Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian

South Slavic languages and dialects
Western South Slavic Slovene Dialects (Prekmurje Slovene Resian) Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian standard languages Bosnian Croatian Montenegrin Serbian (Slavonic-Serbian) Serbo-Croatian dialects Shtokavian (Bunjevac Dubrovnik Eastern Herzegovinian Smederevo–Vršac Šumadija–Vojvodina Užican) Chakavian (Burgenland Molise) Kajkavian Torlakian Serbo-Croatian accents Ekavian Ijekavian Ikavian Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
Eastern South Slavic Church Slavonic (Old) Bulgarian Dialects Banat Torlakian Meshterski Macedonian Dialects (Western Southeastern Northern Torlakian) Spoken Macedonian Standard Macedonian
Transitional dialects Serbian–Bulgarian–Macedonian Transitional Bulgarian dialects Torlakian Gora dialect Croatian–Slovenian Kajkavian
Alphabets Modern Gaj's Latina Serbian Cyrillic Bulgarian Cyrillic Macedonian Cyrillic Montenegrin Slavica Slovene Historical Bohoričica Dajnčica Metelčica Arebica Bosnian Cyrillic Glagolitic Early Cyrillic a Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet.

Standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian are different national variants and official registers of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language.^[1][2][3]

History

In socialist Yugoslavia, the official policy insisted on one language with two standard varieties—Eastern (used in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina by all ethnicities, either with the Ekavian or the Ijekavian accent) and Western (used in Croatia by all ethnicities, the Ijekavian accent only). However, due to discontent in Croatian intellectual circles, beginning in the late 1960s Croatian cultural workers started to refer to the language exclusively as 'the Croatian literary language', or sometimes 'the Croatian or Serbian language', as was common before Yugoslavia. The language was regarded as one common language with different variants and dialects. The unity of the language was emphasized, making the differences not an indicator of linguistic divisions, but rather factors enriching the 'common language' diversity. In addition, Yugoslavia had two other official languages on the federal level, Slovenian and Macedonian, reflecting Yugoslavia's acceptance of diversity with regards to language use. No attempts were made to assimilate those languages into the Serbo-Croatian language.

With the breakup of the Federation, in search of additional indicators of independent and separate national identities, language became a political instrument in virtually all of the new republics. With a boom of neologisms in Croatia, an additional emphasis on Turkisms in the Muslim parts of Bosnia and a privileged position of the Cyrillic script in Serb-inhabited parts of the new states, every state and entity showed a 'nationalization' of the language. The language in Bosnia started developing independently after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992. The independent development of the language in Montenegro became a topic among some Montenegrin academics in the 1990s.

Serbian and Bosnian language standards tend to be inclusive, i.e. to accept a wider range of idioms and to use loanwords (German and Turkish), whereas the Croatian language policy is more purist^[4] and prefers neologisms^[5] to loan-words, as well as the re-use of neglected older words.^[6] Yet there is criticism of the puristic language policy even in Croatia. These approaches are, again, due to the different cultural, historical and political development of the three variants and the societies they are found in.

Writing

Script

Though all of the language variants could theoretically use either, the scripts differ:

• Bosnian and Montenegrin use both Latin and Cyrillic.
• Croatian exclusively uses the Latin alphabet.
• Serbian uses both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Cyrillic is the official script of the administration in Serbia and Republika Srpska, but the Latin script is most widely used in media and especially on the Internet.

Phonemes

All standard languages have the same set of 30 regular phonemes, so the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian Latin and Serbian Cyrillic alphabets map one to one with one another and with the phoneme inventory.

Some linguists analyze the yat reflexes ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ije⟩, commonly realized as [ie] in Croatian and Bosnian dialects, as a separate phoneme – "jat diphthong" – or even two phonemes, one short and one long. There are even several proposals by Croatian linguists for an orthography reform concerning these two diphthongs, but they have not been seriously considered for implementation.

The ongoing standardization of Montenegrin has introduced two new letters, ⟨Ś⟩ and ⟨Ź⟩, for the sounds [ɕ] and [ʑ] respectively. These are optional spellings of the digraphs ⟨sj⟩ and ⟨zj⟩. Critics note that [ɕ] and [ʑ] are merely allophones of /sj/ and /zj/ in Herzegovinian dialects such as Montenegrin, so the new letters are not required for an adequate orthography

Most dialects of Serbia originally lack the phoneme /x/, instead having /j/, /v/, or nothing (silence). /x/ was introduced with language unification, and the Serbian standard allows for some doublets such as snaja–snaha and hajde–ajde. However, in other words, especially those of foreign origin, ⟨h⟩ is mandatory.

In some regions of Croatia and Bosnia, sounds for letters ⟨č⟩ (realized as [tʃ] in most other dialects) and ⟨ć⟩ [tɕ] merged or nearly merged, usually into [tʃ]. The same happened with their voiced counterparts, i.e. ⟨dž⟩ and ⟨đ⟩ merged into [dʒ]. As result, speakers of those dialects often have difficulties distinguishing these sounds.

Orthography

Serbian language usually phonetically transcribes foreign names and words (although both transcription and transliteration are allowed), whereas the Croatian standard usually transliterates. Bosnian also usually follows the Serbian model.

Also, when the subject of the future tense is omitted, producing a reversal of the infinitive and auxiliary "ću", only the final "i" of the infinitive is orthographically elided in Croatian and Bosnian, whereas in Serbian the two have merged into a single word:

• "Uradit ću to." (Croatian/Bosnian)
• "Uradiću to." (Serbian/Montenegrin)

Grammar

Accentuation

In general, the Shtokavian dialects that represent the foundation of the four standard languages have four pitch accents on stressed syllables: falling tone on a short vowel, written e.g. ⟨ı̏⟩ in dictionaries; rising tone on a short vowel, written e.g. ⟨ì⟩; falling tone on a long vowel, written e.g. ⟨î⟩; and rising tone on a long vowel, written e.g. ⟨í⟩. In addition, the following unstressed vowel may be either short, ⟨i⟩, or long, ⟨ī⟩. In declension and verb conjugation, accent shifts, both by type and position, are very frequent.

The distinction between four accents and preservation of post accent lengths is common in vernaculars of western Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in parts of Serbia, as well as in parts of Croatia with strong Serb immigration. In addition, a distinct characteristics of some vernaculars is stress shift to proclitics, e.g. phrase u Bosni (in Bosnia) will be pronounced /ùbosni/ instead of /ubȍsni/ as in northern parts of Serbia.

The northern vernaculars in Serbia also preserve the four-accent system, but the unstressed lengths have been shortened or disappeared in some positions. However, the shortening of post-accent lengths is in progress in all Shtokavian vernaculars, even in those most conservative in Montenegro. Stress shift to enclitics is, however, in northern Serbia rare and mostly limited to negative verb constructs (ne znam = I don't know > /nȅznām/).

The situation in Croatia, is however, different. A large proportion of speakers of Croatian, especially those coming from Zagreb, do not distinguish between rising and falling accents.^[7][8] This is considered to be a feature of the Zagreb dialect, which has strong Kajkavian influence, rather than Standard Croatian.^[8]

Regardless of vernacular differences, all three standard languages exclusively promote the Neo-Shtokavian four-accentual system. Both dialects that are considered to be the basis of Standard Serbian (Eastern Herzegovinian and Šumadija-Vojvodina dialects) have four accents.

Phonetics

Feature	Croatian	Bosnian	Serbian	English
Opposition -u/e	burza	berza	berza	stock exchange
	porculan	porculan	porcelan	porcelain
Opposition -u/i	tanjur	tanjir	tanjir	plate
Opposition -o/u	barun	baron	baron	baron
Opposition -io/iju	milijun	milion/milijun	milion	million
Opposition -i/je after l/t	proljev	proljev/proliv	proliv	diarrhoea
	stjecaj	stjecaj/sticaj	sticaj	concurrence
Opposition -s/z	inzistirati	insistirati	insistirati	insist
Opposition -s/c	financije	finansije	finansije	finance
Opposition -t/ć	plaća	plaća	plata	salary
	sretan	sretan	srećan	happy
Opposition -k/h	kor	hor	hor	choir
	kirurg	hirurg	hirurg	surgeon
Opposition -l/-o after o	sol	so	so	salt
	vol	vo	vo	ox
	kolčić	kočić/kolčić	kočić	stick
Serbian often drops or does not add initial or medial 'h':	čahura	čahura	čaura	cartridge
	hrvač	hrvač	rvač	wrestler
	hrđa	hrđa	rđa	rust
Serbian drops final 'r':	jučer	jučer	juče	yesterday
	večer	večer	veče	evening
	također	također	takođe	also

Morphology

There are three principal "pronunciations" (izgovori/изговори) of the Štokavian dialect that differ in their reflexes of the proto-Slavic vowel jat vowel. Illustrated by the Common Slavic word for "child", dětę, they are:

• dete in the Ekavian pronunciation
• dite in the Ikavian pronunciation
• dijete in the Ijekavian pronunciation

The Serbian language recognizes Ekavian and Ijekavian as equally valid pronunciations, whereas Croatian and Bosnian accept only the Ijekavian pronunciation. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (regardless of the official language) and in Montenegro, the Ijekavian pronunciation is used almost exclusively.

Ikavian pronunciation is nonstandard, and is limited to dialectal use in Dalmatia, Lika, Istria, central Bosnia (area between Vrbas and Bosna), Western Herzegovina, Bosanska Krajina, Slavonia and northern Bačka (Vojvodina). So, for example:

English	Ekavian	Ijekavian	Ikavian
wind	vetar	vjetar	vitar
milk	mleko	mlijeko	mliko
to want	hteti	htjeti	htiti
arrow	strela	strijela	strila
But:
small arrow	strelica	strelica	strilica

A few Croatian linguists have tried to explain the following differences in morphological structure for some words, with the introduction of a new vowel, "jat diphthong". This is not the opinion of most linguists.

Sometimes this leads to confusion: Serbian poticati (to stem from) is in Croatian and Bosnian "to encourage". Croatian and Bosnian "to stem from" is potjecati, whereas Serbian for "encourage" is podsticati.

English	Croatian	Bosnian	Serbian
add by pouring*	dolijevati	dolijevati/dolivati*	dolivati
diarrhea	proljev	proliv/proljev	proliv
gulf, bay	zaljev	zaliv/zaljev	zaliv
to influence	utjecati	utjecati/uticati	uticati

Standard Bosnian allows both variants, and ambiguities are resolved by preferring the Croatian variant; this is a general practice for Serbian–Croatian ambiguities.

The phoneme /x/ (written as h) has been volatile in eastern South Slavic dialects. In Serbian dialects, it has been replaced with /j/, /v/, or elided, and subsequent standardization sanctioned those forms:

English	Serbian	Bosnian and Croatian
ear	uvo	uho
fly	muva	muha
to cook	kuvati	kuhati
sister-in-law	snaja	snaha
rust	rđa	hrđa

However, /x/ and /ɛf/ have been kept in many words as a distinct feature of Bosnian speech and language tradition, particularly under influence of Turkish and Arabic, and even introduced in some places where it etymologically did not exist. Those forms are now also accepted in standard Bosnian:^[9][10]

English	Bosnian[11]	Croatian	Serbian
easy	lahko or lako	lako	lako
soft	mehko or meko	meko	meko
coffee	kahva or kafa	kava	kafa
balm	mehlem or melem	melem	melem
sheet	čaršaf or čaršav	plahta	čaršav
cage	kafez or kavez	kavez	kavez
moulder	truhnuti or trunuti	trunuti	trunuti
defect	mahana or mana	mana	mana
scarf	mahrama or marama	marama	marama

Because the Ijekavian pronunciation is common to all official standards, it will be used for examples on this page. Other than this, examples of different morphology are:

English	Bosnian	Croatian	Serbian (Ijekavian)	Montenegrin
point	tačka	točka	tačka	tačka
correct	tačno	točno	tačno	tačno
municipality	općina	općina	opština	opština
priest	svećenik/sveštenik	svećenik	sveštenik	svještenik
male student	student	student	student	student
female student	studentica	studentica	studentkinja	studentkinja studentica
male professor	profesor	profesor	profesor	profesor
female professor	profesorica	profesorica	profesorka profesorica	profesorka profesorica
scientist	naučnik	znanstvenik	naučnik	naučnik
translator	prevodilac, prevoditelj	prevoditelj	prevodilac	prevodilac
reader	čitalac/čitatelj	čitatelj	čitalac	čitalac
But:
assembly	skupština	skupština	skupština	skupština
thinker	mislilac	mislilac	mislilac	mislilac
diver	ronilac	ronilac	ronilac	ronilac
teacher	učitelj	učitelj	učitelj	učitelj
writer	pisac/spisatelj	pisac/spisatelj	pisac/spisatelj	pisac/spisatelj
female writer	spisateljica	spisateljica	spisateljica spisateljka	spisateljica

Internationalisms

Also many internationalisms and transliterations are different:

English	Bosnian	Croatian	Serbian
to organize	organizirati organizovati	organizirati	organizovati
to construct	konstruirati konstruisati	konstruirati	konstruisati
But:
to analyse	analizirati	analizirati	analizirati

(cf. German organisieren, konstruieren, analysieren)

Historically, modern-age internationalisms entered Bosnian and Croatian mostly through German and Italian, whereas they entered Serbian through French and Russian, so different localization patterns were established based on those languages. Also, Greek borrowings came to Serbian directly, but through Latin into Croatian:

English	Bosnian	Croatian	Serbian	Note
Armenia	Ermenija	Armenija	Jermenija	Through Latin and Venetian in Croatian, through Greek in Serbian, through Turkish in Bosnian
Athens	Atina	Atena	Atina
Bethlehem	Betlehem	Betlehem	Vitlejem
Crete	Krit	Kreta	Krit
Cyprus	Kipar	Cipar	Kipar
Europe	Evropa	Europa	Evropa
Jerusalem	Jerusalem	Jeruzalem	Jerusalim
Latvia	Latvija	Latvija	Letonija
Lithuania	Litvanija	Litva	Litvanija
Portugal	Portugal	Portugal	Portugalija
Romania	Rumunija	Rumunjska	Rumunija
Spain	Španija	Španjolska	Španija
chlorine	hlor	klor	hlor
diplomacy	diplomatija	diplomacija	diplomatija
impedance	impedanca	otpor	impedansa	All from French impédance, Italianized ending in Croatian (cf. impedenza)
But:
license	licenca	licenca	licenca	Through Latin in all three
tendency	tendencija	tendencija	tendencija

Most of terms for chemical elements are different: for international names, Bosnian and Croatian use -ij where Serbian has -ijum (uranij–uranijum). In some native names, Croatian have -ik where Serbian has -(o)nik (kisik–kiseonik 'oxygen', vodik–vodonik 'hydrogen') and Bosnian accepts all variants. Yet others are totally different (dušik–azot 'nitrogen', kositar–kalaj 'tin'). Some element names are the same: srebro (silver), zlato (gold), bakar (copper).

Some other imported words differ by grammatical gender, feminine words having an -a suffix and masculine words having a zero-suffix:

English	Serbian	Croatian	Bosnian
minute (n.)	minut/minuta	minuta	minuta
second (n.)	sekund/sekunda	sekunda	sekunda
But:
planet	planeta	planet	planeta
comet	kometa	komet	kometa
territory	teritorija	teritorij	teritorija
mystery	misterija	misterij	misterija

Pronouns

In Serbian and Bosnian, the pronoun what is što when used as a relative, but šta when used as an interrogative; the latter applies also to relative sentences with interrogative meaning. Croatian uses što in all contexts.

English	Bosnian and Serbian	Croatian
What did he say?	Šta je rekao?	Što je rekao?
Ask him what he said.	Pitaj ga šta je rekao.	Pitaj ga što je rekao.
What he said was a lie.	To što je rekao je laž.	To što je rekao je laž.

This is applicable only to the nominative and the accusative – in all other cases, the standards have the same forms: čega, čemu etc. for što.

In Croatian, the pronoun who has the form tko, whereas in Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin it has ko. The declension is the same: kome, koga, etc. In addition, Croatian uses komu as an alternative form in the dative case.

Usage of locative pronouns gd(j)e, kuda, and kamo differs between Serbian and Croatian (the latter not being used in Serbian):

English	Bosnian and Serbian (Ijekavian)	Croatian	Montenegrin
Where will you be?	Gdje ćeš biti?	Gdje ćeš biti?	Đe ćeš biti?
Where will you go?	Gdje ćeš ići?? (Gdje ćeš ići?)	Kuda ćeš ići?	Đe ćeš ići?
Which way will you go?	Kuda ćeš ići?	Kamo ćeš ići?	Kuda ćeš ići?

Syntax

Infinitive versus subjunctive

With modal verbs such as ht(j)eti (want) or moći (can), the infinitive is prescribed in Croatian, whereas the construction da (that/to) + present tense is preferred in Serbian. This subjunctive of sorts is possibly an influence of the Balkan sprachbund. Again, both alternatives are present and allowed in Bosnian (the first one is preferred in orthography, the latter is more common in colloquial language).

The sentence "I want to do that" could be translated with any of

• Hoću to da uradim.
• Hoću to učiniti.

This difference partly extends to the future tense, which in Serbo-Croatian is formed in a similar manner to English, using (elided) present of verb "ht(j)eti" → "hoću"/"hoćeš"/... > "ću"/"ćeš"/... as auxiliary verb. Here, the infinitive is formally required in both variants:

• Ja ću to uraditi. (I shall do that.)

However, when da+present is used instead, it can additionally express the subject's will or intention to perform the action:

• Ja ću to da uradim. (I will do that.)

This form is more frequently used in Serbia and Bosnia. The nuances in meaning between two constructs can be slight or even lost (especially in Serbian dialects), in similar manner as the shall/will distinction varies across English dialects. Overuse of da+present is regarded as Germanism in Serbian linguistic circles, and it can occasionally lead to awkward sentences.

However, Croatians seldom naturally use da+present form. Instead, a different form can be used to express will:

• Ja hoću to uraditi. (I want to do that.)

(The sentence would sound more Croatian, but keep the same meaning, if it stated: "Želim to učiniti.", as "uraditi" is uncommon in Croatian).

Interrogative constructs

In interrogative and relative constructs, Croatian uses the interrogative participle li after the verb, whereas Serbian also allows forms with da li. (A similar situation exists in French, where a question can be formed either by inversion or using est-ce que, and can be stretched in English with modal verbs):

• Možeš li? (Can you?) (spoken Croatian)
• Both Možeš li? and Da li možeš? (Can you, Do you can?) are common in Serbian.

In addition, non-standard je li ("Is it?"), usually elided to je l' , is vernacular for forming all kinds of questions, e.g. Je l' možeš?. In standard language, it is used only in questions involving auxiliary verb je (="is"):

• Je li moguće? (Is it possible?) (spoken Croatian)
• Both Je li moguće? and Da li je moguće? are common in Serbian.

In summary, the English sentence "I want to know whether I'll start working" would typically read:

• ''Želim da znam hoću li početi da radim. (spoken Serbian)
• Želim znati hoću li početi raditi. (spoken Croatian)

although many in-between combinations could be met in vernacular speech, depending on speaker's dialect, idiolect, or even mood.

Trebati

In formal Croatian, verb trebati (need or should) is transitive, as in English.^[12] In Serbian and Bosnian, it is impersonal, (as French il faut, or English construct is necessary (to)); the grammatical subject is either omitted (it), or presents the object of needing; the person that needs something is an indirect grammatical object, in dative case.^[13] (Such usage is, however, also encountered in Croatian, especially spoken.^[12]):

Serbian and Bosnian	English (literal trans.)	Croatian	English
Petru treba novac.	Money [is necessary] to Peter.	Petar treba novac.	Peter needs money.
Ne trebam ti.	I [am not necessary] to you	Ne trebaš me.	You don't need me.
Treba da radim.	(It) [is necessary] that I work.	Trebam raditi.	I should work.

Vocabulary

Examples

The greatest differences between the standards is in vocabulary. However, most words are well understood, and even occasionally used, in the other standards. In most cases, common usage favors one variant and the other(s) are regarded as "imported", archaic, dialectal, or simply more rarely used. The preference for certain words depends on the speaker's geographic origin rather than ethnicity; for example, Serbs from Bosnia use "mrkva" and "hlače" rather than "šargarepa" and "pantalone".

English	Serbian	Croatian	Bosnian	Montenegrin
one thousand	hiljada	tisuća	hiljada (preferred) tisuća (allowed)	hiljada
January[14]	januar	siječanj	januar (preferred) siječanj (allowed)	januar
factory	fabrika	tvornica	fabrika tvornica	fabrika
rice	pirinač riža	riža	riža	oriz riža
carrot	šargarepa mrkva	mrkva	mrkva	šargarepa mrkva
trousers	pantalone	hlače	hlače pantalone	pantalone hlaće (dialectal, used in south)
music[15]	muzika	glazba	muzika/glazba	muzika
library[15]	biblioteka	knjižnica	biblioteka
bread	hleb	kruh	hljeb/kruh	hljeb/hleb
millennium	milenijum	milenij	milenij	milenijum
century	vek	stoljeće	vijek/stoljeće	vijek
spinach	spanać	špinat	špinat	spanać
football	fudbal	nogomet	fudbal nogomet	fudbal
train	voz	vlak	voz	voz
wave	talas val (allowed)	val	val talas	val talas
person	lice osoba	osoba	osoba	osoba lice
uncivil	nevaspitan	neodgojen	neodgojen	nevaspitan
one's own	sopstveno vlastito	osobno vlastito	vlastito sopstveno	vlastito sopstveno
road	put drum	cesta put	cesta put	put cesta
road toll	drumarina putarina	cestarina	cestarina	putarina
But:
dad	tata	tata	tata babo	tata
tomato	paradajz	rajčica or paradajz	paradajz	paradajz

¹ Bosniak linguists claim that word "nogomet" is used in Bosnian (same as in Croatian); still, the form "fudbal" is in majority use among Bosniaks (see FK Sarajevo, FK Mladost Doboj Kakanj and FK Velež).

English	Serbian	Croatian	Bosnian
to accept	prihvatati	prihvaćati	prihvaćati prihvatati
happy, lucky	srećan	sretan	sretan
to comprehend	shvatati	shvaćati	shvaćati shvatati
But:
to catch	hvatati	hvatati	hvatati

Note that there are only a few differences that can cause confusion, for example the verb "ličiti" means "to look like" in Serbian and Bosnian, but in Croatian it is "sličiti"; "ličiti" means "to paint (a house)".

The word "bilo" means "white" in the Ikavian accent, "pulse" in official Croatian, and "was" in all official languages, although it is not so confusing when pronounced because of different accentuation (bîlo or bílo = white, bı̏lo = pulse, bílo = was).

In Serbian and Bosnian, the word izvanredan (extraordinary) has only the positive meaning (excellent), vanredan being used for "unusual" or "out of order"; however, only izvanredan is used in Croatian in both contexts.

Also note that in most cases Bosnian officially allows almost all of the listed variants in the name of "language richness", and ambiguities are resolved by preferring the Croatian variant. Bosnian vocabulary writers based their decisions on usage of certain words in literary works by Bosnian authors.

Names of the months

The months have Slavic-derived names in Croatian, wheres Serbian and Bosnian have almost the same set of international Latin-derived names as English. The Slavic-derived names may also be used in Bosnian, but the international names are preferred.

English	Croatian	Bosnian	Serbian
January	siječanj	januar	januar
February	veljača	februar	februar
March	ožujak	mart	mart
April	travanj	april	april
May	svibanj	maj	maj
June	lipanj	juni	jun
July	srpanj	juli	jul
August	kolovoz	august	avgust
September	rujan	septembar	septembar
October	listopad	oktobar	oktobar
November	studeni	novembar	novembar
December	prosinac	decembar	decembar

The international names of the months are well understood in Croatia and are used in several fixed expressions such as Prvi Maj (May 1), Prvi April (April Fools' Day) or Oktobarska revolucija (October Revolution), although it is becoming more common to switch to Croatian names of the months.

In spoken Croatian and in western Bosnia it is common to refer to a month by its number. Therefore, many speakers refer to the month of May as peti mjesec ("the fifth month"). Saying sedmi peti (seventh of fifth) would be the equivalent of May 7. Outside of a context where the month is already implied, such usage may lead to confusion.

Miscellanea

• Pronunciation and vocabulary differs among dialects spoken within Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia themselves. Each larger region has its own pronunciation and it is reasonably easy to guess where a speaker is from by their accent and/or vocabulary. Colloquial vocabulary can be particularly different from the official standards.

This is one of the arguments for claiming it is all one and the same language: there are more differences within the territories of the official languages themselves than there are between the standards (all three of which are based on the same Neo-Štokavian dialect). This is not surprising, of course, for if the lines between the varieties were drawn not politically but linguistically, then there would be no borders at all. As Pavle Ivić explains, the continuous migration of Slavic populations during the five hundred years of Turkish rule has scattered the local dialects all around.

• When Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs talk amongst each other, the other speakers usually understand them completely, save for the odd word, and quite often, they will know what that means (much as with British and American English speakers). Nevertheless, when communicating with each other, there is a habit to use terms that are familiar to everyone, with the intent to avoid not being understood and/or confusion. For example, to avoid confusion with the names of the months, they can be referred to as the "first month", "second month" and so on, or the Latin-derived names can be used if "first month" itself is ambiguous, which makes it perfectly understandable for everyone. In Serbia, the names of the months are the international ones so again they are understandable for anyone who knows English or another Western European language.
• Even during the time of Yugoslavia it was common for publishers to do some adaptations to "Eastern" or "Western" standard. Especially translations were and are changed by the lectors. It is to be considered that Croatian and Serbian standards have completely different scientific terminology. Jung's masterpiece "Psychology and Alchemy" was translated into Croatian in 1986, and adapted in late 1990s into Serbian. Ivo Andrić had some problems in Croatia with publishers who changed his infinitive constructions and other expressions. Eventually, he managed to forbid that kind of intervention. In Montenegro, the publisher CID switched from the Ekavian to the Ijekavian accent after Montenegro's independence.

Language samples

The following samples, taken from article 1 to 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are "synonymous texts, translated as literally as possible" in the sense of Ammon^[16] designed to demonstrate the differences between the standard varieties treated in this article in a continuous text.

Croatian[17]	Bosnian[18]	Serbian[19]	English[20]
Opća deklaracija o pravima čovjeka	Opća deklaracija o pravima čovjeka	Opšta deklaracija o pravima čov(j)eka	Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Članak 1. Sva ljudska bića rađaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i sviješću i treba da jedno prema drugome postupaju u duhu bratstva.	Član 1. Sva ljudska bića rađaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i sviješću i treba da jedno prema drugome postupaju u duhu bratstva.	Član 1. Sva ljudska bića rađaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i sv(ij)ešću i treba da jedno prema drugome postupaju u duhu bratstva.	Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Članak 2. Svakome su dostupna sva prava i slobode navedene u ovoj Deklaraciji bez razlike bilo koje vrste, kao što su rasa, boja, spol, jezik, vjera, političko ili drugo mišljenje, nacionalno ili društveno porijeklo, imovina, rođenje ili drugi pravni položaj. Nadalje, ne smije se činiti bilo kakva razlika na osnovi političkog, pravnog ili međunarodnog položaja zemlje ili područja kojima neka osoba pripada, bilo da je to područje neovisno, pod starateljstvom, nesamoupravno, ili da se nalazi ma pod kojima drugim ograničenjima suverenosti.	Član 2. Svakome su dostupna sva prava i slobode navedene u ovoj Deklaraciji bez razlike bilo koje vrste, kao što su rasa, boja, spol, jezik, vjera, političko ili drugo mišljenje, narodnosno ili društveno porijeklo, imovina, rođenje ili drugi pravni položaj. Nadalje, ne smije se činiti bilo kakva razlika na osnovu političkog, pravnog ili međunarodnog položaja zemlje ili područja kojima neka osoba pripada, bilo da je ovo područje nezavisno, pod starateljstvom, nesamoupravno, ili da se nalazi ma pod kojim drugim ograničenjima suverenosti.	Član 2. Svakome su dostupna sva prava i slobode navedene u ovoj Deklaraciji bez razlike bilo koje vrste, kao što su rasa, boja, pol, jezik, v(j)era, političko ili drugo mišljenje, narodnosno ili društveno por(ij)eklo, imovina, rođenje ili drugi pravni položaj. Nadalje, ne sm(ij)e da se čini bilo kakva razlika na osnovu političkog, pravnog ili međunarodnog položaja zemlje ili područja kojima neko lice pripada, bilo da je ovo područje nezavisno, pod starateljstvom, nesamoupravno, ili da se nalazi ma pod kojim drugim ograničenjima suverenosti.	Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Članak 3. Svatko ima pravo na život, slobodu i osobnu sigurnost.	Član 3. Svako ima pravo na život, slobodu i ličnu sigurnost.	Član 3. Svako ima pravo na život, slobodu i ličnu bezb(j)ednost.	Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Članak 4. Nitko ne smije biti držan u ropstvu ili ropskom odnosu; ropstvo i trgovina robljem zabranjuju se u svim svojim oblicima.	Član 4. Niko ne smije biti držan u ropstvu ili ropskom odnosu; ropstvo i trgovina robljem zabranjuje se u svim njihovim oblicima/formama.	Član 4. Niko ne sm(ij)e da bude držan u ropstvu ili ropskom odnosu; ropstvo i trgovina robljem zabranjuje se u svim njihovim formama.	Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Članak 5. Nitko ne smije biti podvrgnut mučenju ili okrutnom, nečovječnom ili ponižavajućem postupku ili kažnjavanju.	Član 5. Niko ne smije biti podvrgnut mučenju ili okrutnom, nečovječnom ili ponižavajućem postupku ili kažnjavanju.	Član 5. Niko ne sm(ij)e da bude podvrgnut mučenju ili okrutnom, nečovečnom ili ponižavajućem postupku ili kažnjavanju.	Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Članak 6. Svatko ima pravo da se svagdje pred zakonom priznaje kao osoba.	Član 6. Svako ima pravo da se svagdje pred zakonom priznaje kao osoba.	Član 6. Svako ima pravo da svuda bude priznat kao pravni subjekt.	Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

See also

• Abstand and ausbau languages
• Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language
• Controversy over ethnic and linguistic identity in Montenegro
• Language secessionism in Serbo-Croatian
• Mutual intelligibility
• Pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language
• Serbo-Croatian
• Shtokavian dialect
• South Slavic dialect continuum
• Standard language

References

External links

• Piper, Predrag (2008-05-01). "O prirodi gramatičkih razlika između srpskog i hrvatskog jezika" (zip/pdf) (in Serbo-Croatian). Jezik danas, Matica srpska. p. Lm159.3.pdf:840. 
• Kovačić, Marko (December 2005). "Serbian and Croatian: One language or languages?". Jezikoslovlje (Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek) 6 (2).