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Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5292 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 73 of 96 20 January 2012 at 6:19am | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Merv wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
I have a phonetics question -- In Bosnian, is the h
pronounced like the Russian x or like the
German ch in Bach? Or does it depending on surrounding vowels? |
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It is stronger than English but weaker than Russian, Polish, German, etc.
I notice no difference in pronunciation based on the surrounding sounds. The "h" in hrana, uhvatiti, uho, hleba,
hiljada, hartija, vazduh, bdah, pleh, etc. is all the same sound. |
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I'm afraid this leaves more confused than before -- I can only think of 3 possible sounds: Russian x, English h or
German/Scottish ch. I was referring to the type of sound it is, not how strong or weak it is, which is rather
meaningless. |
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It's a voiceless velar fricative, like Russian AND German AND Scottish English (whose h sound is classified as
voiceless velar fricative in all three cases). And discussing intensity is not meaningless in the least, it IS less
intense than in the other three languages I mentioned.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Fazla Hexaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6281 days ago 166 posts - 255 votes Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin
| Message 74 of 96 20 January 2012 at 11:41am | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
Delodephius wrote:
I lived in Serbia my entire life. Technically I was born in Socialist Yugoslavia, but
when I was 4 the country fell apart. Living next to Serbs all my life, but not being a
Serb, and not speaking Serbian every day, just with friends, relatives, classmates, co-
workers and other acquaintances, I still speak the language almost perfectly, I can
express myself better than most natives even and it's hard for most people to tell that
I'm not a native.
But not being a Serb gave me a unique observational position. I know the language of
the Serbs, and the Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrin, but I have no close feelings
attached to this language, yet I share the same history, the same experience these
people went through with their language in the last 20 years. And being quite an anti-
nationalist and against ethnic or in this case linguistic pride, my opinion on the
matter may seem very brutal and un-emphatic to most people.
From my knowledge and experience I can tell you that the difference between Serbian,
Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are trivial and largely unimportant. They are just or
even less as noticeable as are difference between different varieties of English. The
difference is that in their own arrogance, pride and stupidity these countrymen of mine
have created an abomination they refer to by different names. IT'S THE SAME LANGUAGE!
And after years and years I grew tired of listening to their squabbles and pig-ignorant
arguments.
So I just refer to the language as New Illyrian, given the fact that it was called
Illyrian for thousands of years, stemming from an erroneous belief that it was the
descendants of Ancient Illyrian, but if calling it Illyrian is incorrect then we should
start calling French as Gallo-Romance, or something like that. The name Illyrian was
abandoned in mid-19th century due to poor familiarity amongst the illiterate masses.
Well, these illiterate masses have no right of protest. Maybe a bit elitist of me, but
who ever asks an ignorant person for any kind of advice on any matter in real life
anyway?! They did what they were told back then and now when they are "free" they think
it was their opinion all along!
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You're pretty much preaching to the choir here. Most Serbs would be inclined to consider it one language, even to
call it Serbo-Croatian. That's what I used to do always and oftentimes still do. And most are perfectly OK with
using Latin script just as much as Cyrillic. Perhaps less so in Republika Srpska, but in Serbia itself and particularly
the cities you'll see Latin as often as Cyrillic. You sure as hell won't see Cyrillic in Croatia or Croat parts of Bosnia
anymore, or even the Muslim parts of Bosnia (despite the fact that Muslims used Cyrillic quite frequently in the
past). The language purging has been quite complete.
But it takes two to tango. As I have repeatedly had to deal with the nationalistic crap coming from the other side
(primarily Croatian, but also Muslim BS), which pretends that these are totally different languages (and of course
Serbian variants are worse, ugly, blablabla), I have come to feel that saying "Serbo-Croatian" is perhaps an easy
way out, a way to be "inclusive" and not nationalist, a way to deflect the impending judgment I'll face if I confess
my ethnicity.
Just like saying my parents were from ex-Yugoslavia was a way to evade saying they are Serbian, because saying
that in educated circles in the oh-so-tolerant US in the 1990s and even today was pretty much tantamount to
confessing membership in a Waffen SS division. So virulent was the propaganda and hostility.
So nowadays I say I speak Serbian and that my parents are Serbian (even though my dad is only half). Just as
Yehudi Menuhin's mother decided to proudly name her son "Jew" as a way to confront antisemitism.
At the end of the day, it was their decision to smash a unified language and country to pieces, so I have no need
to weep over the shards. I'll collect what's mine and move on.
For me to say "I speak Serbian" today is not a statement that I speak a different language from that spoken by
Croats and Muslims and the newly-manufactured Milonegrins. I could care less to distinguish myself from them
in that regard. I think the more native speakers there are, the better. But what it's really about, in the end, is that
I have no need to prop up a Yugoslav identity in front of myself or even diffuse my own language into a PC
"Serbo-Croatian" or the odious acronym BC(M)S. I am Serbian and I'll call my language as such, so that those
who would be inclined to hate or despise me can do so right away without harboring any doubts. |
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I won't get into the rest but if you want to avoid ethnic topics and debates please call Bosniaks as Bosniaks. You have every right to call whats yours as you wish, just show some respect to others if not only because there are Bosniaks like me on the forum.
Thanks in advance.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5292 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 75 of 96 20 January 2012 at 3:49pm | IP Logged |
No Fazla, there are obvious reasons why I would refuse to do so, and they needn't be set out here. I don't care to
turn this into THAT sort of discussion, but the abuse of language is one of the most dangerous things. It sets the
stage for later, far more serious, phenomena.
Names, labels, toponyms, ethnonyms, etc. are all important. We've seen that with the long debate between Greece
and FYROM about FYROM's attempt to name itself after an ancient region of Greece and then to establish some sort
of continuity from the ancient (Hellenic) Macedonians, with whom they have none.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Fazla Hexaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6281 days ago 166 posts - 255 votes Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin
| Message 76 of 96 20 January 2012 at 6:14pm | IP Logged |
It's incredible how first you write something like this
"Just like saying my parents were from ex-Yugoslavia was a way to evade saying they are Serbian, because saying
that in educated circles in the oh-so-tolerant US in the 1990s and even today was pretty much tantamount to
confessing membership in a Waffen SS division. So virulent was the propaganda and hostility. "
and then you acknowledge how you consciously refuse to call my people with its only real name in English because it just pisses you off so much that now it's not Belgrade anymore who gets to decide how can we call ourselves? Just start living in 2012 already: we are Bosniaks and that's the only name that we have in English.
You are just proving to people on this forum how yes indeed it's all about propaganda and unnatural hostility from the world against poor peace loving Serbs.... right.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5292 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 77 of 96 20 January 2012 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
Fazla wrote:
It's incredible how first you write something like this
"Just like saying my parents were from ex-Yugoslavia was a way to evade saying they are Serbian, because saying
that in educated circles in the oh-so-tolerant US in the 1990s and even today was pretty much tantamount to
confessing membership in a Waffen SS division. So virulent was the propaganda and hostility. "
and then you acknowledge how you consciously refuse to call my people with its only real name in English
because it just pisses you off so much that now it's not Belgrade anymore who gets to decide how can we call
ourselves? Just start living in 2012 already: we are Bosniaks and that's the only name that we have in English.
You are just proving to people on this forum how yes indeed it's all about propaganda and unnatural hostility
from the world against poor peace loving Serbs.... right. |
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Fazla, I haven't said anything insulting. Your own people called themselves Muslims for DECADES before they
called themselves Bosniaks. "Bosniak" was a neologism (actually a revived one, since it was used in a non-ethnic
sense by the Ottoman empire at times) dredged up by Muhamed Filipovic in 1993 or 1994 I believe. The intent is
clear: to portray Bosnian Serbs and Croats as less native to Bosnia than the Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks. Sorry, that
won't fly.
I like that stab at Belgrade, too. As if Tito - who created the title Muslimani (ethnic group) instead of
muslimani (religious group) in 1968 - were a Serb. A Croat-Slovene explant who exterminated the Belgrade
elite in 1944, created autonomous regions of dubious validity only in Serbia but no where else, imposed a
Montenegrin identity on all people in Montenegro, purposefully codified the modern Macedonian language based
on dialects that were the farthest from southern Serbian, not to mention many other grievances - is now
supposed to be proof of Belgrade hegemony. Unreal!
I'm out of here. The tensions are always close to the surface on these topics, but the days of delusional
Brotherhood and Unity and the Goli Otok gulag and Titoist lies that held Yugoslavia together are thankfully over. I
can't abide the lies and when I speak the truth some people don't like that.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7175 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 78 of 96 20 January 2012 at 7:10pm | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
Fazla wrote:
It's incredible how first you write something like this
"Just like saying my parents were from ex-Yugoslavia was a way to evade saying they are Serbian, because saying
that in educated circles in the oh-so-tolerant US in the 1990s and even today was pretty much tantamount to
confessing membership in a Waffen SS division. So virulent was the propaganda and hostility. "
and then you acknowledge how you consciously refuse to call my people with its only real name in English
because it just pisses you off so much that now it's not Belgrade anymore who gets to decide how can we call
ourselves? Just start living in 2012 already: we are Bosniaks and that's the only name that we have in English.
You are just proving to people on this forum how yes indeed it's all about propaganda and unnatural hostility
from the world against poor peace loving Serbs.... right. |
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Fazla, I haven't said anything insulting. Your own people called themselves Muslims for DECADES before they
called themselves Bosniaks. "Bosniak" was a neologism (actually a revived one, since it was used in a non-ethnic
sense by the Ottoman empire at times) dredged up by Muhamed Filipovic in 1993 or 1994 I believe. The intent is
clear: to portray Bosnian Serbs and Croats as less native to Bosnia than the Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks. Sorry, that
won't fly. |
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The irony with this reasoning is that Croatian and Serbian linguists usually insist on the term "Bošnjački jezik" (Bosniak) rather than "Bosanski jezik" (Bosnian) per most Bosnian linguists' preference. The latter group's thinking goes that each country/piece of turf must have a corresponding language name. If Hrvatska and Srbija can have "hrvatski" and "srpski", then why can't there be "bosanski" for Bosna (i Hercegovina)? The Croats and Serbs don't see it this way since somehow they've come to feel that calling it "Bosanski" must also refer to the language of the self-identified Croats and Serbs in Bosnia and that it somehow "denies" the linguistic background of those Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs by labelling "their language" as "Bosanski". Painting "Bosniak" as some kind of neologism meant to marginalize a certain set of people is at odds with the dynamics of the dispute (at least on the linguistic side). The Wikipedia articles also reflect this dichotomy in usage (and the implication for 'Bosniak' and 'Bosnian') with Croatian and Serbian articles for "Bošnjački jezik" versus the Bosnian one calling it "Bosanski jezik".
Merv wrote:
I like that stab at Belgrade, too. As if Tito - who created the title Muslimani (ethnic group) instead of
muslimani (religious group) in 1968 - were a Serb. A Croat-Slovene explant who exterminated the Belgrade
elite in 1944, created autonomous regions of dubious validity only in Serbia but no where else, imposed a
Montenegrin identity on all people in Montenegro, purposefully codified the modern Macedonian language based
on dialects that were the farthest from southern Serbian, not to mention many other grievances - is now
supposed to be proof of Belgrade hegemony. Unreal!
I'm out of here. The tensions are always close to the surface on these topics, but the days of delusional
Brotherhood and Unity and the Goli Otok gulag and Titoist lies that held Yugoslavia together are thankfully over. I
can't abide the lies and when I speak the truth some people don't like that. |
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Wow. It sounds just like what I heard from a former classmate in high school who was fiercely proud of his Serbian parentage but had spent his entire life in the arms of the Serbian diaspora in Chicago.
Edited by Chung on 20 January 2012 at 7:27pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5292 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 79 of 96 20 January 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
Chung wrote:
The irony with this reasoning is that Croatian and Serbian linguists usually insist on the term "Bošnjački jezik"
(Bosniak) rather than "Bosanski jezik" (Bosnian) per most Bosnian linguists' preference. The latter group's thinking
goes that each country/piece of turf must have a corresponding language name. If Hrvatska and Srbija can have
"hrvatski" and "srpski", then why can't there be "bosanski" for Bosna (i Hercegovina)? The Croats and Serbs don't
see it this way since somehow they've come to feel that calling it "Bosanski" must also refer to the language of
the self-identified Croats and Serbs in Bosnia and that it somehow "denies" the linguistic background of those
Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs by labelling "their language" as "Bosanski". Painting "Bosniak" as some kind of
neologism meant to marginalize a certain set of people is at odds with the dynamics of the dispute (at least on
the linguistic side). The Wikipedia articles also reflect this dichotomy in usage (and the implication for 'Bosniak'
and 'Bosnian') with Croatian and
%B5%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%BA">Serbian articles for "Bošnjački jezik" versus the
Bosnian one calling it "Bosanski jezik".
Wow. It sounds just like what I heard from a former classmate in high school who was fiercely proud of his
Serbian parentage but had spent his entire life in the arms of the Serbian diaspora in Chicago. |
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I don't know what the linguists say, I just know how I feel about the name issue and it's probably not far from
how Greeks feel about the Macedonia name issue. Perhaps I wouldn't feel that way if it hadn't been the case -
repeatedly - during the 1990s and still today that Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats were portrayed as invaders
rather than autochthonous ethnic groups fighting for their own territory in land they had inhabited since time
immemorial - and many centuries before the arrival of Islam to the area.
It's time our terminology in discussing these issues reflect the reality of three ethnic groups defined primarily by
religious affiliation (personal or ancestral) and all three are equally native to the area racially and have equal
rights to self-determination. The fact that Serbs also have Serbia and Croats also have Croatia in no way negates
the right of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia to self-determination.
The fact that Bosnian Muslims have increasingly identified themselves in a regional sense is not particularly
surprising, 1.) because their religious identity first gave them a sense of ethnonational separation from their
Christian neighbors during the days of the religiously - but not ethnically - discriminatory Ottoman Empire; and
2.) because as their religious observance declines and they increasingly reflect on that fact that religion generally
doesn't define a nation (Pakistan being a rare exception), they must grasp for something else.
But what?
They are unable to trace a continuous cultural line from some ancient people, as has been attempted (dubiously,
I might add) with Albanians>Illyrians and Slavic Macedonians>ancient (Hellenic) Macedonians.
Nor does their language objectively differ from that of their Serb and Croat neighbors (their Bosnian/Bosniak
language notwithstanding).
So what to do? Use the name of the region Bosnia as a way to affirm your (uniquely?) indigenous status, even
while passing down this identity through identification with Islamic faith and practice.
And then, when the time comes, some 50 years down the line and perhaps the demographics are even more in
your favor, you explain that the Serb and Croat invaders have no place in Bosnia and can go back to Serbia and
Croatia if they don't like being ruled by Bosniak Sarajevo.
As for your second comment, I have nothing to say other than that it would probably be best to carry on
discussions of history and ethnicity by private messages/mail since certain offendable parties are liable to get
angry otherwise.
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| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5422 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 80 of 96 20 January 2012 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
Well I use Bosniak to refer to Muslim Bosnians. And I refer to Macedonians as
Macedonians because they do indeed have descent from the Ancient Macedonians, despite
the fact the A. Macedonians didn't speak a Slavic language. After all, Southern Slavs
only have about 10-20% "Slavic" genes and they're all practically descendants of the
ancient inhabitants of Balkans. The so called "Slavic Migration" was rather a small
invasion and imposition of the Common Slavic language on the locals, while the invading
Slavs merged with these locals beyond recognition. Only their names survive, which
ironically aren't even Slavic but Iranian (Serb, Croat) and Turkic (Bulgar), after the
elite class which ruled over the Slavic speaking warriors and commoners. Common Slavic
was the Lingua Franca of most of East-Central Europe at the time, and it was the
official language of for example the Avar, the Khazar and the Rus khaganate, despite
their elites speaking Turkic or Germanic languages. Some linguists theorize that the
Gothic kingdoms were the first to utilized Common Slavic as a Lingua Franca and after
the Hun invasion it spread throughout East-Central Europe as the LF of the Hun Empire.
To me that sounds as the most reasonable theory as I have spent years trying to figure
out the mystery of the spread of the Slavic language.
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