| *gvězda |
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{{South Slavic languages sidebar}}
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languagesThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (WestThe West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, Kashubian and Sorbian.Classification:* Indo-European** Balto-Slavic*** Slavic**** West Slavic***** Czech-Slovak languages****** Czech...
and EastThe East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. It is the group with the largest numbers of speakers, far out-numbering the Western and Southern Slavic groups. Current East Slavic languages are Belarusian, Russian,...
) by a belt of GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written (the first Slavic language) was the dialect spoken in Thessalonica, now called Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
, in the ninth century AD. It is retained as a liturgical language in some South Slavic OrthodoxThe Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions.
Classification
The South Slavic languages constitute a dialect continuumA dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
. Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin constitute a single dialect within this continuum.
- Eastern Section
- Macedonian
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
– (ISO 639-1 code: mk; ISO 639-2(B) code: mac; ISO 639-2(T) code: mkd; SIL code: mkd; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-ha)
- Bulgarian
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
– (ISO 639-1 code: bg; ISO 639-2 code: bul; SIL code: bul; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-hb)
- Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
(extinct) – (ISO 639-1 code: cu; ISO 639-2 code: chu; SIL code: chu; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-a)
- Western Section
- Slovene (ISO 639-1 code: sl; ISO 639-2 code: slv; SIL code: slv; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-f)
-
- Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
(ISO 639-1 code: sh; ISO 639-2/3 code: hsb; SIL code: scr; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-g).
There are four national standard languageA standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
s based on the Shtokavian dialectShtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
of Serbo-Croatian:
- Serbian
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
(ISO 639-1 code: sr; ISO 639-2/3 code: srp; SIL code: srp)
- Croatian
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
(ISO 639-1 code: hr; ISO 639-2/3 code: hrv; SIL code: hrv)
- Bosnian
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
(ISO 639-1 code: bs; ISO 639-2/3 code: bos; SIL code: bos)
- Montenegrin
Montenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...
(not completely standardized, but official in MontenegroMontenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, with published standard orthography)
- Bunjevac
The Bunjevac dialect or Bunjevac language is a Štokavian dialect used by members of the Bunjevci community. The speakers live in parts of the autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia as well as in southern parts of Croatia. The speech has an exclusive Serbo-Croatian Ikavian reflex of the Common...
(used in some media in Serbia)
Linguistic prehistory
The Slavic languagesThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
are part of the Balto-Slavic group, which belongs to the Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
language family. The South Slavic languages have been considered a genetic nodeComparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
in Slavic studies: defined by a set of phonological, morphological and lexical innovations (isoglosses) which separate it from the Western and Eastern Slavic groups. That view, however, has been challenged in recent decades (see below).
Some innovations encompassing all South Slavic languages are shared with the Eastern Slavic group, but not the Western Slavic. These include:
- Consistent application of Slavic second palatalization
Slavic second palatalization is a Proto-Slavic sound change, that manifested as a regressive palatalization of inherited Balto-Slavic velars and velar fricative, chronologically occurring after the first and the third palatalization.-Motivation:...
before Proto-Slavic */v/
- Loss of */d/ and */t/ before Proto-Slavic */l/
- Merger of Proto-Slavic */ś/ (resulting from the second and third palatalization) with */s/
This is illustrated in the following table:
|
South Slavic |
West Slavic |
East Slavic |
Late Proto-SlavicProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
reconstruction |
Late Proto-SlavicProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
meaning |
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
|
Slovenian |
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
|
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
|
MacedonianMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
|
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
|
SlovakSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
|
Polish Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
|
Belarusian The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
|
RussianRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
|
UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
|
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{{pp-semi|small=yes}}
{{South Slavic languages sidebar}}
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languagesThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (WestThe West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, Kashubian and Sorbian.Classification:* Indo-European** Balto-Slavic*** Slavic**** West Slavic***** Czech-Slovak languages****** Czech...
and EastThe East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. It is the group with the largest numbers of speakers, far out-numbering the Western and Southern Slavic groups. Current East Slavic languages are Belarusian, Russian,...
) by a belt of GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written (the first Slavic language) was the dialect spoken in Thessalonica, now called Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
, in the ninth century AD. It is retained as a liturgical language in some South Slavic OrthodoxThe Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions.
Classification
The South Slavic languages constitute a dialect continuumA dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
. Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin constitute a single dialect within this continuum.
- Eastern Section
- Macedonian
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
– (ISO 639-1 code: mk; ISO 639-2(B) code: mac; ISO 639-2(T) code: mkd; SIL code: mkd; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-ha)
- Bulgarian
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
– (ISO 639-1 code: bg; ISO 639-2 code: bul; SIL code: bul; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-hb)
- Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
(extinct) – (ISO 639-1 code: cu; ISO 639-2 code: chu; SIL code: chu; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-a)
- Western Section
- Slovene (ISO 639-1 code: sl; ISO 639-2 code: slv; SIL code: slv; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-f)
-
- Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
(ISO 639-1 code: sh; ISO 639-2/3 code: hsb; SIL code: scr; Linguasphere: 53-AAA-g).
There are four national standard languageA standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
s based on the Shtokavian dialectShtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
of Serbo-Croatian:
- Serbian
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
(ISO 639-1 code: sr; ISO 639-2/3 code: srp; SIL code: srp)
- Croatian
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
(ISO 639-1 code: hr; ISO 639-2/3 code: hrv; SIL code: hrv)
- Bosnian
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
(ISO 639-1 code: bs; ISO 639-2/3 code: bos; SIL code: bos)
- Montenegrin
Montenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...
(not completely standardized, but official in MontenegroMontenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, with published standard orthography)
- Bunjevac
The Bunjevac dialect or Bunjevac language is a Štokavian dialect used by members of the Bunjevci community. The speakers live in parts of the autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia as well as in southern parts of Croatia. The speech has an exclusive Serbo-Croatian Ikavian reflex of the Common...
(used in some media in Serbia)
Linguistic prehistory
The Slavic languagesThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
are part of the Balto-Slavic group, which belongs to the Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
language family. The South Slavic languages have been considered a genetic nodeComparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
in Slavic studies: defined by a set of phonological, morphological and lexical innovations (isoglosses) which separate it from the Western and Eastern Slavic groups. That view, however, has been challenged in recent decades (see below).
Some innovations encompassing all South Slavic languages are shared with the Eastern Slavic group, but not the Western Slavic. These include:
- Consistent application of Slavic second palatalization
Slavic second palatalization is a Proto-Slavic sound change, that manifested as a regressive palatalization of inherited Balto-Slavic velars and velar fricative, chronologically occurring after the first and the third palatalization.-Motivation:...
before Proto-Slavic */v/
- Loss of */d/ and */t/ before Proto-Slavic */l/
- Merger of Proto-Slavic */ś/ (resulting from the second and third palatalization) with */s/
This is illustrated in the following table:
|
South Slavic |
West Slavic |
East Slavic |
Late Proto-SlavicProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
reconstruction |
Late Proto-SlavicProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
meaning |
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
|
Slovenian |
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
|
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
|
MacedonianMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
|
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
|
SlovakSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
|
Polish Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
|
Belarusian The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
|
RussianRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
|
UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
|
| *gvězda |
star |
{{unicode |
zvezda |
zvijezda
звијезда |
звезда |
ѕвезда |
hvězda |
hviezda |
gwiazda |
– |
звезда |
звізда |
| *květъ |
flower, bloom |
{{unicode |
cvet |
cvijet
цвијет |
цвете |
цвет |
květ |
kvet |
kwiat |
кветка |
цвет |
квітка |
| *ordlo |
plough |
{{unicode |
ralo |
ralo,
рало |
рало |
рало |
rádlo |
radlo |
radło |
рало |
рало |
рало |
Several isoglossAn isogloss—also called a heterogloss —is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature...
es have been identified which are thought to represent exclusive common innovations in the South Slavic language group. They are prevalently phonologicalPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
in character, whereas morphologicalIn linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and syntacticalIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
isoglosses are much fewer in number.{{harvcoltxt|Sussex|Cubberly|2006|pp=43–44}} list the following phonological isoglosses:
- Merger of yers into schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
-like sound, which became /a/ in Serbo-Croatian, or split according to the retained hard/soft quality of the preceding consonant into /o e/ (Macedonian), or /ə e/ (Bulgarian)
- Proto-Slavic */ę/ > /e/
- Proto-Slavic */y/ > /i/, merging with the reflex of Proto-Slavic */i/
- Proto-Slavic syllabic liquids } and } were retained, but } was subsequently lost in all the daughter languages with different outputs (> /u/ in Serbo-Croatian, > vowel+{{unicode|/l̥/}} or {{unicode|/l̥/}}+vowel in Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian), and } became [ər/rə] in Bulgarian. This development was identical to the loss of yer after a liquid consonant.
- Hardening of palatals and dental affricates; e.g. š' > š, č' > č, c' > c.
- Proto-Slavic */tl/, */dl/ > /l/
- South Slavic form of liquid metathesis (CoRC > CRaC, CoLC > CLaC etc.)
Most of these are not exclusive in character, however, and are shared with some languages of the Eastern and Western Slavic language groups (in particular, Central Slovakian dialects). On that basis, {{harvcoltxt|Matasović|2008}} argues that South Slavic exists strictly as a geographical grouping, not forming a true genetic cladeA clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...
; in other words, there was never a proto-South Slavic language or a period in which all South Slavic dialects exhibited an exclusive set of extensive phonological, morphological or lexical changes (isoglosses) peculiar to them. Furthermore, Matasovć argues, there was never a period of cultural or political unity in which Proto-South-Slavic could have existed during which Common South Slavic innovations could have occurred. Several South-Slavic-only lexical and morphological patterns which have been proposed have been postulated to represent common Slavic archaismIn language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
s, or are shared with some Slovakian or Ukrainian dialects.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}}
The South Slavic dialects form a dialectal continuum stretching from today's southern AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
to southeast BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
. On the level of dialectologyDialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features...
, they are divided into Western South Slavic (Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian dialects) and Eastern South Slavic (Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects); these represent separate migrations into the Balkans and were once separated by intervening Hungarian, Romanian, and Albanian populations; as these populations were assimilated, Eastern and Western South Slavic fused with TorlakianTorlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
as a transitional dialect{{citation needed|date=December 2010}}. On the other hand, national liberation from the OttomanThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and Austro-Hungarian Empires, followed by formation of nation-states in the 19th and 20th centuries, led to the development and codification of national standard languageA standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
s. This process largely ended by the end of 20th century after the breakup of Yugoslavia, with only the MontenegrinMontenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...
issue left to be resolved. Three of these standards (Slovenian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian) are based on distinct dialects; the other three (Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian) are based on a single dialect, the result of a language unification projectVienna Literary Agreement is a designation of a meeting held in March 1850, when writers from Croatia, Serbia and one from Slovenia met to discuss the extent to which their literatures could be conjoined and united.-Historical context:...
during the 1850s. Thus, in most cases national and ethnic borders do not coincide with dialectal boundaries.
Note: Due to the differing political status of languages/dialects and different historical contexts, the classifications are arbitrary to some degree.
Dialectal classification
- South Slavic languages
- Eastern
- Bulgarian
Bulgarian dialects are the regional spoken varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, Bolgarska gramatika...
and Macedonian dialects (Standard BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, Standard MacedonianMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
)
- Transitional
- Torlakian dialect
Torlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
- Prizren-South Morava subdialect (Ekavian): Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia
- Svrljig-Zaplanje subdialect (Ekavian): Serbia
- Timok-Lužica subdialect (Ekavian): Serbia and Bulgaria
- Belogradčik subdialect (Ekavian): Bulgaria
- Western
- Štokavian dialect
Shtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
- Šumadija-Vojvodina subdialect (Ekavian): Serbia
- Kosovo-Resava subdialect (Ekavian): Serbia and Kosovo
- Smederevo-Vršac lect (Kosovo-Resava) (Ekavian): Serbia
- Zeta-Sandžak subdialect: Montenegro (Podgorica
Podgorica , is the capital and largest city of Montenegro.Podgorica's favourable position at the confluence of the Ribnica and Morača rivers and the meeting point of the fertile Zeta Plain and Bjelopavlići Valley has encouraged settlement...
) and Serbia
- Herzegovina subdialect: Bosnia and Herzegovina (Goražde
Goražde , is a city and municipality in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Drina river. It is located between Foča, Sokolac and Višegrad, and is administratively part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the center of the Bosnian Podrinje Canton.-Location:Goražde is situated on the...
), Serbia (UžiceUžice is a city and municipality in western Serbia, located at the banks of the Đetinja river. It is the administrative center of the Zlatibor District...
), Montenegro, and Croatia (DubrovnikDubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
) (Standard Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian)
- Ijekavian subdialect (East Bosnian): Croatia (Hrvatska Kostajnica
Hrvatska Kostajnica, often just Kostajnica, is a small town in central Croatia. It is located on the Una river in the Sisak-Moslavina county, south of Petrinja and Sisak and across the river from Bosanska Kostajnica in Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...
) and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina (KiseljakKiseljak is a small town and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, located northwest of Sarajevo and south of Zenica. Kiseljak lies in the valley of the rivers Fojnica , Lepenica and Kreševka, which are a tributary of the Bosna, and it is on the intersection of roads from Visoko, Fojnica,...
), Bosnijak TuzlaTuzla is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the time of the 1991 census, it had 83,770 inhabitants, while the municipality 131,318. Taking the influx of refugees into account, the city is currently estimated to have 174,558 inhabitants...
- Ikavian subdialect: Croatia (Sinj
Sinj is a town in the continental part of Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. The town itself has a population of 11,448, while the population of the administrative municipality which includes surrounding villages is 24,832 ....
) and Croats in TomislavgradTomislavgrad is a town and municipality in southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is in the Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Herzegovina region.- Name :...
(Bosnia and Herzegovina)
- Bunjevac dialect: Bunjevci and Croats in Subotica
Subotica is a city and municipality in northern Serbia, in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina...
(Serbia)
- Slavonia dialect (Slavonski Brod
Slavonski Brod is a city in Croatia, with a population of 59,507 in 2011. The city was known as Marsonia in the Roman Empire, and as Brod na Savi 1244–1934. It is the sixth largest city in Croatia, after Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek and Zadar. Located in the region of Slavonia, it is the...
)
- Burgenland Croatian: Croats in southern Austria and Hungary
- Molise Croatian dialect
Molise Croatian dialect is a Croatian dialect spoken in the province of Campobasso, in the Molise Region of southern Italy, in the villages of Montemitro , Acquaviva Collecroce and San Felice del Molise...
: Croats in Italy
- Caraşova dialect
The Krashovani are a South Slavic people indigenous to Caraşova and other nearby locations in...
: Croats in Romania
- Čakavian dialect
Chakavian or Čakavian is a dialect of the Croatian language. The name stems from the word for "what?", which is "ča" in Čakavian...
- Burgenland Croatian: Austria and Hungary
- Buzet subdialect: Croatia
- Western Čakavian subdialect: Croatia
- Southwestern Istrian subdialect: Croatia
- Northern Čakavian subdialect: Croatia
- Southern Čakavian subdialect: Croatia
- Lastovo subdialect: Croatia
- Kajkavian dialect
The Kajkavian dialect is one of the three main dialects of Croatian. It has low mutual intelligibility with the other two dialects, Štokavian and Čakavian. All three are named after their word for "what?", which in Kajkavian is kaj....
- Zagorje-Međimurje subdialect: Croatia
- Križevci-Podravina subdialect: Croatia
- Turopolje-Posavina subdialect: Croatia
- Prigorski subdialect: Croatia
- Donja Sutla subdialect: Croatia
- Goranski subdialect: Croatia
- Littoral Slovene: Primorsko; west Slovenia and Adriatic
- Rovte Slovene: Rovtarsko; between Littoral and Carniolan
- Upper and Lower Carniolan: Gorenjsko and Dolenjsko; central; basis of Standard Slovenian
Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
- Styrian: Štajersko; eastern Slovenia
- Pannonian or Prekmurian: Panonsko; far eastern Slovenia
- Carinthian: Koroško; far north and northwest Slovenia
- Resian
The Resian dialect is a distinct dialect of Slovene spoken in the Resia Valley, Province of Udine, Italy, close to the border with Slovenia...
:Rozajansko; Italy, west of Carinthian
Bulgarian dialects
- Eastern Bulgarian dialects
- Western Bulgarian dialects (includes Torlakian dialect
Torlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
)
{{Main|Bulgarian language}}
{{See also|Bulgarian dialects|Banat Bulgarians#Language}}
Macedonian dialects
- Southeast Macedonian dialects
- North Macedonian (Torlakian dialect
Torlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
)
{{Main|Macedonian language}}
{{see also|Dialects of Macedonian language}}
Torlakian dialect
{{Main|Torlakian dialect}}
Another dialect, Torlakian (torlački), is spoken in southern and eastern SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, northern MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and western BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
; it is considered transitional between the Central and Eastern groups of South Slavic languages. Torlakian is thought to fit into the Balkan sprachbund, an area of linguistic convergenceLanguage convergence is a type of contact-induced change whereby languages with many bilingual speakers mutually borrow morphological and syntactic features, making their typology more similar....
caused by long-term contact rather than genetic relation.
History
Each of these primary and secondary dialectal units breaks down into subdialects and accentological isoglosses by region. In the past (and currently, in isolated areas), it was not uncommon for individual villages to have their own words and phrases. However, during the 20th century the local dialects have been influenced by Štokavian standards through mass media and public education and much "local speech" has been lost (primarily in areas with larger populations). With the breakup of Yugoslavia, a rise in national awareness has caused individuals to modify their speech according to newly-established standard-language guidelines. The wars have caused large migrations, changing the ethnic (and dialectal) picture of some areas—especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in central Croatia and Serbia (Vojvodina in particular). In some areas, it is unclear whether location or ethnicity is the dominant factor in the dialect of the speaker. Because of this 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 this language group.
{{anchor|Dialect to language name mapping}}Relationships among languages and dialects
The table below illustrates relationships among the languages and dialects of the western group of South Slavic languages:
| Dialect | Sub-Dialect | BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
| MacedonianMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
| SerbianSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
| MontenegrinMontenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...
| Bosnian Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
| CroatianCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
| Slovene |
| Torlakian Torlakian or Torlak is a name given to the group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia , northeastern Macedonia , western Bulgaria , which is intermediate between Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian.Some linguists classify it as an Old-Shtokavian dialect of Serbian or a fourth dialect of...
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| Štokavian Shtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
|
KosovoKosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
–ResavaResava refers to several toponyms and related topics, all of them located around the river Resava in central Serbia:* Resava , a river* Resava, a region, surrounding the river* Resava, a monastery...
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| Šumadija Šumadija is a geographical region in Serbia. The area is heavily covered with forests, hence the name...
–VojvodinaVojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
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x |
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| Zeta -Science:* Zeta functions, in mathematics** Riemann zeta function* Zeta potential, the electrokinetic potential of a colloidal system* Tropical Storm Zeta , formed in December 2005 and lasting through January 2006* Z-pinch, in fusion power...
-South SandžakSandžak also known as Raška is a historical region lying along the border between Serbia and Montenegro...
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Eastern HerzgovinianHerzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...
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Eastern BosnianBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
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| Western Ikavian |
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SlavoniaSlavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia...
n |
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| Čakavian Chakavian or Čakavian is a dialect of the Croatian language. The name stems from the word for "what?", which is "ča" in Čakavian...
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KajkavianThe Kajkavian dialect is one of the three main dialects of Croatian. It has low mutual intelligibility with the other two dialects, Štokavian and Čakavian. All three are named after their word for "what?", which in Kajkavian is kaj....
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x |
{{anchor|Štokavian dialects}}Štokavian dialect
{{main|Štokavian dialect}}
The eastern Herzegovinian dialect is the basis of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian.
Molise Croatian
{{Main|Molise Croatian dialect}}
The Molise CroatianMolise Croatian dialect is a Croatian dialect spoken in the province of Campobasso, in the Molise Region of southern Italy, in the villages of Montemitro , Acquaviva Collecroce and San Felice del Molise...
(or Molise Slavic) dialect is spoken in three villages of the Italian region of MoliseMolise is a region of Southern Italy, the second smallest of the regions. It was formerly part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise and now a separate entity...
by the descendants of South Slavs who migrated from the eastern Adriatic coast during the 15th century. Because this group left the rest of their people so long ago, their diaspora languageThe term diaspora language, coined in the 1980s, is a sociolinguistic idea referring to a variety of language spoken in a place of migration. For example, the great number of Hindi speakers in the United Kingdom has produced a strain of the language unlike that spoken on the Indian subcontinent...
is distinct from the standard language and influenced by ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. However, their dialect retains archaic features lost by all other Štokavian dialects after the 15th century, making it a useful research tool.
Čakavian dialects
{{Main|Chakavian dialect}}
Chakavian (Čakavian) is spoken in the western, central, and southern parts of Croatia—mainly in IstriaIstria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
, the Kvarner Gulf, DalmatiaDalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
and inland Croatia (Gacka and Pokupje, for example). Čakavian renders proto-Slavic yatYat or Jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. Its name in Old Church Slavonic is jěd’ or iad’ . In the common scientific Latin transliteration for old Slavic languages, the letter is represented by e with caron: .The yat represented a Common Slavic long vowel...
as i or sometimes e (rarely as (i)je), or mixed (Ekavian-Ikavian). Many dialects of Čakavian preserved significant number of DalmatianDalmatian was a Romance language spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. The name refers to a pre-Roman tribe of the Illyrian linguistic group, Dalmatae...
words, but also have many loanwords from VenetianVenetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
, ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and other Mediterranean languages.
Example: Ča je, je, tako je vavik bilo, ča će bit, će bit, a nekako će već bit!
Burgenland Croatian
This dialect is spoken primarily in the federal state of BurgenlandBurgenland is the easternmost and least populous state or Land of Austria. It consists of two Statutarstädte and seven districts with in total 171 municipalities. It is 166 km long from north to south but much narrower from west to east...
in Austria and nearby areas in Vienna, SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, and Hungary by descendants of Croats who migrated there during the 16th century. This dialect (or family of dialects) differs from standard Croatian, since it has been heavily influenced by German and Hungarian. It has properties of all three major dialectal groups in Croatia, since the migrants did not all come from the same area. The linguistic standard is based on a Čakavian dialect, and (like all Čakavian dialects) is characterized by very conservative grammatical structures: for example, it preserves case endings lost in the Štokavian base of standard Croatian. At most, 100,000 people speak Burgenland Croatian and almost all are bilingual in German. Its future is uncertain, but there is 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.
{{anchor|Kajkavian dialects}}Kajkavian dialect
{{Main|Kajkavian dialect}}
Kajkavian is mostly spoken in northern and northwest Croatia, including one-third{{Dubious|date=April 2010}} of the country near the Hungarian and Slovenian borders—chiefly around the towns of ZagrebZagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Varaždin, Čakovec, Koprivnica, Petrinja, Delnice and so on. It renders yatYat or Jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. Its name in Old Church Slavonic is jěd’ or iad’ . In the common scientific Latin transliteration for old Slavic languages, the letter is represented by e with caron: .The yat represented a Common Slavic long vowel...
primarily as /e/ (rarely as diphthongal i.e.). This pronunciation differs from that of the Ekavian dialects; many Kajkavian dialects distinguish a closed e—nearly ae (from yat)—and an open e (from the original e). It lacks several palatals (ć, lj, nj, dž) found in the Shtokavian dialect, and has some loanwords from the nearby Slovene dialects and GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
(chiefly in towns).
Example: Kak je, tak je; tak je navek bilo, kak bu tak bu, a bu vre nekak kak bu!
Eastern-Western division
In broad terms, the Eastern dialects of South Slavic (Bulgarian and Macedonian) differ most from the Western dialects in the following ways:
- The Eastern dialects have almost completely lost their noun declensions, and have become entirely analytic
An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme...
.
- The Eastern dialects have developed definite-article suffixes similar to the other languages in the Balkan Sprachbund.
- The Eastern dialects have lost the infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
; thus, the first-person singular is considered the main part of a verb. Sentences which would require an infinitive in other languages are constructed through a clause (in Bulgarian, искам да ходя (iskam da hodya), "I want to go" (literally, "I want that I go").
Apart from these three main areas there are several smaller, significant differences:
- The Western dialects have three genders in both singular and plural (Slovenian has dual—see below), while the Eastern dialects only have them in the singular—for example, Serbian on (he), ona (she), ono (it), oni (they, masc), one (they, fem), ona (they, neut); the Bulgarian te (they) covers the entire plural.
- Inheriting a generalization of another demonstrative as a base form for the third-person pronoun which already occurred in late proto-Slavic, standard literary Bulgarian (like Old Church Slavonic) does not use the Slavic "on-/ov-" as base forms like on, ona, ono, oni (he, she, it, they), and ovaj, ovde (this, here), but uses "to-/t-"based pronouns like toy, tya, to, te, and tozi, tuk (it only retains onzi – "that" and its derivatives). Western Bulgarian dialects and Macedonian have "ov-/on-" pronouns, and sometimes use them interchangeably.
- All dialects of Serbo-Croatian contain the concept of "any" – e.g. Serbian neko "someone"; niko "no one"; iko "anyone". All others lack the last, and make do with some- or no- constructions instead.
{{anchor|Division within Western dialects}}Divisions within Western dialects
- While Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian Shtokavian dialects have basically the same grammar, its usage is very diverse. While all three languages are relatively highly inflected, the further east one goes the more likely it is that analytic
An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme...
forms are used – if not spoken, at least in the written language. A very basic example is:
- Croatian – hoću ići – "I want – to go"
- Serbian – hoću da idem – "I want – that – I go"
- Slovenian has retained the proto-Slavic dual number (which means that it has nine personal pronouns in the third person) for both nouns and verbs. For example:
- nouns: volk (wolf) → volkova (two wolves) → volkovi (some wolves)
- verbs: hodim (I walk) → hodiva (the two of us walk) → hodimo (we walk)
{{anchor|Division within Eastern dialects}}Divisions within Eastern dialects
- In Macedonian, the perfect is largely based on the verb "to have" (as in other Balkan languages like Greek and Albanian, and in English), as opposed to the verb "to be", which is used as the auxiliary in all other Slavic languages (see also Macedonian verbs):
- Macedonian – imam videno – I have seen (imam – "to have")
- Bulgarian – vidyal sum – I have seen (sum – "to be")
Writing systems
Languages to the west of Serbia use the Roman alphabet, while those to the east and south use Cyrillic. Serbian officially uses the Cyrillic script, though commonly it is the Roman alphabet which is in greater use. Most newspapers are written in Cyrillic, while most magazines are 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, writing as part of a television programme is usually in Cyrillic, while advertisements are usually in Roman script. The division is 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 The Bosnian languageBosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, used by the MuslimIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
BosniaksThe Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
, also uses the Roman script. The Glagolitic alphabetThe Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
was also used in the Middle Ages (most notably in Bulgaria and Croatia), but gradually disappeared.
External links
{{Slavic languages}}
{{commons category|South Slavic languages}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:South Slavic Languages}}
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