Talk:Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language

POV

 * "Yugounitarianism" is not a real term. Its something of a "pejorative" invented by anti-Yugoslav authors. Use "unitarianism".
 * The Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian language is not "actually Serbian", no more than it is "actually Croatian".
 * The SFR Yugoslavia was not a unitarianist state. The full rights and a large degree of political independence of all nationalities were guaranteed by the constitution. In spite of modern-day misconceptions (caused primarily by wartime propaganda), the efforts to put together a common language was backed by both Croats and Serbs. These efforts in no way presented any kind of real danger to the Croatian national identity, no more than they did to the Serbian national identity.
 * The demands in the declaration were eventually nearly completely accepted by the Yugoslav and Croatian authorities, resulting in their inclusion in the 1974 constitution. This is only fleetingly hinted.

Zen, I don't like the trend of turning 1970s SFRY into King Alexander's Kingdom of Yugoslavia. -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 12:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, hmm. You know, like it or not, it was totalitarian regime run by only one political option. Nobody was free to choose. It was no democracy in the real sense of meaning. Every non-communist point of view was described as anti-Yugoslav and meant vacancies in prison. It definitely was "unitarianism" where "unity" and "brotherhood" were guarded by the strongly organized "police state". What's wrong with word Yugo-unitarianism? It perfectly describes nature of it. It's term massively used by many authors.
 * Main problem with S-C is not only language diasystem presented as it was language itself. It was practically never spoken by anyone except maybe some narrow community in Bosnia where 2 real languages did mix with a lot of Turcisms involved. In 70's my school grammar book was called "Hrvatski ili srpski jezik", but language inside was Croatian! Not Serbian. When I went to serve JNA regularly in the late 80's in Bosnia, official language in army was S-C, but in reality it was pure Serbian! There was nothing Croatian in communication of the officers towards soldiers. I had problems (they said that I'm a nationalist) just because I said "lopata" instead of "ašov" (!), although I learnt in school in Croatia that "Croatian and Serbian languages were 2 languages of the same language group: S-C/C-S" and "they are equaly treated". Well, they weren't. In every God damn JNA barrack in ex-Yu official language was Serbian hidden under name S-C and use of any other word apart from Serbian vocabulary in official communication was treated as provocation, anti-Yugoslavism, anti-communism, separatism, etc...
 * Are you aware that if there were no changes in constitution (1974) there would be Yugoslav wars in 70's? 1974 came soon after "Croatian Spring" (1971) which was nothing but fight for democratic political system instead of totalitarian one-party one and an attempt to ensure more autonomy for the republics. Do you know that Croatia was robbed in 1969? Croatian citizens collected money by so-called "samodoprinos" for building motorway from Zagreb to Dubrovnik. This money simply vanished over the night and was used for building a motorway between Belgrade and Greece. Croatian Spring ended with the golden age of Goli Otok and new massive Croatian immigration. 1974 meant to be a sort of amortization. Almost invisible one.
 * Maybe you should change your way of thinking to realize that SFRJ was not so happy multi-ethnic construction deeply inside as it was presented by the communist authorities. Nothing is black or white. BTW do you know how many Croatian communists became dissidents because of position of Croatia in SFRJ? Maybe you should start to treat criticism of SFRJ equally as you treat glorifications of it (unfortunatelly too often it's some well known, thousand times repeated indoctrinated pro-Yu pamphlet).
 * You don't like the trend of turning 1970s SFRY into King Alexander's Kingdom of Yugoslavia. DIR the both systems were totalitarisms, 1st was Serbian king dictature, 2nd was "a prison for nations" and "dark ages for democracy and freedom of speech" where only one nation had all privileges. This is true DIR. Tito gave them privileges already in the beginning to ensure existance of SFRJ. In 1st Yu, Serbian expansionism was open. In 2nd it was only officially hidden behind Yugoslavism. It's exactly why so many Croats treat "Yugoslavia" same as it's "Serbia".
 * It's all history DIR. Leave it be. Let different people present their thoughts openly. Don't act like special Yu secret police. What's use of it? This is 21st century. Berlin Wall has fallen. Cold War ended. There's no more neutral Yugoslavia as a tampone zone between East and West (supported by both sides) in very important strategical region - Adriatic Sea, with economy based on international bank credits. Zenanarh (talk) 13:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yugounitarianism, Yugocommunism, Yugototalitarianism, etc... these are made-up words. They take a normal term, and add "Yugo" in front of it to make it "evil". Don't see why "unitarianism", "communism", "totalitarianism" do not suffice. Also, whether or not SFRY was a "totalitarian state" is highly disputable. You forget it was not communist, but socialist (for one).
 * Never mind, it still isn't "actually Serbian", no more than it's "actually Croatian".

"Are you aware that if there were no changes in constitution (1974) there would be Yugoslav wars in 70's?" Oh LoL, LoL, and LoL again! Sry, Zen, that's highly speculative. With the USSR up there going strong? With Tito sitting in Belgrade? A rebellion in Croatia is generally an impossibility for SFR Yugoslavia, ever. Anyone behind it would have been immediately crushed. No. The real move had to come from Serbia. Only an upheaval of nationalism in Serbia could possibly bring about the dissolution of the SFRY. And that's what happened. It happened because the 1974 constitution did everything to please Croats, and in the event angered Serbs leading to a surge of nationalism. Don't delude yourself. Croats did NOT rebel against the SFRY, they (we) declared independence from a "Serboslavia". Regardless of the name, SFR Yugoslavia ceased to exist as soon as Milošević used nationalism to bring himself to power ("Yugoslavia" in name only existed way longer than 1991). The Croatian and Slovenian declarations of independence were only a reaction to Milošević, this much is clear from the sequence of events.

How do you know I'm really not an OZNA agent? OZNA sve dozna, Zen... :P -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 15:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Its funny now that I think about it. Tito went out of his way to make sure Croats were happy, when he ought to have been worried about Serbs... I guess it seems logical from a 1974 standpoint that Croatia would be the main potential point of unrest. Little did anyone realize at that time what a threat Serbian nationalism posed when they completely left Serbia without power in Kosovo and Vojvodina. Serbia was also the "central" Yugoslav republic, it is impossible to imagine it somehow seceding from Yugoslavia. In the event it didn't, but it forced the secession of Croatia, Slovenia, and BiH... I doubt even Tito, fully aware of the instability his death would cause, could have imagined such a scenario... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 18:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Page move
The page was moved from Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Standard Language to Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language, describing it as "the correct translation". Literal translation - maybe, but I don't think it's the correct one, as it is misleading: the Declaration was decidedly not about the language of literature, but the language in everyday use, as well as the language norm, therefore de facto it was about the standard language. GregorB (talk) 18:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "Literal" translation? You mean most accurate translation? This is the name of the Declaration, lets not impose our own interpretations on the reader. Rather, we should explain the declaration in the article. -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 18:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Compare Literary language and Standard language. If the meaning does not fit, then it is not an accurate translation. GregorB (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There was no such thing as "standard Croatian" in 1967 (it was invented only in 1991). To say that it was a declaration on standard Croatian would be completely misleading. hrvatski književni jezik was the only wording allowed to Croatian separatist by the communists. If necessary, it can be explicated in the article itself, but the translation of the Serbo-Croatian word književni as English standard is unacceptable.  --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * A common dichotomy: what's it called vs what it is. I hope English readers are not required to be familiar with the 20th century history of Croatian language in order to understand what this article is about. But apart from that: I don't understand what do you mean by saying that "standard Croatian" didn't exist before 1991. The term didn't exist (i.e. was not in use), or what this term denoted didn't exist? It can't be the latter, because absence of a standard would mean that there is no way to say what was orthographically and lexically correct and what wasn't. But back in school, our teachers knew, :-) and this was not arbitrary. GregorB (talk) 19:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If it didn't exist it couldn't have denoted anything. Back than the term hrvatski književni jezik meant "Western variety of Serbo-Croatian". Today when literary Croatian is codified/standardized, we can speak of it as such, but it doesn't make sense to speak of it in 1967. The translation of Serbo-Croatian word književni by an English word standard would be very misleading, leading the user under the impression that there was standard form of Croatian in 1967 and before, which there simply wasn't. There were common Serbo-Croatian dictionaries, grammar, orthographies etc. Now they are separate (cynics would say: only by name), but in 1967 - not. The phrase hrvatski književni jezik was idiomatic and should be translated to English literally and its meaning explained in the article. The would be the only proper way IMHO. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Croatian language standard existed before 1991. It existed de jure, because it was based on extant normative literature. It also existed (and was enforced) de facto, which is readily apparent when one opens a say 1970s or 1980s newspaper or magazine printed in Croatia: it is not some hodge-podge of Croatian, Serbian, or what have you - it is unmistakably Croatian language (as we call it today officially, and as we called it back then unofficially). Back in elementary school (that was 1980s), I once wrote okean instead of ocean. Do you think I got away with it? How come I didn't, if there was no "standard Croatian"? But back to my point: what we called (and still call, mind you) književni jezik is what you get when you click on Standard language, it is not what you get when you click on Literary language. A translation needs to respect the semantic realities of the target language, that's all. GregorB (talk) 20:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Nonsense, there was no such thing as "standard Croatian" before 1991. For standard language to exist it has to have 1) normative orthography 2) normative grammar 3) normative dictionary 4) be officially blessed by the government for use in the media and and the educational system. Croatian had no such thing before 1991, and moreover it still doesn't have - no dictionary of standard Croatian has been published to this day (tho apparently IHJJ is preparing one ), and what should be a normative grammar published by IHJJ contains absurd claims, such as the alleged diphtongal pronunciation of /ije/ which no person utters that way. Imaginary phoneme - imaginary grammar. What you were taught as ocean vs. okean was merely a reflection of literary tradition of what was at that time called Western variety of Serbo-Croatian. It couldn't have possibly been of standard Croatian, because there was simply no such thing back then. hrvatski književni jezik was merely a provisional name sanctioned by the communists to satisfy the appetite of Croatian linguistic separatists. First it was srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski, then it became srpski ili hrvatski/hrvatski ili srpski, then it became hrvatski književni jezik and then it became hrvatski jezik. We must follow it's evolution diachronically, and not apply modern terms retroactively.
 * what we called (and still call, mind you) književni jezik is what you get when you click on Standard language - Oh really? Did you notice the Standard_language ? You can hardly say that the separate "Croatian language" satisfied all of those listed features in 1967. The usage of the term književni jezik in general (today as well as in th past) is completely different thing that the usage of the idiomatic term hrvatski književni jezik before the 1991, so please don't (deliberately) mix those two.
 * Sorry but I simply cannot accept the translation of književni as "standard". It would be simply a fabrication of history. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that Croatian is not fully standardized even today (in fact, in many respects it was moving away from standardization throughout the 1990s), but it is a gradual process that probably started back in the early 1800s (although e.g. Stjepan Babić would say that it was pretty much over by then - and then continue describing how đ was written in 20-odd different ways throughout the 19th century, all with a straight face), and had many ups and downs along the way. Did Croatian satisfy Standard_language in 1967? Well, that's precisely what the Declaration was about. Those people basically said: these features that describe a standard language - that's what we want for Croatian, but we're not getting it (at least not to our satisfaction). So it's quite the contrary: translating is as "literary language" distorts the motivation and intent of the Declaration. (BTW: I'm not aware of the special meaning of književni jezik in hrvatski književni jezik). GregorB (talk) 21:39, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Translating the Serbo-Croatian word književni as an English word literary is exactly that - translating it. So lets quit BS-ing already. There was no such thing as "Croatian language" before 1991 except in the heads of some Croatian nationalist linguists. In the most relevant English-language scholarly overview of the history of Serbo-Croatian language, Language and Identity in the Balkans - Serbo-Croatian and its Disintegration published by a professional linguist (a Slavist), it's translated as Declaration on the Name and Position of the Croatian Literary Language. The only hits on the translation with inside are Wikipedia clones. So please provide sources for an English-language translation of the name of the declaration with inside, as Wikipedia naming guidelines bind us to use the most prevalent scholarly term. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:58, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay: before my last writeup I tried to find an existing translation, but could not find any. If it says "literary language", than that's it, case closed. But I still contend that "standard language" and "literary language" correspond to književni jezik and jezik književnosti, respectively; these two are not the same in Croatian nor are the same in English, of course; this is mostly evidenced by usage of the terms in the Croatian language article itself. (But it's really more complicated than that, see e.g. .) Croatian language (as we call it today) was standardized to a significant degree even in the 1960s-1980s, and the proof is in the pudding (open an old textbook, open an old magazine: what you get is clearly a result of normative work, and not some coincidence). You could not say HAHA, THERE IS NO STANDARD SO EVERYTHING I SAY OR WRITE IS CORRECT any more than you can say it now. GregorB (talk) 07:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Look Gregor, there are were various književni jezici used by Croatian writers over the centuries, used on different regions on vastly differing dialects. All of them are dead now (tho they appear to be continuously reviving some kind of supradialectal ča-kaj-što koine reminiscent of the literary language of Ozaljski književni krug - but with the exception to that and really a negligible number of writers producing literary works in subliterary idiom, we can say that pretty much all of them are dead as literary languages). Silić's claims are absurd: for him jezik književnosti is a subset of hrvatski standardni jezik, and hrvatski standardni jezik is synonymous with hrvatski književni jezik. He also apparently claims that Čakavian, Kajkavian and Štokavian are not "three dialects of Croatian language" but "three Croatian dialects" ! I mean, WTF? :)
 * When you think about it more thoroughly, one realizes that the reason why all this unnecessary distinctions are being introduced is simply in order to justify ignoring a large corpus of words used by the prominent Croatian writers and that were after 1991 suddenly started to be perceived as some kind of "Serbianisms". Krleža, Matoš, Marinković et. al used words such as uslov, ćutanje, historija.. agentive masculine nouns in -ista and not -ist, verbs in -ovati and not -irati..type of stuff that would make modern-day Croatists scream in horror :) So the philologists needed to introduce some kind of distinction that would justify them as "Croatian writers" (not on ethnic but on linguistic grounds), and at the same time disregard a large lexical part of their written corpus as "nonstandard" not because it was not representative of the Croatian literary tradition, but because it smelled too much of "Serbian". IMHO modern-day Croatian language planners are no different than Vukovians who also neglected large part of Croatian literary tradition (but for different purpose, these use it for separatism Vukovians did it for unification). At any case, I still think that the article needs an explanation of the usage of the phrase hrvatski književni jezik and a bit more historical perspective, esp. the perception from the Serbian side where the influx of hundreds of words coined/chiefly used by Croatian writers into Serbian literary language over the centuries was not perceived as some kind of "attack on Serbdom". --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * On a side note: it's more than just a few rogue writers - as late as WWI, there was a magazine printed in Zagreb under the title Ilustrovani list. And it had nothing to do with the Serbs; I also doubt that this was the contemporary perception of its title.


 * One final remark: I have always been dead set against the term književni jezik because it is ill-defined and deceptive, leading to all kinds of misunderstanding. Even Silić is having trouble with it: e.g. it is obvious that jezik književnosti is not a proper subset of any language standard. So the article title stays, let Wikipedia eventualism take its course. GregorB (talk) 14:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Forgive me guys, but I don't see the point of all this: "književni jezik" is translated "literary language", there's no debate here - its the correct translation. A point can be made in the article explaining what exactly was meant by "literary", but this is what the damn thing was called. "Standardni jezik" would be "standard language". Its not up to us to think-up the best name for something. -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 22:01, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

A "controversy"...
...is a "state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view". So, is this edit correct? A controversy it certainly was, and even if strictly speaking it was not a scientific controversy, looking at Category:Linguistic controversies I can say it fits there, especially it being a subcategory of Category:Culture-related controversies. GregorB (talk) 01:53, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Supposed "awkward wording"
, can you please say why do you think "Serbian and Croatian are linguistically the same language" has better wording than "Serbian and Croatian language is linguistically the same"? Would you prefer "The language of Serbs and that of Croats is linguistically the same"?

Note that your formulation does not really make sense and I in fact think that it exhibits bad wording. The issue is that "Serbian and Croatian are" could be construed to imply that Serbian and Croatian are not the same language which would be in contradiction with "linguistically the same language". Notrium (talk) 12:09, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

This article is extreme pov
The Declarations was a proclamation published in 1967 by Croatian linguists, dissatisfied with the published dictionaries and orthographies in which the language, in accordance with the Novi Sad Agreement, was called Serbo-Croatian, and the Novi Sad Agreement tried to achieve with time that Croats speak a language called the Serbian language. Serb before Vuk Karadzic wouldn't be able to understand Serbs after Vuk Karadzic, but Croats before and after Vuk Karadzic would understand each other perfectly. Before Karadzic borrowed/stole from the Croatian language, Serbs spoke in a language that was very close/or was Bulgarian. Serbo-Croatian has it's roots in Serbian nationalism and expansionism. Croats to this day speak Croatian, but Serbs today speak what is called Serbo-Croatian(Croato-Serbian is more accurate). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.252.199.174 (talk) 05:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)