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! Latin script! Cyrillic script! (help:IPA|IPA)! Description! English approximation

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name	Serbo-Croatian| altname = | states = Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo| region = | ethnicity = BosniaksCroatsMontenegrinsSerbs	18.167506|2}} million| date = 2011–2021	hbs}}| familycolor = Indo-European	Balto-Slavic languages>Balto-Slavic	Slavic languages>Slavic	South Slavic languages>South Slavic	Western South Slavic languages>Western South Slavic	Serbian language>Serbian	Croatian language>Croatian	Bosnian language>Bosnian	Montenegrin language>Montenegrin| dia1 = Dialects of Serbo-Croatian:| dia2 = Shtokavian (standard)| dia3 = Torlakian | dia4 = Chakavian | dia5 = Kajkavian	Latin (Gaj) Cyrillic (Serbian and Montenegrin; formerly Bosnian Cyrillic) Yugoslav Braille Perso-Arabic (Arebica) (formerly) Glagolitic (formerly){edih}| iso1 = sh| iso1comment = (deprecated)| iso3 = hbs| lc1 = bos	Bosnian language>Bosnian| lc2 = cnr	Montenegrin language>Montenegrin| lc3 = hrv	Croatian language>Croatian| lc4 = srp	Serbian language>Serbian Related codes:| lc5 = svm| ld5 = Slavomolisano| lc6 = ckm| ld6 = Chakavian| lc7 = kjv| ld7 = Kajkavian| lingua = 53-AAA-g| glotto = sout1528| glottorefname = Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian	Serbia (as Serbian) Croatia (as Croatian) Bosnia and Herzegovina (as Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) Montenegro (as Montenegrin) Kosovo (as Serbian)WEB,weblink Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, 2, 2012-08-17, European Union (as Croatian)}}	Austria (Burgenlandweblink{{Dead link|date=January 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Hungary1993, Minorities Act No. LXXVII Italy (Molise)WEB,weblink Legge Regionale n.15 del 14 maggio 1997 – Tutela e valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale delle minoranze linguistiche nel Molise – Bollettino Ufficiale n. 10 del 16.5.1997, Sardegna Cultura, 2018-07-15, 2018-07-15,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180715210618weblink">weblink dead, Romania2007, National Minority Status Law, Article 3(2) (in Carașova, Lupac){{Citation needed|date=April 2016}} SlovakiaWEB,weblink Serbs in Slovakia granted minority status, February 9, 2010, B92, 2013-09-01, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131110174015weblink">weblink 2013-11-10, Czech RepublicWEB,weblink Minority Rights Group International : Czech Republic : Czech Republic Overview, Minorityrights.org, 2012-10-24, North MacedoniaWEB,weblink Minority Rights Group International : Macedonia : Macedonia Overview, Minorityrights.org, 2012-10-24, }}	Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics (Croatian) Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language (Serbian) Language Institute at University of Sarajevo (Bosnian) Faculty for Montenegrin language and literature (Montenegrin){edih}| map = Serbo croatian language2005.png	#a7f0f0	date=July 2018}}| notice = IPA}}}}{{South Slavic languages sidebar}}Serbo-Croatian ({{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-Serbo-Croatian.ogg|ˌ|s|ɜːr|b|oʊ|k|r|oʊ|ˈ|eɪ|ʃ|ən}}){{citation |last=Wells |first=John C. |year=2008 |title=Longman Pronunciation Dictionary |edition=3rd |publisher=Longman |isbn=978-1-4058-8118-0 }}{{refn|name=jones2003|{{Citation |last=Jones |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Jones (phonetician) |title=English Pronouncing Dictionary |editor=Peter Roach |editor2=James Hartmann |editor3=Jane Setter |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |orig-date=1917 |year=2003 |isbn=978-3-12-539683-8 }}}} – also called Serbo-Croat ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|s|ɜːr|b|oʊ|ˈ|k|r|oʊ|æ|t}}),{{refn|name=jones2003}} Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB),JOURNAL, Čamdžić, Amela, Hudson, Richard, 2007, Serbo-Croat-Bosnian clitics and Word Grammar, UCL Psychology and Language Sciences,weblink Research in Language, 10.2478/v10015-007-0001-7, 11089/9540, 54645947, 11 September 2013, free, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS),{{sfn|Alexander|2006|p=XVII}} and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with fourBOOK, Mørk, Henning, 2002, da, Serbokroatisk grammatik: substantivets morfologi, Serbo-Croatian Grammar: Noun Morphology, Arbejdspapirer, 1, Århus, Slavisk Institut, Århus Universitet, unpaginated (Preface), 471591123, mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.BOOK, Šipka, Danko, Danko Sipka, 2019, Lexical layers of identity: words, meaning, and culture in the Slavic languages, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 206, 166, 10.1017/9781108685795, 978-953-313-086-6, 150383965, 2018048005, 1061308790, Serbo-Croatian, which features four ethnic variants: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin, NEWS,weblink Is Serbo-Croatian a language?, 10 April 2017, The Economist, South Slavic languages historically formed a dialect continuum. The turbulent history of the area, particularly due to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in a patchwork of dialectal and religious differences. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the most widespread supradialect in the western Balkans, intruding westwards into the area previously occupied by Chakavian and Kajkavian (which further blended into Slovenian in the northwest). Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural circles, although a large part of the nations have lived side by side under foreign overlords. During that period, the language was referred to under a variety of names, such as "Slavic" in general or "Serbian", "Croatian" or "Bosnian" in particular. In a classicizing manner, it was also referred to as "Illyrian".The process of linguistic standardization of Serbo-Croatian was originally initiated in the mid-19th-century Vienna Literary Agreement by Croatian and Serbian writers and philologists, decades before a Yugoslav state was established.{{sfn|Blum|2002|pp=130–132}} From the very beginning, there were slightly different literary Serbian and Croatian standards, although both were based on the same dialect of Shtokavian, Eastern Herzegovinian. In the 20th century, Serbo-Croatian served as the lingua franca of the country of Yugoslavia, being the sole official language in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (when it was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovenian"), and afterwards the official language of four out of six republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The breakup of Yugoslavia affected language attitudes, so that social conceptions of the language separated along ethnic and political lines. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnian has likewise been established as an official standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there is an ongoing movement to codify a separate Montenegrin standard.Like other South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian has a simple phonology, with the common five-vowel system and twenty-five consonants. Its grammar evolved from Common Slavic, with complex inflection, preserving seven grammatical cases in nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Verbs exhibit imperfective or perfective aspect, with a moderately complex tense system. Serbo-Croatian is a pro-drop language with flexible word order, subject–verb–object being the default. It can be written in either localized variants of Latin (Gaj's Latin alphabet, Montenegrin Latin) or Cyrillic (Serbian Cyrillic, Montenegrin Cyrillic), and the orthography is highly phonemic in all standards. Despite many linguistical similarities, the traits that separate all standardized varieties are clearly identifiable,{{sfn|Alexander|2006|p=379}} although these differences are considered minimal.{{sfn|Ćalić|2021|loc=In contrast with the prevalence of language-external criteria that determine attitudes about the status of Serbo-Croatian as well as about its description, attitudes to language-internal criteria show there is almost unanimous agreement that differences between the standards are minimal. Overall, 96.3 % of respondents considered Serbo-Croatian varieties to be mutually intelligible [...]}} Name Serbo-Croatian is typically referred to by names of its standardized varieties: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin; it is rarely referred to by names of its sub-dialects, such as Bunjevac."The same language [Croatian] is referred to by different names, Serbian (srpski), Serbo-Croat (in Croatia: hrvatsko-srpski), Bosnian (bosanski), based on political and ethnic grounds. […] the names Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are politically determined and refer to the same language with possible slight variations." ({{Harvnb | Brown | Anderson | 2006 | p = 294}})In the language itself, it is typically known as "Serbo-Croatian", "Croato-Serbian", or informally "ours".Throughout the history of the South Slavs, the vernacular, literary, and written languages (e.g. Chakavian, Kajkavian, Shtokavian) of the various regions and ethnicities developed and diverged independently. Prior to the 19th century, they were collectively called "Illyria", "Slavic", "Slavonian", "Bosnian", "Dalmatian", "Serbian" or "Croatian".JOURNAL, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Moderne Nationalbezeichnungen und Texte aus vergangenen Jahrhunderten, Modern nation names and texts in the past,weblink de, Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, 46, 1, 40–41, 2010, 0044-2356, 3440016, {{CROSBI, 495349, . {{ZDB|201058-6}} |archive-date=1 June 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120601175024weblink |access-date=11 May 2014 }} Since the nineteenth century, the term Illyrian or Illyric was used quite often (thus creating confusion with the Illyrian language). Although the word Illyrian was used on a few occasions before, its widespread usage began after Ljudevit Gaj and several other prominent linguists met at Ljudevit Vukotinović's house to discuss the issue in 1832.BOOK, Despalatović, Elinor Murray, Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement, East European Quarterly; Columbia University Press, 64, New York and London, 1975, 978-0-914710-05-9,weblink The term Serbo-Croatian was first used by Jacob Grimm in 1824,{{Sfn | Lencek | 1976 | p = 46}}{{Sfn | Pohl | 1996 | pp = 209–210}} popularized by the Viennese philologist Jernej Kopitar in the following decades, and accepted by Croatian Zagreb grammarians in 1854 and 1859.{{Sfn | Lencek | 1976 | p = 49}} At that time, Serb and Croat lands were still part of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires. Officially, the language was called variously Serbo-Croat, Croato-Serbian, Serbian and Croatian, Croatian and Serbian, Serbian or Croatian, Croatian or Serbian. Unofficially, Serbs and Croats typically called the language "Serbian" or "Croatian", respectively, without implying a distinction between the two,{{Sfn | Brown | Anderson | 2006 | p = 259}} and again in independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, "Bosnian", "Croatian", and "Serbian" were considered to be three names of a single official language."In 1993 the authorities in Sarajevo adopted a new language law (Službeni list Republike Bosne i Hercegovine, 18/93): 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." ({{Harvnb | Bugarski | Hawkesworth | 2006 | p = 142}}) Croatian linguist Dalibor Brozović advocated the term Serbo-Croatian as late as 1988, claiming that in an analogy with Indo-European, Serbo-Croatian does not only name the two components of the same language, but simply charts the limits of the region in which it is spoken and includes everything between the limits ('Bosnian' and 'Montenegrin').BOOK, Brozović, Dalibor, Dalibor Brozović, Jezik, srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski, hrvatski ili srpski : izvadak iz II izdanja Enciklopedije Jugoslavije, Jugoslavenski Leksikografski zavod "Miroslav Krleža", 4, sh, Jezik, srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski, hrvatski ili srpski, Language, Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian, Croatian or Serbian : Extract From the Second Edition of the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia, Zagreb, 1988, 978-86-7053-014-0, 645757653, Today, use of the term "Serbo-Croatian" is controversial due to the prejudice that nation and language must match.BOOK, Richter Malabotta, Melita, Busch, Brigitta, Kelly-Holmes, Helen, Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States,weblink limited, Multilingual Matters, 81, Semantics of War in Former Yugoslavia, Clevedon, 2004, 803615012, {{Sfn | Mappes-Niediek | 2005 | p = 30}}BOOK, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Ajdačić, Dejan, Lazarević Di Đakomo, Persida, U čast Pera Jakobsena: zbornik radova, SlovoSlavia, 225–239, sh, Ideologija nacionalnog identiteta i nacionalne kulture, The ideology of national identity and culture,weblink Studia in honorem Per Jakobsen; vol. 1, Beograd, 2010, 978-86-87807-02-0, 723062357, 132883650, 3439190, {{CROSBI, 522531, |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120601175039weblink|url-status=live|archive-date=1 June 2012|url=http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/522531.Ideologija_nacionalnog.PDF |ref=none}} It is still used for lack of a succinct alternative,BOOK, Obst, Ulrich, Okuka, Miloš, Schweier, Ulrich, Festschrift für Peter Rehder zum 65. Geburtstag, Welt der Slaven; vol. 21, Otto Sagner, 212, de, Zum genitivus qualitatis und zu alternativen Möglichkeiten in den drei 'Buddenbrooks'-Übersetzungen aus dem kroatischen und serbischen Sprachgebiet, Munich, 2004, 55018584, though alternative names have emerged, such as Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS),Tomasz Kamusella. The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. pp. 228, 297. which is often seen in political contexts such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. History Early development File:Hvalov_zbornik1.jpg|thumb|Hval's CodexHval's CodexIn the 9th century, Old Church Slavonic was adopted as the language of the liturgy in churches serving various Slavic nations. This language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical and non-liturgical, continued to be a part of the Glagolitic service as late as the middle of the 19th century. The earliest known Croatian Church Slavonic Glagolitic manuscripts are the Glagolita Clozianus and the Vienna Folia from the 11th century.BOOK, Price, Glanville,weblink Encyclopedia of the languages of Europe, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1998, 978-0-631-19286-2, Oxford, UK, 425, registration, The beginning of written Serbo-Croatian can be traced from the tenth century and on when Serbo-Croatian medieval texts were written in four scripts: Latin, Glagolitic, Early Cyrillic, and Bosnian Cyrillic (bosančica/bosanica).JOURNAL, Kapetanovic, Amir, HRVATSKA SREDNJOVJEKOVNA LATINICA, Hrvatska Srednjovjekovna Latinica, 2005,weblink Serbo-Croatian competed with the more established literary languages of Latin and Old Slavonic.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} Old Slavonic developed into the Serbo-Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and 16th centuries.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}{{listen|filename=Baška_tablet.wav|title=Speech example|description=An example of Old Croatian used in Baška tablet.}}Among the earliest attestations of Serbo-Croatian are: the Humac tablet, dating from the 10th or 11th century, written in Bosnian Cyrillic and Glagolitic; the Plomin tablet, dating from the same era, written in Glagolitic; the Valun tablet, dated to the 11th century, written in Glagolitic and Latin; and the Inscription of Župa Dubrovačka, a Glagolitic tablet dated to the 11th century.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} The Baška tablet from the late 11th century was written in Glagolitic.JOURNAL,weblink Branko, Fučić, Branko Fučić, Najstariji hrvatski glagoljski natpisi, Slovo (journal), Slovo, 21, September 1971, sh, It is a large stone tablet found in the small Church of St. Lucy, Jurandvor on the Croatian island of Krk that contains text written mostly in Chakavian in the Croatian angular Glagolitic script.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} The Charter of Ban Kulin of 1189, written by Ban Kulin of Bosnia, was an early Shtokavian text, written in Bosnian Cyrillic.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}The luxurious and ornate representative texts of Serbo-Croatian Church Slavonic belong to the later era, when they coexisted with the Serbo-Croatian vernacular literature. The most notable are the "Missal of Duke Novak" from the Lika region in northwestern Croatia (1368), "Evangel from Reims" (1395, named after the town of its final destination), Hrvoje's Missal from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404),WEB,weblink Hrvoje's Missal ~ 1403–1404, 9 March 2012, and the first printed book in Serbo-Croatian, the Glagolitic Missale Romanum Glagolitice (1483).During the 13th century Serbo-Croatian vernacular texts began to appear, the most important among them being the "Istrian land survey" of 1275 and the "Vinodol Codex" of 1288, both written in the Chakavian dialect.WEB,weblink VINODOLSKI ZAKON (1288), 9 March 2012, dead,weblink" title="archive.today/20120314161751weblink">weblink 14 March 2012, WEB,weblink Istarski Razvod, 9 March 2012, dead,weblink" title="archive.today/20120707211237weblink">weblink 7 July 2012, The Shtokavian dialect literature, based almost exclusively{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}} on Chakavian original texts of religious provenance (missals, breviaries, prayer books) appeared almost a century later. The most important purely Shtokavian vernacular text is the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book ({{Circa|1400}}).WEB,weblinkweblink" title="wayback.archive-it.org/all/20171011114124weblink">weblink dead, 11 October 2017, Vatikanski hrvatski molitvenik, 9 March 2012, Both the language used in legal texts and that used in Glagolitic literature gradually came under the influence of the vernacular, which considerably affected its phonological, morphological, and lexical systems. From the 14th and the 15th centuries, both secular and religious songs at church festivals were composed in the vernacular.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} Writers of early Serbo-Croatian religious poetry (začinjavci) gradually introduced the vernacular into their works. These začinjavci were the forerunners of the rich literary production of the 16th-century literature, which, depending on the area, was Chakavian-, Kajkavian-, or Shtokavian-based. The language of religious poems, translations, miracle and morality plays contributed to the popular character of medieval Serbo-Croatian literature.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}One of the earliest dictionaries, also in the Slavic languages as a whole, was the Bosnian–Turkish Dictionary of 1631 authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi and was written in the Arebica script.WEB, Gammel ordbok i ny drakt, 2012-04-10, University of Oslo, no,weblink 2013-12-09,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150924041443weblink">weblink 2015-09-24, dead, BOOK, Testimony of a Bosnian, Tanović-Miller, Naza, 2001, Texas A&M University Press, 209; "Turkish–Bosnian" dictionary, one of the first Slavic dictionaries in Europe, was written by a Bosnian ethnographer and poet, Muhamed Hevai Uskufi, from Tuzla in 1631., Standardization File:Rjecnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Đuro DaničićĐuro Daničić(File:Gramatika bosanskog jezika.jpg|thumb|upright|Gramatika bosanskoga jezika (Grammar of the Bosnian Language), 1890)In the mid-19th century, Serbian (led by self-taught writer and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić) and most Croatian writers and linguists (represented by the Illyrian movement and led by Ljudevit Gaj and Đuro Daničić), proposed the use of the most widespread dialect, Shtokavian, as the base for their common standard language. Karadžić standardised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, and Gaj and Daničić standardized the Croatian Latin alphabet, on the basis of vernacular speech phonemes and the principle of phonological spelling. In 1850 Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists signed the Vienna Literary Agreement, declaring their intention to create a unified standard.{{Sfn | Greenberg | 2004 | p = 24}} Thus a complex bi-variant language appeared, which the Serbs officially called "Serbo-Croatian" or "Serbian or Croatian" and the Croats "Croato-Serbian", or "Croatian or Serbian". Yet, in practice, the variants of the conceived common literary language served as different literary variants, chiefly differing in lexical inventory and stylistic devices. The common phrase describing this situation was that Serbo-Croatian or "Croatian or Serbian" was a single language. In 1861, after a long debate, the Croatian Sabor put up several proposed names to a vote of the members of the parliament; "Yugoslavian" was opted for by the majority and legislated as the official language of the Triune Kingdom. The Austrian Empire, suppressing Pan-Slavism at the time, did not confirm this decision and legally rejected the legislation, but in 1867 finally settled on "Croatian or Serbian" instead.MAGAZINE,weblink dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161023141331weblink">weblink 23 October 2016, (:sh:Književna republika, Književna republika), Pseudoznanost na djelu, Pseudoscience at work, Snježana, Kordić, 2007, 7–9, Zagreb, 243–250, Velimir, Visković, :sh:Velimir Visković, 1334-1057, 190812698, During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the language of all three nations in this territory was declared "Bosnian" until the death of administrator von Kállay in 1907, at which point the name was changed to "Serbo-Croatian".BOOK, Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina: 1878–1918,weblink registration, Sugar, Peter F., 1963, University of Washington Press, 201, BOOK, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia at Peace and at War: Selected Writings, 1983–2007, Ramet, Sabrina P., 2008, LIT Verlag Münster, Nationalism and the 'Idiocy' of the Countryside: The Case of Serbia, 74–76, 978-3-03735-912-9, BOOK, Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Velikonja, Mitja, 1992, Texas A&M University Press, 978-1-58544-226-3, registration,weblink With unification of the first the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes – the approach of Karadžić and the Illyrians became dominant. The official language was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovenian" (srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenački) in the 1921 constitution.BOOK, Busch, Birgitta, Kelly-Holmes, Helen, Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States,weblink 2004, Multilingual Matters, 978-1-85359-732-9, 26, In 1929, the constitution was suspended,BOOK, Tomasevich, Jozo, Contemporary Yugoslavia,weblink 1969, University of California Press, 8–9, and the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, while the official language of Serbo-Croato-Slovene was reinstated in the 1931 constitution.In June 1941, the Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia began to rid the language of "Eastern" (Serbian) words, and shut down Serbian schools.BOOK, David M., Crowe, David M. Crowe, Crimes of State Past and Present: Government-Sponsored Atrocities and International Legal Responses,weblink 13 September 2013, Routledge, 978-1-317-98682-9, 61, The totalitarian dictatorship introduced a language law that promulgated Croatian linguistic purism as a policy that tried to implement a complete elimination of Serbisms and internationalisms.BOOK, Busch, Brigitta, 2004, de, Sprachen im Disput,weblink Klagenfurt, Drava, 205, 3-85435-428-2, 16 May 2022, On January 15, 1944, the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) declared Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, and Macedonian to be equal in the entire territory of Yugoslavia.{{Sfn | Greenberg | 2004 | p = 115}} In 1945 the decision to recognize Croatian and Serbian as separate languages was reversed in favor of a single Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian language.{{Sfn | Greenberg | 2004 | p = 115}} In the Communist-dominated second Yugoslavia, ethnic issues eased to an extent, but the matter of language remained blurred and unresolved.In 1954, major Serbian and Croatian writers, linguists and literary critics, backed by Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska signed the Novi Sad Agreement, which in its first conclusion stated: "Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins share a single language with two equal variants that have developed around Zagreb (western) and Belgrade (eastern)". The agreement insisted on the equal status of Cyrillic and Latin scripts, and of Ekavian and Ijekavian pronunciations.JOURNAL, Jonke, Ljudevit, Ljudevit Jonke, Razvoj hrvatskoga književnog jezika u 20. stoljeću, The Development of the Croatian language in the 20th century, Jezik, 16, 1, 18, 1968, sh, 0021-6925, It also specified that Serbo-Croatian should be the name of the language in official contexts, while in unofficial use the traditional Serbian and Croatian were to be retained. Matica hrvatska and Matica srpska were to work together on a dictionary, and a committee of Serbian and Croatian linguists was asked to prepare a . During the sixties both books were published simultaneously in Ijekavian Latin in Zagreb and Ekavian Cyrillic in Novi Sad.{{Sfn | Kordić | 2010 | pp = 303–304}} Yet Croatian linguists claim that it was an act of unitarianism. The evidence supporting this claim is patchy: Croatian linguist Stjepan Babić complained that the television transmission from Belgrade always used the Latin alphabetBOOK, Babić, Stjepan, Stjepan Babić, 2004, sh, Hrvanja hrvatskoga, Croatian Language Quarrels, Zagreb, Školska knjiga, 36, 978-953-0-61428-4, — which was true, but was not proof of unequal rights, but of frequency of use and prestige. Babić further complained that the Novi Sad Dictionary (1967) listed side by side words from both the Croatian and Serbian variants wherever they differed, which one can view as proof of careful respect for both variants, and not of unitarism. Moreover, Croatian linguists criticized those parts of the Dictionary for being unitaristic that were written by Croatian linguists.JOURNAL, Milutinović, Zoran, Review of the Book Jezik i nacionalizam, The Slavonic and East European Review, 89, 3, 522–523, 2011,weblink 0037-6795, 744233642, {{ZDB, 209925-1, |archive-date=2012-10-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004024736weblink |access-date=25 May 2014 }} And finally, Croatian linguists ignored the fact that the material for the came from the Croatian Philological Society.JOURNAL, Jonke, Ljudevit, Ljudevit Jonke, Drugi i treći sastanak Pravopisne komisije, The second and third meeting of The Orthographic Commission, Jezik, 4, 2, 59, 1955, sh, 0021-6925, JOURNAL, Jonke, Ljudevit, Ljudevit Jonke, Pravopis hrvatskosrpskoga književnog jezika, Serbo-Croatian Spelling-Book, Jezik, 9, 2, 57–59, 1961, sh, 0021-6925, Regardless of these facts, Croatian intellectuals brought the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language in 1967. On occasion of the publication's 45th anniversary, the Croatian weekly journal Forum published the Declaration again in 2012, accompanied by a critical analysis.NEWS, SOS ili tek alibi za nasilje nad jezikom, SOS, or nothing but an alibi for violence against language,weblink Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, sh, Zagreb, Forum, 16 March 2012, 38–39, 1848-204X, {{CROSBI, 578565, |archive-date=21 December 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121221223957weblink |access-date=9 April 2013 }}West European scientists judge the Yugoslav language policy as an exemplary one:{{Sfn | Gröschel | 2009 | p = 72}}{{Sfn | Mappes-Niediek | 2005 | pp = 18, 64}} although three-quarters of the population spoke one language, no single language was official on a federal level.{{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | pp = 41–42}} Official languages were declared only at the level of constituent republics and provinces,JOURNAL, Gak, Vladimir G., K tipologii form jazykovoj politiki, Towards a typology of language policy, Voprosy Jazykoznanija, 5, 122–123, 1989, ru, {{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | pp = 47–48}}{{Sfn | Gröschel | 2003 | pp = 160–161}} and very generously: Vojvodina had five (among them Slovak and Romanian, spoken by 0.5 per cent of the population), and Kosovo four (Albanian, Turkish, Romany and Serbo-Croatian).{{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | p = 65}} Newspapers, radio and television studios used sixteen languages,{{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | p = 81}} fourteen were used as languages of tuition in schools, and nine at universities.{{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | pp = 73–79}} Only the Yugoslav People's Army used Serbo-Croatian as the sole language of command, with all other languages represented in the army's other activities—however, this is not different from other armies of multilingual states,{{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | pp = 69–80}} or in other specific institutions, such as international air traffic control where English is used worldwide. All variants of Serbo-Croatian were used in state administration and republican and federal institutions. Both Serbian and Croatian variants were represented in respectively different grammar books, dictionaries, school textbooks and in books known as (which detail spelling rules).{{Sfn | Kordić | 2010 | pp = 291–292}} Serbo-Croatian was a kind of soft standardisation.BOOK, Busch, Brigitta, Kelly-Holmes, Helen, Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States,weblink limited, Multilingual Matters, 51, 54, Semantics of War in Former Yugoslavia, Clevedon, 2004, 803615012, However, legal equality could not dampen the prestige Serbo-Croatian had: since it was the language of three quarters of the population, it functioned as an unofficial lingua franca.{{Sfn | Kordić | 2010 | pp = 294–295}} And within Serbo-Croatian, the Serbian variant, with twice as many speakers as the Croatian,{{Sfn | Gröschel | 2009 | p = 38}} enjoyed greater prestige, reinforced by the fact that Slovene and Macedonian speakers preferred it to the Croatian variant because their languages are also Ekavian.{{Sfn | Kordić | 2010 | p = 299}} This is a common situation in other pluricentric languages, e.g. the variants of German differ according to their prestige, the variants of Portuguese too.{{Sfn | Ammon | 1995 | pp = 484, 494–497}} Moreover, all languages differ in terms of prestige: "the fact is that languages (in terms of prestige, learnability etc.) are not equal, and the law cannot make them equal"."die Tatsache, dass Sprachen (in ihrem Prestige, ihrer Erlernbarkeit etc.) nicht gleich sind und auch per Gesetz nicht gleich gemacht werden können" ({{Harvnb | Blum | 2002 | p = 170}}) Legal status 1921 constitution of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Article 3: "The official language of the Kingdom is Serbo-Croato-Slovene." (Latin script: Službeni jezik Kraljevine je srpsko-hrvatski-slovenački.; Cyrillic script: Службени језик Краљевине је српско-хрватски-словеначки.).WEB, Устав Краљевине Срба, Хрвата и Словенаца (1921), Викизворник, 20 July 2023,weblink sr, 1931 constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Article 3: "The official language of the Kingdom is Serbo-Croato-Slovene". 1963 constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Article 42: "The languages of the peoples of Yugoslavia and their scripts shall be equal. Members of the peoples of Yugoslavia on the territories of republics other than their own shall have the right to school instruction in their own languages, in conformity with republican law. As an exception, in the Yugoslav People's Army, commands, military drill and administration shall be in the Serbo-Croatian language." Article 131: "The federal laws and other general acts of the federal organs shall be made public in the official gazette of the Federation, in the authentic texts in the languages of the peoples of Yugoslavia: in Serbo-Croatian and Croato-Serbian, Slovene and Macedonian. In official communication the organs of the Federation shall abide by the principle of equality of languages of the peoples of Yugoslavia."WEB, Constitution of Yugoslavia (1963), Wikisource, 20 July 2023,weblink 1974 constitution of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, Article 5: "In the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, the equality of the Albanian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish languages and their scripts is guaranteed."WEB, Kushtetuta e Kosoves 1974, Internet Archive, 1974, 21 July 2023,weblink Neni 5. Në Krahinën Socialiste Autonome të Kosovës sigurohet barazia e gjuhës shqipe, serbokroate e turke dhe e shkrimeve të tyre., Albanian, 1990 constitution of the (Socialist) Republic of Serbia, Article 8: "In the Republic of Serbia, the Serbo-Croatian language and the Cyrillic alphabet are in official use, while the Latin alphabet is in official use in the manner established by law."WEB, Устав Републике Србије (1990), Викизворник, 20 July 2023,weblink sr, У Републици Србији у службеној је употреби српскохрватски језик и ћириличко писмо, а латиничко писмо је у службеној употреби на начин утврђен законом., 1993 constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Article 4: "In the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian language with the Ijekavian pronunciation is in official use. Both scripts — Latin and Cyrillic, are equal."WEB, Устав Републике Босне и Херцеговине (1993), Викизворник, 20 July 2023,weblink sr, The 1946, 1953, and 1974 constitutions of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not name specific official languages at the federal level. The 1992 constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in 2003 renamed Serbia and Montenegro, stated in Article 15: "In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbian language in its ekavian and ijekavian dialects and the Cyrillic script shall be official, while the Latin script shall be in official use as provided for by the Constitution and law."WEB, Constitution of Yugoslavia (1992), Wikisource, 20 July 2023,weblink Modern developments {{See also|Language secessionism#In Serbo-Croatian}}In 2017, the "Declaration on the Common Language" (Deklaracija o zajedničkom jeziku) was signed by a group of NGOs and linguists from former Yugoslavia. It states that all standardized variants belong to a common polycentric language with equal status.WEB, Post-Yugoslav 'Common Language' Declaration Challenges Nationalism, Balkan Insight,weblink 2017-03-30, NEWS, Is Serbo-Croatian a language?, The Economist,weblink 2017-04-10, Demographics (File:Map of Serbo-Croatian language.png|thumbnail|300px|{{legend|#004DFF|Countries where a standard form of Serbo-Croatian is an official language}}{{legend|#88C4FF|Countries where one or more forms are designated as minority languages}}){{More citations needed section|date=January 2010}}About {{sigfig|18.167506|2}} million people declare their native language as either 'Bosnian', 'Croatian', 'Serbian', 'Montenegrin', or 'Serbo-Croatian'.Serbian is spoken by {{sigfig|10.300476|2}} million people around the world, mostly in Serbia ({{sigfig|7.760000|2}} million), Bosnia and Herzegovina ({{sigfig|1.170000|2}} million), and Montenegro ({{sigfig|266000|1}}). Besides these, Serbian minorities are found in Kosovo, North Macedonia and in Romania.{{e25|srp|Serbian}} In Serbia, there are about 760,000 second-language speakers of Serbian, including Hungarians in Vojvodina and the 400,000 estimated Roma. In Kosovo, Serbian is spoken by the members of the Serbian minority which approximates between 70,000 and 100,000.BOOK, Ramet, Sabrina P.,weblink Ethnic Minorities and Politics in Post-Socialist Southeastern Europe, Valenta, Marko, 2016-09-22, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-316-98277-8, en, WEB, 2019-11-07, Kosovo's Demographic Destiny Looks Eerily Familiar,weblink 2021-06-29, Balkan Insight, en-US, Familiarity of Kosovar Albanians with Serbian varies depending on age and education, and exact numbers are not available.Croatian is spoken by {{sigfig|6.765010|2}} million people in the world, including {{sigfig|4.100000|2}} million in Croatia and {{sigfig|554000|1}} in Bosnia and Herzegovina.{{e25|hrv|Croatian}} A small Croatian minority that lives in Italy, known as Molise Croats, have somewhat preserved traces of Croatian. In Croatia, 170,000, mostly Italians and Hungarians, use it as a second language.Bosnian is spoken by {{sigfig|2.730720|2}} million people worldwide, chiefly Bosniaks, including {{sigfig|2.010000|2}} million in Bosnia and Herzegovina, {{sigfig|172,000|1}} in Serbia and {{sigfig|36,700|1}} in Montenegro.{{e25|bos|Bosnian}}Montenegrin is spoken by {{sigfig|265,660|1}} people globally.{{e25|cnr|Montenegrin}} The notion of Montenegrin as a separate standard from Serbian is relatively recent. In the 2011 census, around 229,251 Montenegrins, of the country's 620,000, declared Montenegrin as their native language. That figure is likely to increase, due to the country's independence and strong institutional backing of the Montenegrin language.Serbo-Croatian is also a second language of many SloveniansBOOK,weblink Törnquist-Plewa, Barbara, The Balkans in Focus: Cultural Boundaries in Europe, 2002, 198, Resic, Sanimir, Nordic Academic Press, Lund, Sweden, 9789187121708, 802047788, and Macedonians, especially those born during the time of Yugoslavia. According to the 2002 census, Serbo-Croatian and its variants have the largest number of speakers of the minority languages in Slovenia.WEB,weblink Raziskava Položaj in status pripadnikov narodov nekdanje Jugoslavije vRS.pdf, sl, Outside the Balkans, there are over two million native speakers of the language(s), especially in countries which are frequent targets of immigration, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and the United States. Grammar File:Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga knjizevnoga jezika.JPG|thumb|Tomislav MaretićTomislav Maretić{{Further|Serbo-Croatian grammar}}Serbo-Croatian is a highly inflected language. Traditional grammars list seven cases for nouns and adjectives: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, and instrumental, reflecting the original seven cases of Proto-Slavic, and indeed older forms of Serbo-Croatian itself. However, in modern Shtokavian the locative has almost merged into dative (the only difference is based on accent in some cases), and the other cases can be shown declining; namely: For all nouns and adjectives, the instrumental, dative, and locative forms are identical (at least orthographically) in the plural: ženama, ženama, ženama; očima, očima, očima; riječima, riječima, riječima. There is an accentual difference between the genitive singular and genitive plural of masculine and neuter nouns, which are otherwise homonyms (seljáka, seljaka) except that on occasion an "a" (which might or might not appear in the singular) is filled between the last letter of the root and the genitive plural ending (kapitalizma, kapitalizama). The old instrumental ending "ju" of the feminine consonant stems and in some cases the "a" of the genitive plural of certain other sorts of feminine nouns is fast yielding to "i": noći instead of noćju, borbi instead of boraba and so forth. Almost every Shtokavian number is indeclinable, and numbers after prepositions have not been declined for a long time. Like most Slavic languages, there are mostly three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter, a distinction which is still present even in the plural (unlike Russian and, in part, the Čakavian dialect). They also have two numbers: singular and plural. However, some consider there to be three numbers (paucal or dual, too), since (still preserved in closely related Slovene) after two (dva, dvije/dve), three (tri) and four (četiri), and all numbers ending in them (e.g. twenty-two, ninety-three, one hundred four, but not twelve through fourteen) the genitive singular is used, and after all other numbers five (pet) and up, the genitive plural is used. (The number one [jedan] is treated as an adjective.) Adjectives are placed in front of the noun they modify and must agree in both case and number with it.There are seven tenses for verbs: past, present, future, exact future, aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect; and three moods: indicative, imperative, and conditional. However, the latter three tenses are typically used only in Shtokavian writing, and the time sequence of the exact future is more commonly formed through an alternative construction.In addition, like most Slavic languages, the Shtokavian verb also has one of two aspects: perfective or imperfective. Most verbs come in pairs, with the perfective verb being created out of the imperfective by adding a prefix or making a stem change. The imperfective aspect typically indicates that the action is unfinished, in progress, or repetitive; while the perfective aspect typically denotes that the action was completed, instantaneous, or of limited duration. Some Štokavian tenses (namely, aorist and imperfect) favor a particular aspect (but they are rarer or absent in Čakavian and Kajkavian). Actually, aspects "compensate" for the relative lack of tenses, because verbal aspect determines whether the act is completed or in progress in the referred time. Phonology Vowels The Serbo-Croatian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels in Shtokavian. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:{| class="wikitable"
a	а	{{IPA|/a/}}	Open central unrounded vowel>open central unrounded| father
e	е	{{IPA|/e/}}	Mid front unrounded vowel>mid front unrounded| den
i	и	{{IPA|/i/}}	Close front unrounded vowel>close front unrounded| seek
o	о	{{IPA|/o/}}	Mid back rounded vowel>mid back rounded| lord
u	у	{{IPA|/u/}}	Close back rounded vowel>close back rounded| pool

The vowels can be short or long, but the phonetic quality does not change depending on the length. In a word, vowels can be long in the stressed syllable and the syllables following it, never in the ones preceding it.

Consonants

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English, voice is phonemic, but aspiration is not.{| class="wikitable"! Latin script! Cyrillic script! (help:IPA|IPA)! Description{{Sfn | Kordić | 2006 | p = 5}}! English approximation! colspan="6" | trill r р {{IPA|/r/}}| alveolar trill| rolled (vibrating) r as in carramba! colspan="6" | approximants v в {{IPA|/ʋ/}}| labiodental approximant| roughly between vortex and war j ј {{IPA|/j/}}| palatal approximant| year! colspan="6" | laterals l л {{IPA|/l/}}| alveolar lateral approximant| light lj љ {{IPA|/ʎ/}}| palatal lateral approximant| roughly battalion! colspan="6" | nasals m м {{IPA|/m/}}| bilabial nasal| man n н {{IPA|/n/}}| alveolar nasal| not nj њ {{IPA|/ɲ/}}| palatal nasal| British news or American canyon! colspan="6" | fricatives f ф {{IPA|/f/}}| voiceless labiodental fricative| five z з {{IPA|/z/}}| voiced dental sibilant| zero s с {{IPA|/s/}}| voiceless dental sibilant| some ž ж {{IPA|/ʒ/}}| voiced postalveolar fricative| television š ш {{IPA|/ʃ/}}| voiceless postalveolar fricative| sharp h х {{IPA|/x/}}| voiceless velar fricative| loch! colspan="6" | affricates c ц {{IPA|/t͡s/}}| voiceless dental affricate| pots dž џ {{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}}| voiced postalveolar affricate| as English jam'' č ч {{IPA|/t͡ʃ/}}| voiceless postalveolar affricate| as English check đ ђ {{IPA|/d͡ʑ/}}| voiced alveolo-palatal affricate| roughly jeans ć ћ {{IPA|/t͡ɕ/}}| voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate| roughly cheese! colspan="6" | plosives b б {{IPA|/b/}}| voiced bilabial plosive| book p п {{IPA|/p/}}| voiceless bilabial plosive| top d д {{IPA|/d/}}| voiced dental plosive| dog t т {{IPA|/t/}}| voiceless dental plosive| stop g г {{IPA|/ɡ/}}| voiced velar plosive| good k к {{IPA|/k/}}| voiceless velar plosive| duckIn consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced if the last consonant is normally voiced or voiceless if the last consonant is normally voiceless. This rule does not apply to approximants{{spaced ndash}}a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.{{IPA|/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 navrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic {{IPA|/r/}}. A similar feature exists in Czech, Slovak, and Macedonian. Very rarely other sonorants can be syllabic, like {{IPA|/l/}} (in bicikl), {{IPA|/ʎ/}} (surname Štarklj), {{IPA|/n/}} (unit njutn), as well as {{IPA|/m/}} and {{IPA|/ɲ/}} in slang.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}

Pitch accent

{{Further|Pitch accent#Serbo-Croatian|Serbo-Croatian phonology#Pitch accent}}Apart from Slovene, Serbo-Croatian is the only Slavic language with a pitch accent (simple tone) system. This feature is present in some other Indo-European languages, such as Norwegian, Ancient Greek, and Punjabi. Neo-Shtokavian Serbo-Croatian, which is used as the basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian, has four "accents", which involve either a rising or falling tone on either long or short vowels, with optional post-tonic lengths:{| class="wikitable"|+Serbo-Croatian accent system!Slavicistsymbol!!IPAsymbol!!Description style="text-align:center;"e>[e]}}align="left"|non-tonic short vowel style="text-align:center;"ē>[eː]}}align="left"|non-tonic long vowel style="text-align:center;"è>[ě]}}align="left"|short vowel with rising tone style="text-align:center;"é>[ěː]}}align="left"|long vowel with rising tone style="text-align:center;"ȅ>[ê]}}align="left"|short vowel with falling tone style="text-align:center;"ȇ>[êː]}}align="left"|long vowel with falling toneThe tone stressed vowels can be approximated in English with set vs. setting? said in isolation for a short tonic e, or leave vs. leaving? for a long tonic i, due to the prosody of final stressed syllables in English.General accent rules in the standard language:

1. Monosyllabic words may have only a falling tone (or no accent at all – enclitics);
2. Falling tone may occur only on the first syllable of polysyllabic words;
3. Accent can never occur on the last syllable of polysyllabic words.

There are no other rules for accent placement, thus the accent of every word must be learned individually; furthermore, in inflection, accent shifts are common, both in type and position (the so-called "mobile paradigms"). The second rule is not strictly obeyed, especially in borrowed words.Comparative and historical linguistics offers some clues for memorising the accent position: If one compares many standard Serbo-Croatian words to e.g. cognate Russian words, the accent in the Serbo-Croatian word will be one syllable before the one in the Russian word, with the rising tone. Historically, the rising tone appeared when the place of the accent shifted to the preceding syllable (the so-called "Neo-Shtokavian retraction"), but the quality of this new accent was different – its melody still "gravitated" towards the original syllable. Most Shtokavian (Neo-Shtokavian) dialects underwent this shift, but Chakavian, Kajkavian and the Old-Shtokavian dialects did not.Accent diacritics are not used in the ordinary orthography, but only in the linguistic or language-learning literature (e.g. dictionaries, orthography and grammar books). However, there are very few minimal pairs where an error in accent can lead to misunderstanding.

Orthography

{{unreferenced section|date=December 2013}}Serbo-Croatian orthography is almost entirely phonetic. Thus, most words should be spelled as they are pronounced. In practice, the writing system does not take into account allophones which occur as a result of interaction between words:

• bit će{{spaced ndash}}pronounced biće (and only written separately in Bosnian and Croatian)
• od toga{{spaced ndash}}pronounced otoga (in many vernaculars)
• iz čega{{spaced ndash}}pronounced iščega (in many vernaculars)

Also, there are some exceptions, mostly applied to foreign words and compounds, that favor morphological/etymological over phonetic spelling:

• postdiplomski (postgraduate){{spaced ndash}}pronounced {{IPA-sh|pôzdiploːmskiː|}}

One systemic exception is that the consonant clusters ds and dš are not respelled as ts and tš (although d tends to be unvoiced in normal speech in such clusters):

• predstava {{IPA-sh|prÄ›tstaÊ‹a|}} (show)
• odÅ¡teta {{IPA-sh|ôtʃteta|}} (damages)

Only a few words are intentionally "misspelled", mostly in order to resolve ambiguity:

• Å¡eststo {{IPA-sh|ʃêːsto|}} (six hundred){{spaced ndash}}pronounced Å¡esto (to avoid confusion with "Å¡esto" [sixth], pronounced the same)
• prstni {{IPA-sh|př̩sniː|}} (adj., finger){{spaced ndash}}pronounced prsni (to avoid confusion with "prsni" {{IPA-sh|prÌ©Ì‚sniː|}} [adj., chest]), differentiated by tone in some areas (where the short rising tone contrasts with the short falling tone).

Writing systems

Through history, this language has been written in a number of writing systems:

• Glagolitic alphabet, chiefly in Croatia.
• Bosančica, Arebica (mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina).
• Cyrillic script.
• various modifications of the Latin and Greek alphabets.

The oldest texts since the 11th century are in Glagolitic, and the oldest preserved text written completely in the Latin alphabet is , from 1345. The Arabic alphabet had been used by Bosniaks; Greek writing is out of use there, and Arabic and Glagolitic persisted so far partly in religious liturgies.The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was revised by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the 19th century.The Croatian Latin alphabet () followed suit shortly afterwards, when Ljudevit Gaj defined it as standard Latin with five extra letters that had diacritics, apparently borrowing much from Czech, but also from Polish, and inventing the unique digraphs {{angbr|lj}}, {{angbr|nj}} and {{angbr|dž}}. These digraphs are represented as {{angbr|ļ}}, {{angbr|ń}} and {{angbr|ǵ}} respectively in the , published by the former Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb.{{in lang|sh}} Gramatika hrvatskosrpskoga jezika, Group of Authors (Ivan Brabec, Mate Hraste and Sreten Živković), Zagreb, 1968. The latter digraphs, however, are unused in the literary standard of the language. All in all, this makes Serbo-Croatian the only Slavic language to officially use both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, albeit the Latin version is more commonly used.In both cases, spelling is phonetic and spellings in the two alphabets map to each other one-to-one:{| class="wikitable"|+ Latin to Cyrillic| k| к| ž| ж{| class="wikitable"|+ Cyrillic to Latin| м| m| ш| š{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left:1em;"|+ Sample collation! colspan="2" | Latin collation order! rowspan="2" | Cyrilliccollationorder! Latin ! Cyrillicequivalent| Ina| Ина| Ина| Injekcija| Инјекција| Инјекција| Inverzija| Инверзија| Инверзија| Inje| Иње| ИњеThe digraphs Lj, Nj and Dž represent distinct phonemes and are considered to be single letters. In crosswords, they are put into a single square, and in sorting, lj follows l and nj follows n, except in a few words where the individual letters are pronounced separately. For instance, "to outlive" is composed of the prefix "out, over" and the verb "to live". The Cyrillic alphabet avoids such ambiguity by providing a single letter for each phoneme: .Đ used to be commonly written as Dj on typewriters, but that practice led to too many ambiguities. It is also used on car license plates. Today Dj is often used again in place of Đ on the Internet as a replacement due to the lack of installed Serbo-Croat keyboard layouts.Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards officially use both alphabets, while Croatian uses the Latin only.Latin script has been rising in popularity in Serbia with the advent of the digital age and Internet in Serbia,NEWS, Crosby, Alan, Martinović, Iva, In The Age Of The Internet, Serbia Aims To Keep Its Cyrillic Alive,weblink 5 September 2018, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, August 28, 2018, whether due to restraints (Cyrillic letters use up twice the space and therefore cost on SMSWEB,weblink SMS poruke na ćirilici skuplje, SMS messages in Cyrillic are more expensive, sh, 021.rs, 29 December 2011, 6 March 2023, ), accessibility (intention to be readable internationally, as Latin is taught in all four countries speaking the language) or ease of use. This has been perceived by Serbian government officials as a suppression and threat for existence of the national script that is Cyrillic, with the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia pushing for more tight language laws on top of those stipulated by the existing Constitution.Montenegrin alphabet, adopted in 2009, provides replacements of and with digraphs {{angbr|ś}} and {{angbr|ź}} in both Latin and Cyrillic, but they remain largely unused, even by the Parliament of Montenegro which introduced them.NEWS,weblink Crnogorski se govori i bez ś, Montenegrin is also spoken without ś, Slova ś i ź odnedavno ne koristi ni Skupština Crne Gore, prva i jedina državna institucija koja ih je nakon reforme crnogorskog jezika koristila u zvaničnoj komunikaciji., The letters ś and ź have recently not been used even by the Parliament of Montenegro, the first and only state institution that used them in official communication after the reform of the Montenegrin language., 2 February 2017, 29 October 2022, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Lela, Šćepanović, Radio Slobodna Evropa, sh, Unicode has separate characters for the digraphs lj (LJ, Lj, lj), nj (NJ, Nj, nj) and dž (DŽ, Dž, dž).

Dialects

{{See also|Dialect continuum#South Slavic continuum|label1=South Slavic dialect continuum}}South Slavic historically formed a dialect continuum, i.e. each dialect has some similarities with the neighboring one, and differences grow with distance. However, migrations from the 16th to 18th centuries resulting from the spread of Ottoman Empire on the Balkans have caused large-scale population displacement that broke the dialect continuum into many geographical pockets. Migrations in the 20th century, primarily caused by urbanization and wars, also contributed to the reduction of dialectal differences.The primary dialects are named after the most common question word for what: Shtokavian uses the pronoun što or šta, Chakavian uses ča or ca, Kajkavian (kajkavski), kaj or kej. In native terminology they are referred to as nar(j)ečje, which would be equivalent of "group of dialects", whereas their many subdialects are referred to as dijalekti "dialects" or govori "speeches".The pluricentric Serbo-Croatian standard language and all four contemporary standard variants are based on the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of Neo-Shtokavian. Other dialects are not taught in schools or used by the state media. The Torlakian dialect is often added to the list, though sources usually note that it is a transitional dialect between Shtokavian and the Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects.{|thumb|Likely distribution of major dialects prior to the 16th-century migrations)thumb|Shtokavian subdialects (Pavle Ivić, 1988). Yellow is the widespread Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect that forms the basis of all national standards, though it is not spoken natively in any of the capital cities.)thumb|Mid-20th-century distribution of dialects in Croatia)The Serbo-Croatian dialects differ not only in the question word they are named after, but also heavily in phonology, accentuation and intonation, case endings and tense system (morphology) and basic vocabulary. In the past, Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects were spoken on a much larger territory, but have been replaced by Štokavian during the period of migrations caused by Ottoman Turkish conquest of the Balkans in the 15th and the 16th centuries. These migrations caused the koinéisation of the Shtokavian dialects, that used to form the West Shtokavian (more closer and transitional towards the neighbouring Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects) and East Shtokavian (transitional towards the Torlakian and the whole Bulgaro-Macedonian area) dialect bundles, and their subsequent spread at the expense of Chakavian and Kajkavian. As a result, Štokavian now covers an area larger than all the other dialects combined, and continues to make its progress in the enclaves where non-literary dialects are still being spoken.E.g., big coastal Croatian cities Rijeka and Split together with their hinterland become basically completely Štokavianised during the 20th century, which had been Čakavian-speaking urban centres.The differences among the dialects can be illustrated on the example of Schleicher's fable. Diacritic signs are used to show the difference in accents and prosody, which are often quite significant, but which are not reflected in the usual orthography.{{Clear}}{{col-begin}}{{col-5}} {{col-5}} {{col-5}} {{col-5}} {{col-5}} {{col-5}}{{col-end}}

Division by jat reflex

A series of isoglosses crosscuts the main dialects. The modern reflexes of the long Common Slavic vowel jat, usually transcribed *ě, vary by location as /i/, /e/, and /ije/ or /je/. Local varieties of the dialects are labeled Ikavian, Ekavian, and Ijekavian, respectively, depending on the reflex. The long and short jat is reflected as long or short */i/ and /e/ in Ikavian and Ekavian, but Ijekavian dialects introduce a ije/je alternation to retain a distinction.Standard Croatian and Bosnian are based on Ijekavian, whereas Serbian uses both Ekavian and Ijekavian forms (Ijekavian for Bosnian Serbs, Ekavian for most of Serbia). Influence of standard language through state media and education has caused non-standard varieties to lose ground to the literary forms.The jat-reflex rules are not without exception. For example, when short jat is preceded by r, in most Ijekavian dialects developed into /re/ or, occasionally, /ri/. The prefix prě- ("trans-, over-") when long became pre- in eastern Ijekavian dialects but to prije- in western dialects; in Ikavian pronunciation, it also evolved into pre- or prije- due to potential ambiguity with pri- ("approach, come close to"). For verbs that had -ěti in their infinitive, the past participle ending -ěl evolved into -io in Ijekavian Neo-Štokavian.The following are some examples:{| class="wikitable"!English!Predecessor!Ekavian!Ikavian!Ijekavian!Ijekavian development|beautiful|*lěp|lep|lip|lijep long ě → ije|time|*vrěme|vreme|vrime|vrijeme|faith|*věra|vera|vira|vjera|short ě → je|crossing|*prělaz|prelaz|prеlaz orprijelaz|prеlaz orprijelaz|pr + long ě → prije|times|*vrěmena|vremena|vrimena|vremena r + short ě → re|need|*trěbati|trebati|tribat(i)|trebati|heat|*grějati|grejati|grijati|grijati|r + short ě → ri|saw|*viděl|video|vidio|vidio|ěl → io|village|*selo|selo|selo|selo|e in root, not ě

Present sociolinguistic situation

(File:Drina Sa Denifine cigar pack wt Serb Cro Bos lg warn label.png|200px|thumb|right|A "trilingual" warning sign in Latin and Cyrillic script on the pack of Drina cigarettes: all three inscriptions are identical.)The nature and classification of Serbo-Croatian has been the subject of long-standing sociolinguistic debate.{{sfn|Ćalić|2021|loc=The debate about the status of the Serbo-Croatian language and its varieties has recently shifted (again) towards a position which looks at the internal variation within Serbo-Croatian through the prism of linguistic pluricentricity [...]}} The question is whether Serbo-Croatian should be called a single language or a cluster of closely related languages.{{sfn|Greenberg|2004|p=13}}{{sfn|Alexander|2006|p=XVII}}{{sfn|Alexander|2013|p=341}}WEB,weblink Serbo-Croatian language, Encyclopedia Britannica,

Comparison with other pluricentric languages

{{See also|Declaration on the Common Language}}Linguist Enisa Kafadar argues that there is only one Serbo-Croatian language with several varieties.BOOK, Kafadar, Enisa, Henn-Memmesheimer, Beate, Franz, Joachim, Die Ordnung des Standard und die Differenzierung der Diskurse; Teil 1, Peter Lang, 103, de, Bosnisch, Kroatisch, Serbisch – Wie spricht man eigentlich in Bosnien-Herzegowina?, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian – How do people really speak in Bosnia-Herzegovina?,weblink Frankfurt am Main, 2009, 9783631599174, 699514676, This has made it possible to include all four varieties in new grammars of the language.BOOK, Thomas, Paul-Louis, Osipov, Vladimir, 2012, Grammaire du bosniaque, croate, monténégrin, serbe, Grammar of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian, fr, Collection de grammaires de l'Institut d'études slaves, 8, Paris, Institut d'études slaves, 624, 9782720404900, 805026664, Ronelle Alexander, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Grammar with Sociolinguistic Commentary (2006, The University of Wisconsin Press) Daniel Bunčić concludes that it is a pluricentric language, with four standard variants spoken in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.BOOK, Bunčić, Daniel, Kempgen, Sebastian, Deutsche Beiträge zum 14. Internationalen Slavistenkongress, Ohrid, 2008, Welt der Slaven, Otto Sagner, 93, de, Die (Re-)Nationalisierung der serbokroatischen Standards, The (Re-)Nationalisation of Serbo-Croatian Standards, Munich, 2008, 238795822, The mutual intelligibility between their speakers "exceeds that between the standard variants of English, French, German, or Spanish".{{sfn|Thomas|2003|p=325}} "There is no doubt of the near 100% mutual intelligibility of (standard) Croatian and (standard) Serbian, as is obvious from the ability of all groups to enjoy each others' films, TV and sports broadcasts, newspapers, rock lyrics etc."JOURNAL, To what degree are Croatian and Serbian the same language? Evidence from a Translation Study, Bailyn, John Frederick, Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 2010, 18, 2, 181–219,weblink 9 October 2019, 1068-2090, 9 October 2019,weblink dead, Other linguists have argued that the differences between the variants of Serbo-Croatian are less significant than those between the variants of English,JOURNAL, McLennan, Sean, Sociolinguistic Analysis of "Serbo-Croatian", Sociolinguistic Analysis of 'Serbo-Croatian',weblink Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, 18, 107, 1996, 0823-0579, 10 August 2014, German,{{Sfn | Pohl | 1996 | p = 219}} Dutch,{{Sfn | Gröschel | 2003 | pp = 180–181}} and Hindustani.{{Sfn | Blum | 2002 | pp = 125–126}}Among pluricentric languages,BOOK, Brozović, Dalibor, Dalibor Brozović, Clyne, Michael G., Michael Clyne, Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations, De Gruyter, Mouton de Gruyter, 347–380, Serbo-Croatian as a pluricentric language,weblink Contributions to the sociology of language, 62, Berlin & New York, 1992, 9783110128550, 24668375, BOOK, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Badurina, Lada, Pranjković, Ivo, Ivo Pranjković, Silić, Josip, Jezični varijeteti i nacionalni identiteti, Disput, 85–89, sh, Policentrični standardni jezik, Polycentric Standard Language,weblink Zagreb, 2009, 978-953-260-054-4, 437306433, 3438216, {{CROSBI, 426269, |archive-url =weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120529002544weblink">weblink |url-status=live |archive-date = 29 May 2012 |url =weblink }} (ÖNB). Serbo-Croatian was the only one with a pluricentric standardisation within one state.{{Sfn | Ammon | 1995 | p = 46}}BOOK, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Krause, Marion, Sappok, Christian, Slavistische Linguistik 2002: Referate des XXVIII. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, Bochum 10.-12. September 2002, Slavistishe Beiträge, 434, Otto Sagner, 141, de, Pro und kontra: "Serbokroatisch" heute, Pro and con: "Serbo-Croatian" nowadays,weblink Munich, 2004, 978-3-87690-885-4, 56198470, 3434516, {{CROSBI, 430499, |archive-url =weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120601174051weblink">weblink |url-status=live |archive-date=1 June 2012 |url =weblink }} (ÖNB). The dissolution of Yugoslavia has made Serbo-Croatian even more of a typical pluricentric language, since the variants of other pluricentric languages are also spoken in different states.BOOK, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Golubović, Biljana, Raecke, Jochen, Bosnisch – Kroatisch – Serbisch als Fremdsprachen an den Universitäten der Welt, Otto Sagner, 95, de, Nationale Varietäten der serbokroatischen Sprache, National Varieties of Serbo-Croatian,weblink Die Welt der Slaven, Sammelbände – Sborniki; vol. 31, Munich, 2008, 978-3-86688-032-0, 244788988, 3434432, {{CROSBI, 426566, |archive-url =weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110919045407weblink">weblink|url-status=live |archive-date=19 September 2011|url=http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/426566.NATIONALE_VARIETATEN_DER.PDF}} (ÖNB).JOURNAL, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Plurizentrische Sprachen, Ausbausprachen, Abstandsprachen und die Serbokroatistik, Pluricentric languages, Ausbau languages, Abstand languages and Serbo-Croatian studies,weblink de, Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, 45, 2, 213–214, 2009, 0044-2356, 680567046, 3439240, {{CROSBI, 436361, . {{ZDB|201058-6}} |archive-date=29 May 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120529002037weblink |access-date=21 January 2019 }}As in other pluricentric languages, all Serbo-Croatian standard varieties are based on the same dialect (the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of the Shtokavian dialect) and consequently, according to the sociolinguistic definitions, constitute a single pluricentric language (and not, for example, several Ausbau languagesBOOK, Mader Skender, Mia, Die kroatische Standardsprache auf dem Weg zur Ausbausprache, German, The Croatian standard language on the way to ausbau language, Schlussbemerkung, Summary,weblink PDF, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts, Institute of Slavonic Studies, UZH Dissertations, 196–197, Zurich, 2022, 10.5167/uzh-215815, 8 June 2022, Dissertation, Obwohl das Kroatische sich in den letzten Jahren in einigen Gebieten, vor allem jedoch auf lexikalischer Ebene, verändert hat, sind diese Änderungen noch nicht bedeutend genug, dass der Terminus Ausbausprache gerechtfertigt wäre. Ausserdem können sich Serben, Kroaten, Bosnier und Montenegriner immer noch auf ihren jeweiligen Nationalsprachen unterhalten und problemlos verständigen. Nur schon diese Tatsache zeigt, dass es sich immer noch um eine polyzentrische Sprache mit verschiedenen Varietäten handelt., ).BOOK, Zanelli, Aldo, 2018, Eine Analyse der Metaphern in der kroatischen Linguistikfachzeitschrift Jezik von 1991 bis 1997, Analysis of Metaphors in Croatian Linguistic Journal Language from 1991 to 1997, de, Studien zur Slavistik; 41, Hamburg, Kovač, 21, 978-3-8300-9773-0, 1023608613, (NSK). (FFZG) According to linguist John Bailyn, "An examination of all the major 'levels' of language shows that BCS is clearly a single language with a single grammatical system."In 2017, numerous prominent writers, scientists, journalists, activists and other public figures from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia signed the Declaration on the Common Language, which states that in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro a common polycentric standard language is used, consisting of several standard varieties, such as German, English or Spanish.WEB, Trudgill, Peter, Peter Trudgill, 30 November 2017, 46, Time to Make Four Into One,weblink The New European, 7 April 2018, MAGAZINE, Dan, Nosovitz, 11 February 2019, What Language Do People Speak in the Balkans, Anyway?,weblink Atlas Obscura, 11 February 2019, live,weblink 3 March 2019, WEB, Sven, Milekić, 30 March 2017, Post-Yugoslav 'Common Language' Declaration Challenges Nationalism,weblink Balkan Insight, 30 March 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170330075725weblink">weblink live, London, 1 July 2017, NEWS, J., T., 10 April 2017, Is Serbo-Croatian a Language?,weblink The Economist, 10 April 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170410083158weblink">weblink live, London, 0013-0613, 9 October 2018, Alt URL

Contemporary names

(File:Serbo croatian languages2006 02.png|thumb|Ethno-political variants of Serbo-Croatian as of 2006)The use of Serbo-Croatian as a linguistic label has been the subject of long-standing controversy. Linguist Wayles Browne calls it a "term of convenience" and notes the difference of opinion as to whether it comprises a single language or a cluster of languages. Ronelle Alexander refers to the national standards as three separate languages, but also notes that the reasons for this are complex and generally non-linguistic. She calls BCS (her term for Serbo-Croatian) a single language for communicative linguistic purposes, but three separate languages for symbolic non-linguistic purposes.{{sfn|Alexander|2006|p=424-426}}{{sfn|Alexander|2013|p=341}}The current Serbian constitution of 2006 refers to the official language as Serbian,{{citation|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Serbia#Language_and_script |title=2006 Constitution of Serbia |article=10}} while the Montenegrin constitution of 2007 proclaimed Montenegrin as the primary official language, but also grants other languages and dialects the right of official use.{{citation|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Montenegro#Article_13_.28Language_and_alphabet.29 |title=Constitution of Montenegro|quote=The official language in Montenegro shall be Montenegrin.[…]Serbian, Bosniac, Albanian and Croatian shall also be in the official use.|year=2007}}

• Most Bosniaks refer to their language as Bosnian.
• Most Croats refer to their language as Croatian.
• Most Serbs refer to their language as Serbian.
• Montenegrins refer to their language either as Serbian or Montenegrin.
• Ethnic Bunjevci refer to their language as Croatian, or Bunjevac, or as a sub-dialect of Serbo-Croatian.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has specified different Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) numbers for Croatian (UDC 862, abbreviation hr) and Serbian (UDC 861, abbreviation sr), while the cover term Serbo-Croatian is used to refer to the combination of original signs (UDC 861/862, abbreviation sh). Furthermore, the ISO 639 standard designates the Bosnian language with the abbreviations bos and bs.While it operated, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which had English and French as official languages, translated court proceedings and documents into what it referred to as "Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian", usually abbreviated as BCS. Translators were employed from all regions of the former Yugoslavia and all national and regional variations were accepted, regardless of the nationality of the person on trial (sometimes against a defendant's objections), on the grounds of mutual intelligibility.Decision of 23 June 1997, Prosecutor v. Delalic and DelicFor utilitarian purposes, Serbo-Croatian is often called "naš jezik{{-"}} ("our language") or "naški{{-"}} (sic. "ourish" or "ourian") by native speakers. This term is frequently used to describe Serbo-Croatian by those who wish to avoid nationalistic and linguistic discussions.BOOK, Štiks, Igor, Brothers United: The Making of Yugoslavs, Bloomsbury Publishing, 27, en,weblink 2015, 9781474221542, 1 May 2018, BOOK, Roland, Vogt, Đorđe, Tomić, European National Identities: Elements, Transitions, Conflicts, From "Yugoslavism" to (Post-)Yugoslav Nationalisms: Understanding Yugoslav Identities, Routledge, 287, en, 2017, 9781351296465, Native speakers traditionally describe their language as "jedan ali ne jedinstven{{-"}}—"one but not uniform".{{sfn|Alexander|2006|p=425}}

Views of linguists in the former Yugoslavia

Serbian linguists

In 2021, the Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language issued an opinion that Serbo-Croatian is one language, and that it should be referred to as "Serbian language", while "Croatian", "Bosnian" and "Montenegrin" are to be considered merely local names for Serbian language. This opinion was widely criticized by Croatian government and representatives of the Croatian minority in Serbia.WEB,weblink Bura u javnosti zbog sadržaja u udžbenicima za srpski: Hrvatski (ni)je južnoslovenski jezik, Danas, 7 October 2021, 30 October 2021, Serbian linguist Ranko Bugarski called this opinion "absurd" and "legacy of the 19th century linguistics". He said that Serbo-Croatian should be considered one language in a scientific sense under the "Serbo-Croatian" label, but four different languages in an administrative sense.WEB,weblink O južnoslovenskim jezicima, Danas, 17 October 2021, 30 October 2021, Bugarski, Ranko, Legally, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are all officially recognized minority languages in Serbia. the Serbian Government also officially recognized Bunjevac language as a standard minority language in 2018WEB, Odluka o utvrđivanju standarda bunjevačkog jezika: 18/2018-192, sr:Одлука о утврђивању стандарда буњевачког језика: 18/2018-192, Decision of the National Council of Bunjevci no. 18/2018-192,weblink live,weblink 2021-09-02, 2020-07-30, sr, Pravno-informacioni sistem RS, and was approved by the Serbian Ministry of Education for learning in schools.NEWS, Šolaja, Dragan, 2007-10-25, Bunjevački jezik u školskom programu, sr, Blic,weblink live, 2011-05-25,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121008015751weblink">weblink 2012-10-08,

Croatian linguists

The opinion of the majority of Croatian linguists{{Citation needed|date=April 2015}} is that there has never been a Serbo-Croatian language, but two different standard languages that overlapped sometime in the course of history. However, Croatian linguist Snježana Kordić has been leading an academic discussion on this issue in the Croatian journal Književna republikaWEB,weblink Kordić's publications in Književna republika, Bib.irb.hr, 2013-09-01, {{ZDB|2122129-7}}. from 2001 to 2010.NEWS, Nikola, Petković, Mrsko zrcalo pred licima jezikoslovaca, A nasty mirror reflects back at linguists,weblink Novi list, Rijeka, 1334-1545, 5 September 2010, dead, 7 in the arts section Mediteran, sh, 15 March 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120315175329weblink">weblink 18 July 2012, NEWS, Slobodan, Šnajder, Slobodan Šnajder, Lingvistička bojna, Linguistic battle,weblink Novi list, Rijeka, 1334-1545, 10 October 2010, dead, 6 in the arts section Mediteran, sh, 13 March 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120313145554weblink">weblink 6 July 2012, In the discussion, she shows that linguistic criteria such as mutual intelligibility, the huge overlap in the linguistic system, and the same dialect basis of the standard language are evidence that Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are four national variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language.JOURNAL, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Demagogija umjesto znanosti (odgovor Daliboru Brozoviću), Demagogy instead of science (response to Dalibor Brozović),weblink sh, Književna Republika, 1, 7–8, 176–202, 2003, 1334-1057, 171739712, 3433060, {{CROSBI, 430252, . {{ZDB|2122129-7}} |url-status=live |archive-date=1 June 2012 |archive-url =weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120601173923weblink">weblink |access-date=8 April 2022}} (CROLIB).JOURNAL, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Autizam hrvatske filologije (odgovor Ivi Pranjkoviću), The autism of Croatian philology (response to Ivo Pranjković),weblink sh, Književna Republika, 2, 7–8, 254–280, 2004, 1334-1057, 3433015, {{CROSBI, 430121, . {{ZDB|2122129-7}} |url-status=live |archive-date=29 May 2012 |archive-url =weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120529002217weblink">weblink |access-date=1 March 2015 }} (NSK). Igor Mandić states: "During the last ten years, it has been the longest, the most serious and most acrid discussion (…) in 21st-century Croatian culture".NEWS, Igor, Mandić, Igor Mandić, Svojom polemikom možda pokušava izbrisati naš identitet... Što, zapravo, hoće ta žena?, She is perhaps trying to destroy our identity by polemicising... What does that woman really want?,weblink Jutarnji list, Zagreb, 1331-5692, 21 November 2010, 19, sh, 29 September 2012, live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120929042255weblink">weblink 12 August 2013, Inspired by that discussion, a monograph on language and nationalism has been published.{{sfn|Kordić|2010}}The view of the majority of Croatian linguists that there is no single Serbo-Croatian language but several different standard languages has been sharply criticized by German linguist Bernhard Gröschel in his monograph{{sfn|Gröschel|2009}} Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics.JOURNAL, Kordić, Snježana, Snježana Kordić, Svijet o nama: Bernhard Gröschel, Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik, About us – World point of view: Bernhard Gröschel, Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics,weblink sh, Književna Republika, 7, 10–12, 1334-1057, 3441854, {{CROSBI, 445818, . {{CEEOL|29944}}. {{ZDB|2122129-7}} |pages=316–330 |year=2009 |url-status=live |archive-date=1 June 2012 |archive-url =weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120601175459weblink">weblink |access-date=6 October 2013 }} (NSK).A more detailed overview, incorporating arguments from Croatian philology and contemporary linguistics, would be as follows: The linguistic debate in this region is more about politics than about linguistics per se.The topic of language for writers from Dalmatia and Dubrovnik prior to the 19th century made a distinction only between speakers of Italian or Slavic, since those were the two main groups that inhabited Dalmatian city-states at that time. Whether someone spoke Croatian or Serbian was not an important distinction then, as the two languages were not distinguished by most speakers.However, most intellectuals and writers from Dalmatia who used the Štokavian dialect and practiced the Catholic faith saw themselves as part of a Croatian nation as far back as the mid-16th to 17th centuries, some 300 years before Serbo-Croatian ideology appeared. Their loyalty was first and foremost to Catholic Christendom, but when they professed an ethnic identity, they referred to themselves as "Slovin" and "Illyrian" (a sort of forerunner of Catholic baroque pan-Slavism) and Croat{{spaced ndash}}these 30-odd writers over the span of c. 350 years always saw themselves as Croats first and never as part of a Serbian nation. In the pre-national era, Catholic religious orientation did not necessarily equate with Croat ethnic identity in Dalmatia. A Croatian follower of Vuk Karadžić, Ivan Broz, noted that for a Dalmatian to identify oneself as a Serb was seen as foreign as identifying oneself as Macedonian or Greek. Vatroslav Jagić pointed out in 1864:{{poemquote|As I have mentioned in the preface, history knows only two national names in these parts—Croatian and Serbian. As far as Dubrovnik is concerned, the Serbian name was never in use; on the contrary, the Croatian name was frequently used and gladly referred to ...At the end of the 15th century [in Dubrovnik and Dalmatia], sermons and poems were exquisitely crafted in Croatian by those men whose names are widely renowned by deep learning and piety.|The History of the Croatian Language, Zagreb, 1864.}}On the other hand, the opinion of Jagić from 1864 is argued not to have firm grounds. When Jagić says "Croatian", he refers to a few cases referring to the Dubrovnik vernacular as ilirski (Illyrian). This was a common name for all Slavic vernaculars in Dalmatian cities among the Roman inhabitants. In the meantime, other written monuments are found that mention srpski, lingua serviana (= Serbian), and some that mention Croatian.Mladenovic. Kratka istorija srpskog književnog jezika. Beograd 2004, 67 By far the most competent Serbian scientist{{editorializing|date=January 2023}} on the Dubrovnik language issue, Milan Rešetar, who was born in Dubrovnik himself, wrote behalf of language characteristics: "The one who thinks that Croatian and Serbian are two separate languages must confess that Dubrovnik always (linguistically) used to be Serbian."Finally, the former medieval texts from Dubrovnik and Montenegro dating before the 16th century were neither true Štokavian nor Serbian, but mostly specific a Jekavian-Čakavian that was nearer to actual Adriatic islanders in Croatia.S. Zekovic & B. Cimeša: Elementa montenegrina, Chrestomatia 1/90. CIP, Zagreb 1991

Political connotations

Nationalists have conflicting views. The nationalists among the Croats conflictingly claim either that they speak an entirely separate language from Serbs and Bosniaks or that these two peoples have, due to the longer lexicographic tradition among Croats, somehow "borrowed" their standard languages from them.{{Citation needed|date=July 2010}} Bosniak nationalists claim that both Croats and Serbs have "appropriated" the Bosnian language, since Ljudevit Gaj and Vuk Karadžić preferred the Neo-Å tokavian Ijekavian dialect, widely spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the basis for language standardization, whereas the nationalists among the Serbs claim either that any divergence in the language is artificial, or claim that the Å tokavian dialect is theirs and the ÄŒakavian Croats'— in more extreme formulations Croats have "taken" or "stolen" their language from the Serbs. {{Citation needed|date=July 2010}}Proponents of unity among Southern Slavs claim that there is a single language with normal dialectal variations. The term "Serbo-Croatian" (or synonyms) is not officially used in any of the successor countries of former Yugoslavia.In Serbia, the Serbian standard has an official status countrywide, while both Serbian and Croatian are official in the province of Vojvodina. A large Bosniak minority is present in the southwest region of Sandžak, but the "official recognition" of Bosnian is moot.Official communique, 27 December 2004, Serbian Ministry of Education {{in lang|sr}} Bosnian is an optional course in first and second grade of the elementary school, while it is also in official use in the municipality of Novi Pazar.WEB,weblink OpÅ¡tinski službeni glasnik opÅ¡tine Novi Pazar, {{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} {{small|(65.8 KB)}}, 30 April 2002, page 1 However, its nomenclature is controversial, as there is incentive that it is referred to as "Bosniak" (boÅ¡njački) rather than "Bosnian" (bosanski) (see Bosnian language#Controversy and recognition for details).Croatian is the official language of Croatia, while Serbian is also official in municipalities with significant Serb population.In Bosnia and Herzegovina, all three standard languages are recorded as official. Confrontations have on occasion been absurd. The academic Muhamed Filipović, in an interview to Slovenian television, told of a local court in a Croatian district requesting a paid translator to translate from Bosnian to Croatian before the trial could proceed.{{Citation needed|date=December 2007}}The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia referred to the language as "Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian", usually abbreviated as BCS. Translators were employed from all regions of the former Yugoslavia and all national and regional variations were accepted, regardless of the nationality of the person on trial (sometimes against a defendant's objections), on the grounds of mutual intelligibility.

ISO classification

Since the year 2000, ISO 639 classification recognizes Serbo-Croatian only as a 'macrolanguage', having removed its original codes from ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 standards.WEB,weblink Codes for the representation of names of languages, Library of Congress, That left the ISO 639-3 'macrolanguage' (a book-keeping device in the ISO 639-3 standard to keep track of which ISO 639-3 codes correspond with which ISO 639-2 codes)WEB,weblink hbs – ISO 639-3, iso639-3.sil.org, stranded without a corresponding ISO 639-2 code.

Words of Serbo-Croatian origin

{{wtc|English terms derived from Serbo-Croatian}}

• Cravat, from French cravate "Croat", by analogy with Flemish Krawaat and German Krabate, from Serbo-Croatian Hrvat,{{OED|cravat}} as cravats were characteristic of Croatian dress
• Polje, from Serbo-Croatian polje "field"{{OED|polje}}
• Slivovitz, from German Slibowitz, from Bulgarian slivovitza or Serbo-Croatian Å¡ljivovica "plum brandy", from Old Slavic sliva "plum" (cognate with English sloe){{OED|slovovitz}}
• Tamburitza, Serbo-Croatian diminutive of tambura, from Turkish, from Persian á¹­ambÅ«r "tanbur"{{OED|tamburitza}}
• Uvala, from Serbo-Croatian uvala "hollow"{{OED|uvala}}
• Vampire, from Serbo-Croatian vampir via German Vampir or French Vampire{{Dictionary.com|vampire|access-date=2022-11-01}}

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Serbo-Croatian, written in the Latin alphabet:WEB,weblink Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Serbian (Latin), unicode.org, 2022-01-09, 2021-07-27,weblink dead, WEB,weblink Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Croatian, unicode.org, 2022-01-24, 2022-01-24,weblink dead, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Serbo-Croatian, written in the Cyrillic script:WEB, Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Serbian (Cyrillic), unicode.org,weblink 2022-01-09, 2022-05-21,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20220521041511weblink">weblink dead, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:WEB,weblink Universal Declaration of Human Rights, un.org,

See also

• Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian
• {{Section link|Relative clause|Serbo-Croatian}}
• Serbo-Croatian kinship

References

Citations

{{Reflist}}

Sources

• BOOK, Alexander, Ronelle, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary, 2006, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press,weblink 9780299211936,
• BOOK, Alexander, Ronelle, Language and Identity: The Fate of Serbo-Croatian, Entangled Histories of the Balkans, 2013, 1, Leiden, South Holland; Boston, MA, Brill, 341–417,weblink 9789004250765,
• BOOK, Ammon, Ulrich, 1995, de, Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz: das Problem der nationalen Varietäten, German Language in Germany, Austria and Switzerland: The Problem of National Varieties, Berlin & New York, De Gruyter, Walter de Gruyter, 575, 33981055,
• BOOK, Blum, Daniel, 2002, de, Sprache und Politik : Sprachpolitik und Sprachnationalismus in der Republik Indien und dem sozialistischen Jugoslawien (1945–1991), Language and Policy: Language Policy and Linguistic Nationalism in the Republic of India and the Socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991), Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, 192, Würzburg, Ergon, 200, 978-3-89913-253-3, 51961066,
• BOOK, Brown, Edward Keith, Anderson, Anne, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2006, 978-0-08-044299-0, 3945869,
• BOOK, Bugarski, Ranko, Ranko Bugarski, Hawkesworth, Celia, Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands, Slavica Publishers, 325, Bloomington, 2006, 978-0-89357-298-3, 52858529,
• JOURNAL, Jelena, Ćalić, Pluricentricity in the classroom: the Serbo-Croatian language issue for foreign language teaching at higher education institutions worldwide, Sociolinguistica: European Journal of Sociolinguistics, De Gruyter, 0933-1883, 10.1515/soci-2021-0007, 35, 1, 113–140, 2021, 244134335, free,
• BOOK, Greenberg, Robert D., Language and Identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its Disintegration, 2004, 1st, New York, NY, Oxford University Press,weblink 9780191514555,
• BOOK, Greenberg, Robert D., Language and Identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its Disintegration, 2008, 2nd updated, New York, NY, Oxford University Press,weblink 9780199208753,
• JOURNAL, Gröschel, Bernhard, Bernhard Gröschel, Postjugoslavische Amtssprachenregelungen – Soziolinguistische Argumente gegen die Einheitlichkeit des Serbokroatischen?, Post-Yugoslav Official Languages Regulations – Sociolinguistic Arguments Against Consistency of Serbo-Croatian?,weblink de, Srpski Jezik, 8, 1–2, 135–196, 2003, 0354-9259, 18 May 2015, (COBISS-Sr) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928211826weblink |date=2018-09-28 }}.
• BOOK, Gröschel, Bernhard, 2009, de, Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik: mit einer Bibliographie zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenstreit, Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics: With a Bibliography of the Post-Yugoslav Language Dispute, Lincom Studies in Slavic Linguistics, 34, Munich, Lincom Europa, 451, 978-3-929075-79-3, 428012015, 2009473660, 15295665W, {{COBISS, 43144034, }} Contents.
• {{citation |last=Kordić |first=Snježana |author-link=Snježana Kordić |title=Serbo-Croatian |year=2006 |series = Languages of the World/Materials |volume = 148 |location=Munich & Newcastle |publisher=Lincom Europa |isbn=978-3-89586-161-1 |oclc=37959860 |ol=2863538W |id={{CROSBI|426503}}}}
• BOOK, Kordić, Snježana, 2010, sh, Jezik i nacionalizam, Language and Nationalism,weblink Rotulus Universitas, live, Zagreb, Durieux, 430, 10.2139/ssrn.3467646, 978-953-188-311-5, 2011520778, 729837512, 220918333, 15270636W, {{CROSBI, 475567, |archive-date=1 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120601175359weblink |access-date=21 April 2022 }}
• JOURNAL, Lencek, Rado, A few remarks for the history of the term 'Serbocroatian' language, Zbornik Za Filologiju I Lingvistiku, 19, 1, 45–53, 1976, 0514-6143,
• BOOK, Mappes-Niediek, Norbert, 2005, de, Die Ethno-Falle: der Balkan-Konflikt und was Europa daraus lernen kann, The Ethnic Trap: the Balkan conflict and what Europe can learn from it, Berlin, Christoph Links Verlag, 224, 978-3-86153-367-2, 61665869,
• BOOK, Pohl, Hans-Dieter, Ohnheiser, Ingeborg, Wechselbeziehungen zwischen slawischen Sprachen, Literaturen und Kulturen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart : Akten der Tagung aus Anlaß des 25jährigen Bestehens des Instituts für Slawistik an der Universität Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 25. – 27. Mai 1995, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft, Slavica aenipontan, 4, Non Lieu, 205–219, de, Serbokroatisch – Rückblick und Ausblick, Serbo-Croatian – Looking backward and forward, Innsbruck, 1996, 243829127,
• JOURNAL, Thomas, Paul-Louis, Le serbo-croate (bosniaque, croate, monténégrin, serbe): de l'étude d'une langue à l'identité des langues, Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian): from the study of a language to the identity of languages, fr, Revue des études slaves, 74, 2–3, 311–325, 2003, 0080-2557, 754204160, {{ZDB, 208723-6, |doi=10.3406/slave.2002.6801 }}

Further reading

• Banac, Ivo: Main Trends in the Croatian Language Question. Yale University Press, 1984.
• Bunčić, D., 2016. Serbo-Croatian/Serbian: Cyrillic and Latin. Biscriptality: A Sociolinguistic Typology, pp. 231–246.
• Franolić, Branko: A Historical Survey of Literary Croatian. Nouvelles éditions Latines, Paris, 1984.
• Franolić, B., 1983. The development of literary Croatian and Serbian. Buske Verlag.
• BOOK, Franolić, Branko, 1988, Language Policy in Yugoslavia with special reference to Croatian, Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris,
• BOOK, Franolić, Branko, Žagar, Mateo, 2008, A Historical Outline of Literary Croatian & The Glagolitic Heritage of Croatian Culture, Erasmus & CSYPN, London & Zagreb, 978-953-6132-80-5,
• JOURNAL, Greenberg, Robert D., In the Aftermath of Yugoslavia's Collapse: The Politics of Language Death and Language Birth, International Politics, 1999, 36, 2, 141–158,
• BOOK, Greenberg, Robert D., Language, Religion, and Nationalism: The Case of the Former Serbo-Croatian, Typen slavischer Standardsprachen: Theoretische, methodische und empirische Zugaenge, 2013, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 217–231,weblink 9783447100281,
• Ivić, Pavle: Die serbokroatischen Dialekte. the Hague, 1958.
• BOOK, Jakobsen, Per, Ostojić, Branislav, Jezička situacija u Crnoj Gori – norma i standardizacija, Crnogorska akademija nauka i umjetnosti, 25–34, sh, O strukturalno-lingvističkim konstantama srpskohrvatskog jezika (inventar fonema i fonotaktička struktura), Serbocroatian structural-linguistic constants (inventory of phonemes and phonotactic structure), Podgorica, 2008, 978-86-7215-207-4, (COBISS-CG) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005181043weblink |date=2018-10-05 }}.
• JOURNAL, Kristophson, Jürgen, Vom Widersinn der Dialektologie: Gedanken zum Å tokavischen, Dialectological Nonsense: Thoughts on Shtokavian, de, Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, 36, 2, 178–186, 2000, 0044-2356, {{ZDB|201058-6}}.
• Magner, Thomas F.: Zagreb Kajkavian dialect. Pennsylvania State University, 1966.
• BOOK, Magner, Thomas F., 1991, Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language, Revised, Pennsylvania State University,
• BOOK, Merk, Hening, Ostojić, Branislav, Jezička situacija u Crnoj Gori – norma i standardizacija, Crnogorska akademija nauka i umjetnosti, 295–299, sh, Neka pragmatična zapažanja o postojanju srpskohrvatskog jezika, Podgorica, 2008, 978-86-7215-207-4, (COBISS-CG) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005181049weblink |date=2018-10-05 }}.
• Murray Despalatović, Elinor: Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement. Columbia University Press, 1975.
• Spalatin, C., 1966. Serbo-Croatian or Serbian and Croatian?: Considerations on the Croatian Declaration and Serbian Proposal of March 1967. Journal of Croatian Studies, 7, pp. 3–13.
• Scando-Slavica, Volume 68, 2022 - Issue 1''. 2022. Scando-Slavica, Volume 68, 2022 - Issue 1
• Vergunova, Ludmila: The geographic distribution of Proto-Slavic dialectisms and the genesis of the South Slavic languages. 1996. (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARY)
• Vukotić, Vuk: On the Discursive Construction of Dialectal Varieties: The Case of Central South Slavic ‘Supradialects’. Scando-Slavica, Volume 68, 2022 - Issue 1
• Zekovic, Sreten & CimeÅ¡a, Boro: Elementa montenegrina, Chrestomatia 1/90. CIP, Zagreb 1991.

External links

{{interWiki|code=sh}}{{Commons category|Serbo-Croatian language}}

• Ethnologue{{spaced ndash}}the 15th edition of Ethnologue (released 2005) shows changes in this area:
  • weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131005004814weblink">Previous Ethnologue entry for Serbo-Croatian
  • weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131005010950weblink">Ethnologue 15th Edition report on western South Slavic languages
• Serbian and Croatian alphabets at Omniglot.
• "Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Or Montenegrin? Or Just 'Our Language'?", Radio Free Europe, February 21, 2009
• {{Citation |last1=Browne |first1=Wayles |author1-link=Wayles Browne |last2=Alt |first2=Theresa |year=2004 |url=http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/compgrammar_bcs.pdf |title=A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian |publisher=SEELRC}}

{{Serbo-Croatian language}}{{navboxes||list ={{Slavic languages}}}}{{Authority control}}