Talk:Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian/Archive 2

NPOV tag
Seeing that all of the sources cited based in the area of influence of the languages in question are Croatian linguists, it's clear that the article as a whole carries a heavy skew with it. I propose that the statements made in the article be revised under the light of input from Serbian and Bosnian linguists. I'm adding a NPOV tag on my (insignificant) discretion. Thoughts? --Acachinero
 * I'd say that POV-check-section for the "outline" section would be a better choice. Personally, I don't think it's terribly POV, but it lacks a lot of context and has Actually, a far more comprehensive outline is at Serbo-Croatian. Probably that section (on opinions) should be incorporated there, and instead replaced with a statistic outline, preferrably from 3rd-party (i.e. not ex-Yu) sources. Some material of that kind can be found in Lucic or Greenberg or another Greenberg. Duja ► 08:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Pronouns - To što je rekao je laž (en. What he said was a lie)
The way I learned this in Serbian is that "što?" is essentially a short form of "zašto?" (en. why?). Therefore, example "To što je rekao je laž" (en. "What he said was a lie") does not indicate proper use of "što" in Serbian. A better example would have been "Što je to rekao?" (en. "Why did he say that?"). Am I missing something? I am not a linguist. --Aleksandar Šušnjar (talk) 02:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I am no expert on Serbian, but Croatian also has lots of totally nonsense counter-intuitive word formations. Admiral Norton (talk) 17:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * što is not derived from zašto, but vice versa, original sense probably being literal "for what [purpose]", hence the semasiological development to why. što can equally proper function as an adverb, pronoun, conjunction and interjection, unless some jezički savetnik mandates otherwise ;) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "I am no expert on Serbian, but Croatian also has lots of totally nonsense counter-intuitive word formations" -- i laughed my ass off on this comment.


 * This is true, take a look at the usual derivation morphology: u-stati, na-stati, po-stati, o-stati, za-stati, pri-stati, raz-stati etc. - most of them have no obvious semantic connection with the basic verb stati 'to stand'. Same is valid for numerous other languages though. Lots of what appears to be a counter-intuitive formation, is in fact a calque from a language where such formation makes a bit more sense (usually from Latin and German in case of Croatian). Old Church Slavonic, for example, has lots of calques from Ancient Greek, some of which have also dissipated into modern day South Slavic languages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * štambuk, i am not denying some exceptions or odd formations in serbian or in croatian language are present, i just think (non)explanation norton provided to us is simply ridiculous in "šta/što" case. please, there is no need to mix "što" and "stati" cases, to point out something that some of us (at least - i am) already aware. and... no, "stati" *might* stand for "to stand", "to stand" is just one of a few equally good translations of "stati", and depending on context it can be "to stop" [stati sa radom] or "to fit in" [riba je stala u lonac], and so on. there is semantic / contextual difference between all of those “stati” in both contemporary hr and sr, so there is more than a few ways to form more complex words from all of those "stati" in both modern language(s) in spite of morphology. should i mention that in both serbian and croatian (and, of course in bosnian as well), there is the same mechanism / way to form words in example you mentioned (i.e. stati, zastati, postati, pristati, rastati, ustati…)…? so, you see, "šta/što" cannot be explained with "stati". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.189.231.6 (talk) 17:36, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it might be "ridiculous" to you, but it certainly is not all that obvious how zašto came to mean 'why'. The meaning of "to stop" of stati is secondary ['standing' implies non-movement, so stani!, stoj! came to mean 'cease any kind of progressive, moving activity'; for ceasing of other types of activities prestati is usually used], as is evident from Indo-European cognates of the same root *steh₂- where in all the other Balto-Slavic and IE cognates it primarily means 'to stand'. When these derivations with stati formed in Proto-Slavic or historical Croatian, they certainly did not refer to 'to stop', 'to fit' or any of the other relatively "recent" semantically well-motivated senses ;)
 * The point is that, even if you learn the few general, denotative meanings of the prefixes/prepositions u, na, pri...it is completely useless to apply them to most of the common cases of derivative verbal/nominal morphology, where derived words come to mean something completely different than one would expect by applying the "sum of parts" logic. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:47, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * i am very impressed by birnging indo-european in our conversation by you, but the fact that "stati" formed from *steh₂ doesen´t say much and it is pretty much useless for our debate because, you see, from all of indoeuropean languages, only in serbian AND croatian "to stand" evolved in same fasion, with identical prefixes, suffixes, although you are claiming there´s no obvious reason for that; can you imagine, identical "no-logic" exists in three different languages? well, that´s look like pattern to me. in both serbian as well as in croatian, bosnian, montenegrin, there´s zastati, ustati, postati, rastati, pristati..., stoj, meaning exactley the same in all of them, primarily and secondarily. so, no matter what is the primal or primary meaning of "stati", the secondary meanings made a difference in BCS modern language(s) and formed ther families and - with the same forming mechanism. i really don´t see how to apply any of your "stati" explanations to the "šta/što" case, since in "šta/što" case there IS a difference in usage in serbian and croatian, unlike in "stati" case. in serbian "što"(why?) and "tako"(because) forms a battery, as well as "šta"(what?) and "to"(that), and on top of that "što" is oftenly used as short of "zašto", in spite of "zašto" is formed from "(za)što". also, in serbian "zašto" means "why?", "zašta" means "for what". as i understand, that´s not the case in croatian, right? 94.189.231.6 (talk) 18:22, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't comprehend what you're trying to say in the last 2 sentences. There was no such thing as "evolution" of the same meanings: the meanings got diffused and "polished" in the last century - century and half as a result of the various "unification" effort which tended to codify literary language. Try reading books older than two centuries and you'll see exclusively "to stand" meaning, and various morphological derivatives either not in use today, or with different meaning. Lots of these are not Štokavian only (or Neoštokavian-only), they're also spread in other West South Slavic dialects; of the above mentioned lexemes, only rastati is apparently not used in literary Slovene, dunno of Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects though. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Swadesh lists
I looked at the Swadesh lists for Slavic languages and all words in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian seemed practically identical, except for the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet! Are they really different languages? Tsf (talk) 21:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Differences tend to be much bigger in abstract and technical vocabulary and written literary style. All three standard languages are based on essentially the same dialect (stylised Neo-Štokavian), so the basic Swadesh vocab words are (mostly) identical. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Judging from what I've just seen, these Swadesh lists contain a lot of dialect-specific words and mistypes. Admiral Norton (talk) 13:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Could you please be more specific on mistypes? These lists have been proofread by several highly-literate native speakers.. And also sub-standard dialectalisms? In the Croatian Swadesh lists, I can find only one (šnjura), but that word is very spread so I though it might be good listing it.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess you could argue that it's a different language the same as how you could argue that English is different in England and America, so should it be a classified as a different language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.2.173.164 (talk) 01:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Exactly! Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bunjevac and Montenegrin are just diferent names for ONE and SAME language. It is the language which is still called SERBOCROATIAN or more recently-Central South Slavic language. The differences between these 5 'standards' of this language are less than 1% in all linguistic aspects, and that is less than the difference between American and British English. The name of this language should be changed again to SerboCroatian or CroatoSerbian, which will present the realistic state of it, and will correct its fake image, that was temproary created by political reasons. Regards. 24.86.116.250 (talk) 05:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Not only is this blatantly false, but I also don't understand the purpose of this text. Admiral Norton (talk) 13:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not false, but true, and stop poisoning this page with nonsense and provocations.


 * It seems that some people get very aggressive about this subject. I was just curious about the languages and not about the political issues involved which are obvious. If the differences are comparable to those between American and British English, or between Spanish Castillian and that spoken in Latin America, then Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian appear to be the same language. Why is it so hard to accept in this case that some countries share the same language? Tsf (talk) 01:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * People get very aggressive because the issue is not so simple as IP troll [that has been visiting these talk pages for more than a year, sending "it's all nationalist propaganda blah blah" messages] is trying to put it. Croatian and Serbian standard languages are based on the same dialect [stylised Neoštokavian], and were subject to a "unification" that lasted decades and whose end result was, as far as Croatian linguists are concerned, ultimately detrimental to Croatian tradition and self-identity. Language is the first thing upon which political propagandists define concepts of "nation" and "ethnicty", and if you look in the history of the creation of common literary standard for Croats and Serbs it was always based on something like jedan narod treba jednu književnost da ima.. ['one people must one literature..']. Serbs and Croats have throughout history had separate cultural developments and affiliation, and separate literatures, that developed parallely and were only recently "unified" in the only dialect that Serbs and Croats share. This is not like the forceful colonialization due to which English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Latin and others have spread, annihilating millenia old cultures in their way. Read again points listed by Miro Kačić, and it would hurt reading his entire book Hrvatski i srpski. Krivotvorine i zablude [also available in English translation]. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

That's right. - Why is that senseless division of one language to all those politically created 'standards', when they are 98% to 99% identical in all linguistical aspects? Everyone normal can see that fact by looking at the chart in the article, where the 3 'standards' are compared. There are just a few words that are different, which is even far under the level of being 3 dialects of a same language. There's absolutelly NO translations between serbian TV shows or movies that are broadcasted on bosnian and croatian TV, and vice-versa. And there will never be translations because it's same language. On the contrary, there are and will be translations when one of the SerboCroatian 'standards' is translated to the viewers in Slovenia or Macedonia, and vice-versa, because in this case it's a matter of 2 different languages. Not accepting the facts that SerboCroatian is ONE language is a totally pathetic behavior, limited to the extreme nationalists, especially from the western part of this language speaking area. They are totally isolated, always fighting unsuccessfully with the rest of the world, and their failed propaganda is dying every coming day. The majority of Croatians, Bosnians and Serbians are, thanks God, normal people, who are absolutelly aware that they are speaking a SAME language, which is, by some suspicious political reasons called either serbian, croatian, bosnian, dalmatian, montenegrin or bunjevac. Those are the facts, and no oposite comment can change them. Regards to you Tsf and to all the majority of normal people on these pages. 24.86.116.250 (talk) 08:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There are other similar situations, the most notable being Romanian language/Moldovan language, but also Indonesian language/Malayan language, Hindi/Urdu, Macedonian language/Bulgarian language, with varying degree of difference and variation in the political situation. There is a movement for defining a standard Brazilian lauguage, and European scholars and editors routinely refer to the Americal language. See also diasystem vs. pluricentric language. Andreas  (T) 13:31, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * As far as I know the movement for defining a standard Brazilian lauguage is not very strong. As a matter of fact the Portuguese speaking countries have approved recently a Spelling reform which will eliminate many of the existing differences in spelling. There is also no separate Brazilian Wikipedia: its creation was voted down in 2005 (see Portuguese Wikipedia). Something similar occurs with the Spanish speaking countries. I am sure that a common SerbianCroatianBosnianMontenegrin Wikipedia would be stronger than the separate versions that already exist. Tsf (talk) 02:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually there is so-called "Serbo-Croatian" wikipedia on sh.wikipedia.org, whose shutdown has been voted on several times [minimal activity, non-existing language], and which exists solely due to the so-called Language subcommittee (and some persons affiliated with them that sympathize sh.wiki) want so. 99.99% of content in sh.wikipedia is copy/pasted from bs/hr/sr wikipedias by one or two users [confer the recent changes, OC Ripper and such]. So much for the pan-Yugoslav commonness, one language=one nation and similar myths. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The whole matter is a joke, really... I've stated my opinions on such issues on several occasions and I won't repeat myself overmuch. The various differences in dialects within most standard languages (such as Italian, French, German, and the Croatian language for that matter) are far greater than the differences between the standard of these three languages (or four, with Montenegrin coming up soon!). It is not only my own, but also the opinion of many neutral international and local linguists that the formal division of these languages does not make sense from a strictly scientific point of view. As Štambuk says, the political reason is the officially maintained distaste of the so-called "pan-Yugoslav commonness". -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 18:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Totally agree with you Direktor, and I am sure that your highly reasonable opinions and facts you are presenting on wikipedia are highly respected and accepted by the waste majority of its readers. Please, if you can, - do your regular check-ups of the articles concerning South Slavic languages and make sure they’re not presenting some misleading information. I would just add to this that although ‘the political reason is the officially maintained distaste of the so-called "pan-Yugoslav commonness”’, this distaste should be ‘expressed’ in a more civilized manner than creating some non-acceptable partial maps showing only a half of the Shtokavian speaking area, or trying to camouflage the factual state of the close ties within the Central South Slavic system (language) at the templates featured in the articles about South Slavic languages and dialects. And most importantly - that ridiculous ‘pan-Yugo’ distaste which openly sends a message of hatred and separatism, should not, by any mean be reflected in the language area, because it only shows how low and how uncivilized its ‘supporters’ can be, no matter what their ‘not-supported-by anyone-in-scientific-world’ theories they may point out as their sources. And, at the end, as an example of a civilized political distaste between nations, here’s the example of Americans and Canadians. Majority of Canadians feel in a different extent, a kind of aversion towards Americans, especially since the start of the ‘George-Bush-era’ in USA. But still, nobody says that Canadians speak a ‘different language’ than Americans, and nobody tries to hide the common history facts and the strong cultural and economical ties that exist between these 2 countries. This is a typical way of overcoming any kind of ‘distaste’ in a human and civilized way, all the other ways are just a shame for humanity. Best Regards to you Direktor, and to your beautiful and cosmopolitan Split and Dalmatia. Best and Cheerful Greetings.24.86.116.250 (talk) 04:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Želim da znam da li ću da počnem da radim
quote _____


 * In summary, the English sentence "I want to know whether I'll start working" would typically read:
 * Želim da znam da li ću da počnem da radim. (spoken Serbian)
 * Želim znati hoću li početi raditi (spoken Croatian)


 * although many in-between combinations could be met in vernacular speech, depending on speaker's dialect, idiolect, or even mood.

______

"Želim da znam da li ću da počnem da radim. (spoken Serbian)" -- typically? something like this is almost impossible to hear or read. four "da" in the same sentence!? well...

four "da" in a row, in the same sentence, in serbian, could be a sign of total illiteracy and / or absolute stupidity. i'm afraid, it's a badly choosen example.

on the other hand, there is no doubt that the frequency of use "da" in serbian is higher, then it is in croatian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.198.201.67 (talk) 16:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, that's what I hear when I come to Serbia. Doesn't imply illiteracy or anything similar, just the fact that Serbs have different standards when it comes to "da" then Croats. Admiral Norton (talk) 18:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * well, i am not denying the difference in standards about the usage of the infinitive vs. "da" in croatian vs. serbian, but this particular construction is highly unnatural for serbian language, as simple as that. the fact that use of the infinitive in croatian has almost exclusive priority over "da", doesen`t mean that in serbian "da" should be putted all the way in the sentence and, what is more important, in reality - it is not. typically and most likely it would be "Želim da znam hoću li početi da radim", or maybe "Zanima me da li ću početi da radim" or, in worst (presumably - most infrequent) "dadada" case: "Želim da znam da li počinjem da radim". however, the example from the article ("Želim da znam da li ću da počnem da radim" [dadadada]) is really over-exaggerated and i never heard someone speaks like that which is, if you are right, strange, since i live in serbia for all of my life. you can check on the internet by searching the news or serbian forums, and you`ll see that, if there is, such type of constructions are very rare and this accumulation of das, with total exclusion of the infinitive, is fare from a frequent vernacular speach/writing, let alone standard language itself. -- the bottom line is: maybe, just maybe you could say that this sentence is possible in serbian, but there`s nothing typical about this one. as i already said, i would assume that this sentence comes from someone not so literate.

The problem here is that the article contains Original research. This is often the case in language articles, but is clearly against guidelines. The example sentences should be taken from a textbook or other source and not made up, even not from a native speaker. (btw, my serbian/croatian/bosnian is almost inexistent). Andreas (T) 21:30, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * In that case it would be extremely hard to write an article like this. Admiral Norton (talk) 23:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * this might be too hard because there is no material to support your standpoint. since google is my ;) friend, here`s the link to the article, published by serbian language standardization committee; decision #24 from 2002 deals with the relations between "da"-construction and infinitive . in short, by the criteria of SLSC, your "4xDA" sentence is the perfect exmaple for heavily unbalanced, exsagerated and unaesthetic construction, and, here we are -- such construction is prohibited in standard serbian by decision of the hieghst language authority. also, check this: b92 (natioanl news broadcaster) - http://www.b92.net rts (natioanl radio/tv) - http://www.rts.co.yu tanjug (national press agency) - http://www.tanjug.co.yu forum.b92 (most visited forum in serbian) - http://forum.b92.net  pick any of the news / posts from the upper links and re-translate it to the "AdmiralNorton`s serbian language", and you`ll be forced to add atleast 3x more "DAs", in order to support your own theory about "typically serbian spoken". reality matters more.  please change messy "Želim da znam da li ću da počnem da radim" into: "Želim da znam hoću li početi da radim", the difference to the croatian "Želim znati hoću li početi raditi" is still there and it is obvious. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.198.201.67 (talk) 11:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter what you see or hear in the media, the ortography dictates use of "da". This article doesn't document differences between spoken Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, but standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. When we start to make articles about dialects and the actual prevalence of standard language in vernacular, we will adhere to your recommendations. Judging from the committee decision, the most infinitive-oriented version would be "Želim da znam da li ću početi da radim." Admiral Norton (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * this example renders exclusive use of "da" over infinitive in serbian, which is wrong because 1) even though it is understandable, virtually nobody speaks like that, 2) serbian language standardization committee (yeah, the supreme body for standard serbian language - odbor za standardizaciju srpskog jezika) stands strongly against over-usage, and even more against exclusive use of "da" over infinitive, i already documented that. now, what more do you need? there is no need to fabricate non-existing standards, so please, stick to the facts and to the real, existing standard serbian language, and not to the one made up by yourself. the example is deficient and should be replaced. --> SLSC is strongly in favour of: 1) balanced use of "da-construction" and infinitive, 2) against over usage of "da-construction" vs. infinitive, 3) against over usage of infinitive vs. "da-construction". so, you may say that "Želim da znam hoću li početi da radim" is a tipically serbian construction in both standard language AND vernacular speech, and "Želim da znam da li ću početi da radim" is simply ridiculous.

This sentence is in the wrong subsection. It belongs to Infinitive vs. subjunctive, where it is redundand because there are already good examples. It has nothing to do with interrogative constructs, i.e. the difference between je li and da li je. As part of the Balkan sprachbund, Serbian avoids the infinitive and replaces it with an analytical clause (see Balkan sprachbund. Note that Macedonian, Bulgarian and Greek do not have any infinitive at all. To demonstrate this, a simple sentence such as "I want to do that" is much better. The example does not get more convincing if it contains many infinitives, it just becomes ridiculous. I would suggest: scrap this example. Andreas  (T) 13:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep. My language sense tells me that "Želim da znam da li ću početi da radim." is the most likely. Nikola (talk) 17:35, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

people in Belgrade would have say: zelim da znam da lai cu da pocnem da radim. Other combinations are possible as well, but that one is typical. Onether example: Zelim da znam da li ces ikada da prestanes da me maltretiras. Admiral Norton - not like in Croatia, the standard language in Serbia, in Belgrade is the spoken language, with some modifications. There is no institutional torture like in Croatia where nobody acutally speaks Croatian standrd language. It's more like in Germany, people are those who should say what is "gutes Deutsch".Luzzifer (talk) 16:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, offcourse that there are people that would've said it like that... that isn't the question.(note the use of "that" in the writing/speech of someone who isn't skilled well with the english language ;p) the main problem is the fact that a typicaly (averagely) educated speaker of serbian language wouldn't stack infinite number of das in his sentences... ever... or would you care to explain what do you deem as a "typical" here... -- P rim E vi L 11:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

As I said: typical solution is that that everybody would use in everyday live, the one on behalf which I could say, oh he/she is from Belgrade. Only people who actually don´t speak Serbian language or don´t speak a vernecular that is a base of standard language would go out with thoese style remarks: it might be right that that sentence is difficult to understand when it is written. But vernacular of Belgrade as well the most vernaculars of Serbian language have very special prosody that doesn´t make sound those kind of sentences stupid at all - when spoken. Once again, our standard language is the languiage of my mother or grandmother, not some illusianal esperanto-style language made in sone acadamy or institute. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luzzifer (talk • contribs) 16:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The infinitive contstruction is very alive in vernacular of Belgrad, in western Serbian verneculars even more. It is not specifica distinctiva to Craotian languge that Serbs use DA-construction. Distinctive is the fact that there is a free choice to use one of those two constructions. Sometimes I say: hocel li doci? sometimes hoces li da dodjes?, sta reci, a ne slagati! or sta covek da kaze a da ne slaze? ... In written language infinitive contsturcitzons are more common than in the spoken one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luzzifer (talk • contribs) 16:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Serbian language in Bosnia & Herzegovina
Many people seems to forgot the fact that Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina don't speak Bosnian, but Serbian. I think this article also forgets this fact, and it should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.241.141.121 (talk) 17:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

cleanup
"ekawian" and "ijekawian" needs to be defined or bluelinked.68.148.149.184 (talk) 15:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit Summary
I had a typo: standards.68.148.149.184 (talk) 15:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

between -> among
Shouldn't this article really be titled Differences among standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:31, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No, the correct English is "between X, Y and Z" (as opposed to e.g. "among South-Slavic varieties"). See e.g. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/between-versus-among.aspx. No such user (talk) 06:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 07:18, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. I've read about "superstitions" regarding this distinction, and the usual guideline is to use among to express collective and undefined relations, and between for one-to-one relations. Since here we're not explicitly "choosing" among anything, but are comparatively discussing them all (the differences), using among seems to be better by reasoning of logic (tho not by ear). But, whatever you guys say :) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know if you noticed, but User:Kruško Mortale was confirmed as another long-standing sockpuppet of User:Historičar (or should I say the other way around, since Kruško was here first). It would also appear that User:Historičar has been socking for ages as User:The Dragon of Bosnia, User:Grandy Grandy, etc... That single remark of yours on Talk:Bosnian language that led to that report really uncovered a lot. :) Now Bosnia articles are free of a menacing counterproductive presence. -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 09:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh he'll be back sooner or later. I just don't understand people like him - there are no articles on the most basic stuff such as Ban Kulin's Charter, and yet he's ready to waste countless hours on pointless PoV pushing, expanding the political section of the article even more. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt he'll be back. This is why I'm thinking about asking for an IP range block. Thoughts? -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 10:26, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether that would work, or be an overkill, but IMHO the best thing to do would be to alert some of the involved admins once another sockpuppet of him turns up (and it would be pretty obvious that it's him again). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:31, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As soon as I notice another "incarnation" of his, you can be sure I'll be all over it. That fanatic managed to add a blight to my block log... I'm pretty pissed (if you'll pardon the expression). -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 10:34, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Commentary in article moved here
As they are similar (until now there is no scientific study which would measure difference or similarity between these two/three languages) and different opinions exist: Really there is not such a thing as a Serbo-Croatian language but two large areas covering most of Yugoslavia, where Croatians speak Croatian and Serbs, Serbian, both very proud of their different cultural heritages and specific linguistic expressions. and other that state is South Slavic language that is the native language of most speakers in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia., need to describe differences between these languages will be fulfilled in this article.

204.167.92.26 (talk) 22:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's subjective crap that shouldn't be listed in the first place. As for the "no scientific study": I know of at least one paper, that measured the difference among B/C/S versions of the same text and these were > 80% (hence fitting in the "pluricentric standard language varieties" scheme, that the paper advised). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:27, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Montenegrin
Recently-published Pravopis crnogorskoga jezika i rječnik crnogorskoga jezika is fairly thorough with regards to lots of the issues discussed here. Would it be OK to start adding Montenegrin, or should we wait for its grammar to be published first? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced
This section isn't covered with reference that followed after the next sentence, so I've removed it from the text: " However, even long before Yugoslavia, all publications in Zagreb referred to the language as 'Croatian or Serbian' (for instance Rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika, Zagreb 1881-1970)." "All publications"? Kubura (talk) 12:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, 99% of them. Even those which were called "Serbian" or "Croatian" (e.g. Hrvatski rječnik, Srpska gramatika) in the title, usually had a note in the introduction that it's Serbo-Croatian. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but you gave no references. We only have your word, your claim. I may also say that 99% of them were written in Eskimo language - but if I don't "cover" myself with references, than my argumentation is strong as graffiti on some street wall. So, this form has to stay "just because you told us so"? Kubura (talk) 16:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I've removed this. "The last known text published in Arebica was produced in 1941, after which the unification of Yugoslavia dictated that Cyrillic and Latin were the two official alphabets of all the Yugoslav Republics." Does the author of that paragrap want to say that Arabic script was official? Even after the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary? Kubura (talk) 13:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * No, it just says that Cyrillic and Roman became official, which put arebica into sub-standard position, eventually causing it turning extinct. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

1) What? You want to say that before 1941 Cyrillic and Roman weren't official? Are you serious? 2) Cause of extinction? Having no official status doesn't directly imply extinction. If you want it that way, OK, I won't argue about that, but your claim about official scripts of ex-YU 'll expose Wikipedia to mocking. Kubura (talk) 16:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Article cleanup 12/2009
There. I improved the article a little, well a bit more than that:-)I concentrated mostly on Croatian because I study standard Croatian. The examples are now mostly accurate, but we need to improve the TONE, because it still looks like a discussion. Need more historical facts! By the way, I strongly advise not to edit if you are not well-educated in standards (no hard feelings, eh? I do not implicate any college degree). Also, ZAŠTO KOMUNICIRAMO NA ENGLESKOM, do đavola?! Ipak su naši jezici mutual intelligible, hehe... Greetings.

Farabutto (talk) 00:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Loaf (of bread)
Are you absolutely sure that this:

loaf: vekna (Serbian), hljeb (Croatian)

is really factually wrong? Izitpajn (talk) 10:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, Croatian does not have a word for "loaf" in strictest sense (apart from "vekna"). Also, the common word for "bread" is "kruh" rather than "hljeb". Thus, a "a loaf of bread" is translated just as "(jedan) kruh", not "hljeb kruha". (There's also štruca, but it sounds rather obscure) Also, "ćale" is a slang word for dad (just like "stari", "matori", etc.) so it should not be in the table. No such user (talk) 13:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


 * In Croatia often the term štruca is used for "loaf", usually in the phrase štruca kruha/kruva. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, I concur with "ćale", but as for "hljeb", check out these:
 * http://hjp.srce.hr/index.php?show=search (enter "hljeb" top left and see what comes out)


 * http://www.eudict.com/?lang=croeng&word=hljeb&go=Search


 * I agree that "hljeb" may be archaic, but some people still use it for "loaf". That's how I heard of it, anyway. The translation argument doesn't stand, I'm afraid. And also now you have an independant and pretty official source, so... Izitpajn (talk) 22:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the term "hljeb" is a bosnian standard word but please check. Greetings. Farabutto (talk) 00:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

pronoun "she"
In Croatian, the preferred clitic form of accusative of personal pronoun ona (she) is ju (her). In Serbian and Bosnian, je is preferred.

In Serbian language je is preffered, but there is a rule when ju is used. If near the pronoun is a 3rd person present form of the verb "jesam" (je), pronoun is always written as ju. If I stumble upon a source for this claim, I'll add it up, but for the time being, some extension to the second sentence might be added. Comments? -- P rim E vi L 14:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalisms
This kind of edit by user PRODUCER from 22:05, 22 December 2008 is vandalism. Unexplained removal of the stabile and referenced sections. Nobody disputed this section for years. Kubura (talk) 14:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's pointless to have that without filling in the information on the official language name for other federal states. I've removed it again. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

So, if we don't have articles about one Croatian city, than we have to delete all articles about 119 cities, because we don't have filled information about the others? "It's pointless"? If we don't have information about others, that's not an excuse for deleting the paragraphs about the information we have. Please, don't troll. See WP:TROLL. Don't WP:WIKIHOUND. This action of yours was completely unnecessary. Your action hasn't upgraded the article. It degraded it. Kubura (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Removing BS is an upgrade. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Trolling, neglection of scientific sources
18:36, 22 August 2009. Edit by user Ivan Štambuk. This was unnecessary. . His comment in summary was "Croatian/Serbian nationalist POV constructions are unwelcome ". Islamization on areas conquered by Ottoman Empire is fact. If user Ivan Štambuk has original theory that says contrary, than he has to read WP:OR. Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought.. 18:42, 22 August 2009. Edit by Ivan Štambuk. Dear readers, how do you call it when someone ignores scientific institutions and imposes his personal point of view. Please, read his comment "...IHJJ website is hardly a credible reference...". IHJJ = Institute for Croatian Language and Linguistics. Our user Ivan Štambuk, that has no scientific work published, declared national scientific institute as "hardly a credible reference" and deleted the reference. (Persistent) ignoring of scientific institutions is trolling WP:TROLL and disrupting WP:DISRUPT of Wikipedia. He ignores WP:SOURCES. Further, first part of his comment "you cannot merge sth that doesn't exist...". He deleted the words "was oriented toward "equalizing" and "merging" " the Croat and Serb language". That's an insult on national basis . That way he has insulted all speakers (of these 2 languages) that declared/are declaring their mother tongue as "Croatian language" or as "Serbian language". Remember WP:DISRUPT, Signs of disruptive editing: A disruptive editor is an editor who: - Is tendentious: ...some tendentious editors engage in disruptive deletions - Cannot satisfy Wikipedia:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites unencyclopedic sources, misrepresents reliable sources, or manufactures original research - Campaign to drive away productive contributors: act in spite of policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles... I don't want to engage in editing of this article, if such user can persistently pester and annoy as much as he likes. I don't want to engage into edit war. Kubura (talk)


 * You changed "Bosniaks" to "Islamicized Serbs and Croats" which is first-class Greater Serbia/Croatia national-extremism. While I have no doubt that you personally think that all Bosniaks are Croats and Serbs who "forgot" who their grand-grand-grand-..fathers were (they were ethnically unmarked Slavs, as far as it matters), it would be much appreciated if you wouldn't spread that kind of revisionist fabrication of history here. Many people lost their lives because of these Greater Xxx ideologies, you know.
 * IHJJ's website is not a credible reference on contentious issues which involve Serbo-Croatian. It's a webpage of an institution payed by the Croatian ministry of education to spread the news of modern standard Croatian language development which they finance, as well as the currently official version of its "history". Specifically you quoted the webpage and replced this:
 * In socialist Yugoslavia, the official policy insisted on one language with two standard varieties - Eastern (practiced in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina by all nationalities, either Ekavian or Ijekavian) and Western (practiced in Croatia by all nationalities, Ijekavian only). 
 * with this:
 * In socialist Yugoslavia, the official policy was oriented toward "equalizing" and "merging" the Croat and Serb language.
 * which is unacceptable. There was no "Croatian language" at that time, what you perceive as "Croatian language" was back then treated as Western variety of common Serbo-Croatian language standard. You cannot "merge" or "equalize" sth that doesn't exist. There was a persecution of some Croatian-only words, as well as of separationist movements that were reminiscent of Ustashi times - but these were only to keep rising nationalism within controllable limits, not to "merge" or "equalize". By the times of SFRJ, Croatian and Serbian literary languages were already inseparably "merged", all based on the same Neoštokavian dialects, sharing 99% of grammar and being 100% mutually intelligible. (actually they both developed from the same matrix, and the actual "merger" never really occurred - i.e. it was a common development on the same dialectal basis).
 * Now that you mention this...does anybody else also feel that the entire history section should simply be dumped altogether? It simply serves as a duplicate for some heated issues that are already abundantly discussed elsewhere, and is completely irrelevant to the article's main subject. I would want this article simply to focus on the issues of what is shared/different between the modern standards and abs. nothing else. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey Ivan, thanks for explaining some things to Kubura. ;) I would personally keep the historical part of the article because while some of us may be aware of such things, this is the English Wikipedia and a lot of people may not be. Paperoverman (talk) 23:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Paperoverman is not a neutral person in this matter. This proves it. Kubura (talk) 01:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

LOL
This article is so incredibly stupid. If you actually believe these are 3 totally different languages than you are truly deluded......poor people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.227.114.237 (talk) 05:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There wouldn't be a differences article if they were totally different, you see. Think again about who's deluded. FMasic  ( talk ) 19:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Orthography conceptualy wrong
Whoever conceived this part used phrase not so common in Croatian language as "I will do it" does not translate in "Uradit' ću to" nor in archaic form used sporadically in 1920's-1930's "Uraditi ću to", mostly in Bosnia, but it translates into "Napraviti ću to" ! Ignorance of differentiation amongst these languages does not end here... Such travesty of article is analogue to concept of Anglo-german language, as basically same set of rules apply to German, English, even Norwegian and Swedish, or any indo-european language, with "just" "slight" difference in pronunciation and typing 94.253.194.28 (talk) 21:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Accusative of "što"
From the comment in the article:

To što je rekao je laž.

opinion A: This last sentence should be taken out because in this context the word "što" does not mean "what". It means "which". So the sentence literally means: That which he said is a lie. opinion B: no, in all three cases the word translated as "what" above is the object of the verb translated as "say", and the fact that you're tempted to use a different word for an *English* literal translation is completely irrelevant (and what you probably mean is that the third example shows the relative use of this pronoun - which is clearly indicated in the sentence above the table). There was a different mistake here: these forms are not nominative (!). The nominative and accusative forms are apparently syncretic, and I will modify this sentence to reflect that. And frankly, presenting this in terms of cases rather than in terms of a single variant form may be misleading as well.

The accusative of inanimate nouns (and consequently of pronoun "što" ) is indeed identical to the nominative, so the new text is correct. However, in the sentence above, "što" is nominative. The verb "je (Gen switch in negation, I forget), and you should see that it's to that is nominative, and that što depends on the verb rekao:
 * [ To [ što je rekao ] rel_clause ] subject je laž.
 * Ah, and to make sure others can get it: when talking about the copula above, of course you refer to the second je, as the first one is an auxiliary, and it's rekao that assigns case to što in the subject-internal relative clause (the subject there is silent, 3Sg). I'm not sure what you mean by saying that "both its verb arguments are in the nominative" (you wanted to say "nominal arguments" probably), but firstly, that is not an absolute rule for the copula, unfortunately -- it's only the default rule: the copula can assign non-nominative to the predicative noun sometimes, but that would take us far beyond the case at hand. And secondly, the default rule of "Nom je Nom" refers to to and laž (both are nominative), but not to što, which is accusative. Regards, Bansp (talk) 10:38, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * OK thanks, I see where I erred in my analysis. I thought the sentence had structure like (1) below, but actually it is (2), što being an object. The sentences below use animate pronoun "ko" (who), where NOM != ACC.
 * [ Taj [ koNOM je to rekao ] rel_clause ] subject je lažov.
 * [ Taj [ kogaACC je vidio ] rel_clause ] subject je lažov.
 * conveniently translated:
 * [ The one [ whoNOM said that ] rel_clause ] subject is a liar.
 * [ The one [ whomACC he saw ] rel_clause ] subject is a liar.
 * No such user (talk) 11:19, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Trebati
(Copied from User talk:No such user):

Trebati is equally used as a transitive verb and as a logical subject in dative in the Croatian language. If it really were only used in the spoken language, it would say razg. in front of the definition. Unless you come up with a better source which says otherwise, the information given in the article is incorrect.

I don't see the point in differentiating the Croatian and Serbian language when it comes to this particular verb. There are oh so many differences, yes, but this isn't one of them.

As for treba da, it also says it's a literary lexeme in the Croatian language. That's important and unlisted, I reckon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.3.89.188 (talk) 15:17, 25 December 2010 (UTC)


 * For the start, let's distinguish several types of verb trebati:
 * Impersonal with a verb (=one needs to). In both Serbian and Croatian, the verb is in infinitive: treba prati zube = [one] needs to wash the teeth. No difference here.
 * Personal with a verb (=someone needs to). In Croatian only, the verb can be personal: trebaš raditi = you need to work. This form is not standard Serbian, where only treba da radiš is acceptable. I'm not sure if treba da radiš is even acceptable Croatian, but in Google searches I performed it trails the former on .hr sites in a 963:68 ratio.
 * HJP says that "treba da čekam = valja da čekam (= knjiš. (+ ob. kajkavski) trebam čekati);". My reading of the abbreviations is "formal; mandatory in kajkavian". It seems that treba da čekam is marginally acceptable in Croatian, at least in its mainstream variant, but I have never heard it actually used.
 * Impersonal with a noun (=one needs something). This is rare usage. In both Serbian and Croatian, the noun is in genitive: treba pravde.
 * Personal with a noun (=someone needs something). In Serbian, only the impersonal variant treba mi posao, with agent in dative, is acceptable. In Croatian, one can apparently use both personal treba mi posao or impersonal trebam posao.


 * So, you indeed have a point concerning the last issue. I am not positive if trebam posao is correct formal Croatian, so I'd like a native speaker with a source to confirm. With verbs, hovever, I maintain that there is a difference, in both formal and spoken language. No such user (talk) 10:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for hearing me out. And take it from a native speaker of Croatian, both treba mi posao, and trebam posao are absolutely correct and wide-spread.


 * Trebati + infinitive is a newer construction which occurred in the spoken language. It became a standardized word, so there's no need to ban it. Treba da is a remnant, but some linguists consider historical use more important than the contemporary use. Still, there are few of those.


 * In conclusion, treba da is not used anymore, but it can be used as an archaism (or even kajkavism, as demonstrated). This isn't influenced by the Serbian language, though.


 * Here are a few sentences showing the different use in the Croatian language:


 * Mora raditi. = He must/has to work.
 * Mora da radi. = He must be working. / He's probably working.


 * Hoće raditi. = He will work. (= On će raditi. - when we want to stress that he will work)
 * Hoće da radi. = He wants to work. (= Želi raditi.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.2.134.218 (talk) 14:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect
Serbian add by pouring* dolijevati 	dolevati diarrhea 	proljev 	prolev gulf, bay 	zaljev 	       zalev to influence   utjecati        utecati

Those bold 3 don't excist in Serbian (ekavian and (i)jekavian) Correct forms are PROLIV, ZALIV, UTICATI. Please, correct that. I'm Serbian.--Миланче (talk) 18:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Some Anon. recently changed that. --JorisvS (talk) 20:07, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Removing jekavian from examples of Serbian language
It's common knowledge that today ekavian is considered the only proper dialect of Serbian language. While official grammars still permit other dialects for historic and nacionalistic reasons, use of i/jekavian is considered counter to the spirit of Serbian language and was never used in written language, including for both literaly and administrative purposes. As such I have to politely ask people to remove jekavian from examples of Serbian language. It distorts both Serbian language and differences from Croatian and Bošnjak. Marko —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.203.26.47 (talk) 09:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That "common knowledge" certainly does not apply for some 1.5-2 million Bosnian Serbs, Serbs of Montenegro and Serbs of Croatia, and it is certainly not "considered counter to the spirit of the language", because it was the very dialect of Vuk Karadžić. So, I guess the answer is "no". No such user (talk) 12:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes that is true for Bosnian Serbs, Serbs of Montenegro and Serbs of Croatia but not for about 5-6 million Serbs that were born in Serbia and speak ekavian, and are in majority over jekavian speakers, it should at least be noted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.46.231.240 (talk) 00:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Džada and sabor
In Serbian there isn't džada. It is seen as old. In Croatian assembly is said sabor http://www.sabor.hr/Default.aspx?sec=361 http://www.sabor.hr/Default.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Croatia --Тежава (talk) 14:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

About "standard" registers
The standard registers are a result of the work of the national academies. They are officially cultural/scientific institutions, yet, they are also comprised of political individuals, with major or minor role in the politics of (a) country. With linguistic policies of post-SFRY countries being corrupted/extreme/neglected, such differences may have been grown or blown out of proportion or measure.

One could, as in any language, english included, make a series of sentences using synonyms. Languages/dialects of South Slavs are also synthetic languages, which allows the change in ordering of the words, making for even more varieties. Extreme differences are most oftenly illintended and malicious. -- P rim E vi L 18:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Could someone prove…
…(religions, governments and alphabets aside…) that the real differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are bigger than the differences between Australian, American and British English? As far as we know, movies made in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia don’t need subtitles to be understood in Croatia, Serbia or Bosnia…--189.33.168.196 (talk) 03:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Great question. To me it seems a lot like the new "Macedonian" language that is mutually understandable with Bulgarian. Nationalist linguists can make all the claims they want, but if you don't need a translator to go from one "language" to the next, then it's the same language. So... can someone prove otherwise about this language? Are Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian as close as American and British English, or more like Italian and Spanish (which have some similarity but are legitimately different languages and only slightly mutually-understandable)?? Yeah, that's what I thought. Way too much confusion has arisen out of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Everyone wants to reinvent themselves. 70.26.52.191 (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Macedonian is not new, and no objective linguists (outside Greece and Bulgaria) deny its distinctiveness. Bulgarian and Macedonian are regularly translated between one another. The differences between those two languages are exceedingly greater than those between the national variants of Serbo-Croatian. --101.112.157.253 (talk) 09:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Montenegrin words
Some of the examples are now amended with "Montenegrin" language quotes. I would like to avoid the argument over the existence of this language, but there is another thing I can't comprehend: these examples are unsources and I (living in Montenegro) have never neither seen or heard the variations that are stated as unique in "Montenegrin" language. For example, the "Montenegrin" version of the official site of Government of Montenegro seems unaware of the word "predśednik": in the most recent news item it spells "predsjednik". — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 20:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There are many examples of using Montenegrin words, especially word "predśednik": "" — Preceding unsigned comment added by DukljaninCg (talk • contribs) 11:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

"Outline" section
What's the function of the "outline" section (i.e. why does this article have it)? It currently reads like an essay, gives the impression of a 'debate' between only a few people, and quotes things these people have said. --JorisvS (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Any reasoning for the ordering of languages in a table?
I'm new to the world of South Slavic languages, and I was wondering if there was any strong reason for the ordering of languages in each table (like on the first table, it has Feature, Croation, Serbian, English, but later on, it will have English, Serbian, Croation).

If not, I'm tempted to re-order the languages to be consistent in all cases, according to geography, which, based on 5 minutes of reading other wiki articles, also means it is according to linguistic similarities. Anyone have any objections? 131.191.9.129 (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Serbian
I'll correct these mistakes. Pravopis srpskoga jezika Matice srpske [2010,2011,2013] and Rečnik srpskoga jezika Matice srpske [2007,2011] decide if some word is or not part of Serbian language. --Миланче (talk) 12:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * 1)  In Serbian uho i uvo are both used. snapshot from PMS2010
 * 2)  Snaha i snaja also. snapshot from PMS2010
 * 3)  Profesorica i profesorka again, both used. snapshot from RMS2007
 * 4)  Pisac i spisatelj also, for females spisateljka i spisateljica.snapshot from RMS2007
 * 5)  Pirinač i riža, both used. RMS2007RMS2007
 * 6)  Šargarepa i mrkva, both used.RMS2007RMS2007
 * 7)  Hleb ekavian, hljeb ijekavian RMS2007
 * 8)  Kruh, also used in both ekavian [idioms] and ijekavijan RMS2007
 * 9)  Srećan i sretan, both used. PMS2010
 * 10)  Sveštenik [ekavian and ijekavian form], svještenik in Serbian ijekavian doesn't exist. Погрешно је/it is wrong svješteni, svještenik, svještenstvo...  PMS2010
 * 11)  tisućl[j]eće RMS2007
 * 12)  val RMS2007
 * 13)  cesta, cestarina RMS2007  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Миланче (talk • contribs) 13:05, 29 August 2014 (UTC)


 * This is indeed a feature of Serbian standard as opposed to the others. Serbian is generally inclusive towards variants whereas Croats, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins are eager to differentiate their official standards from Serbian, declaring certain word variants to be specifically theirs as opposed to Serbian. This reflects wartime ideological positions, and can cause confusion: simply because Croats claim "profesorica", does not mean "profesorica" isn't also a valid word in the Serbian standard.. -- Director  ( talk )  13:03, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Human rights declaration sample - Croatian version
I placed a "dispute warning" in the Language Sample section, for the Croatian version that is not consistent to the referenced OHCHR Croatian translation (e.g. that translation uses "neovisno" "nacionalno" and "porijeklo", not "nezavisno", "narodnosno" and "podrijetlo"). Also, please note that the only official translation version is the version approved by Croatian government and published in the Official Gazette (available at http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/2009_11_12_143.html). That "introduces" a different document title (Opća deklaracija o ljudskim pravima), vjeroispovijed as a better translation for "religion" than "vjera" (faith); "nacionalno ili društveno podrijetlo", etc. It would be nice is someone could make edits in accordance with the link I provided above and the copied/pasted text below.

The text (Articles 1-6) published in the Official Gazette reads: Članak 1. Sva ljudska bića rađaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i sviješću te trebaju jedna prema drugima postupati u duhu bratstva. Članak 2. Svakome pripadaju sva prava i slobode utvrđene u ovoj Deklaraciji bez razlike bilo koje vrste, kao što je rasa, boja kože, spol, jezik, vjeroispovijed, političko ili drugo mišljenje, nacionalno ili društveno podrijetlo, imovina, rođenje ili drugi status. Nadalje, ne smije se praviti nikakva razlika na osnovu političkog, pravnog ili međunarodnog statusa zemlje ili područja kojemu neka osoba pripada, bilo da je to područje neovisno, pod starateljstvom, nesamoupravno, ili mu je na neki drugi način ograničen suverenitet. Članak 3. Svatko ima pravo na život, slobodu i osobnu sigurnost. Članak 4. Nitko se ne smije držati u ropstvu ili ropstvu sličnom odnosu; ropstvo i trgovina robljem zabranjuju se u svim njihovim oblicima. Članak 5. Nitko se ne smije podvrgnuti mučenju ili okrutnom, nečovječnom ili ponižavajućem postupku ili kazni. Članak 6. Svatko ima pravo da ga se svugdje pred zakonom priznaje kao osobu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.255.156.33 (talk) 15:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Be bold and correct it yourself. Peter238 (talk) 19:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I actually fixed it back then, just forgot to place a notification here. --JorisvS (talk) 19:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * There are significant differences from the published texts, and I don't have time to address it accurately at the moment. JorisvS, I would appreciate if you -- or anybody -- could revert the chapter to your version, or whatever has been published. No such user (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. I spent a lot of time back then to properly fix it and the things you changed were apparently not tampered with without being reverted. Yet your recent edits are according to the source. How can that be? --JorisvS (talk) 11:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe it was the UN which "tampered" with the Serbian version in the meantime? It looks quite different (in word choices and many details) from what we had/have in the article. No such user (talk) 13:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's the only explanation I can think of, too. Looking at the dates, they provide no evidence for that, but those dates could mean a lot of different specific things, so that may mean nothing at all. --JorisvS (talk) 15:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to remove the section altogether. 146.255, above, has a point that the Croatian version published in the national official gazette from 2009 is "more" official than the old-ish version published by the UN. I would say that it does indeed have more natural standard/legalese Croatian constructs than the OHCHR's one. As we see, the Serbian version at OHCHR has been already changed (the old one also had a glaring error: Svako ima pravo da se svuda pred zakonom priznaje kao lice -- lice is not a correct legal or even colloquial term here, sounds like a product of "translation" from Croatian, the new one has pravni subjekt 'legal subject' instead). No such user (talk) 07:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Trebati table
This table does not make sense. It compares languages, but why would we next to one have "English (literal trans.)" and next to the other "English"? Also, if it is to be "literal translation', then the sentence should start with "Peter", not "money". Which would mean that the last column is the basically the literal translation. Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 11:23, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The first column is the form in Standard Serbian and Bosnian, the second one is how this would literally translate to English, the third one is the Standard Croatian form, and the fourth is how this literally translates to English (which happens to be how it is normally said in English, hence the simpler column title). --JorisvS (talk) 12:37, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It makes no sense. "Money [is necessary] to Peter" is not a literal translation of "Petru treba novac". The text clearly starts with "Peter", therefore, starting with "Money" is NOT a literal translation. Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 15:28, 29 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Again, back the columns: We have "Serbian and Bosnian" followed by "English (literal trans.)" and "Croatian" followed by "English". This begs the question of where are the columns of "English (literal trans.)" for "Croatian" and "English" for "Serbian and Bosnian". It makes no sense to have a literal translation for the one variant and an actual translation for the other variant. Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 15:39, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, literal aside from word order, which is not really fixable, because then we get "To Peter [is necessary] money", which is just less clear for English speakers. The idea is to communicate what the construction is. I think it should be clear now what is supposed to be what and why, though I concur that the presentation could be improved. --JorisvS (talk) 16:34, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Da li and spoken Croatian research
I live in Zagreb and I can say that da li is the normal interrogative form, even among people from other parts of the country. This is despite efforts to eliminate it. It just sounds kind of ridiculous among friends. In colloquial Croatian,Može li is often used in dependent interrogative clauses: Želim znati hoću li početi raditi. (But even here, people would use the supine, počet instead of početi.) The može li construction is used in written language and on TV and radio news programs.

I just searched on Google for "da li" inurl:hr. Got 2,420,000 hits. I'm sure a number of these hits are from people trying to tell the rest not to use that construction, but... You get my point.

I realize that I am not supposed to make edits based on original research (in this case, my own experience), but I know of no database of spoken Croatian, and the previous text in the article shows no source, so my experience is as good as anyone's. Does anyone know of a way to at least prove this as so or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.149.62.230 (talk) 21:48, 19 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Nives Opačić (Reci mi to kratko i jasno - Hrvatski za normalne ljude; Novi liber, Zagreb 2009) recommends "je li" and "jesi li" ("is it" and "are you") instead of "da li" in most cases except, for example, "Ne znam da li da se smijem ili da plačem" = "I don't know whether to laugh or to cry". I am from south Dalmatia, and "da li" is felt to be strange in that part of Croatia - "je li" and "jesi li" are usual there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.149.192.135 (talk) 06:43, 14 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This is a comparison of standard languages. Very few people actually speak Standard Croatian; people from Zagreb usually don't speak it at all (i.e. they can have stress in any position, which is declared impossible in Standard Croatian, they don't have tones, they don't have long vowels, and so on). The variation of actually spoken language is way more complex and only partially researched. dnik ► 12:39, 5 September 2017 (UTC)