| Shtokavian | |
|---|---|
| štokavski /штокавски | |
| Native to | Serbia,Croatia,Bosnia and Herzegovina,Montenegro,Kosovo |
Standard forms | |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | shto1241 |
| Linguasphere | 53-AAA-ga to -gf & 53-AAA-gi (-gia to -gii) |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Shtokavian orŠtokavian (/ʃtɒˈkɑːviən,-ˈkæv-/;Serbo-Croatian Latin:štokavski /Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic:штокавски,pronounced[ʃtǒːkaʋskiː])[1] is theprestigesupradialect of thepluricentricSerbo-Croatian language and the basis of itsSerbian,Croatian,Bosnian andMontenegrin standards.[2] It is a part of theSouth Slavic dialect continuum.[3][4] Its name comes from the form for the interrogative pronoun for "what"što. This is in contrast toKajkavian andChakavian (kaj andča also meaning "what").
Shtokavian is spoken inSerbia,Montenegro,Bosnia and Herzegovina, much ofCroatia, and the southern part ofAustria'sBurgenland. The primary subdivisions of Shtokavian are based on three principles: one is different accents whether the subdialect is Old-Shtokavian or Neo-Shtokavian, second is the way the old Slavic phonemeyat has changed (Ikavian, Ijekavian or Ekavian), and third is presence of YoungProto-Slavic isogloss (Schakavian or Shtakavian). Modern dialectology generally recognises seven Shtokavian subdialects.
| South Slavic languages and dialects | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Western South Slavic
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Transitional dialects
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Theearly medieval Slavs who later spoke variousBulgarian and Serbo-Croatian dialects migrated acrossMoldavia andPannonia.[5] According toFrederik Kortlandt, the shared innovations originate from a "Trans-Carpathian" homeland, and by the 4th and 6th century, "the major dialect divisions of Slavic were already established".[6] Dialectologists and Slavists maintain that when the separation of Western South Slavic speeches happened, they separated into five divergent groups, more specifically two, one Slovene and a second Serbo-Croatian with four divergent groups - Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian and Eastern Shtokavian.[7][8][9] The latter group can be additionally divided into a first (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian) and second (Eastern Shtokavian, Torlakian).[10] As noted byRanko Matasović, "the Shtokavian dialect, on the other hand, was from the earliest times very non-unique, with the Western Shtokavian dialects leaning towards Kajkavian, and the Eastern Shtokavian toTorlakian".[11] According to isoglosses, and presumed end of existence of the common Southwestern Slavic language around the 8th-9th century, the formation of the Proto-Western Shtokavian and Proto-Eastern Shtokavian linguistic and territorial unit would be around the 9th-10th century (Proto-Western Shtokavian closer to Proto-Chakavian, while Proto-Eastern Shtokavian shared an old isogloss with Bulgarian).[8][12][10] According toIvo Banac in the area of today'sSlavonia,Bosnia and Herzegovina (west ofBrčko,Vlasenica andNeretva line) and on the littoral between theBay of Kotor andCetina, medieval Croats spoke an old West Shtokavian dialect, which, some believe, stemmed fromChakavian, while medieval Serbs spoke two dialects, old East Shtokavian and Torlakian.[13] Many linguists noted a close connection between Chakavian and Western Shtokavian, for examplePavle Ivić saw Chakavian as an archaic peripheral zone of Shtokavian, whileDalibor Brozović saw the majority of Chakavian dialects as derived from the same accentological core as Western Shtokavian.[14] Western Shtokavian was principally characterized by a three-accent system, whereas Eastern Shtokavian was mostly marked by a two-accent system.[15]
Western Shtokavian covered the major part of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slavonia and part of SouthernDalmatia inCroatia. Eastern Shtokavian was dominant inSerbia, easternmost Bosnia and Herzegovina and greater parts ofMontenegro. From the 12th century, both dialects started separating further from Chakavian and Kajkavian idioms.[13] According to research of historical linguistics, Old-Shtokavian was well established by the mid-15th century. In this period it was still mixed with Church Slavonic to varying degrees. However, the ultimate development of Western Shtokavian and Eastern Shtokavian was notdivergent (like in the case of Chakavian and Kajkavian), butconvergent. It was the result of migrations (particularly of Neoshtokavian-Eastern Shtokavian speakers), political-cultural border change and also caused by theOttoman invasion (since the 16th century).[8] Initially two separate proto-idioms started to resemble each other so greatly that, according to Brozović (1975), "[today] we can no longer speak of an independent Western Shtokavian, but only about the better or weaker preservation of former West Shtokavian features in some dialects of the unique Shtokavian group of dialects".[8]
As can be seen from the image on the right, originally the Shtokavian dialect covered a significantly smaller area than it covers today, meaning that the Shtokavian speech has spread for the last five centuries, overwhelmingly at the expense of Chakavian and Kajkavian idioms. The modern areal distribution of these three dialects as well as their internal stratification (Shtokavian and Chakavian in particular) is primarily a result of themigrations resulting from the spread of theOttoman Empire in theBalkans.[16] Migratory waves were particularly strong in the 16th–18th century, bringing about large-scale linguistic and ethnic changes in the Central South Slavic area (see alsoGreat Serb Migrations).
By far the most numerous, mobile and expansionist migrations were those of Ijekavian-Shtokavian speakers of easternHerzegovina, who have spread into most of Western Serbia, many areas of eastern and westernBosnia, large swathes of Croatia (Banovina,Kordun,Lika, parts ofGorski kotar, continental parts of northernDalmatia, some places north ofKupa, parts ofSlavonia, southeasternBaranya etc.).[17] This is the reasonEastern Herzegovinian is the most spoken Serbo-Croatian dialect today, and why its name is only descriptive of its area of origin. These migrations also played a pivotal role in the spread of Neo-Shtokavian innovations.[18]
Proto-Shtokavian, or Church Slavic with elements of nascent Shtokavian, were recorded in legal documents like thecharter of Ban Kulin, regulating the commerce betweenBosnia and Dubrovnik in Croatia, dated 1189, and in liturgical texts likeGršković's andMihanović's fragments,c. 1150, in southern Bosnia or Herzegovina. Experts' opinions are divided with regard to the extent these texts, especially the Kulin ban parchment, contain contemporary Shtokavian vernacular. Numerous legal and commercial documents from pre-OttomanBosnia,Hum,Serbia,Zeta, and southernDalmatia, especiallyDubrovnik are mainly Shtokavian, with elements of Church Slavic. The first major comprehensive vernacular Shtokavian text is theVatican Croatian Prayer Book, written inDubrovnik a decade or two before 1400. In the next two centuries Shtokavian vernacular texts had been written mainly in Dubrovnik, other Adriatic cities and islands influenced by Dubrovnik, as well as in Bosnia, by Bosnian Franciscans and Bosnian Muslim vernacularaljamiado literature – the first example being "Chirvat-türkisi" or "Croatian song", dated 1589.
Shtokavian is characterized by a number of characteristic historicalsound changes,accentual changes, changes ininflection,morphology andsyntax. Some of these isoglosses are not exclusive and have also been shared by neighboring dialects, and some of them have mostly but not completely spread over the whole Shtokavian area. The differences between Shtokavian and the unrelated, neighboringBulgarian–Macedonian dialects are mostly clear-cut, whereas the differences with the related Serbo-Croatian dialects of Chakavian and Kajkavian are much more fluid, and the mutual influence of various subdialects plays a more prominent role.
The main bundle of isoglosses separates Slovenian and Kajkavian on the one hand from Shtokavian and Chakavian on the other. These are:[19]
Other characteristics distinguishing Kajkavian from Shtokavian, beside the demonstrative/interrogatory pronounkaj (as opposed tošto/šta used in Shtokavian), are:[20]
Characteristics distinguishing Chakavian from Shtokavian, beside the demonstrative/interrogatory pronounča, are:[20]
General characteristics of Shtokavian are the following:[21]
As can be seen from the list, many of these isoglosses are missing from particular Shtokavian idioms, just as many of them are shared with neighboring non-Shtokavian dialects.
There exist three main criteria for the division of Shtokavian dialects:[22]
The Shtokavian dialect is divided into Old-Shtokavian and Neo-Shtokavian subdialects. The primary distinction is the accentuation system: although there are variations, "old" dialects preserve the older accent system, which consists of two types of falling (dynamic) accents, one long and one short, and unstressed syllables, which can be long and short. Both long and short unstressed syllables could precede the stressed syllables. Stress placement is free and mobile in paradigms.
In the process known as "Neo-Shtokavianmetatony" or "retraction", length of the old syllables was preserved, but their quality changed. Stress (intensity) on the inner syllables moved to the preceding syllable, but they kept the high pitch. That process produced the "rising" accents characteristic for Neo-Shtokavian, and yielded the modern four-tone system. Stress on the initial syllables remained the same in quality and pitch.
Most speakers of Shtokavian, native or taught, from Serbia and Croatia do not distinguish between short rising and short falling tones.[27] They also pronounce most unstressed long vowels as short, with some exceptions, such as genitive plural endings.[27]
The following notation is used for Shtokavian accents:
| Description | IPA | Traditional | Diacritic |
|---|---|---|---|
| unstressed short | [e] | e | – |
| unstressed long | eː | ē | macron |
| short rising | ě | è | Grave |
| long rising | ěː | é | Acute |
| short falling | ê | ȅ | Double grave |
| long falling | êː | ȇ | Inverted breve |
The following table shows the examples of Neo-Shtokavian retraction:
| Old stress | New stress | Note | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Trad. | IPA | Trad. | |
| kûtɕa | kȕća | kûtɕa | kȕća | No retraction from the first syllable |
| prâːvda | prȃvda | prâːvda | prȃvda | No retraction from the first syllable |
| livâda | livȁda | lǐvada | lìvada | Retraction from short to short syllable → short rising |
| junâːk | junȃk | jǔnaːk | jùnāk | Retraction from long to short syllable → short rising + unstressed length |
| priːlîka | prīlȉka | prǐːlika | prílika | Retraction from short to long syllable → long rising |
| ʒīːvîːm | žīvȋm | ʒǐːviːm | žívīm | Retraction from long to long syllable → long rising + unstressed length |
As result of this process, the following set of rules emerged, which are still in effect in all standard variants of Serbo-Croatian:
In practice, influx of foreign words and formation of compound words have loosened these rules, especially in spoken idioms (e.g.paradȁjz,asistȅnt,poljoprȉvreda), but they are maintained in standard language and dictionaries.[28]
The transitional dialects stretch southwest from theTimok Valley near theBulgarian border toPrizren. There is disagreement among linguists whether these dialects belong to the Shtokavian area, because there are many other morphological characteristics apart from rendering ofšto (also, some dialects usekakvo orkvo, typical for Bulgarian), which would place them into a "transitional" group between Shtokavian and Eastern South Slavic languages (Bulgarian andMacedonian). The Timok-Prizren group falls to theBalkan language area: declension has all but disappeared, theinfinitive has yielded tosubjunctivesda-constructions, and adjectives are compared exclusively with prefixes. The accent in the dialect group is a stress accent, and it falls on any syllable in the word. The old semi-vowel[clarification needed] has been retained throughout. The vocalicl has been retained (vlk =vuk), and some dialects don't distinguishć/č andđ/dž by preferring the latter, postalveolar variants. Some subdialects preservel at the end of words (where otherwise it has developed into a short o) –došl,znal, etc. (cf.Kajkavian andBulgarian); in others, thisl has become the syllableja.[citation needed]
Torlakian is spoken inMetohija, aroundPrizren,Gnjilane andŠtrpce especially, inSouthern Serbia aroundBujanovac,Vranje,Leskovac,Niš,Aleksinac, in the part ofToplica Valley aroundProkuplje, inEastern Serbia aroundPirot,Svrljig,Soko Banja,Boljevac,Knjaževac ending up with the area aroundZaječar, where the Kosovo-Resava dialect becomes more dominant. It has been recorded several exclaves with Torlakian speeches inside Kosovo-Resava dialect area. One is the most prominent and preserved, like village Dublje nearSvilajnac, where the majority of settlers came from Torlakian speaking village Veliki Izvor near Zaječar. Few centuries ago, before settlers from Kosovo and Metohija brought Kosovo-Resava speeches to Eastern Serbia (toBor andNegotin area), Torlakian speech had been overwhelmingly represented in this region.
Also called theArchaic Šćakavian, it is spoken byCroats who live in some parts ofSlavonia,Bačka,Baranja,Syrmia, in Croatia and Vojvodina, as well as in northern Bosnia. It is divided into twosubdialects: southern (Posavian /posavski) and northern (Podravian /podravski). The Slavonian dialect has mixed Ikavian and Ekavian pronunciations. Ikavian accent is predominant in the Posavina, Baranja, Bačka, and in the Slavonian subdialect enclave ofDerventa, whereas Ekavian accent is predominant inPodravina. There are enclaves of one accent in the territory of the other, as well as mixed Ekavian–Ikavian and Jekavian–Ikavian areas. In some villages in Hungary, the originalyat is preserved. Local variants can widely differ in the degree of Neo-Shtokavian influences. In two villages inPosavina, Siče and Magića Male, thel, as in the verbnosil, has been retained in place of the modernnosio. In some villages in the Podravina,čr is preserved instead of the usualcr, for example inčrn instead ofcrn. Both forms are usual in Kajkavian but very rare in Shtokavian.
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Also calledJekavian-Šćakavian,[29] Eastern Bosnian dialect has Jekavian pronunciations in the vast majority of local forms and it is spoken by the majority of Bosniaks living in that area, which includes the bigger Bosnian citiesSarajevo,Tuzla, andZenica, and by most of Croats and Serbs that live in that area (Vareš,Usora, etc.). Together with basic Jekavian pronunciation, mixed pronunciations exist inTešanj andMaglajdete–djeteta (Ekavian–Jekavian) and aroundŽepče andJablanicadjete–diteta (Jekavian–ikavian). In the central area of the subdialect, thediphthonguo exists in some words instead of the archaicl and more commonu likevuok orstuop, instead of the standard modernvuk andstup.
Also known asĐekavian-Ijekavian, it is spoken in eastern Montenegro, inPodgorica andCetinje, around the city ofNovi Pazar in easternRaška in Serbia, and by descendants of Montenegrin settlers in the single village ofPeroj inIstria. The majority of its speakers are Serbs and Montenegrins andMuslims from Serbia and Montenegro. Together with the dominant Jekavian pronunciation, mixed pronunciations likedjete–deteta (Jekavian–Ekavian) around Novi Pazar andBijelo Polje,dite–đeteta (Ikavian–Jekavian) around Podgorica anddete–đeteta (Ekavian–Jekavian) in the village ofMrkojevići in southern Montenegro. Mrkojevići are also characterised by retention ofčr instead ofcr as in the previously mentioned villages in Podravina.
Some vernaculars have a very open /ɛ/ or /æ/ as their reflex of ь/ъ, very rare in other Shtokavian vernaculars (sæn anddæn instead ofsan anddan).[citation needed] Other phonetic features include sounds likeʑ iniʑesti instead ofizjesti,ɕ as inɕekira instead ofsjekira. However these sounds are known also to many in East Herzegovina like those inKonavle,[30] and are not Zeta–Raška specific . There is a loss of the /v/ sound apparent, seen inčo'ek orđa'ola. The loss of distinction between /ʎ/ and /l/ in some vernaculars is based on asubstratum. The wordpljesma is a hypercorrection (instead ofpjesma) because many vernaculars have changed lj to j.
All verbs in infinitive finish with "t" (example:pjevat 'sing'). This feature is also present in most vernaculars of East Herzegovinian, and actually almost all Serbian and Croatian vernaculars.
The groupa + o gaveā /aː/ (kā instead ofkao,rekā forrekao), like in other seaside vernaculars. Elsewhere, more common isao >ō.
Also calledOlder Ekavian, is spoken by Serbs, mostly in western and northeastern Kosovo (Kosovo Valley withKosovska Mitrovica and also aroundPeć), inIbar Valley withKraljevo, aroundKruševac,Trstenik and in Župa, in the part ofToplica Valley (Kuršumlija) in theMorava Valley (Jagodina,Ćuprija,Paraćin,Lapovo), inResava Valley (Svilajnac,Despotovac) and northeastern Serbia (Smederevo,Požarevac,Bor,Majdanpek,Negotin,Velika Plana) with one part ofBanat (aroundKovin,Bela Crkva andVršac). This dialect can be also found in parts ofBanatska Klisura (Clisura Dunării) in Romania, in places where Romanian Serbs live (left bank of the Danube).
Substitution ofjat is predominantly Ekavian accent even on the end of datives (žene instead ofženi), in pronouns (teh instead oftih), in comparatives (dobrej instead ofdobriji) in the negative of biti (nesam instead ofnisam); inSmederevo–Vršac dialects, Ikavian forms can be found (di si instead ofgde si?).Smederevo–Vršac dialect (spoken in northeastern Šumadija, Lower Great Morava Valley and Banat) is sometimes classified as a subdialect of the Kosovo-Resava dialect but is also considered to be a separate dialect as it the represents mixed speech of Šumadija–Vojvodina and Kosovo–Resava dialects.
Also calledWestern Ikavian. The majority of its speakers areCroats who live inLika,Kvarner,Dalmatia,Herzegovina, and of northBačka around Subotica in Serbia and southBács-Kiskun of Hungary, and inMolise in Italy. The minority speakers of it includeBosniaks in western Bosnia, mostly around the city ofBihać, and also in central Bosnia where Croats and Bosniaks (e.g.Travnik,Jajce,Bugojno,Vitez) used to speak this dialect. Exclusively Ikavian accent, Bosnian and Herzegovinian forms useo in verb participle, whereas those in Dalmatia and Lika use-ija oria like invidija/vidia. Local form ofBačka was proposed as the base for the Danubian branch of theBunjevac dialect of Bunjevac Croats (Bunjevci) inVojvodina, Serbia.
Also known asYounger Ekavian, is one of the bases for the standardSerbian language. It is spoken by Serbs across most of Vojvodina (excluding easternmost parts around Vršac), northern part ofwestern Serbia, aroundKragujevac andValjevo inŠumadija, inMačva aroundŠabac andBogatić, inBelgrade and in predominantly ethnically Serbian villages in eastern Croatia around the town ofVukovar. It is predominately Ekavian (Ikavian forms are of morphophonological origin). In some parts of Vojvodina the old declension is preserved. Most Vojvodina dialects and some dialects in Šumadija have an opene ando[clarification needed]. However the vernaculars of western Serbia, and in past to them connected vernaculars of (old) Belgrade and southwestern Banat (Borča,Pančevo, Bavanište) are as close to the standard as a vernacular can be. The dialect presents a base for the Ekavian variant of the Serbian standard language.
Also calledEastern Herzegovinian orNeo-Ijekavian. It encompasses by far the largest area and the number of speakers of all Shtokavian dialects. It is the dialectal basis of the standard literaryCroatian,Bosnian,Serbian, andMontenegrin languages.
A specific idiom which is often grouped with Eastern Herzegovinian isDubrovnik subdialect. Also known asWestern Ijekavian, in earlier centuries, this subdialect was an independent subdialect of Western Shtokavian dialect. After migrations and Neo-Shtokavisation, it preserved features (like accent, vowels, morphology etc.) which are different to Eastern Herzegovinian. It has a mixed Shtokavian and Chakavian vocabulary, with some words fromDalmatian, olderVenetian and modernItalian.
Micro groups:
The Proto-Slavic voweljat (ѣ inCyrillic or ě inLatin)has changed over time, coming to be pronounced differently in different areas. These different reflexes define three "pronunciations" (izgovori) of Shtokavian:
Historically, the yat reflexes had been inscribed in Church Slavic texts before the significant development of Shtokavian dialect, reflecting the beginnings of the formative period of the vernacular. In early documents it is predominantly Church Slavic of the Serbian or Croatianrecension (variant). The first undoubted Ekavian reflex (beše 'it was') is found in a document from Serbia dated 1289; the first Ikavian reflex (svidoci 'witnesses') in Bosnia in 1331; and first Ijekavian reflex (želijemo 'we wish', a "hyper-Ijekavism") in Croatia in 1399. Partial attestation can be found in earlier texts (for instance, Ikavian pronunciation is found in a few Bosnian documents from the latter half of the 13th century), but philologists generally accept the aforementioned dates. In the second half of the 20th century, many vernaculars with unsubstituted yat[clarification needed] are found.[34] The intrusion of the vernacular into Church Slavic grew in time, to be finally replaced by the vernacular idiom. This process took place for Croats, Serbs andBosniaks independently and without mutual interference until the mid-19th century. Historical linguistics, textual analysis and dialectology have dispelled myths about allegedly "unspoilt" vernacular speech of rural areas: for instance, it is established that Bosniaks have retained phoneme "h" in numerous words (unlike Serbs and Croats), due to elementary religious education based on theQuran, where this phoneme is the carrier of specific semantic value.
The Ekavian pronunciation, sometimes called Eastern, is spoken primarily in Serbia, and in small parts of Croatia. The Ikavian pronunciation, sometimes called Western, is spoken in western and central Bosnia, western Herzegovina, some of Slavonia and the major part of Dalmatia in Croatia. The Ijekavian pronunciation, sometimes called Southern, is spoken in central Croatia, most of Slavonia, southern Dalmatia, most of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, as well as some parts of western Serbia. The following are some generic examples:
| English | Predecessor | Ekavian | Ikavian | Ijekavian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| time | vrěme | vreme | vrime | vrijeme |
| beautiful | lěp | lep | lip | lijep |
| girl | děvojka | devojka | divojka | djevojka |
| true | věran | veran | viran | vjeran |
| to sit | sědĕti | sedeti (sèdeti) | siditi (sìditi) | sjediti |
| to grow gray hairs | sěděti | sedeti (sédeti) | siditi (síditi) | sijediti |
| to heat | grějati | grejati | grijati | grijati |
Longije is pronounced as a single syllable,[jeː], by many Ijekavian speakers, especially in Croatia. However, in Zeta dialect and most of East Herzegovina dialect, it is pronounced as twosyllables,[ije], which is the Croatian official standard too, but seldom actually practiced. This distinction can be clearly heard in first verses ofnational anthems of Croatia andMontenegro—they're sung as "L'je-pa [two syllables] na-ša do-mo-vi-no" and "Ojsvi-je-tla [three syllables] maj-ska zo-ro" respectively.
The Ikavian pronunciation is the only one that is not part of any standard variety of Serbo-Croatian today, though it was a variant used for a significant literary output between the 15th and 18th centuries. This has led to a reduction in its use and an increase in the use of Ijekavian in traditionally Ikavian areas since the standardization. For example, most people in formerly fully IkavianSplit, Croatia today use both Ikavian and Ijekavian words in everyday speech, without a clearly predictable pattern (usually more emotionally charged or intimate words are Ikavian and more academic, political, generally standardised words Ijekavian, but it is not a straight out rule).
TheIETF language tags have assigned the variantssr-ekavsk andsr-ijekavsk to Ekavian and Ijekavian pronunciations, respectively.[35]
During the first half of the 19th century, protagonists of nascent Slavic philology were, as far as South Slavic dialects were concerned, embroiled in frequently bitter polemic about "ethnic affiliation" of native speakers of various dialects. This, from contemporary point of view, rather bizarre obsession was motivated primarily by political and national interests that prompted philologists-turned-ideologues to express their views on the subject. The most prominent contenders in the squabble, with conflicting agenda, were the Czech philologistJosef Dobrovský, the SlovakPavel Šafárik, the SlovenesJernej Kopitar andFranz Miklosich, the SerbVuk Karadžić, the Croat of Slovak originBogoslav Šulek, and the CroatiansVatroslav Jagić andAnte Starčević.
The dispute was primarily concerned with who can, philologically, be labelled as "Slovene", "Croat" and "Serb" with the aim of expanding one's national territory and influence. Born in the climate of romanticism and national awakening, these polemical battles led to increased tensions between the aforementioned nations, especially because the Shtokavian dialect cannot be split along ethnic lines in an unequivocal manner.
However, contemporary native speakers, after process of national crystallization and identification had been completed, can be roughly identified as predominant speakers of various Shtokavian subdialects. Because standard languages propagated through media have strongly influenced and altered the situation in the 19th century, the following attribution must be treated with necessary caution.
The distribution of Old-Shtokavian speakers along ethnic lines in present times is as follows:
Generally, the Neo-Shtokavian dialect is divided as follows with regard to the ethnicity of its native speakers:
| Group | Sub-Dialect | Serbian | Croatian | Bosnian | Montenegrin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old-Shtokavian | Timok-Prizren | x | |||
| Kosovo-Resava | x | ||||
| Zeta-Raška | x | x | x | ||
| Slavonian | x | ||||
| Eastern Bosnian | x | x | |||
| Neo-Shtokavian | Šumadija-Vojvodina | x | |||
| Dalmatian-Bosnian | x | x | |||
| Eastern Herzgovinian | x | x | x | x |
The standardBosnian,Croatian,Montenegrin, andSerbian variants of thepluricentric Serbo-Croatianstandard language are all based on the Neo-Shtokavian dialect[36][37][38] as it was formalized inSFR Yugoslavia.[citation needed]
However, it must be stressed that standard variants, irrespectively of their mutual differences, have been stylised in such manners that parts of the Neo-Shtokavian dialect have been retained—for instance, declension—but other features were purposely omitted or altered—for instance, the phoneme "h" was reinstated in the standard language.
Croatian has had a long tradition of Shtokavian vernacular literacy and literature. It took almost four and half centuries for Shtokavian to prevail as the dialectal basis for the Croatian standard. In other periods, Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects, as well as hybrid Chakavian–Kajkavian–Shtokavian interdialects "contended" for the Croatian nationalkoine – but eventually lost, mainly due to historical and political reasons. By the 1650s it was fairly obvious that Shtokavian would become the dialectal basis for the Croatian standard, but this process was finally completed in the 1850s, when Neo-Shtokavian Ijekavian, based mainly on Ragusan (Dubrovnik), Dalmatian, Bosnian, and Slavonian literary heritage became the national standard language.[citation needed]
Serbian was much faster in standardisation. Althoughvernacular literature was present in the 18th century, it was Vuk Karadžić who, between 1818 and 1851, made a radical break with the past and established Serbian Neo-Shtokavian folklore idiom as the basis of standard Serbian (until then, educated Serbs had been using Serbian Slavic, Russian Slavic and hybrid Russian–Serbian language). Although he wrote in Serbian Ijekavian accent, the majority of Serbs have adopted Ekavian accent, which is dominant in Serbia. Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia, as well as Montenegrins, use the Ijekavian accent.
Bosnian is only currently beginning to take shape. The Bosniak idiom can be seen as a transition between Serbian Ijekavian and Croatian varieties, with some specific traits. After the collapse of Yugoslavia, Bosniaks affirmed their wish to stylize their own standard language, based on the Neo-Shtokavian dialect, but reflecting their characteristics—from phonetics to semantics.
Also, the contemporary situation is unstable with regard to the accentuation, because phoneticians have observed that the 4-accents speech has, in all likelihood, shown to be increasingly unstable, which resulted in proposals that a 3-accents norm be prescribed. This is particularly true forCroatian, where, contrary to all expectations, the influence ofChakavian andKajkavian dialects on the standard language has been waxing, not waning, in the past 50–70 years.[citation needed]
The Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian standard variants, although all based on the East Herzegovinian subdialect of Neo-Shtokavian and mutually intelligible, do differ slightly, as is the case with other pluricentric languages (English, Spanish,German and Portuguese, among others), but not to a degree which would justify considering them asdifferent languages.[39][40][41][42] Their structures are grammatically and phonologically almost identical, but have differences in vocabulary and semantics: "Lexical differences between the ethnic variants are extremely limited, even when compared with those between closely related Slavic languages (such as standard Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian), and grammatical differences are even less pronounced. More importantly, complete understanding between the ethnic variants of the standard language makes translation and second language teaching impossible."[43] SeeDifferences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.
In 2017, numerous prominent writers, scientists, journalists, activists and other public figures from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia signed theDeclaration on the Common Language, which states that in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro a commonpolycentric standard language is used, consisting of several standard varieties, similar to the situation inGerman, English, or Spanish.[44][45][46][47]
