Bosnian language

Bosnian Bosanski Pronunciation [ˈbɔsanskiː] Spoken in Region Southern Europe Total speakers 2.7 - 5 million [1] Language family Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western Serbo-Croatian Štokavian dialect Bosnian Writing system Latin alphabet Official status Official language in  Bosnia and Herzegovina Regional or local official language in:  Serbia  Albania Regulated by No official regulation Language codes ISO 639-1 bs ISO 639-2 bos ISO 639-3 bos Linguasphere Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

South Slavic languages and dialects Western South Slavic Slovene dialects Prekmurian dialect · Resian dialect Serbo-Croatian Bosnian Štokavian dialect Croatian Štokavian dialect Čakavian · Kajkavian Burgenland · Molise Torlakian Serbian Štokavian dialect Ekavian · Ijekavian Torlakian Slavoserbian Serbian Romany Užice dialect Differences between standard Bosnian · Croatian · Serbian Non-ISO recognized languages and dialects Montenegrin  · Bunjevac dialect Eastern South Slavic Church Slavonic (Old) Bulgarian Dialects Banat · Greek Slavic Torlakian · Meshterski Macedonian Dialects Aegean Macedonian Torlakian Spoken Macedonian Standard Macedonian Transitional dialects Serbian-Bulgarian Torlakian · Gora dialect Croatian-Slovenian Kajkavian Alphabets Modern Gaj's Latin1 · Serbian Cyrillic Macedonian Cyrillic Bulgarian Cyrillic Slavica Slovene Historical Bohoričica · Dajnčica · Metelčica Arebica · Bosnian Cyrillic Glagolitic · Early Cyrillic 1 Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet.

Bosnian (Bosanski, Cyrillic script: босански, Bosnian pronunciation: [bǒsanskiː]) is a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, one of the three official languages used in Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[2] The same subdialect of Shtokavian is also the basis of standard Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin, so all are mutually intelligible. Up until the dissolution of former SFR Yugoslavia, they were treated as a unitary Serbo-Croatian language, and that term is still used to refer to the common base (vocabulary, grammar and syntax) of what are today officially four national standards. The Bosnian standard uses the Latin alphabet, though the Cyrillic alphabet is also accepted, chiefly to accommodate previous usage in the former SFR Yugoslavia, but is seldom used in practice.

The name of the language is a subject of some controversy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia and is sometimes alternatively referred to as Bosniak (also spelled "Bosniac"; bošnjački), reflecting a position that it is the standard language of Bosniaks, not all Bosnians (i.e. Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks).

History

The modern Bosnian language uses the Latin alphabet. However, scripts other than Latin were used much earlier, most notably the indigenous Bosnian Cyrillic called bosančica (literally "Bosnian script") and dates back to the 10th/11th century. The Humac tablet, one of the oldest Bosnian literacy monuments, is written in this script. The script is of the greatest significance to Bosnian history and linguistics, since it is the one script that is purely native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and is linked to the Bosnian medieval monarchy and the medieval Bosnian religion where it was used abundantly. It can also be found in many royal state documents and as well on old stećaks. The substantial influence of bosančica on medieval Bosnia has unfortunately made it a target of controversial debates and propaganda throughout the history which has led to the tendency of some Croat and Serb philologists and paleographers to deny the exclusivity of association of the script with medieval Bosnian state, and associate it to Croatian and Serbian cultural provenience, despite its geographical origin and the historical prevalence of usage. Other, less important, scripts used include: begovica (used by Bosniak nobility) and arebica - Arabic script adjusted to write Slavic speech, also chiefly used by Bosniak nobility during the Ottoman era.

In addition, the oldest South Slavic document is the Bosnian statehood charter from 1189, written by Bosnian ruler Kulin Ban in Bosnian Cyrillic. Some other early mentions include one from July 3, 1436, where, in the region of Kotor, a duke bought a girl that is described as: "Bosnian woman, heretic and in Bosnian language called Djevena".

The irony of the Bosnian language is that its speakers are, on the level of colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogeneous than either Serbs or Croats, but have failed, due to historical reasons, to standardize their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian dictionary, a rhymed Bosnian-Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi, was composed in 1631 . But unlike e.g. Croatian dictionaries, which were written and published regularly, Uskufi's work remained an isolated foray. At least two factors were decisive:

• The Bosniak elite wrote almost exclusively in foreign (Turkish, Arabic, Persian) languages. Vernacular literature, written in modified Arabic script, was thin and sparse.
• The Bosniaks' national emancipation lagged behind that of the Serbs and Croats, and since denominational rather than cultural or linguistic issues played the pivotal role, a Bosnian language project didn't arouse much interest or support.

Prescriptions for the language of Bosniaks in the 19th and 20th centuries were written outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Probably the most authentic Bosniak writers (the so-called "Bosniak revival" at the turn of the century) wrote in an idiom that is closer to the Croatian form than to the Serbian one (western Štokavian-Ijekavian idiom, Latin script), but which possessed unmistakably recognizable Bosniak traits, primarily lexical ones. The main authors of the "Bosniak renaissance" were the polymath, politician and poet Safvet-beg Bašagić, the "poète maudit" Musa Ćazim Ćatić and the storyteller Edhem Mulabdić.

During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian was introduced as the sole official language; it was the language of all Bosnians: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. This was in conjunction with administrator Benjamin Kallay's promotion of Bošnjaštvo, a policy that aimed to inspire in Bosnia's people 'a feeling that they belong to a great and powerful nation'^[3] and viewed Bosnians as "speaking the Bosnian language and divided into three religions with equal rights."^[4][5] With the death of Kallay the policy was abandoned and in 1907 the name was changed to Serbo-Croatian, and this was the official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the parliamentary period, from annexation until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I.

In the days of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia the lexis was influenced by standard Serbo-Croatian and the Latin script became dominant. The official language name was Serbo-Croatian.

On a formal level, the Bosnian language began to take a distinctive shape in the 1990s and 2000s: lexically, Islamic-Oriental loan words are becoming more frequent; phonetically: the phoneme /x/ is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of vernacular Bosniak speech and language tradition; also, there are some changes in grammar, morphology and orthography that reflect the Bosniak pre-World War I literary tradition, mainly that of the Bosniak renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century. The legal distinction occurred in the mid 1990s. The 1993 language law declared that there was a single official language for Bosnians: "In the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Ijekavian standard literary language of the three constitutive nations is officially used, designated by one of the three terms: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian. Both alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic, are equal."^[6] However, the 1994 constitution declared that these were three official languages: "The official languages of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be: Bosnian language, Croat language and Serb language. The official scripts shall be Latin and Cyrillic."^[7]

The constitution of Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not recognize any language or ethnic group other than Serbian.^[8] Bosniaks were mostly expelled from the territory controlled by the Serbs from 1992, but immediately after the war demanded to restore their civil rights on those territories. The Bosnian Serbs refused to make references to the Bosnian language in their constitution and as a result had constitutional amendments imposed by High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch. However, the constitution of Republika Srpska refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks"^[9], due to the fact that the Serbs had to officially recognize it, but still avoid recognition of its name.^[10]

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)^[11], United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN), and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) recognize the Bosnian language. Furthermore the status of the Bosnian language is also recognized by bodies such as the United Nations, UNESCO, and translation and interpreting accreditation agencies.^[12]

Serbia includes the Bosnian language as an elective subject in primary schools.^[13] Montenegro officially recognizes the Bosnian language, as its 2007 Constitution specifically states that while Montenegrin is the "official language," also "in official use are Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian languages."^[14][15]

Controversy

Areas where Bosnian language is spoken (as of 2006)

The name for the language is a controversial issue, primarily for Bosnian Croats and Serbs, and as was mentioned above, it is alternatively referred to as "Bosniak" (bošnjački; also spelled "Bosniac").^[16] Of the three Bosnian ethnicities (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs) only the Bosniak ethnicity uses the Bosnian language in significant numbers. The heart of the issue is that the terms "Bosnian" and "Bosniak" are not interchangeable: "Bosnian" refers to all three ethnicities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while "Bosniak" refers only to Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). The name "Bosnian language" is controversial primarily because it is thought by some to imply it is the language of all Bosnians, which includes Bosnian Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs (who together form a majority in Bosnia) overwhelmingly speak Croatian and Serbian, respectively. It should be noted that all three languages are mutually intelligible and are examples of ausbauspraches. Due to the conjunction of historical circumstances, all are essentially identical due to being codified on the same Neoshtokavian dialect, with a number of people identifying their language as the unified Serbo-Croatian language.

A number of Croatian linguists, specifically Radoslav Katičić, Dalibor Brozović, and Tomislav Ladan, consider the appropriate name to be "Bosniak" rather than "Bosnian" whilst some other Croatian linguists (Zvonko Kovač, Ivo Pranjković) recognize it as Bosnian. In the opinion of the former, the appellation "Bosnian" refers to the whole country, therefore implying that "Bosnian" is the national standard language of all Bosnians, not only Bosniaks. According to Croatian participant Radoslav Dodig, the renaming of "Bosniak" into "Bosnian" was not a process, but a semi-hidden manoeuvre.^[17][18]

Phonology

Vowels

The Bosnian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

The letter r can also represent a vowel, when surrounded by two other consonants as in the words brzo (quick), trn (thorn), mrk (dark), vrlo (very).

Consonants

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English and most other Indo-European languages west of India, voicedness is phonemic, but aspiration is not.

In consonant clusters, all obstruents are either voiced or voiceless depending on the voicing of the final consonant in the cluster. This rule does not always apply to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон), personal names and across syllable boundaries.

/r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of the syllable nucleus in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r/. A similar feature exists in Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene, Czech, and Slovak. Very rarely, /l/ can be syllabic (in the name for the river Vltava, for example) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.

Grammar

Bosnian grammar from 1890.

The first grammar of Bosnian was published in 1890.

See also

• Swadesh list of Slavic languages
• Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language
• Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

External links

• Bosnian language at Ethnologue
• Introduction to the Bosnian language
• www.rjecnik.ba - online dictionary

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document "2006 edition".

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