From: George Bogavac <K2GT@UNB.CA>
Subject: Re: Serbian language
Organization: University of New Brunswick
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 14:32:41 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.015330.3429@athena.mit.edu> dmatic@athena.mit.edu (Davor Matic) writes:
>In article <21JUL92.21735997.0053@UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA> George Bogavac <K2GT@UNB.CA> writes:
>>In article <1992Jul21.194129.15557@athena.mit.edu> dmatic@athena.mit.edu (Davor Matic) writes:
>>>The only reason Serbs and Croats understand each other is because they grew up
>>>together and hear both languages spoken all the time.  There exist many
>>>differences between Serbian and Croatian.  Coratian has lots of Germanic
>>>influences, while Serbian has lots of Turkish words.  The letters are different.
>>>Gerund formation is used diferently.  And finally it sounds quite different.
>>>Coratian uses ije and je where Serbs use long and short e in some words.  Croats
>>>typically don't distinguish hard and soft ch, and hard and soft dj as much as
>>>Serbs do.
>>>
>>
>>It is true that Croats generally use "ije" and "je" (ijekavica),
>>whereas Serbs use "e" (ekavica) but that is not a difference in
>>the language, but a difference in dialect. I speak English as
>>fluently as Serbian/Croatian but have a very hard time understanding
>>somebody from south London (Cockney accent), the languages are
>>undoubtably the same, though. The same applies to the Australian
>>dialect.
>
>I am not talking about the same phenomenon.  There is plenty of
>difference in vocabulry for someone who learns Serbian only not to be
>able to understand Croatian.  Another difference is that I'm talking
>about two literary languages.  Cockney is not literary English.  It's
>a slang.  Croatian is not a slang of Serbian.  Croatian is a separate
>literary language.  And it is really insulting that one would even
>consider Croatian a slang of Serbian by comparing it like this.  That
>is exactly why the languages should have a different name.  Because
>they are different, and both are literary, used by intelectuals in
>Serbian or Croatia.
>

I never meant to say that Croatian is "a slang of Serbian". I apologize
if it sounded that way. The point I was trying to make is that the
dialect used "ijekavica" or "ekavica" is not the sole determinant
of the language in question. Neither is the alphabet. Serbian, for
example is equally "Serbian" if it is written in the Roman aplhabet.
I like to think that I speak the Serbian language, but on the other
hand, I use the "ijekavica" dialect being from Bosnia, even though
most of the vocabulary is "Serbian". My question then is this
"Serbian" or "Croatian"? Or is it "S-C" or "C-S". A lot of people
say that "Serbo-Cr." or "Cro.-Ser." don't exist...

We also must make the distinction between the literary and spoken
languages. The differences in the latter are smaller I think, and
increase as one goes further to the east or west.

Wheteher Serbian and Croatian are "the same" or "different" is, I
belive, and academic argument. They are not "the same" as in
"identical" surely, the biggest difference being the vocabulary,
but to say that they are "different" is also not completely true.
English and French are two different languages.
We have to respect our differences, but we shouldn't exaggerate
them either.

>   Regards,
>   --- Davor

Regards,
G.B.