Language and Identity in the Balkans Serbo-Croatian and Its Disintegration

by Greenberg, Robert D.

• ISBN13: 9780199258154
• ISBN10: 0199258155
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Language rifts in the Balkans are endemic and have long been both a symptom of ethnic animosity and a cause for inflaming it. But the break-up of the Serbo-Croatian language into four languages on the path towards mutual unintelligibility within a decade is, by any previous standard oflinguistic behaviour, extraordinary. Robert Greenberg describes how it happened. Basing his account on first-hand observations in the region before and since the communist demise, he evokes the drama and emotional discord as different factions sought to exploit, prevent, exacerbate, accelerate orjust make sense of the chaotic and unpredictable language situation. His fascinating account offers insights into the nature of language change and the relation between language and identity. It also provides a uniquely vivid perspective on nationalism and identity politics in the formerYugoslavia.

Author Biography

Robert Greenberg is Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Haven and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1991 where he taught 1991-1992. He then taught at Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before taking up his current position in 2003.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
1 Introduction	1	(15)
1.0 Overview	1	(3)
1.1 Goals and methodology	4	(2)
1.2 Language as a marker of ethnic identity	6	(3)
1.3 Language in the context of Balkan nationalism	9	(4)
1.4 Serbo-Croatian: A dying tongue?	13	(3)
2 Serbo-Croatian: United or not we fall	16	(42)
2.0 Introduction: The precarious language union	16	(2)
2.1 Models for unified languages	18	(6)
2.1.1 Centrally monitored unity	20	(1)
2.1.2 Government-imposed unity	21	(2)
2.1.3 Pluricentric unity	23	(1)
2.2 Controversies connected with Serb/Croat Language accords	24	(8)
2.2.1 The Literary Agreement (1850)	24	(5)
2.2.2 The Novi Sad Agreement (1954)	29	(3)
2.3 The power of competing dialects	32	(9)
2.3.1 The Stokavian dialects and ethnicity: An overview	34	(1)
2.3.2 Dilemmas of dialects: Ownership and citizenship?	35	(4)
2.3.3 Standard pronunciations, variants, or idioms	39	(2)
2.4 The writing on the wall: Alphabets and writing systems	41	(6)
2.4.1 A multiplicity of alphabets	41	(3)
2.4.2 Spell-bound: Clashes over spelling rules	44	(3)
2.5 Vocabulary: A reflection of divergent approaches to identity	47	(7)
2.5.1 Croatian purism	48	(2)
2.5.2 The supremacy of the vernacular for the Serbs	50	(1)
2.5.3 Divergent attitudes towards foreign borrowings	51	(3)
2.6 The turbulent history of the language union: A chronology	54	(4)
3 Serbian: Isn't my language your language?	58	(30)
3.0 Introduction	58	(1)
3.1 One language, two variants	59	(6)
3.1.1 The two alphabets 6o
3.1.2 The two pronunciations	63	(2)
3.2 The factions in Serbian linguistic circles	65	(4)
3.3 Orthographic chaos: 1993-1994	69	(8)
3.4 The battle between the ekavian and ijekavian dialects	77	(6)
3.5 The triumph of the academies	83	(2)
3.6 Conclusions	85	(3)
4 Montenegrin: A mountain out of a mole hill?	88	(21)
4.0 Introduction	88	(3)
4.1 Montenegro's dialects and its literary traditions	91	(6)
4.1.1 The sociolinguistics of dialect geography	92	(2)
4.1.2 The literary traditions in Montenegro	94	(3)
4.2 Montenegro's two factions	97	(5)
4.2.1 The Neo-Vukovites	98	(1)
4.2.2 Nikcevic and his supporters	99	(3)
4.3 The proposed standard	102	(3)
4.3.1 New letters and new pronunciations	103	(1)
4.3.2 The expansion of ijekavian features	104	(1)
4.4 Conclusions	105	(4)
5 Croatian: We are separate but equal twins	109	(26)
5.0 Introduction	109	(2)
5.1 Croatian from Broz to Brozovic	111	(7)
5.1.1 Contributions of the "Croat Vukovites": Traitors or Croat patriots?	111	(4)
5.1.2 Tito's Yugoslavia: Croatian and not Croato-Serbian	115	(3)
5.2 The new Croatian	118	(7)
5.2.1 The Cakavian and Kajkavian lexical stock	120	(2)
5.2.2 Infusing the new standard with native Croatian forms	122	(3)
5.3 Recent orthographic controversies	125	(7)
5.3.1 The prescriptivist Pravopis	125	(3)
5.3.2 The descriptivist Pravopis	128	(4)
5.4 Conclusions	132	(3)
6 Bosnian: A three-humped camel?	135	(24)
6.0 Introduction	135	(2)
6.1 History is on our side: The origins of the Bosnian language	137	(2)
6.2 It's all in the name: Bosnian or Bosniac	139	(3)
6.3 The peculiarities of the new Bosnian standard	142	(8)
6.3.1 The dialectal base	143	(3)
6.3.2 Bosnian is no mixture of Serbian and Croatian	146	(4)
6.4 The first Symposium on the Bosnian language	150	(5)
6.5 Closing ranks: A new charter for a new century	155	(1)
6.6 Conclusions	156	(3)
7 Conclusion	159	(9)
7.0 The Serbo-Croatian successor languages: Shared obstacles and divergent solutions	159	(5)
7.1 My language, my land	164	(4)
Appendix A: Text of the 1850 Literary Agreement	168	(4)
Appendix B: Text of the 1954 Novi Sad Agreement	172	(3)
Works cited	175	(8)
Index	183