Croatian Language - Sociopolitical Standpoints

Sociopolitical Standpoints

Croatian, although technically a form of Serbo-Croatian, is sometimes considered a distinct language by itself. Purely linguistic considerations of languages based on mutual intelligibility (abstand languages) frequently clash with sociopolitical conceptions of language, so that varieties that are mutually intelligible may be designated separate languages. Along these lines, the various varieties of Serbo-Croatian have distinct standard forms, the differences are often exaggerated for political reasons, and many Croats and even Croatian linguists regard Croatian as a separate language, and language is considered key to national identity. Croatian is unique in being written exclusively in the Latin script rather than in Cyrillic. The rejection of the term "Serbo-Croatian" as a cover term for all these forms is often based upon the argument that the official language in Yugoslavia, a standardized form of Serbo-Croatian, was "artificial" or a political tool used to combine two distinct people. Within ex-Yugoslavia, the term has largely been replaced by the ethnic terms Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, which have developed largely independently since the dissolution of Yugoslavia. These have been used as language names historically as well, though not always distinctively; the Croatian–Hungarian Agreement for example designated "Croatian" as one of its official languages, and Croatian is expected to become an official EU language with the accession of Croatia.