Shtokavian Dialect - The Yat Reflexes

The Yat Reflexes

The Proto-Slavic vowel jat has changed over time, coming to be pronounced differently in different areas. These different reflexes define three accents of Shtokavian:

• In Ekavian accent (ekavski), jat has conflated into the vowel e
• in Ikavian accent (ikavski), it has conflated into the vowel i
• in Ijekavian or Jekavian accent (ijekavski or jekavski), it has come to be pronounced ije or je, depending on whether the vowel was long or short.

Historically, the yat reflexes had been inscribed in Church Slavic texts before the significant development of Štokavian dialect, reflecting the beginnings of the formative period of the vernacular. In early documents it is predominantly Church Slavic of the Serbian or Croatian recension (variant). The first undoubted ekavian reflex (beše 'it was') is found in a document from Serbia dated 1289; the first ikavian reflex (svidoci 'witnesses') in Bosnia in 1331; and first ijekavian reflex (želijemo 'we wish', a "hyperijekavism") in Croatia in 1399. Partial attestation can be found in earlier texts (for instance, ikavian accent is found in a few Bosnian documents from the latter half of the 13th century), but philologists generally accept the aforementioned dates. In the second half of 20th century, many vernaculars with unsubstituted yat are found. The intrusion of the vernacular into Church Slavic grew in time, to be finally replaced by the vernacular idiom. This process took place for Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks independently and without mutual interference until the mid-19th century. Historical linguistics, textual analysis and dialectology have dispelled myths about allegedly "unspoilt" vernacular speech of rural areas: for instance, it is established that Bosniaks have retained phoneme "h" in numerous words (unlike Serbs and Croats), due to elementary religious education based on the Koran, where this phoneme is the carrier of specific semantic value.

Ekavian accent, sometimes called eastern, is spoken primarily in Serbia, and in some very limited parts of eastern Croatia. Ikavian accent, sometimes called western, is spoken in western and central Bosnia, western Herzegovina, in Slavonia and the major part of Dalmatia in Croatia. Ijekavian accent, sometimes called southern, is spoken in many parts of Croatia including southern Dalmatia, most of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, as well as some parts of western Serbia. The following are some generic examples:

Long ije is pronounced as a single syllable, by many Ijekavian speakers. In Zeta dialect and most of East Herzegovina dialect, however, it is pronounced as two syllables, . The distinction can be clearly heard in first verses of national anthems of Croatia and Montenegro—they're sung as "Lije-pa na-ša do-mo-vi-no" and "Oj svi-je-tla maj-ska zo-ro" respectively.