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TheNovi Sad Agreement (Serbo-Croatian:Novosadski dogovor /Новосадски договор) was a document composed by 25Serbian,Croatian andBosnian writers,linguists and intellectuals to build unity across the ethnic and linguistic divisions withinYugoslavia, and to create theSerbo-Croatian language standard to be used throughout the country.
Sponsored by the Serbian cultural organization's journalLetopis Matice srpske editorial board, talks on the use and acceptability of theSerbian, which usesCyrillic and is centered on the city ofBelgrade (known as the eastern variety of Serbo-Croatian) andCroatian dialect (which uses theLatin script, centered on the city ofZagreb, and is known as the western variety of Serbo-Croat) took place in the city ofNovi Sad, in the Serbian province ofVojvodina. Two days of discussion, from 8 through 10 December 1954, resulted in the signing of the agreement, which laid out ten conclusions regarding the language.
The agreement focused on the similarities between the two dialects, and was primarily concerned with reconciling the different dialects for the benefit of a federalizedYugoslavia. The agreement stated that groups of linguists and intellectuals from both the eastern Serbian variant and the western Croatian variant would work together towards establishing a single dictionary and terminology.
The agreement also stated that the future language should develop naturally, although it was being forged by political will and pressure from both dialects.[citation needed]
The new terminology and dictionary would have its roots in both varieties of the language, and the literary journal present at the agreement would have the same content published in both the Cyrillic and Latin script. However, many, such as Croatian intellectualLjudevit Jonke, viewed the agreement as a veiled attempt to have Serbian become the official language of a federalized Yugoslavia, with only a passing nod given to Croatian.[citation needed]
As a direct result of the agreement,Matica srpska and its Croatian counterpartMatica hrvatska published anorthography manual in 1960. Although widely praised by all levels of Serbian and Yugoslav party officials and intellectuals, the orthography was roundly criticized by Croatian intellectuals[citation needed], who saw the work as too Serb-centric. Their criticisms stemmed mainly from an analysis of the case of larger differences between the two dialects, claiming that the dictionary favored the eastern variant of the language over the western one.
The ten "conclusions", orzaključci:
