Bunjevac dialect



The Bunjevac dialect (bunjevački dijalekt), also known as Bunjevac speech (bunjevački govor), is a Neo-Shtokavian Younger Ikavian dialect of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language, preserved among members of the Bunjevac community mostly in the Bačka area of northern Serbia and southern Hungary (Bács-Kiskun County), particularly in Baja and surroundings. It is also found in Croatia (e.g. Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Lika-Senj County, Slavonia, Split-Dalmatia County, Vukovar-Srijem County), and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They presumably originate from western Herzegovina. Their accent is purely Ikavian, with /i/ for the Common Slavic vowels yat.

Bunjevac dialect has been included in the list of official public administrative languages of the Subotica Municipality in Serbia since 2021. And Croatia added in 2021 the Bunjevac dialect to the list of protected intangible cultural heritage. Within the Bunjevac community and between Serbia and Croatia is for several decades an ongoing language battle about the status of Bunjevac speech.

Dictionary
There have been three meritorious people who preserved the Bunjevac dialect in two separate dictionaries: Grgo Bačlija and Marko Peić with "Rečnik bački Bunjevaca" (editions 1990, 2018), and Ante Sekulić with "Rječnik govora bačkih Hrvata" (2005).


 * "Bunjevac dialect of the hinterland of Senje with special consideiration of emphasis." Grga Tomljenović. Croatia. 1984
 * Bunjevac phrases and proverbs in Gara, Hungary. "Bunjevačke fraze i poslovice u Gari". Tomislav Krekić. 2016
 * Bunjevac speech in Tavankut, Serbia. "Govor Tavankuta". Mirjana Crnković. 2015
 * "Leksikonu podunavskih Hrvata – Bunjevaca i Šokaca (1-16)". Hrvatsko akademsko društvo Subotica. 2024
 * "Objavljen 16. svezak Leksikona. 2023." Slaven Bačić, Mario Bara, Ladislav Heka, Eduard Hemar, Stevan Mačković, Petar Vuković

Number of speakers
According to the census of 2022 in the Republic of Serbia, 3319 people declared that Bunjevac is their mother tongue. The Republic of Serbia mentions here Bunjevac dialect as Bunjevac language. This has created a special situation that contradicts the official position, of both the Serbian government and Matica Srpska, that classified Bunjevac speech as a dialect.


 * Мother tongue, religion and ethnic affiliation, 2022, Serbia

According to the 2011 census in Serbia, 6,835 people declared Bunjevac dialect as their mother tongue (bunjevački maternji jezik) and it was listed independently.

In the 2002 census results published by the Statistical Office of Serbia, Bunjevac speech was not listed among main languages spoken in Serbia, but those that declared that their language is Bunjevac were listed in category "other languages". For example, in the municipality of Subotica, the number of those listed as speaking "other languages" (presumably Bunjevac) was 8,914.

Status
Opinions on the status of the Bunjevac dialect remain divided. Bunjevac speech is considered a dialect or vernacular of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language, by linguists, and part of the southern Slavic dialect continuum. It is noted by Andrew Hodges that it is mutually intelligible with the standard Serbian and Croatian varieties. Popularly, the Bunjevac dialect is often referred to as "Bunjevac language" (bunjevački jezik) or Bunjevac mother tongue (bunjevački materni jezik). At the political level, depending on goal and content of the political lobby, the general confusion concerning the definition of the terms language, dialect, speech, mother tongue, is cleverly exploited, resulting in an inconsistent use of the terms.

In the old Austro-Hungarian censuses (for example one from 1910), Bunjevac was declared as a native language of numerous citizens (for example in the city of Subotica 33,247 people declared Bunjevac as their native language in 1910). During the existence of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, members of the Bunjevac ethnic community mostly declared themselves as speaking Serbo-Croatian.

According to the 2002 census in Serbia, some members of the Bunjevac community declared that their native language to be Serbian or Croatian. This does not mean that they do not use this specific dialect, but merely that they do not consider it sufficiently distinct from the aforementioned standard languages to register as speakers of a separate language. However, those Bunjevci who declared Bunjevac to be their native language consider it a separate language.

The dialect, of the in Serbia residating Danubian Bunjevci, was standardised in the Republic of Serbia in 2018 and officially approved as a standard dialect by the Ministry of Education for teaching in schools. With the standardisation of the Bunjevac dialect, activists and members of the Bunjevac National Council are striving for language secession, with the political aim that the Bunjevac dialect will gain in Serbia the political-linguistic status of independent language. Theodora Vuković has provided, in 2009, the scientific methodology for the finalization of the standardisation process of the Bunjevac dialect corpus in Serbia, classified as the Serbian Bunjevac dialect variety of the Danubian branch of the Neo-Shtokavian Younger Ikavian dialect. Speakers use in general the standardised dialect variety for writing and conversation in formal situations.

There is an ongoing wish among the members of the Bunjevac community for affirmation of their dialect in Croatia, Hungary, and in Serbia. The Bunjevac National Council has the following projects in Bunjevac dialect in Serbia: Montley newspaper "Bunjevačke novine", TV programme "Spektar" (broadcaststed by Radio Television of Vojvodina), and a language school program for Bunjevac dialect and culture "bunjevački govor s elementima nacionalne kulture". The Croat National Council in Subotica is organizing the yearly Bunjevac Song Contest "Festival bunjevački' pisama"

On March 4, 2021, the municipal council in Subotica has voted in favor of amending the city statute adding Bunjevac dialect to the list of official public administrative languages in the municipality, in addition to Serbian, Hungarian, and Croatian. Scholars from Serbia and Croatia confirm the linguistic dialect status of the Bunjevac speech.

The Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics launched a proposal, in March 2021, to the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, to add Bunjevac dialect to the List of Protected Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Croatia and was approved on 8 October 2021 — the three Bunjevac dialect branches are categorised by Croatia as New-Stockavian Ikavian dialects of the Stockavian dialect of the Croatian language.

The status of the Bunjevac dialect and the identity and nationality dispute of people calling themselves Bunjevac or Bunjevac-Croat, has been on the political agenda of stakeholders involved for decades, influencing bilateral cooperation between Croatia and Serbia, domestic political developments in Serbia  and Croatia, and the implementation of political decisions of the EU.

Organisations

 * Bunjevac Croatian Cultural and Educational Society in Serbia
 * Bunjevac Cultural Institute, "Bunyevác Kulturális Intézet" in Baja in Hungary
 * Bunjevac National Council in Serbia
 * Bunjevačka matica (under auspices of Bunjevac National Council)
 * Bunjevci, "Vrilo mudrosti" in Slavonski Brod in Croatia
 * Croat National Council in Serbia (Bunjevci, Coats, Šokci)
 * Croatian Cultural Centre "Bunjevačko kolo" for Croats, Bunjevci, and Sokci in Serbia
 * HKC Bunjevacko kolo
 * Ogranak Matice hrvatske u Subotici