Language, identity and borders in the former Serbo-Croatian area

Abstract

This article presents a case study of the former Yugoslavia, focusing on the role of language in constructing collective identities and establishing ethnic boundaries in relation to political borders. After looking at the variable and frequently multiple language-identity links in the South Slavic world, it examines the part that Serbo-Croatian, the principal language of the region, has played in the life stories of successive states on Yugoslav territory. A survey of the main dialectological facts and historical developments is followed by tracing the alternating waves of softening and hardening ethnic and linguistic boundaries as a concomitant of attempts at unification and separation, mostly driven by different brands of nationalism. We see how the construction, destruction and reconstruction of states have been reflected in the destiny of Serbo-Croatian, which came to be manipulated as a weapon in the Yugoslav wars of succession. With the federation's demise it was officially split up into Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin as distinct national languages, nevertheless remaining a viable linguistic entity. We finally glance at the current situation of the four newly independent states, where both languages and borders are mainly employed to divide rather than to connect.

Keywords:

• language
• identity
• borders
• Serbo-Croatian
• Yugoslavia

Notes

1. For more on this see Bugarski (2010). On linguistic expressions of identity, within a broader interdisciplinary framework, see the major recent treatments of Joseph (2004) and Edwards (2009).

2. For details see Lencek (1976); now also Kordić (2010, 127–9).

3. This account includes updated material from a more detailed treatment in Bugarski (2004a). (The volume in which this article appeared contains other relevant contributions.)

4. This group included Tomo Maretić (1854–1938), Ivan Broz (1852–1893), Franjo Iveković (1834–1914) and the Serb from Novi Sad, Đuro Daničić (1825–1882), a staunch supporter of Vuk's reforms, first secretary of the newly founded Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb and first editor of its monumental historical Dictionary of the Croatian or Serbian Language (Rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika, 23 vols, 1880–1976).

5. For example, slikokaz (‘picture-show’) for kino (cinema), samokres (‘self-spark’) for pištolj (pistol), munjovoz (‘lightning-drive’) for tramvaj (tramway).

6. The original texts of the Vienna and Novi Sad Agreements, along with their English translations, are appended to Greenberg (2004).

7. Meanwhile, another long-term lexicographic project was launched in 1959 at the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts in Belgrade, under the direction of the leading Serbian linguist, Aleksandar Belić (1876–1960): Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika (Dictionary of the Serbo-Croatian Literary and Vernacular Language). Now at volume 18 and the letter O, it is still coming out under the same title, to the chagrin of nationalist critics.

8. The forms of Serbo-Croatian used in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro were not regarded as proper variants in mutual opposition, but were loosely referred to as ‘literary (or: standard) language expressions’. These ‘expressions’ were later to develop, respectively, into Bosnian and Montenegrin.

9. Somewhat ironically, first among the signatories was the leading writer and Tito's frequent companion Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981), often quoted for his informal statement that ‘Croatian and Serbian are one and the same language, which the Croats have always called Croatian and the Serbs Serbian.’

10. For detailed descriptions and analyses of wartime linguistic manipulation see Bugarski (2000, 2001).

11. A well-known and highly influential pioneering study along these lines is Barth (1969); see also Edwards (2009).

12. According to official statistics, in Bosnia-Herzegovina there were 242,000 declared Yugoslavs at the time of the last census taken there, in 1991; in Serbia, 80,000 in 2002; in Croatia, a mere 176 (!) in 2001; their numbers in the remaining former Yugoslav republics were likewise negligible.

13. For recent statements of the present writer's position, consult especially Bugarski (2004a, 2005, 2010); see also the relevant chapters in Bugarski and Hawkesworth (2004), and Greenberg (2004). Gröschel (2009) now provides the most detailed survey, supplemented with a copious bibliography. Kordić (2010), basically an extended polemic with the architects of Croatian linguistic secessionism, presents a forceful critique of nationalist manipulations of language.

14. Kordić (2010) contains a strong statement of this position. A partial exception to the statement just made concerns the terminological layer and some special registers, where divergent developments have been more substantial.

15. See the relevant chapters in Bugarski and Hawkesworth (1992, 2004), and Bugarski (2004b) – The list for Serbia alone includes Albanian, Bulgarian, Bunjevac, Czech, German, Hungarian, Macedonian, Romani, Romanian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Ukrainian and Vlach; Bosnian, Croatian and (marginally) Montenegrin, treated above as parts of the Serbo-Croatian area, are now officially also in this group.