Bosnian language

The Bosnian language (; "bosanski" / босански ) is the standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian mainly used by Bosniaks. Bosnian is one of three such varieties considered official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Croatian and Serbian. It is also an officially recognized minority language in Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo.
Bosnian uses both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, with Latin in everyday use. It is notable among the varieties of Serbo-Croatian for a number of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Persian loanwords, largely due to the language's interaction with those cultures through Islamic ties.
Bosnian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian, which is also the basis of standard Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin varieties. Therefore, the Declaration on the Common Language of, Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins was issued in 2017 in Sarajevo. Until the 1990s, the common language was called Serbo-Croatian and that term is still used in English, along with "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" (BCMS), especially in diplomatic circles.
Table over the modern Bosnian alphabet in both Latin and Cyrillic, as well as with the IPA value:
History.
Standardization.
Although Bosnians are, at the level of vernacular idiom, linguistically more homogeneous than either Serbians or Croatians, unlike those nations they failed to codify a standard language in the 19th century, with at least two factors being decisive:
The modern Bosnian standard took shape in the 1990s and 2000s. Lexically, Islamic-Oriental loanwords are more frequent; phonetically: the phoneme /x/ (letter "h") is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of vernacular 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 and recognition.
The name "Bosnian language" is a controversial issue for some Croats and Serbs, who also refer to it as the "Bosniak" language ( / ; ). Bosniak linguists however insist that the only legitimate name is "Bosnian" language (""), and that that is the name that both Croats and Serbs should use. The controversy arises because the name "Bosnian" may seem to imply that it is the language of all Bosnians, while Bosnian Croats and Serbs reject that designation for their idioms.
The language is called "Bosnian language" in the 1995 Dayton Accords and is concluded by observers to have received legitimacy and international recognition at the time.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN), and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) recognize the Bosnian language. Furthermore, the status of the Bosnian language is also recognized by bodies such as the United Nations, UNESCO, and translation and interpreting accreditation agencies, including internet translation services.
Most English-speaking language encyclopedias (Routledge, Glottolog, Ethnologue, etc.) register the language solely as "Bosnian" language. The Library of Congress registered the language as "Bosnian" and gave it an ISO-number. The Slavic language institutes in English-speaking countries offer courses in "Bosnian" or "Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian" language, not in "Bosniak" language (e.g. Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Washington, Kansas). The same thing in German-speaking countries, where the language is taught under the name ', not ' (e.g. Vienna, Graz, Trier) with very few exceptions.
Some Croatian linguists (Zvonko Kovač, Ivo Pranjković, Josip Silić) support the name "Bosnian" language, whereas others (Radoslav Katičić, Dalibor Brozović, Tomislav Ladan) hold that the term "Bosnian language" is the only one appropriate and that accordingly the terms Bosnian language and Bosniak language refer to two different things. The Croatian state institutions, such as the Central Bureau of Statistics, use both terms: "Bosniak" language was used in the 2001 census, while the census in 2011 used the term "Bosnian" language.
The majority of Serbian linguists hold that the term "Bosniak language" is the only one appropriate, which was agreed as early as 1990.
The original form of The Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina called the language "Bosniac language", until 2002 when it was changed in Amendment XXIX of the Constitution of the Federation by Wolfgang Petritsch. The original text of the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was agreed in Vienna, and was signed by Krešimir Zubak and Haris Silajdžić on March 18, 1994.
The constitution of , the Serb-dominated entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not recognize any language or ethnic group other than Serbian. Bosniaks were mostly expelled from the territory controlled by the Serbs from 1992, but immediately after the war they demanded the restoration of their civil rights in those territories. The Bosnian Serbs refused to make reference to the Bosnian language in their constitution and as a result had constitutional amendments imposed by High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch. However, the constitution of refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks", because the Serbs were required to recognise the language officially, but wished to avoid recognition of its name.
Serbia includes the Bosnian language as an elective subject in primary schools. Montenegro officially recognizes the Bosnian language: its 2007 Constitution specifically states that although Montenegrin is the official language, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian are also in official use.
Differences between Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.
The differences between the Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian literary standards are minimal. Although Bosnian employs more Turkish, Persian, and Arabic loanwords—commonly called orientalisms— mainly in its spoken variety, it is very similar, to both Serbian and Croatian in its written and spoken form. "Lexical differences between the ethnic variants are extremely limited, even when compared with those between closely related Slavic languages (such as standard Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian), and grammatical differences are even less pronounced. More importantly, complete understanding between the ethnic variants of the standard language makes translation and second language teaching impossible."
The Bosnian language, as a new normative register of the Shtokavian dialect, was officially introduced in 1996 with the publication of ' in Sarajevo. According to that work, Bosnian differed from Serbian and Croatian on some main linguistic characteristics, such as: sound formats in some words, especially "h" (' versus Serbian '); substantial and deliberate usage of Oriental ("Turkish") words; spelling of future tense (') as in Croatian but not Serbian (') (both forms have the same pronunciation). 2018, in the new issue of ', words without "h" are accepted due to their prevalence in language practice.