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South Slavic languages
South Slavic languages comprise one of the three geographical groups of Slavic languages (besides West and East Slavic). There are around 30 million speakers of these languages, mainly in the Balkans. The South Slavic languages are further subdivided into Eastern and Western subgroups. German, Hungarian and Romanian generally form a belt which geographically separate speakers of South Slavic languages from their counterpart West and East Slavic language speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written was Old Church Slavonic in the 9th century, which was based on the local dialect in the Thessalonica region. It is retained as a liturgical language in some South Slavic Orthodox churches. ClassificationSlavic languages belong to Balto-Slavic family, which itself belongs to of the Indo-European language family. The South Slavic family itself exists strictly as a geographical grouping, not forming a genetic node in Slavic language family - there was never a period in which all South Slavic dialects exhibited exclusive set of extensive phonological, morphological and lexical changes peculiar to them and them only. The was never a period of cultural of political unity in which "Proto-South-Slavic" could have existed, in which Common South Slavic innovations could have occurred. Several South-Slavic-only lexical and morphological patterns that have been proposed have all been proven to be Common Slavic archaisms, or are shared with some Slovakian or Ukrainian dialects. Within South Slavic, however, there could have been Proto-West-South-Slavic (ancestral to dialects of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Slavic dialects of Kosovo) and Proto-East-South-Slavic (ancestral to Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects). Older literature also frequently makes a notion of "Serbo-Croatian" or "Central-South-Slavic" dialect continuum or diasystem which would in theory compromise ?akavian, Kajakvian, ?tokavian and sometimes Torlakian dialects. ?akavian, Kajkavian and Torlakian dialects have over the centuries exhibited extensive lexical and, to a lesser degree, morphological influences (such as transitional ??akavian mixture) from dominant ?tokavian, which has lead many into false assumption of some common ancestral dialect, or of exclusve set of isoglosses which would connect them all, but very important thing to note is that there was never a language ancestral to idioms spoken nowadays by Bosniaks, Croats, Monenegrins and Serbs. "Serbo-Croatian dialect system" or its much less common but politically more correct alternative "Central South Slavic diasystem" exists only as an arbitrary geographical grouping, nowadays largely obsoleted as a term due to the break-up of Yugoslavia and the advent of newly-established republics. All South Slavic dialects form a dialectal continuum stretching from today's southern Austria to southeast Bulgaria. On the level of dialectology or linguistic typology, several major dialects can be distinguished, but their borders are blurred due to strong contact and frequent migrations in the past. On the other hand, cultural establishment and national liberation from occupying Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, followed by formation of nation-states in 19th and 20th century, caused development and codification of standard national languages. These processes have (almost) ended just at the end of 20th century, with the breakup of Yugoslavia (with only the Montenegrin national and linguistic issue left to be resolved). Most of those languages selected one dialect as the basis of a literary language and, as a result, some dialects got deprecated and marginalized, while others flourished. Further, the national and ethnic borders do not coincide with dialectal boundaries in most cases. Thus, two distinct classifications of South Slavic languages can be drawn; one from a geographic point of view, and the other from a sociolinguistic point of view. The two classifications seldom map 1:1. For example, Croats speak three main and two exclaval dialects in four countries, while their standard language is based on Ijekavian Neo-?tokavian. Note: Due to different political statuses of languages/dialects and different historical contexts, the classifications are necessarily arbitrary to some extent. Dialectal classification
Sociolinguistic classificationSouth Slavic languages
Eastern group of South Slavic languagesBulgarian dialectsMacedonian dialects
Transitional South Slavic languagesTorlakian dialectThere also exists another dialect, called torla?ki or Torlak, which is spoken in southern and eastern Serbia, northern Republic of Macedonia and western Bulgaria, and often considered transitional between Central and Eastern group of South Slavic languages. It is even thought to fit into the so-called Balkan sprachbund, an area of linguistic convergence among languages due to long-term contact rather than being genetically related. Central or Eastern Western group of South Slavic languagesHistoryEach of these primary and secondary dialectical units breaks down into subdialects and accentological isoglosses by region. In the past (and now in mountains and islands), it was not uncommon for individual villages to have some of their own words and phrases. However, throughout the twentieth century the various dialects have been strongly influenced by the ?tokavian standards through mass media and public education, and much of the "local color" has been lost chiefly in towns. With the breakup of Yugoslavia, rise of national awareness has also caused many to modify their speech according to newly established standard language guidelines. The various wars have also caused mass migrations, and changed the ethnic and thus dialectal picture of some areas, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in central Croatia and in Serbia (especially in Vojvodina). In some areas it is unclear whether location or ethnicity is now the dominant factor in the dialect of the speaker. Because of these forces, the speech patterns of some communities and regions are in a state of flux, and it is difficult to determine which dialects will die out entirely. Further research over the next few decades will be necessary to determine the changes made in the dialectical distribution of the language. Dialect to language name mappingThe table below shows the relationship between the dialects of so-called Central South Slavic diasystem and the names their native speakers might call them.
?tokavian dialects and languagesMolise CroatianThe Molise Croatian (or Molise Slavic) dialect is spoken in three villages of the Italian region of Molise, by the descendants of South Slavs who migrated there from the eastern Adriatic coast in the 15th century. Because these people have migrated away from the rest of their kinsmen so long ago, their diaspora language is rather distinct from the standard language, and rather influenced by Italian. However, their speech retains some archaic features that were lost in all the other ?tokavian dialects after the 15th century, and thus makes it a valuable tool in accentological research. Dialects and official languagesBosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian languages, both as sets of dialects and as codified standard languages:
?akavian dialects and languages?akavian dialectsChakavian (?akavian) is spoken in the western, central, and southern parts of Croatia, mainly in Istria, Kvarner Gulf, Dalmatia, and also in Croatian inlands (Gacka, Pokupje etc.). The ?akavian renders Proto-Slavic yat mostly as i or also as e (rarely as (i)je), or even mixed Ekavian-Ikavian. Many dialects of ?akavian preserved significant number of Dalmatian words, but also have a lot of loan words from Venetian, Italian, Greek and other Mediterranean languages. Example: ?a je, je, tako je vavik bilo, ?a ?e bit, ?e bit, a nekako ?e ve? bit! Burgenland CroatianThis dialect is spoken primarily in the federal state of Burgenland in Austria, but also in nearby areas in Vienna, Slovakia, and Hungary by descendants of Croats who migrated there in the 16th century. This dialect or possibly family of dialects is quite different from standard Croatian. It has been heavily influenced by German and also Hungarian. In addition, it has some properties from all three of the major dialectical groups in Croatia, as the migrants did not all come from the same areas of Croatia. The "micro-literary" standard is based on a ?akavian dialect, and, like all ?akavian dialects, is characterized by very conservative grammatical structures: it preserves, prominently, case endings lost in the ?tokavian base of standard Serbo-Croatian. At most 100,000 people speak Burgenland Croatian and almost all are bilingual in German. Its future is uncertain, but there is some movement to preserve it. It has official status in six districts of Burgenland, and is used in some schools in Burgenland and neighboring western parts of Hungary. Western group of South Slavic languagesKajkavian dialectsKaykavian is mostly spoken in northern and northwest Croatia including 1/3 of country near the Hungarian and Slovenian borders: chiefly in and around towns Zagreb, Vara?din, ?akovec, Koprivnica, Petrinja, Delnice, etc. It renders yat mostly as e (rarely as diphthongal ie); note that this pronouncing cannot be equated to that of the Ekavian-Shtokavian dialects, as many kaykavian dialects distinguish a closed e nearly ae (from yat) and an open e (from original e). It almost lacks several palatals (?, lj, nj, d?) found in Shtokavian dialect, and has some loanwords from the nearby Slovene dialects, as well as from German chiefly in towns. Example: Kak je, tak je; tak je navek bilo, kak bu tak bu, a bu vre nekak kak bu! Slovene languageGrammarEastern-Western divisionIn the broadest terms, the Eastern dialects of South Slavic (ie. Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects) most differ from the Western dialects in the following ways :
Aside from these three main areas, there are several smaller, but still significant differences:
Division within Western dialects
Division within Eastern dialects
WritingThe languages to the West of Serbian use the Roman alphabet, while those to the East and South use Cyrillic. Serbian itself constitutionally uses the Cyrillic script, though commonly, it is the Roman alphabet which is in greater use. For example, most newspapers are written in Cyrillic, while most magazines - in Roman script; books written by Serbian authors are written in Cyrillic, while books translated from foreign authors are usually in Roman script; on television, any writing as part of a television programme is usually in Cyrillic, while adverts are usually in Western script. The division is traditionally partly based on religion ? Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Macedonia, which use Cyrillic, are Orthodox countries, while Croatia and Slovenia, which use Roman script, are Catholic;[5] the Bosnian language, used by the Muslim Bosniaks, also uses the Roman script. The Glagolitic alphabet was also used in the Middle Ages, most notably in Bulgaria and Croatia, but gradually disappeared. NotesReferencesSee alsoExternal links
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