Language and Identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and Its Disintegration

199 Pages·2004·11.695 MB·

by  Robert D. Greenberg

Language and Identity in the Balkans

Language and Identity
in the Balkans
SSeerrbboo--CCrrooaattiiaann aanndd iittss DDiissiinntteeggrraattiioonn
ROBERT D. GREENBERG
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox 2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi
Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Robert D. Greenberg 2004
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
(Data available)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
(Data available)
ISBN 0-19-925815-5
13579 10 8642
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Biddies Ltd. www.biddles.co.uk
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
1.0 Overview 1
1.1 Goals and methodology 4
1.2 Language as a marker of ethnic identity 6
1.3 Language in the context of Balkan nationalism 9
1.4 Serbo-Croatian: A dying tongue? 13
2 Serbo-Croatian: United or not we fall 16
2.0 Introduction: The precarious language union 16
2.1 Models for unified languages 18
2.1.1 Centrally monitored unity 20
2.1.2 Government-imposed unity 21
2.1.3 Pluricentric unity 23
2.2 Controversies connected with Serb/Croat
language accords 24
2.2.1 The Literary Agreement (1850) 24
2.2.2 The Novi Sad Agreement (1954) 29
2.3 The power of competing dialects 32
2.3.1 The Stokavian dialects and ethnicity: An overview 34
2.3.2 Dilemmas of dialects: Ownership and citizenship? 35
2.3.3 Standard pronunciations, variants, or idioms 39
2.4 The writing on the wall: Alphabets and writing systems 41
2.4.1 A multiplicity of alphabets 41
2.4.2 Spell-bound: Clashes over spelling rules 44
2.5 Vocabulary: A reflection of divergent approaches to identity 47
2.5.1 Croatian purism 48
2.5.2 The supremacy of the vernacular for the Serbs 50
2.5.3 Divergent attitudes towards foreign borrowings 51
2.6 The turbulent history of the language union: A chronology 54
3 Serbian: Isn't my language your language? 58
3.0 Introduction 58
3.1 One language, two variants 59
vi Contents
3.1.1 The two alphabets 60
3.1.2 The two pronunciations 63
3.2 The factions in Serbian linguistic circles 65
3.3 Orthographic chaos: 1993-1994 69
3.4 The battle between the ekavian and ijekavian dialects 77
3.5 The triumph of the academies 83
3.6 Conclusions 85
4 Montenegrin: A mountain out of a mole hill? 88
4.0 Introduction 88
4.1 Montenegro's dialects and its literary traditions 91
4.1.1 The sociolinguistics of dialect geography 92
4.1.2 The literary traditions in Montenegro 94
4.2 Montenegro's two factions 97
4.2.1 The Neo-Vukovites 98
4.2.2 Nikcevic and his supporters 99
4.3 The proposed standard 102
4.3.1 New letters and new pronunciations 103
4.3.2 The expansion of ijekavian features 104
4.4 Conclusions 105
5 Croatian: We are separate but equal twins 109
5.0 Introduction 109
5.1 Croatian from Broz to Brozovic 111
5.1.1 Contributions of the "Croat Vukovites": Traitors
or Croat patriots? 111
5.1.2 Tito's Yugoslavia: Croatian and not Croato-Serbian 115
5.2 The new Croatian 118
5.2.1 The Cakavian and Kajkavian lexical stock 120
5.2.2 Infusing the new standard with native Croatian forms 122
5.3 Recent orthographic controversies 125
5.3.1 The prescriptivist Pravopis 125
5.3.2 The descriptivist Pravopis 128
5.4 Conclusions 132
6 Bosnian: A three-humped camel? 135
6.0 Introduction 135
6.1 History is on our side: The origins of the Bosnian language 137
6.2 It's all in the name: Bosnian or Bosniac 139
6.3 The peculiarities of the new Bosnian standard 142
6.3.1 The dialectal base 143
6.3.2 Bosnian is no mixture of Serbian and Croatian 146
6.4 The first Symposium on the Bosnian language 150
Contents vii
6.5 Closing ranks: A new charter for a new century 155
6.6 Conclusions 156
7 Conclusion 159
7.0 The Serbo-Croatian successor languages: Shared obstacles and
divergent solutions 159
7.1 My language, my land 164
Appendix A: Text of the 1850 Literary Agreement 168
Appendix B: Text of the 1954 Novi Sad Agreement 172
Works cited 175
Index 183

Acknowledgements
I began work on this project in 1997, when I was on a research leave from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An extended visit to the former
Yugoslavia, a month of research in Washington, DC, and a semester as a fellow
at the University of North Carolina's Institute for the Arts and Humanities
allowed for the completion of the first two articles on language, identity, and
ethnic politics in ex-Yugoslavia (cf. Greenberg 1998 and 1999). Subsequent visits
to the Balkans provided me with additional opportunities to gather materials,
interview individuals, and consult with colleagues. In addition, while working as
a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1999, I
gathered materials at the Library of Congress for a third article (Greenberg
2000). The final stages of the project were made possible while on research leave
in Fall 2002, when I became a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Harriman
Institute.
I am deeply grateful for the advice, assistance, and patience of many indi-
viduals. My colleague Prvoslav Radic has provided me with countless words of
encouragement and guidance, not to mention obscure works published in
Serbia, which he made available despite the economic sanctions imposed on the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance
I received from Sofija Miloradovic, Miodrag Jovanovic, Dalibor Brozovic, Slo-
bodan Remetic, Grace Fielder, Josip Raos, and Zuzana Topolinska. Special
thanks are due to Katharine Nepomnyashchy and Gordon Bardos for facilitating
my affiliation with the Harriman Institute, to Martin Sletzinger at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, and to Grant Harris at the Library of
Congress.
Research for the various stages of this project was supported by grants from
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1997 and 1999); the
International Research and Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the U.S.
Department of State (Title VIII), and the National Endowment for the
Humanities (1996 and 1998); the Fulbright program, administered through the
Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (2001); and the University
Research Council (1997), Institute for the Arts and Humanities (1998), and the
Partners grant (2001) from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. None
of these organizations are responsible for the views expressed in the manuscript.
I am also indebted to my various research assistants and students who never
failed to amaze me, especially Curtis Ford, Geoffrey Anisman, Jeffrey Upchurch,