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Serbo-Croatian

This article is about the language. For other uses, see Serbo-Croatian (disambiguation).

Serbo-Croatian
  • srpskohrvatski / hrvatskosrpski
  • српскохрватски / хрватскосрпски
Native toSerbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo
EthnicityBosniaks
Croats
Montenegrins
Serbs
Native speakers
18 million (2011–2021)[1]
Standard forms
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1sh (deprecated)
ISO 639-3hbs – inclusive code
Individual codes:
bos – Bosnian
cnr – Montenegrin
hrv – Croatian
srp – Serbian
Related codes:
svm – Slavomolisano
ckm – Chakavian
kjv – Kajkavian
Glottologsout1528
Linguasphere53-AAA-g
IETFsh
  Areas where Serbo-Croatian is spoken by a plurality of inhabitants (as of 2005)[needs update]
South Slavic languages and dialects
Western South Slavic
Eastern South Slavic
Transitional dialects
Alphabets
a Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet.

Serbo-Croatian (/ˌsɜːrboʊkroʊˈeɪʃən/ SUR-boh-kroh-AY-shən)[10][11] – also called Serbo-Croat (/ˌsɜːrboʊˈkroʊæt/ SUR-boh-KROH-at),[10][11] Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB),[12] Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS),[13] and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS)[14] – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.[15] It is a pluricentric language with four[16] mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.[17][15]

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. 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.[18] 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"),[19] 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,[20] although these differences are considered minimal.[21]

  1. ^ a b c Serbo-Croatian at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo" (PDF). p. 2. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
  3. ^ http://www.brg-lienz.tsn.at/events/.../minorities/.../austrian%20minorities%20legislation.doc[permanent dead link‍]
  4. ^ 1993, Minorities Act No. LXXVII
  5. ^ "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" (PDF). Sardegna Cultura. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-07-15. Retrieved 2018-07-15.
  6. ^ 2007, National Minority Status Law, Article 3(2)
  7. ^ "Serbs in Slovakia granted minority status". B92. February 9, 2010. Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
  8. ^ "Minority Rights Group International : Czech Republic : Czech Republic Overview". Minorityrights.org. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  9. ^ "Minority Rights Group International : Macedonia : Macedonia Overview". Minorityrights.org. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  10. ^ a b Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0
  11. ^ a b Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach; James Hartmann; Jane Setter (eds.), English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-3-12-539683-8
  12. ^ Čamdžić, Amela; Hudson, Richard (2007). "Serbo-Croat-Bosnian clitics and Word Grammar" (PDF). Research in Language. UCL Psychology and Language Sciences. doi:10.2478/v10015-007-0001-7. hdl:11089/9540. S2CID 54645947. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  13. ^ Alexander 2006, p. XVII.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference ThomasOsipov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ a b "Is Serbo-Croatian a language?". The Economist. 10 April 2017.
  16. ^ Mørk, Henning (2002). Serbokroatisk grammatik: substantivets morfologi [Serbo-Croatian Grammar: Noun Morphology]. Arbejdspapirer (in Danish). Vol. 1. Århus: Slavisk Institut, Århus Universitet. p. unpaginated (Preface). OCLC 471591123.
  17. ^ Šipka, Danko (2019). Lexical layers of identity: words, meaning, and culture in the Slavic languages. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 206, 166. doi:10.1017/9781108685795. ISBN 978-953-313-086-6. LCCN 2018048005. OCLC 1061308790. S2CID 150383965. Serbo-Croatian, which features four ethnic variants: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin
  18. ^ Blum 2002, pp. 130–132.
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Busch2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Alexander 2006, p. 379.
  21. ^ Ćalić 2021, 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 [...].

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