(in English)
Montenegrin,
Crnogorski, Црногорски.
Spoken natively in Montenegro.
Language family
- Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic,
South Slavic, Western Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, Montenegrin.
Official language in Montenegro.
Montenegrin (Crnogorski jezik, Црногорски језик)
is an incipient standardized register of the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken
by Montenegrins used as the official language of Montenegro. The same
subdialect of Shtokavian is also the basis of standard Bosnian, Croatian and
Serbian, so all are mutually intelligible and are a single language by that
criterion despite being distinct national standards.
The idea of a Montenegrin standard language separate from Serbian appeared in
1990s and gained traction in 2000s via proponents of Montenegrin independence.
Montenegrin became the official language of Montenegro with the ratification of
a new constitution on 22 October 2007. The Montenegrin standard is still
emerging. Its orthography was established 10 July 2009 with the addition of two
letters to the alphabet, though grammar and a school curriculum are yet to be
approved.
Language standardization
In January 2008, the government of Montenegro formed the Council for the
Codification of the Montenegrin Language, which aims to standardize the
Montenegrin language according to international norms. Proceeding documents
will, after verification, become a part of the educational programme in
Montenegrin schools.
The first Montenegrin standard was officially proposed in July 2009. In
addition to the Serbo-Croatian standard, the proposal introduced two additional
letters, ⟨ś⟩ and ⟨ź⟩, to replace the digraphs ⟨sj⟩ and ⟨zj⟩. The Ministry of
Education has accepted neither of the two drafts by the Council for the
Standardization of the Montenegrin language, but instead adopted an alternate
3rd one which wasn't a part of their work. The Council has criticized this act,
saying it comes from "a small group" and that it contains an abundance
of "methodological, conceptual and linguistic errors".
On 21 June 2010 the Council for General Education adopts the first Montenegrin
Grammar.
Official status and speakers' preference
The language remains an ongoing issue in Montenegro.
In the previous census of 1991, the vast majority of Montenegrin citizens,
510,320 or 82.97%, declared themselves speakers of the then official language:
Serbo-Croatian. The 1981 population census also recorded a
Serbo-Croatian-speaking majority. However in the first Communist censuses, the
vast majority of the population declared Serbian their native language. Such is
also the case with the first recorded population census in Montenegro in 1909,
when approximately 95% of the population of the Principality of Montenegro
declared Serbian their native language. According to the Constitution of
Montenegro, the official language of the republic since 1992 is Serbian of the
Ijekavian standard.
After World War II and until 1992, the official language of Montenegro was
Serbo-Croatian. Before that, in the previous Montenegrin realm, Serbian was the
language in usage. The Serbian language was the officially used language in
Communist Montenegro until after the 1950 Novi Sad Agreement that defined the
Serbo-Croatian language, and "Serbo-Croatian" was introduced into the
Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro in 1974. In the late 1990s
and early 21st century, organizations promoting Montenegrin as a distinct
language appeared, and since 2004 the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro
regime introduced the term to usage. The new constitution, adopted on 19
October 2007, deemed Montenegrin to be the official language of Montenegro.
The most recent population census conducted in Montenegro was in 2011.
According to it, 36.97% of the population declared Montenegrin their native
language:
106,214 Montenegrins (77.98%)
26,176 Slavic Muslims / Bosniaks (19.21%)
1,375 Croats (1.02%)
2,443 others (1.79%)
In 2011, 42.88% of Montenegrin citizens declared Serbian their native
language:
197,684 Serbs (50.21%)
156,374 Montenegrins (39.72%)
11,419 Slavic Muslims / Bosniaks (2.90%)
2,529 Croats (0.64%)
1,705 Yugoslavs (0.43%)
24,029 others (6.1%)
Mijat Šuković, a prominent Montenegrin lawyer, wrote a draft version of the
constitution which passed the parliament's constitutional committee. Šuković
suggested Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro. The Venice
Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, had a generally positive
attitude towards the draft of the constitution but did not address the language
and church issues, calling them symbolic. The new constitution was ratified on
19 October 2007, declaring Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro,
as well as recognising Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.
The ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro and
Socialdemocratic Party of Montenegro stand for nothing but plainly renaming the
country's official language into Montenegrin, meeting opposition from the
Socialist People's Party of Montenegro, the People's Party, the Democratic Serb
Party, the Bosniak Party, the Movement for Changes as well as the Serb List
coalition led by the Serb People's Party. However, a referendum was not needed,
as a two-thirds majority of the parliament voted for the Constitution,
including the ruling coalition, Movement for Changes, the Bosniaks and the
Liberals, while the pro-Serbian parties voted against it and the Albanian
minority parties abstained from voting. The Constitution was ratified and
adopted on 19 October 2007, recognizing Montenegrin as the official language of
Montenegro.
According to the latest poll of 1,001 Montenegrin citizens conducted by
Matica crnogorska in mid 2010:
41.6% Serbian
38.2% Montenegrin
12.3% - Serbian, Montenegrin, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbo-Croatian are one
and the same
4.4% Serbo-Croatian
1.9% Bosnian
1.7% Croatian
Linguistic considerations
A proposed Montenegrin alphabet which contains 3 more letters than the
Serbian counterpart — Ś, Ź, and З
Montenegrins speak Štokavian subdialects, some which are shared with
neighbouring Slavic nations:
East Herzegovinian dialect (in the west and northwest)
Zeta-South Sandžak dialect (spoken in the rest of the country).
Montenegrin alphabet
The proponents of the separate Montenegrin language prefer using the Latin
alphabet over the Cyrillic alphabet. In both alphabets there are two additional
letters (bold).
Literature
Many literary works of authors from Montenegro provide examples of the
local Montenegrin vernacular. The medieval literature was mostly written in Old
Church Slavonic and its recensions, but most of the 19th century works were
written in some of the dialects of Montenegro. They include the folk literature
collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and other authors, as well as books of the
writers from Montenegro such as Petar Petrović Njegoš's Gorski vijenac (The
Mountain Wreath), Marko Miljanov's Primjeri čojstva i junaštva (The
Examples of Humanity and Bravery), etc. In the second half of the 19th
century and later, the East Herzegovina dialect, which served as a base for the
standard Serbo-Croatian language, was often used instead of the Zeta-Sanjak
dialect characteristic of most dialects of Montenegro. Petar Petrović Njegoš,
one of the most respectable Montenegrin authors, changed many characteristics
of the Zeta-Sanjak dialect from the manuscript of his Gorski vijenac to
those proposed by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić as a standard for the Serbian
language.
For example, most of the accusatives of place used in the Zeta-Sanjak
dialect were changed by Njegoš to the locatives used in the Serbian standard.
Thus the stanzas "U dobro je lako dobar biti, / na muku se poznaju
junaci" from the manuscript were changed to "U dobru je lako
dobar biti, / na muci se poznaju junaci" in the printed version. Other
works of later Montenegrin authors were also often modified to the East
Herzegovinian forms in order to follow the Serbian language literary norm.
However, some characteristics of the traditional Montenegrin Zeta-Sanjak dialect
sometimes appeared. For example, the poem Onamo namo by Nikola I
Petrović Njegoš, although it was written in the East Herzegovinian Serbian
standard, contains several Zeta-Sanjak forms: "Onamo namo, za brda
ona" (accusative, instead of instrumental case za brdima onim),
and "Onamo namo, da viđu (instead of vidim) Prizren",
and so on.
Language politics
Most mainstream politicians and other proponents of the Montenegrin
language state that the issue is chiefly one of self-determination and the
people's right to call the language what they want, rather than an attempt to
artificially create a new language when there is none. The Declaration of the
Montenegrin PEN Center states that the "Montenegrin language does not
mean a systemically separate language, but just one of four names (Montenegrin,
Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) by which Montenegrins name their part of [the]
Shtokavian system, commonly inherited with Muslims, Serbs and Croats".
The introduction of the Montenegrin language has been supported by other
important academic institutions such as the Matica crnogorska, although meeting
opposition from the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Some proponents go further. The chief proponent of Montenegrin is
Zagreb-educated Dr. Vojislav Nikčević, professor at the Department of Language
and Literature at the University of Montenegro and the head of the Institute
for Montenegrin Language in the capital Podgorica. His dictionaries and
grammars were printed by Croatian publishers since the major Montenegrin
publishing houses such as Obod in Cetinje opted for the official nomenclature
specified in the Constitution (Serbian until 1974, Serbo-Croatian to 1992,
Serbian until 2007). Nikčević advocates amending of the Latin alphabet with
three letters Ś, Ź, and З and corresponding Cyrillic letters С́, З́ and Ѕ
(representing IPA [ç], [ʝ] and [dz] respectively).
Opponents acknowledge that these sounds can be heard by many Montenegrin
speakers, however, they do not form a language system and thus are allophones
rather than phonemes. In addition, there are speakers in Montenegro who don't
utter them and speakers of Serbian and Croatian outside of Montenegro (notably
in Herzegovina and Bosanska Krajina) who do. In addition, introduction of those
letters could pose significant technical difficulties (the Eastern European
character encoding ISO/IEC 8859-2 does not contain the letter З, for example,
and the corresponding letters were not proposed for Cyrillic).
Montenegro's former prime minister Milo Đukanović declared his open support
for the formalization of the Montenegrin language by declaring himself as a
speaker of Montenegrin in an October 2004 interview with Belgrade daily Politika.
Official Montenegrin government communiqués are given in English and
Montenegrin on the government's webpage. The official web page of the
President of Montenegro states that it is written in the
"Montenegrin–Serbian version" (Crnogorsko-srpska verzija).
In 2004, the government of Montenegro
changed the school curriculum so that the name of the mandatory classes
teaching the language was changed from "Serbian language" to
"Mother tongue (Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian)". This
change was made, according to the government, in order to better reflect the
diversity of languages spoken among citizens in the republic and to protect
human rights of non-Serb citizens in Montenegro who declare themselves as speakers
of other languages.
This decision resulted in a number of teachers declaring a strike and
parents refusing to send their children to schools. The cities affected by the
strike included Nikšić, Podgorica, Berane, Pljevlja and Herceg Novi.
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