(in English)
Bosnian, bosanski/босански.
Spoken natively in Bosnia,
Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croatia.
Native speakers -
2.5 - 3.5 million (2008) (number
is ambiguous).
Language family -
Indo-European, Balto-Slavic,
Slavic, South Slavic, Western, Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian.
Writing system - Latin,
Cyrillic
Official language in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro.
Bosnian (bosanski / босански ) is a standardized register of the
Serbo-Croatian language, a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a
standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official
languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The same subdialect of Shtokavian is also the basis of standard Croatian
and Serbian, as well as Montenegrin, so all are mutually intelligible. Up until
the dissolution of former SFR Yugoslavia, they were treated as a unitary
Serbo-Croatian language, and that term is still used to refer to the common
base (vocabulary, grammar and syntax) of what are today officially four
national standards. The Bosnian standard uses both Latin and Cyrillic
alphabets. Bosnian is notable amongst the three varieties of Serbo-Croatian for
having an eclectic assortment of Arabic, Turkish and Persian loanwords, largely
due to the language's interaction with those cultures through Islamic ties.
This is historically corroborated by the introduction and use of Arebica as a
successor script for the Bosnian language, replacing Bosančica upon the
introduction of Islam; first amongst the elite, then amongst the public. The
Bosnian language also contains a number of Germanisms not often heard in the
Croatian or Serbian languages that have been in use since the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.
The first official dictionary in the Bosnian language was printed in the
early 1630s, while the first dictionary in Serbian was printed only in the
mid-19th century. Written evidence and records point to the Bosnian language
being the official language of the country since at least the Kingdom of
Bosnia, as further corroborated by the declaration of the Charter of Ban Kulin,
one of the oldest written state documents in the Balkans and one of the oldest
to be written in Bosančica.
History
The modern Bosnian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin alphabet. However,
scripts other than Latin were used much earlier, most notably the indigenous
Bosnian Cyrillic called Bosančica (literally "Bosnian script")
and dates back to the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The Humac tablet, one
of the oldest Bosnian literary monuments, is written in this script. The script
is of the greatest significance to Bosnian history and linguistics, since it is
the one script that is purely native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and is linked to
the Bosnian medieval monarchy and the medieval Bosnian religion where it was
used abundantly. It can also be found in many royal state documents and as well
on old stećaks. The substantial influence of bosančica on
medieval Bosnia has unfortunately made it a target of controversial debates and
propaganda throughout the history which has led to the tendency of some Croat
and Serb philologists and paleographers to deny the exclusivity of association
of the script with medieval Bosnian state, and associate it to Croatian and
Serbian cultural provenience, despite its geographical origin and the
historical prevalence of usage. Other scripts used include: begovica
(used by Bosniak nobility) and arebica, or Arabic script adjusted to
write Slavic speech, also chiefly used by Bosniak nobility during the Ottoman
era.
In addition, the oldest South Slavic document is the Bosnian statehood
charter from 1189, written by Ban Kulin of Bosnia in Bosnian Cyrillic. Some
other early mentions include one from July 3, 1436, where, in the region of
Kotor, a duke bought a girl that is described as: "Bosnian woman, heretic
and in Bosnian language called Djevena".
The irony of the Bosnian language is that its speakers are, on the level of
colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogeneous than either Serbs or Croats
but they failed, for the historical reasons outlined below, to standardize
their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian dictionary, a
rhymed Bosnian–Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi, was composed
in 1631. But unlike e.g. Croatian dictionaries, which were written and
published regularly, Uskufi's work remained an isolated foray. At least two
factors were decisive:
The Bosniak elite wrote almost exclusively in foreign (Turkish, Arabic,
Persian) languages. Vernacular literature, written in modified Arabic script,
was thin and sparse.
The Bosniaks' national emancipation lagged behind that of the Serbs and
Croats, and since denominational rather than cultural or linguistic issues played
the pivotal role, a Bosnian language project didn't arouse much interest or
support.
Prescriptions for the language of Bosniaks in the 19th and 20th centuries
were written outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Probably the most authentic
Bosniak writers (the so-called "Bosniak revival" at the turn of the
19th to 20th century) wrote in an idiom that is closer to the Croatian standard
than to the Serbian (western Štokavian dialect, Ijekavian accent, Latin
script), but which possessed unmistakably recognizable Bosniak traits,
primarily lexical ones. The main authors of the "Bosniak renaissance"
were the polymath, politician and poet Safvet-beg Bašagić and the storyteller
Edhem Mulabdić.
During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian was
introduced as the sole official language; it was the language of all Bosnians:
Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. This was in conjunction with administrator Benjamin
von Kállay's promotion of Bošnjaštvo, a policy that aimed to inspire in
Bosnia's people 'a feeling that they belong to a great and powerful nation' and
viewed Bosnians as "speaking the Bosnian language and divided into three
religions with equal rights." With the death of Kallay the policy was
abandoned and in 1907 the name was changed to Serbo-Croatian, and this was the
official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the parliamentary
period, from the annexation until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after
World War I.
In the days of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia the lexis was influenced
by standard Serbo-Croatian and the Latin script became dominant. The official
language name was Serbo-Croatian.
On a formal level, the Bosnian language began to take a distinctive shape
in the 1990s and 2000s (decade): lexically, Islamic-Oriental loan words are
becoming more frequent; phonetically: the phoneme /x/ is reinstated in many
words as a distinct feature of vernacular Bosniak speech and language
tradition; also, there are some changes in grammar, morphology and orthography
that reflect the Bosniak pre-World War I literary tradition, mainly that of the
Bosniak renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century. The legal distinction
occurred in the mid 1990s. The 1993 language law declared that there was a
single official language for Bosnians: "In the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the Ijekavian standard literary language of the three constitutive
nations is officially used, designated by one of the three terms: Bosnian,
Serbian, Croatian. Both alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic, are equal." However,
the 1994 constitution declared that these were three official languages:
"The official languages of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall
be: Bosnian language, Croat language and Serb language. The official scripts
shall be Latin and Cyrillic."
The constitution of Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity within Bosnia and
Herzegovina, did not recognize any language or ethnic group other than Serbian.
Bosniaks were mostly expelled from the territory controlled by the Serbs from
1992, but immediately after the war demanded to restore their civil rights on
those territories. The Bosnian Serbs refused to make references to the Bosnian
language in their constitution and as a result had constitutional amendments
imposed by High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch. However, the constitution of
Republika Srpska refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks",
due to the fact that the Serbs had to officially recognize it, but still avoid
recognition of its name.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), United States
Board on Geographic Names (BGN), and the Permanent Committee on Geographical
Names (PCGN) recognize the Bosnian language. Furthermore the status of the
Bosnian language is also recognized by bodies such as the United Nations, UNESCO,
and translation and interpreting accreditation agencies.
Serbia includes the Bosnian language as an elective subject in primary
schools. Montenegro officially recognizes the Bosnian language, as its 2007
Constitution specifically states that while Montenegrin is the "official
language," also "in official use are Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and
Croatian languages."
Controversy
The name for the language is a controversial issue, primarily for Croats
and Serbs and it is alternatively referred to as "Bosniak" (bošnjački;
also spelled "Bosniac"). Of the three Bosnian ethnicities (Bosniaks,
Croats, and Serbs) only the Bosniak ethnicity overwhelmingly speak the Bosnian
language. The name "Bosnian language" is controversial for those
Serbs and Croats who think the name of the language implies it is the language
of all Bosnians, which includes Bosnian Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs
mostly use the Croatian and the Serbian, respectively. It should be noted that
all three languages are mutually intelligible and are examples of
Ausbausprache. Due to the conjunction of historical circumstances, all are
essentially identical due to being codified on the same Neoshtokavian dialect,
with a number of people identifying their language as the unified
Serbo-Croatian language.
Phonology
Vowels
The Bosnian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are
monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:
Consonants
The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features
are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English and most other
Indo-European languages west of India, voicedness is phonemic, but aspiration
is not.
In consonant clusters, all obstruents are either voiced or voiceless
depending on the voicing of the final consonant in the cluster. This rule does
not always apply to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон),
personal names and across syllable boundaries.
/r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of the syllable nucleus 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 Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene, Czech, and
Slovak. Very rarely, /l/ can be syllabic (in the name
for the river Vltava, for example) as well as lj, m, n
and nj in jargon.
Grammar
The first dictionary of Bosnian language was published in 1631 as the
Bosnian-Turkish Dictionary (1631). The first official Bosnian grammar reference
book was published in 1890.
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