Talk:Serbo-Croatian language

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Archive 1 - until 11 Dec 2007

[edit] Splitting the article

I agree with George D. Božović about splitting the article into two articles (with a minor change to rule out national bias) - one about the Central South Slavic diasystem and the vernacular dialects (srednjojužnoslavenski dijasustav), and one about the Serbo-Croatian literary language of 1850s-1990s (srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski književni jezik in Yugoslavia). Mrcina (talk) 18:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. - Francis Tyers · 19:03, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure we've been through this before, but Serbo-Croatian is a term widely used in the linguistic literature to refer to both the (rather cumbersome) "central south slavic diasystem", and to the literary language of Yugoslavia. I'm sorry you don't like the name, but that is the way it is. I agree that the Serbo-Croatian grammar section should be expanded, there are many good free resources covering this topic. - Francis Tyers · 07:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You say that linguistic literature refers to both topics with the same name. That is exactly why we need to split the article, regardless of the name - this is why disambiguation pages exist. I found the discussion you are referring to and all users involved (Larineso, Joy and Millosh) were in favor of the suggestion so I don't understand your objection and why you removed the split tag. Millosh pointed out the possible politically motivated repercussions (i.e. taking dialects from one language and adding them to another), but I think this could be circumvented by the name (and topic of the article) "South Slavic diasystem". Both divisions (linguistical, political, national...) and similarities (Torlak Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, Kajkavian Croatian and Slovenian) would be described in the article. Mrcina (talk) 12:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Both topics can be treated in the same article as they are one and the same. The article is about Serbo-Croatian, which will naturally include a section on the Serbo-Croatian literary standard. - Francis Tyers · 14:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course we are not going to split it. Simple explanation: we are writing an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia needs an entry for a widely used term Serbo-Croatian, just like it needs entries for Bosnia and Herzegovina (which you wouldn't split into Bosnia and Herzegovina) and just like it needs Balkan sprachbund. If this were a language-study course wiki, we would've considered most appropriate course of action, but since it's an encylopedia — we write about notable and verifiable topics, like Serbo-Croatian. Cheers. --★čabrilo★ 14:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think splitting of this article is perhaps not necessary, but there should be an article about the Central South Slavic diasystem as well (maybe as a concept suggested by some linguists), although I would personally rather move the dialects section to the CSS diasystem article. Moreover, an article about the CSS diasystem already exists on Croatian, Romanian, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias beside the one about the Serbo-Croatian language. --George D. Božović (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing to move at the moment. Besides, they refer to the same thing, and I most of the articles I read refer to serbo-croatian not central south slavic diasystem. - Francis Tyers · 15:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian is vastly the more used term (try doing a search on your favourite article archive for "serbo-croatian" and for "central south slavic diasystem"). - Francis Tyers · 15:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

That is because Serbo-Croatian refers not only to the diasystem we are discussing, but also to one of the languages of former Yugoslavia. That language was never called Central south Slavic language. Try Serbo-Croatian diasystem: 6,720 and Central south Slavic diasystem: 6,200. That is a close one. Mrcina (talk) 09:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian is spoken as a majority language in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia and Montenegro, and 
as a minority language in areas in Hungary and Romania adjacent to Croatia and Serbia.² 

2. Serbo-Croatian has been standardized as Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

4.1.2 The term “Serbo-Croatian” refers to a language which has officially been dissolved and replaced by “Serbian”,
“Croatian” or “Bosnian”. Since the formal aspects of the latter languages are practically equivalent, the 
all-embracing label “Serbo-Croatian” is here used, the specific terms “Serbian” or “Croatian” being employed for 
reference to the official Serbian and Croatian standards.

There are no significant structural differences between the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian standard languages, 
however (at least not yet). While socio-linguistically we definitely have three distinct languages, from the point 
of view of structural linguistics we are dealing with one language system.

One recent example from Tomić, O. (2006) Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features (Springer).

The statements are fairly pedestrian and need not be discussed, but the use of terminology is clear. - Francis Tyers · 15:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Second. No clear arguments to split. --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The Serbo-Croatian literary standard was an official language of the former Yugoslavia. There was political pressure to minimize the differences between Serbian and Croatian languages (with the omission of many of today’s languages/dialects) and create a single language and call it Serbo-Croatian. Now the political tendencies are the opposite - we have at least 3 internationally recognized languages and some more unrecognized languages/dialects, all of them developing away from each other. Now I suggest the following: Article 1 - Serbo-Croatian a virtually extinct language and Article 2 - The Central South Slavic diasystem (AKA Serbo-Croatian) a group (not a single language as the current name would imply) of spoken and developing languages/dialects. I understand that the more used term for the proposed second article is Serbo-Croatian, but this is a misnomer and it is not politically correct. The name should reflect the contents of the article and not be left unchanged for nostalgic, sentimental or political reasons or out of inertia. This way nobody would be offended and people could focus on the linguistics rather then on politics. Please, if you have any arguments except "everybody else does it like this" state them. Mrcina (talk) 20:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a policy for setting article names. It favours the most commonly used name, not the most "politically correct". The most commonly used name is Serbo-Croatian. We do not need to change the name for political reasons. - Francis Tyers · 01:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) it should at least be Serbo-Croatian languages. Mrcina (talk) 10:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian languages should redirect here certainly, but it is not the name used in the literature. - Francis Tyers · 12:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The linguistic view is that there is that there is one language "Serbo-Croatian", with multiple dialects and multiple standardized versions. It's common in Wikipedia that the article on a language is the same as the one on the dialect system. We have one article, Romanian language, not Romanian language (dialect system) and Romanian language (standard language) and this is the way it should be here. bogdan (talk) 12:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Opinions of linguists about "Serbo-Croatian" diverge, please read the article. I suggested the diasystem as a compromise that would encompass both languages and dialects, because dialects of different languages overlap. Are you really disputing that Croatian and Serbian are separate languages? Mrcina (talk) 13:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Croatian and Serbian two different standard languages. We don't need a compromise as there is nothing to compromise between. - Francis Tyers · 13:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, there is. The compromise I am referring to are Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bunjevac and Šokac languages. And please explain to me why there isn't a Croato-Slovenian or a Macedonio-Torlako-Bulagarian language. You have just the same arguments for them as you have for Serbo-Croatian. Mrcina (talk) 15:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh no there isn't! You are welcome to peruse the articles on the Hindustani language and Hindi-Urdu grammar. And I'm not making any arguments about those other articles, if you feel like arguing about them, then their talk pages, not this one is the place to be. - Francis Tyers · 18:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Look, I don't need to argue about the differences between the languages, that article already exists. You are comparing apples to pears here because, unlike Hindustani, there was no Serbo-Croatian prior to 1850, but there were Croatian and Serbian for about 1000 years. Croatian and Serbian aren't derived from Serbo-Croatian, it's the other way around. All I'm saying is that you aren't consistent in your claims. Why apply one set of rules to one language and another set for the remaining. Why should Croatian and Serbian be considered one language and Macedonian and Bulgarian two? And why stop there, explain please (with your Hindustani example in mind) why all south Slavic languages aren't considered one? Mrcina (talk) 18:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Those questions are better answered elsewhere. - Francis Tyers · 19:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Exactly! We both know the answer and it has nothing to do with linguistics. So please, reconsider your stance. Mrcina (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Mrcina, you don't know anything about languages. Your head is full od hatred and nobody will accept your senseless remarks. Croatian or Serbian or Bosnian is ONE LANGUAGE, all the world knows that and nobody can change that fact, neither you, neither your miserable senseless propaganda. You shouldn't put your nose in the areas you don't have a clue about. Bulgarian and Macedonian differ enough to be considered as 2 separate languages. For your big misfortune, it is not a case with Serbian or Croatian or SerboCroatian, which are one same language, and will always be one and same language.

Dear Francis Tyers, please continue with the good work and ignore all these not educated intrudors like 'Mrcina', who are doing nothing but spreading croatian nationalistic nonsense and hatred on wikipedia. Their propaganda is dying and they will all be defeated very soon. Keep up with the good work and Best Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.127.209 (talk) 05:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Please take your politics off this linguistics page. - Francis Tyers · 09:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not the one who brought politics into Serbian and Croatian languages. Please answer my question without politics. Why should Croatian and Serbian be considered one language and Macedonian and Bulgarian two languages? Mrcina (talk) 09:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not a political question. If you are interested in the Serbian and Croatian languages you are welcome to peruse and improve their pages: Serbian language, Croatian language. - Francis Tyers · 13:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Another of my $0.02, because I might have been overly vague in my first statement, and I agree that my examples were not the best ones without further explanation. We have a diverging opinion of what Serbo-Croatian language is. It is not our job to be prescriptive about this article, but it is our job to write about Serbo-Croatian language. Some see this term to refer to a standardized (i.e. literary) language, while others see it as descriptive of the language(s) spoken in Croatian, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro, some see it as referring to both, and we can reference all three views and dwell upon them in detail. E.g. back in the day when I had "Serbo-Croatian classes" in elementary school, the textbook said that S-C has so many dialects etc. but still prescribed a certain language. Good overview of this is given in „Srpski jezički priručnik“ (2007.) by Branislav Brborić (his tone of writing is also interesting to our discussion - although he represents all the views, he is still trying to be very persuasive at which he fails:). I'm all for having several articles about Serbo-Croatian — but when we run out of space in this one. --★čabrilo★ 10:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Now that we have established all that, would you have anything against a newly created article, called The South Slavic diasystem, that would contain all languages and dialects spoken in the territory of former Yugoslavia + Bulgarian, divided into western, central and eastern? Mrcina (talk) 12:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

You mean the page on South Slavic languages ? - Francis Tyers · 13:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. That makes my suggestion redundant, I take it back. You still owe me an explanation thoug. Mrcina (talk) 15:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with čabrilo. Serbo-Croatian is both the literary language of 1850s-1990s, and the vernacular dialect continuum (Štokavian-Čakavian-Kajkavian). In the latter case, some linguists refer to it as Central South Slavic rather than Serbo-Croatian in order not to use any particular national or ethnic name, because it is shared between several nations and peoples. I believe, however, that Wikipedia should have articles on both, and currently it only has one "unitary" article. I myself would move the dialects section to the Central South Slavic diasystem article and leave the literary language to this one. --George D. Božović (talk) 15:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that would be that Serbo-Croatian language would imply that it refers only to the standard language (I deliberately don't use "literary" — because much of the literature is to this day written using "old" standards), if we moved the section about dialects somewhere else. I won't propose any concrete solutions though, because I will hopefully be away from my filthy computer for the New Year's breaks so I won't be able to follow up on that. I do however consider that there is a lot of space for improvement and building upon South Slavic languages, and that it would be very hard to write about dialects and variations of Serbo-Croatian in detail without building upon the continuum that goes into Slovenian and Macedonian and Bulgarian. --★čabrilo★ 15:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology Examples

As I'm merely a fluent speaker of both, but not a linguist, I don't want to make any changes without verifying this, but I feel that some of the examples in the Phonology section are downright wrong.

"a" has an English approximation of bad. Pardon my ignorance of linguistic terms, but in the only way I've ever heard the word "bad" pronounced, this is completely wrong. "bad" is more of an "ea" sound. "a" in Serbo-Croatian would be more like the "a" in car IMO.

"v" is roughly similar to wait? Much as a banana is roughly similar to a pineapple? How about the "v" in carve for example?

"h" in loch? I've only ever heard "loch" pronounced with a completely silent "h". Or, more correctly, with the "ch" being more of a "k". I'd suggest "h" in help.

Again, pardon my ignorance of linguistic terms, but this is just what I noticed. As I said I have not made any edits as I don't feel I'm qualified to do so, but I encourage someone more qualified to review my suggestions and apply them as appropriate.Baggend (talk) 09:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you’re right about "bad", but you are wrong about Serbo-Croatian v and h. Serbo-Croatian v is the labiodental approximant not voiced labiodental fricative, and Serbo-Croatian h is the voiceless velar fricative (like Scottish ch in loch), not voiceless glottal transition as in English. These two Serbo-Croatian sounds don’t exist in English. --George D. Božović (talk) 17:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

On another note: in English there is no distinction between /dʒ/ and /dʑ/ or tʃ/ and /tɕ/. Maybe this should be added, because it looks a bit confusing to represent "check" and "choose" or "eject" and "Jews" as containing different sounds, even if it is "roughly". BalkanFever 08:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Light copyediting. Also, some questions and suggestions.

This is a very interesting article, at least as far as I read. It could use a great deal more sourcing, but overall I feel like I learned a lot reading it. I've done some light copy editing, but I've tried to avoid making any substantive changes to the material. Below are some suggestions I have for the improvement of the article which I was unable to implement because of my limited knowledge of the topic. I've also mentioned some potential problems I saw that a knowledgeable person could probably resolve. I apologize for the lengthy post, but I hope it will be useful to someone. I stopped working at "Views of linguists in the former Yugoslavia" because I ran out of time. If someone else wants to take up where I left off, that would be great!

The first paragraph says, "By extension, Kaykavian and Chakavian were often considered to be dialects (while the Torlakian dialect was never recognized in mainstream linguistics), but they were not in official use." I'm not sure what the phrase "they were not in official use" means. It seems to me that the writer could mean one of two things:

• That linguists never "officially" recognized that these were valid dialects, or
• That they were never given official status by any government (for educational use, for instance, or for use in government records).

If the first is what was meant, then we need a different word than "official," unless we can cite some more-or-less universally recognized organization of linguists that could bestow such a label as "official" to a dialect.

Speaking of which, this article uses the word "official" more than once in a sense that makes me uncomfortable. I've changed it wherever an alternative seemed clear to me, but it would greatly improve the article if someone with knowledge of the topic could rewrite those sections where it appears, or cite sources that justify use of the word. "Official" implies, to my understanding, the existence of some august (or at least coercive) body with the power to make such a declaration and expect that others will abide by it. Too often in this article, the existence of such a body seems uncertain. When I see this use of official in an article, I usually suspect that an author is trying, consciously or otherwise, to lend credibility to a statement of dubious reliability—something he intuitively feels must be correct, but on which he knows there is disagreement.

Could someone please translate the title "Slovanské starožitnosti" into English and place that translation in parentheses after the original?

The last sentence under "History of linguistic issues" asserted that "the Constitution of Montenegro (1992-2007) called it Serbian (Ijekavian dialect)." I have searched two online versions of the Constitution of Montenegro, admittedly in English translation (I assume the original document is not in English), and not found mention of the word "Ijekavian." I've therefore removed the last parenthetical phrase from the sentence.

—CKA3KA (Skazka) (talk) 20:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)