Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian

[Jouko Lindstedt]

I think Wayles Browne wrote a balanced assessment of the situation. Yet I
would say the the linguistic reality is even more complicated.

> Certainly there is only one language when we count languages for the
> purpose of scientific classification and construction of family trees:
> the South Slavic languages are Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian,
> and Slovenian.
> It would be a mistake to say: that's all there is to it.

I don't see in what sense Serbo-Croatian would be one area _if_ Bulgarian
and Macedonian are two distinct areas, unless all of West Bulgarian is
counted as "Macedonian", and part of Aegean Macedonia as "Bulgarian". But
then it would not be advisable to use the terms "Macedonian" and
"Bulgarian" at all. Notice that I'm not saying "Macedonian is really
Bulgarian", only that I don't see why it would be a clearer case than the
Serbo-Croatian one.

Jouko Lindstedt
Department of Slavonic Languages, University of Helsinki
e-mail: Jouko.Lindstedt at Helsinki.Fi or jslindst at cc.helsinki.fi
http://www.helsinki.fi/~jslindst/