New terminology for Serbia and Montenegro (fwd)

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Headline: Language experts discuss new terminology for Serbia and Montenegro
Text of report by I. Matijevic: "Citizen of Serbia and Montenegro is called
'Srbogorac'", published by Serbian newspaper Danas on 11 February

In about 10 days we can expect a recommendation from the Committee for
Serbian Language Standardization on the new names that are derived from the
new state [of Serbia and Montenegro].

"The syntagm 'state union' should not be written in capital letters because
it is not part of the country's official name," Branko Brboric, secretary of
the Committee for Serbian Language Standardization, said in a statement to
Danas, pointing out that in regard to this question the linguistic terrain
is just as "slippery" as the political.

This phrase explains what Serbia and Montenegro is - an internationally
recognized single state, and therefore the name of "Serbia and Montenegro"
should be followed by a singular verb. So, we would say (or write) "Serbia
and Montenegro is", and not "Serbia and Montenegro are."

On the basis of accepted methodology, our language experts believe that the
common name for a citizen of the new country should be Srbogorac [possible
translation: Serbonegrin], taking into consideration all the dilemmas that
stem from the fact that the ethnic root of this name does not coincide with
the "state" root, in other words, it does not coincide with the ethnic
prefix of all the citizens that live on its territory.

We are "on very thin ice" when we are talking about the functioning of the
newly founded state union of Serbia and Montenegro, because this state
came about in "awkward conditions", its inauguration was "not attended by
the most important officials", and its future (it seems, as has been the
case so far) "will not depend on internal factors." This is only a summary
(and apparently also a justified suspicion of every normal sensible
citizen of this country) of the conversation that we had with Branko
Brboric, secretary of the Committee for Serbian Language Standardization,
on the important topic of this new country's functioning in terms of
proper language use. "So, the syntagm 'state union' should not be written
in capital letters because it is not part of the country's official name."
This phrase explains what Serbia and Montenegro is - an internationally
recognized single state, and therefore the name of 'Serbia and Montenegro'
should be followed by a singular verb. Therefore, we would say (or write)
'Serbia and Montenegro is' not 'Serbia and Montenegro are' just like in
the case of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Such a compound name is very unsuitable,
as was the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, because it is too lengthy for normal
communication. "Language defends itself with acronyms," the people in the
Committee said, but for understandable reasons the current name cannot be
shortened to "Serbia" or "Montenegro." When the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland is reduced to a shorted name then it is
called Great Britain, or even just Britain, and the citizens of that
country are British. How will citizens of the state union of Serbia and
Montenegro be called? This is a very interesting linguistic (only
linguistic?) question. This issue of ethnics (we are referring to the word
"ethnic" that is derived from the basic term "ethnos" but does not signify
a member of a certain ethnic group but also pertains to words like
Belgrader, or Muscovite, for example), also raises the issue of the
adjective that would be derived from the name of a state or an "ethnic"
(for example - British). But, let us get back to acronyms for a moment and
difficulties in finding one that would be entered into the most important
code: ISO (International Standardization Organization in Geneva) 3166,
which is not obligatory but is advisable (in the UN there is also a
committee that determines acronyms). In any case, this acronym would have
to have two or three letters, so it could be SCG. However, in such a case
the smaller entity [Montenegro] would be represented with more letters
[CG] than Serbia [S] and so another solution would be SiC.

The adjective is already derived from the name of the state and the only
issue is whether to use "Srbijanskocrnogorski" [Serbian-Montenegrin] (let us
reiterate that "Srbijanac" is every resident of Serbia, in other words, even
someone that belongs to an ethnic minority), or "Srpskocrnogorski"
[Serb-Montenegrin]. In both cases it is written [in the vernacular] without
a hyphen because it signifies a unity of a whole, not a relationship, and so
it will be "srpskocrnogoska reprezentacija" [Serb-Montenegrin national
team], but "srpsko-crnogorski odnosi" [Serb-Montenegrin relations]. As for
two-letter acronyms, they are all taken, (so, for example, Slovenia was
assigned SI, Slovakia SK, because the acronym SL has been assigned to
Salvador which became a state before the above states). The acronym SM (as
in Serbia Montenegro) is out of the question because it is already being
used by San Marino. The two-letter acronyms that are still available are YU,
because it relates to the country (certain institutions, like the Yugoslav
Drama Theatre, or the Yugoslav Cinema Museum, for example, will retain the
adjective "Yugoslav" in their names) or possibly DZ "Drzimo se zajedno"
[Let's stick together], as the members of the Committee explained this
acronym symbolically and jokingly, at least those that care about unity, as
they themselves said, because they were not looking forward to a breakup of
this state's unity which in our case means the breakup of everything
(Germany and Austria are two states, but Austrians would never dream of
calling their language Austrian, nor would the Swiss, who existed before
Germany and 75 per cent of them speak German, but they do not have a Swiss
language). Finally, this state is a single internationally recognized entity
for a period of three years. A much more difficult problem than determining
a two-letter acronym (which will be assigned to us in any case, either
two-or three-letter, if we do not propose one of our own) is resolving the
problem of how to call the "successor" to the word "Jugosloven" [Yugoslav].

According to the laws of linguistics, we could do that by taking the two
available morphemes: "Srb" and "Gor" which are contained in the words
"Srbin" and "Crnogorac," and, again, guided by the principle of equal
representation, the "successor" to "Jugosloven" would be - Srbogorac (the
only thing about this compound word - which is derived from the available
language material, and which is just as legitimate as, for example,
Crnogorac [a man from Montenegro] or Crnotravac [a man from the town of
Crna Trava] - that could be found objectionable is that the word "Srb"
goes first). This is not something that someone is supposed to approve,
just as nothing is being abolished, because no-one has that kind of
authority. This is just a view, an opinion, a proposal. It is what our
linguistic potential offers, but as far as politics are concerned, that is
outside the realm of language and linguistics.

As they told us at the end, the Committee will try to make its
recommendations available in about 10 days. The decision should be made by
the Council for Public Relations and Urgent Issues, which will be expanded
on this occasion to include some members of the Committee for Serbian
Language Standardization. The members of the Committee are: Ivan Klajn,
chairman of the Council for Public Relations and Urgent Issues and
chairman of the Committee for Serbian Language Standardization, Slobodan
Remetic, deputy chairman of Council for Public Relations and Urgent
Issues, deputy chairman of the Committee for Serbian Language
Standardization, and director of the Serbian Language Institute, and Drago
Cupic and Novica Petkovic, members of the Council. The only thing that the
citizens of this new/old country can do is hope that its self-resistance,
which (like everything else for that matter) speaks from the language,
will be overcome and resolved.

Source: Danas, Belgrade, in Serbian 11 Feb 03 pp 1, 12
BBC Mon EU1