Everything about Bosnian Language totally explained
, but the Serbian Ministry of Education recognizes it as
Bosnian. Some Croatian linguists (
Radoslav Katičić,
Dalibor Brozović and
Tomislav Ladan) consider the appropriate name to be "Bosniak" rather than "Bosnian". In their opinion, the appellation "Bosnian" refers to the whole country, therefore implying that "Bosnian" is the national standard language of all Bosnians, not only Bosniaks. Some other Croatian linguists (
Zvonko Kovač,
Ivo Pranjković) recognize it as Bosnian. Bosniak linguists and intellectuals (for instance Muhamed Filipović) consider interpretation of some Croatian and Serbian linguists as nationalistic actions against Bosniaks and their identity, as the situation in Serbia and Croatia was very anti-Bosniak in the light of
Bosnian War.
Montenegro doesn't recognize the Bosnian language, but "Bosniak language" rather. It has come so that the majority of the populace of Plav speaks "Bosniak language" according to the 2003 census, while a most peculiar thing could be noticed in Rozaje - most speak "Other languages" (the Bosniaks in majority had to tick "other" and then write down "Bosnian language"). It is so that 19,906 people declared their language "Bosniak language", while only 14,172 "Bosnian language". Recently adopted new constitution of
Montenegro recognized the "Bosniac language" as one of the official in usage
It is important to observe that the
Dayton Peace Accord officially recognizes and specifies the Bosnian language as a distinct language spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Bosniaks. This distinction and official recognition of the Bosnian language is further acknowledged by signatures of the former presidents of
Bosnia and Herzegovina (
Alija Izetbegović),
Croatia (
Franjo Tuđman) and
Serbia (
Slobodan Milošević). As such the Bosnian language is officially recognized by constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well.
No Croatian and Serbian linguistic authorities had been contacted when this issue was settled. According to Croatian participant Radoslav Dodig, the renaming of "Bosniak" into "Bosnian" wasn't a process, but a semi-hidden manoeuvre.
Although the Bosnian language is spoken mostly by Bosniaks, there are also Bosnian Croats and Serbs in Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla regions who claim to speak Bosnian. For instance,
Željko Komšić, a Croat member of Bosnian Presidency calls his mother tongue, the Bosnian language.
Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian are examples of
ausbauspraches, since they're largely mutually intelligible and many people say that they're all one language formerly known as
Serbo-Croatian.
Phonology
Vowels
The Bosnian
vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are
monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:
| Latin script |
Cyrillic script |
|
Description |
English approximation |
| i |
и |
/i/ |
front closed unrounded |
seek |
| e |
е |
/ɛ/ |
front half open unrounded |
ten |
| a |
а |
/a/ |
central open unrounded |
father |
| o |
о |
/ɔ/ |
back half open rounded |
tote |
| u |
у |
/u/ |
back closed rounded |
boom |
It should also be mentioned the that letter "R" stands as both a consonant and a vowel. It is considered a vowel when surrounded by two other consonants. For example in the words: brzo (quick), trn (thorn), mrk (dark), vrlo (very).
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 consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule doesn't apply to
approximants — a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (
Washington would be transcribed as
VašinGton/
ВашинГтон), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.
/r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the
tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r/. A similar feature exists in
Serbian,
Croatian,
Macedonian,
Slovene,
Czech, and
Slovak. In rare instances, /l/ is syllabic (in the name for the river "Vltava", 'l' is syllabic) as well as /ʎ/ and the nasal consonants (especially
jargon words).
Differences from similar languages
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bosnian Language'.
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