Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian

An Essential Grammar

Željko Vrabec

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000431971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachen

Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian: An Essential Grammar is intended for beginners and intermediate students who need a reference that explains grammar in straightforward terms. It covers all the main areas of the modern single BCMS grammatical system in an accessible way, and free from jargon. When linguistic terminology is used, it is explained in layman's terms, the logic of a rule is presented simply and near parallels are drawn with English. This book covers all the grammar necessary for everyday communication (reaching B1 and B2 of the CEFR, ACTFL Intermediate-Intermediate- Mid).

The book comprises of extensive chapters on all parts of speech, the creation of different word forms (endings for cases in nouns and adjectives, case forms for pronouns, tenses, verbal modes, verbal aspect etc.) and their uses in sentences. Each rule is illustrated with numerous examples from everyday living language used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.

This is a unique reference book in English aimed at the level of language study that treats BCMS as a single grammar system, explaining and highlighting all the small differences between the four variants of this polycentric language.

Chapter 1
The story of “four languages”

DOI: 10.4324/9781003154525-1

The Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian language system (also known as BCMS) belongs to the South-Slavonic group of languages, which includes Slovene, Macedonian and Bulgarian. These languages are also closely related to the wider Slavonic language family: eastern Slavonic – Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian; and western Slavonic – Polish, Czech and Slovak. This language system was previously known as Serbo-Croatian; it is spoken in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.

Modern Serbo-Croatian was born in the mid-19th century with the signing of the Vienna Literary Agreement by Serbian and Croatian language scholars, led by Serbian linguist and folklorist Vuk Karadžic, and the Croatian Illyrian movement in Zagreb, led by Ljudevit Gaj. The movement’s aim was to achieve cultural and linguistic unity of the south Slavs. The Shtokavian dialect spoken in Eastern Herzegovina, western Montenegro and the Dubrovnik area was chosen as the basis for this unified language. It entered into official usage in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 (later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and continued as one of the main state languages of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1991. In the wake of Yugoslavia’s disintegration it has been renamed according to the newly created states as Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian “languages”, which are essentially variants of the same system and display minimal variance in structure.

BCMS is a polycentric language like English, German, French, Portuguese or Spanish, all of which have several interacting codified standards. BCMS has two distinct codified standards: its western variant – Croatian – codified in Zagreb, and its eastern variant – Serbian – codified in Belgrade. Another two standards, recently codified in Sarajevo as Bosnian and in Podgorica as Montenegrin, may be seen as a mixture of these two standards, although they have a few of their own distinguishing features.

The basis of the BCMS language system is the Shtokavian dialect (štokavski), named after the interrogative pronoun što (what). BCMS has another two dialects, Chakavian (čakavski, in which this pronoun is ča) and Kaykavian (kajkavski, in which this pronoun is kaj). The latter two dialects are spoken in parts of Croatia (čakavski on Adriatic islands, in Istria, Dalmatia and the Croatian littoral; kaj­kavski in northwestern Croatia, around Zagreb and along the Slovene border) but are not recognised as standard. Croatian literary works were written in Kaykavian until mid-19th century. Many works of the Dalmatian Renaissance literature, poetry in particular, were written in Chakavian.

1.1 Ekavian and Iyekavian pronunciations

The main difference between the eastern and western variants of the Shtokavian dialect is to do with the reflexes of the old long Slavonic vowel yat. In most of Serbia, it is pronounced as a long E /e:/ and spelt as E (mleko – milk, or deca – children) – the pronunciation is therefore called Ekavian. In the west (Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and parts of western Serbia along the Bosnian border), this long vowel is pronounced either as IJE or JE /ije/ (mlijeko – milk, djeca – children) and the pronunciation is called Iyekavian. There is a third pronunciation in which the letter is pronounced as a long i /i:/ (as in meet) – mliko and dica. This pronunciation is called Ikavian and is not recognised as standard pronunciation in any of the four countries but is seen as a localism (mainly spoken in coastal Croatia and the islands) (see Map 1).

Bosnia is an interesting ethnic and linguistic patchwork where the western and eastern variants of BCMS intertwine. While inhabitants of the entire country speak Iyekavian, people living in parts of Bosnia closer to Serbia use more Serbian vocabulary variations and some sentence structure patterns, while those bordering on Croatia opt for the Croatian variations. To complicate the issue further, speakers of what is essentially one and the same language, next-door neighbours living for years in the same building in Sarajevo, will call this language according to their nationality: a Serbian family will say they speak Serbian, a Bosniak family will call it Bosnian, while a Croatian family will call it Croatian. Serbs in northwest Bosnia’s Banja Luka (the Bosnian Serb capital), a city only 180 kilometres from Zagreb, will say that they speak Serbian, even though they use Iyekavian and have a preference for vocabulary that is seen as Croatian. The fact that this essentially single language is called by three different names depending on national affiliation is best evidenced in the population census figures from Bosnia (see 1.2 “Number of Speakers, Official Language Names”).

Montenegrin is a newcomer to this linguistic conundrum. Montenegrins speak Iyekavian and use Serbian – rather than Croatian – versions of the shared vocabulary (see Chapter 14) and grammatical patterns (see 1.3 “Brief Outline of Main Grammatical Differences”). Together with Serbia, Montenegro was a member of the rump Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2006, when Montenegro gained independence. The official language of the rump federation was Serbian, with both Ekavian and Iyekavian pronunciations in official use. Efforts to codify a separate standard gained momentum after the country became independent. With that aim in mind, a couple of prominent linguists from Croatia were engaged to help a local Montenegrin linguist to write a Montenegrin grammar, which was published in 2010, introducing two new (superfluous) letters to the alphabet (replacing the letters sj and zj – a cluster of sounds that appears in only a few words, such as sjutra – tomorrow, sjekira – axe or zjenica – pupil of the eye – with single letters). At the time of writing this book (2020), no Montenegrin newspaper or web-based news platform has adopted the new letters, so Montenegrin is presented here as sharing its alphabet and pronunciation with Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. In 2017, the Montenegrin language was granted an international ISO code by the International Organization for Standardization, the global standard-setting body.

It would be worth mentioning the following fact to illustrate the linguistic confusion surrounding the name of the language: Montenegrin primary school language classes are officially called neither Serbian nor Montenegrin but rather “Crnogorski-srpski, bosanski, hrvatski jezik i književnost ” (Montenegrin-Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian language and literature).

As far as accent is concerned, all four variants have their distinct accent, and all native BCMS speakers recognise the provenance of their fellow BCMS speakers – that is, it is easy to tell a speaker of the Montenegrin variant in Belgrade, someone from Herzegovina in Zagreb, or a speaker of the Croatian variant in Montenegro by their accent. There are also easily recognisable regional accents in each of the four countries. They are more impacted by geography than national affiliation. For example, Croatian speakers in Vukovar (a town in easternmost Croatia) have more in common with Serbian speakers just across the border in Vojvodina (northern Serbia) than with their compatriots in Dubrovnik (southern Croatia), whose dialect and accent is closer to the Montenegrin variant spoken in Herceg-Novi (a Montenegrin coastal town near the Croatian border).

1.2 Number of speakers, official language names

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Census: According to the 2013 census, Bosnia has just over 3.5 million people; 50 per cent of the population say they are Bosniaks, 30 per cent Serbs and 15 per cent Croats. In the census, 52 per cent of the population declared that they speak Bosnian, 30 per cent Serbian and 14 per cent Croatian, almost exactly mirroring the ethnic composition of the country.

Constitution: The official languages are Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. Both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are in official use.

Pronunciation standard: Iyekavian.

Croatia

Census: According to the 2011 census, Croatia has just under 4.3 million people, 90 per cent of whom say they are Croats, and just under 5 per cent that they are Serbs – the largest national minority. Some 4 million people declared that they speak Croatian.

Constitution: The official language is Croatian, and the Latin alphabet is in official use.

Pronunciation standard: Iyekavian.

Montenegro

Census: According to the 2011 census, Montenegro has a population of some 620,000 people, 45 per cent of whom say they are Montenegrin; some 30 per cent say they are Serbian, and about 9 per cent that they are Bosniak.

About 43 per cent of the population declared as speaking Serbian, 37 per cent Montenegrin and five per cent Bosnian.

Constitution: Under the Montenegrin Constitution (2007), the official language is Montenegrin and the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets enjoy equal status. However, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian are all in official use (sequence of languages as cited in the Constitution).

Pronunciation standard: Iyekavian.

Serbia

Census: According to the 2011 census, Serbia has a population of just over 7 million people, 83 per cent of whom are Serbs; the largest national minority is formed by Hungarians, who account for 3.5 per cent; the next largest minority are Bosniaks – about 2 per cent; 88 per cent of the population say they speak Serbian; the second language is Hungarian, at 3.5 per cent, and the third is Bosnian at ca. 2 per cent.

Constitution: Serbian and Cyrillic are the official language and alphabet.

Pronunciation standard: Mostly Ekavian with pockets of Iyekavian (in the Bosniak-populated Sandžak area and western Serbia along the Bosnian border).

1.3 Brief outline of main grammatical differences

Here it may be worthwhile to extract a sentence from a Wikipedia entry citing a leading Croatian linguist (found in Wikipedia in Croatian, March 2017):

Hrvatski i srpski (moglo bi se dodati – i bošnjački) ne razlikuju se ovoliko ili onoliko, puno ili malo. Kao standardni jezici razlikuju se potpuno.

Now let us see the same statement in Serbian:

Hrvatski i srpski (moglo bi se dodati – i bošnjački) ne razlikuju se ovoliko ili onoliko, puno ili malo. Kao standardni jezici razlikuju se potpuno.

(Croatian and Serbian/one might add – Bosniak too/do not differ this much or that much, a lot or a little. As standard languages they are completely different).

It is obvious even to someone who has never seen anything written in either of these two “languages” that the statement arguing that they are “completely different” does not differ by a single letter in either version. This is not helpful and would appear to be fuelled by emotion or political interference in linguistic matters.

Differences do exist and should not be papered over, but they are minimal and do not affect understanding of even the most complex communication, including poetry, humour, wordplay, double entendres or political negotiations. For example, after a few drinks and a hearty exchange of jokes with their fellow BCMS speakers from a neighbouring country, even t...