Lesson One, Culture

What’s in a Name? You have probably heard several different names for this language, such as: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, etc. Here is why:

There are at least three different standard forms of Serbo-Croatian, distinguished ethnically or geographically: 1. Serbian, used by Serbs (8 million), 2. Croatian, spoken by Croats (4.5 million), 3. Bosnian Muslim (also called Bosnian and Bosniac), used by Bosnian Muslims (2 million). The vast majority of Montenegrins (600,000) speak the Serbian standard, but recently there have been attempts to create Montenegrin, as a fourth standard within Serbo-Croatian. These standards are in official use in the countries and territories where their respective ethnic groups constitute the majority. Serbian is thus the official standard of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and of the Republic of Srpska (a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina). Croatian is the official standard of Croatia and the regions of the Muslim-Croat Federation (a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina) with a Croatian majority. And finally Bosnian Muslim is the official standard of the regions of the Muslim-Croat Federation with a Bosnian Muslim majority. (See map one and map two). These standards share grammatical structures (with some minor exceptions) while exhibiting vocabulary differences. Because of these national standards, some linguists deny the existence of Serbo-Croatian per se, claiming that each of these standards represents a distinct Slavic language.

The Serbian standard allows two pronunciation variants in some words: the Ekavian (which has an e in the stem of these words) and Ijekavian (which has ije, je, or i instead of the e in Ekavian). For example, the Ekavian forms are mleko ‘milk’, hteti ‘want-Infinitive’, hteo ‘want-Past Participle’) and their Ijekavian counterparts mlijeko, htjeti, htio. The Ekavian and Ijekavian pronunciation are not interchangeable in one text. A text should either be entirely Ekavian or entirely Ijekavian. The Croatian and Bosnian Muslim standards use solely the Ijekavian pronunciation.

The division within the colloquial field is an even more intricate one. In addition to being divided into colloquial in its narrower sense (i.e., general colloquial sphere), dialects (i.e., rural vernaculars), and slang (i.e., urban vernaculars), as well as according to the ethnic background, other factors also contribute to diversity in this field.

The factor of ethnicity is often interwoven with that of territory. Some lexemes are thus used exclusively by Serbs (such as buva ‘lie’, ‘false information’, ‘joke’), others used only by the speakers of Serbo-Croatian in Serbia (for example bioskop ‘cinema’). Others are used by inhabitants of Bosnia (like bolan ‘intensifier used to address a single male in direct informal communication’), notwithstanding their ethnic background. These territorial boundaries are not always consistent with either dialectal or administrative borders, but more frequently reflect historic and/or cultural circles and influences.

The colloquial lexicon is also divided along the lines of different social and professional groups, such as drug addicts, criminals, students, etc. Each of these groups constitutes a subculture of its own, with its own specific beliefs and values.

There is no one-to-one correspondence between the three ethnic standards and colloquial forms used by Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. On the one hand, two urban vernaculars within the same ethnic group might be mutually unintelligible (as Croatian vernaculars of Split and Zagreb can be), and on the other hand, one urban vernacular can be shared by people with different ethnic affiliation (as was the case in the pre-1990 Sarajevo). Thus, according to Croatian Playboy (January, 1999) a policeman is drot, pajkan, rijamu, rora in Zagreb and murjak, pandur, tovarić in Split. In contrast, all ethnic groups in Sarajevo use the word drot to refer to a police officer. Furthermore, even if a colloquial lexeme is ethnically marked, it frequently represents a tendency to more frequent usage within one ethnic group rather than an either/or situation.

Two scripts are used in Serbo-Croatian. All Serbo-Croatian speaking ethnic groups use the Latin script. Serbs and Montenegrins additionally use the Cyrillic script.

This course will address only the standard forms of the language. It will be based on the Serbian Ekavian form with items belonging to the other two standard forms (Bosnian Muslim and Croatian) listed in those cases when they differ from the Serbian Ekavian form.

The following two maps show the countries and territories where the standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian are used.

Map 1: Former Yugoslavia

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