Bosnian language uses both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. A less standardised script has also been used, so it had more versions and names: Bosančica, Bosnian Cyrillic, Begovica (used by Bosniak nobility). Bosniaks have also used an Arabic script called Arabica.
One of the oldest South Slavic documents is as well the Bosnian statehood charter from 1189, written by Bosnian ruler Kulin Ban.
The irony of the Bosnian language is that its speakers are, on the level of colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogenous than either Serbs or Croats, but failed, due to historical reasons, 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 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 (Arabic, Turkish, 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 century) wrote in an idiom that is closer to the Croatian form than to the Serbian one (western Štokavian-Ijekavian idiom, 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, the "poète maudit" Musa Ćazim Ćatić and the storyteller Edhem Mulabdić.
In the days of Communist Yugoslavia the lexis was Serbianized but the Latin script became dominant; the official name was Serbo-Croatian. After the collapse of Yugoslavia Bosnians remained the sole inheritors of the Serbo-Croatian hybrid.
On a formal level, the Bosnian language is beginning to take a distinctive shape: lexically, Islamic-Oriental loan words are becoming more frequent; phonetically and phonologically, the phoneme "h" is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of Bosniak speech and language tradition; also, there are some changes in grammar, morphology and orthography that reflect the Bosniak pre-WWI literary tradition, mainly that of the Bosniak renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century.
Controversy
The name for the language is a controversial issue for neighbouring Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs call their languages Croatian and Serbian. The constitution of the Republika Srpska, where the language is also official, refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks" ("Jezik kojim govore Bošnjaci"), as does the government of Serbia.
Bosniak language (бошњачки језик) is the prescribed name of the language in Serbian[1], while 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. Although there is no publicly formulated Croatian policy towards this question, in some official Croatian publications (for instance, in Croatian Encyclopaedia issues or University manuals), the language of Bosniaks is invariably referred to as "Bosniak".
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.
Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian are examples of ausbauspraches, since they are largely mutually intelligible.
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 |
IPA |
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 |
caught (British) |
| u |
у |
[u] |
back closed rounded |
boom |
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 does not 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. Very rarely, l can be syllabic (in the name for the river "Vltava", 'l' is syllabic) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.
Differences to similar languages
Main article: Differences in standard Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian
External links
References
- ^ Board for Standardisation of Serbian Language (February 16 1998). “1”, Три питања и три одговора. Decision No. 1.