Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

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 Torlakian · Meshterski
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Transitional dialects
Serbian-Bulgarian Transitional Bulgarian dialects 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.
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Areas where Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian were spoken by a plurality of speakers in 2006

Standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are different national literary and official registers of the Serbo-Croatian language.

History

In socialist Yugoslavia, the official policy insisted on one language with two standard varieties – Eastern (practiced in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina by all nationalities, either Ekavian or Ijekavian) and Western (practiced in Croatia by all nationalities, Ijekavian only). However, since the late 1960s, because of discontent in Croatian intellectual circles, Croatian cultural workers started to refer to that language exclusively as 'Croatian literary language', or sometimes 'Croatian or Serbian language', as it was common before the 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 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 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 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.

In that context, the Bosnian language went into its independent development after the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina was proclaimed in 1992. Independent development of Montenegrin language became a topic among some Montenegrin academics in 1990s.

It should be noted that Serbian and Bosnian language standards tend to be "inclusive", i.e. to accept a wider range of idioms and to use loan-words, while the Croatian standard is more purist and prefers neologisms instead of loan-words, as well as re-use of neglected older words. These approaches are, again, due to different cultural, historical and political development of the three languages and the societies they belong to.

Outline

There are differing opinions between linguists as to whether the differences between the four standards (if the Montenegrin language is included) are sufficient to justify their treatment as separate languages.

Croatian linguist Miro Kačić has given the following general overview of differences between the Croatian and Serbian languages.^[1] This blueprint can be, by extension, slightly modified to include Bosnian.

"In this book I have tried to present some of the fundamental delusions and distortions which have brought about the misconception, which is still present in world linguistics today, that Croatian and Serbian are one language. I have shown that Croatian and Serbian differ to a greater or lesser degree on all levels. These differences exist on the following ones:

1. The level of literary language. There are two traditions of writing which are temporally and spatially separated due to the different historical, cultural and literary development of the two nations.
2. The level of standard language. The two traditions of linguistic codification are completely disparate. The period of Croato-Serbian normative convergence, from the time of Croatian "Vukovians" to the imposed unification of these two languages in the former Yugoslavia, is only an interval in the development of the Croatian linguistic norm. As a turning point, this period was atypical with respect to three centuries of this development.
3. The level of genetic relatedness. Croatian is based on three macro dialects, while Serbian is dominated by two macro dialects. The interference between three Croatian dialects which provided the basis for Croatian writing and literature has uninterruptedly existed for centuries as a formative force in the codification of standard Croatian.
4. The typological level. Differences exist on all levels of the linguistic system: phonetic/phonological, accentual, morphological, word-formation, syntactic, semantic-pragmatic and lexical. Linguistic systems which differ on all these levels cannot be one language."

On the other hand, Ivo Pranjković, the author of Grammar of Croatian Language states that "On the level of standardisation, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and even Montenegrin are different varieties, but of a same language. Thus, on purely linguistic level, or genetic level, on typological level, we're talking about one language and that must be clearly said. If anyone disagrees with that, let him present the arguments."^[2] Pranjković himself has stated in numerous cases (for instance in the language and culture paper Vijenac, to which he contributes regularly) that "Ćorić (an opponent in a debate) does not, of course, agree with the contention I've stated at the beginning of my text, that Croatian and Serbian standard language, as far as they exist, function as separate standard languages". "^[3]

Writing

Script

• Scripts in Europe 1901
• Scripts in Europe 2001
• Gaj's Croatian Latin alphabet

Though all could theoretically use either, the scripts differ:

• Bosnian uses both Latin and the Cyrillic alphabet.
• Croatian uses strictly the Latin alphabet.
• Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic (ћирилица) and Latin script (latinica). (Cyrillic is the official script of the administration in Serbia and Republika Srpska).

Historically, Croats had used glagoljica, the Glagolitic alphabet for writing both Croatian Church Slavonic and vernacular documents.

There was another, less standardised Cyrillic script. It had more versions and names: arvacko pismo or arvatica, meaning the script used by Croats; this name was used in Povaljska listina; bosanica or bosančica, meaning the script of the region of Bosnia); and begovica (used by beys); poljičica, meaning from the Poljica region of southern Croatia. In some regions of Croatia, this script was used until the late 1860s, while the Roman Catholic seminary in Omiš taught new priests in writing in that script ("arvacki šeminarij") .

Muslim populations in the areas of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro who converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the 15th century, also once used a modified Arabic script known as Arebica (pronounced [aˈrabitsa]). It remained in use from the 15th century until the early 20th century, primarily used by the literate, upper-class. The last known text published in Arebica was produced in 1941, after which the unification of Yugoslavia dictated that Cyrillic and Latin were the two official alphabets of all the Yugoslav Republics. It has all but fallen out of use as the number of people literate in Arebica today are minuscule.

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 [ç] and [ʝ] respectively. These are optional spellings of the digraphs ‹sj› and ‹zj›. Critics note that [ç] and [ʝ] 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 [t͡ʂ] in most other dialects) and ‹ć› [t͡ɕ] merged or nearly merged, usually into [t͡ʃ]. The same happened with their voiced counterparts, i.e. ‹dž› and ‹đ› merged into [d͡ʒ]. As result, speakers of those dialects often have difficulties distinguishing the corresponding these sounds. However, this merger is nonstandard.

Orthography

The official language in Croatia alphabetically transliterates foreign names (and sometimes words) even in children's books [but not from Russian, and all other languages using Cyrillic alphabet] whereas the Serbian standard allows both a transliteration and a phonetic transcription. Officially, the Bosnian language follows the Croatian example, but many books and newspapers phonetically transcribe foreign names.

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 elided in Croatian, while in Serbian the two are merged into a single word. Bosnian accepts both variants:

• "Uradit ću to." (Croatian)
• "Uradiću to." (Serbian)

Regardless of spelling, the pronunciation is roughly the same.

Grammar

Accentuation

In general, the Shtokavian dialects that represent the foundation of the 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.^[4][5] This is considered to be a feature of the Zagreb dialect, which has strong Kajkavian influence, rather than standard Croatian.^[5]

In Croatian official linguistics, most of the literature in circulation promotes the four-accent system. Serbian standard language is based on four-accent-system that is common in most of Serbian vernaculars. Both dialects that are considered to be base of standard Serbian language (East-Herzegovinian and Šumadija-Vojvodina dialects) have four accents. Bosnian language is officially founded on East-Bosnian dialects^{[citation needed]}, which are of Old-Shtokavian type, but in practice the norm is Neo-Shtokavian accentuation just like in Croatian and Serbian.

Phonetics

Feature	Croatian	Serbian	English
Opposition -u/e	burza	berza	stock exchange
	porculan	porcelan	porcelain
Opposition -u/i	tanjur	tanjir	plate
Opposition -l/-o after o	sol	so	salt
	vol	vo	ox
	kolčić	kočić	stick
Serbian often drops letter H in the initial and medial position:	čahura	čaura	cartridge
	hrvač	rvač	wrestler
	hrđa	rđa	rust

Morphology

There are three variants of the Štokavian dialect that stem from the different uses of the reflexive proto-Slavic vowel Jat. The jat appears in modern dialects in the following way: the Church Slavonic word for child, děte, is:

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

The Serbian language recognises ekavian and ijekavian as equal variants, while Croatian and Bosnian use only ijekavian. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (regardless of the official language) and in Montenegro, ijekavian is used almost exclusively.

Ikavian is limited to dialectal use in Dalmatia, Lika, Istria, 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 "to encourage". Croatian "to stem from" is potjecati, while Serbian for "encourage" is podsticati. Standard Bosnian allows both variants, and inconsistencies are generally resolved with preference to the Croatian variant.

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

The Bosnian official language allows both variants, and ambiguities are resolved with preference to the Croatian variant; this is a general practice for Serbian-Croatian ambiguities.

Another example for phonetical differences is words which have h in Croatian and Bosnian, but v in Serbian:

English	Serbian	Bosnian and Croatian
tobacco	duvan	duhan
to cook	kuvati	kuhati
dry	suvo	suho
deaf	gluvo	gluho

Phonetically and phonologically, the phoneme "h" is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of Bosnian speech and language tradition, some Bosniaks prefer not to use the Serbian terminology. However, there are many people who do not speak this way. It is a regional or colloquial way of speaking.

English	Bosnian	Croatian	Serbian
easy	lahko	lako	lako
soft	mehko	meko	meko
coffee	kahva	kava	kafa

As ijekavian is the common dialect of all official languages, it will be used for examples on this page. Other than this, examples of different morphology are:

English	Bosnian	Croatian	Serbian (ijekavian)
point	tačka	točka	tačka
correct	tačno	točno	tačno
municipality	općina	općina	opština
priest	svećenik	svećenik	sveštenik
male student	student	student	student
female student	studentkinja	studentica	studentkinja
male professor	profesor	profesor	profesor
female professor	profesorica	profesorica	profesorka
scientist	naučnik	znanstvenik	naučnik
translator	prevodilac	prevoditelj	prevodilac
reader	čitalac	čitatelj	čitalac
diver	ronilac	ronilac	ronilac
But:
assembly	skupština	skupština	skupština
male president	predsjednik	predsjednik	predsjednik
female president	predsjednica	predsjednica	predsjednica
male Black	crnac	crnac	crnac
female Black	crnkinja	crnkinja	crnkinja
thinker	mislilac	mislilac	mislilac
teacher	učitelj	učitelj	učitelj

Internationalisms

Also many internationalisms and transliterations are different:

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

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

English	Croatian	Serbian	Note
Bethlehem	Betlehem	Vitlejem	Through Latin in Croatian, through Greek in Serbian
Athens	Atena	Atina
Europe	Europa	Evropa
Cyprus	Cipar	Kipar
chlorine	klor	hlor
impedance	impedancija	impedansa	Through Latin in Croatian, through French in Serbian
licence	licencija	licenca	Through Latin in Croatian, through German in Serbian
resonance	rezonancija	rezonanca
tendency	tendencija	tendencija	Through Latin in both

Most of chemical element names 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)), while Bosnian accepts all variants. Yet others are totally different (dušik–azot (nitrogen), kositar–kalaj (tin)). Some are the same: srebro (silver), zlato (gold), bakar (copper).

Still, it is important to note that there are words from Russian that are considered "to be in spirit of Croatian language", and are felt to be Croatian, not a foreign word. Other Russian loanwords are considered as "Serbisms".

Some other imported words are of masculine or feminine gender in Serbian and Bosnian, but of exclusively feminine gender in Croatian:

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

Pronouns

In Serbian and Bosnian, pronoun what has form što when used as relative, but šta when used as 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 languages have the same declension: čega, čemu etc. for što.

In Croatian, the pronoun who has the form tko, while Serbian and Bosnian use 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 i kamo differs between Serbian and Croatian (the latter not being used in Serbian):

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

Syntax

Infinitive vs. subjunctive

With modal verbs such as ht(j)eti (want) or moći (can), the infinitive is prescribed in Croatian, while the construction da (that/to) + present tense is preferred in Serbian. This is a remnant of subjunctive, and possibly an influence of Balkan linguistic union. Again, both alternatives are present and allowed in Bosnian.

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

• Hoću to da uradim
• Hoću to uraditi

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, in 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.)

Interrogative constructs

In interrogative and relative constructs, Croatian uses the interrogative participle li after the verb, while 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-grammatical 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 (need)

In formal Croatian, verb trebati (need or should) is transitive, as in English.^[6] 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.^[7] (Such usage is, however, also encountered in Croatian, especially spoken.^[6]):

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

See also: Croatian linguistic purism

The greatest differences between the languages is in vocabulary. However, most words are well understood, or even occasionally used, in other languages; in most cases, common usage favors one variant while 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
one thousand	hiljada	tisuća	hiljada
January[8]	januar	siječanj	januar
factory	fabrika	tvornica	fabrika tvornica
rice	pirinač	riža	riža
carrot	šargarepa	mrkva	mrkva
trousers	pantalone	hlače	hlače pantalone
music[9]	muzika	glazba	?
library[9]	biblioteka	knjižnica	?
bread	hleb	kruh	hljeb
spinach	spanać	špinat	špinat
football	fudbal	nogomet	fudbal nogomet1
train	voz	vlak	voz
wave	talas val	val	talas val
person	lice osoba	osoba	lice osoba
uncivil	nevaspitan	neodgojen	neodgojen
one's own	sopstveno vlastito	osobno vlastito	vlastito sopstveno
road	put drum	cesta put	put cesta
road toll	drumarina putarina	cestarina	putarina
But:
dad	tata	tata	tata babo
tomato	paradajz	rajčica	paradajz

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

English	Serbian	Croatian	Bosnian
to accept	prihvatati	prihvaćati	prihvatati
happy, lucky	srećan sretan	sretan	sretan
to comprehend	shvatati	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".

The word "bilo" means "white" in ikavian, "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, 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. Thus, Croatian phrase izvanredno stanje (martial law) sounds funny to Serbian ears (Croatians would more naturally use 'izvrsno' (can be used in Serbian too) for excellent).

Also note that in most cases Bosnian officially allows 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

In the Croatian language months have Slavic names, while Serbian and Bosnian use the same set of international Latin-derived names as English. But Slavic names may also be used in the Bosnian language as well (although, rarely understood); Latin-derived names are preferred.

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

International names of months are well understood in Croatia and several names of internationally important events are commonly known using the international name of the month: "1. maj", "1. april", "oktobarska revolucija". In spoken Croatian and Bosnian in western Bosnia (Bosanska Krajina) it is common to refer to a month by its number. Therefore many speakers of Croatian and Bosnian often say "peti mjesec" ("the fifth month").

Notes on comprehension

It is important to notice a few issues:

• 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^[which?] of which inherit from the standards established in Yugoslavian times, when Serbo-Croatian was the official language). This is not surprising, of course, for if the lines between the languages 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^{[citation needed]}. 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 changes since the Montenegrin independence all ekavian translations into jekavian.

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^[10] designed to demonstrate the differences between the standard varieties treated in this article in a continuous text.

Croatian[11]	Bosnian[12]	Serbian[13]	English[14]
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 trebaju jedno prema drugome postupati 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, narodnosno ili društveno podrijetlo, imovina, rođenje ili drugi pravni položaj. Nadalje, ne smije se činiti bilo kakva razlika temeljem političkog, pravnog ili međunarodnog položaja zemlje ili područja kojima neka osoba pripada, bilo da je ovo područje nezavisno, pod skrbništvom, 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, spol, jezik, vjera, političko ili drugo mišljenje, narodnosno ili društveno porijeklo, imovina, rođenje ili drugi pravni položaj. Nadalje, ne smije da se čini 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 zabranjuje se u svim njihovim oblicima.	Član 4. Niko ne smije biti držan u ropstvu ili ropskom odnosu; ropstvo i trgovina robljem zabranjuje se u svim njihovim 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 svugdje se pred zakonom priznavati kao osoba.	Član 6. Svako ima pravo da se svuda pred zakonom priznaje kao osoba.	Član 6. Svako ima pravo da se svuda pred zakonom priznaje kao lice.	Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

See also

• Serbo-Croatian
• A language is a dialect with an army and navy
• Ausbausprache – Abstandsprache – Dachsprache
• Mutually intelligible languages
• Shtokavian dialect
• Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Standard Language

References

1. ^ Croatian and Serbian: Delusions and Distortions, Miro Kačić, Novi Most, Zagreb 1997
2. ^ (Croatian) Interview with Ivo Pranjković, Slobodna Dalmacija, February 7, 2006
3. ^ (Croatian) "Croatian language and the policy of language unity", Vijenac, 1998
4. ^ A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian, Wayles Brown and Theresa Alt, SEELRC 2004
5. ^ ^{a b} Lexical, Pragmatic, and Positional Effects on Prosody in Two Dialects of Croatian and Serbian, Rajka Smiljanic, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-97117-9
6. ^ ^{a b} "Trebati" (in Croatian). Hrvatski jezični portal. http://hjp.srce.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=f19kXhJ9&keyword=trebati. 
7. ^ "VI.Sintaksa §4" (in Serbian), Kartoteka jezičkih nedoumica, Odbor za standardizaciju srpskog jezika, http://www.rastko.rs/filologija/odbor/odluka012.html#_Toc33157657 
8. ^ 1) All month names are different. See below for full table.
   
9. ^ ^{a b} Roland Sussex; Paul V. Cubberley (2006). The Slavic languages. Cambridge University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-521-22315-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=G2bsJdYrwD4C. Retrieved 19 October 2011. 
10. ^ Ulrich Ammon, Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Das Problem der nationalen Varietäten. Berlin, New York 1995, p. 6.
11. ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Croatian". Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=src2. 
12. ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Bosnian (Latin script)". Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=src1. 
13. ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Serbian (Latin script)". Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=src3. 
14. ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English". Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng. 

• Kovačić, Marko (December 2005). "Serbian and Croatian: One language or languages?". Jezikoslovlje (Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek) 6 (2). http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/48911. 

External links

• Peter Trudgill, Glocalisation and the Ausbau sociolinguistics of modern Europe (2004)
• Piper, Predrag (2008-05-01). "O prirodi gramatičkih razlika između srpskog i hrvatskog jezika" (in Serbian) (zip/pdf). Jezik danas, Matica srpska. p. Lm159.3.pdf:840. http://www.maticasrpska.org.yu/download/lm159.zip.