Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian

[Jouko Lindstedt]

On Fri, 6 Oct 1995, Robert Beard wrote:

> It is,
> however, the case that the people of Zagreb and Belgrade speak one and the
> same  mutually comprehensible language, just as the people of Mississippi
> and Long Island do.  The problem is not a question of language(s); the
> problem is that the people speaking this language cannot decide on a
> center, on a capital.  And that is a purely political question.  It has
> nothing that I can see to do with linguistics, perhaps not even with
> sociolinguistics.

"It is, however, the case that the people of Stockholm and Oslo speak one
and the same mutually comprehensible language, just as the people of
Mississippi and Long Island do. The Swedes and Norwegians just cannot
agree on the capital. It has nothing to do with linguistics, perhaps not
even with sociolonguistics."

And notice that the schoolchildren in Zagreb and Beograd learn quite
different standard languages nowadays -- this is not the case with
Mississippi and Long Island!

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/