Language policy and identity: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Language policy is seen as a tool which supports state sovereignty: together with the rule of power and territorial integrity, laws are passed to protect national and minority languages, while professional communities codify languages and develop literary norms. However, despite the significant work of linguists, culturologists and sociologists, language problems often remain on the periphery of political science research, as well as ethnology and anthropology. The purpose of this article is to fill the existing disciplinary gap, and to consider the problem of the relationship between language and identity on the example of ?trilingualism? of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where language policy can be considered as a marker of identity. After the appropriate theoretical data, material collected through fieldwork will be presented, demonstrating which members of three nations - Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats - think about their own language and the relationship between language and identity. The phonetic principle of spelling ?write as you speak?, created more than two centuries ago as a means of integration, has become a tool of separation, making ordinary people feel threatened by each other, but still deeply aware that language is something that connects them.