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Serbo-Croatian

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Taiga
Diglot
Groupie
Australia
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Speaks: English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Serbo-Croatian

 
 Message 25 of 96
22 August 2007 at 11:25pm | IP Logged 
reineke wrote:
Lol I think some Croatians might have a problem with the term Balkans but that's their beef. One point I wanted to make was to look a little beyond linguistics. I would not refer to WWII concentration camps lightly, not to simply illustrate a point. I am very fond of burek, but I am more of a yogurt than rakija person. If I had to choose I'd gor for sljivovica. The point about Dubrovnik and SC was to illustrate why some Croatians wince and are perhaps more uptight about this issue even if we disregard the war. I was always fond of Karadjic and his big moustache. The term "naski" and varieties thereof is very old and has been used a lot especially at times when people were less ethnically conscious. During Jugoslavia the term "Jugoslavenski" was very liberally used. Judging who uses what form is a bit tricky as people mixed, travelled, watched each other's TV and lived all over the place. The reason for physical differences is more rooted in ancient forces and geography than it is related to the "original" look of either nation. I would imagine that Croatians vary in physical aspect the most. People in Slavonia look most Slavic, with round faces and ruddy cheeks lol but Dalmatians come in all shapes and sizes, from raven heads to blondies (why am I thinking about girls) while people from Hercegovina have their own particular features etc.
Not that I condone anyone going berserk on a foreigner but does that not serve as a bit of an indication what the languages should be called in both polite and impolite company? On one side you might hear ah, it's all the same, on the other you might actually upset someone. I don't think anyone has to enforce the term Croatian and Serbian on either population as both terms are used to refer to their language by an overwhelming majority of people not just "officially" but in everyday life. Calling someone a bad Croatian because of the way he speaks is obviously wrong but it was not an official "policy" even during Tudjman. It's more of a thing you would find on message boards or hear in a bar or from a snooty student of Croatian. The usual response would be to teach the offending party about a myriad of ways you can insult someone in "our language". Insisting on defunct Croatian words in official media was an official "policy" of course. Most people just laughed but they kept at it and little by little some words did come alive. I am actually fond of some. For others there's no hope.


well, my BOsnian, serbian and Croatian friends are still using "nashki" or "Nash" in Australia.
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espfutbol98
Diglot
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United States
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 Message 26 of 96
06 March 2011 at 4:25am | IP Logged 
okay, to be honest, I haven't read all the post before since I've heard this discussion so many times but it seems to lack some specific examples so I'd be happy to share some. To begin, I've been learning BCS for 4 years and live in the US so you might discard my opinion, or maybe because I'm only 17 but whatever.

Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian and I guess Montenegrin now all stem from Štokavski (except for some rare dialects) to begin with. There are 2 sub-dialects (Ekavski and Ijekavski) wich have been mentioned before that doesn't NECESSARILY point to either Serbian or Croatian (but many natives still make that generalization). Also most textbooks that I've seen say that the position of the question particle "li" is placed differently in the sentence which based on my experience with authentic texts is bull s**t (im referring to: Znaš li... instead of Da li znaš...)

The vocabulary (and of course the use of Cyrillic) are the main indicators of which language/dialect, for instance:

bre-ONLY serbian, slang for "man", "friend"
zdravo-"hello", greeting attributed to the days of Tito by Croatians (a greeting to all without regard to social class/formality)

prijatelj-"friend" in both languages but in Serbian, means more a "lifelong friend" while in Croatian, used generally and also for a lifelong friend.

drug-Serbian for a "regular" friend

drum-"road" but more associated with the days as Tito, Croatian usually uses "cesta" (or "put") although Serbian uses all 3 words.

the difference in što/šta is a difference in formal Croatian/Serbian but I've heard šta being used in Croatian sometimes.

Some words are a dead giveaway like saying glazba instead of muzika or nogomet instead of fudbal points you out as Croatian and not Serbian/Bosnian.

I haven't heard much Bosnian but it's basically a mix of Serbian (mostly) and some Croatian. They do have more Turkish influence like in spelling 'laku noć', they spell it 'lakhu noć'

To me, and all of the native speakers I talked to (quite a few), they are all dialects of Serbo-Croatian (or Yugoslavian). I believe that the separation is all political and nationalistic-trying to set the countries apart.

I'd like to hear your opinions about my post, I haven't seen this information in any of the discussions obout BCS I've read.
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Chung
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 Message 27 of 96
06 March 2011 at 7:59am | IP Logged 
espfutbol98 wrote:
okay, to be honest, I haven't read all the post before since I've heard this discussion so many times but it seems to lack some specific examples so I'd be happy to share some. To begin, I've been learning BCS for 4 years and live in the US so you might discard my opinion, or maybe because I'm only 17 but whatever.

Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian and I guess Montenegrin now all stem from Štokavski (except for some rare dialects) to begin with. There are 2 sub-dialects (Ekavski and Ijekavski) wich have been mentioned before that doesn't NECESSARILY point to either Serbian or Croatian (but many natives still make that generalization). Also most textbooks that I've seen say that the position of the question particle "li" is placed differently in the sentence which based on my experience with authentic texts is bull s**t (im referring to: Znaš li... instead of Da li znaš...)


Strictly speaking those four standard languages stem from Eastern Hercegovinian Neo-Štokavian, and yes it is true that many people generalize (or simplify) the distinction between "Croatian" and "Serbian" as one between ijekavski and ekavski. Unfortunately this fails to explain how roughly 1.5 million Serbs are native speakers of štokavsko-ijekavski (like many Bosnians, Croats and Montenegrins) and that standard Serbian itself comes in ijekavski or ekavski sub-variants.

Yes. "Znaš li..." is more frequent among Croats while "Da li znaš..." is more frequent among Montenegrins and Serbs. Bosnians use both without any marked preference overall. Despite the skewed frequencies, neither form is "wrong" for anyone (yet) and it is possible to see "Znaš li...?" used by Serbs and "Da li znaš...?" used by Croats. Low frequency of usage among users doesn't automatically mean that it's "wrong" or "ungrammatical".

espfutbol98 wrote:
The vocabulary (and of course the use of Cyrillic) are the main indicators of which language/dialect, for instance:

bre-ONLY serbian, slang for "man", "friend"
zdravo-"hello", greeting attributed to the days of Tito by Croatians (a greeting to all without regard to social class/formality)


More or less true. Croats are more likely to say "Bok" (< Bog) for "zdravo" which is an incomplete loan-translation from Austrian German Grüß Gott. Although I've heard Croats use "zdravo" with other Croats, while others skip these forms altogether and just greet one another with "di si?" or "gdje si?" meaning "where are you?" but understood in colloquial settings as "how ya doin'?" or "what's up?".

There are a few tendencies in grammar that divide Croatian from the rest of the standards but again they're tendencies and notable for frequency rather than any set of rules that is "more correct". An example is the Croatian preference (especially more recently) of adding -a to the masculine/neuter singular adjective in genitive and attempted reversal of the effective merger of dative/locative masculine singular by fixing -omu for dative and -ome for locative.

E.g.

"hrvatskog jezika" vs. "hrvatskoga jezika" (of the Croatian language)

"o hrvatskom jeziku" vs. "o hrvatskome jeziku" (about the Croatian language)

"shodno hrvatskom jeziku" vs. "shodno hrvatskomu jeziku" (in accordance with the Croatian language)

(To non-Croats "hrvatskoga jezika" is just as understandable and correct to them as "hrvatskog jezika" even if they themselves don't use it that often seeing the final -a as optional. Likewise for dative/locative, "-ome", "-omu" and "-om" were understood as meaning the same thing (but just stylistically distinct) since for former Yugoslavs the historically distinct endings of dative and locative had merged in the past. However for Croatian purists, "-oga" is handy because the other standards don't use it too often, and so frequent use of it can serve as a flag of "Croatianness". A similar idea has guided the prescriptions for "-ome" or "-omu" versus "-om")

espfutbol98 wrote:
prijatelj-"friend" in both languages but in Serbian, means more a "lifelong friend" while in Croatian, used generally and also for a lifelong friend.

drug-Serbian for a "regular" friend

drum-"road" but more associated with the days as Tito, Croatian usually uses "cesta" (or "put") although Serbian uses all 3 words.

the difference in što/šta is a difference in formal Croatian/Serbian but I've heard šta being used in Croatian sometimes.


So have I on the streets of Zagreb. "Šta?" is rather commonly used for "što?" despite what textbooks (and nationalists who like to emphasize the differences) would have you believe about how Croats and Serbs speak.

espfutbol wrote:
Some words are a dead giveaway like saying glazba instead of muzika or nogomet instead of fudbal points you out as Croatian and not Serbian/Bosnian.


Yes. There are plenty of these nationally-marked words - much in the same way as "petrol" for a Briton means "gasoline" or "gas" to a North American, or how "football" refers to different sports depending on whether you're dealing with English-speakers in North America or English-speakers outside NA.

espfutbol98 wrote:
I haven't heard much Bosnian but it's basically a mix of Serbian (mostly) and some Croatian. They do have more Turkish influence like in spelling 'laku noć', they spell it 'lakhu noć'

To me, and all of the native speakers I talked to (quite a few), they are all dialects of Serbo-Croatian (or Yugoslavian). I believe that the separation is all political and nationalistic-trying to set the countries apart.


That's the biggest driver in the distinction right now. Perhaps in a few decades (or centuries) these variants wlll diverge into less intelligible communicative codes, and then it'd be much less controversial/more defensible to treat BCMS as separate languages.

espfutbol98 wrote:
I'd like to hear your opinions about my post, I haven't seen this information in any of the discussions obout BCS I've read.


See the following:

BCMS profile (former Croatian profile)
Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian
Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian
Croatian
Croatian: što and šta
Croatian/Bosnian
Montenegrin
Orthographical Question about Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
“Serbo-Croatian” and its descendants
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espfutbol98
Diglot
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 Message 28 of 96
06 March 2011 at 5:46pm | IP Logged 
Thanks, those were all really good points.
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Whatever
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Croatia
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 Message 29 of 96
07 March 2011 at 1:27am | IP Logged 
I'm Croatian and first of all let me just say that I can't imagine someone wants to learn our language, I guess you really gotta love languages to embark on such a journey because it's not really useful to know it and most people here speak English anyway.

But what I really wanted to say regarding the differences in Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian....don't bother with that. Any way you learn it, you will be understood so don't get discouraged by that. While there are slight differences, bottom line is that you will be understood and that's all it matters.
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Whatever
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Croatia
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 Message 30 of 96
07 March 2011 at 10:34pm | IP Logged 
Dude....when you say stuff like that you only discourage people from learning it. I get having national pride and I do want Croatia to be distinguished from Serbia as much as possible but the language is practically the same. Bottom line, if people said what you wrote the Croatian way in Serbia, they'd be understood...and vice versa. No one will mind if a foreigner speaks it the Serbian way in Croatia.... He might get politely corrected here and there but no big deal, 95 % of it will still be right and appropriate in both Serbia and Croatia.
The important thing for people here is to learn the language, they don't care about the political stuff so emphasizing differences doesn't help here and it only discourages people.

Bottom line people, learn it any way you can if you're interested in learning it. Anyway it's good and it"ll get you through and make you understood. Don't worry about the differences, for you as foreignes who want to learn the language the differences are completely irrelevant. If you should worry about that at anytime, it's if and when you already master the language. Worrying about it before you master the language will only get you distracted and discouraged so don't bother with it.

Edited by Whatever on 07 March 2011 at 10:37pm

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bushwick
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 Message 31 of 96
07 March 2011 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
Whatever wrote:
I'm Croatian and first of all let me just say that I can't imagine someone wants to learn our language, I guess you really gotta love languages to embark on such a journey because it's not really useful to know it and most people here speak English anyway.
QUOTE]
no, they don't. also, language learning anyway goes beyond "usefulness", that's relative in any case

[QUOTE=Maks] Serbian language and Croatian language are two different languages:


funny how your agenda is pretty straightforward. sure, they are different languages, but this is, and will always be, a political classification. of course, it has to do with literature, vocabulary, etc. but technically, the two languages are clearly (CLEARLY) understandable to speakers of one another. not to mention that some croatian dialects (and serbian) are more incomprehensible than the two themselves.

mind you, your "proof" is hardly any proof. seriously, let's stop discussing this.
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Maks
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Croatia
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 Message 32 of 96
07 March 2011 at 11:08pm | IP Logged 
Sorry for bad English, let me introduce myself, I'm Max from the Croatian.
Study the south Slavic languages and know well the difference between the Croatian and Serbian.
Croatian and Serbian languages differ in 1 / 3 dictionaries.
The main dictionary is similar or the same, while the most civilized dictionary completely different.
Before the war I served in the army of Yugoslavia, together with the Serbs and not well understood their language, many times I did not understand what we are saying.
Understanding exists but is limited, many young people today do not know what we learned at the school.
Foreigners who have learned Serbian in Croatia did not find their way back and had to learn Croatian.

EXAMPLE:
English: Nose/Ear/Interlocutor/Collaboration/Air/Week/January.....
Croatian: Nos/Uho/Sugovornik/Suradnja/Zrak/Tjedan/Siječanj....
Serbian: Nos/Uvo/Sagovornik/Saradnja/Vazduh/Sedmica or Nedelja/Januar....
____________________________________________________________ _______________
EXAMPLE-SOUTH SLAVIC LANGUAGES:
* [[Bulgarian language]] : По отношение на изгорелите газове и
замърсяването на въздуха в Ерусалим, че ще бъде необходимо да се
вземат мерки за сигурност!
----
* [[Macedonian language]] : Во однос на издувните гасови и
загадувањето на воздухот во Ерусалим дека ќе биде потребно да се
преземат мерки за безбедност!
----

* [[Serbian language]] : У погледу издувних гасова и загађивања
ваздуха у Јерусалиму, било би потребно предузети мере безбедности!
(U pogledu izduvnih gasova i zagađivanja vazduha u Jerusalimu, bilo bi
potrebno preduzeti mere bezbednosti)
----

* [[Croatian language]] : Glede ispušnih plinova i zagađivanja zraka u
Jeruzalemu, bilo bi potrebito poduzeti mjere sigurnosti!
----
* [[Slovenian language]] : Glede izpušnih plinov in onesnaženosti
zraka v Jeruzalemu, bi bilo treba sprejeti varnostne ukrepe!
__________ ____________________________________________________________ _______________



Edited by Maks on 07 March 2011 at 11:25pm



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