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Bosnian
Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
Pronunciation
Native to	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Serbia  Montenegro  Croatia  Albania  Kosovo and immigrant groups in various countries
Region	Southern Europe
Native speakers	2,700,000
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western South Slavic Bosnian
Writing system	Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Montenegro  Serbia  Albania Regional or local official language in:  Kosovo
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bs
ISO 639-2	bos
ISO 639-3	bos

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Part of a series on the
History of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Early history Prehistory Neolithic cultures: (Kakanj / Butmir) Illyrian period (Glasinac culture / Central Bosnian culture) Roman Dalmatia Roman Pannonia
Middle Ages Bosnia in the Early Middle Ages (before 10th c.) Travunia - Zachumlia (~9th–14th c.) Banate (~1154–1377) - Kingdom (1377-1463) ("zemlje"/counties: Usora / Soli / Donji Kraji / Hum (Herzegovina from 1454) / Podrinje) Bosansko Krajište (1451-1463) Duchy of Herzegovina (1463–1482)
Ottoman era Ottoman conquest (Bosansko Krajište (1451-1463)) Ottoman era (Bosnia Sanjak (1463–1580), Sanjak of Herzegovina (1481–1833) / Bosnia Eyalet (1580-1867), Herzegovina Eyalet (1833–1851) / Bosnia Vilayet (1867-1908) / Herzegovina Uprising (1875–1877))
Habsburg era Habsburg era (Bosnian crisis)
Yugoslavia Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Drina Banovina) World War II SFR Yugoslavia (SR Bosnia and Herzegovina) Breakup of Yugoslavia
Contemporary Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnian War (defunct: Herzeg-Bosnia / Western Bosnia) Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska)
Bosnia and Herzegovina portal
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Template:Fixbunching Bosnian ( Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Cyrillic script: босански, ) is a South Slavic language spoken primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the region of Sandžak in Serbia and Montenegro, although it is also spoken in various places throughout the world, as many speakers were forced to become refugees during the Bosnian war. The standard Bosnian is based on the Neoštokavian dialect, which makes it mutually intelligible with standard Croatian and Serbian. Up until the dissolution of former SFR Yugoslavia, those three were treated as one Serbo-Croatian language, and that term is still used to refer to the same dialectal base (the core vocabulary, grammar and syntax) of what are today three separate standards. The language itself uses the Latin alphabet although the Cyrillic alphabet is also accepted, chiefly to accommodate for its official usage in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past, especially in the former SFR Yugoslavia, but is seldom used in practice.

The language is alternatively referred to as Bosniak (also spelled "Bosniac"; Bošnjački), reflecting a position that it is the standard language of Bosniaks, not all Bosnians (i.e. Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks). The name is a subject of some controversy, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia.

History

The modern Bosnian language uses the Latin alphabet. However, scripts other than Latin were used much earlier, most notably the indigenous Bosnian Cyrillic called bosančica, which is literally translated as Bosnian script and dates back to the 10th/11th century. The Humac tablet, the oldest remnant of the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages, found is written in this script. The script is of the greatest significance to Bosniak/Bosnian history and linguistics, since it is the one script that is purely native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and is linked to the Bosnian medieval monarchy (who used it) with medieval Bosnian religion (who used it first), in fact the script is to be found in many royal state documents and as well on old Stećci. The substantial influence of bosančica on medieval Bosnia has unfortunately made it a target of controversial debates and propaganda throughout the history of the rivalry between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats which has led to the tendency of Croats and Serbs to deny it as Bosnian and instead claim it as "theirs" - despite its geographical origin (Bosnia). Other, less important, scripts used include: Begovica (used by Bosniak nobility). Bosniaks have also used an Arabic script adjusted to Bosnian language called Arebica.

In addition, the oldest South Slavic document is the Bosnian statehood charter from 1189, written by Bosnian ruler Kulin Ban (in Bosančica, Bosnian Cyrillic). Some other early mentions include one from July 3, 1436, where, in the region of Kotor, a duke bought a girl that is described as: "Bosnian woman, heretic and in Bosnian language called Djevena".

The irony of the Bosnian language is that its speakers are, on the level of colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogeneous than either Serbs or Croats, but failed, due to historical reasons, to standardize their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian dictionary, a rhymed Bosnian-Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi, was composed in 1631 . But unlike e.g. Croatian dictionaries, which were written and published regularly, Uskufi's work remained an isolated foray. At least two factors were decisive:

• The Bosniak elite wrote almost exclusively in foreign (Turkish, Arabic, Persian) languages. Vernacular literature, written in modified Arabic script, was thin and sparse.
• The Bosniaks' national emancipation lagged behind that of the Serbs and Croats, and since denominational rather than cultural or linguistic issues played the pivotal role, a Bosnian language project didn't arouse much interest or support.

Prescriptions for the language of Bosniaks in the 19th and 20th centuries were written outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Probably the most authentic Bosniak writers (the so-called "Bosniak revival" at the turn of the century) wrote in an idiom that is closer to the Croatian form than to the Serbian one (western Štokavian-Ijekavian idiom, Latin script), but which possessed unmistakably recognizable Bosniak traits, primarily lexical ones. The main authors of the "Bosniak renaissance" were the polymath, politician and poet Safvet-beg Bašagić, the "poète maudit" Musa Ćazim Ćatić and the storyteller Edhem Mulabdić.

In the days of Communist Yugoslavia the lexis was Serbianized but the Latin script became dominant; the official name was Serbo-Croatian. After the collapse of Yugoslavia Bosnians remained the sole inheritors of the Serbo-Croatian hybrid.

On a formal level, the Bosnian language is beginning to take a distinctive shape: lexically, Islamic-Oriental loan words are becoming more frequent; phonetically and phonologically, the phoneme "h" is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of Bosniak speech and language tradition; also, there are some changes in grammar, morphology and orthography that reflect the Bosniak pre-World War I literary tradition, mainly that of the Bosniak renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century.

Controversy

The major dispute today about this labnguage today is its name.The term "Bosnian language" can be traced to the Middle Ages, but not referred just for the area of Bosnia (and Herzegovina) but also for the Republic of Dubrovnik. The term "Bosnian language"in this context meant štokavian (in order to make difference with the rest of Dalmatia-which was chakavian speaking area).The name for the language is a controversial issue for Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs and is sometimes alternatively referred in English as Bosniak (Bošnjački; also spelled "Bosniac"). Of the three Bosnian ethnicities (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs) only the Bosniak ethnicity uses the Bosnian language in significant numbers. The heart of the issue is that the terms Bosnian and Bosniak are not interchangeable: Bosnian refers to all three ethnicities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Bosniak refers only to Bosniaks. The name "Bosnian language" is controversial primarily because it is thought by some to imply it is the language of all Bosnians, which includes Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs, however, overwhelmingly speak in Croatian and Serbian, respectively. Although there are also Bosnian Croats and Serbs in Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla regions who claim to speak Bosnian. For instance, Željko Komšić, a Croat member of Bosnian Presidency calls his mother tongue, the Bosnian language. It should be noted that all three languages are mutually intelligible and are examples of ausbauspraches, due to the conjunction of historical circumstances, all are codified on essentially the same Neoshtokavian dialect, and many people say that they are all one entity otherwise known as Serbo-Croatian.

Some Croatian linguists (Radoslav Katičić, Dalibor Brozović and Tomislav Ladan) consider the appropriate name to be "Bosniak" rather than "Bosnian". In their opinion, the appellation "Bosnian" refers to the whole country, therefore implying that "Bosnian" is the national standard language of all Bosnians, not only Bosniaks. According to Croatian participant Radoslav Dodig, the renaming of "Bosniak" into "Bosnian" was not a process, but a semi-hidden manoeuvre. Some other Croatian linguists (Zvonko Kovač, Ivo Pranjković) recognize it as Bosnian.

Bosniak linguists and intellectuals (for instance Muhamed Filipović) consider interpretation of some Croatian and Serbian linguists as nationalistic actions against Bosniaks and their identity in the light of Karađorđevo agreement and genocide committed on Bosniaks during Bosnian war.

The status of the Bosnian language is increasingly recognized by bodies like the United Nations, UNESCO, and translation and interpreting accreditation agencies.

The Dayton Peace Accord recognized Bosnian as a distinct language spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Bosniaks. This distinction and official recognition of the Bosnian language is further acknowledged by signatures of the former presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegović), Croatia (Franjo Tuđman) and Serbia (Slobodan Milošević). As such the Bosnian language is officially recognized by constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well.

The constitution of the Republika Srpska (the Serb entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, formed as a result of the Bosnian war), did not recognize any language or ethnic group other than Serbian when it was created. Bosniaks were mostly expelled from the territory controlled by the Serbs from 1992, but immediately after the war demanded to restore their civil rights on those territories. As a result of pressure from world heads of state on Serb leaders to give Bosniaks full rights, the language became official in Republika Srpska. However, the constitution of Republika Srpska refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks" (Језик којим говоре Бошњаци, Jezik kojim govore Bošnjaci) due to the fact that the Serbs had to officially recognize it, but still avoid recognition of its name. On the other hand, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina recognizes all three languages.

Bosniak language is the prescribed name of the language in Serbian, but the Serbian Ministry of Education recognizes it as Bosnian. Serbia includes the Bosnian language as an elective subject in primary schools.

Montenegro officially recognizes the Bosnian language, as its 2007 Constitution specifically states that while Montenegrin is the "official language," also "in official use are Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian languages."

Phonology

Vowels

The Bosnian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

It should also be mentioned the that letter "R" stands as both a consonant and a vowel. It is considered a vowel when surrounded by two other consonants. For example in the words: brzo (quick), trn (thorn), mrk (dark), vrlo (very).

Consonants

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English and most other Indo-European languages west of India, voicedness is phonemic, but aspiration is not.

In consonant clusters, all obstruents are either voiced or voiceless depending on the voicing of the final consonant in the cluster. This rule does not always apply to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон), personal names and across syllable boundaries.

/r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of the syllable nucleus in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r/. A similar feature exists in Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene, Czech, and Slovak. Very rarely, /l/ can be syllabic (in the name for the river Vltava, for example ) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.

See also

• Humac tablet
• Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
• Swadesh list of Slavic languages

External links

• The Oslo Corpus of Bosnian Texts
• rjecnik.ba English-Bosnian, German-Bosnian and Latin-Bosnian On-line Dictionary Template:Bs icon/Template:En icon/Template:De icon
• Bosnian, English, German, Italian online dictionary
• Ethnologue report for Bosnian Template:En icon
• Bosnian language Template:Bs icon/Template:En icon
• Learn Bosnian language: Basic phrases Template:En icon
• The Oslo Corpus of Bosnian Texts Template:En icon
• Grammar of Bosnian language issued 1890 Template:Bs icon
• English-Bosnian-English On-line Dictionary
• Bosnian bilingual dictionaries
• A short English-Bosnian-Japanese phrasebook (Renewal) incl. sound file

References

1. http://www.communicaid.com/language-courses/bosnian/index.php
2. CLS 35: Papers from the Panels: Language, identity, & the other. - Page 56
3. International politics‎ - Page 151
4. http://www.ohr.int/print/?content_id=5907
5. http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Bosnian:language.htm
6. http://www.birn.eu.com/en/100/10/3895/
7. Sanoptikum
9. Radio Free Europe - Muhamed Filipovic about Croatian nationalists who are trying to impose Bosniak name for Bosnian language
10. http://books.google.com/books?id=G2bsJdYrwD4C&pg=RA1-PA76
11. Board for Standardisation of Serbian Language (1998). "1". Три питања и три одговора. Decision No. 1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
12. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NewsLibrary&p_multi=BBAB&d_place=BBAB&p_theme=newslibrary2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=1074525FCDC50C97&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
13. http://www.pravda.gov.me/vijesti.php?akcija=rubrika&rubrika=121 See Art. 13 of the Constitution of the Republic of Montenegro, adopted on 19 October 2007, available at the website of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Montenegro

• Bosnian language
• South Slavic languages
• Languages of Albania
• Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Languages of Serbia
• Languages of Montenegro
• Languages of Kosovo