Bosnian language: Encyclopedia - Bosnian language

Bosnian language

The Bosnian language (bosanski jezik) is one of the standard versions of the Central-South Slavic diasystem, based on the Štokavian dialect.

The language is used primarily by Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the region of Sandžak (in Serbia and Montenegro) and elsewhere. It is based on the Western variant of the Shtokavian dialect and uses both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The name Bosnian language is the commonly accepted name among Bosniak linguists, and the name used by the ISO-639 standard.

Bosnian language - History

Bosnian language uses both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Bosnians have also used a script that was less standardised, so it had more versions and names: Bosančica, Bosnian Cyrillic, Begovica (used by Bosniak nobility). Bosniaks have also used arabic script called Arebica.

The irony of the Bosnian language is that its speakers Bosniaks are, on the level of colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogenous than either Serbs or Croats, but have failed, due to historical reasons, to standardize their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian dictionary, a rhymed Bosnian-Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi, was composed in 1631.

But unlike Croatian dictionaries, which were written and published regularly, Uskufi's work remained an isolated foray. At least two factors were decisive:

• The Bosniak elite wrote almost exclusively in foreign (Arabic, Turkish, Persian) languages. Vernacular literature, written in modified Arabic script, was thin and sparse.
• The Bosniaks' national emancipation lagged behind that of the Serbs and Croats, and since denominational rather than cultural or linguistic issues played the pivotal role, a Bosnian language project didn't arouse much interest or support.

Prescriptions for the language of Bosniaks in the 19th and 20th centuries were written outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Probably the most authentic Bosniak writers (the so-called "Bosniak revival" at the turn of the century) wrote in an idiom that is closer to the Croatian form than to the Serbian one (western Štokavian-Ijekavian idiom, Latin script), but which possessed unmistakably recognizable Bosniak traits, primarily lexical ones. The main authors of the "Bosniak renaissance" were the polymath, politician and poet Safvet-beg Bašagić, the "poète maudit" Musa Ćazim Ćatić and the storyteller Edhem Mulabdić.

In the days of Communist Yugoslavia the lexis was Serbianized but the Latin script became dominant. After the collapse of Yugoslavia Bosniaks and Bosnians returned their mother tongue, under the old name of Bosnian, as a distinct national standard language.

On a formal level, the Bosnian language is beginning to take a distinctive shape: lexically, Islamic-Oriental loan words are becoming more frequent; phonetically and phonologically, the phoneme "h" is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of Bosniak speech and language tradition; also, there are some changes in grammar, morphology and orthography that reflect the Bosniak pre-WWI literary tradition, mainly that of the Bosniak renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century.

Bosnian language - Controversy

The name for the language is a controversial issue for neighbouring Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs call their languages Croatian and Serbian. The constitution of the Republika Srpska, where the language is also official, refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks" ("Jezik kojim govore Bošnjaci"), as does the government of Serbia.

Bosniak language is the prescribed name of the language in Serbian, while Serbian Ministry of Education recognizes it as Bosnian. Some Croatian linguists (Radoslav Katičić, Dalibor Brozović and Tomislav Ladan) consider that the appropriate name for the Bosnian language would be «Bosniak» rather than «Bosnian». According to their opinion appellation Bosnian refers to the whole country, therefore implying that «Bosnian» is the national standard language of all Bosnians, not only Bosniaks. Some other Croatian linguists (Zvonko Kovač) recognize it as Bosnian. Although there is no publicly formulated Croatian policy towards this question, in official Croatian publications (for instance, in Croatian Encyclopaedia issues or University manuals), the language of Bosniaks is invariably referred to as Bosniak.

It is important to observe that the Dayton Peace Accord officially recognizes and specifies the Bosnian language as a distinct language spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Bosniaks. This distinction and official recognition of the Bosnian language is further acknowledged by signatures of the former presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegović), Croatia (Franjo Tuđman) and Serbia (Slobodan Milošević). As such the Bosnian language is officially recognized by constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well.

Croatian and Serbian nationalists are very unlikely to give any practical recognition to the existence of the Bosnian language, although they de facto do recognize it, since the post-war political climate in both Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro has been antagonistic towards Bosniaks.

Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian are examples of ausbauspraches, since they are largely mutually intelligible.

Bosnian language - Phonology

Bosnian language - Vowels

The Bosnian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

Bosnian language - Consonants

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English and most other Indo-European languages west of India, voicedness is phonemic, but aspiration is not.

In 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 — a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.

R can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic r. A similar feature exists in Czech, Croatian, Slovak and Macedonian. Very rare, l can be syllabic (in the name for the river "Vltava", 'l' is syllabic) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.

Bosnian language - Differences to similar languages

Main article: Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bosnian language", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki