The existence of such a concept as the "Serbo-Croatian language" for more than a decade has given rise to violent disputes not only between linguists, but also people who, in principle, have something to do with the Balkan Peninsula. Some are sure that such a language no longer exists, it has broken up into several independent languages. Others prefer not to delve into this issue and combine the languages \u200b\u200bof Serbs, Croats (and not only) into one. But where is the truth?
Is the patient more alive than dead?
Serbo-Croatian belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of the Slavic group of languages and was spoken in now defunct Yugoslavia. After the bloody collapse of the country, several new republics appeared in the Balkans, and with them new languages. And one of the first things that the quarreling peoples took up was not only the territorial division, but also the linguistic one. So, now we have not just Serbo-Croatian, but Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and even a very young Montenegrin language.
So why are they all still lumped together under one concept? To answerthis issue, it is necessary to consider the Serbo-Croatian language from different angles. First, from a purely linguistic point of view, all these independent languages are not exactly similar, but almost identical lexically, grammatically and phonetically. The situation is the same in communication between the inhabitants of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro: in dialogue with each other they have no language barrier. Of course, by the accent, they can immediately determine from which regions the interlocutor came, but the accent of the Yugoslavs differs no more than that of our fellow citizens from different regions of Russia. To be more precise, the Serbs "cheek", and the Croats, along with the Bosnians and Montenegrins, "cheek". For example: in Serbian they say "time", "telo" and "snow", and in Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin - "time", body" and "snow". There are some differences in the words themselves, but more on that later.
Territorial and political difference
Obviously, the Serbo-Croatian language has survived everything: a long war, and the collapse of the country, and interethnic conflicts, but people both spoke the same language and speak it. But there is one "but". Still, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and not so long ago, Montenegro, exist independently from each other. Accordingly, there is no "Serbo-Croatian" in the legal documents and constitutions of these countries.
The official name of the language of the inhabitants of Croatia is Croatian. They do not want to hear anything about Serbian and do not attribute it to their linguistic roots. On thethroughout the history of the existence of the SFRY, this republic, more than others, tried in every possible way to separate its language from Serbian, and at times it even worked out. As a result, when the state came to the tragic end of its existence, a special position appeared in Croatia - a proofreader. Such people, having a new Serbo-Croatian dictionary at hand, corrected all local printed publications in order to eliminate Serbian words, changing them to "new" Croatian ones. It was even more fun when Croatian sub titles were added to films shot in Serbian. By the way, even the inhabitants of Croatia themselves watched such a movie more for the sake of laughter.
One language but different alphabet
In Serbia, the situation is no better than in Croatia, although here the issue of language differences is approached more loyally. The language is essentially the same, but the alphabet is still different.
The Serbo-Croatian alphabet consists of two character systems: Cyrillic and Latin. Latin is used in Croatia, mainly in Bosnia and Montenegro. In Serbia, both one and the other. But why is that? Is it really convenient for people to read and write with different signs? It should be said that for the inhabitants of Serbia it is not the slightest difficulty to switch from Latin to Cyrillic and vice versa. Even local schoolchildren learn one alphabet in parallel with another. Serbian and Croatian pronunciations were always printed in Serbo-Croatian phrasebooks from the Yugoslav times.
But to be more specific, Cyrillic is the native script for Serbs, its official name is "vukovica" (on behalf ofits creator Vuk Karadzic). It practically does not differ from Russian writing, but it has some interesting features:
- there is no hard sign in the wukovice, and the soft sign here merges with some consonants - љ (le), њ (н);
- letters ћ are pronounced like "ch", but very softly (as in the Belarusian language);
- Serbian "ch" is similar to Russian;
- ђ is our sound "j", and it is customary to put this letter before soft vowels;
- џ should be pronounced like "j", that is, harder than the previous one.
Vukovica is called Extended Cyrillic and is the official script of Serbia. Also, all state publications, documents are published on it, it is used in signboards. Church books are written in Cyrillic.
The Latin script is called Gajic in Serbia (on behalf of the Croatian figure Ljudevit Gaja), and it should be noted that every year it is becoming more and more popular here. In social networks, young people mainly write in it, fashion magazines, weekly newspapers, books - all this is written in Gajic. It is more convenient for many now, because almost all of Europe uses the Latin alphabet, and Serbia is a candidate for EU membership.
Gajevitsa is the thread that still unites the Serbian and Croatian languages into one. Cyrillic letters, which are not in Gaevice, are usually denoted by the following characters:
- č - hard "h";
- ć - soft "h";
- с - Russian and Serbian "ts";
- dž - Serbian "џ" and Russian hardsound "j";
- đ - Serbian "ђ" and Russian soft sound "j";
- lj and nj - Serbian "љ" and "њ";
- š - Russian and Serbian "sh";
- ž - Russian and Serbian "zh".
Vocabulary differences
Any native Slavic speaker coming to Serbia or Croatia will understand most of the words in both. Our compatriots notice interesting coincidences with the Russian language, sometimes in Croatian, sometimes in Serbian, while in these languages the words will sound differently. Here are some examples:
| Croatian | Serbian language | Translation |
| TERITORIJ | TERITORIJA | territory |
| TIJEK | TOK | current |
| TEKA | SVESKA | notebook |
| TJELO | TELO | body |
| TLAK | PRITISAK | pressure |
| TMINA | MRAK | darkness |
| TOČKA | TAČKA | dot |
| ABECEDA | AZBUKA | alphabet |
| AKCENT | AKCENAT | accent |
| BLJEDOĆA | BLEDILO | pale |
| BOJIŠNICA | FRONT | front |
| BOŽICA | BOGINJA | goddess |
| BOŽJA OVČICA | BUBA MARA | ladybug |
| CIJENA | CENA | price |
| ČITATELJ | ČITALAC | reader |
And so every small Yugoslav nation tries as much as possible to "dissociate itself" from its neighbor, emphasizing this in language, because language is consciousness, it is a reflection of culture, mentality, national characteristics. However, speakers of Slavic languages arriving in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, in order to find a lot of all these differences, need to delve into linguistics. In general, all this difference is not particularly noticeable.
