Bosanski-Hrvatski-Srpski by G. Neweklowsky (review)

Abstract

Reviews Neweklowsky, G. (ed.). Bosanski-Hrvatski-Srpski. Wiener SlawistischerAlmanach , 57. Institut fur Slawistik der Universitat Wien, Vienna, 2003. 326 pp. Maps. Notes. Tables. Bibliographies.?40.00 (paperback). THESE conference proceedings comprise twenty-threepapersby Slavistsfrom Germany,Austria,Norway, Sweden, Russia,the USA and formerYugoslavia, all in the language commonly called Serbo-Croat,in Latinscriptsavefor four in Cyrillic, and all with summaries,most of them German, but three English. To call it Serbo-Croat, of course, begs the question, for most of the papers in their differentways examine the linguisticstatusand/or state of the language spoken in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has been even more linkedwith national identitysince Yugoslavia'sdemise. B. Brboricsetsthe scene in thefirstpaper, 'Standardlanguage andlanguage standard:currentretrospectives'(my Englishtranslationspassim),examining sociolinguisticproblems caused by symbolic break-upof the standardsinglelanguage community of Serbs (+ Montenegrins), Croats and, since I995, Bosniacs (Muslimsof Bosnia-Herzegovina). Three ethnic varietiesof a single (though not entirely homogenous) language became three national language standardsand three 'languages',with disagreementsabout its name -SerboCroat (ian),Croato-Serb(ian),Central South Slavonic, Neo-Stokavian and that of its 'new' third variety (the standard for Slav Muslims), Brboric preferring'Bosniac' (bosnjacki), to match the new ethnonym Bosniac/Bosniak (BosAnjak), ratherthan the confusing 'Bosnian' (bosanski). Any idea of a fourth variety, 'Montenegrin', he deprecates as needlessly compounding the confusion. These problems are further addressed by J. Juric-Kappel ('Bosnian or Bosniac?'), R. Katicic (After I990: break or continuity in the standard and literary-language usage of South Slavonic developed according to a NeoStokaviandialectmodel '), W. Lehfeldt('The stateof codificationof Bosnian'), B. Ostojic ('Montenegrinliterary-languageexpressionduringstandardization of Vuk'smodel of the literarylanguage and today'), L. Popovic ('FromSerboCroat to Serbian and Croat standard language: the Serbian and Croat version'), and M. Sipka ('The language of Bosniacs, Croats, Serbs and Montenegrins the problem of classification and designation of their idioms'). The last focuses particularlyon the terms Central South Slavonic and StandardNeo-Stokavian, aswell as use of Bosnianforthe ethnic standard language of the Bosniacs, concluding that none is an adequate substitutefor Serbo-Croat(ian) and advocating total depoliticization of this term, e.g. in Serbo-Croat studies (broader than Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian Muslim studies). 'The sociolinguistic status of orientalismsin Bosnian, Croat and Serbian' (H. Vajzovic) examines the issue of Turkisms in the language, a delicate subject, as is clear from R. Duric's conclusion to 'Dz. Jahic's Skolski rjecnik bosanskogjezika [Sarajevo, I999] and standardizationof the lexis in Bosnian at the general-communicationlevel': 'If the tendency of Croat language politics REVIEWS 937 is that "Turkisms be eliminated" (words of Ivo Pranjkovic from this symposium,Vienna 2002) or that "Turkismshave no place in a neutraltext in Croat" (Dalibor Brozovic at the same symposium), i.e. that some leading Croat and Serbian linguists (e.g. especially Branislav Brboric at the same symposium [...]) do not accept [... .] Bosnian (possibly indeed Bosniac and so-called Bosniac studies),then Jahic's dictionary is an original lexical battle for the Bosnian-Bosniaclanguage'srightto differ'(pp. 79-80). Most titlesspeakfor themselves:W. Browne's 'Differencesin word orderin relation to the clause:contiguous and distantposition of conjunction da2and the verb' (= da+ present, where many languages have infinitive or nonindicative verb forms); 'Geneticolinguistic and sociolinguistic criteria in systematizingSouth Slavonic idioms, with particularreference to Bosnia and Herzegovina' (D. Brozovic); 'Oikonym [settlement name] renaming in the territoryof Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia after I990' (D. Brozovic-Roncevic); 'On three "Central South Slavonic" grammars '(S. Gustavsson);'BurgenlandCroatin relationto StandardCroat'(A.Z. Kinda-Berlakovich);'Normative linguistics in Serbia today' (I. Klajn); 'The new standard languages in south-east Europe and language typology' (B. Kunzmann-Muller); 'Tradition and change in the South Slavonic languages ' (G. Neweklowsky); 'East Serbian dialects in relation to standard Serbian' (A. Plotnikova); 'About Gramatika bosanskoga jezika' [Zenica, 2000] (I.Pranjkovic);'Serbianat the startof the millennium:an inventoryof external and internal questions' (M. Radovanovic); 'The way to a standardlanguage for Serbs and Croats: similarities and differences' (S. Remetic); and 'The Bosnian standardlanguage and itsprosodic norm' (N. Valjevac). S. Monnesland's 'The "diasystem" concept' critically assesses Brozovic's trend-setting application of this term, in Standardni jezik (Zagreb, I970), to Croat, Serbian and Bosnian grammar in an apparently differentsense from usual. U. Weinreich, its coiner, used it for...