Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian

[Robert Beard]

On September 28, 1995, my esteemed colleague, Mark Greenberg, wrote in
response to my defense of linguists avoidance of 'politicolinguistic'
questions:

"IMO, this reflects the kind of disembodied thinking that allows linguists
to forget that languages do not exist by themselves, but are spoken by
people.  As most people know, it matters very much, from a sociolinguistic
viewpoint, what a people's language is called.  It's fine to recognize that
Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are very closely related, but failing to
recognize that each has a well-elaborated standard strikes me as reflecting
ignorance.  There are objective reasons, having to do with literary
traditions, selection in planning, not to mention dialect bases, that
justify this three-way distinction (in addition to the
sociolinguistic one mentioned above)."

My assumption is that all good thinking is disembodied if by 'disembodied'
is meant 'impartial'.  What could  'embodied' thinking possibly be?
Certainly, it should not mean partial or emotionally tinged thinking.  The
term therefore does not offend me but does puzzle me.

Languages are in fact spoken by people, and my impression is that most
people are capable of distinguishing people from language.  My impression is
that the subject matter of linguistics is the latter and never has been the
former. Does one conclude with the application of  'embodied thinking' that
whatever a group of human beings find in their interest is scientifically
true?  If not what are the criteria for determining legitimate demands for
linguistic independence?  And are these criteria (socio)linguistic?  Could
they distort our enterprise?

Mr. Greenberg  then added:

"Further, it should be realized that saying "Serbo-Croatian" implies a stand
that does not necessarily correspond well to "purely linguistic" facts.  For
example, since the Kajkavian dialect of Croatian shares many more features
with Slovene than it does with Stokavian, should Kajkavian be called
Slovene?  (Alternatively, should Slovene be considered a dialect of
Serbo-Croatian?)"

Whether it should be or not, THIS is a good question for linguists.  The
point I was trying to make is that questions like this one are solid
linguistic questions which linguists should reason out, the sort of question
to which linguists might have an answer.  The criteria by which a
nationality might achieve the right to elevate their dialect to a language
despite the scientific evidence do not constitute any sort impartial
linguistic or sociolinguistic question.
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Robert Beard                              Bucknell University
Russian & Linguistics Programs            Lewisburg, PA 17837
rbeard at bucknell.edu                              717-524-1336
Russian Program   http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian
Morphology on Internet        http://www.bucknell.edu/~rbeard
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