Talk:Croatian language/Archive 11

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Shtokavian is not a dialect of Croatian

Anon editor, you are wrong to say that Shtokavian is a dialect of Croatian, unless you are also claiming that Serbian and Bosnian are also dialects of Croatian. The consensus on Wikipedia is that Shtokavian, Kajkavian, and Chakavian are dialects of "Serbo-Croatian", since Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian are all dialects of Shtokavian. I will not violate WP:1RR to revert you again, but you are wrong. --Taivo (talk) 18:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Standardized register

Croatian (hrvatski jezik) is a standardized register of the Serbo-Croatian language... - to claim that is simply not true, because "standard" Croatian is not only Croatian language.

Standard language in Croatia is Serbo-Croatian, or batter to say - some form of West Serbian language. - so there is no dispute about that. However Croatian language, real Croatian language (one you can easily find in thousands of books, epics, poems...) has nothing to do with Serbian language. That is something no one seems to understand.

Croatian language is almost extinct language which haves no Institution to govern its development. Today in Croatia, Croatian language is forbidden, and is used only in everyday conversations but not by public media, government... or other official institutions.

The term vukopis is used to describe "violence" done to actual language by changing Croatian language to almost unrecognized form by political force and totalitarian Yugoslav régime. That Serbian (better to say "Vukovian", because vukovians are Croats as well) violence is the only reason why today's "standard" Croatian language is almost the same as Serbian language altogether.

Kratko i jezgrovito rečeno: prošlost je jezika hrvatskoga sjajna, sadašnjost mračna, budućnost neizvjestna... U djelima se (ranijih) književnika zrcali pravo biće jezika hrvatskoga, pravopisa i porabe jezične. Sve je to obrazbeno blago u XX. st. odvrženo i poslano u ropotarnicu poviesti... Budući nam je izvorni književni izraz hrvatski iz mozga bez traga izpran, ... unatoč mnogostoljetnoj svojoj poviesti, hrvatski je jezik danas lišen prošlosti. - Bulcsú László

Briefly and succinctly said: the past of Croatian language is a great, the present bleak, the future uncertain... In the works of the (early) writers reflects true being of Croatian language, spelling and precise use of language. All this is slightly transformed by the twentieth century, overthrew and sent to the dustbin of history ... Since our original Croatian literary expression has been from our brain washed without trace ... Despite its many-century history, Croatian language is today devoid of his past.- Bulcsú László

This is the stand of preeminent Croatian linguists, so the article needs to express this, and say that "standard" Croatian language is Serbo-Croatian, but Croatian language isn't.

Exapmle 1.
Kolo od srieće uokoli
vrteći se ne pristaje:
tko bi gori, eto je doli,
a tko doli gori ustaje.
Ivan Gundulić

Exapmle 2.
Svit je taščina.
Taščina od taščin i sve je taščina,
ovi svit jest osin i magla i hina.
Marko Marulić

Exapmle 3.
Nut poglejte kako sriću
človičanski ljudi išču:
ki z navukom med knigami,
ki z oružjem med vojskami;

ki u dvoru prislužujuć,
z neistinom prilizujuć,
drugim na zlo potverduju,
što je krivo potribuju.

Ali srića je bižeća,
malo kadi obstojeća,
vsi ju žele, nasliduju,
retki pako dostiguju.
Fran Krsto Frankopan

Reading this examples, one can clearly see that Croatian language has nothing to do with "standard Croatian", with Serbian or Serbo-Croatian language. Slavić (talk) 21:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Heads-up for Wikipedia editors: Slavić subscribes to an extremist view that "real Croatian" is some obscure mixture of Kaj-Ča-Što dialects. What he claims are "pre-eminent linguists" like Bulcsú László are in fact minor right-wing nut jobs - e.g. the aforementioned one's wiki article was deleted due to him being academically completely irrelevant figure (note also that I wrote the original article and supported its deletion!). He is even banned from Croatian Wikipedia (and his several sockuppets) for writing articles in his imaginary Kaj-Ča-Što mixture, in orthography reminiscent of the 19th century purist efforts. [1]. I recently blocked him on Wiktionary due to his persistent creation of entries that could not be verified, and claiming that these obscure spellings of his are valid alternative forms of the standard Serbo-Croatian orthography (which is phonological), which was nonsense because most of them had 0 Google hits. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:38, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

1RR

Maybe the moron who came up with this 1RR rule should've considered protecting this article from IPs/new users instead. — Lfdder (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the article used to be protected at the time. Given the nature of its subject, it probably should be semi-protected indefinitely. --JorisvS (talk) 20:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree. --Taivo (talk) 21:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, the minute you take it off, the nationalistic hatreds will run rampant and the article would be destroyed with propaganda and POV of disastrous proportions.HammerFilmFan (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps tangentially, there's so many notices up top no one's gonna read even a single one of them. — Lfdder (talk) 01:25, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone read any of them on any page? Even when there's only one? They're there so that ex post facto we can point to an offending editor and say, "See, you were warned!" --Taivo (talk) 11:09, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Ah, well, in that case... — Lfdder (talk) 11:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Croatian vs. Serbo-Croatian

a standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language[4][5][6] used by Croats

While this might be a majority opinion (really, I don't know) there's also an opinion that Croatian is simply a language on its own, although mutually intelligible with Serbian, etc. This opinion must be taken into the account as well, since the difference between "variants" and "languages" is quite arbitrary. dnik ► 16:03, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

We use "variety" specifically to avoid the terminology conundrum. Linguists recognize that Croatian and Serbian are dialects of the same language because they are mutually intelligible. Croatian nationalists want to call them separate languages for political reasons. "Variety" avoids telling the patriots to get a life so that the scientists can correctly use "dialect" or "register". It avoids too much edit warring with non-linguists. Croatian and Serbian are not different languages, they are the same language with two different names depending on what side of an arbitrary line one lives on, or what religion one practices, or what alphabet one uses. --Taivo (talk) 17:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

A question on terminology Taivo - are you definitely sure "register" can be applied here? Because Croatian definitely does not fit the sociolinguistic definition of "register" the way I had been taught. Timbouctou (talk) 18:12, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I know, I have read the previous talk pages. However, I must emphasize two points:

• majority (not all) of Croatian linguists consider Croatian to be a separate language, based on its separate history etc. (I will not discuss their arguments here). That might be a minority opinion, but from a neutral point of view, it must be mentioned because it is the majority opinion in Croatia

• legally, Croatian and Serbian are considered separate languages in Croatia and Serbia. Otherwise, there would be no Cyrillic street signs in some parts on Croatia, and no Latin street signs whatsoever in Serbia; you would have no option to get your ID card in Latin script in Vojvodina, goverments would not co-fund minority-language magazines etc. Being a "variant" does not count from the legal point of view.

Now, of course, linguistically, if one adopts "variant = mutually intelligible" it does not say much besides they are mutually intelligible, which they are to a very large extent... (and registers they are not: registers are variants that depend on role within a society, e.g. newspapers, TV, laws...)

As for Croatian = sum of all dialects/local variants spoken by Croats, of course it's a non-linguistic grouping, but it's often held by laymen. Even some Croatian linguists use terms "language as a system" (of dialects spoken by one nation) and "language as a standard" (meaning official, standard language of a nation). Of course this creates yet another layer of confusion... I hope wiki will be able to clarify this somehow.

Acknowledging different points of view and arguments for them will avoid wasting energy in edit wars. dnik ► 19:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Other opinions are already mentioned in the article: ..many Croats and even Croatian linguists regard Croatian as a separate language. The only question is whether to put it in the lede or not. Reference would be nice at any case, because otherwise it would be WP:SYNTH. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Mix of dialects "still used" in Istria

The following sentences, with [19] referring to a J. Kalsbeek book:

Toward the 17th century, both of them attempted to unify Croatia both culturally and linguistically, writing in a mixture of all three principal dialects (Chakavian, Kajkavian and Shtokavian), and calling it "Croatian", "Dalmatian", or "Slavonian".[18] It is still used now in parts of Istria, which became a crossroads of various mixtures of Chakavian with Ekavian/Ijekavian/Ikavian dialects.[19]

Are plainly wrong. The 17th century attempts were based on dialects spoken in Ozalj area, quite inland. Dialects in Istria are quite different. The Kalsbeek book describes Žminj dialect which is really different from anything in Ozalj area. To list only one characteristic: it's Ekavian, as all old Čakavian dialects in Istria are. And they don't mix with the Ikavian ones, due to a former political divide (Ikavian ones were found on territory held by Venice, as people from Dalmatia were re-settled to Venetian Istria)... dnik ► 19:38, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

What Reliable Source do you have that backs up what you are claiming? HammerFilmFan (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

The topic of this article

Although we've been over this before (see Talk:Croatian language/Archive 10), I'll bring it up again: What is the topic of this and, by extension, that of the parallel articles (i.e. Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin)? The standardized versions of Serbo-Croatian, or anything as spoken by their respective ethnicities? The former would make sense, because it is the one about which something coherent can be said. Moreover, there is little more to tell about ethnically defined "languages" than about the standard languages, and what little there is must be noted in the articles about the standard languages anyway. --JorisvS (talk) 09:33, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we ever agreed that we will limit the scope exclusively to the standard language, and perusing the Archive, I don't see a definitive statement to that effect being made. Basically, I agree with Kwami, who said that "Now, this article is not about standard Croatian, but about all varieties of SC spoken by Croats. ", and, since it chiefly deals with socio-political aspects (history of standardization, relationship with Serbian, officialdom), I would say that the statement matches the contents rather well. By my reading of the lead sentence, "Croatian is a standardized variety", the stress is on variety and not on standardized. No such user (talk) 13:20, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Several Wikipedians expressed agreement with clarifying the scope of this article to Standard Croatian specifically. When I read the first lead sentence, the stress actually falls on standardized (it can, of course, easily be read either way). The sociopolitical stuff is also relevant for an article about Standard Croatian, because those efforts are focused on Standard Croatian: Those who would like to make Croatian appear a distinct language from Serbian highlight differences between Standard Croatian and Standard Serbian, after which they may confuse ethnicity and language and maybe add other confused stuff. An article about Standard Croatian would have to include its standardization history, its main differences from the other standards, and the sociopolitical stuff. --JorisvS (talk) 13:49, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Where? I see nothing approaching "agreement" in that discussion. I maintain that having "Standard" on top of that infobox is just plain ugly, and certainly not a custom in other articles. I dislike preemptive "disambiguations" to supposedly un-confuse readers. No such user (talk) 21:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreement as in simple agreement or no strong feelings either way with willingness to work in that direction, in the second part of the section "Is". What's 'plain ugly' about it, I don't see it? --JorisvS (talk) 09:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the problem stems from the (apparently-unsolvable) issue of the title of this article. We have a definition that's basically in contradiction with the title and the main body of the article. Both the title and the main text speak of an independent "language", the existence of which is effectively denied by the first paragraph - which even uses "Croatian" instead of "Croatian language" as would be appropriate per the MoS. I suppose that's because of how strange it would be to write "the Croatian language is a variety of the Serbo-Croatian language". One way or the other, something's off here. -- Director (talk) 00:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian are all standardized varieties as well as standardized varieties if you get my hint. The article scope ought to accommodate both aspects. Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian do exist as historically authentic socio-linguistic varieties each of which are traced back to distinct medieval kingdoms of distinction. At the same time, however, they constitute in a broader sense one language. Thus, Serbo-Croatian is historically, and indeed today, known by its varieties Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian which developed quite independently until the 19th century when efforts at "centralization" also coined the term Serbo-Croatian. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, these efforts were abandoned along with the term Serbo-Croatian, and the varieties are (once again) developing rather independently. These are the key aspects that need to be conveyed. I think the lead could maybe say something along the lines of the Croatian language is a South Slavic language spoken by Croats. From a sociolinguistic perspective, Croatian is, along with Bosnian and Serbian, considered to be a standardized variety of one and the same language commonly named Serbo-Croatian...maybe?Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 02:19, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Uhm, no they can not. Modern-day Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language "histories" are by and large invention of the 1990s when history books were rewritten to suit the needs of newly-born national identities. In the Middle Ages nobody spoke about Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian "language" - these terms, if used, were always regional qualifiers. Defining language as all kinds of vernacular spoken exclusively by specific ethnicity, even if it from a strictly linguistic perspective represents the same language as spoken by other ethnicities, is simply brain-dead. Balkanites imagine that they have some kind of "right" according to some international law to their own language, to name it and define it as they see fit, and to order others how to call it...they do not. There is no "development" of Serbo-Croatian varieties, apart from petty squabbles whether to spell neću separately, where to put non-etymological /x/ and how to "fight" the endless stream of incoming Anglicisms. Lede should first and foremost reflect the linguistic reality, and only secondarily, perhaps in the following paragraphs, the notion of ethnically-defined "Croatian language" (standardological part is already covered). This article is already full of nationalist propaganda written by Mir Harven and others that needs to be rewritten in NPOV manner, let's not contaminate the introductory section as well. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Yup, pretty much as Ivan tells it. At the risk of repeating myself, how does renaming the article to Croatian standard sound? -- Director (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think there can be no doubt as to the widely acknowledged status of these varieties, and not just "politically". Renaming the article into Croatian standard would probably fail to comply with NPOV and is bound to make the headlines in Croatia in just a few days with a consequent mobilization of HAZU and matica Hrvatska :P. I do have the impression of some editors here qualifying as hardline Yugo nostalgics eager in their incrimination of the different ethnic groups for just being different, as if South Slavic history had its beginning with Yugoslavia. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 18:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

You have a wrong impression. Ethnic groups are largely imaginary concepts, a matter of "consciousness" by their respective members. You know very well how students are taught in Balkans schools, that in the 19th century there was basically no nacionalne svijesti and that after systematic cultural brainwashing by various national revival efforts (interestingly, mostly by German, Slovak, Czech...intellectuals) various nations suddenly sprung to life. Your accusations are pure projection - you nationalists see Yugonostalgic apologists in every corner because you yourselves are are POV-pushers following a well-trodden agenda laid out by nationalist ideologues... Of course, it all falls to pieces upon closer scrutiny, when you fail to account for a simple matter of reality - how come those standard varieties that have been "diverging since Middle Ages" are less dissimilar than the vernacular of any two villages you randomly pick from the ex-Yu map :P I wouldn't be bothered too much with HAZU, Matica hrvatska and other taxpayer-funded institutions whose membership is self-selected - all they care about is their hefty pensions. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:19, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Hm. Maybe you're right, but here's the rub: so far as I'm aware, Serbs didn't have any German, Slovak, Czech intellectuals telling them they're Serbs (even though Croats kinda did). Going down that road, you might as well join the Serbian Radical Party and proclaim us all Serbs :).

Re the HAZU getting "mobilized", nah.. And besides, there's still their parallel universe at hrWiki. -- Director (talk) 10:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Ha ha! Serbian culture was still very conservative at that time, mostly thanks to Church influence. It wasn't until the mid second half of the 19th century that Serbo-Croatian proper (i.e. Štokavian) was adopted as the literary language. Croatians however initiated most of the philological developments, and published most of the relevant works. Today Croatian agenda-driven linguists are "ashamed" by the legacy of Maretić, Broz and others.. When you read this article, the whole efforts sounds like a conspiracy theory (Following the incentive of Austrian bureaucracy which preferred a common literary language of Serbs and Croats languages for practical administrative reason...). Austrian bureaucracy, right ;) That should really be toned down, but I'm not sure I have the stomach. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:40, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed - but you were talking about ethnic identities, were you not? Once you go down that road and investigate the emergence of the modern Croatian ethnic identity, its very hard not to sympathize, at least to some degree, with the views of Vojislav Seselj :). In Dalmatia, for example, people were suddenly being told they were Croats in the 19th century. Many did not buy this supposed relationship with the Kajkavians of the north at all , and turned into Yugoslavist unitarianists. Its easy to see how one would find it highly illogical that Dalmatian Slavs form a nation with the northern Kajkavians from Croatia proper, whereas they are supposed to be completely separate from the Slavs of what is practically their immediate hinterland, who at least spoke something they could understand. You have this whole sub-group of Dalmatians like Jakša Račić who instead turned into rabid Yugoslav royalists and unitarianists, seeing themselves as "Yugoslavs from the region of Dalmatia" (I believe the phenomenon was depicted in the Velo Misto series).

(Incidentally Račić, who was a Chetnik, and was of course executed by Partisans as a 'traitor', still has a photo in the Split hospital next to the first X-ray operated in the city, which he brought in.) -- Director (talk) 15:13, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Getting back on topic, I gather you're in favor of "standard"? Any more input on the question? -- Director (talk) 20:20, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

You guys are making my head spin round. Where is Joris? Are we seriously contemplating renaming the article into "Standard Croatian"? Even if we are to allow ourselves to play with the idea for a moment, there can hardly ever be a consensus for such a move. I for one would object to it seeing how Croatian is not only a standardized language but also a sociolinguistic variety. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 09:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

All I'm asking is how users view this issue. I won't be posting any RMs any time soon. At the very least, though, I think the lead needs to explain why the title uses the term "language" for a "variant of a language". Its kind of confusing and contradictory, and I think it needs addressing. -- Director (talk) 15:44, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I can agree with that. The phrasing "used by Croats" is also confounding. Languages, whether standardized or not, are spoken, rather than used, right? Currently, however, Serbo-Croatian appears to be spoken whereas its standardized variety is used?! Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 21:58, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Speaking is one part of using a language; writing would be another one. An article focused on standard Croatian would have difficulty addressing the other dialects would it not? Where would they go under this system? I'm not swayed by the argument that the title needs to be changed just because it's not correct in some respects. It's just a name (a rose by any other name would smell as sweet), and although they do have symbolism the point of policies like WP:COMMONNAME is for us to look past the symbolism in picking the names. Making the topic clear in the lead is what needs to be done. As for the topic, I don't think we can avoid an article on the Croatian language, whether or not there's one on the standard, because even if it's just an idea, it's an idea that's notable. CMD (talk) 22:48, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 05:24, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

What is confusing is the ethnic wording: it would be the same if the articles on American English and British English, or Austrian German and Swiss German had language in their name. Note also the ledes of Hindi/Urdu. The problem is that Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are also names of peoples, so language part is necessary for disambiguation. We could either get rid of it completely and add the Standard part at the beginning, or leave language, but simply B/C/S/M would not suffice. The individual articles however currently largely deal with political history, not their respective standardized variants. Which are dealt with in Serbo-Croatian and its subarticles +/- Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. So I'm not sure what exactly the article on e.g. Standard Croatian would cover? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:11, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the title. The shortcoming is rather with the bland formulations used in the article. The "political history", as you refer to it, is the variety substrate whereas standardization is merely a scholarly process actively implemented: the current title encompasses the both of these. Croatian is a standardized variety. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 05:24, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Inaccurate tagging of the talk page

Hi all. In an unrelated matter I ran a search of English-language book results of Serbo-Croatian language, Croatian language and Serbian language phrase search and came up with this:

Right now, there are 18,600 Google books search results containing phrase "Serbo Croatian language" and 13,000 results containing phrase "Serbo Croat language", contrasted by 19,700 results containing phrase "Serbian language" and 21,300 results containing phrase "Croatian language" while simultaneously excluding phrase "Serbo Croatian language", making a roughly 4 to 3 preference against "Serbo Croat(ian) language" being a WP:COMMONNAME in English language books. (All four searches exclude results linked to Wikipedia and Books LLC to avoid mirroring wiki per WP:CIRCULAR.) Granted, there are 1,140 results among above ones containing both "Croatian language" and "Serbian language" phrases (i.e. duplicating results in the two groups), but they are quite offset by 1,310 results for "Serb language" phrase search.

Given these results, I wonder if the notice at the top of this talk page saying: "Croatian is a standardized register of a language which is also spoken by Croats, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins. In English, this language is generally called "Serbo-Croat(ian)". Use of that term in English, which dates back at least to 1864 and was modeled on both Croatian and Serbian nationalists of the time, is not a political endorsement of Yugoslavia, but is simply a label. As long as it remains the common name of the language in English, it will continue to be used here on Wikipedia." is accurate or not in terms of Serbo-Croatian being the common name of "the language in English" as the note says. It is quite possible that the notice was well intended (and based in facts) when it was devised and likely the number books published in English noting one term instead of the other simply changed over time. There's a near identical notice at the top of Talk:Serbian language too. Regards.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The Template:Recurring themes is misused in this case. Instead to point to the list of highlighted discussions it is used to push certain POV. In its current form it should be speedily removed.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:55, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Even if we take seriously the silly notion that your SET results refer to the same thing (which is manifestly not the case), your implication that these are all different names for the same language (as opposed to separate variants), leads to the inevitable conclusion that the four "variant" articles (including this one) need to be deleted as WP:CONTENTFORKS. Are you aware of that? Because either "Croatian language" is a variant of SC, or it is another name for SC. We can't have it both ways.

And um, Antid, the template is used in precisely the correct fashion. -- Director (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

What DIREKTOR said. Hey, it's a brand new year - how about we start it off with a dropping of unscientific nationalism and instead just take what the linguistic-expert Reliable Sources say? Please? Pretty please? HammerFilmFan (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

• What exactly is being argued here? We do have separate articles on Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin as well as Serbo-Croatian. B/C/S/M articles mostly deal with historical/cultural/ethnic/etc. perspective, where Serbo-Croatian deals with both that and the linguistic perspective (phonology, grammar, dialects..). If we had a single article with B/C/S/M/SC all redirecting to it, then it would make sense to invoke COMMONNAME. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:29, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The argument is not about having different number of articles: five articles on B/C/S/M/SC are in order, but the notice on top of this talk page saying in effect that English language sources most commonly refer to B+C+S+M as SC is simply not based in facts, at least not anymore. If the above results are compared there is 4 to 3 preference to individual language reference rather than SC. I assume that ratio was previously preferring SC - but if that is true more recent English language usage exhibits an even stronger preference to individual language name references. Notion that the individual language articles should be replaced by a single SC articles makes sense as much as rolling all Slavic languages into Slavic languages and removing articles on Russian or Polish.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:45, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that your results refer to different things. The notion of separate Croatian or Serbian as form of Serbo-Croatian does not invalidate the notion of Serbo-Croatian when referring to them collectively, as one system/language. (Although in the last 10 years alone the term BCS(M) probably has more usage.) It is the most common name for the entity it refers to. I don't think you'll find anywhere B+C+S+M being referred to as Croatian. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll assume good faith and conclude you misunderstood me. I never claim that B+C+S+M = Croatian language. I said that references to B or C or S or M outweigh references to SC. As you yourself note in past 10 years this must have been even more heavily so. Now, this makes it clear that references to individual language are more common than reference to them, collectively if you will, as a SC. Therefore the notice on top of this talk page is in factual error. Of course, there are more references to SC than C or S individually, but that's hardly surprising - there are more references to "Slavic languages" than to SC yet it would be wrong to roll SC article into the Slavic languages article. In conclusion, the notice on top of this talk page saying SC is a commonname here is in factual error and should be amended accordingly. Ditto for the near-identical notice at Talk:Serbian language.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

We didn't misunderstand you, you misunderstood us. And still do, apparently. SC is not a "collective name" for four languages, its a language with four variants. Try re-reading my post - or the tag itself for that matter. Especially the part where it says "Croatian is a standardized register of a language" (the emphasis being on "of"). -- Director (talk) 15:07, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

If we mention in the first sentence the other registers of SC, that would fix the problem of eventual missinterpretation. FkpCascais (talk) 15:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Good point there, that's another inaccuracy in the notice tags. Ethnologue identifies SC as a macrolanguage here while Serbian [2] and Croatian [3] are defined as languages previously considered a part of SC rather than language registers. The macrolanguage article nicely spells out that its members may be considered distinct for reasons other than linguistics and according to the Ethnologue (and other sources including politically-based classifications of Croatia, Serbia, EU...) they are. Thank you for pointing out this deficiency of the introductory tag. This aspect of the notice should be amended accordingly along with the already noted prevalence of common reference to the individual languages (especially in the recent years) as noted above.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:39, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

In that vein, I'd propose amending the note to read: "Serbo-Croatian macrolanguage whose members: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian may be considered distinct languages for a variety of reasons. In English, one group of sources refer to the macrolanguage members collectively and to the macrolanguage itself as "Serbo-Croat(ian)", while another group of sources refers to the macrolanguage members individually. Use of term "Serbo-Croat(ian)" in English, which dates back at least to 1864 and was modeled on both Croatian and Serbian nationalists of the time, is not a political endorsement of Yugoslavia, but is simply a label."--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:49, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Amending the note would not resolve the problem of inaccurate tagging with Template:Recurring themes which is meant to present "the list of highlighted discussions". No list of highlighted discussions - no Template:Recurring themes tag.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Macrolanguage a very specifically defined technical term not in general usage (neither by common people nor linguists, it's only used for classification). The term Serbo-Croatian is the established term for B+C+S+M when viewed as a single pluricentric language. You're using search engine results invoking not COMMONNAME, but refuting a statement. Search results can only be used to resolve terminological disputes (i.e. which term has most usage, and what pagename to default on when writing an article on some topic). We're not dealing with the same topics here, but different topics. Those search results all mean different things. That is equivalent as saying that "Baltic languages" and "Slavic languages" have respectively much more Google hits than "Balto-Slavic languages" (which they do), which would supposedly refute that both groups are members of Balto-Slavic group. I understand what you are trying to do achieve but your arguments don't follow. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

You folks are clearly confused. Croatian and Serbo-Croatian are two different things, comparing their SET results is indicative of nothing whatsoever. SC is the most common name for the language, whereas Croatian is the most common name for the variant covered herein. There is nothing to discuss here, least of all Antidiskriminator's typical 'work orders'. -- Director (talk) 20:19, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

To avoid your repeated unnecessarily harsh comments to me I will never comment or edit this page again. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:32, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Contrary to your implication, you never posted any changes here. Hopefully at some point you'll figure out that we're here to do actual editing. If you think something is missing from the tag - add it, stop always posting 'work orders' for others. The other possibility seems to be that you're trying to delete a necessary tag on a technicality, and thus create more problems for everyone on this talkpage (new arrivals and regulars alike). I personally don't like either possibility. -- Director (talk) 23:21, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Ausbau language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausbau_language a link in the see also section would clarify those coming here for the first time. Can it be added. I don't add it as I am not interested in being in stupid edit wars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.95.193 (talk) 12:28, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense to add it. The nationalists often confuse ausbau languages (which Croatian is) with abstand languages (which Croatian is not w.r.t. Serbian etc.). I've also added it to Serbian language, Bosnian language, and Montenegrin language. --JorisvS (talk) 15:43, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Relation to Serbian section

I would like to know or ask anyone here why is this section so unreliable?It is full of "citation needed" quotes and similar things.This need to be done.Either erase,either to find reliable sources or to make it shorter because one cannot know if that is true or false.99% of that stuff. Scrosby85 (talk) 03:08, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Because it was written in ancient history when we were not so insistent on article references when dealing with controversial content (and were generally happy to have the content in the first place). This article needs rewrite from the ground up. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Modern Standard or genuine Croatian language ?

I'm little bit confused. Is this page about Modern Standard Croatian or about genuine Croatian language and his historical use? Because if this page is about Modern Standard then this whole Serbo-Croatian theory could pass, but then the page must be re-named into Standard Croatian language or something else. If this is a page about genuine Croatian language and his historical use, then no Serbo-Croatian theory could ever pass, thus making this page completely wrong. Concern reader — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.201.128.42 (talk) 01:01, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

What does "genuine" mean? Is the official language of Croatia not genuine Croatian? — kwami (talk) 01:10, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes official language is Croatian, but what Croatian means? that is a question, one can not put Croatian language in bars of that what is used in media to be genuine Croatian. Croatian language is one used in literature (both scientific and poetic) this is genuine Croatian, and this page says nothing about it. To be more clear: Shakespere, Byron, Milton, Joyce... this is English language one can't put them into some other language. Same is with Marulić, Gundulić, Domjanić, Krleža... this is Croatian language, and one can't put them into Serbo-Croatian, simply because they don't fit. Only perhaps because Yugoslav Standard (all politically motivated), which left a heavy scar on Modern Croatian Standard can (and I say only perhaps) supported Serbo-Croatian theories. So if this page is about Standard Croatian than OK, but then we require a new page about Croatian language. Concern reader — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.201.128.42 (talk) 01:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

"Croatian" is an ausbau language, but not an abstand language (follow the link for the specifics). There is only one coherent speech entity that can be called "Croatian", namely Standard Croatian. If by "genuine" you mean "abstand", then Croatian isn't one. It would be more accurate to have this article at Standard Croatian, but an article about some "Croatian language" alongside one about Standard Croatian cannot really tell anything except "Serbo-Croatian as spoken by Croats is often called "Croatian", regardless of the dialect of the speakers", which should be noted in an article about Standard Croatian anyway. --JorisvS (talk) 10:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

No! Croatian language is seperate language with long and vast history and literature. Croatian is not "ausbau", this is a very common misunderstanding. Yes it is true that Croatian has a ausbau version, but that version changes as political powers change, and it is nothing stable (like German for example). I don't know general attitude or common knowledge about Croatian and Serbo-Croatian in English-speaking world, but judging by this article, the stance is very far of shore, thus no one who has any real education in Slavistics can't take this page seriously. 95.178.135.20 (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Bullshit. There is no monophyletic (i.e. coherent) grouping that is or can be called "Croatian". There is, however, a standardized speech, with a large body of literature, (i.e. an ausbau language) that is extremely similar to the standardized speeches called Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin: 100% grammar, ~99% lexicon, which means that in terms of abstand these are all a single language. --JorisvS (talk) 15:58, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes bullshit, of course. Do you speak Croatian? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.178.135.20 (talk) 16:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

All irrelevant. We follow sources, not WP:Truth. — kwami (talk) 19:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

What sources? There are thousands of other sources equally important that prove otherwise. So which sources do you follow? the ones that follow your agenda? All this is just childish Goebbels-acting, and it is far from any neutrality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.178.135.20 (talk) 23:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

And with that, you have officially ended this exchange. Good-bye. — kwami (talk) 00:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@IP: those all writers generally called their language Illyrian, Slavic, Dalmatian and so on, and none of the rare usages of Croatian actually refer to Croatian ethnos (which was invented in the 19th century just like all the other nations) but rather a region or a temporary political entity called "Croatia" which was very different from the modern-day Republic of Croatia. Their actual vernaculars are predecessors of Serbo-Croatian (modern and dialects) and can be treated as such. It's nice that you insist on such pesky details, but be true to to your principles and apply the same blade of scrutiny to your POV as well. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian is a failed project

Serbo-Croatian is a failed political project of merging Croatian and Serbian language into one. After fall of Yugoslav regime there is no political force to push merging forward. As Serbo-Croatian newer actually existed and there is no more effort to create it, it is silly to write that Croatian is register of Serbo-Croatian, non-existing language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.254.191 (talk) 14:35, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Its existence actually far predates anything you could rightly call "Croatian" or "Serbian". --JorisvS (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Libar Marka Marula Splićanina u kom se uzdarži istorija svete udovice Juditu versih harvacki složena. Means Book of Marko Marulo of Split in which holds history of holy widow Judith in Croatian verses put. From year 1501.

So much of some predated existence of "Serbo-Croatian". 89.201.180.153 (talk) 18:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Marulić wrote in Čakavian dialect. Modern Croatian is based on Eastern Herzegovinian Neoštokvian dialect. These two have as much in common as e.g. Serb-Croatian and Slovene. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:46, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

So you are admitting that Croatian language is separate language from Serbo-Croatian and Serbian. - Finally, thank you! 95.178.139.91 (talk) 23:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Nah, in the context you talk about, "Croatian" refers to one language that today we know as "Serbo-Croatian". Old Marul would not have told you that the language he used is a different one than that of the savages in the Ottoman Empire. It was all referred to as "Illyrian" in those days. -- Director (talk) 06:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

That the term "hrvatski" in some earlier form predates the term "srpsko-hrvatski" is irrelevant. This is not about terms, but about languages and conceptions thereof. The conceptions of a supposed "Croatian language" etc. are mostly from the 20th century. In the 19th century, people standardized Serbo-Croatian in a way that included both Croats and Serbs: They were clearly not trying to have to people think they spoke different languages. In fact, quite the opposite.

Standard Croatian and Standard Serbian are 100% identical in grammar and 99% in vocabulary: without a doubt the same language. --JorisvS (talk) 08:20, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a crucial point that's being sidelined in Croatia: the language was indeed being referred to as "Croatian", i.e. "language used by Croats" - but nowhere is it suggested that it is separate from the one used by Serbs. The concept of separate languages does indeed date from the 20th century. I'm not sure, but I believe it may even have originated with the Ustase and the NDH, or possibly earlier in the circles around the Party of Rights. -- Director (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow, how many linguists and historians. Please put some evidence or thesis that supports your theories. Your only sources are Vukovian quasi-linguists and Anglo-American linguists. All Vukovians are Yugoslav (Serbo-Croatian nationalists) and thus not a reliable source and all of Anglo-American "linguists" are mock by European tonglorers (linguists). Your whole concept is flawed, I don't really know why, perhaps because you have no sense for history of language, why ? well that is certain, simply because Modern English is a some sort of bastard-language which came to being by brutal rape of native Germanic English tonge by French speaking Normans, thus creating "English language". So this historical discomfort and uneasiness of raped English, makes Anglo-American "linguists" a sort of mockery. This whole article is a nothing but mockery. Croatian language is a unique language from beginning of time (from 8th century), there are tens of thousands documents, books, scripts, stone engravings... to prove that. Just because someone in 19th century decided that this two languages should be one proves nothing. And now even after 120 years of rape, Croatian bears heavy scars but is still unique and separate language. To prove otherwise please, give some real linguistic evidence to support that. But you can't, can you? 95.178.137.44 (talk) 19:48, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

What's a "European tonglorer"? Timbouctou (talk) 20:08, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

How do you explain that all of the best Croatian nationalist linguists (Babić, Katičić, Brozović etc.) before 1991, and some even after, claimed that Serbian and Croatian are the same language, at least from a strictly linguistic perspective? If they were lying before to suit the political climate and receive funding, how do we know that they're not lying now? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

We can't. Every viewpoint is based on believe. Every believe is based on some form of evidence. If they lied before, it is true there is a possibility that they are lying now. But this is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias should stick to the reliable evidence, and point of view that most respected experts now hold, regardless of opinions they held before. And today most of respected linguists, not only from Croatia, but also from Serbia, Germany, Russia, Italy, France... hold opinion that Croatian language is separate language. And they have tons of evidence to support that, whilst all linguists that hold that there is only one "Serbo-Croatian" language, (Snježana Kordić for example) only talk about some "nationalism" and "ustašas", and does not give any real evidence to support their thesis. With this I rest my case. The article is a mockery. 95.178.137.44 (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Experts now hold that Croatian is a variant of Serbo-Croatian. This has been referenced profusely. Not much more to talk about. -- Director (talk) 22:30, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, yes from mouth of Yugonostagic. Please grow up. 95.178.137.44 (talk) 22:39, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Nobody denies that linguistically B/C/S/M are the same language, not even Croatian linguists today. Sociopolitical POV from some Croatian linguists is already abundantly mentioned in the article. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:54, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

History section

Can someone elaborate more on this edit (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Croatian_language&diff=594193177&oldid=594192773) and why this content is being removed? Because I did not really understood what is being said in the edit summary. Isn't this article about the Croatian language in general and not just the contemporary standard? And isn't it common practice to have historical origins of the language prior to standardization? If I understood it wrong and the article is explicitly only about the contemporary Croatian standard, shouldn't there be a separate article concerning the origins, history and evolution which led to the standardization and the language we know today as Croatian (as part of the Serbo-Croatian diasystem)? Shokatz (talk) 12:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The problems are 1) Kašić, Gundulić, Vrančić and others were not "Croats" in the contemporary sense because nations haven't been invented yet, so classifying them as writing Croatian is necessarily a POV of modern Croatian scholarship and needs to be put into such context 2) they didn't call their language Croatian because no such thing existed then - they used regional terms like Bosnian, Dalmatian or Illyrian so these works are justifiably legitimate as a history of e.g. Serbian/Serbo-Croatian and are in fact often described in such contexts 3) their language is not ancestral to modern Croatian (e.g. Kašić's grammar has shitload of Čakavian elements because that was his native dialect; Dubrovnik Štokavian dialect has some differences with respect to standard Serbo-Croatian..). 4) none of these works had any significant impact on the actual history of language and are largely overblown in importance. They are just grammar/dictionaries of some very specific regional dialects, and not of some indefinite notion of the "Croatian literary language". That being said, I'm not opposed to restoring it now an toning it down in parts though (e.g. the claims of standardization of Croatian before 19th century are just laughable... they cannot go in the article like that.), but it is more relevant to the article Croatian literature than here.

Yes there should be a part that specifically deals with the history of standardization efforts, but not here because it is also inextricably related to the formation of Bosnian/Serbian/Montenegrin varieties. The section ==Relation to Serbian== is full of dubious parts that need to be rewritten as well. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:48, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

This is legitimate content for Serbo-Croatian, but as Ivan has explained, their relationship to what, in a modern sense, can be called Croatian, and therefore to this article, is spurious. Therefore, it would be off-topic here, but not at Serbo-Croatian, where some of this already appears.

I agree that much of this article still needs to be rewritten. I've taken cracks at this article before, but I do lack sufficient knowledge of the specifics to be able to rewrite that section properly. --JorisvS (talk) 14:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry If I mildly disagree but saying those writers had no connection with the modern Croatian standard is like saying Anglo-Saxon or Middle English has no connection with the contemporary English standard. Such statements are spurious in itself as well. While I agree that those mentioned authors mostly associated their literary standards with the regional identity or withing a wider contexts they also specifically equaled those terms with the term Croatian. And these most definitely represent a natural succession from the 9th century to modern contemporary Croatian standard. Now perhaps I misunderstood what this article was about, I thought this was the article concerning the Croatian language in general not just and only the contemporary Croatian standard. Anyway if that is the case then I will most likely write a new article (or translate the one from Croatian Wikipedia) concerning the history of the Croatian language, I was planning to do so with a couple of other articles anyway, such as the ones about the Croatian flag or the Croatian national revival that are obviously missing from the English Wikipedia...I guess I will just add the one about the history of the Croatian language/literature as well. Shokatz (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

But these do not represent a natural succession to modern standard Croatian. Croatian today in terms of language development is largely a result of efforts by Croatian Vukovians. Lexical differences don't matter at all when comparing languages, only grammar does. Articles on hrWiki are generally right-wing propaganda based on cherry-picked sources so most of them won't pass here... You are advised not to create POV-centric forks and instead collaborate on a NPOV treatment in a single place (e.g. on the article [[Serbo-Croatian]] or [[Serbo-Croatian standardization]] that would encompass all viewpoints. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

What you are saying makes no sense. You say it does not represent a natural succession to modern standard Croatian since it's developed largely as a result of Vukovians, but Vukovians themselves based their work on the principles of Serbian writer Vuk Stefanović Karadžić who in turn based his reforms of the Serbian language on those same medieval and earlier authors from Croatia and Dalmatia. So how doesn't that constitute a natural succession is beyond me. I am interested in a historical aspect, not in morphology, grammar and whatnot since that is not my area of interest or expertise. Shokatz (talk) 14:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)An article that contains the stuff that you inserted in this article and that contains "Croatian" in its title would be a POV fork and is not allowed by Wikipedia policy. That stuff is relevant to the history of the entire language, which is most commonly called Serbo-Croatian in (modern) English, not Croatian. It should be noted at the Serbo-Croatian article, not here. Articles about the flag and national revival would be fine. A separate article on Croatian literature could, in principle, be OK, as long as there is too much to tell about it that it cannot go into this article and as long as it contains no things that are not relevant to "Croatian" in any coherent sense (i.e. the modern standard language). --JorisvS (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The article in mind would refer to the period of literary Croatian tradition until the period to Croatian Vukovians. I don't see how can that be considered a POV-fork. I did not even started yet and you two are already jumping the bandwagon... Shokatz (talk) 14:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Before 19th century there was just a number of regional literatures in dialects and Church Slavonic that had nothing to do with each other. Everything written in Štokavian is automatically a part of Serbian literature and Bosnian literature as well. These are classified as "Croatian" only today retroactively along the imaginary ethnic-national grounds, and only by some. Calling them "Croatian" is by definition discriminatory if such works are claimed by other as well (e.g. early Dubrovnikan literature is often treated as Serbian as well). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:01, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Before 19th century they perhaps were regionally based but large majority of them identified their literary standards (Illyrian included) with the term Croatian. We can observe this from several grammars and dictionaries such as Mikalja, Kasic, Stulli, etc. I completely disagree with your statement, there is absolutely no connection with the literary tradition of medieval Croatia and Dalmatia with the Serbian literary tradition. Unless of course you can show me the sources which state otherwise this constitutes nothing but blatant WP:OR assertion on your part. Shokatz (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The word Illyrian had many historical meanings and most of them are supra-regional. The exclusive identification of Illyrian with "Croatian" is a fabrication by modern-day nationalists-turned-linguists that seek to create an elaborate independent "timeline" for Croatian, irrespective of whatever happened in the 19th century. Which is just one POV and must be cited as such, and not as an absolute fact of reality. I can give you sources for whatever I stated you just need to ask for what particular statement. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Do not spin my words around. I never said exclusively anything. I said Croatian was often described simply as Illyrian or Slovinski (Slavic) language. But for these authors, such as Mikalja or Stulli for example, who based their own work on books of their predecessors such as Kasic, it was the same thing. So you claiming it's a fabrication is indeed the real fabrication. I want to see the source for this statement of yours: Everything written in Štokavian is automatically a part of Serbian literature and Bosnian literature as well. So please enlighten me since obviously I lived in a complete ignorance to the fact Ivan Gundulic, Matija Antun Relković, Andrija Kačić Miošić, etc. and several other writers are also Bosnian and Serbian writers... This is the first time I hear this. Shokatz (talk) 15:50, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

You don't understand - according to modern Croatian nationalists-linguists Illyrian and Croatian were synonymous. Which then begs the question why the ancient authors in their very own dictionaries defined Illyrian as "Slavic" and "Croatian" (i.e. Croatian being less general term than Illyrian or Slavic), and not used Croatian instead in the titles of their works. It's indeed a fabrication, just like many history books in the Balkans which are not worth the paper they're printed on.

Regarding Štokavian = Serbian as well - that was the corner stone of Greater Serbianist ideology all the way since the 19th century (Vuk Stefanović Karadžić - Srbi svi i svuda). Even today old Dubrovnikan writers are classified in Serbia as an equally valid part of Serbian literature (e.g. in Deset vjekova srpske književnosti published by Matica srpska). This is of course protested by Croatian government propaganda service, I mean ministry of education ;) [4]. But, it is not up to us to side with either viewpoint, and NPOV treatment requires us to treat them in common a part of a single literary tradition, which was customary until the Balkanization in the 1990s. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:02, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

So you are basically saying that Stulli and Mikalja (and several other authors) equaling Illyrian and Slovinski with Croatian in their books is in fact a conspiracy theory of epic proportions? Unless I understood you wrong, this is what you just said, no? Also I am quite familiar with the nationalist Serbian nonsensical claims. What you just also basically stated is that you base your previous statement on the Greater Serbia propaganda which says Croats are actually Catholic Serbs, right? Perhaps I truly don't understand...maybe I misunderstood. But anyway I consider there is nothing non-NPOV in a historical fact that Dubrovnik and Dalmatian literary tradition are part of the general Croatian literature, because we actually have those same contemporary authors referring to their language as Croatian. Unless ofc you move into politics as you just did here. Shokatz (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

They did not equal anything - they provided it as a headword gloss. The semantic relationship is hypernymous not synonymous. "Croatian" is a specialized form of "Slavic" and "Illyrian". Stulli's dictionary doesn't describe language exclusively spoken by ancestors of modern-day Croats, and neither does Kašić's grammar. The interpretation of equaling is a nationalist POV of some modern Croatian linguists, AFAIK such interpretations didn't exist before 1990s. Dubrovnik and Dalmatian literature cannot exclusively be a part of Croatian literature when other peoples also claim them, and when language-wise (from the perspective of language not nation, i.e. "Croatian literature" as in "literature in Croatian language" not "literature of Croats") it makes no sense. What those modern authors think today is their modern POV - they thought differently before, and others think differently today. What you perceive as "historical facts" is just one POV that must be represented as such, and not as an absolute fact. Which then brings to the issue of content forking - i.e. whether it makes sense to have both [[Croatian literature]] and [[Serbian literature]] covering the same writers. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The semantic relationship is hypernymous not synonymous. one of your assertions? On what do you base this statement? Stulli and Mikalja specifically made the suggestion it is the same thing i.e. that they were synonymous, there is nothing that suggests or confirms your assertion. This is the first time I hear of such interpretation. You call it nationalist POV of modern Croatian linguists I call it a common practice. Irish literary tradition and Irish writers (most specifically Anglo-Irish) are completely separate thing (historically) from the English literary tradition because they developed separately, even though we can consider them both in a wider sense as part of the Greater English literary tradition (linguistically). So is the case with the Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, etc. literary tradition. They belong to their respective national circle and developed separately from each other but they also belong in the wider Serbo-Croatian literary tradition, that however doesn't mean Croatian writers and their literary contribution can be considered part of Serbian literary tradition or even more that they could be considered Serbian writers...and vice versa. Both Croatian and Serbian literary tradition developed separately from each other, eventually coming closer by the end of the 19th century by creation of the standard languages based on the same dialectal base. You are here preaching me some sort of unitary dogma which never actually existed, even during the period of the ex-Yugoslavia when there were two clearly distinct variation - western (Croatian) and eastern (Serbian). I don't get this talk about forking since Croatian literature envelops much larger and wider scope including writers in kajkavian, chakavian and many latinist....which are all specific and unique features of Croatian literary tradition. I have a feeling you are talking about one thing (linguistics) and I am talking about a totally different thing (history of literature and language). Unless I misunderstood again. Shokatz (talk) 17:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

BTW you could have told me right away that there is a separate article Croatian literature and that would be that. :) I was completely oblivious to its existence. Having that in mind I consider your edits fair and if I indeed created another page on the matter that would have been indeed a bit over the top. So regardless of some minor differences here we discussed here I have no problems with the changes made. Only I need to look into that article because it seems to be really badly translated. I would however think it would be at least appropriate to put a link on this article linking to Croatian literature article just so we have connection between the two...is that ok? Shokatz (talk) 18:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Because 1) it's always glossed as Slavic and other general terms 2) because nowhere is Croatian specifically equated with Illyrian only vice versa. Why don't Kašić, Stulli etc. name their work as Croatian? It's always Illyrian because Illyrian was then used as a regional term not only covering Catholic speakers of Štokavian. The most recent & extensive research on this topic is by Zrinka Blažević [5] [6]. The term meant different things to different people in different periods. See also this book that dispels many Croatian nationalist myths (it's available for preview, search for Illyrian).

Croatian or Serbian literary tradition couldn't have been established before the 19th century, because before that neither did Croatian or Serbian nation exist, or their literary language. Before that, there were a number of unconnected regional literatures in different dialects (Kajkavian, Čakavian and Štokavian) that had nothing to do with one another until the Illyrian movement tried to unify them. That they are now reinterpreted as a part of some deterministic historical narrative culminating in the modern-day Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language, completely ignoring whatever happened in the 19th and 20th century is a one big joke. Of course, Croatian POV should be represented, but so should others.

I've now explored a bit and we have Canadian literature, American literature and so on beside the English literature, - so Croatian literature, Serbian literature and Bosnian literature should deal with nation-centric coverage (modern and retroactive historical), and Serbo-Croatian literature should deal from the perspective of the language. Not at all incompatible. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:55, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Croatian or Serbian literary tradition couldn't have been established before the 19th century, because before that neither did Croatian or Serbian nation exist that can be also said of any other contemporary modern-day nation existing today as well. I strongly disagree and I will leave it at that. Shokatz (talk) 13:19, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Ausbausprache

Croatian and Serbian are certainly not Abstand languages. They are not even Ausbau languages, as Ausbau languages [1] must have different dialect basis. That says Heinz Kloss, who introduced the term Ausbau languages: [2]

Kloss contrasts Ausbau languages not only with Abstand languages but also with polycentric standard languages (Stewart 1968 [3] ), i.e. two variants of the same standard, such as Serbo-Croatian, Moldavian and Rumanian, and Portuguese in Brazil and Portugal. In contrast, pairs such as Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian, and Danish and Swedish, are instances of literary standards based on different dialects. [4]

Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard variants have the same dialect basis (Štokavian). [5] Therefore Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian are Ausbausprachen, whereas Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin constitute four standard variants of the pluricentric standard Serbo-Croatian language. [6] [7] [8] [9] If the Croatian standard was Čakavian, it would be an Ausbau language.--Darigon Jr. (talk) 15:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

If Chakavian were the basis of Croatian, no one would have a problem calling Croatian (linguistically) a different language from Serbian, that substantial are the differences. Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian, and Swedish and Danish are really distinct enough to render communication rather problematic (Swedish and Danish are less mutually intelligible than Dutch and West Frisian), and hence are linguistically distinct languages than ausbau languages.

From the Wikipedia article I condense the following: A) The abstand- vs. ausbau- vs. dachsprache exists to take account of sociological factors, B) abstand language = linguistically different languages; dachsprache = a group of non-mutually-intelligible related varieties (linguistically therefore distinct languages) that are sociologically a unity (e.g. German, Arabic); ausbau = sociologically different languages that are mutually intelligible (and therefore linguistically the same language, e.g. Serbo-Croatian, Hindustani). Then it doesn't really make sense to require that ausbau languages have different dialectal bases, because that defeats the purpose of this classification. Also note the "having been shaped or reshaped, molded or remolded — as the case may be — in order to become a standardized tool of literary expression". This is certainly true of the Serbo-Croatian standard languages, and they have a number of differences because of it. --JorisvS (talk) 17:32, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

There are three ranges of linguistic distance: Abstand language, Ausbau language, pluricentric language. All three are sociolinguistic terms (invented by Heinz Kloss). They are used as follows:

„It seems useful to distinguish three ranges of linguistic distance: small (typical for standard varieties of the same pluricentric language, e.g. between Austrian Standard German and German Standard German), medium (the minimal linguistic distance between the standard varieties of two different languages (Ausbau languages), e.g. between Standard Letzeburgish and German Standard German), and great (= Abstand; sufficient for any two varieties to belong to two different languages, Abstand languages).“

(Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, Vol. 2. Berlin/New York 2005., p. 1538, Ulrich Ammon)

Hindustani is also a pluricentric language, see:

Dua, Hans Raj (1992). "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language". In Clyne, Michael G. Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations. Contributions to the sociology of language 62. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 381–400.

The Wikipedia article should include as C) pluricentric language.--Darigon Jr. (talk) 19:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, there is only a short note in the Interrelation of the abstand and ausbau statuses section. Apparently I just don't get the point of ausbau vs. pluricentric. Maybe you can clarify that? --JorisvS (talk) 19:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

An ausbau language is a standardized language. There needn't be more than one standard, as in a pluricentric language. Serbian and Croatian are separate ausbau languages, though they are a single abstand language. That language, SC, is pluricentric. — kwami (talk) 04:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Ausbau vs. pluricentric:

1) different dialects standardised vs. the same dialect standardised ;

2) mutually intelligible with difficulty vs. with ease: „Abstand rules out mutual intelligibility (medium linguistic distance [=Ausbau] allows for it with difficulty, small linguistic distance [=pluricentric] with ease).“ (Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, Vol. 2. Berlin/New York 2005., p. 1538, Ulrich Ammon);

3) the percentage of identical units measured in texts is below 50% vs. above 50% (e.g. Ammon 1995:6-11 [1] and Daniel Bunčić 2008:91-95 [2] have got 16%, 6% i 5% for Ausbau languages vs. above 75% for variants of a pluricentric language).

Ausbau means different, separate languages, whereas variants of a pluricentric language are not different, separate languages (e.g. American English, British English ; Austrian German, German German ; Croatian Serbo-Croatian, Serbian Serbo-Croatian).--Darigon Jr. (talk) 06:55, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

But if Czech and Slovak were not standardized and used for literary purposes (and hence not be ausbau), which term would be applicable? --JorisvS (talk) 08:06, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

The variants of a pluricentric language are also standardised but they are not Ausbau languages because of 1), 2) and 3) above. In sociolinguistic studies using the terms Ausbau/Abstand/pluricentric, Czech and Slovak are labeled as Ausbau languages. What is not standardised is usually dialect or sociolect. --Darigon Jr. (talk) 13:03, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

But specifically Czech&Slovak for a moment, would they be considered "dialects" in this framework if they did not have standard forms? --JorisvS (talk) 13:15, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know since I'm not familiar with Czech&Slovak. Maybe this paper helps to clarify the relationship between Slavic languages.--Darigon Jr. (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

This may also help: “There is seldom much difficulty in deciding whether the speech of two groups constitutes dialects of one language or two distinct languages, when ‘language is defined in terms of mutual intelligibility.” (R. Dixon 1997, The rise and fall of languages, Cambridge, p. 62) “They [two groups] either understand very little (maybe 10%) - here we have different languages - or almost everything (70% or more) - we are here dealing with dialects of one language. Only rather seldom does one encounter a case of around 50% intelligibility” (Dixon 1997, p. 8)--Darigon Jr. (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Again, that does not address my question. --JorisvS (talk) 18:03, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Heinz Kloss introduced the model pluricentric/Ausbau/Abstand for dealing with standardized forms. It can be seen as an attempt to classify standard languages. Therefore the question "would Czech&Slovak be considered dialects in this framework if they did not have standard forms" actually doesn't address this framework. And if you take a step further and look for an answer beyond this framework, you have to consider mutual intelligibility (and other verifiable indicators) to decide whether hypothetically non-standard Czech&Slovak would be dialects or different languages.--Darigon Jr. (talk) 07:58, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so what, then, would be the distinction between ausbau and abstand languages? --JorisvS (talk) 11:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Ausbau vs. Abstand: mutually intelligible with difficulty vs. not mutually intelligible ; medium linguistic distance vs. great linguistic distance.

The relationship between Slovenish and German is Abstand languages, whereas the relationship between Slovenish and Serbo-Croatian can be described as Ausbau languages. The relationship between Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian is also Ausbau languages, and the relationship between Macedonian and Bulgarian is Ausbau languages. In a dialect continuum, it is often the case that two neighboring standard languages are Ausbau with each other.--Darigon Jr. (talk) 12:46, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

So why the term "ausbau"? --JorisvS (talk) 12:59, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Probably because it's the standardisation that made them different languages. Before the standardization, you see only a dialect continuum. In contrast, Abstand languages are different languages regardless of standardization (before and after it); variants of a pluricentric language are not different languages though standardised.--Darigon Jr. (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

You would see a dialect continuum with mutually unintelligible (or at least mutual intelligibility too low for decent communication) ends and maybe midpoints. Some may feel uncomfortable calling that multiple languages, maybe because for outsiders these would look rather similar, despite the differences that impede communication, and because it's hard to draw a boundary, and hence would only call them different languages if they are standardized. I cannot agree with that rationale, though. --JorisvS (talk) 14:58, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree with you on the crucial role of mutual intelligibility: if tests show mutual intelligibility below 70%, we are dealing with different languages in each case (before / after standardisation).--Darigon Jr. (talk) 07:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

"Croatian words"

The section was completely unreferenced. "Paprika" is not a Croatian word. It cannot be, as the -ka is the Hungarian diminutive. The Croatian word is papar, which is not used in English.

When I went to verify the others, I found that sources listed them as Serbo-Croatian, not specifically as Croatian. I verified that all of these words are indeed found in Standard Serbian as well as in Croatian. I therefore added some refs and moved the list to Serbo-Croatian language. I'm mentioning this here because it looks like we've gotten into an edit war over this silliness. — kwami (talk) 21:37, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Greetings kwami If such list of words can exist on the page of Serbian language it certainly can be on Croatian too. I agree that paprika is Hungarian word, but it originated from Croatian word papar (and it is on Serbian language page too). Polje, with that specific meaning is Croatian word, because in other languages from that group polje means only agricultural field, and in Croatian it has the meaning I have added.

And zrakomlat is not part of standard Croatian language it is used in slang, like the word chopper in American English (helicopter).

I've removed coverage of vampir on the article on Serbian. Hungarian paprika actually comes not form papar but from peprika (< pepr- < *pьpьr- + Slavic suffix -ika). However, that borrowing occurred centuries ago when the notion of Croatian language didn't exist as such, plus it came from non-Standard northern dialect (Kajkavian, Slovene, or extinct Pannonian Slavic). To say that it's a borrowing from Croatian is anachronistic and misleading. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:07, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Neo-Croatian coinages like zrakomlat and putovnica haven't spread to English so I see agree there is no reason to keep that section at all. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:39, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, there was an informal Croatian/Serbian distinction before the 90s, and if the words had been specifically Croatian at the time they were transmitted I'd have no problem calling them that. We might be able to determine who they were borrowed from, just as we can often ID whether English loans come from the UK or the US, or from Catholics or Protestants, but I'm not sure I see the point. Maybe we can add a note at the SC list if there's something sourceable. — kwami (talk) 19:42, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

excessive gutting

This article doesn't at this point have a decent description of the most basic defining characteristics of standard Croatian such as the rendering of yat as ije/je, or of Croatian vernacular such as the uses of ikavian and kajkavian. I'm therefore demoting it from C class. It's sad that in 2014 I still have to shake my head at this silly exercise in deduplication of content between the Serbo-Croatian variants that has led to the encyclopedia appearing to be prescriptive rather than descriptive. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Alphabet

The croatian alphabet has 30 letters look for an example and count how many letters there are! :)

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.174.48.14 (talk) 07:22, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Official status

The Croatian language has been declared official on the 23. of October 1847. by the Croatian parliament in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, on a proposal made by Ivan Kukuljević-Sakcinski. This needs to be added to the article.Tmina32 (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)