Jana337 said:
I respectfully disagree. I don't consider myself partisan in this issue, it's just an experience of an observer: A Croatian member prepared the welcome sticky both in Croatian and Serbian. She did an amazingly good job in the latter, and yet, a Serbian forera submitted a corrected version.
It may look different in your foreigner eyes but for us, that is the same language. Actually, Croatian and "Bosnian" translations are still full of errors, so I guess they were written by someone who is not quite good in languages. It is obvious that "Bosnian" translation was copied from croatian and he altered it a bit. It was obviously done by someone who wants to present "Bosnian" language different from Serbian. I've been in Bosnia so many times before the civil war, and I never heard someone speaking like that, except if he was Croat.
Historical fact is that Bosnia was always populated by Serbian inhabitants, and that did not change even when Turks occupied this area and made them Muslims. They spoke Serbian then and they speak it now. Until civil war, they even used cyril alphabet.
You cannot make paralell among development of antient slavic language and development of Croatian from Serbian which took part in very recent history. It simply was not enough time to make a difference. When you look at "Bosnian" language, it would be that language developed in just ten years.
Another interesting thread is here. The thread opener wanted to have something translated into Croatian. A Slovenian native gave it a try, and he was reasonably close. A Serbian forera corrected it, but a Croatian forera was able to find another mistake. If Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian were one language, I would assume they would have been able to pin down one correct version and to relegate the others to dialect forms.
The first translation was obviously done by someone who does not know language well. It was wrong, althrough pretty close to correct translation. The second one just corrected mistakes, but it used
ekavica. Third one was just minor correction regarding the fact that Croatioan language uses
ijekavica.
That is just the way how old letter
jat was transformed in modern language. In Croatian, ijekavica and ikavica are predominant, in Serbian ekavica and ijekavica are predominant. Transformation is so clear that you can easily have computer to "translate" from one form to other, and in Serbian it does not mattter what form you use. It just shows what area you originate from.
I am afraid that the enthusiasm of those who believe that all South Slavic languages are actually one language would peter out sooner or later if I randomly picked one, say Slovenian, and deleted the others from our welcome sticky.
That is pretty loose interpretation. Noone claims that all south slavic languages are the same, because they are not. They are similar to Serbian and Croatian in the same way as other Slavic languages and no more than that.
The only "problem" is among Serbian and Croatian which are the same language, and that is scientific and historical fact, which is constantly being negated due to political reasons.
You cannot say they are different languages as you cannot say that british, american and australian languages are different. This is exactly the same kind of difference.
Historical fact is that some 200 years ago, Croatians spoke cakavski and kajkavski dialect, but stokavski (spoken mostly by Serbs who lived there in larger number) prevailed. When Croats started their process of forming independent nation, they volontairely took Serbian as basic of their language as that was strong enough to give them national identity. It was not hard thing to do, since their language and Serbian were the forms of the same language and thus very similar. It was just that their form was spoken by small population.
Unfortunately, romantic view of brotherhood among so similar people vanished in time.
There was one big issue: Croats were catholic, and Serbs were orthodox. Catolic church does not tolerate orthodox religion, so they instumented Croats against Serbs. Under its influence process of differentitation started and it is still going on. Direct result is that most of the Serbis who were predominand inhabitants in nowaday Croatia are expelled, killed or converted to catholic religion. It happened in three massive waves: under the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, during the WWI, under the Croatian state during the WWII and in recent civil war.
Now, it is almost offical, that everyone who is catholic is considered to be Croat and everyone who is orthodox is considered to be Serb, and that is basis for claims for separate languages. Truth is different. Large number of nowadays Croats are actualy Serbs who were forcefully converted to catholic religion. They stil speak the same language as before, therefore they cannot be basis for forming of new Croatian language.
Today, it is even worse. Now, there are claims that everything that was writen in latin characters is Croatian language. It goes that far that they even claim as Croatian all writers and scientsts who were without question Serbs (not just by fact of birth, but they claimed themselves in that way), because they were botn on the ground of nowadays Croatioa, or they spoke language variant that is more common to one spoken in Croatia.
Well, that is how Croatian language become.
cadavir said:
-Are Bosnian and Serbian spelled the same way when written with the Cyrillic alphabet?
No! In the Bosnia&Herzegowina the offical letter is latin alphabet. Serbian language is "ekavica" and Bosnian/Croatian is "ijekavica".
Becouse there are political conflicts in Bosnia&Herzegowina some still use Serbian as they Language thought they use latin alphabet and speak "ijekavica" not "ekavica". As far as I know Serbian language is writed in cyrillic or latin alphabet but it's 100% "ekavica". In Serbian language no one use "ijekavica" there is only Croatian or Bosnian. About 90% is latin alphabet in Bosnia&Herzegowina.
It's very simple, why using Cyrillic when in the Europe, USA all people use latin alphabet.
This is good example how today's language policy in Bosnia works. They make such claims which have no support in history and science, and they just make people who do not have good knowledge, believe them.
Look what you said: "
some still use Serbian". Do you know what it means? It means that even you recognize that there was or is Serbian language in use but there is intention and policy to change that fact.
Latin alphabet was made official by muslim gouvernment, which does everything to minimise serbian cultural and hitorical presence in Bosnia. They even do not regard that Serbs constituted largest population in Bosnia before they were killed or expelled, or forcefully converted to muslim religion.
The fact is that, before the civil war, when people were free to use any alphabet they wanted, most used cyrillic, even Muslims.
Claim that ekavica belong to Serbs and ijekavica to Muslims and Croats is just an fine example of your ignorance. The first books written in modern Serbian were writen in ijekavica, as it was the most used form of the language at that time.
Later, it was decided to switch to ekavica and in time it became most used. Even today there are some regions in Croatia and Bosnia where people who do not see themselves as Serbs, do use ekavica. Also, there are regions in Serbia where ijekavica is used by Serbs.
The form of language that one uses, is not result of his nationality, but the region where he lives.
cadavir said:
It's very simple, why using Cyrillic when in the Europe, USA all people use latin alphabet.
Why should people give up ther cultural herritage just to match others? The point is that living together means to live in peace, respect each others differencies, and to keep not just your own herritage, but other's too.
Serbian language has the advantage that it uses latin and cyril alphabet equally. One can use whichever alphabet he wants or which suits occasion. the fact that you decided to use just one alphabet, does not make your language different.
