Bosnian language.html |
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| Bosnian bosanski jezik |
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|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation: | [ˈbɔsanskiː] | |
| Spoken in: | See below under "Official status", besides that as an immigrant's language spread over Central and Western Europe, as well as Northern America (by expatriates dating back to 1990s) | |
| Region: | Southern Europe | |
| Total speakers: | 2,700,000 1 | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western South Slavic Bosnian |
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language in: |  Bosnia and Herzegovina Montenegro Serbia |
|
| Regulated by: | No official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | bs | |
| ISO 639-2: | bos | |
| ISO 639-3: | bos | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
| South Slavic languages and dialects |
| Western South Slavic |
| Croatian Western Štokavian Čakavian · Kajkavian Burgenland · Molise |
| Serbian Eastern Štokavian Slavoserbian Romano-Serbian · Užice |
| Bosnian Central Štokavian |
| Slovene dialects |
| Differences between standard Croatian / Serbian / Bosnian |
|
Deprecated or non-ISO
Serbo-Croatian · Bunjevacrecognized languages Montenegrin · Šokac |
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| Church Slavonic (Old) |
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| Macedonian Dialects Aegean Macedonian Spoken Macedonian Standard Macedonian |
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| Eastern-Central Torlak dialects · Našinski |
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| Alphabets |
| Modern Gaj's Latin1 · Serbian Cyrillic Macedonian Cyrillic Bulgarian Cyrillic Slovene |
| Historical Bohoričica · Dajnčica · Metelčica Arebica · Bosnian Cyrillic Glagolitic · Early Cyrillic |
| 1 Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet. |
Bosnian (bosanski jezik 
[ˈbɔsanskiː] (help·info)), sometimes referred as Bosniak/Bosniac language23 4, is a South Slavic language native to the Bosniak people and all other citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who consider it to be their mother tongue. The language is notably spoken in the areas of Bosnia, the Bosniak-dominated region of Sandžak (in Serbia and Montenegro) and elsewhere. It is one of the standard versions of the Central-South Slavic diasystem which covers the region that was once known as Serbo-Croat from the 19th century until the early 1990s. The standard Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian languages are all mutually intelligible.
The Bosnian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet is accepted (chiefly to accommodate for its usage in Bosnia in the past, especially in former Yugoslavia), but seldom used in today's practice. The name Bosnian language is the commonly accepted name among Bosniak linguists, and the name used by the ISO-639 standard.
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Controversy
The name for the language is a controversial issue for neighboring Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs call their languages Croatian and Serbian. The constitution of the Republika Srpska, where the language is also official, refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks" ("Jezik kojim govore Bošnjaci"). The use of the language will remain an issue as the three peoples of Bosnia and Hercegovina will continue to call the spoken language that which identifies their ethnic background. Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) choose the language Bosnian, Serbs continue call their language Serbian, and Croats call the language Croatian. The constitutions of RS and FBIH recognize all three languages, it is the people that refuse to settle on a name for what is overall the same language.
Bosniak language (bošnjački jezik) is the prescribed name of the language in Serbian5, but the Serbian Ministry of Education recognizes it as Bosnian. 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. 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, as the situation in Serbia and Croatia was very anti-Bosniak in the light of Bosnian War.
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."6
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.
No Croatian and Serbian linguistic authorities had been contacted when this issue was settledcitation needed. According to Croatian participant Radoslav Dodig, the renaming of "Bosniak" into "Bosnian" was not a process, but a semi-hidden manoeuvre.7
Although the Bosnian language is spoken mostly by Bosniaks, 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.
Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian standard languages are examples of ausbauspraches, since they are largely mutually intelligible and have been, due to the conjunction of historical circumstances, all codified on essentially the same dialect, and many people say that they are all one entity otherwise known as Serbo-Croatian.
Phonology
Vowels
The Bosnian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:
| Latin script | Cyrillic script | IPA | Description | English approximation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i | и | [i] | front closed unrounded | seek |
| e | е | [ɛ] | front half open unrounded | ten |
| a | а | [a] | central open unrounded | father |
| o | о | [ɔ] | back half open rounded | tote |
| u | у | [u] | back closed rounded | boom |
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 consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants — a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.
R can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel 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", 'l' is syllabic) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.
Differences among similar languages
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (December 2008) |
In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants — a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.
R can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel 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", 'l' is syllabic) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.
External links
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The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links. |
- rjecnik.ba English-Bosnian, German-Bosnian and Latin-Bosnian On-line Dictionary (Bosnian)/(English)/(German)
- Ethnologue report for Bosnian (English)
- Bosnian language (Bosnian)/(English)
- Learn Bosnian language: Basic phrases (English)
- The Oslo Corpus of Bosnian Texts (English)
- Grammar of Bosnian language issued 1890 (Bosnian)
- English-Bosnian-English On-line Dictionary
- Bosnian bilingual dictionaries
- A short English-Bosnian-Japanese phrasebook (Renewal) incl. sound file
References
- ^ http://www.communicaid.com/language-courses/bosnian/index.php
- ^ http://www.ohr.int/print/?content_id=5907
- ^ http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Bosnian:language.htm
- ^ http://www.birn.eu.com/en/100/10/3895/
- ^ Board for Standardisation of Serbian Language (February 16 1998). "1". Три питања и три одговора. Decision No. 1. http://www.rastko.org.yu/filologija/odbor/odluka001_c.html.
- ^ http://www.pravda.vlada.cg.yu/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
- ^ Sanoptikum
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