Bosnia

[Andrew Corin]

I do, of course, agree with Eliot Borenstein's assessment of the true
significance of the Bosnia vowel piece.  As this is a language and
literature list, and I am a teacher of Serbo-Croatian, surely I can
be allowed one last (actually semi-serious) note that what appear to be
nasty consonant clusters in Serbo-Croatian usually in fact are not.
Normally they involve a syllabic r (used as a vowel, rather than a
consonant) and the soft n', l', and j (yod) sounds, which are spelled
nj, lj, and j, respectively.  Serbo-Croatian doesn't really have any
especially nasty consonant clusters (from the point of view of a native
English speaker).

          Andrew Corin