Talk:Serbo-Croatian/Archive 2

message: I agree with George D. Božović about splitting the article into two articles (with a minor change to rule out national bias) - one about the Central South Slavic diasystem and the vernacular dialects (srednjojužnoslavenski dijasustav), and one about the Serbo-Croatian literary language of 1850s-1990s (srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski književni jezik in Yugoslavia). Mrcina (talk) 18:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree. - Francis Tyers · 19:03, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure we've been through this before, but Serbo-Croatian is a term widely used in the linguistic literature to refer to both the (rather cumbersome) "central south slavic diasystem", and to the literary language of Yugoslavia. I'm sorry you don't like the name, but that is the way it is. I agree that the Serbo-Croatian grammar section should be expanded, there are many good free resources covering this topic. - Francis Tyers · 07:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You say that linguistic literature refers to both topics with the same name. That is exactly why we need to split the article, regardless of the name - this is why disambiguation pages exist. I found the discussion you are referring to and all users involved (Larineso, Joy and Millosh) were in favor of the suggestion so I don't understand your objection and why you removed the split tag. Millosh pointed out the possible politically motivated repercussions (i.e. taking dialects from one language and adding them to another), but I think this could be circumvented by the name (and topic of the article) "South Slavic diasystem". Both divisions (linguistical, political, national...) and similarities (Torlak Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, Kajkavian Croatian and Slovenian) would be described in the article.  Mrcina (talk) 12:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Both topics can be treated in the same article as they are one and the same. The article is about Serbo-Croatian, which will naturally include a section on the Serbo-Croatian literary standard. - Francis Tyers · 14:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Of course we are not going to split it. Simple explanation: we are writing an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia needs an entry for a widely used term Serbo-Croatian, just like it needs entries for Bosnia and Herzegovina (which you wouldn't split into Bosnia and Herzegovina) and just like it needs Balkan sprachbund. If this were a language-study course wiki, we would've considered most appropriate course of action, but since it's an encylopedia — we write about notable and verifiable topics, like Serbo-Croatian. Cheers. --★čabrilo★ 14:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think splitting of this article is perhaps not necessary, but there should be an article about the Central South Slavic diasystem as well (maybe as a concept suggested by some linguists), although I would personally rather move the dialects section to the CSS diasystem article. Moreover, an article about the CSS diasystem already exists on Croatian, Romanian, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias beside the one about the Serbo-Croatian language. --George D. Božović (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is nothing to move at the moment. Besides, they refer to the same thing, and I most of the articles I read refer to serbo-croatian not central south slavic diasystem. - Francis Tyers · 15:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Serbo-Croatian is vastly the more used term (try doing a search on your favourite article archive for "serbo-croatian" and for "central south slavic diasystem"). - Francis Tyers · 15:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

text: That is because Serbo-Croatian refers not only to the diasystem we are discussing, but also to one of the languages of former Yugoslavia. That language was never called Central south Slavic language. Try Serbo-Croatian diasystem: 6,720 and Central south Slavic diasystem: 6,200. That is a close one. Mrcina (talk) 09:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The statements are fairly pedestrian and need not be discussed, but the use of terminology is clear. - Francis Tyers · 15:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Second. No clear arguments to split. --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Serbo-Croatian literary standard was an official language of the former Yugoslavia. There was political pressure to minimize the differences between Serbian and Croatian languages (with the omission of many of today’s languages/dialects) and create a single language and call it Serbo-Croatian. Now the political tendencies are the opposite - we have at least 3 internationally recognized languages and some more unrecognized languages/dialects, all of them developing away from each other. Now I suggest the following: Article 1 - Serbo-Croatian a virtually extinct language and Article 2 - The Central South Slavic diasystem (AKA Serbo-Croatian) a group (not a single language as the current name would imply) of spoken and developing languages/dialects. I understand that the more used term for the proposed second article is Serbo-Croatian, but this is a misnomer and it is not politically correct. The name should reflect the contents of the article and not be left unchanged for nostalgic, sentimental or political reasons or out of inertia. This way nobody would be offended and people could focus on the linguistics rather then on politics. Please, if you have any arguments except "everybody else does it like this" state them. Mrcina (talk) 20:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia has a policy for setting article names. It favours the most commonly used name, not the most "politically correct". The most commonly used name is Serbo-Croatian. We do not need to change the name for political reasons. - Francis Tyers · 01:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Serbo-Croatian languages should redirect here certainly, but it is not the name used in the literature. - Francis Tyers · 12:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Opinions of linguists about "Serbo-Croatian" diverge, please read the article. I suggested the diasystem as a compromise that would encompass both languages and dialects, because dialects of different languages overlap. Are you really disputing that Croatian and Serbian are separate languages? Mrcina (talk) 13:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Croatian and Serbian two different standard languages. We don't need a compromise as there is nothing to compromise between. - Francis Tyers · 13:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh no there isn't! You are welcome to peruse the articles on the Hindustani language and Hindi-Urdu grammar. And I'm not making any arguments about those other articles, if you feel like arguing about them, then their talk pages, not this one is the place to be. - Francis Tyers · 18:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, I don't need to argue about the differences between the languages, that article already exists. You are comparing apples to pears here because, unlike Hindustani, there was no Serbo-Croatian prior to 1850, but there were Croatian and Serbian for about 1000 years. Croatian and Serbian aren't derived from Serbo-Croatian, it's the other way around. All I'm saying is that you aren't consistent in your claims. Why apply one set of rules to one language and another set for the remaining. Why should Croatian and Serbian be considered one language and Macedonian and Bulgarian two? And why stop there, explain please (with your Hindustani example in mind) why all south Slavic languages aren't considered one? Mrcina (talk) 18:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Those questions are better answered elsewhere. - Francis Tyers · 19:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Please take your politics off this linguistics page. - Francis Tyers · 09:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not the one who brought politics into Serbian and Croatian languages. Please answer my question without politics. Why should Croatian and Serbian be considered one language and Macedonian and Bulgarian two languages? Mrcina (talk) 09:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a political question. If you are interested in the Serbian and Croatian languages you are welcome to peruse and improve their pages: Serbian language, Croatian language. - Francis Tyers · 13:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Thank you. Now that we have established all that, would you have anything against a newly created article, called The South Slavic diasystem, that would contain all languages and dialects spoken in the territory of former Yugoslavia + Bulgarian, divided into western, central and eastern? Mrcina (talk) 12:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean the page on South Slavic languages ? - Francis Tyers · 13:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, I see what you mean. That makes my suggestion redundant, I take it back. You still owe me an explanation thoug. Mrcina (talk) 15:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with čabrilo. Serbo-Croatian is both the literary language of 1850s-1990s, and the vernacular dialect continuum (Štokavian-Čakavian-Kajkavian). In the latter case, some linguists refer to it as Central South Slavic rather than Serbo-Croatian in order not to use any particular national or ethnic name, because it is shared between several nations and peoples. I believe, however, that Wikipedia should have articles on both, and currently it only has one "unitary" article. I myself would move the dialects section to the Central South Slavic diasystem article and leave the literary language to this one. --George D. Božović (talk) 15:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that would be that Serbo-Croatian language would imply that it refers only to the standard language (I deliberately don't use "literary" — because much of the literature is to this day written using "old" standards), if we moved the section about dialects somewhere else. I won't propose any concrete solutions though, because I will hopefully be away from my filthy computer for the New Year's breaks so I won't be able to follow up on that. I do however consider that there is a lot of space for improvement and building upon South Slavic languages, and that it would be very hard to write about dialects and variations of Serbo-Croatian in detail without building upon the continuum that goes into Slovenian and Macedonian and Bulgarian. --★čabrilo★ 15:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting the article

message: As I'm merely a fluent speaker of both, but not a linguist, I don't want to make any changes without verifying this, but I feel that some of the examples in the Phonology section are downright wrong.
"a" has an English approximation of bad. Pardon my ignorance of linguistic terms, but in the only way I've ever heard the word "bad" pronounced, this is completely wrong. "bad" is more of an "ea" sound. "a" in Serbo-Croatian would be more like the "a" in car IMO.
"v" is roughly similar to wait? Much as a banana is roughly similar to a pineapple? How about the "v" in carve for example?
"h" in loch? I've only ever heard "loch" pronounced with a completely silent "h". Or, more correctly, with the "ch" being more of a "k". I'd suggest "h" in help.
Again, pardon my ignorance of linguistic terms, but this is just what I noticed. As I said I have not made any edits as I don't feel I'm qualified to do so, but I encourage someone more qualified to review my suggestions and apply them as appropriate.Baggend (talk) 09:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you’re right about "bad", but you are wrong about Serbo-Croatian v and h. Serbo-Croatian v is the labiodental approximant not voiced labiodental fricative, and Serbo-Croatian h is the voiceless velar fricative (like Scottish ch in loch), not voiceless glottal transition as in English. These two Serbo-Croatian sounds don’t exist in English. --George D. Božović (talk) 17:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Phonology Examples

message: The majority of Bosniak linguists consider that the Serbo-Croatian language still exists and that it is based on the Bosnian idiom. A minority of Bosniak linguists think that Croats and Serbs have, historically, "misappropriated" the Bosnian language for their political and cultural agenda.
Is there some kind of reference on this? I'd like to read those arguments since this doesn't make sense to me either way, regardless of the Serbo-Croatian language issue.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapir (talk • contribs) 18:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Open up any Bosniak language apologetics book written by Halilović et al. and enjoy. Essentially, their argumentation boils down to extending the modern ausbau notion of codified 'Bosnian language standard' spatially and temporally so that the designation Bosnian also encompasses 1) the speech of all the other Slavs that occupy/have occupied the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2) literature having the notion of a regional term Bosnian. This usurpation of the term Bosnian is matched by the one of the term Bosniak, which not so long ago itself denoted any citizen of Bosnia (Muslim Slav, Croat, Serb), and has nowadays gained almost exclusive "Bosnian Muslim" denotation. Now, Bosniak diaspora in Turkey calls it's language Bosniak (bošnjački) , and some Bosniaks in Serbian/Montenegrin region Sandžak even call their language 'Turkish'. To the horror of Serbian linguist, Bosniak linguists appropriated the speech of Sandžak Bosniaks as "dialectal Bosnian" ^_^. With all this mind, and considering the usual meanings of "Serbo-Croatian" as a 1) Eastern and Wester variety of codified Neo-Shtokavian (in grammar/orthography books) 2) the collection of dialects spoken at the territory of present-day Croatia/B&H/Serbia/Montenegro, it's not unusual to see outburst of "Shtokavian is ours" claims in either direction, by Bosniaks (on geographical basis), Croats (earliest Shtokavian dictionaries/grammar and literature) and Serbs (final touches in standardisation of modern Croatian/Serbian under the influence of Karadžić/Vukovians). It's all the matter of a perspective and ethnogenesis one wishes to embrace. As long as we're stuck with the 19th century practice of naming languages after ethnicities, (ethnicity=language=state), there's no way to evade paradoxical claims when multiethnic states share the same dialect as a basis for their ethnicities' respective standard languages, esp. when the authors deliberately misuse the terms. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bosniak linguists 

message: So, should we add montenegrin stuff onto here? (LAz17 (talk) 02:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: When it gets codified (dictionaries, grammars, orthographies etc.) we can speak of the concept of Montenegrin language and its relation to the concept of Serbo-Croatian language (in either of half-a-dozen senses that term is usually vaguely (mis)used). Adding anything concrete at this moment would be very difficult due to the absence of reliable politically-uncoloured references. If you feel like writing something, please do it on the talk page first. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Montenegrin2