Dictionary of Meaning
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Serbo-Croatian Language
*** Shopping-Tip: Serbo-Croatian Language
{{Infobox Language
|name=Serbo-Croatian
|nativename=Ñ?рпÑ?кохрватÑ?ки / srpskohrvatski hrvatskosrpski / хрватÑ?коÑ?рпÑ?ки hrvatski ili srpski / хрватÑ?ки или Ñ?рпÑ?ки Ñ?рпÑ?ки или хрватÑ?ки / srpski ili hrvatski
|states=The term "Serbo-Croatian" is no longer used for any official language. However, standardized languages formerly covered by that term are official in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and regionally in Austria
|region= Southeastern Europe or the Balkans
|speakers=Relatively few people identify their language as "Serbo-Croatian". Some 17 million speak Serbian language Serbian, Bosnian language Bosnian, or Croatian language Croatian.
|rank=approx. 50
|familycolor=Indo-European
|fam2= Slavic languages Slavic
|fam3= South Slavic South
|fam4=Western
|iso1=sh ''(deprecated)''
|iso2=formerly scr, scc
|lc1=hbs|ld1=Serbo-Croat|ll1=none
}}
'''Serbo-Croatian''' or '''Croato-Serbian''' (also '''Croatian or Serbian''', '''Serbian or Croatian''') (''srpskohrvatski'' or cрпÑ?кохрватÑ?ки or ''hrvatskosrpski'' or ''hrvatski ili srpski'' or ''srpski ili hrvatski''), earlier also '''Serbo-Croat''', was an official language of Yugoslavia (along with Slovenian language Slovenian, Macedonian language Macedonian and after 1974 Croatian language Croatian). Officially, the term was used from 1921-ca. 1993 as a "cover" term for dialects spoken by Serbs and Croats, as well as Bosniaks and Montenegrins upon their national recognition. In its standardized form, it was based on an Herzegovina eastern-Herzegovian Å tokavian dialect and defined Ekavian and Iyekavian variants called "pronunciations" (unofficially, there were "Eastern" (based on Serbian pronunciation) and "Western" (based on Croatian pronunciation) variants. By extension, it also declared Kajkavian dialect Kajkavian and Chakavian dialect Chakavian as its dialects (while Torlakian dialect was never recognized in official linguistics), but they were never in official use.
With the breakup of Yugoslavia, the term "Serbo-Croatian" went out of use, first from official documents and gradually from linguistic literature. Today, the name Serbo-Croatian is a controversial issue due to history, politics, and the variable meaning of the word ''language''. Many native speakers find the term politically incorrect or even offensive.
Mutually intelligible forms of it continue to be used under different names and standards in today’s Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and are still reasonably well understood in Republic of Macedonia Macedonia and Slovenia.
History of linguistic issues
Throughout the history of the South Slavs, the vernacular, literature, and written language of the regions and ethnicities developed independently and diverged to a point.
From the point of view of Linguistics genetic linguistics, Serbo-Croatian grew out of Neo-Å tokavian dialects.
In the mid 19th century, Serbian (led by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić) and Croatian writers and linguists (represented in Illyrian movement led by Ljudevit Gaj and Ä?uro DaniÄ?ić) decided to use the most widespread Å tokavian dialect as a basis for their standard languages. Vuk standardized the Serbian Cyrillic script and Gaj and DaniÄ?ić Croatian Latin script, on the basis of phonemes used in vernacular speech and the principle of purely phonetic spelling.
Some Neo-Štokavian Ekavian speakers at the time considered Ijekavian as Croatian as opposed to the Serbian Ekavian. (Vuk Stefanović-Karadžić: Mala srpska pesnarica, Vienna 1816.) However, many Serbs (around two million) speak Ijekavian, while some Croats (influenced by Kajkavian) speak Ekavian.
In 1850 Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists signed the Vienna agreement, in which they declared the will to create one common language.
Thus a bi-variant language appeared, which the Serbs officially called "Serbo-Croatian" and the Croats "Croatian or Serbian". The variants of a supposedly single language functioned in practice as different standard languages. The common phrase used to describe this situation was that Serbo-Croatian/Croatian or Serbian was a ''unified'' but not a ''unitary'' language.
With unification of the first Kingdom of Yugoslavia, (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) the approach of Karadžić and the Illyrians became official. Due to the unitarian politics of king Alexander of Yugoslavia Aleksandar I Karađorđević, as of 1929 the official language of Yugoslavia was called "Yugoslavian" and all ethnic denominations erased.
In the communist-dominated Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia second Yugoslavia, ethnic issues eased to a certain extent, but the language issue was still open. In 1954, a group of Serbian and Croatian linguists and writers, backed up by Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska signed the Novi Sad agreement which in the first article stated that:
:''The national language of Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins is one language. Thus, the literary language developed on its basis around two principal centers, Belgrade and Zagreb is unified, with two pronunciations, Ijekavian and Ekavian.''
The Novi Sad Agreement was the basis of language politics in the second Yugoslavia. However, many Croats felt uneasy with it, as they viewed the "merging" of languages as an attempt at "Serbization" of Croatian idiom. Also, many of the constructs typical for Serbian idiom replaced more Croatian-based ones in Bosnia and Herzegovina media and politics and, gradually, vernacular speech. Some viewed it as a proof of Serbian hegemony in SFR Yugoslavia, and others as a natural process of language changes.
After the ethnic tensions in the 1970s and especially after the breakup of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslavia and the ensuing war in the 1990s, most speakers decided to call their language either Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian. Today, in accordance with the Romantic nationalism of the nineteenth century, every nation has its own language. Modern sensibilities in the Balkans dictate the second position.
Present situation
Contemporary names
Before (1920s) and after (1980s) the formal existence of similar ethnic/national/standard languages, people did and do not call the language Serbo-Croatian. They called and call it using their ethnic/national names:
* Bosniaks call their language Bosnian language Bosnian
* Croats call their language Croatian language Croatian.
* Serbs call their language Serbian language Serbian.
* Some Montenegrins call their language Montenegrin language Montenegrin.
For more information, see: Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has specified different Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) numbers for Croatian (UDC 862, abbreviation hr) and Serbian (UDC 861, abbreviation sr), while the "cover term" Serbo-Croatian is referenced as the combination of original signs, UDC 861/862, abbreviation sh. Furthermore, the ISO 639 standard specifies Bosnian language with abbreviations bos and bs.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia considers what it calls ''BCS'' (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian) to be the first language of all Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian defendants. The indictments, documents and verdicts of the ICTY are not written with a regard to consistent following of grammatical prescriptions — be they Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian.
Views of the linguists
Opinions of linguists in former Yugoslavia diverge.
*The majority of mainstream Serbian linguists consider Serbian and Serbo-Croatian to be one language (mainly because of simple renaming of languages). A minority of Serbian linguists are of the opinion that Serbo-Croatian did exist, but has, in the meantime, dissolved. A small minority agree that a "Serbo-Croatian" language has never existed and that this term designates a Croatian variant of the Serbian language.
*The majority of Croatian linguists think that there was never anything like a unified Serbo-Croatian language, but two different standard languages that overlapped sometime in the course of history. Also, they claim that the language has never dissolved, since there was no Serbo-Croatian standard language. A minority of Croatian linguists deny that the Croatian standard language is based on the neo-Å tokavian dialect.
*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.
Political connotations
Nationalists have rather conflicting views about the language(s). The nationalists among the Croats and Bosniaks claim that they speak entirely separate languages, whereas the nationalists among the Serbs claim that any divergence in the language is artificial, or claim that the Å tokavian dialect is theirs and the ÄŒakavian Croats'. Proponents of unity among Southern Slavs claim that there is a single language with normal dialectal variations. Moderate people usually say that the issue of the language is exaggerated and that nomenclature is hardly important.
Dialects
''Main article: South Slavic languages''
{{IPA notice}}
The primary dialects are named after the word for ''what''. Shtokavian dialect Å tokavian (''Å tokavski'') uses the word ''Å¡to'' or ''Å¡ta'', Chakavian dialect ÄŒakavian (''Ä?akavski'') uses ''Ä?a''; Kajkavian dialect Kajkavian (''kajkavski''), ''kaj''. However, the Serbo-Croatian standard language as well as contemporary standard languages are based on Shtokavian, and Chakavian and Kajkavian were "adopted" into the classification more for political reasons. Torlakian dialect Torlakian (''torlaÄ?ki'') was regarded as an old Shtokavian dialect and not included explicitly, although many scholars now classify it as a separate dialect.
Furthermore, there are three ways of rendering the Proto-Slavic vowel ''yat jat''. ÄŒakavian mainly uses ''i'', Kajkavian mainly uses ''e'' while the Å tokavian dialect is broken down into a secondary subdivision based on whether ''ije'', ''e'' or '''i''' is used. Only ''ije'' and ''e'' pronounces are standard; Serbo-Croatian and Serbian standards have both variants while Croatian and Bosnian have only Iyekavian (''ije'') variant.
Each of these primary and secondary dialectical units break down into subdialects and accents by region. In the past, it was not uncommon for individual villages to have some of their own words and phrases. However, throughout the twentieth century the various dialects have been strongly influenced by the Neo-Å tokavian standards through mass media and public education, and much of the "local color" has been lost.
There is a basis for considering the three dialects (Kajkavian, ÄŒakavian and Å tokavian) as distinct tongues. However, since there are no clear-cut criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect, and dialects are usually described in reference to standard languages, the notion of a diasystem is frequently used instead of Serbo-Croatian.
Rendering of yat
The Proto-Slavic vowel ''yat jat'' has changed over time and is now being rendered in three different ways:
* In Ekavian (''ekavski''), ''jat'' has morphed into the vowel ''e''.
* in Ikavian (''ikavski''), the vowel ''i''.
* in Ijekavian or Jekavian (''ijekavski'' or ''jekavski''), the diphthong ''ije'' or ''je'', depending on whether the vowel was long or short.
However, when short ''jat'' is preceded by ''r'', in most ijekavian dialects it morphed into ''re'' or, occasionally, ''ri''. Also, prefix ''prě'' (trans-, over-) when ''jat'' is long morphed into ''pre-'' in eastern ijekavian dialects and to ''prije-'' in western; in ikavian, it also evolved to ''pre-'' or ''prije-'' because of potential ambiguity with ''pri-'' (approach, come close to). For verbs that had ''-ět' '' in infinitive, the past participle ending ''-ěl'' evolved into ''-io'' in ijekavian.
The following are some examples:
{| class="wikitable"
!English
!Predecessor
!Ekavian
!Ikavian
!Ijekavian
!Ijekavian formation
|-
|beautiful
|lěp
|lep
|lip
|lijep
|long ''ě'' → ''ije''
|-
|faith
|věra
|vera
|vira
|vjera
|short ''ě'' → ''je''
|-
|time
|vrěme
|vreme
|vrime
|vrijeme
|long ''ě'' → ''ije''
|-
|times
|vrěmena
|vremena
|vrimena
|vremena
|''r'' + short ''ě'' → ''re''
|-
|crossing
|prělaz
|prelaz
|prelaz ''or''
prijelaz
|prelaz ''or''
prijelaz
|long ''prě'' → ''pre'' or ''prije''
|-
|village
|selo
|selo
|selo
|selo
|''e'' in root, not ''Ä›''
|-
|need
|trěbat'
|trebati
|tribati
|trebati
|''r'' + short ''ě'' → ''re''
|-
|heat
|grějat'
|grejati
|grijati
|grijati
|''r'' + short ''ě'' → ''ri''
|-
|saw
|viděl
|video
|vidio
|vidio
|''ěl'' → ''io''
|}
Grammar
Serbo-Croatian is a highly inflected language. Traditional grammars list seven Grammatical case cases for nouns and adjectives: Nominative case nominative, Genitive case genitive, Dative case dative, Accusative case accusative, Vocative case vocative, Locative case locative, and Instrumental case instrumental, reflecting the original seven cases of Proto-Slavic language Proto-Slavic, and indeed older forms of Serbo-Croatian itself. However, in modern Å tokavian the locative has almost merged into dative (the only difference is based on accent in some cases), and the other cases can be shown declining; namely:
* For all nouns and adjectives, Instr. = Dat. = Loc. (at least orthographically) in the plural: ženama, ženama, ženama; oÄ?ima, oÄ?ima, oÄ?ima; reÄ?ima, reÄ?ima, reÄ?ima.
* There is a strictly accentual difference between the Gen. sing. and Gen. plural of masculine and neuter nouns, which are otherwise homonyms (seljaka, seljaka) except that on occasion an "a" (which might or might not appear in the singular) is filled between the last letter of the root and the Gen. plural ending (kapitalizma, kapitalizama).
* The old instrumental ending "ju" of the feminine consonant stems and in some cases the "a" of the genitive plural of certain other sorts of feminine nouns is fast yielding to "i": noći instead of noćju; borbi instead of boraba; and so forth.
* Almost every number is indeclinable, and numbers after prepositions have not been declined for a long time.
Like most Slavic languages, there are three Grammatical gender genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter, a distinction which is still present even in the plural (unlike Russian language Russian). They also have two Grammatical number numbers: singular and plural. However, some consider there to be three numbers (paucal, too), since after two (''dva'', ''dvije''/''dve''), three (''tri'') and four (''Ä?etiri''), and all numbers ending in them (e.g., twenty-two, ninety-three, one hundred four) the genitive singular is used, and after all other numbers five (''pet'') and up, the genitive plural is used. (The number one [''jedan''] is treated as an adjective.) Adjectives are placed in front of the noun they modify and must agree in both case and number with it.
There are seven Grammatical tense tenses for verbs: past tense past, present tense present, future tense future, exact future, aorist, imperfect, and plusquamperfect; and three Grammatical mood moods: indicative, imperative, and conditional. However, the latter three tenses are typically only used in writing, and the time sequence of the exact future is more commonly formed through an alternative construction.
In addition, like most Slavic languages, the verb also has one of two Grammatical aspect aspects: Perfective aspect perfective or Imperfective aspect imperfective. Most verbs come in pairs, with the perfective verb being created out of the imperfective by adding a prefix or making a stem change. This type of aspect is difficult to learn for most foreigners, including native English speakers, because it is both subtle and, at least among Indo-European languages, rare outside the Slavic branch. The imperfective aspect typically indicates that the action is unfinished, in progress, or repetitive; while the perfective aspect typically denotes that the action was completed, instantaneous, or of limited duration. Some tenses (namely, aorist and imperfect) favor a particular aspect. Actually, aspects "compensate" for the relative lack of tenses, because aspect of the verb determines whether the act is completed or in progress in the referred time.
Writing systems
Through history, this language has been written in a number of writing systems:
* various modifications of the Latin alphabet Latin and Greek alphabet Greek alphabets.
* Angled, Round, and Triangled Glagolitic alphabet.
* Cyrillic alphabet.
* Arabic alphabet.
The oldest preserved text written completely in the Latin alphabet is "Red i zakon sestara reda Svetog Dominika", from 1345.
Today, it is written in both the Latin alphabet Latin and Cyrillic alphabet Cyrillic alphabets. Serbian and Bosnian use both alphabets, while Croatian uses only the Latin.
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was revised by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the 19th century.
The Croatian Latin alphabet (''Croatian alphabet Gajica'') followed suit shortly afterwards, when Ljudevit Gaj defined it as standard Latin with five extra letters that had diacritical marks, apparently borrowing much from Czech language Czech, but also from Polish language Polish, and inventing the uniquely Croatian digraph (orthography) digraphs "lj", "nj" and "dž".
In both cases, spelling is nearly phonetic and spellings in the two alphabets generally map to each other one-to-one:
'''Latin to Cyrillic'''
A a B b C c ÄŒ Ä? Ć ć D d Dž dž Ä? Ä‘ E e F f G g H h I i J j K k
Ð? а Б б Ц ц Ч ч Ћ Ñ› Д д Ð? ÑŸ Ђ Ñ’ Е е Ф Ñ„ Г г Ð¥ Ñ… И и Ј ј К к
L l Lj lj M m N n Nj nj O o P p R r S s Šš T t U u V v Z z Ž ž
Л л Љ Ñ™ Ðœ м Ð? н Њ Ñš О о П п Рр С Ñ? Ш ш Т Ñ‚ У у Ð’ в З з Ж ж
'''Cyrillic to Latin'''
Ð? а Б б Ð’ в Г г Д д Ђ Ñ’ Е е Ж ж З з И и Ј ј К к Л л Љ Ñ™ Ðœ м
A a B b V v G g D d Ä? Ä‘ E e Ž ž Z z I i J j K k L l Lj lj M m
Ð? н Њ Ñš О о П п Рр С Ñ? Т Ñ‚ Ћ Ñ› У у Ф Ñ„ Ð¥ Ñ… Ц ц Ч ч Ð? ÑŸ Ш ш
N n Nj nj O o P p R r S s T t Ć ć U u F f H h C c Č Č Dž dž Šš
{|class="wikitable" border=1 style="float:right; margin-left:1em"
! colspan="2" | '''Sample collation'''
|-
!'''Latin '''
!'''Cyrillic'''
|-
|Ina
|Ина
|-
|Injekcija
|Инјекција
|-
|Inverzija
|Инверзија
|-
|Inje
|Иње
|}
The digraph (orthography) digraphs ''Lj'', ''Nj'' and ''Dž'' represent distinct phoneme phonemes and are considered to be single letters. In crosswords, they are put into a single square, and in sorting, lj follows lz and nj follows nz, except in a few words where the individual letters are pronounced separately, for instance "nadživ(j)eti" (''to outlive''), which is composed of the prefix nad- and the verb živ(j)eti.
The Cyrillic version avoids the ambiguity by providing a unique single letter for each sound.
''Ä?'' used to be commonly written as ''Dj'' on typewriters, but that practice led to too many ambiguities. It is also used on car license plates. Today ''Dj'' is often used again in place of ''Ä?'' on the Internet.
Phonology
Vowels
The Serbo-Croatian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! '''Latin script'''
! '''Cyrillic script'''
! '''International Phonetic Alphabet IPA'''
! '''X-SAMPA'''
! '''Description'''
! '''English approximation'''
|-
| align="center" | '''a'''
| align="center" | '''а'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[a]}}
| align="center" | [a]
| Open front unrounded vowel open front unrounded
| ''f'''a'''ther''
|-
| align="center" | '''i'''
| align="center" | '''и'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[i]}}
| align="center" | [i]
| Close front unrounded vowel close front unrounded
| ''s'''ee'''k''
|-
| align="center" | '''e'''
| align="center" | '''е'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ε]}}
| align="center" | [E]
| Open-mid front unrounded vowel open-mid front unrounded
| ''t'''e'''n''
|-
| align="center" | '''o'''
| align="center" | '''о'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[É”]}}
| align="center" | [O]
| Open-mid back rounded vowel open-mid back rounded
| ''c'''au'''ght'' (British)
|-
| align="center" | '''u'''
| align="center" | '''у'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[u]}}
| align="center" | [u]
| close back rounded vowel closed back rounded
| ''b'''oo'''m''
|}
Consonants
The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and Palatal consonant palatal consonants. As in English, voicedness is phoneme phonemic, but aspiration (phonetics) aspiration is not.
{| class="wikitable" style="center"
|-
! '''Latin script'''
! '''Cyrillic script'''
! '''International Phonetic Alphabet IPA'''
! '''X-SAMPA'''
! '''Description'''
! '''English approximation'''
|-
! colspan="6" | trill
|-
| align="center" | '''r'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ€'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[r]}}
| align="center" | [r]
| alveolar trill
| rolled (vibrating) '''r''' as in ''ca'''rr'''amba''
|-
! colspan="6" | approximants
|-
| align="center" | '''v'''
| align="center" | '''в'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[Ê‹]}}
| align="center" | [P]
| labiodental approximant
| '''''v'''ase''
|-
| align="center" | '''j'''
| align="center" | '''ј'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[j]}}
| align="center" | [j]
| palatal approximant
| '''''y'''es''
|-
! colspan="6" | laterals
|-
| align="center" | '''l'''
| align="center" | '''л'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[l]}}
| align="center" | [l]
| lateral alveolar approximant
| '''''l'''ock''
|-
| align="center" | '''lj'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ™'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ÊŽ]}}
| align="center" | [L]
| palatal lateral approximant
| ''vo'''lu'''me''
|-
! colspan="6" | nasals
|-
| align="center" | '''m'''
| align="center" | '''м'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[m]}}
| align="center" | [m]
| bilabial nasal
| '''''m'''an''
|-
| align="center" | '''n'''
| align="center" | '''н'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[n]}}
| align="center" | [n]
| alveolar nasal
| '''''n'''ot''
|-
| align="center" | '''nj'''
| align="center" | '''Ñš'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ɲ]}}
| align="center" | [J]
| palatal nasal
| ''ca'''ny'''on''
|-
! colspan="6" | fricatives
|-
| align="center" | '''f'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ„'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[f]}}
| align="center" | [f]
| voiceless labiodental fricative
| '''''ph'''ase''
|-
| align="center" | '''s'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ?'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[s]}}
| align="center" | [s]
| voiceless alveolar fricative
| '''''s'''ome''
|-
| align="center" | '''z'''
| align="center" | '''з'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[z]}}
| align="center" | [z]
| voiced alveolar fricative
| '''''z'''ero''
|-
| align="center" | '''Å¡'''
| align="center" | '''ш'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ʃ]}}
| align="center" | [S]
| voiceless postalveolar fricative
| '''''sh'''eer''
|-
| align="center" | '''ž'''
| align="center" | '''ж'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[Ê’]}}
| align="center" | [Z]
| voiced postalveolar fricative
| ''vi'''si'''on''
|-
| align="center" | '''h'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ…'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[x]}}
| align="center" | [x]
| voiceless velar fricative
| ''lo'''ch'''''
|-
! colspan="6" | affricates
|-
| align="center" | '''c'''
| align="center" | '''ц'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ʦ]}}
| align="center" | [ts]
| voiceless alveolar affricate
| ''po'''ts'''''
|-
| align="center" | '''dž'''
| align="center" | '''ÑŸ'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ʤ]}}
| align="center" | [dZ]
| voiced postalveolar affricate
| ''do'''dge'''''
|-
| align="center" | '''Ä?'''
| align="center" | '''ч'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ʧ]}}
| align="center" | [tS]
| voiceless postalveolar affricate
| '''''ch'''air''
|-
| align="center" | '''Ä‘'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ’'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[Ê¥]}}
| align="center" | [dz\]
| voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
| ''sche'''du'''le''
|-
| align="center" | '''ć'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ›'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[ʨ]}}
| align="center" | [ts\]
| voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
| ''na'''tu'''re''
|-
! colspan="6" | plosives
|-
| align="center" | '''b'''
| align="center" | '''б'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[b]}}
| align="center" | [b]
| voiced bilabial plosive
| ''a'''b'''use''
|-
| align="center" | '''p'''
| align="center" | '''п'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[p]}}
| align="center" | [p]
| voiceless bilabial plosive
| ''to'''p'''''
|-
| align="center" | '''d'''
| align="center" | '''д'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[d]}}
| align="center" | [d]
| voiced alveolar plosive
| '''''d'''og''
|-
| align="center" | '''t'''
| align="center" | '''Ñ‚'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[t]}}
| align="center" | [t]
| voiceless alveolar plosive
| '''''t'''alk''
|-
| align="center" | '''g'''
| align="center" | '''г'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[g]}}
| align="center" | [g]
| voiced velar plosive
| '''''g'''od''
|-
| align="center" | '''k'''
| align="center" | '''к'''
| align="center" | {{IPA|[k]}}
| align="center" | [k]
| voiceless velar plosive
| ''du'''ck'''''
|-
|}
In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants — a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (''Washington'' would be transcribed as ''VašinGton''/''ВашинГтон''), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.
'''R''' can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister ''na vrh brda vrba mrda'' involves four words with syllabic '''r'''. A similar feature exists in Czech language Czech, Slovak language Slovak and Macedonian language Macedonian.
Stress
Apart from Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian (with Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) is the only Slavic language with a pitch accent system. This feature is rare in Europe — the few other examples include Swedish language Swedish and Ancient Greek. Serbo-Croatian has four types of accent; in addition, unstressed syllables may be short or long.
{|class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" align="center"|'''Serbo-Croatian stress system'''
|-
! '''Stress type'''
! '''Symbol'''
! '''Diacritic'''
! '''English approximation'''
|-
| Short falling
| align="center"|ıÌ?
| Double Grave accent Grave
| ''sit''
|-
| Short rising
| align="center"|ì
| Grave accent Grave
| '''''sit'''ting''
|-
| Long falling
| align="center"|î
| Circumflex{{ref|1}}
| '''''lea'''ve''
|-
| Long rising
| align="center"|Ã
| Acute accent Acute
| '''''leav'''ing''
|-
| Long unstressed
| align="center" | Ä«
| Macron
| ''fif'''ties'''''
|}
{{note|1}}Actually used diacritic is an arch or an "upside-down breve" rather than a circumflex; however, the symbol is not present in Unicode tables
General stress rules in the standard language:
* 1) Monosyllabic words may have only a falling stress (or no stress at all — enclitics)
* 2) Falling stress may occur only on the first syllable
* 3) Stress can never occur on the last syllable of polysyllabic words
In practice, these rules are not strictly obeyed; for example, most speakers will pronounce ''para'''dajz''''' and ''asi'''stent''''' instead of standard ''pa'''ra'''dajz'' and ''a'''si'''stent'' (rule 3). Stress differs across local dialects and even across idiolect idiolects; it is the primary distinguishing feature by which a trained ear recognizes the origin of a speaker (even without knowing about underlying stress theory). Luckily, there are not many minimal pair minimal pairs where an error in accentuation can lead to misunderstanding.
There are no other rules of stress placement, thus the stress of every word must be learned individually; stress diacritics are never indicated outside of linguistic or learning literature. In general, stress leans towards the first syllable. Furthermore, in declension and Grammatical conjugation conjugation, stress shifts are very frequent, both in type and position.
Comparative linguistics nevertheless offers some rules. So if one compares Serbo-Croatian words to the similar Russian words, the stress in Russian will be on the following syllable if the Serbo-Croatian word has rising stress and vice versa. That even holds in comparing the same words in neo-Å tokavian and either ÄŒakavian or old Å tokavian.
Orthography
Serbo-Croatian orthography is supposed to be completely phonetic. Thus, every word is allegedly spelled exactly as it is pronounced. In practice, the writing system does not take into account allophone allophones which occur as result of interaction between words:
* bit će — pronounced ''biće'' (and only written separately in Croatian)
* od toga — pronounced ''otoga'', esp. in rapid speech
* iz Ä?ega — pronounced ''iÅ¡Ä?ega''
Also, there are some exceptions, mostly applied to foreign words and compounds, that favor morphological/etymological over phonetical spelling:
* postdiplomski (postgraduate) — pronounced ''pozdiplomski''
One systemic exception is that the consonant clusters '''ds''' and '''dš''' do not change into '''ts''' and '''tš''' (although ''d'' tends to be unvoiced in normal speech in such clusters):
* predstava (show)
* odštampati (to print)
Only a few words are intentionally "misspelled", mostly in order to resolve ambiguity:
* šeststo (six hundred) — pronounced ''šesto'' (to avoid confusion with "šesto" [sixth])
* prstni (adj., finger) — pronounced ''prsni'' (to avoid confusion with "prsni" [adj., chest])
Demographics
According to data collected from various census bureaus and administrative agencies the total number of native Serbo-Croatian speakers in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro is about 16 million. Serbian is spoken by about 9 million mostly in Serbia (6.7m), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.4m) and Montenegro. (0.4m). Croatian is spoken by roughly 4.7 million including by 575,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnian, the youngest member of the Serbo-Croatian family is spoken by 2.2 million including about 220,000 in Serbia and Montenegro. Moreover, 955,000 people speak Serbo-Croatian as a second language in those areas where it is official. In Croatia, 170,000 mostly Italians and Hungarians use it as a second language. In Bosnia and Herzegovina about 25,000 Roma people Roma use it as a second language. Serbia and Montenegro, however, has 760,000 second-language speakers of Serbian, including Hungarians in Vojvodina and the 400,000 estimated Roma. It is not known how many Kosovar Albanians are familiar with Serbian. Outside of the Balkans, over 2 million speak it natively mostly in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Sweden and the United States. In addition, the language is reasonably understood in Slovenia and Macedonia, since they were Yugoslav republics. Furthermore, the popularity of singers singing in Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian, has helped maintain the presence of the language in the Yugoslav successor states, where it is not spoken as a first language.
Sources
* Magner, Thomas F.: ''Zagreb Kajkavian dialect''. Pennsylvania State University, 1966
* Magner, Thomas F.: ''Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language'' (Revised ed.). Pennsylvania State University, 1991
* Murray Despalatović, Elinor: ''Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrian Movement''. Columbia University Press, 1975.
* Franolić, Branko: ''A Historical Survey of Literary Croatian'', Nouvelles éditions latines, Paris, 1984.
* Banac, Ivo: ''Main Trends in the Croatian Language Question'', Yale University Press, 1984
* Ivić, Pavle: ''Die serbokroatischen Dialekte'', the Hague, 1958
* Rešetar, Milan: ''Der Schtokawische Dialekt'', Berlin, 1908
Differences to similar languages
''Main article: Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia''
See also
*Shtokavian dialect
External links
{{interwiki|code=sh}}
*Ethnologue – 15th edition of the Ethnologue (released 2005) shows changes in this area:
*
- Previous Ethnologue entry for Serbo-Croatian
*
- Ethnologue 15th Edition report on south/western Slavic languages
- Serbian and Croatian alphabets at Omniglot
* Robert Greenberg: [http://www.unc.edu/courses/2001fall/slav/075/aftermath.htm The Politics of Language Death and Language Birth]
* Sean McLennan: [http://www.shaav.com/professional/linguistics/serbocroation.html Sociolinguistic Analysis of Serbo-Croatian] (in Portable Document Format PDF format)
* Juhani Nuorluoto: [http://www.joensuu.fi/fld/methodsxi/abstracts/nuorluoto.html The Notion of Diasystem in the Central South Slavic Linguistic Area]
- Serbo-Croatian–English Dictionary
- Integral text of Novi Sad Agreement (In Serbo-Croatian)
Category:South Slavic languages
ast:Serbocroata
cs:Srbochorvatština
da:Serbo-kroatisk
de:Serbokroatische Sprache
es:Idioma serbocroata
fr:Serbo-croate
ko:세르보�로아트어
hr:Srpskohrvatski jezik
he:סרבו-קרו×?טית
ja:セルビア・クãƒã‚¢ãƒ?ア語
li:Servokroatisch
nl:Servokroatisch
nds:Serbokroaatsch
nn:Serbokroatisk språk
pl:Język serbsko-chorwacki
pt:LÃngua servo-croata
ru:СербÑ?кохорватÑ?кий Ñ?зык
sh:Srpskohrvatski jezik
sl:SrbohrvaÅ¡Ä?ina
sr:СрпÑ?кохрватÑ?ки језик
fi:Serbokroatian kieli
sv:Serbokroatiska
zh:塞爾ç¶äºžâ€”克羅埃西亞語
see Serbo-Croatian language
*** Shopping-Tip: Serbo-Croatian Language
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