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Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrian, Serbian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6664 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 17 of 47 21 August 2006 at 9:28am | IP Logged | ||
It seems to me that nox wasn't aiming to lump the people together, just get a unity of language here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6952 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 18 of 47 21 August 2006 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with you, Journeyer. I wasn't talking about nox and he seemed quite clear in the linguistic side of things. As a foreigner, I still get frustrated by people with more extreme views on the matter since it seems to form part of a tense "us vs. them" idea that extends to culture and biology. I find that attitude to be quite counterproductive.
My point was more a way of letting people who emphasize the difference of the languages that I am aware of the difference. Unfortunately, whenever I have had discussions about the former Yugoslavia with Serbs and Croats, I often find that the discussions become arguments and I need to cover my a$$ a lot just to spare myself a little grief. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| オットさん Pentaglot Newbie Canada Joined 6463 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian*, English, German, Slovenian, Macedonian Studies: Japanese, Russian | Message 19 of 47 24 August 2006 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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If anybody needs any help with the three languages, and would like to learn more (Learn anything for that matter), I'm always available. Just PM me for AIM messenger or MSN messenger.
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| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6455 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 20 of 47 12 October 2006 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ado,
I tried to pm you and couldn't. Could you please tell me which alphabet you use when you write in Bosnian? I checked a Wikipedia article about Bosnian that says people use both alphabets. I would also like to know how to pronounce your username. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marin Triglot Groupie Croatia Joined 6855 days ago 50 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Italian Studies: German, Russian, Persian | Message 21 of 47 21 November 2006 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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A topic which will never die out. At least for a while ;) Yes, the languages are similar, very similar. Experts say that the difference is 9%. But people in Bosnia call their "regional dialect" Bosnian. Croats call their "dialect" Croatian and Serbs call their "dialect" Serbian language. And that are the official names of the languages. So why bother and try to convince people in something. Croats will always speak 'Croatian' and Serbs 'Serbian'. Why not respect that, why not respect the nuances and differences and great peculiarities of both languages/dialects? Or do we consider them only as Lingua Franca of the region? Some languages are dying out, why impose uniformity on those remaining? Edited by Marin on 21 November 2006 at 4:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6952 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 22 of 47 21 November 2006 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Most foreigners respect the differences. In fact, I've heard my fill of it when I visited Croatia. I have no problem with calling the speech in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia as... "Bosnian", "Croatian" and "Serbian" respectively. After all, dialects of the same linguistic base can also have different names. (How about Cantonese, Hakka, Mandarin and Wu? All of these "dialects" derive from the same base but are mutually unintelligible in speech.)
Breaking up Serbo-Croatian into Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian is still nomenclature and currently points more to political or geographical distinctions. In other words, it seems superficial and doesn't change the fact that people who use the modern standard versions of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian today still understand each other at least 95% of the time with no formal training in the other "languages" and that morphological and phonological similarities far outweigh the differences. (BTW, I don't like to equate the situation with Czech and Slovak, as some people do when they make the argument that if Czech and Slovak are separate "languages" then so should Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. As much as there is high mutual intelligibility between Czech and Slovak just like between BCS, the morphology and phonology between Czech and Slovak are indeed different - more than what one sees between BCS currently. It also helps that standard Czech and standard Slovak are based on dialects from central Bohemia and central Slovakia respectively - the difference of the two forms of speech coincidentally corresponded with the substantial distance between these areas, thus emphasizing the separation of the respective speakers. One can't say the same about BCS.) Of course, as time passes and the speakers of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia keep minimizing their contacts with each other and puristic organizations of each country keep altering their standard variants (or resist incorporating elements from each other's speech through borrowing), then Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian will cease to be "variants" or "dialects" of one neo-Stokavski dialect in a couple of centuries (I estimate) and instead be "languages" on the same level of difference as Italian and Spanish or Arabic and Hebrew. What I think is troublesome is that native speakers of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian can come off as being exceedingly touchy about the situation, to the point where outsiders start hearing rehashing of tiresome political views, grudges and skewed arguments (thankfully it hasn't happened yet in this thread, but it could go there quite easily). At that point foreigners start to tune out and understandably have a genuine problem with the polarization of the "debate" within the former Yugoslavia (and among some Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian expatriates) since it seems that objectivity about Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin (!) and Serbian is subordinate to one's ideology. One wonders what could have been if Tomo Maretic had failed in the 19th century, or if the Croatian intellectuals had not agreed to adopt a neo-Stokavski dialect of eastern Bosnia as the base of modern standard Croatian. Kajkavski-ekavski, anyone? ;-) Perhaps these arguments about Serbo-Croatian would have never come to pass and spared us all a lot of grief in classrooms, bars, cafes, chatrooms, forums, etc. Edited by Chung on 21 November 2006 at 6:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6564 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 23 of 47 22 November 2006 at 6:45am | IP Logged | ||
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The irony is that the future of Serbo-Croatian is much brighter if these four countries cooperate and use their common language as a strength, rather than creating and enforcing separate linguistic enclaves. Edited by Captain Haddock on 22 November 2006 at 6:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6952 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 24 of 47 22 November 2006 at 8:38am | IP Logged | ||
The trouble is that a lot of people in the former Yugoslavia are not interested in using the similarities between their dialects as a strength and would react quite negatively to any suggestions about resurrecting Serbo-Croatian. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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