Serbo-Croatian - Present Sociolinguistic Situation - Views of Linguists in The Former Yugoslavia - Croatian Linguists

Croatian Linguists

The majority of Croatian linguists think that there was never Serbo-Croatian language, but two different standard languages that overlapped sometime in the course of history. However, Croatian linguist Snježana Kordić has been leading an academic discussion on that issue in the Croatian journal Književna republika from 2001 to 2010. In the discussion, she shows that linguistic criteria such as mutual intelligibility, huge overlap in linguistic system, and the same dialec basis of standard language provide evidence that Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are four national variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language. Igor Mandić states: "During the last ten years, it has been the longest, the most serious and most acrid discussion (...) in 21st-century Croatian culture". Inspired by that discussion, a monograph on language and nationalism has been published.

The views of the majority of Croatian linguists that there is no Serbo-Croatian language, but several different standard languages, have been sharply criticized by German linguist Bernhard Gröschel in his monograph Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics.

A more detailed overview, incorporating arguments from the Croatian philology and contemporary linguistics, would be as follows:

Serbo-Croatian is a language

One still finds many references to Serbo-Croatian, and proponents of Serbo-Croatian who deny that Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and Montenegrins speak different languages. The usual argument generally goes along the following lines:

• Standard Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are completely mutually intelligible. In addition, they use two alphabets that perfectly match each other (Latin and Cyrilic), thanks to Ljudevit Gaj and Vuk Karadžić. Croats exclusively use Latin script and Serbs equally use both Cyrillic and Latin. Although Cyrillic is taught in Bosnia, most Bosnians, especially non-Serbs (Bosniaks and Croats), favor Latin.
• The list of 100 words of the basic Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin vocabulary, as set out by Morris Swadesh, shows that all 100 words are identical. According to Swadesh, 81 per cent are sufficient to be considered as a single language.
• Typologically and structurally, these standard variants have virtually the same grammar, i.e. morphology and syntax.
• The Serbo-Croatian language was standardised in the mid 19th century, and all subsequent attempts to dissolve its basic unity have not succeeded.
• The affirmation of distinct Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin languages is politically motivated.
• According to phonology, morphology and syntax, these standard variants are essentially one language because they are based on the same, Štokavian dialect.

Serbo-Croatian is not a language

Similar arguments are made for other official standards which are nearly indistinguishable when spoken and which are therefore pluricentric languages, such as Malaysian, and Indonesian (together called Malay), or Standard Hindi and Urdu (together called Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu). However, some argue that these arguments have flaws:

• Phonology, morphology, and syntax are not the only dimensions of a language: other fields (semantics, pragmatics, stylistics, lexicology, etc.) also differ slightly. However, it is the case with other pluricentric languages. A comparison is made to the closely related North Germanic languages (or dialects, if one prefers), though these are not fully mutually intelligible as the Serbo-Croatian standards are. A closer comparison may be General American and Received Pronunciation in English, which are closer to each other than the latter is to other dialects which are subsumed under "British English".
• Since the Croatian language as recorded in Držić and Gundulić's works (16th and 17th centuries) is virtually the same as the contemporary standard Croatian (understandable archaisms apart), it is evident that the 19th century formal standardization was just the final touch in the process that, as far as the Croatian language is concerned, had lasted more than three centuries. The radical break with the past, characteristic of modern Serbian (whose vernacular was likely not as similar to Croatian as it is today), is a trait completely at variance with Croatian linguistic history. In short, formal standardization processes for Croatian and Serbian had coincided chronologically (and, one could add, ideologically), but they haven't produced a unified standard language. Gundulić did not write in "Serbo-Croatian", nor did August Šenoa. Marko Marulić and Marin Držić wrote in a sophisticated idiom of the Croatian language, some 300/350 years before the "Serbo-Croatian" ideology appeared. Marulić explicitly calls his Čakavian-written Judita as u uerish haruacchi slosena ("arranged in Croatian stanzas") in 1501, and Štokavian grammar and dictionary of Bartol Kašić written in 1604 unambiguously identifies ethnonyms Slavic and Illyrian with Croatian.

Politics often becomes a major part of linguistic debates in this area.

The topic of language with the writers from Dalmatia and Dubrovnik prior to the 19th century is somewhat blurred by the fact they by and large placed more emphasis on whether they were Slavic rather than Italian, given that Dalmatian city-states were then inhabited by those two main groups. There was less notable distinction being made between Croats and Serbs, and this, among other things, has been used as an argument to state that these people's literature is not solely Croatian heritage, thus undermining the argument that modern-day Croatian is based on Old Croatian.

However, the major part of intellectuals and writers from Dalmatia who used the Štokavian dialect and were of Catholic faith had explicitly expressed Croatian national affiliation, as far back as the mid 16th and 17th centuries, some three hundred years before the Serbo-Croatian ideology had appeared. Their loyalty was first and foremost to the Catholic Christendom, but when they professed ethnic identity, they called it "Slovin" and "Illyrian" (a sort of forerunner of Catholic baroque pan-Slavism) and Croat – these 30-odd writers in the span of ca. 350 years themselves never mentioned Serb ethnic affiliation any time. It should also be noted that, in the pre-national era, a Catholic religious orientation did not necessarily equate with Croat ethnic identity in Dalmatia. A Croatian follower of Vuk Karadžić, Ivan Broz, noted that the Serbian affiliation was as foreign as Macedonian and Greek appellation at this time. Vatroslav Jagić pointed out in 1864:

"As I have mentioned in the preface, history knows only two national names in these parts—Croatian and Serbian. As far as Dubrovnik is concerned, the Serbian name was never in use; on the contrary, the Croatian name was frequently used and gladly referred to"

"At the end of the 15th century, sermons and poems were exquisitely crafted in the Croatian language by those men whose names are widely renowned by deep learning and piety."

(From The History of the Croatian language, Zagreb, 1864.)

On the other hand, the opinion of Jagić from 1864 is argued not to have firm grounds. When Jagić says "Croatian" he refers to few cases of referring to the Dubrovnik vernacular as ilirski (Illyrian). This was a common name for all Slavic vernaculars in Dalmatian cities among the Roman inhabitants. In the meantime, other written monuments are found that mention srpski, lingua serviana (= Serbian), and also some that mention Croatian. By far the most competent Serbian scientist on Dubrovnik language issue, Milan Rešetar, who was born in Dubrovnik himself, wrote behalf of language characteristics: "The one who thinks that Croatian and Serbian are two separate languages, must confess that Dubrovnik always (linguistically) used to be Serbian."

On the third hand, the former medieval texts from Dubrovnik and Montenegro dating before 16th century were not true Štokavian nor Serbian, but mostly specific Jekavian-Čakavian that was nearer to actual Adriatic islanders in Croatia.