Serbo-Croatian is spoken by 18-21 million people worldwide, with significant populations in Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and other countries. It is an umbrella term for three related languages: Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. The language has loanwords from various languages due to its history of alliances. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, the language split into its constituent parts. The issue of Serbo-Croatian is highly politicized and seen as a sign of cultural and political independence. Linguists differ in their classification of the languages.
Serbo-Croatian is a language spoken predominantly in Yugoslavia and Macedonia. It is spoken by 18 to 21 million people worldwide. Outside of Yugoslavia and Macedonia it has significant population bases in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. It also has speaker pockets in Albania, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.
Serbo-Croatian is more accurately an umbrella term for three distinct languages that are related together by similarities. These three languages are: Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. The Serbs and Croats split in the 11th century when the dominant population converted to Christianity. Serbs became Eastern Orthodox Christians and predominantly used the Cyrillic alphabet. Croats became Roman Catholics and used the Glagolitic and then the Latin alphabet. Later, the Turks would conquer large parts of Serbia and Bosnia and spread Islam throughout the region, resulting in the use of the Arabic script.
Serbo-Croatian contains loanwords from many different languages, as a result of its history of various alliances. From Serbian the group contains many words from both Turkish and Greek. From Croatian the group contains many words from German and Latin. Both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are used, and the Arabic alphabet is sometimes used for Bosnian.
Serbo-Croatian was standardized as a single language during the Yugoslav era, from 1918 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. During this period Serbo-Croatian was one of the three official languages, along with Macedonian and Slovenian. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Serbo-Croatian language split into its constituent parts, with Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian becoming distinctly recognized languages. There is also currently a push in Montenegro to have Montenegrin recognized as its own language.
The issue of Serbo-Croatian has become highly politicized and is in many ways a political, rather than a linguistic, issue. The language is seen by many people as a sign of cultural and political independence, and as a result there has been a push since the breakup of Yugoslavia for each distinct social group to have their dialect recognized as a distinct language. The very term Serbo-Croatian may be seen as offensive by some people, who may see it as an effort to lump Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks together as one unified group.
As a possible politically correct way of addressing this issue, some people simply refer to the language they speak as nash yezik, which roughly means “our language.” This avoids using the generic term Serbo-Croatian or specific terms like Bosnian.
Linguists themselves differ in the classification of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin. Often their views align with how they view the ethnic identities of their respective Bosnians, Croats, Serbs, and sometimes Montenegrins politically. Regardless of political realities, or whether they are distinct languages or simply dialects, the languages spoken in these countries are more or less completely mutually intelligible.
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