲🇪 start jumping at me for not mentioning them earlier, I didn’t do it because Montenegrin is undergoing standardization process and because most ethnic Montenegriners say they speak Serbian anyway. I guess it can be compared to how many Scots speakers say they speak English 🤷🏻
Finally, the term Serbocroatian. As I said, you can look at Serbocroatian as a macrolanguage with three standards and a bunch of dialects. Therefore, it’s logical to use the term when you’re referring to something relevant for every standard or when you simply can’t distinguish which one you’re talking about (just keep in mind there is a difference 😉) which is not at all unusual for foreigners. Now, the term had been stigmatized in Yugoslavia because it was used for the name of an official language of the Federation (and many republics within as well). Furthermore, Yugoslav authorities tried to eliminate the uniquenesses of each standard as much as possible so that we would indeed end with one standard language. Of course, it’s not language’s fault people are assholes, so I have nothing against the term and use it frequently when referring to the aforementioned (but I must warn you that you might wanna avoid the term in front of natives because people are assholes and someone actually might take offence 🤔). Well, I use the term in English at least. Like I said before, natives – including me – usually say “our language” to refer to Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian collectively, which is deemed “politically correct”… 😕 Well, I could hardly say that to someone who doesn’t know what bloody language is “mine”, right?
Since the end of the war, an abbreviation BCS (for Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) (the one I used in the address of this 👆🏻 post 👆🏻 😉) has been used more and more and since it’s short, why not?
Hmm… 🤔 maybe I should finish the post by saying that I speak Croatian and understand Bosnian and Serbian 😉 I mean, if I were to take a Serbian grammar test, I know I would flunk; mkay, maybe I would pass in the end, but I’d score poorly 😀 Savvy? 🏴☠️
That’s it. Hope I shed some light on the matter 🙂
Posted on 18th August, 2020 at 17:37 GMT
Use Time Zone Converter to quickly convert the time
Nelandir's Independent Trading Co. (New York - Paris - Dubrava) 