Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian

[Jouko Lindstedt]

On Thu, 28 Sep 1995, Robert Beard wrote:

> I personally think it inappropriate for language professionals to be drawn
> into what is a mindless and heartless political war.   The linguistic fact
> is simple:  Croatians, Bosniana, Hercegovinians, Montenegrans, and Serbians
> speak several dialects of one language.  'Serbo-Croatian' is the perfect
> name for it for the simple reason that it is the traditional term.

"Serbo-Croatian" is the traditional (though not perfect) term, and it can
still b used, when you want to refer to all of that linguistic area. But
otherwise, haven't we linguists always emphasized that the "different
language" / "same language" question cannot be solved by linguistic
criteria alone? I still endorse that traditonal wisdom. How much must the
Croatians change the vocabulary of their standard (NB., not "dialect"!)
before it becomes a different language as a "linguistic fact"? Are
Norwegian and Swedish different languages? Are Bulgarian and Macedonian?
What about the different "dialects" of Chinese... You must know this stuff!

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/