Talk:Serbo-Croatian

Political Context is Unclear

I came to this article with the hope that it would explain why there are political ideologies related to linguistic variations within the geographic territory of the former Yugoslavia. In this Talk Page, I see these political differences in action, but no explanation of how they developed or why they are so intense. The article itself contains no information about the relevant history of ethnic and political conflict. Obviously these political agendas are connected to divisions exacerbated by WWII, but I presume that such divisions were present before WWII. I would like to understand this, so I am requesting the addition of such an explanation to the main article. Janice Vian, Ph.D. (talk) 01:32, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Well - you went to the wrong place (even linguistically speaking, which is not much, because linguistics is not much of a science, similar to art history or philosophy). You got a brief overview here:https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/engleski/croatian_language.html. There are numerous articles in Croatian & Serbian, but I guess, you wouldn't understand. As for wiki reliability ... please, don't make me laugh:https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-wikipedia-warriors-made-polish-writer-isaac-bashevis-singer-jewish-again/ - How Wikipedia warriors made ‘Polish writer’ Isaac Bashevis Singer Jewish again. Mir Harven (talk) 15:04, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

That was one very foolish statement. Sigh. 50.111.58.135 (talk) 01:20, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I would say that User:Mir Harven is fairly ignorant of the science of linguistics and is just pushing a personal Croatian POV. If he doesn't think that Wikipedia is a reliable source of information than why is he trolling here? --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 01:04, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Linguistics belongs to humanities, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities. Most of humanities, including linguistics, are not even close in exactitude compared to exact sciences ; these are corpora of knowledge that are highly unstable and vulnerable to critique. Language, as a human phenomenon, is a complex subject, linguistics being just a part of exploration of that phenomenon, and nothing even remotely qualified to be treated as a single most important discipline dealing with language(s). Just as religion can be described by numerous disciplines like psychology, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychiatry, economy, ecology, ....so the language phenomenon simply cannot be described by linguistics, because of weaknesses of linguistics as a soft science. Linguistics is like a joke on reductionism, when a Greek sage made fun of Plato's definition of "man" as a "two legged featherless creature". He then plucked a cock's feathers and solemnly presented a poor animal to a wider audience: This is Plato's "man"! And I could add- this is a "Serbo-Croatian" "language", a "language" according to ideological Serbo-Croatian "linguists". As for my posting now & then on a few wiki pages, I enjoy making fun in exposing lies and contradictions. Wikipedia is a valuable source for most non-controversial topics; with regard to controversial ones, it is not more than a joke. Mir Harven (talk) 22:11, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

That post shows that you are rather ignorant of linguistics after all. You have confused "learning languages and semantics" with the science of historical linguistics. Your ignorance of the linguistic science about the dialectology of the single language that comprises Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian is laughable and riddled with political vitriol, which is irrelevant to linguistic science. Your comments are immaterial and I'm going to ignore your feigned "knowledge" of how linguistics works. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 22:48, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

You again showed that you don't understand anything. Language acquisition & semantics are separate issues; historical linguistics another, and philology something else. Actually, you brilliantly exposed your ignorance with confusing dialectology (which is a part of linguistic typology or typo-linguistics)with theories of standard languages that are partially a segment of socio-linguistics, but go mostly to the area of language philosophy. To mentally confuse linguistic typology with modern polyfunctional standard languages is a sure sign of obscurantism and lack of knowledge. And, to show how misinformed you are- or deliberately twisting facts - is to address the issue of Croatian and Serbian, which are not typologically same neither as systems of dialects, nor as standard languages. The influence of politics is decisive in all these matters: linguistic atlases, many of them, still lump together Croatian, Serbian and Bosniak as some kind of "language" (although this has been disappearing, as Wayles Browne had written in Britannica that BCS is just a term of convenience, and not a language); on the other hand, according to atlases of linguistic typology, Hindi and Urdu are, now, not only considered different languages, but are also classified as different languages with regard to linguistic typology (forget about Hindustani and Khariboli), making it clear that linguistics, at the typological and structural levels, is a political tool, and not much more. To cite Margaret Thatcher- I am enjoying this. Exposing pseudo-scientific obscurantism is fun.

Just to expose double standards & political hypocrisy of linguistics, let's go the linguistic typology page. Although the situation with Croatian and Serbian is almost identical to that of Hindi and Urdu, Indian-Pakistani languages are classified separately, but Croatian, Serbian and Bosniak (not Bosnian, such a language does not exist except for PC political linguists) are- according to which criteria?- lumped together: Hindi, https://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_hin; Urdu, https://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_urd, while for Serbian and Croatian...wait...it is a "language", not just a term of convenience, https://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_scr, according to the same man, Wayles Browne. Maybe they should make the old prof offer he couldn't refuse? And a bunch of alternative names. Pure gold comedy.Mir Harven (talk) 09:27, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Please have a look at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Talk pages are for improving articles, not places to vent one's frustration at how a topic is treated in international academia. For that, please join an Internet forum.Surtsicna (talk) 09:38, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

As I've said- this article, and most articles dealing with the so called Serbo-Croatian (which is a historical term for something non-existent, like phlogistone), should be completely deleted, and not improved. These texts are not improvable. Mir Harven (talk) 12:13, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Fat chance. Your opinion is duly noted, however. Surtsicna (talk) 13:29, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

If you think the article should be deleted, why don't you follow proper procedure and submit it to WP:AFD? All this talk here is not productive and doesn't help to improve Wikipedia. Rua (mew) 14:22, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

First- I have more interesting things in life to do than to go to edit wars in Wikipedia. Second- I've seen years ago that some controversial questions (and this is just one among them) are "decided" by cliques who ignore arguments, or are simply too uninformed, basically stupid (I won't go into whether they are manipulative or simply cognitively impaired). Summarily- Wikipedia remains a great first info source for most non-controversial topics; with regard to most things pertaining to history, politics,culture etc. - Wikipedia is almost useless & other, serious encyclopedic sources are the ones that should be consulted, not Wikipedia (in any language). Mir Harven (talk) 20:39, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Putting out c. 13.500 (!) characters of nationalist butthurtness does not indicate that you have interesting things in life. But okay, whatever. Taivo's approach to this has proven itself the wisest. Surtsicna (talk) 22:57, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

So why are you here? Since you're not actually providing anything constructive to improve Wikipedia, you seem WP:NOTHERE. Rua (mew) 15:10, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

If you mean the political ideologies that underlie not just linguistic attitudes, but cultural and other attitudes, then this article isn't the place for such a broad topic that isn't specifically linguistic. I suggest that you look for articles on the history of Yugoslavia. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 02:48, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Calling out someone for being a nationalist while protecting the serbian nationalist invention that exists only to push serb claws deeper into stuff that isn't theirs. Just like Yugoslavia (or should I say Serboslavia, because that made up country pandered only to the serbs). This whole article is a nationalist butthurt from serbs, because their centuries old plan for greater serbia, through passive(yugoslavia) or active (serbian aggression, countless genocides and ethnocides) means eventually crumbled and is basically completely dead in the 21st century. Only articles like this one keep it alive. This is all lost to the international community. That's why it exists in some international sources, out of convenience, for quick reference of the general area on the map, not because it is legitimate historical truth that those same international authors agree with. With time, they too will realize that this isn't the right way to go about things that pertain to this region of the world, and all you nationalist serb wikipedia bullies won't have nothing going on in your life anymore when articles like this one get deleted or drastically overhauled. Read this(http://www.hkv.hr/izdvojeno/vai-prilozi/a-b/bagdasarov-artur/26440-a-bagdasarov-kolektivna-utopija-zajednickoga-jezika.html): "Artur Bagdasarov komentira: Hrvati imaju hrvatski jezik od pamtivijeka i u mnogim pisanim baštinama pa i u većini suvremenih tekstova ne možemo "hrvatski" zamijeniti postupno "srpskim", "srpskohrvatskim", "bosansko-crnogorsko-hrvatsko-srpskim" ili "štokavskim". Ne možemo sve svesti pod jedno i tvrditi jednu te istu tezu o zajedničkom policentričnom jeziku jer npr. mnogi slični jezici iz jedne podskupine jezikâ također su bili nekoć policentrični. Hrvatski je jezik jedna od bitnih sastavnica hrvatskoga istobita (identiteta) i ustavom zaštićena vrijednost. U svjetskom jezikoslovlju, uzgred budi rečeno, nema još jedinstvenoga i općeprihvaćenoga stava o tom što znači jedan, a što dva ili tri jezika. Jezičnopolitička dogovorna lingvistika iz razdoblja tzv. Novosadskoga sporazuma 1954. god. poništena je Deklaracijom o nazivu i položaju hrvatskoga književnoga jezika iz 1967. god. Hrvati imaju jedan jezik i to hrvatski, drugoga ili drukčijega nemaju - sviđalo se to nekomu ili ne sviđalo." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.252.199.174 (talk) 00:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, read this stuff on real histories of these languages. Texts are in Croatian and English. Croatian: https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/7139 (on the delusions of Serbocroatism); https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/116823 (Croatian language periodization history); https://www.matica.hr/vijenac/516%20-%20517/dubrovacka-knjizevnost-ni-u-kojem-smislu-nije-sastavni-dio-srpske-knjizevnosti-22634/ (on Serbian cultural appropriation of Croatian language heritage). In English: https://archive.org/details/identities-of-mutually-intelligible-languages-croatian-serbian-bosnian-and-montenegrin-11-2021 (DENTITIES Of Mutually Intelligible Languages: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, Hindi and Urdu, American English and British English); https://archive.org/details/identities-of-mutually-intelligible-languages-croatian-serbian-bs-me-part-2-historical-survey-1 (IDENTITIES Of Mutually Intelligible Languages Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, PART 2: Historical Survey); https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/engleski/croatian_language.html (Croatian language chronology). Mir Harven (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

The Economist

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/04/10/is-serbo-croatian-a-language

"SOME 17m people in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro speak variations of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian. Officially though, the language that once united Yugoslavia has, like the country, ceased to exist. Instead, it now has four names: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin." Croatian23 (talk) 09:00, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

We're not suggesting that WP uses The Economist as an authority on languages, are we? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

We are not, we are only acknowledging different sources. We are allowed to to that, are we? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Croatian23 (talk • contribs) 09:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The Economist article linked quite clearly notes that Serbo-croatian is a single language. CMD (talk) 09:53, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. It says that "Bosnian", "Croatian", "Serbian" and "Montenegrin" are different names for the same language. It's shocking to me how the OP could've interpreted it differently. Sol505000 (talk) 11:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

No, it clearly states it is not a single language, yet the governments were forced to sign a "declaration on the common language" which was treacherous for Croatia and doesn't prove anything. It is shocking to me how you can be so close-minded and not even consider any of the arguments of the other side. You should be guided by the truth and facts, right? Would you mind researching the history of Croatian language then and see what really happened? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Croatian23 (talk • contribs) 10:18, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

What? It wasn't signed by any of the governments. It's completely non-binding in legal terms. See Declaration on the Common Language.

I have no problem with discussing these issues. There's a difference between disagreeing with someone and silencing them. Sol505000 (talk) 11:59, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I wonder how many sentences of this article Croatian23 actually read. I wasn't even finished with the first paragraph before I hit: "But are these all the same language? The answer, according to a group of linguists and NGOs from the four countries, is a resounding “yes”." Linguists say "yes". Politics don't matter. And "The Economist" article is not among the most important sources for this topic since it's a magazine and not a peer-reviewed scholarly work in linguistics. See Wikipedia's guidance on reliable sources. Linguists nearly universally list one language that includes Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian (see Glottolog, for example). --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeeesh! The annual "there's no such thing as Serbo-Croatian" nationalist crazy thread. The tower of Babel should have been blown with plastic explosives before it was ever built . . . HammerFilmFan (talk) 03:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The talkpage of this article is a constant reminder of why .sh should've been the only wiki in this language. Allowing .hr, .sr and .bs was such a mistake... 78.0.195.64 (talk) 14:25, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

It is a mistake because it allows three different, heavily biased versions of history to exist on Wikipedia in one language. Fat chance achieving any semblance of a NPOV in any of the three; ethnic nationalism is their raison d'être. Surtsicna (talk) 14:48, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I know these debates can be triggering, but let's not overdo it. Having separate encyclopedias allows for real-life differences in orthographies and manuals of style to be applied, regardless of any content disputes. If you want to argue for an encyclopedia without a writing style guide, I'm not sure you're in the right forum, because here we are already governed by a very intricate WP:MOS :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:47, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Joy, the English Wikipedia is written in 24 varieties of English, which come with their own orthographies and style guides. WP:MOS does not favor any of these. I do not see why a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia could not function, orthography and style-wise, the same as the English Wikipedia. Surtsicna (talk) 14:44, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Primary language of SCBM

@Surtsicna, you reverted my edit, replacing it with the statement that the "primary language" of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro is Serbo-Croatian. If a person from Istria is born čakavian and speaks only čakavian, can his/her primary language be the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian, which is strictly štokavian? The statement is unreferenced, do you mind providing one (or three)? I know many sources will disagree on the issue, and I'd like to see more neutral language in that part. We can also discuss the other two statements from my edit that you reverted with no explanation, the last one being exactly what the reliable source says. Thanks, Ponor (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

@Ponor: "Primary" language obviously means the most spoken language, the one that is mostly used in everyday communication. The fact that there are places in Croatia where people speak different languages/dialects does not prove that Serbo-Croatian is not primary language. For example, people from Sterzing speak German, but is that proof that Italian is not the primary language of Italy? No. Also, you conflate two different things: vernacular language and standard language. This sentence you cite speaks about the standard Serbo-Croatian language, while you speak about vernacular Chakavian. Vanjagenije (talk) 22:33, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Vanjagenije, there seems to be a lot of confusion with some basic notions in all our BCSM articles here. If S-C is "one standard language": who in 2023 sets the standard, and how come there are 3-4 standardized varieties of that one standard language (1 standard = 3-4 standards)? Can you find any native speakers of the language(s) that'll actually call S-C their native language? You're allowed, for linguistic purposes, to group languages the way you want if it makes studying them easier, but you also need to admit that there are other criteria when deciding what to call those languages. People are unhappy (I've seen it all over wikipedias) because, for example, Scandinavian languages (three nations, four mutually intelligible languages, four wikipedias) get different treatment than Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian; it's a "sin" to say that Croatian is the primary language of Croatia, God forbid, that's so nationalistic, while no one has issues with saying that their primary languages are Bokmål or Nynorsk or Danish or Swedish. Thanks to an IP editor I was curious to see what prof. Ronelle Alexander had to say in his BCS grammar; I think he came much closer to our WP:NPOV that we did.

As for the primary language, that, according to this very wikipedia, is "mother tongue, native tongue, first language, the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period". So if you're from Čakovec your primary language is most likely kajkavian, if you're from Hvar it's most likely chakavian, and so on. Only at the age of 8, 9 or 10 you'll know enough of the Croatian "standard variety" that has BCS shtokavian as its "core" (Alexander's terminology). Croatian journalist Jurica Pavičić recently said it this way (google translate who needs and wants): "Kasapović pritom propušta uočiti da to lingvističko i kulturološko jedinstvo prethodi Jugoslaviji upravo i jedino zato što ilirska/proto-jugoslavenska ideja prethodi Jugoslaviji. Činjenica je da Bosanka Kasapović i ja - potomak hvarskih težaka - danas polemiziramo u novinama... pri tom svi čitamo i razumijemo isti jezik. Kasapović zaboravlja da ta činjenica nije nastala po duhu svetom, nego je rezultat tendencioznog ... rada proto-jugoslavenske ideologije. Da nije bilo nje, ja bih danas pisao na svom materinskom jeziku (čakavskoj ikavici), Kasapović bi pisala sličnim jezikom kojim piše i sada, a Zagrepčani nas ne bi ni mogli čitati jer bi bili kajkavci. Uzimajući BSCM jezični prostor kao 'samorazumljiv' i nešto 'što oduvijek postoji', prof. Kasapović pokazuje tipičnu aroganciju štokavskog heartlanda: ona ne shvaća da su se kulture poput moje odrekle vlastitog materinjeg jezika da bi - u bi u ime ilirske ideologije - pisale i govorile, pa, da se ne lažemo - njezinim." So if the goal here is to reach neutrality, I'd like to see the voices like Pavičić's heard.

When it comes to the problematic statement "the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro is Serbo-Croatian", that's an unsourced statement. If it's common knowledge it should not be hard to find four references that have "primary language", "Serbo-Croatian" *and* Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia/Montenegro in the same sencence. It's as simple as that. And then as a neutral, knowledgable editor to find other references that say that the four countries have the respective languages as their primary languages. Unreferenced material can only be removed (Because a lack of... / WP:EDITING). Ponor (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

This gets so tiring with the sloppiness of wording for a linguistic reality. "Serbo-Croatian" is not a "standard" language. A "standard language" is an arbitrary non-linguistic term for a single variety of a language that is given "official" status. A single language can have more than one "standard" form when it is used in different countries, even though the spoken languages (which is primary in linguistic usage) in those countries are simply different varieties of a single language. Thus, in the US the "standard" variety (although there is no official "standard", but only a common variety that is accepted for television broadcast and universally taught in schools for writing) is different than the "standard" variety in Britain and the "standard" variety in New Zealand. Yet these "standards" are not different languages, but different formally accepted varieties of the single language that is spoken in all of them. As there is no "Standard English", there is no "Standard Serbo-Croatian". There is "Standard US English", "Standard British English", and "Standard New Zealand English", just as there is "Standard Serbian", "Standard Croatian", and "Standard Bosnian". Yet there is but one English language (although expressed in more than one variety) and only one Serbo-Croatian (or Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian or Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian) language (although expressed in more than one variety). There are a wide variety of sources that say this very thing. You can find a useful bibliography at the entry for Glottolog. It gets so tiring having this same discussion here and at Talk:Croatian language and Talk:Serbian language. The opposition to the linguistic reality is too often tinged (both subtly and overtly) with nationalism. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 03:58, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist, if people find the B+C+S+… articles problematic, maybe there is a problem with them after all? I don't think that your English language examples are suitable in this case; all those EN varieties didn't start splitting before 1850s, and by that time there was already enough EN "standardization" and overall literacy. Those people were on different continents, there was prob. no need for "nationalism through language".

On enwiki, Czech language and Slovak language are not treated as "standardized varieties of (some attempted) Czechoslovak language". Czech-Slovak is not "a language" but "languages". If Serbo-Croatian (neutral: BCSM) is not a standard language but a continuum of languages (dialects/whatever), then we should always say so. If

• "Czech is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group"

why would it be wrong to say

• Croatian is a Western South Slavic language of the BCS(M) group (etc.)

That'd make many more people happy for sure.

Nobody calls 1) Danes, 2) Swedes or 3) Norwegians nationalists because of their four (4!) standardized mutually intelligible Scandinavian languages, yet I'll be called a nationalist for even trying to rectify some things on BCS (worry not, true "nationalists" consider me just the opposite of that). Like it or not, nationalism has always been a driving force of language differentiation, language and the idea of nation go hand in hand. Language, somewhere and sometimes, does serve as one's national/ethnic identity (we have that in First language). Ideally, all Earthlings would be speaking the same language, but somehow we never agreed whether that'd be Latin, French, English, Spanish, or... hm... Russian.

UC Berkeley's prof. Ronelle Alexander in his BCS grammar describes this "reality" (→neutrality) much better than we do: to all POV-pushers of "one language" vs. "multiple languages" he answers "the language is simultaneously one and more than one". Wikipedia should describe what is, as opposed to what should be, and that includes how things (languages) are called. We have different models for that, as shown above for two other continua. But let's start with Czech and Slovak, they're so similar that you'll be allowed to write your PhD thesis in Slovak at a Czech university. How do they deserve different treatment than B/C/S/…? Ponor (talk) 16:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Linguists do NOT consider Czech and Slovak to be one language because the differences between them are greater than the differences between the Serbo-Croatian varieties. Czech and Slovak, Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian. It's subjective linguistic reality from the judgment of a wide variety of real linguists (plural and representing a substantial number over time), not any kind of "bias" being pushed by people with a political ax to grind. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

TaivoLinguist, I'm pretty sure you're aware of Wikipedia's core content policies (neutrality, verifiability, reliable sources, no original research), and I'm almost sure you know there are different views on what makes a language a language. Britannica is a reliable tertiary source, and on BCMS it says:

BCMS, formerly Serbo-Croatian language, term of convenience used to refer to the forms of speech employed by Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, and Bosniaks. These forms of speech have often been termed “a language,” but they are also seen as separate languages: Serbian, Croatian, and in recent years also Bosnian and Montenegrin. Neither view is completely right or wrong; the concept “language” has multiple definitions, and the status of BCMS will depend on the definition one adopts. (Written by prof. emeritus of Cornell University W. Browne)

Another emeritus, prof. Alexander, unlike me and you (anonymous Wikipedia editors) is also a reliable source. In his Grammar he says:

The question of whether what has been described herein is one language or more than one has occasioned a great deal of discussion among professionals and laymen alike. The answer, of course, is that both statements are true: the language is simultaneously one and more than one.

This is Neutrality we need to have in our articles. You can't pick sources that you like and disregard the sources you don't.

When it comes to your links to glottolog: yes, it's a scheme a few people have come up with by their meta analysis; it's probably reliable, though unorthodox because it hasn't gone through a normal scientific publication peer-review process. It lists many references, some of which are for Croatian grammars, Serbian grammars, S-C grammars, C-S grammars, BCS grammars etc. Those links make one valuable viewpoint, but as I said, there are others.

As for the comment you posted and deleted (Special:Diff/1157742948): I might note in that regard that Czech and Slovak were treated as separate languages long before their political separation and the constituent varieties of Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian were not.

You do realize that "missing history" of all these languages (when it's said they've all always been one "Serbo-Croatian language", or derive from it) *is* one of the main complaints: Serbo-Croatian as a term did not exist until the first half of the 1800s, and it took many decades to establish it as the "core" of the languages. The title page of Judita (1501) says it's written in "in Croatian verses".

Anyway... It's been three weeks since I politely asked for sources. I'd like to do some work in this article and articles alike. Statement^{[reliable source]} and no unsouruced material. Per our policies here. Please. Ponor (talk) 14:18, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

"It's been three weeks since I politely asked for sources." Those sources were politely provided by me immediately following the request made by you (or perhaps by your anon IP in a prior Wikipedia existence) above. Simply scroll up to find them. I'm not obliged to continually repeat the effort of providing the same sources over and over and over again to editors who haven't read the previous discussion (or they may be at Talk:Croatian language page because all these discussions blend together and are horribly repetitive). And your two sources, reliable or not, are insufficient to contradict the dozens of reliable sources that unequivocally state that Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian is one, and only one, pluricentric language, but that Czech and Slovak are two using solid linguistic scientific methodology. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:06, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

And, as a general note, Encyclopedia Britannica is a very poor quality reliable source (being, as you admit "tertiary") to any secondary reliable source written by a linguist for specialist audiences. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

You can look at this thread, about halfway down or so to see the bibliography I mentioned above. The bibliography at Glottolog (a very widely respected reference work among linguists specifically on the question of the languages of the world) is also extensive. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:16, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist, excuse me, but why would you say that was MY ANON IP? This has to stop now, you're not acting in good faith.

When people ask for sources, that means "Author. Year. Title. Page number" of a published, reviewed work that explicitly says "Serbo-Croatian language" is the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro". You can challenge Brittanica as a reliable source where reliable sources are challenged; I cannot take your word for it. Ponor (talk) 15:25, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

My apologies for thinking you were the anon IP at Talk:Croatian language. As I said, this is a repetitive discussion that has been going on for years (literally) here, at Talk:Croatian language, Talk:Serbian language, and now also at Talk:Kajkavian. It is repetitive and differs little from site to site over the last few years as a new editor arrives to push the same agenda. Sorry, User:Ponor, but you are just the latest in a long line of "separatists" and none of your arguments and sources are new or different. None of you has taken the time to read the pages of discussion that has already taken place on any of these pages, so frustration from older editors like myself is somewhat justified. You all just blend together after a while. If you read back through the discussions and archives here or at the other pages that I've mentioned, you will find extensive references to sources, dates, page numbers, exact quotes, etc. Perhaps I should just store them in a Word document so that I can cut and paste every time that a new editor shows up thinking they're plowing new ground. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist, this is a free encyclopedia. That gives you freedom to not discuss things with me, and that gives me freedom to question things and check if due processes are followed (bold editing, revert-discuss cycles etc.). I don't think they are, because I see way too much WP:OWNership, lack of proper sourcing (=WP:OR), impatient and rushed reverts. Sources are dismissed as being "nationalistic", users are dismissed as being "nationalistic", etc. One way or another, that is biased editing.

I am just reading what you said about Alexander's BCS grammar with sociolinguistic commentary: "It's a pretty substantial work. I've read it and it's sound." So why not use Alexander more? My mother was "professor of Croatian or Serbian language and Yugoslav literature" and I've read quite a few books of hers; Alexander's book was my first BCS grammar written by an English author. It's a good one. It doesn't take sides, doesn't call people names. It would be most wikipedic if we could follow his approach (from the Commentary), and be open to other views – because they exist, and because we're here to present them, and not to tell which ones are wrong or right. (Both Alexander and Browne say everyone's a little wrong & a little right)

I came here because I saw this reverted appeal on Joy's talk page; I don't know who that user is, and I don't need to know. But it made me curious enough to read a few chapters of Alexander's grammar and see how his book can be used in BCMS articles. Here totally in good faith with more WP:NEUTRALity in mind. I'll see what I can do about it. I'm hoping for more constructive collaboration and no unexplained, rushed reverts.

Britannica? We know the author, it's a respected name. As a tertiary source it "can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other". Ponor (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

User:Ponor, I just looked at that revert on Joy's Talk Page. That's an easy one. It was not written in English. This is the English Wikipedia and the first rule of the English Wikipedia is that everything must be written in English or translated immediately following (in the case of short quotes). If you write your comment in anything but English, it will be immediately reverted. End of story. That goes for whatever you wrote above in whatever dialect of Serbo-Croatian it was written in. It can be ignored in all further discussion. It is not the other editors' job to "run it through Google Translate", it is YOUR job to translate before posting. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 05:30, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I do own Alexander's grammar and it is a good one that I have used as a reference in the past, but I think that you have misinterpreted her sociolinguistic commentary with the linguistic reality that she also makes clear. Sociolinguistic definitions of "language" are not recognized by linguists as valid criteria for determining whether two speech forms are one language or more than one. Here is where she clearly states that this complex is one language right on page xvii: "What is clear to everyone, however, is that all these languages share a common core, a fact which enables all their speakers to communicate freely with one another." Her use of "languages" is based on her emphasis on sociolinguistic realities, where speakers claim to be speaking different languages. But her reference to "communicate freely with one another" is the linguistic definition of a single language: mutual intelligibility. So because she doesn't want to offend the speakers of the various forms of this language by labeling it as one language, she defines it in loud and clear words that any trained linguist will recognize as the unequivocal definition of a single language--"communicate freely with one another". The reason she can mention different "languages" rather than insisting on calling it one language is because there are three standard written forms of this language which differ slightly from one another and are used for official purposes in each of the three countries where it is spoken. So there is one spoken common language, but three different official "languages". This is the definition of a pluricentric language: one spoken language with different official written standard forms. It is similar in many ways to the different standard forms of English found in the US and Britain--different details of spelling, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, but not so much as to inhibit mutual intelligibility. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 17:39, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Let me compare this with a situation that I have often heard in my work among the Native communities of the Great Basin where the Numic languages are spoken. It is almost always required when speakers of these seven languages gather for meetings for them to declare that "We all speak the same language". Yet, they never conduct their business in their native languages, but always switch to English because they cannot actually understand one another. That's not the case with the forms of Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian. They can understand one another quite well when speaking their native "languages" because they are not speaking different languages, but one language with slightly different dialects. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 17:45, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Why do speakers of Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian claim to speak three languages when they speak just one, but speakers of Numic languages claim to speak one language when they speak seven? Because there are social and political factors with no basis in linguistics that influence the decisions of people on how to label their speech forms relative to others. It is common to see American English labelled as "the American language" even though it is a dialect of English. Labeling it a "language" emphasizes that the American people are not the British people. But there's no linguistic science underneath the label. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 17:50, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist, actually no, I have not misunderstood what a polycentric language means; I understand why you use it in linguistics when you try to organize things. The term, though, has disappeared from public discourse (even when C-S and S-C languages were officially taught, they were always colloquially called C and S), and that somehow needs to be addressed.

I think it would help to have Alexander's sociolinguistic part introduced early in the articles. I like how she (oh!) labels the common language as "the core", and I think using the same term would help many readers understand what all this is about. The thing is, very few native speakers (<1%) of BCMS will call their language Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian, and forcing the name upon them feels like someone is trying to rebrand all their history, and all the history of their language. A few little tweaks is all I'm asking for; by naming things differently we can show respect for the feelings of those people. Prof Alexander is a linguist; if, in her book, "she doesn't want to OFFEND the speakers of the various forms of this language by labeling it as one language", WHY WOULD WE? We're not going to say that the core language is not the same, but we're going to say that "language is also being viewed as a symbolic system ... for ethnic identity" and that, despite all linguist. reasoning, "three languages – Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian – have been officially recognized". If she can write about these aspects in her book, so can we. Our article is not nothing-but-linguistics; and if someone thinks it is - it shouldn't be.

Finally, it would help have the article renamd to B-C-M-S (or B-C-S, for now), to make it more inclusive so that Bosnian or Montenegrin people don't feel threatened by dem nationalists in Croatia and Serbia who claim they're all Croats or Serbs. I'd think Britannica is more conservative when it comes to naming things, but they renamed their article in 2020, and we're still stuck with Mr Grimm. Would that be a problem, what's your (educated) opinion? Ponor (talk) 22:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

First of all, these are not "three languages". They are three slightly different national standards of one language. Any other formulation is not linguistically sound. And the notion of "pluricentricity" is not a dead concept at all. ("Pluricentric" is the correct term, not "polycentric".) I was at a conference in Europe a couple of years ago on that very topic and it was very much a topic of discussion. If there is a large degree of mutual intelligibility (Alexander implies that it is at least over 90% in her phrasing), then they constitute different varieties of one language, not three. From her description it seems quite apparent that mutual intelligibility between the Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian varieties is greater even than that between Scottish English or Australian English and most varieties of American English. South African English is even less intelligible to Americans, probably as low as 80% or so, which is usually taken as the bottom limit of calling them one language. So sociolinguistics can be mentioned, I have no objection to that, but trying to use sociolinguistic antagonism as a marker of multiple languages is not linguistically sound and I will object to such a justification for calling these three national standards "different languages".

Second, Wikipedia generally uses the most commonly occurring name for a language in English language linguistic literature. In the majority of English language linguistic literature up until the last couple of decades, "Serbo-Croatian" was the common term for "non-Slovenian West South Slavic". Recently, however, composite terms such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian" or "Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian" or the unwieldy mouthful "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" or just about any other alphabetic or non-alphabetic combination of these names have become more common. But, and here is the important point, no single combination has achieved widespread usage to the point of meeting Wikipedia's standard of "common English usage". Common English usage is beginning to trend towards some combination, but no particular combination has risen to the top of the pile in terms of usage. Alexander, perhaps the most common grammar in English for this language, uses Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, but Glottolog, perhaps the most widely accepted classification of the world's languages, uses Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian. No standard source currently includes Montenegrin (and I daresay that none ever will because, with the exception of a couple of rare African and Papuan languages, three names in combination is unwieldy and four is simply too much). Thus, until English language linguistic literature generally settles on one of the three-name combinations then renaming this article is premature.

Third, you don't seem to understand what Alexander means by "core language". By using the singular term "core language" she is describing the very same thing that unites British English and American English--the vast common elements of different dialects or varieties of a single language. That's what makes them one language. Just because different varieties or dialects of a single language have slight differences in phonetics, morphology, syntax, and lexicon does not make them different languages at all. As long as mutual intelligibility is not excessively hindered by these differences then they are still one language. Alexander makes that crystal clear when she says that "all their speakers [can] communicate freely with one another".

And, finally, Britannica is not the "gold standard" for Wikipedia usage. Wikipedia treats all tertiary sources as reliable, but secondary sources are generally preferable since the scholarship is closer to the source. Wikipedia follows its own set of rules and those rules don't always match Britannica's. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 23:33, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

We go by what the academic reliable sources say, not what you think to avoid "offending" some nationality. HammerFilmFan (talk) 03:49, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 June 2023

Hi there, Serbo-Croat doesn't exist! In any case it is not spoken in Croatia. Could you please remove any references to Croatia from the page. Or I will create an account and edit it myself. 185.207.71.146 (talk) 10:36, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. In this case, the article is sourced quite well; what makes you think that the subject "doesn't exist"? It seems extraordinarily unlikely that this is the case. Actualcpscm (talk) 11:22, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Of course it does. Please cease and desist trolling this article's TP. HammerFilmFan (talk) 03:47, 28 September 2023 (UTC)