Talk:Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

The controversy

The controversy of this article stems from the fact that the languages discussed are overwhelmingly similar, with identical complex grammar and tiny variations in vocabulary. The article is useful in some parts, however it appears to have premeditated goal to establish linguistic independence of new ex-Yugoslav countries.

The main sources in the text are overwhelmingly of Croatian origin. Perhaps it would be best if the article as a whole were marked with a NPOV tag until sources from Serbian (and other, e.g. Bosniak) linguists were added? --Acachinero

It is clear that merged into one country people were pushed to overcome language differences, which is not a necessarily bad thing. Also truth is that modern inhabitant of Zagreb and his equivalent from Belgrade use languages that are incredibly same. What is essential is that introduction of this article doesn't present 1850's Vienna agreement that was actual beginning of the Serbo-Croatian language and that has nothing to do with the country of Yugoslavia. Living in one country or five hundred, south Slavs would profit from common standard language that they are so much afraid off. Mladen Panic

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.133.15 (talk) 07:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC) 

Article title

Don't move this page to "Differences in Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian" or something similar. There are reasons why it is named as it is. Nikola 06:16, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Presumably, the reason is that Nikola feels they are all dialects of Serbo-Croatian language. This page is linked from there as a supplementary explanation. Personally I agree with the saying "language is a dialect with an army and a navy" but this page is useful no matter what the title is. --Shallot 13:01, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Close. Anyway, I think that this is an excellent NPOV term as it is true both if they are dialects or not. Nikola 08:50, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

A better place for this would really be Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian (to alphabetize them). The only thing that we can accurately say about the official languages is that in Croatia it's Croatian, etc. Dictionaries and grammars are not enforced by law - they may try to be prescriptive, but ultimately, they must follow usage. I think this page should describe the differences between the subsets of BCMSxyz dialects that are standardly used by media and writers in/of individual countries/ethnicities. Zocky 03:43, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think we should cease being overly politically correct towards "yugo-nostalgism" and accept the political reality. That is, stop referring to "official language in Foo" and use "Fooian language". That would IMO also reduce some confusion for unfortunate visitors from abroad. Usage of "Serbo-Croatian" as the term for the language is slowly dying and now almost extinct (although I think that that page should remain as-is, to emphasize common points); so, since almost no one nowadays refers to "Serbo-Croatian" as the language in use in respective states, and almost everybody do use terms "Serbian language", "Croatian language" and "Bosnian language", I don't see why would Wikipedians be smarter than the rest of the world. Consequently, I agree that the new title should read "Differences in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian language".

I don't have overly strong feelings about this, so I won't change it yet; but I'd like to hear some opinions on this. Duja 10:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it has to do much with the nostalgism as it does with the fact that, over the past century, serbo-croatian has been used alot more than the individual names. It's not as if this is Austria-Hungary and we're dealing with a nation that's been gone for 100 years. And I really don't see how an "unfortunate" over seas visitor would get confused, everything is pretty clearly laid out. Besides, the differences are more or less the same as the inconsistencies between American English and Australian English, and we all know how absurd it would be to call them under very different names. If looking at the political side of this, you can't ignore either the political present (as you suggested) nor can you omit the political past. --Hurricane Angel 17:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I as a native speaker of the Serbo-Croatian language, must proclaim that this is a load of horse excrement because the examples shown in the article are CONTRA-INDICATIVE; the person who wrote it should at least check into basic logic rules because, if you say that something IS then there can be no EXCEPTION. Obviously this was written by somebody who is only desperate to make a distinction between the languages and not by somebody who is actually academicaly competent to give their opinion. Sorry, but this is no cigare... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.90.251 (talk) 00:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Igor's comment

This whole page is a joke, I am not surprised that Shallot wrote most of it... oh brother... I'll deal with it later. --Igor 10:30, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, you "deal with it", just one more reason to propose to the administration that they prevent further vandalism. --Shallot 16:42, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Motivation

At the risk of opening a can of worms, would it be worth making a comment on the political motivation of differentiation?

Note that it's already covered in pages Serbo-Croatian language and Croatian language. --Shallot 16:42, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This page really is a joke. Wow. Unbelievable!

This page is a joke - if you lived in the four different YU countries as I have, please contact me - if not, go take care of your cat and your wife and children because you have no idea about these languages.

Slusaj majstore, ja sam lingvista i bavim se ovim jezicima, nemoj da dajes ovakve podatke narodu jer ce pogresno da shvate citav sektor. Dovoljno problema imamo sa time sto vandali pale ambasade i prave picvajz po ulicama, nemoj da dodajes vatru na ulje, leba ti. I nemoj da se ljutis, landsman sam, postujem sto pokusavas da objasnis situaciju, ali ipak dozvoli da neko ko ima akademsko zaledje objasni sta se desava. Pozdrav. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.90.251 (talk) 00:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Jakob's comments

According to this page, i adopted from Croatian to pretty good Bosnian during just three months: I started saying organizovati and to use da-constructions, but realizovati still sounds somewhat alien.

Another thing about vocabulary: in my understanding which i built up speaking with people mostly in Osijek and Sarajevo and reading Croatian, some Serbian and little Bosnian, liciti means to look like predominantly in a transferred sense (to lici na njega) while I thought the word sliciti as in to be similar to be universal (slici na brata). And I know slikati or more precisely crtati rather thant liciti for to paint.

"Liciti", if I understand well, doesn't mean to paint artistically but to paint a wall. "Molovati", if you wish (which is an old Slavic word, by the way, though most people doesn't know that). Nikola

So you mean kreciti? Anyway, I would have thought molovati to be a Germanism, which my hr-nj dictionary confirms. But than again, there are many German words that are actually Slavic with most people not knowing (Grenze-granica, Ranzen-ranac,...)Jakob Stevo

Yes, but not only with krec, but with any kind of color. Yes, molovati comes from German "mallen" which in turn comes from Slavic "smolovati" (or was it "smoliti"?) (to cover with raisin). Nikola 14:14, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

I believe "ličiti" is synonymous with "krečiti" and "molovati" in normal use, yes. Colloquially, it's not often used (in favour of "krečiti", "farbati", "piturati"... :), and the form oličiti is also not very popular, but it is used in the common word "ličilac", for the handyman who does such work. (look up soboslikar i ličilac in the .hr phone directory for a sample) --Shallot 14:22, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

And I think it can be said that words like dzada or sargarepa are regionalisms and not actually used by everybody who consideres his/her language as Serbian. And the difference stol/sto is actually more morphology than vocabulary.

That's only partially correct. The words are regionalisms but at least some of them have entered standard language, with slightly changed meaning or entrenched in phrases. As for "sargarepa", it is almost universally used in Serbian. Nikola

More general to morphology: There are certainly missing forms like porez/poreza, minuta/minut, osnova/osnov. As is the h/v stuff (suh/suv, kuhati/kuvati), and the endings -telj/-lac. Jakob Stevo 16:38, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Add an example or two of them. Nikola 11:04, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

So I will Jakob Stevo 13:15, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

verb sub-phrases

All three languages can form verb sub-phrases in two different ways, with use of infinitive, or with use of the helper word "da" (which could be translated to English as "to"; note that "da" also means "yes").

The sentence "I want to do that" could be translated with any of

"Hoću to da uradim"
"Hoću to uraditi"
Or "Will you do that?", which can be translated with both

"Da li ćeš to da uradiš?"
"Da li ćeš to uraditi?"

In most of Serbia and Bosnia, the first method is preferred in the vernacular, but in written language, the second method is frequently used to mean "will", while the first is used to mean "want to".

I think this part needs rewriting, for several factual errors and/or misguidances to an English-speaker. First, I'd rather call "da" a conjunction in this case rather than "helper word".
Second, the construct is always "da"+present tense.

Not neccesarily. It is possible to say, for example, "Voleo bih da sam to uradio". And you yourself give example in future tense below! Nikola

Even so da is used with the present tense (sam)--Jakob Stevo 09:57, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

We're discussing relative clauses in future and perfect tense -- "Voleo bih da sam to uradio" is the same in Croatian. Duja 12:33, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Third, I'd rather translate "da" in this context as "that" rather than "to": I'd translate "Hoću to da uradim" to English literally as "I want that I do that".

Don't agree. There's no second I in the original. "I want that I do that" would be literall translation of "Hocu da ja to uradim", which is quite different. Nikola

There is not even a first I. The language doesn't require it as "hocu" and "uradim" already mean "I will" and "I do". I agree that "I want that I do that" is the best translation if we want to keep it as literal as possible without doing to much violence to English grammar.--Jakob Stevo 09:57, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, you're both right. I overlooked that "I want that I do that" is an (almost?) valid English sentence as Nikola pointed out, which does not carry the same meaning. OTOH, I meant it to be read as Stevo did. A better (less ambiguous) example is needed.Duja 12:33, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Fourth, since the Serbian distinction of "ću da uradim" vs. "ću uraditi" is similar to English will vs. shall so the meaning is not obvious. I'd replace the above "will" with "shall" (I shall do it is AFAIK still perfectly fine English, although shall disappears esp. from Am.En., but it better disambiguates the translation).

I'm not so certain. Shall would proably be translated as "Trebao bih to da uradim/Trebao bih to uraditi". Perhaps it would be the best to avoid weak will/shall distinction and use some other verb insted (for example "voleo bih to da uradim" - I would like to that). Nikola 09:06, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I hope you are not messing up shall and should? In my understanding, I shall do that means something along the lines of "I will (surely) do that (alghough it might not be easy)". So the difference between uradit cu to and hocu to uraditi is actually pretty close to will/shall.--Jakob Stevo 09:57, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Shall" is still alive & well in Br.E. 1st.pers.sg. It simply expresses a future without speaker's relationship to the action in question. Thus, e.g. "I shall work" is just a future tense, while "I will work" carries the meaning that I'm also 'willing' to work. This distinction is lost in Am.E. and it loses ground in Br.E. as well. Note, however, that colloquial Serbian tends to use da+present in future tense without component of "willingness" (in the same manner as will/shall):
Kad ti budes dosao, ja ću da spavam.
Kad ti budes dosao, ja ću spavati.
Both sentences express plain future fact, and you can frequently hear the first variant in colloquial speech (although it's not considered "the best" Serbian in linguistic circles).Duja 12:33, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I see slight difference between them: the second one could only mean "when you come I will already be sleeping" while the first one could mean either that or "when you come I will then go to sleep".

Anyway, I am not messing "shall" and "should" but noticing that a lot of people are, and that it would probably be better to choose something as unambigious as possible. Nikola 05:38, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Then, few words could also be spared on related construction of future tense :
"Uradit ću to" (Croatian)
"Uradiću to" (Serbian)
"Ja ću to uraditi" (Both, "I shall do that")
"Ja ću to da uradim" (Serbian, "I will/want to do that". Probably occurs in colloquial Cr. although I'd guess It would be treated as "Serbism" in official circles)

Comments? [Sorry, forgot the sig, newbie. Duja 12:33, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)]

About that last part -- "Ja ću to da uradim" is rather rarely used in any sort of Croatian. "Ja ću da to napravim" would be more like it (though not more common than "Ja ću to napravit'" which is closer to the norm). --Shallot 16:12, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ja cu to da uradim is probably an extreme case, but there are examples where, as it says in the article, vernacular would basically use "da"-constructions, while written Croatian requires infinitive. The thing that people probably really would see as a serbism about that sentence maybe isn't even so much the "da" itself, but rather the place where it is ("to da" instead of "da to"). Comment of a non-native speaker, tell me if I'm wrong. Jakob Stevo 16:30, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Like I said, many "da" constructs are used in the vernacular, but at the same time it's not like non-"da" forms aren't used either. (Notice that I was replying to the comment above and not to the article text.) Also, many of those "da" forms that aren't spoken in .hr aren't spoken simply because they don't sound in the spirit of the language spoken in Croatia, hence the people don't feel a pressing need to prefer them over other forms. It's getting a tad frustrating to have to keep elaborating that not everything is result of (conspiracy|language police|self-censorship), sorry about my tone... --Shallot 18:04, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I was not meaning to imply any conspiracy, maybe I should have sad "not in the spirit of the language" instead of "serbism". But then, even in Austria which has not gone through a war and considers her language as German alright, there are a lot of constructions people would see as "Germany-isms" or "Teutonism", knowing that they are normal in .de but not in .at - and it doesn't have to do with "self-censorship" or "conspiracy", it's just we don't say it (or if you want "they don't sound in the spirit of the language") - but simply knowing that they are alright in Germany they are conceived as coming from there. So, saying "serbism", I wanted to say "a feature that is not common, but known to common in Serbian" rather than "a feature that has to be extinguished as it's anti-Croatian". --Jakob Stevo 23:47, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Or an other example using two languages generally accepted to be distinct from each other: Dutch say "frisisme" to constructions that are untypical to Dutch (don't sound in the spirit of the language), and derrived by direct translation from Frisian (as produced by bilingual speakers in the north of the country) - they even have a wikipedia-page on that: [1] --Jakob Stevo 09:46, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I quite like Shallot's comment. We're not writing complete comparative grammar though, but just want to provide an illustration. Of course many "da" constructs are required in Croatian as well -- just, it rather uses infinitive forms where appropriate. A (stretched) example:
Hoću da kažem da želim da idem. (Serbian)
Hoću reći da želim ići. (Croatian)
Of course, "Hoću reći željeti ići" is impossible.Duja 12:33, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've edited the paragraph in question, trying to take into account your recent remarks. Feel free to comment/praise/vomit on it. Duja 10:42, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reflaction

I don't think Reflaction is a word in English. From the context, I think "transformation over time" is what is meant. What is the correct word here? Key45 21:09, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Reflex" appears to be the common term, at least in particular case of letter jat (Google for "reflex jat"); I saw it in few other similar contexts. There's currently no Wikipedia entry for Reflex (phonology) so I removed the link as well.--Duja 14:35, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Vocab notes

Serbain - 'zejtin' for oil, seems to be semetic, from the semetic word for 'olives', present in arabic dialect, hebrew, aramiac. --80.178.230.241

But: Passport ?

In the Vocabulary section, why is Passport - pasoš, putovnica, pasoš in the But section? What makes it different from the "spinach", "factory", or "rice" examples? - Key45 22:31, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

- still wondering Key45 21:04, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think the point that was being made was that although all use put as the main form, only one of them later uses that as the root word for a related word.

Granted, similar analogies can be made for the word factory (all use stvoriti as the verb "to produce", but only Croatian uses the same root in tvornica), although not for the vegetables I don't think.

I figure something should be adjusted there, just not sure what. :) --Joy [shallot] 08:59, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Question on existance of Bosnian and Croatian as languages

First: "Bosnian language" is nonexestent! It's either spoken Ijekavian Serbian, or Croatian. For the language to exist, you need literature, books writen on that language, and you need some difference to the existing language. You can erase everything considering croatian language, because I see they are compleetly changing their language structure, and words, and nobody has time to update the page every time they decide to change something. Now there is also question about existance of the new language. Where is the literature writen on croatian. After the point they say the language strucure is reached the stabile point, and they rewrite most of the books on their languagem, only then it deserves to be called a language

---

What about those distinct languages, such as North and South American native languages, which do not have literature, books written on the language (apart from Anthropological ones)? I agree that all 3 languages are remarkably similar (and I was raised to think that they are the same language). Difference is something like that between French French (fr_FR), Belgian French (fr_BE) and Canadian French (fr_CA), or English (en_GB, en_IE, en_US). - 3 June 2005 14:36 GMT

feminine/masculine

I recently reverted a semi-anonymous change that conflicts with my experiences - can someone else confirm or deny it? --Joy [shallot] 14:26, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Usage of First (prva) and Second (druga) Palatelizacija

I am not sure how correct example of studentkinja and studentica? It seems to me that the usage of the Prva (first) Palatelizacija was not applied to the word studentkinja. Prva Palatelizacija is the change of consonants k, g, h to c, z, s, which is the gramatical rule I was tought by my old high school teacher in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who herself was from Serbia (born and educated there). Therefore, rather than studentkinja being the Serbian word, I think it is gramatically incorrect word (although I might be wrong). - 3 June 2005 14:45 GMT

And what palatalization has to do with it at all? The Serbian suffix in this case is -kinja and it's normally appended to masculine student, producing normal studentkinja. -Kinja is productive in Croatian too, just not in this example --cf. crnkinja, kineskinja. Duja 14:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What about Dom/Domaćica and Kuća/Kućanica?

In Croatian the word for 'house' is dom, while in Serbian it is kuća. However, the Croatian word for 'houswife' is kućanica, while the Serbian one is domaćica. I was told that this was the argument originally used to name the language Serbo-Croat (although probably simplified). - 3 June 2005 14:55 GMT

I reverted your changes -- first, you missed the point, as the section you appended was meant to demonstrate that the gender of imported words may differ, rather than the words with quite different origin can have different gender (which is rather obvious).

Kuća/Dom example you raised is not a bad one, however. Still, it is not true that "dom" is Croatian and "kuća" Serbian. Both words are quite legitimate in both languages, with slightly different meaning: roughly, "kuća" means "house" and "dom" means "home", i.e. the former is more neutral, and the latter implies that someone (e.g. speaker) lives in there; frequently, they're interchangeable. It is only few colloquial usages where Serbian favors "kuća" but Croatian "dom", e.g.

Idem kući (Ser) vs. Idem doma (Cro) (I'm going home)

but:

Kuća slavnih (Ser and Cro) (Hall of fame)

Napuštene kuće (Ser and Cro) (Abandoned houses)

Renoviramo kuću (Ser and Cro) (We're renewing the house)

On the other hand, Kućanica vs. Domaćica is indeed the difference.Duja 14:30, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think that kućanica is so Serbian compared to domaćica. Both words are used interchangeably in Croatian AFAICT, with the latter having some preference, mainly because of the spirit (someone who tends to a house can be just a random manual laborer, whereas a housewife is considered to be much more related to the concept of a home). --Joy [shallot] 21:18, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You meant "Croatian"?

In other words, you mean that "kućanica" is the preferred (though not exclusive) term for "housewife", while "domaćica" still means "host", like:

Domaćica nas je dočekala s kavom i kolačima vs.

Njegova žena je kućanica.

(At least, that's my view). Duja 06:58, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, I meant exactly what I said, although your second explanation does match. :) --Joy [shallot] 23:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Latin domus is dom, while latin casa (house) stands for kuća in Croatian. Or simply: to a caveman, the cave was his dom, not kuća :) .Kubura 07:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

common heritage - swearing

Excerpt from an English-language manual on getting around with Croatian (but applies to all three), got this in one of those forwarded mails:

colourful Croatian

Croatian speakers can draw on a rich variety of swear words and obscene expressions to make their feelings plainly felt. Most swearing involves liberal use of the verb 'fuck' jebati (ye-ba-tee), which is often juxtaposed with references to the two sacred cows of Croatian society: religion and family. These unholy alliances give it impressive expressive force.

Swearing in any language tends to be very idiomatic and difficult to translate, but even the most hardened Anglophone might blanch at the graphic nature of Croatian swearing. However, what might sound like a string of unbelievable obscenities to and English speaker is not quite as bad to Croatian speakers for whom colourful swearing is an intrinsic part of the language.

If you're exposed to some colourful Croatian you may even find it quite amusing and it's best not to take offence, as this may not be the swearer's intention.

The forwarded mail's subject indicates that this manual was used by SFOR/KFOR, but I'd rather not trust that. The text is true, however. :) Perhaps we should also include a Infamous exceptions section in the article :) --Joy [shallot] 19:51, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Once upon a time, I meant to write an article on Maledicta on the subject, but I didn't find enough spare time :-). The common heritage is indeed very rich and well understood accross all variations. Here's an example, although badly translated :-) Duja 2 July 2005 18:40 (UTC)

Check out this image for a nice illustration of BCMSxyz swearing: the guy on the left is Slovene and says "tristo hudičev" (i.e. 300 devils), and you can try to interpret what the Serb on the right replies. Zocky 23:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Translation's Translation

The last paragraph makes it seem that if you were to translate text from Croatian to Serbian, you'd get ridiculous differences. These differences actually came from nationalistic ambitions, where translators attempted to make the languages seem as different as possible. I added the truth behind it, my sources are people who actually live in the former Yugoslavia (not just one republic) and actually thought that Rane translation was a joke.

--Hurricane Angel 05:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Can anyone please explain, if possible, post an article, to explain how funny is the "translation"? And for your information, I DON'T KNOW Serbo-Croat or Serbian, or Montenegrin, or Croatian, or Bosnian, or whatever! So please translate the funny into English in the page please. Of course, the original translation between those languages MUST be shown. Thanks! --Edmundkh 16:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiljada, srećan, drum

"Tisuća" was used in Croatian for "thousand" long before the war of independence. An example is the Croatian edition of the children's book "Tisuću zašto, tisuću zato" (there was a Serbian Cyrillic one too, IIRC) which was published by Vuk Karadžić publishing company, Belgrade, in 1986. So talking about "hiljada being replaced by tisuća" in 1991 is pure bull. Also, "srećan" has always been a Serbian (and maybe Bosnian) word so using it as an example of people (including the president) using a "normal" variant instead of the "recently-coined" one, as was suggested by this footnote, is misleading.

Finally, "drum" is never used in standard Croatian for "road". "Cesta" is used for "road" and "put" is mostly used for "lane" or "way". --Elephantus 08:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree on all points; but I don't see which version you argue -- the current article IMO correctly addresses these issues? I recall that something like that did stick for a while somewhere (here or in Serbo-Croatian Language) but as far as I can see not anymore. If you do notice it, please go ahead and edit it.Duja 10:07, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The Alphabet Issue

'Serbian officially uses both Latinic and Cyrillic whilst Croatian explicitly uses Latinic' is a total and utter fallacy. This is the institutionalized nonsense created by a blend of ignorance with wishful thinking. First of all, before people decide to call something 'official' they should find out what the term actually means, and its article in Wikipedia (Official Language) is one of the few where you had a well informed editor. It is simple and there is no debate. Article 8 of the Constitution of Serbia confirms that Cyrillic is the official alphabet of Serbian. Latinic is only used in a manner according to law alongside the usage of any foreign languages for official purposes. None of this is known to happen. In Croatia, Article 12 is a mirror reflection of Article 8 in Serbia, stating that Latinic is the official alphabet with Cyrillic only accepted in accordance with law parallel to foreign languages. Latinic is popular in Serbia and among Serbs for private reasons. They publish books, pop and folk music album sleeves, newspapers, leaflets, brochures, restaurant menus and they write postcards in the Latinic script. This does not make it official and being official in the first place would not be an excuse to use it anyhow. The only places where the official alphabet is used is on constitutional documents, such as the Republic of Serbia, federal Parliament Building: on the tablet leading to the entrance, and other political buildings. The word 'Policija' on Police jackets. Since 2002, Policija was written in Latinic on police cars around Serbia whilst still on Cyrillic on their shirts. There is a reason but only those who observe can spot it. Serbia and Montenegro, and its predecessor Yugoslavia, operated the joint language to represent both republics on the ashes of the old Serbo Croat. This usually meant the literary language of Serbia with its vocabulary and entire Ekavian system in the Latinic script of Croatia's literary language, a phenomenon never too widely accepted but dating back to 1914. The new Police Cars, usually Puegeot 307 or Mercedes 190, with Policija-Latinic all contain the tricolor of the 1992 Yugoslavian flag with White running in the middle, therefore the cars have been issued by the Federal Police and not the Serbian Police. Yes there is a Federal Police division with powers over both republics' police. The whole reason that an official script even exists is that there may be a source of confusion in the first place, usually because a single language has been written in two or more alphabets. To have two official alphabets is a debasement of why an 'official' one is even needed, better to allow people to do what they want and continue a life of linguistic anarchy. Either way, any arguements accepting Latinic as official in Serbia should also support their claim by arguing that Cyrillic is equally official in Croatia, and this, i doubt they will do. Ragusan 5 November 2005

Somebody appears to have switched the item back the original as in the source. Well it is simple, the source was and is erroneous. I maintain that in the Republic of Serbia, only Cyrillic is official. Where Latinic is used, one may write in Middle English in the Persian script, won't make it official norm a form of Serbian. The constitutional documents are all written in Cyrillic. The only way that it is possible for a single language to have two official alphabets is when the speech community is split into two and are represented by a seperate script for traditional reasons. Latinic making its way into Serbia and staying is a legacy of the Serbo Croat. Before that, there was NO Serb who used Latinic anywhere. Even when Vuk Karadžić introduced the 'j' to replace the short-i, it was met with dissatisfaction from inhabitants of the then-Serbian country, accusing him of Croatianizing the language. There are those who argue that Latinic is official because of the non-Serb nationals living all over Serbia, mainly Vojvodina. This is illogical, therefore impossible: If Albanian, Hungarian and Romanian all employ the Latinic script for their modern languages, the concept of rescripting Serbian into Latinic is neither here nor there. The task of learning a second language in the first place involves adapting to the norms of the speech community you are taking an interest in, whether it be for private interest, for professional reasons or simply because it is the national language of the country you live in but you are not ethnicly a national of it. There can be no such thing as 'a Cyrillic script for the serbs, but the Latinic script in official usage for Hungarians'. Point Number 1: if the government are to regard the Hungarians, they will allow them to use their OWN language for official purposes. Point Number 2: All languages to use an alphabet used for another language, have their own orthography and that has to be learned first. Even then, they are still writing a foreign language in a form of alphabet devized by primary members of the speech community. If there are any further arguments stating that non-Serb nationals may use either alphabet because they are both present and official then that begs the original question, why the Latinic alphabet official? The argument stating that 'it is for foreigners' would now be dead, because it is there to serve your purposes, not theirs. Israelis do not write their Hebrew script in Arabic to appease the Palestinians and the Greeks certainly don't write their language in the Latnic script to make it easier to learn for the Turks. Ragusan 6 November 2005.

Please read this discussion on Serbian wiki. Although Cyrillic is the official script in administration (thus somewhat ), Latin script is allowed and in legal (and widespread) use as well. Besides, it is not the constitution which can define what the language is or is not. For example, constitution of Republika Srpska in mid-90s stated that ekavian dialect is the official one -- does it mean that a language and ijekavian dialect in use ceased to exist by an administrative decision? Does it mean that Kurdish language does not exist if Turkish constitution doesn't mention it?

The phrase "official language in X" adds up to the confusion. I'm considering moving the page, as I still don't see the rationale for current false "NPOV" definition. Although very similar, all three languages are nowadays officially accepted by international politics and, gradually, linguists. It can be argued whether it's still one same language in linguistic terms, but given the definition of "dialect with state and army", they're distinct.Duja 11:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry Duja, but you are wrong. It has everything to do with the constitution. Without that, there can be no deeming official from unofficial. I never suggested for one minute that Latinic is not popular among people in Serbia. It may be legal, so too are Spanish, German, Sanskrit and Javanese. In a democratic society (and often even in undemocratic societies), one may choose his language and publish whatever he likes. It does not change the constitution. 'Latinic may be used in a manner according to law' means that there may come a time when a constitutional document may be printed in Latinic, and this would be because it serves a community in Serbia who primarily use Latinic for cultural purposes, such as the people in Vojvodina who declare themselves Croat. It cannot mean 'special consideration for students in Kragujevac who simply prefer to see their language look more like French.' Furthermore, in Croatia, the opposite clause is effective with Cyrillic. Croatian primarily uses Latinic, but where Latinic be allowed in Serbia, Cyrillic is allowed in Croatia and that is that. How few people decide to use Cyrillic in Croatia is quite another issue - apart from that, anywhere that Latinic is used in Serbia is where even another language may be used. Now about these crazy remarks on sr.wiki: the official alphabet is Cyrillic and that is that. If Stojko and Gojko want to use Latinic, it is their prerogartive. If both alphabets are learnt at school and they were born in Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro, they should have no trouble reading, writing and understanding Cyrillic. There is no requirement at this stage for another alphabet. If I learn Arabic and can read the Arabian script, why do I want to write it in Urdu? and Japanese? If Gojko was born in Germany to parents from the former Yugoslavia who tought him the language but not Cyrillic leaving him to write only in Latinic, that is their problem, but I like to know how writing Latinic is supposed to help. First of all, somebody who obviously knew Cyrillic would have had to teach him the Latinic script, so that person is guilty of not explaining it to him as well, secondly, before he can make sense of the Latinic script, he would still have to understand the phonetical system, that 30 letters all correspond to 30 sounds, and they are pronounced the same on all occasions regardless of where they appear in a word - he would have had to learn the entire orthography, just like it were a different alphabet. I was born in Dubrovnik, my son was born in England. He needed half an hour to learn the Cyrillic alphabet when he was only 11 and he never forgot it. It is not rocket science. when you learn another language, you learn the rules that go with it. I have Greek friends living in the UK, their children speak English and Greek, the children never sought to learn Greek on its Latinic transliteration even though one does exist. You cannot tell me that after Arabs, Greeks, Russians, Pakistanis, Georgians, Armenians, Chinese, Cambodians, Hindis, Punjabs, Mumjabs etc. born in Western European countries have NO problems reading and writing their languages in the local orthography, that it is too hard for Serbian children to write in Cyrillic because of the pressure of the national language in their country being on a form of Latinic. Either they are lazy, or their teachers are - but like I said, whoever teaches an English born Serbian/Montenegrin the rules about LJ, J, C, H and NJ followed by Ć, Č, Š, Ž, DŽ and Ž can sure as hell teach the child the Cyrillic script. But Duja, in the end of the day, something easier for foreigners cannot be the reason that a system is in place in any language. Rather than writing back to me telling me how BLIC is written in Latinic (which I already know), tell me, whom does the Latinic alphabet for Serbia actually serve? Kosovar Albanians? yes they write Albanian in Latinic but they do not need to use Serbian unless they are communicating with a Serb in which case, THEY have the responsibility to observe his rules. Serbs themselves? they already have an alphabet. If the Serbs use Latinic for writing to each other anyhow, then that's another story, but the question "why do they have Latinic?" is still begging. And if Latinic is so popular to the point that Dobrivoje and Borivoje would rather not read Cyrillic ever, is there point in keeping Cyrillic at all? Don't you think that this is a nationality issue? If Sanja and Tanja would prefer a 'more Italianate' image, might it be simpler if they just declared themselves Italian, live 'Italianized lifestyles' but leave the Serbian culture alone to flourish in the direction that those who care about it for what it represents would like it, rather than those who want to turn in into a 'tribute to Western Europe for their superiority'?? If Armenians can write in Armenian without needing to write in Hebrew then why introduce a second official alphabet? And finally, about Republika Srpska: if their constitution says 'Ekavian Cyrillic, and the nation all writes on Ijekavian Latinic' then that is their choice. It won't change constitutional documents. The official language of Ireland is Irish Gaelic. The language of the schools, the courts, Parliament and the establishment is English - but it is STILL not even joint official in Ireland. One more thing Duja, did it ever strike you that Russian, despite having a Latinic transliteration too, does not have an official alphabet? You probably thought that it did, and that it was Cyrillic, well it hasn't, and why not? Because Russian is not to be found in any other alphabet, you see - Official alphabet only occurs where the same language may have been written in more than one alphabet for whatever reason. Armenian has its own as the official because it may still be written in Cyrillic because of its time under Moscow. Turkish has Latinic because older Turks may still use Arabic. Latinic in Serbia is a legacy of Serbo-Croat, before which, use of Latinic was unheard of. If the rules are relaxed and free then there is no point mentioning it in the constitution, thus there be no official script and documents can be written as wished and linguistic anarchy prevails. Remember Duja, the page is about Officialdom, not popularity, or what is simply legit - two alphabets for one language cannot serve ONE community. If there ARE two, it's because one serves one people, the other, a seperate group. There is no "I like to write Hebrew but prefer the Runic script". And finally, yes there are millions of Kurds in Turkey. The Turkish government neither recognized their nationality, nor their language, as such, Kurdish was NOT official there (though this is slowly changing). Nobody said that it wasn't spoken. Ragusan 9 November 2005

Maybe if Vladimir wishes to read his article in Latinic, he can go to Bosnian or Croatian, I'm sure a Serbian intellect will have no trouble understanding those and it won't hurt his pride that badly. I read Slovenian sometimes, read it like it's my first language. Ragusan 9 November 2005

Ragusan, if you were as productive in writing articles as in this talk page, that would be more beneficial to all. I can hardly read 2kB of non-paragraphed text above.

This page talks primarily about linguistic issues (of course, we can't leave the politics out) -- it describes the usage of language(s) and its idioms. If we accept this title, then you have the point that Cyrillic is indeed the official (as defined by constitution) script in Serbia (not sure about Republika Srpska).

I'm moving the page. I hope you'll agree that Latin script is indeed a part of Serbian language (rather than "official language in Serbia") as defined by common usage rather than papers. And I stand on position that laws can not define what the language is and what it is not.Duja 08:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Please sign with ~~~~ rather than typing.

I am quite sure that the percentage of Serbians who write in Latinic would number more than a third. I'm infact certain it would be more than a half. It's margianally more popular with the young. Though no official data can be obtained, I know that surveys are often carried out by various organizations to see which alphabet is used more. A collection of literature may also come in handy when assessing this phenomenon. There are a few people who will pick up a pen and write in whichever alphabet they so feel like writing at the time, I hope they don't mix it up half way through because that will cause severe confusion! User:Celtmist 11-10-05

Why certainly Duja. I apologise, my texts are even too long for me to read back sometimes, so I'll make this one shorter (it is easy to get carried away when the fingers on the keypad start broadcasting thought!). Sadly, politics cannot be left out of language, with me born in Dubrovnik, raised in Brčko and living in Belgrade before emigrating to England - I bloody well know that! I like the text as it is now, it is a marked improvement so well done to you. Now, I am not a Serb, and it may surprise you that I, myself use Latinica 90% of the time and have no quarrels with people who use either. I totally accept that Latinica is a part of Serbian everyday usage and it is even spreading into Macedonia who for years were adament on using Cyrillic (their slightly different format). I guess that my argument pertained to the article's keyword 'official', where-as if it were simply 'general differences' then the original text would certainly be applicable. Now I think there are quite a few aspects on the page worth debating but I've decided that for a few weeks at least, I'll leave it - see if anyone else makes any obseravtion which I have in mind.

and I'll try not to write an entire essay in explanation! Pozdrav Duja. Ragusan 10 November 2005

I support the move. This is not really an NPOV title, because the expression "official language in Croatia (Serbia, Bosnia)" isn't used anywhere except in legal documents defining the official status (constitutions, laws...). In all other situations it is called Croatian (Bosnian, Serbian). Naming policy should follow the most common usage. --Elephantus 15:31, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I oppose the move. As I explained above, the name is excellent NPOV, because it is correct regardless of views on the issue. Noone had any problems with it, ever. Nikola 20:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

There's no such thing as NPOV when it comes to titles of articles because each article can only have one title (with multiple redirects to it), so it should be best described as DPOV. See Wikipedia:Naming conflict. Additionally, NPOV prescribes _fair_ representation of all significant points of view, which means that minority views shouldn't be given a dominant position. See Wikipedia:NPOV --Elephantus 23:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, now we have problems with it (at least Ragusan has, see discussion above). Besides, I don't see why anyone (except hardcore language unitarians and opponents of term "Bosnian language", which is nevertheless officially accepted in international and BiH documents, and possibly even Republika Srpska laws (is it?)) would have a problem with the new title? Further, the title incorrectly suggests that there's one official language in BiH (in political sense) when there are three (which is described otherwise). Why not accept the actual state of affairs? Duja 08:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Ragusan's rant is too unreadable for me. But if you know that the issue is controversial, why would you move article to a controversial title when existing title nicely goes around it? It's not true that the title suggests that there is one official language in BiH: "Differences in official languages in ... Bosnia" doesn't suggest number of official languages in Bosnia. Nikola 17:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Phonetical nonsense

There is a load of garbage in the Phonemes section too. Quite a few, but I will focus on just one. Parts of Croatia where they don't so much have a Č sound, but a Ć sound, and often something inbetween. There is no existing sound inbetween the two. In cannot even exist. The problem is that in the Serbo Croat speaking domains, nobody has ever truely understood the purpose of the letters ć and đ. They are not softer versions of Č and DŽ. What happens nowadays is that the so-called softer sounds are pronounced as anybody else would pronounce the normal CH and Dzh sounds, 'noć' like English 'Notch' and when pronouncing 'Čakovec', they do so with the tip of the tongue further back towards the middle of the ridge, applying more pressure to give it a harsher effect. That is pointless and was never the purpose of the sounds, but because of everyones ownership of language, this habit has fossilized into a rule. Since the two letters in both cases still exist and the languages of Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian would still strongly recommend using one lexeme per phoneme, I must insist that the importance of the letters should be stressed and explained properly:

'C' as in 'Lice' (face) is an example of an affricate, it has two sounds - an initial plosive sound followed by a released of air created by the oncoming fricative. In the case of 'C', one positions her mouth where she might pronounce the 'T' of 'Tivat' but will not sound it, instead, she will break straight into an 's' as in 'Gospić'. So the difference between HRVATSKA and HRVACKA is that in the first example, T should be distinctly pronounced and in the second, it should be a fast silent pause only sounded when the 's' shoots away from it. One can argue all they like, this is enough for a sound to be classed as one and not two.

The function of Č is to place the tongue behind the front two teeth as to pronounce 'T' but instead of exploding into an 'S' as you would in 'C - Crikvenica' - you adjust the tongue to perform the š of 'Šibenik'. If you hold the sound of 'Č' you get 'tššš etc.'

The function of Ć begins with the same place of articulation except that the back of the tongue is raised as high as possible so that the effect of the second sound will be a 'j' as in 'Jug'. So the sound is effectively 'Tj'. Brat=Brother. Brat+ja (brothers) = Braća. If one pronounces Ć and finds that the final sound corresponds to Š and not J, then they have mispronounced it. Their choice, may be, but you cannot change the rules and say 'this is correct' it is 'Č' which requires more tension. Here is an even simpler analysis:

C= T+S; Č= T+Š; Đ/Dj= D+J; DŽ= D+Ž. C minus T = S; Č minus T = Š (and so on). So if Ć gives you T+Š, what is the fricative sound following the 'T' starting the Č? Nothing more than another 'š', so the two variants 'č' and 'ć' would not be required. This is why it is wrong to transliterate Italian 'Ciao' as ćao. In Italian, Ci is equal to T+Sci. Sci=Croatian 'ši', so 'ci' must also be 'či'. Ć on the other hand would suggest that Italians when pronouncing 'Ciao' actually attempt to pronounce the hard 'C' or a 'T' followed by a short 'i' which they do not do. Soft sounds are mostly resticted to slavic languages because they reflect a certain phenomenon where most vowels in Old Slavic started with an initian 'j' sound. This caused many sounds to yield. In Czech, the challenging 'Ř' is nothing more than a standard R with the back of the tongue raised and its primary position precedes a vowel which once started with a 'j' - so Rja would become 'Řa'. So back to the original point. Any suggestion that a sound between 'Č' and 'Ć' exists is also a claim that there is a sound between 'Š' and 'j'. An exhausted Ragusan 6 November 2005.

Croatian neologisms

Subsection discussing Croatian neologisms has to be there - it is vital to explain to a wider audience what is going on there. Use of jokes is also valid, and I dont see how you can atempt to portray Serbian version of the language as awkward (by a artificial sentence containing 5 'da', which is really just a derogating joke circularing in croatia - and note that this was not admitted, but perfidly veiled as how a sentence "typically" sounds), while removing jokes (which perfectly illustrate the issue) in the neo-croatian section (and which are clearly marked as jokes). croatian perfidry and hypocrisy will not stand here!! Suvarijeka 12:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

If you think the example Serbian sentence is awkward, then correct it. Croatian doesn't, contrary to popular opinion in some parts of former Yugoslavia, "use a lot of neologisms". Most neologisms coined in the 1990's never really entered the standard language and remain marked as substandard. --Elephantus 21:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

i have corrected it, but you keep reverting it, together with all other material a top of joke/neologism page. it is undeniable that croatian television and media forces some new words to croatian publec - btw croatian tv is widely acessible in serbia through cable tv (which is widespread). do you have any valid reason not to include disucssion of such neologisms, and very illustrative jokes, that are part of folclore connected with newly established languages? politics of new language is much part of this article as anything else is. if you think some of the information is incorrect, you may correct it but it is wrong to exclude valid material just because it doesnt fit in your nationalist agenda. it is against wikipedia policy to do so! Suvarijeka 02:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

For instance, you might help distinguishing real words from the jokes/parodies. For instance, it turned out that words such as 'zrakomlat' or 'krugovalna postaja' are in fact used in Croatia (even if infrequently - it is not surprising that not all attempts by nationalist driven neo-Croatian language drive was not completely successful, after all, people are not as easily influenced as politicians sometimes assume). It is true that some of the neo-Croatian language consists of once obscure (and now ressurected) words - I have now emphasized this point in the article, but it is undeniable that there are neologisms and that they are popularized.

Even if you do not want parodies to be included (and as I said, sometimes it is difficult to tell parody from a real word; the parodies can give YOU (a Croatian speaker) idea how the other more legitimate words sound to the rest of the Serbo-croatian speakers; they are very illustrating and should be included as much as comment about Rane is, i.e. it gives a wider context of the language war in Croatia)), even then there are real examples (marked as R) of neologisms used instead of international words, obscure words now in more frequent use etc. To simply revert all my changes is close to vandalism, and is certainly an attempt to exclude some of the less flattering sides of the Croatian drive to have their own distinct language. If people across ex-Yu laugh at you (and they are, not only Serbs laugh at such misguided attempts btw), there must be some reason for it. The fact that they do laugh has a place on this page, IMO. Suvarijeka 03:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Many Croatians find some Serbian words and expressions inherently funny (say, "šargarepa", "merdevine" and "vaspitanje"), regardless of what is actually being said. Mock-Serbian is sometimes used jokingly in Croatia and associated with false arrogance and general cluelessness. Yet, this is not the place for such things as a) they are hard to verify and maybe even unverifiable and b) this article deals with differences in _standard_ languages and most of what you inserted wasn't even language, let alone standard. --Elephantus 09:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Onaj (t)ko... in Croatian

Can someone from Croatia please confirm or deny the usage of ko in Croatian I wrote? Google search for "onaj tko" [2] versus "onaj ko" [3] contradicts the info I entered in the article, and "Taj tko" [4] (which sounds horrible to my ears) versus "Taj ko" [5] is indecisive. Duja 11:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

"Ko" is substandard in written Croatian in all positions. "Taj tko" is avoided and "taj koji" is usually used instead. --Elephantus 12:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, seems so. Fixed. Duja 12:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Standard Croatian knows no "ko" instead of "tko". Still, in some Croatian dialects you'll find use of " 'ko " (note: the apostroph!). In such situations in Croatian you feel that there was a dropped "sound", while in serb. sounds more "harder", like... like there was no "t" originally in "ko". Kubura 10:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Ju/Je

In Croatian, clitic form of accusative of personal pronoun ona (she) is ju (her), while it is je (long unstressed, jē) in Bosnian and Serbian. However, it can pose problems in the past tense with the latter, as it collides with auxiliary verb je (was). Thus, "He knew her" would be "On ju je znao" or "Znao ju je" in Croatian, but je-duplication is not allowed in this context in Bosnian or Serbian – it must be either left ambiguous ("Znao jē" differs only in vowel length from "Znao je" – He knew (that)), or reworded using long form ("Znao je nju").

Nikola wrote: AFAIK, ju is the only correct in Serbian too, but is most oftenly incorrectly used.

No. Je is most definitively correct. Ju is probably also correct, but considered either "archaic" or "croatism" – you will seldom hear it in vernacular. Duja 16:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Millosh should tell us what is correct, and you will seldom hear it in Croatian vernacular too. Nikola 07:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I hear ju quite often in Croatian vernacular (see for yourself (but I also often hear je). I'll leave the passage out of the article until we get more info on "official" treatments. Duja 09:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Voting on closing down the serbocroatian Wikipedia

See: Glasovanje_o_zatvaranju_srpskohrvatske_Wikipedije Hope, many of you will contribute! :) --Neoneo13 13:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No closing down Serbo-Croat Wikipedia!! --Edmundkh 16:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

German version

I took a look at the German version of the article, and noticed a lot of errors concerning compared words. Some words which are used as synonyms are given as different between Serbian and Croatian, for example, stranka/partija or rezati/seći. Some words which are different in Ekavian and Ijekavian are given as different in Croatian/Bosnian and Serbian, creating impression that Ijekavian forms are only Bosnian. Some words are flat out wrong such as komadić/komadić, parče, where komadić and parče mean two different things, and osnova/osnov. If someone here knows German, please correct this. Nikola 07:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Nikola, in Croatian we use only the word "komadić"; for the same thing, Serbs used word "parče" or "parčić". Kubura 08:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• The German version clearly points out the culturological importance of this issue and states that the list there is only an attempt of pointing out "differences between these languages" - and there are quite a lot! Of course, currently there may be lots of synonyms, but it is also important to state croatian or serbian words/differences. I think the article here lacks a lot of cultural knowledge and up-to-date information. It is not only grammar that matters! --Neoneo13 11:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • No, these are not synonyms, these are completely different things. The error about Ijekavian is also quite important. Nikola 08:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
    • • I can help with the German, but my Serbo-Croatian is about 1/2 on the Babel scale, so I'd need to spend some time comparing the two versions / asking to find out what if anything is the right version for every disparity. Consider me a last resort. Probably better done by a better done by a Croatian-German (?) like Neoneo. Adam Mathias 16:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

President

What is the word for president in Serbian? In this article it shows it as "predsjednik", but the official government websites of Serbia show it as "predsednik" ... minus the j. For example [6] and [7]. Even the Serbian wikipedia has it as "predsednik", see here. -- 14:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The introduction paragraph above the table stated that ijekavian version of Serbian will be used below, in order to stress vocabulary and morphology differences rather than e/ije ones – that's why I reverted. It's predsednik in ekavian and predsjednik in ijekavian of course; the point of the entry was to show that it's preds(j)ednica rather than preds(j)etkinja in Serbian. Duja 16:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Okay. -- 06:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

-tek-, -liv-

Kubura wrote:

Duja, listen, this down should not be the case of yat. These words more look like pseudo-eta (or pseudo-ita) words. Serbs felt the "e" of yat in these words like eta (ita in New Greek) in Greek loanwords, so instead of "dolevati", "prolev" and "utecati" they used "i" instead of "e", as it is the case with eng.Crete - cro. Kreta - ser. Krit, eng. abdomen - cro. abdomen - ser. abdomin...

Kubura, you may have a point regarding uticati, proliv. I'm not sure where the difference stems from though; they might be "pseudo-ijekavisms" indeed. However, they don't look like Greek loans -- the roots tek- and lev- seem Slavic. My guess is that there perhaps was not an ě. However, you left in the subsequent sentence, which was "orphaned"; I commented it out as well until we settle this. (Btw, it's also abdomen in Serbian, but I get your point. Cf. Betlehem vs. Vitlejem).

As for syllabic "l", it's a red herring. L is not syllabic in standard language, period. It's limited to dialectal usage in Torlakian dialect and to Czech toponyms. Duja 16:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

==Syllabic l, pseudo-eta etc.== This is also on Duja's talk page.
1.Of course these words are not of Greek origin, but with the development of language, they are felt as "ita". Similar thing happened in Croatian language, where some "e" in some words began to be felt as "yat", e.g. in "susjed/susid".

Hmm -- to me, susjed looks like quite normal word with real jat; it has full e/ije/i change (sused Kajk. & Ek./susjed Ijek./susid Ik.). (In Serbian, it is preserved in adjective "susedni").

As with proljev/utjecaj, I find them peculiar, but your explanation regarding ita does not seem plausible. These are old Slavic which had something in the root (maybe a jat, maybe something else), which reflexed differently in East and West. I don't know what it was though and how they emerged.Duja 15:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This is yat. In Serbian, ekavian (E) forms were "pushed out" & ikavian (I) standardized in some cases: těh, oněh, něsam,...as in Croatian/Bosnian. In other cases, I has been retained in both Serbian (Ekavian and Ijekavian variant) and Bosnian, but ijekavian (IJE) in Croatian: zalěv, potěcati,.... Hence, these semantically different pairs: poticati, podsticati/potjecati, poticati; ?, uticati/uticati, utjecati; naticati, ?/naticati, natjecati,....Mir Harven 21:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

2.About "l", sorry for wrong expression, I wanted to note the case of Croatian "sokol, vol, stol" - Serbian "soko, vo, sto". Do you get me now? That's the "l" I wanted to tell you about. Kubura 13:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah I see. That should be mentioned indeed. When I find time.... Duja 15:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Šta/što

Dijan wrote:
This last sentence should be taken out because in this context the word "što" does not mean "what". It means "which". So the sentence literally means: That which he said is a lie.

Well, we can't transplant English into Serbian/Croatian word by word. In Croatian, što is both relative and interrogative. In the latter context, it requires an additional qualifier to work: Sve što je rekao, To što je rekao, etc. In English, what is interrogative and that or which are relative; but there's little principal difference between that and which. So, in English, to što je rekao can be just What he said. I think that it's not ungrammatical to say That which he said or That (thing) that he said, but they sound horrible. In any case, the point is, što means both what and that/which; it just happened that the particular construct What he said was a lie is allowed in English, but many similar ones using what will fail, e.g. Everything what we said was a lie. Duja 16:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Another difference

E is pronounced [ɛ] in Serbian and Bosnian and [e] in Croatian, and o is pronounced [ɔ] in Serbian and Bosnian and [o] in Croatian. That’s according to the languages’ respective Wikipedia articles, at least.

Nope. That info in Croatian article is mostly wrong, but I lost the nerve to cope with same info in three different articles. To be very precise, the correct IPA symbols should be [ɛ̝] and [ɔ̝] (more closed). [o] can occur as an allophone, and occasionally [e], but it's not the primary phonetic value. Duja 09:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

An Edit

I removed this sentence from the bottom of the second paragraph of the first bullet-point in the "Notes on comprehension" section, because if you think about it, it's a rather politically-charged sentence and does not need to be there, since the paragraph discusses comprehension:

"This does not answer the primary question, and that is: does a Bosniak want to speak the same language as a Serb, or to call his language by the same name as a Serb?"

Also changed the first and second sentences of the second bullet-point.

Alan. --84.66.250.254 18:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I completely missed when someone added it. Duja 07:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Mir's edits

I had to add {{POV-section}} to the Mir's contribution; I understand he added it in a hurry though. Without questioning his good faith, the problem is that it presents one view of one linguist, which has its own conclusion (which, curiously, matches Mir's opinion); other linguists will certainly have different views. So, I agree the section is needed, but it should offer an overview of different views on the matter (plus, is it considered a copyvio as such?). Personally, I don't have a problem with this view on the things, but other views should be included as well (in my opinion, the matter comes down to whether the glass is half-full or half-empty, but it's just my view).

Also, I removed "linguistically strictly codified" from the opening sentence. "Strictly" is not accurate enough—while it might be true for Croatian, the other two are generally less picky about alleged "Croatisms" or "Serbisms". In other words, the decisions whether a phrase constitutes a valid "Serbian" and "Croatian" are often moot, especially from Serbian point of view. Duja 07:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

OK then, put the opinions that differ from Kačić's in these (or other) respects. But, let the statements be explicit & not confined to general phrases void of any concrete meaning. Audiatur et altera pars. Mir Harven 20:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough; will do when I find some time. Duja 10:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Cyrillic

Quot:"Serbian language uses both Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet. (Cyrillic is in official use in Serbia and Republika Srpska. Latin script is also accepted as defined by laws, and used roughly by 1/3 of native speakers as the first script, although no official records exist).". Are you sure ? I know that the source is a bit hysterical & nationally exclusive (why would Serbian language be "endangered" or "Croatianized" by Latin script ?), but I also found the following data elsewhere: Serbs in Serbia proper write predominantly, 60-80%, in Latin script: http://govori.tripod.com/cirilica.htm Mir Harven 12:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Just a bit hysterical & nationally exclusive ;;-)? Boy I must say I switch the channel whenever I see any of those folks on TV. I think I wrote the 1/3 number, admittedly unsourced. Look: in Serbia proper (uža Srbija), my estimate is that well over 75% people normally use Cyrillic to write by hand (even if they do so rarely :-) ). In Belgrade and Vojvodina, I'd say that the situation is around 50/50; for example, that's the situation with my working colleagues. One can also tell by the inscriptions on stores and streets; the more South you go, you will find more Cyrillic ones, but that percent would IMO incline toward Latin for commercial reasons—it certainly looks more fancy to write "Caffé Paris" than "Кафе Париз", even if the owner is member of Serbian Radical Party; young generations learn Cyrillic script in 1st grade, and the script does not look endangered like those folks would like to present. Maybe 1/3 is an underestimate, but the ratio certainly does not go above 1/2. Alas, I'm not aware of any neutral polls. Duja 10:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, unreliable source. Mir Harven 13:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Couple of suggestions

I will not meddle into the article as I do not feel informed enough about the entire wikipedia system but I'd like to make some suggestions for this article to clarify two important things. First, there doesn't seem to be any mention at all about the pre-Yugoslavian period so an uninformed reader gets an impression that Serbo-Croatian has always existed and Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian are only newly created in the '90s which is completly contrary to the truth since the word srpskohrvatski was never even used before 19th century. It would be great to see a comparison of 15th or 16th century Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian literature languages. Yes, I'm aware of the word "standard" in the title but this is way too important to be dismissed on that grounds and (as far as I know) there is no better place to put it. Secondly, I think there should be a longer, 10-20 sentences long text written in all three languages as well as in English. These tables give a lot of examples but are of little practical meaning and along with the last paragraph can lead to a conclusion that there are no real differences. A longer text would leave it to any readers common sense to judge this, which is, IMO, probably the best option. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.242.115 (talk • contribs)

That's the stupidest thing written above-to compare the dialects from 15th or 16th century. It's a total nonsense considering that those 'languages' don't exist any more and are not spoken today. Why should you compare something that don't exist? That's Crazy!!! Those comparizons should be done somewhere else, where the history of the dialects of one language is discussed, not on this page! Cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.110.10 (talk • contribs) 03:57, 11 August 2007

It's a valuable suggestion. However, my experience with this article has shown that it is pretty much a magnet for trolling; the examples can be written either to exaggerate or to minimize the differences. Pretty much every anon around has been altering "učiniti"/"uraditi", infinitive/subjunctive, ekavian/ijekavian, just to suit his own dialect, idiolect, political idea and whatnot. Thus, I'm reluctant to do this, as, considering number of allowed variations (esp. in Serbian, somewhat in Bosnian), it would be an endless war of "this is not Croatian"; "this is Serbian"; "yeah, but..." etc. If you saw e.g. the "multiple language" declarations on imported products, you will have an idea what I mean: depending on translator(s), they are either almost identical or different beyond recognition for a casual foreign reader (although perfectly understandable for all BCS speakers, of course). Duja 07:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Fact is that if three people talk, one in Bosnian, other in Croatian and third in Serbian and they all use standard or close to standard language, they will almost instantly know which is which in spoken language. In written lang. it could take two or three sentences. (something that absolutly should be mentioned in the article) This proves perfectly that everyone knows what the differences are and it is just a matter of admitting them. The fact which you in the name of the community just openly admitted here that it is impossible to come to a solution on this issue along with the text below proves that even though some want to overexaggerate the differences others still want to minorize them which is equaly wrong. Whereas the first case is very well laid out in the article, the second should really be worked on more. The very fact that realization of this suggestion is impossible as well as reasons for that probably say a whole lot more about the whole issue then all those tables and examples. It is really ironic that the talk page gives a better picture about the subject than the actual article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.242.115 (talk • contribs)

Well, I can give it a try later... I owe Mir (see above) a quote already. Duja 13:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, what about my second idea, does anyone have the capabilites to do that?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.242.115 (talk • contribs)

Me not :-). Duja 13:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a load of rubish!

How many dialects are in everyday use in Germany besides the offical Hochdeutsch? Person from Hanover hardly understands Schwäbisch dialect from Baden-Württemberg. Austrians or Prussians wouldn't also understand much of a Platdeutsch. And does anyone even dream about saying that Niedersachsen is not German? No! And why not? No one is that stupid! For the same reason no one is trying to promote Australian, Canadian, American, Jamaican or South African Language.

Why promoting Bosnian then?

Bosnian language is pure fabrication for the political purposes. It was recognized by UN during the civil war in Bosnia, as a support to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. There were no true linguistic or any other scientific reasons for its recognition. All the reasons in favor of Bosnian language are deficient and politicaly motivated.

Bosnian languaage uses Latin alphabet in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cyrillic alphabet in the Republika Srpska. No, it doesn't! Bosnian language is not in use in Republika Srpska. Ask the locals. They are ethnic Serbs. What langugage do you think they speak?

Serbian language uses both Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet. No, it doesn't. Serbo-Croatian language uses both Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet. Serbian language uses Cyrillic alphabet only. Serbian Cyrillic is unique and native to the Serbian language.

Differences between Serbian and Croatian are minor. They are even smaller than ones between German and Austrian. It is one and same language - Serbo-Croatian.

Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian (also Croatian or Serbian, Serbian or Croatian) (srpskohrvatski or cрпскохрватски or hrvatskosrpski or hrvatski ili srpski or srpski ili hrvatski). It belongs to south Slavic group of languges, along with Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian. Serbocroatian language is based on Štokavian dialect and defined Ekavian (ekavski) and Iyekavian (ijekavski) pronunciations. It also has Kajkavian and Chakavian as its dialects.

For some political or any other purpose, someone can invent five or ten more languages on Balkans, but it wouldn't change a fact: Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrians are speaking with one langugage: Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.200.198.140 (talk • contribs)

BRAVO, YOU TOLD THE ENTIRE TRUTH! 'Croatian', 'Bosnian','Serbian' and now "Montenegrin', 'Sokac', 'Bunjevac' and soon probably 'Dalmatian' are just POLITICAL CREATIONS by some brainwashed nationalist who are temporary in position to do that, nothing else! Those all 'languages' are ONE language, and they differ between themselves less than the dialects in one language. All this craziness about having 'theirown, reagional language'is a total nonsense, a total crap which nobody serious in the scientific world takes for seirous. And very certainly everyone normal is LAUGHING to that load of rubbish! Lackily the ordinary people doesn't take it seriously either, they all know that they speak one language-SeboCroatian or Croato-Serbain. Greetings and Cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.110.10 (talk • contribs) 04:13, 11 August 2007

03.57 and 04.13 in the morning and you, "cheer-boy", are trolling with inflammatory messages? Normal grown men are in the bed with their wives or fioncés. Can't you find a woman? What are you saying "cheers"? Are you drinking? At that hour? That's not good for your health. Kubura 08:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The terms Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian etc. are also politicaly motivated names or shall we nationalistically or pannationalistically, so are many other languages or their names in the world. I am not a linguist, so I can not argue if the whole region speaks the same language, but I doubt it, because some dialects are hardly understable to others without study. However I do know that the Slovenian language artifically separated its Carniolic version from the Kajkavian dialect for nationalistical reasons (done by Kopitar) and that from a linguistic point of view the whole Štokavian dialect is considered as one language, but this does not mean that this language is Serbian, Croatian, Serbo-Croatian or any other of those (pan)nationalistic names. This language is multiethnical, but it will not be recognised as such anytime soon probably. However, there have been such discussions among the croatian linguists. Bye

Recent addition

Recent addition by User:83.131.71.79 (Mir?):

However, arguments along similar lines tend to be blurred due to the following reasons:

• there is no "purely linguistic level"

• speaking of the genetic level, no classification of languages pays much attention to this category. For instance, South and Eastern Slavic languages (Slovenian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian,..) belong, genetically, to the one category and Western Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Lusatian,..) to another, without repercussions for the individuality and identity of particular languages

• speaking of the typological level, languages are classified according to the root grammar, ie. morphology and syntax. So, according to this criterion, Hindi and Urdu are one and the same language- which is not the dominant position among linguists today (see. Ausbausprache). In the case of Croatian and Serbian, two levels are confused: the language as a system and a language as a standard. Since Croatian as a system is based on three dialects and Serbian on one (with the peripheral Torlak dialect), these two languages cannot be considered typologically one language. But, Pranjković's argument can be refined: Croatian and Serbian (as well as Bosnian) standard languages are all based on the neoštokavian dialect, therefore share virtually the same elementary phonology, morphology and syntax (with a few minor differences). According to this view, Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian can be considered to be varieties of a single abstract language-the number of phonemes, declination and conjugation are the same. Opponents of this contention claim that this is unduly reductionist view on standard languages since it tries to describe a phenomenon of language resorting to the incomplete set of variables describing a standard language: theoretical linguistics description of a standard language does not include phonology, morphology and syntax only, but also phonetics, word-formation, semantics, lexicology and stylistics. According to this view, Pranjković's argument is valid (although not completely) until the level of standardology: at this level, it fails due to the flaw of reductionism.

While I'm not particularly against the views stated above, this looks like an original research. If this is a quote from some renowned linguist, it should be attributed; if not, it cannnot stay in the article. Wikipedia articles are not essays; we are not here to polemize with quoted experts, but to report their opinions. As stated, the addition tries to interpret the opinions and offer a third view; readers should draw their own conclusions. Duja 16:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was me (forgot the expire). I agree with your moving the explanation since it doesn't belong to the article proper. But, I must stress that it was, actually, a sloppy citation-interview "extracted" from Pranjković, sensationalist-styled mainly with the aim of producing hysterical reverberations among the language-sensitive public. In a nutshell, it's not Pranjković's view. I'll give a few linx & my brief explanation of Pranjković's positition re this matter (won't bother to translate):

http://www.matica.hr/MH_Periodika/vijenac/1999/135/tekstovi/08.htm

http://www.matica.hr/MH_Periodika/vijenac/1999/138/tekstovi/06.htm

http://www.vecernji-list.hr/newsroom/culture/477924/index.do

http://www.vecernji-list.hr/newsroom/culture/495867/index.do

My take: "Ivo Pranjković, kao kroatist poznog-srednjeg naraštaja (kao i nešto stariji Silić, ili mlađi Samardžija i još neki) ima "kompleks" jednoga od doajena hrvatske lingvistike Stjepana Babića. Babić je, uz Katičića i Brozovića, smatran glavnim hrvatskim jezikoslovnim auktoritetom koji je prekinuo s lingvističkom starudijom i utemeljio suvremenu kroatistiku, baziranu na strukturalizmu i drugim smjerovima modernoga jezikoslovlja. Primjer Pranjkovićevih kompleksa vidljiv je ovdje: http://www.matica.hr/Vijenac/vij209.nsf/AllWebDocs/prenja U cijeloj priči neki Ćorić i slični ne igraju praktički nikakovu ulogu. Ako se ide u motive Pranjkovićevih nerijetko protuslovnih izjava, a prati što je pisao (npr., njegova polemika sa zagovornicom hrvatskoga unitarizma Snježanom Kordić, izašlom u nekoliko brojeva časopisa "Književna republika"), razvidno je sljedeće:

a) Ivo je Pranjković stalno opterećen kompleksom jezikoslovaca starijega naraštaja (rođenih od 1920.-1930.), te njihovom dominacijom zbog čega nije primljen u HAZU

b) Pranjkovićeva je djelatnost u samostalnoj Hrvatskoj uglavnom u oprjeci spram svega što dolazi iz tih dominantnih krugova vitalnih staraca-napose u pravopisu, te je praktički "antiprotivan" u odnosu na sve njihove prijedloge oko jezičnoga normiranja. Ili-Pranjković je u više navrata izrazio pozitivno mišljenje (kasnije modificirano) o djelima Vladimira Anića, nekim radovima Josipa Silića i dr., a koja su dobila negativnu ocjenu zbog ustupaka jezičnom unitarizmu i "Novosadizmu".

c) što se tiče Srba i srpskih lingvista, Pranjković je imao (i ima, sudi li se po njegovim intervjuima) pozitivno mišljenje jedino o Ranku Bugarskom i, dijelom, Ivanu Klajnu. Dobro mišljenje o Pavlu Iviću je definitivno pokopano velikosrpskom bljezgarijom potonjega, a o ostalim srpskim jezikoslovcima se i nije izjašnjavao-osim o Čoriću, u ovom slučaju, a potaknut polemičkim prikazom rečenoga.

d) velik je dio Pranjkovićevih tekstova polemičke naravi, a ne znanstvene (što je i jedan od razloga što nije u HAZU-nema dovoljno radova), no u svojim je istupima i polemikama ipak dovoljno jasan, bar što se tiče statusa hrvatskoga (i srpskoga):

1) što je jedan jezik, a što dva ili tri ili četiri-za to lingvistika nema odgovor. To nije lingvistička tema

2) Pranjković, za razliku od drugih hrvatskih lingvista, stalno naglašava genetskolingvističko jedinstvo dijalekatske baze hrvatskog i srpskog (i bošnjačkog). Uz njega, to čini, tu i tamo, i Dalibor Brozović. Ostali lingvisti (Katičić, Silić,..) smatraju da je to nevažno, jer standard nije sustav, po Silićevim riječima, i za standardni je jezik nepotrebno naklapanje o narječju na kojem je temeljen, to prije što narječna baza čini samo jezgrenu gramatiku ili morfosintaksu, dok je lingvistički opis standarda, od fonetike do tvorbe, semantike i leksikona, ovisan o samom procesu standardizacije. Valja reći da dobar dio lingvista drži da su kriteriji genetske lingvistike slabi i nedostatni za opis jezika (i na strukturnoj, a kamoli na standardološkoj razini)-pa je u tom pogledu Pranjković usamljen.

3) hrvatski standardni jezik je samosvojan jezik koji ima početke u vernakularu 15. stoljeća, s početkom standardizacije u 18. stoljeću i dovršetkom u 19.

To je Pranjkovićevo mišljenje koje ponavlja ad nauseam, u svih ovih 15-20 godina, što se može vidjeti iz njegovih jezikoslovno polemičkih knjiga (Kronika hrvatskoga jezikoslovlja, Jezikoslovna sporenja,..). Tvrdnje o tom da nema kriterija koji bi odlučivao što je jezik, da su hrvatski i srpski temeljeni na istom narječju, te da su hrvatski i srpski standardni jezici različiti jezici, kao što su različiti hindi i urdu (Pranjkovićev primjer iz polemike s Kordićkom).

I to je sve. Ako tko želi vidjeti s kojim je tezama Pranjković polemizirao, može to iz sljedećih tekstova (nisu Pranjkovićevi): http://www.ids-mannheim.de/prag/sprachvariation/fgvaria/Kordic_PDF4.pdf i http://www.ids-mannheim.de/prag/sprachvariation/fgvaria/Kordic1_PDF.pdf Mir Harven 19:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting reading; however, I dislike the direction where this section goes; those are two views from two linguists, and we focused to Pranjković for whatever reason, while there is really a broad spectrum of opinions on various topics on all sides of country borders and political spectrum. Some of them are enumerated at Serbo-Croatian language#Views of the linguists. The "outline" topic is so broad that it potentially deserves a separate (and fat) article. I'd prefer a brief overview here and even briefer in Serbo-Croatian language, with a main article called... whatever... The current section leaves the sense of incompleteness and partiality, while its more comprehensive treatment could easily "eat" the rest of the article. Duja 12:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Pa kako da se to napravi ? Mogu navesti teze sa su to varijante, da su potpuno odijeljeni bez veze, da su odijeljeni ali nekako povezani i bliski, i manijakalne (da je to sve hrvatski, srpski, bosamnki..?. To semože ukratko, uz popis lingvista, ali bez citata jer su oni ionako mijenjali stavove, a tko bi i tražio po njihovim člancima. To su zapravo 3 teze, ili 3,5 uključimo li bizone. Any other idea ? Mir Harven 23:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Paragraph

After the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Serbo-Croatian language, which was defined as the common and unified language of Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins, also followed suit and officially split into three languages, still fully mutually intelligible.

That paragraph is illogical, so the language, seeing widespread political transformation decided to divide itself? A better paragraph would be something like that after the division of Yugoslavia, all former nations begun calling their dialect of Serbo-Croat a separate language, or maybe that the languages formerly grouped under the Serbo-Croat umbrella term have gained separate recognition or something like that, not that a language split itself, whatever that is supposed to mean. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 09:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}

. I think the intention of the sentence is fairly clear (I think I wrote it), but on second look it is clumsily worded. Duja► 08:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

after the division of Yugoslavia, all former nations begun calling their dialect of Serbo-Croat a separate language. Completely wrong, Hexagon. Croats always called their language hrvatski, Serbs always called their language srpski. Despite political interventions. Always, before and during Yugoslavia. You have a bunch of literature about that.
The other case is with Bosnian Muslims (that later changed their name into "Bosniacs") and with the Montenegrins. The way they declared their language had other courses, but I leave them to tell their story. Kubura 15:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Dialect continuum, or not?

The following paragraph is confusing:

Pronunciation and vocabulary differs among dialects spoken within Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia themselves. Each larger region has its own pronunciation and it is reasonably easy to guess where a speaker is from by their accent and/or vocabulary. Colloquial vocabulary can be particularly different from the official standards.
This is one of the arguments for claiming it is all one and the same language: there are more differences within the territories of the official languages themselves than there are between the standards (all of which inherit from the standards established in Yugoslavian times, when Serbo-Croatian was the official language). This is not surprising, of course, for if the lines between the languages were drawn not politically but linguistically, then there would be no continuum at all. As Pavle Ivić explains, the continuous migration of Slavic populations during the five hundred years of Turkish rule has scattered the local dialects all around.

It looks like the author meant to argue that there is a dialect continuum across the three countries, but what he says is the opposite! FilipeS 22:26, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. I think the only problematic phrase was "no continuum at all". Duja► 08:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Sretan/Srećan

Olaf, please see the 221,000 GHits for forms of "srećan" (in Cyrillic, to stick only to Serbian results) and 30,900 for forms of "sretan" (which include many unrelated Macedonian results, as a bonus) before trying to impose your opinion on a language apparently foreign to you. Thanks. Duja► 16:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

"Tvornica, ljestve" in Serbian language

An example of tvornica being used in Serbian [8]--Hadžija 23:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

See the disclaimer above the table:

However, most words are well understood, or even occasionally used, in other languages; in most cases, common usage favors one variant while the other(s) are regarded as "imported", archaic, dialectal or simply, more rarely used.

Perhaps the wording could be better, but the bottom line is: the things are not black and white, and isoglosses of most of the word samples provided don't correspond with ethnic and national borders. For example, all Serbs in BiH say "mrkva", "hlače", "ljestve". "Fabrika" and "tvornica" have some 50/50 split in usage in Bosnia, regardless of speaker's ethnicity. Many "Serbian" words are actually prevalent in Croatian colloquial ("frižider", "pegla") to "pure" Croatian words ("hladnjak", "glačalo"). The table was meant as an illustration of typical usage, but I'm thinking of rewriting it entirely or, at least, put the "In Serbia", "In Bosnia" instead of "Serbian", "Bosnian" in its header. See this interesting forum threadDuja► 08:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, the main problem is that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are one language (whatever one chooses to call it), whose dialects overlap between the supposed "languages", making an article about the differences between Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian difficult to write. All three have ijekavski in common for a start... --Hadžija 16:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting thread, бај д веј.--Hadžija 16:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"Ser, Cro and Bos are one language...". Hadžija, don't spread your wishes here.
E.g., if you think that word like "tvornica", "mrkva", "ljestve" (!!??) were in use by Serbs, than why don't you try it this way: correct every Serb in speech when he/she says "fabrika", "šargarepa", "merdevine" and tell them that they're wrong, that they should say "tvornica, mrkva, ljestve". Tell them: "Ne kaže se merdevine već ljestve". And so on. Kubura 15:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

We should re-formulate that blockquote "However, most words are well understood, or even occasionally used, in other languages; in most cases, common usage favors one variant while the other(s) are regarded as "imported", archaic, dialectal or simply, more rarely used."
"Common usage" regards other forms as "archaic, dialectal"??? Where? By whom? Kubura 14:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Is that a comment on sentence's grammar or its meaning? I'm not 100% sure if "common usage favors" is fine English, but Google seems to say it is. As for its meaning, you'll certainly agree that e.g. "tvornica"/"fabrika", "lice"/"osoba", "pov(ij)est/(h)istorija", "l(j)estve" , etc. will be understood and even occasionally used regardless of speaker's ethnicity and declared language. So, where exactly is the problem? Duja► 15:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the part with the Google link - I'm not getting it. I give up.
But this part wasn't properly answered: Who considers one variant as "imported, archaic, dialectal"? Kubura 17:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Article title

People, your boldness is appreciated, but arbitrary page moving is a Bad Thing. Please list the article in WP:RM if you want the article at a different title, and let the concensus develop. I don't have any particular preference for the title, but I don't want to fix the ton of double redirects screwed by someone else. Duja► 09:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

People, we should consider a rename proposal soon. The title should be:
Differences between standard "Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian" (language names ordered alphabetically, added Montenegrin language).
The official page of Montenegrin government [9] in English offers "mother tongue" page as "Montenegrin language" (see button named crnogorski). Not to mention the attitude of Doclean Academy of Sciences and Arts. And of Montenegrin P_E_N_ Centre. Kubura 16:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

About "unwanted tendencies" and language policy

This was the language policy in former Yugoslavia.
See this link from the Croatian Institute of Language and Linguistics
Problemi jezične politike:
Zaključci radnog dogovora predstavnika centralnih komiteta SK Bosne i Hercegovine, Crne Gore, Hrvatske i Srbije i pokrajinskih komiteta SK Kosova i Vojvodine o aktualnim problemima jezika i jezične politike na srpskohrvatskom/hrvatskosrpskom, hrvatskom ili srpskom govornom području [dvotjednik "Oko", 1986].
See the section 2. "... Negativne, društveno neprihvatljive pojave u jeziku, jezičnoj politici i jezičnom planiranju na srpskohrvatskom govornom području, koje se često ispoljavaju u vidu jezičnog nacionalizma..."
"...Stoga je potrebno... temeljito i svestrano razmotriti stanje i aktualne probleme jezika i jezične politike i iznaći najefikasnije forme djelovanja, međusobne suradnje i koordinacije aktivnosti organa i organizacija SKJ, SSRNJ, SSJ, SSOJ, državnih organa i organizacija i drugih organiziranih društvenih snaga u području nauke, javnog informiranja, izdavačke djelatnosti i odgojno-obrazovne djelatnosti.
Ta aktivnost mora se jasno određivati protiv separatističkih i unitarističkih tendencija u području jezika, a za afirmaciju bratstva i jedinstva i jezičnog zajedništva Crnogoraca, Hrvata, Muslimana, Srba i drugih, tj. za afirmaciju jezične politike koja uspostavlja sklad između nedvojbene jednosti srpskohrvatskog/hrvatskosrpskog, hrvatskog ili srpskog standardnog (književnog) jezika i njegove varijantne razudenosti, takvog jezičnog zajedništva koje ne ugrožava jedinstvo kulturnog života nijedne nacije i nijedne sociokulturne sredine, već ga, naprotiv, osigurava."
"...Negativne tendencije u području jezika posebno su došle do izraza u posljednje vrijeme tako da se može govoriti o eskalaciji jezičnog nacionalizma, koji se manifestira: - u praktičnom razdvajanju našeg jezika na srpski i hrvatski (u nastavi na nekim stranim sveučilištima), - u isto takvom razdvajanju jezika u međunarodnim dokumentacijskim klasifikacijama, - u izdavanju rječnika, odnosno priručnika posebno za hrvatski, posebno za srpski (srpskohrvatski) jezik, - u zlonamjernim i neistinitim prikazivanjima naše jezične situacije u pojedinim enciklopedijama, knjigama i studijama širom svijeta itd. ..." Kubura 11:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Montenegrin language - features

Montenegrins use words:

• "osoba" instead of "lice"
• "nogomet" instead of "fudbal"
• "neodgojen" instead of "nevaspitan"

Momisan, Crna Gora, are you kidding??? Predominant use of Latin letters? Since when?
I had the opportunity to watch Montenegrin TV programme before and after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, but I've never heard (nor seen) that. Kubura 18:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Kubura, Montenegrins use both osoba and lice. Montenegrins do use nogomet and neodgojen sometimes, however, they use fudbal and nevaspitan predominantely. --Crna Gora 20:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Both "osoba" and "lice"? That's something completely new to me. In last 20 years, I haven't heard Montenegrins use "osoba" (with derivatives: osobno...). Kubura 13:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't use either one in colloquial speech, but both words are equally known and used somewhat in written language. As far as the derivates are concerned, only those of "lice" are used(e.g. Ličnost,lično...) Sideshow Bob 19:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if Montenegrin is your mother tongue, who are we to question that?
Čovik uči dok je živ.
Still, those data surprised me. Personally, I wouldn't dare to use those words in Montenegro. Kubura 15:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

"Osoba" is perfectly normal Serbian, and I guess it applies to Montenegro as well; it's just not as ubiquituous as in Croatian. Briefly, in Serbian, "osoba" is restricted to "a human being", thus one would use "lift za 4 osobe", "hendikepirana osoba" etc. See this Google search. "Lice" is largely synonymous and interchangeable, but it's slightly more legalese/formal; one can say e.g. only "pravno lice", not "pravna osoba". However, you will never hear e.g. "sto za 2 lica" in normal speech; it is just convoluted. "Lice" is also exclusively used in the context of grammatical person: "govorimo u trećem licu" (isn't that the case with Croatian as well?). As for the adjectives, only "ličan" [10] is used in practice, seldom if ever "osoban" [11]. Duja► 09:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, no one says "nogomet"(except for some older people who still sometimes use it- I've heard it from my grandfather, a Montenegrin from Riječka nahija :). Anyway, it is not widely used at all, so I don't think it should be in the article. Also, the word "neodgojen" is not used whatsoever. Sideshow Bob 20:02, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

"'Osoba' perfectly normal Serbian"???
Duja, ostali... jeste li vi to mene uhvatili u đir? Are you kidding with me? Is this some kind of hidden camera?
"Nogomet", "osoba", "tvornica"... are now "also used", "perfectly normal" in Serbian in Montenegrin language?
Where you were when I had problems (discussions, threats, almost "fights"!) with (Bosnian and Serbian) Serbs and Montenegrins (and Bosniaks; they used "srpski ili hrvatski"), when I served the federal army, because I refused to use words like "fudbal", "vaspitanje", "lice" (I've spoken about the "dizalo za 4 osobe", and they wanted me to say "lift za 4 lica"), "fabrika" in my communication (both official and unofficial)?
Not to mention what kind of "earwashing" had Croatian Serbs (especially ones from areas that weren't the leading ones in rebellion, warmongering and anti-Croat rhetoric); the previously mentioned "attackers" thought of those Serbs that they were Croats or, if they knew that these are Serbs, treated those Serbs like they "betrayed Serb cause" or "pro-Croatian", "pro-Tudjman", "pro-ustashi" (!), "anti-Yugoslav".
Younger generations won't understand this, neither foreigners, but older generations 'll exactly know what I've meant and what I've said.Kubura 19:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Jeez, Kubura, have you checked the Google search I provided above -- this GHit comes from The Commitee for Standardization of Serbian Language. And I was referring only to the word "osoba"; again, "lice" is not normally used in informal speech: compare this and this: only the latest hit of the former is Serbian (as opposed to Macedonian), and "lice" is here used in formal context meaning "citizen".
On the other hand, "tvornica", "nogomet" and "odgoj" are not normally used (bur are understood) in Serbia (although "tvornica" is used among Bosnian Serbs [12]). "Odgoj" is also occasionally used [13], but note that it often comes from Church texts ([14], [15], marking it as archaic/poetic), or it means (e.g. cattle) "breeding" (although uzgoj is more used in this context).
And, yes, I do trust you regarding your experience in JNA; but, as you well know, the rules of normal life cannot be applied there by any stretch of imagination, and to its "language" as well: in Army, stupidity and bureaucracy are a rule rather than an exception. Duja► 10:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd call anyone in Serbia far too politicized/businessman for saying "lice" instead of "osoba". :) "Odgoj" indeed is a typical word, and to an extent "tvornica" (btw "zeljezo" is too). As for nogomet, I don't think it's used in Serbia (elsewhere is), but it's just a result of internationalization (Fussball or Football); "Nogomet" was used before (just like were once the Croatian months, btw; a long time ago). —Preceding unsigned comment added by PaxEquilibrium (talk • contribs) 23:28, 29 March 2007

Odgoj "typical"?? Where?
As I know, using of words "osoba, odgoj, tvornica" in Serbia, as well as in ex-YU republics that had "Serbo-Croat language" as official was considered as Croat provocation, even "ustashi"(!). Bunch of texts were written (in Serb language), with those words as subject of mocking, or those words were used in negative, derrogative context ("...pa neka "gospoda" "bojovnici" "odgajaju" "osobe" u svojoj "demokraciji"). Duja, you're older, I don't have to prove you this, you had opportunity to read, see and hear such texts in all Serbian and Montenegrin media. Kubura 09:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Kubura, everyone in Serbia says "odgajati". How else would they say? And "lice" is used strictly and solely as "face" and in cases like "vojno lice", formally, but very rarely. "Osoba" is a most typical wording for "person". BTW, in Serbia they say "krst" instead of Croatian "križ", but "prekrstiti" means almost exclusive the religious one - while most people in Serbia say "prekrižiti" when they're solving crosswords. :) In the end, this (together with zeljezo) is all the best way to show that that's all just one big Serbo-Croatian language, doesn't it? :) BTW when you're referring to the Serbian language, do not just mention Serbia - it's spoken in Bosnia and Montenegro too (and inner-dialect wording differs). --PaxEquilibrium 14:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Stop POV-ing, please. You may fool outer world, but you can't fool those who lived in SFRY. I've read a bunch of newspapers, magazines, seen a thousands of hours of materials produced in Serb language/officially called "Serbocroat" (which in fact was Serb language) (or subtitled in that language): films, documentaries, educational programme, sports games broadcasts, TV-news and journals (over TV Beograd, TV Novi Sad, TV Titograd, TV Sarajevo). Not to mention that I talked with speakers of that language a lot of times. For those words you say that "are in use in Serb language"... the Serbs I've talked to, didn't know what words mean(???!!) or, in other case, considered them as "Croat words" (see my experiences from above).
Argument about prekrižiti... it's a lie. Crosswords are called "ukrštene reči" or "ukrštenica" in Serb language.
About osoba... ton of words 've been written here. "Lice" solely as "face" (except few examples????) ??? Gimme a break! Serbs are very eager to say "meni osobno" instead of "meni lično", isn't it? Or "osoblje", not "personal"?
Nobody mentioned "željezo" here. Željezo and gvozd appear in Croat and in Serb language.
I've heard about nevaspitana deca, vaspitno-popravni dom, moralno-političko vaspitanje. I've never heard Serbs using odgajati or odgoj in any form.
"Nogomet" and "Croat monthforms" in Serb language? Where that comes from? Maybe through yours declaring of Illyrian language (other, one of older synonyms for Croat language) as Serb?
Pax, you are continuing your policy of argumenting that something is Serbian/belongs to Serbs, just by declaring it. Things don't work that way here. Kubura 14:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Bunjevac

Why not mention the Bunjevac language? --PaxEquilibrium 23:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Archiving and new sections

It's finally the time to archive this page, its over 100 kb's long.
Second, shall we make new sections in the article, sections regarding the differences in terminology in certain areas? (Razlike u znanstvenom i stručnom nazivlju). Kubura 12:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Vocabulary, Pronouns

"Šargarepa" is more used in Serbia ("we" are also only saying "šargarepa"), but "mrkva" can be used too. Look at the sources: http://www.bosna.unas.cz/slovnik.html
(srpski ekavski: šargarepa, mrkva / hrvatsk iijekavski: mrkva / bosanski ijekavski: mrkva)
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/serbo-croatian/mrkva
(Croatian mrkva carrot.
Serbian (Latin Script) mrkva carrot.
etc.)

"Sretan" is SURE also used in Serbia and therefore I don't need sources (ja ne govorim hrvatski ili bosanski, srpski je moj maternji jezik). I'm from Serbia (not from BiH or Hr) and we are always saying "sretan". Please do NOT delete the word “sretan” again. It is really not necessary (and it's out of order) to make the differences between the languages bigger as they are!
[Edit:
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/sretan
Bosnian Sretan happy.
Croatian sretan fortunate, happy.
Serbian (Latin Script) sretan glad.
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/sre%25C4%2587an
Serbian (Latin Script) srećan auspicious, blessed, fortunate, happy, happy-go-lucky, lucky, prosperous, successful
Another source: http://www.krstarica.com/dictionary/index.php?u=sretan]

Pronouns (Editwar):
Serbian language:
"Gdje/Gde ćeš biti?" AND "Gdje/Gde ćeš da budeš?"
"Gdje/Gde ćeš ići?" AND "Gdje/Gde ćeš da ideš?"
Both versions are correct, so it is enough to mention the first sentence, but it's wrong to mention ONLY the second sentence. 172.180.86.246 13:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

You're missing the point, I'm afraid. No one is trying to "artificially create more differences", but just to document the common usage. Yes, "sretan" and "mrkva" are valid Serbian words, which you can find in a dictionary, but they're seldom used in Serbia. The text above the table contains a disclaimer. I've added a paragraph and changed the table heading to reflect that the differences are geographical rather than in standards; the introductory sentence on "inclusiveness" vs. "purism" also states that. "Срећан" beats "Сретан" by 188,000:533 GHits. Similar for "шаргарепа" vs. "мрква" (the latter also gets hits from Bosnian Serb websites, so the difference is smaller). Duja► 08:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"AMONG"

If I am not mistaken shouldn't the title be "Differences among standard Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Since there are more than two? At the same time change the languages to alphabetical order since this order does not make sense. In the first sentence the order is alphabetical. Thanks, Vseferović 00:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that "between" is [also?] correct in this context, at least in one variety of English, and that insistence on "among" is regarded as prescriptivism. My take is that the differences are always between, but e.g. connections should be among. This FAQ seems to confirm that, i.e. it says that "If a comparison or an opposition is involved, between is used".

As for alphabetical order, point taken. But I'm lazy to move it, and in addition, Montenegrin adds a lot of confusion (and original research) to this page. "Deklaracija o pravima čoeka"? LOL... Duja► 08:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Kuda/Kamo

Among other things English description for "kuda" and "kamo" strikes me as odd and imprecise:

Kamo has answers in these adverbs:ovamo, tamo, onamo, with similar English translations, but these adverbs refere to the certain side, wider area, meaning here (on my side), there (on your side), there (neither by my side nor by your side).

Simple English translation of "gd(j)e?" but be "where" whereas "kuda?" and "kamo?" would be translated as "where to?". English-equivalent examples of use of "gd(j)e":

• Where are you?
• Where is the airplane?
• Where should we meet?

Examples for "kuda" and "kamo"?

• Where are you going to?
• Where is the airplane headed to?
• Where should we be going to?

Consequently, answers to "gd(j)e" would be "in/on/at/by something" or similar (possibly but not necessarily related to here/there stuff) and answers to "kuda" and "kamo" would begin with to, towards, etc. --Aleksandar Šušnjar 21:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

One more thing... it actually isn't important to describe differences in meanings between "gde" and "kuda/kamo" within the scope of this article. The only thing that may need to be explained is how common are uses of "kuda" and "kamo"... --Aleksandar Šušnjar 14:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Yet another thing... I checked "kuda" translation with Morton Benson dictionary and it is translated to English as "where to" - same as I translated it above. "Kamo" is translated as "1. see kuda 2. see gde 3. ~ (sreće) if only; ...". But I realized that there is probably more to it, as I use both "kuda" and "kamo" - it just 'clicked' that they are different. Specifically, to me "kuda" actually does not question the destination but the path, as in "Which way are you taking (to get somewhere)?". "Kamo", on the other hand, only implies destination question (to me), not which way is taken. Something like this:

• "Gde" - Q: Where are you now? A: In Wikiville.
• "Kuda" - Q: Which way are you going? A: Highway 123 to Wikiland, then route 5 all the way.
• "Kamo" - Q: Where are you going to? A: To Wikiland.

--Aleksandar Šušnjar 22:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys

Hey guys. I am serbian and yes we do use the latin script as well as the cyrillic script. We can read and understand croatian perfectly including the minor differences you listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.31.83 (talk) 11:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Page move

I've moved pagename to this version, in alphabetical order. First goes B, then goes C, and finally goes S. Kubura (talk) 09:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles 4. and 5.

There's one mistake.
At first sight, it may seem all OK. But, AFAIK, at least for Croatian, the active form is being preferred, not the passive form (as it is the case in Germanic and Romanic languages). Passive form is used mostly when it cannot be avoided, in order to avoid double meanings (for that reason, it appears mostly in iuristic stuff), or to be more polite (active form is too direct, it may sound too imposing).
So, "Nitko ne smije biti držan u ropstvu..." should be "Nitkoga se ne smije držati u ropstvu..." and "Nitko ne smije biti podvrgnut mučenju..." should be "Nitkoga se ne smije podvrgnuti...". Kubura (talk) 09:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights-sample text of the 3 standards tells the truth

And one more thing:-whoever removed my previous post on the same topic on this page, should know that it's an act of violence, and if we all start being violent, everyone can change or remove parts of wikipedia that he/she doesn't like. That is not ok, and it might lead to a chaos on wikipedia. Personally I have a few posts in mind, and nothing will stop me from removing or changing them if I find any of my recent posts removed again. There are many ways to change or get a new IP address in case of banning, so let's be more civilized and stop the vandalism. With respect to this wikipedia. Cheers.24.86.127.209 (talk) 03:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:TALK. Talk pages are not for exchanging your personal opinions about topics, however well argued they may be. This page is not for working out "the truth" about Serbo-Croatian, but only for working out how best to represent all relevant opinions about it that have been expressed in reputable publications out in the real world. Kubura was in principle right to remove your post (although at this point I'd recommend not repeating that.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Fut.Perf.; First, thanks for your objective thinking this time, and second, I think that my post is just representing an opinion about A FACT, a very well known fact about how similar the 3 standards of the SerboCroatian Language are, something that finally can be publically seen by putting a text sample on the article's page. This fact has been constantly ignored and overlooked just by a few persons like Kubura, and he is absolutely the last one on this world who should suggest something to be done on the SerboCroatian language discussion page. Kubura's posts on any discussion page (mostly on pages about Croatia, ex-Yugoslavia etc.) are full of POVs, full of ignorance to the real facts of the things and full of presenting the well known lies and nonsense of the defeated croatian nationalistic propaganda from the last century. So, please consider all this above in your 'dealings' with Kubura and the 2-3 other croatian members with similar 'ideas' like him, because although lately they seems to be 'changing' and being more accepting to the reality out of their world, still I would be very cautious with them, because a wise proverb says:'The wolf changes his fur, but not his mind'. Best Regards.24.86.127.209 (talk) 02:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You didn't listen to a word of what I was telling you. "My post is just representing an opinion about A FACT"? Yes, indeed, that's what it is, and that is exactly what this page is not for. Therefore, for the last time, stop it. Next time you post anything that is not directly related to a concrete, constructive suggestion about improving an article, you will be banned. That means that anything that you post, anywhere on this project, will simply be rolled back on sight and any IP you use blocked immediately. -- That said, I am not going to discuss my opinion about Kubura's or anybody else's edits with you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Kruh vs. hleb

I'm not a native speaker, but I still miss the variants for bread. I thought that they were characteristic. I cannot add them because I do not know what to do with the Bosnian.  Andreas  ^(T) 00:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Cro: kruh, Bos: hljeb, Ser: hleb. Zenanarh (talk) 22:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Manja ispravka: Serb. hl(j)eb. --Hegumen (talk) 14:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)