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Another Serbo-Croatian question | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5361 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 7 30 December 2010 at 9:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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As a disclaimer, please just assume I know little to nothing about Serbo-Croatian, Croatian, Serbia, Bosnia, etc in general. If I offend anyone, please, I beg you, assume it is because I am a total idiot.
That being said, I've got a question about the differences between Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian. I've been doing some reading about the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, particularly about the ethnic cleansing that occurred (which seems to have been imposed by all sides at various points). My question is: how did they know who was who? I've been to Croatia once, and most people looked the same... if you had a gun to my head, I wouldn't have been able to tell who was a Serb and who was a Croat. So if the Croats wanted to get people out of a certain city, or the Serbs wanted to get Muslims out of a certain area in Bosnia, or vice a versa (trying to bring this back to the point of the message), would the language differences be enough to point out who is who? Obviously there are religious ties as well, between Catholics/Muslims/Orthodox, but people don't go around with t-shirts on saying "I'm a Serb Orthodox" etc. Several of the posts I've read on the forum have said there is essentially no difference between these languages, which used to be called Serbo-Croat/Srpsko-Hrvatski. Some others say there there is enough of a difference to tell. So that's my question: if someone was trying, for purposes of ethnic cleansing, to identify a Serb/Bosnian/Croat, and they couldn't tell simply by looking at them, is there enough of a difference in the language spoken by these three peoples to tell *simply by listening to them speak*? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 2 of 7 30 December 2010 at 9:45am | IP Logged | |||||
The short answer - the only answer- is that people of all three ethnic groups spoke the same language in the same particular area. Thus, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in Sarajevo all look physically basically the same and speak the same dialect of that particular area. Likewise in Bihac, Mostar, Djakovo, Split, Dubrovnik, Novi Pazar, Sremska Mitrovica, etc. It is possible that there might be some *slight* differences in vocabulary here and there, more so in villages than in cities, and more so now than before the wars. However, these are very minor and have mostly to do with things tied to religion, e.g. Muslims might call a funeral a dzenaza and forgiveness haliliti (both Arabic words), whereas Serbs would say sahrana and oprostiti (Slavic words). I believe Croats use the same two words as Serbs, but I'm not sure. The only fail-safe method of distinguishing between the three ethnic groups is religious affiliation. Even in the case of Muslims, some have names that could appear to be Christian, e.g. Filipovic and Kovacevic. However, most Muslims have surnames (and especially names) that inform you of their religion. Likewise, some Serbs and Croats have names that could appear to be Muslim, e.g. Hadzibabic and Karadzic. Serbs and Croats, both being Christian nations, have generally have more similar names and are much harder to distinguish on the basis of names. There are some names and surnames that are more characteristically one or the other (e.g. Ante and Franjo vs. Lazar and Nebojsa) but there is great overlap in both names and even surnames. So no, neither language nor physical appearance nor even names could distinguish between the three groups 100% of the time. The only fail-safe identifier is religious affiliation. Your post also stems from not understanding the nature of these conflicts, which were primarily between local people. Everyone in the village (and the town) knew who belonged to which ethnic group and that was easy to know based on whether they celebrated Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Catholic Christmas and Easter, or Eid Bajram. Edited by Merv on 30 December 2010 at 10:00am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5361 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 3 of 7 30 December 2010 at 10:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Merv, thanks so much for the answer. A few particular instances made me ask. I've read about the initial JNA incursion into Bijeljina, which appears to have been mostly Serbian Serbs coming into a Bosnian city which had Bosnian Serbs. And somehow they managed to find out who was Bosniak. Of course, if it's a small village, as you mention, everyone would know everyone, but if you have a military coming in from across the border, I assume they would have to find some other way to identify people (other than local Serbs/Croats/Bosniaks/whomever pointing them out). It seems like it would be easy in areas which were predominantly Muslim in Bosnia, but, for example, during Operation Storm, how did the Croats know? if they are in what was their own country, and then pushing into Bosnia a bit as well, in towns which were mixed Croat/Serb... I don't know. If you're saying that there is essentially no noticeable difference language wise, then I'm imagining it would be easy to trick someone into thinking you're one or the other in order to avoid being kicked out of your home, etc.
This, of course, assumes that someone would even want to do that; i.e., a Serb to pretend he is a Croat, or a Croat to pretend he is a Serb. Anyway, thanks for the answer. People have said that despite the fact that now they are "different languages," the differences are even less noticeable, than, say British English and American English. I think it would be rather easy if someone wanted, say, to kick out all Australians in Kalamazoo, to identify them by the way they speak. Seems that didn't play a factor in Yugoslavia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 7 30 December 2010 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As Merv suggests it would have been more likely that the JNA would have distinguished people with the means above. In general, people do tend to speak the same way when they live in the same area, and so using a speech sample wouldn't be the most reliable way, given that it's not impossible for someone to switch to the "good guy's sub-dialect" under threat of invasion or execution.
However in at least certain areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina there are some cases where it may be possible to distinguish people on their speech alone (assuming that people are completely incapable of switching their sub-dialect to save their lives). Linguists have found that in some areas Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats tend to speak natively a Štokavian-Ikavian subdialect ("Younger Ikavian") while neighbouring Bosnian Serbs tend to speak natively a Štokavian-Ijekavian subdialect ("Eastern Herzegovinian"). However it takes careful analysis to spot the difference, and as I stated above, it's not impossible for the Bosniak or Bosnian Croat to mimic the Bosnian Serb's stereotyped sub-dialect with a few adjustments (or a Bosnian Serb to mimic convincingly the stereotyped sub-dialect of a Bosniak or Bosnian Croat after making adjustments). Another thing is that segregating such a village's population could have yielded false positives. I'm certain that invading soliders/combatants killed more than a few of their own ethnically-kindred civilians because the civilians' native dialect was felt as being that of the "bad guys" (whoever they were in the invaders' point of view), got thrown off by someone having an "atypical" name (e.g. an Bosnian Croat with a stereotyped Serbian family name), or some other silly reason (e.g. maybe some vengful neighbour insisted that certain people in the village were actually enemies of the invaders because they belonged to a different religion). Of course this can be further complicated by people of mixed ancestry, although this wouldn't have been as prevalent as in larger cities since rural populations tend to be more conservative. It's less likely in the village for the Moslem to marry a Christian, than it is in a more cosmopolitan or secular environment in somewhere such as Sarajevo. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 5 of 7 30 December 2010 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think both posts illustrate a lack of knowledge of the circumstances of the conflict. Before the guns started
shooting, everyone knew who/what everyone else was. Tensions had been rising for months. The JNA was not in the business of segregating people by nationality. They naturally gravitated towards the ethnic group that comprised most of their lower ranks and that wasn't shooting at them (i.e. the other two were). Paramilitaries, of course, were far more actively interested in identifying people and kicking them out (or in some cases killing them). They usually would have been comprised of a local factor (i.e. locals who joined the paramilitary) as well as a higher level organizer, which may have been a local or have roots elsewhere. Furthermore, the people most likely to be targeted would be fighters or men of fighting age known to sympathize with this or that party of the enemy (e.g. membership in the SDS or the SDA or the HDZ). So this question of identifying people was not at all difficult. Incidentally, the conflicts were not purely along ethnic lines. There were cases of Muslims aligned with Serbs and Croats against other Muslims (e.g. in Bijelina/Semberija there were Muslim units in the BSA and also the Fikret Abdic enclave in Velika Kladusa). There were cases of Serbs and Croats aligned with Muslims against other Serbs Croats, e.g. general Jovan Divjak in the AmBIH. I do think the point Chung brings up is interesting. It is possible that in certain areas of Bosanska Krajina the Croats speak ikavian and the Serbs speak ijekavian and then the Muslims speak both dialects (more so one or the other based on their neighbors). I had not thought of this point. But in general, my earlier point does hold. I have never heard of language shibboleths having been used in the region. I *have* heard of religious prayer shibboleths being used in the region during WWII, but that's a whole other story. Edited by Merv on 30 December 2010 at 7:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 7 30 December 2010 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Operation Storm would have posed a similar problem for the Croatian army in that they would have run across locals and wouldn't have been able to reliably distinguish the Croatian Croat and the Croatian Serb on comparing their speech alone. Again they would have fallen back on the methods mentioned above (i.e. ask locals who's who or get the names of a settlement's inhabitants) if the Croatian military units had interpreted "liberation" as "freeing it of Serbian presence" (i.e. expelling or even killing anyone perceived as a Serb including genuine Croatian Serbs whose families had been living in Lika for a few centuries). However if you believe the Croatian nationalist retelling of Operation Storm, this subject would have been moot or inapplicable since Lika was supposed to have been practically deserted and so reports of "ethnic cleansing" in the region by the Croatian army or its segregating the civilians by any means (including language) would be thus unfounded.
I wasn't thinking so much of the JNA (although their nominal command to restore order or preserve Yugoslavia's integrity could have been interpreted in varying degrees by the rank-and-file) but of irregulars or combatants with a looser command structure. Remember that mercenaries fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina treated the differences between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs with a different amount of sensitivity or understanding from what combatants born and raised in Yugoslavia had. In any case, professional soldiers or mercenaries trying to perform applied dialectology in a rigorous way is not something within their expertise. Thus segregation of a settlement's population for purposes of "ethnic cleansing" on language alone would have been foolhardy and laden with misidentifications, whenever it did occur. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5404 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 7 31 December 2010 at 10:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well it was easy to identify a Muslim. Just pull his pants down. Of course, that didn't always work, but it was a preferred method. Edited by Delodephius on 31 December 2010 at 10:29am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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