Talk:Serbo-Croatian grammar/Archive 1

[this talk page was at "Croatian grammar" before and after that article was merged to SC grammar]

Aorist & imperfect
This page was missing the aorist and imperfect tenses, so I added them. While the imperfect is not used often, the aorist is still heard in set phrases such as "Odoh ti ja", and "Taman pade snijeg." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.220.27 (talk) 04:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Dative / locative distinction?
I failed to spot any case where the dative case is different from the locative case here, and neither have I seen any in any place. Is there any case of a noun where the dative is different from locative? If not, why are they two different cases? Else we could argue to English having a vocative case and accusative case which are simply no-where different to the nominative case? Rajakhr (talk) 20:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * They (can, in some classes of nouns) differ in pitch accent, but it's not noted in the retarded orthography. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For example, plȁč "cry" has dative singular plȁču, but locative singular plàču. plaču can also mean other things depending on the accentuation - plȃčū "they wash out", 3rd-person plural present of plákati, plȁčū "they cry", 3rd-person plural present od plȁkati. There is also phonetically very similary word pláća having accusative singular form pláću that one can also take into account, since the urban idioms of 5 biggest Croatian cities don't distinguish /č/ and /ć/ (yes, we write imaginary phonemes in our "perfect" orthography). There are words that can mean something like 8 different things depending on how you pronounce them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Redirect made by a non-neutral person
Kwamikagami redirected this page to a page "Serbo-Croatian grammar". The person that did that is not a neutral person. 30 Dec 2008 Kwamikagami did this. Declaring someone's language as just a "variety" is an insult on the national basis. Such kind of edits are disruptive. This way user Kwamikagami has deleted the whole content of the article=years of work of other users. This is the misuse of redirect. It's the same as page blanking. WP:REDIRECT says "A redirect is a page which has no content itself, but sends the reader to another article, section of an article, or page, usually from an alternative title." This was not empty page. Kubura (talk) 23:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

And this is a "neutral person" ? Imposing his personal POV, and etiquetting the opponents as "nationalists" as a means to win a "discussion"? This is evasion of discussion. Posting his intentions on hard-to-find pages (all contributors aren't interested in participating on Project pages, we have user- and article talkpages.). Kubura (talk) 23:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Here's the discussion I had with that user on his talkpage. Precisely, my questions for him about the facts about Croatian, his answer , my message and finally his answer. "No, I don't know the answers to most of them.". But he does finds himself as authority about the language he doesn't speak. Kubura (talk) 00:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The merge notice has been up for months, with no objections. — kwami (talk) 03:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Merge notice was put on 20:00, 23 April 2010, 6 days later I see in history this: who ever put this "merge" on the article should be considered a vandal, well maybe not...errr... vandal, but definitely misguided person, or pretty ignorant of subject. So to write there was no objections is simply false. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 10:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No-one bothered to object here, on the discussion page for the move, in over two months. — kwami (talk) 11:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm objecting now, because I see it now. To my best knowledge if somebody wants to merge articles Germany and Great Britain, and nobody objects for over two months that makes it no more true that Germany and Great Britain are the same country. Likewise in this case, if nobody objected on talk page, that makes it no more true, that only means nobody willing to object on talk page to that blatant ignorance has seen that. And there were objections, I remind you. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 11:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Content forking
First sentence of page Content forking: A content fork is the creation of multiple separate articles all treating the same subject.

As Croatian grammar and Serbian grammar are not synonyms, but they treat two different languages (Croatian language, hrv by ISO 639-2 and Serbian language srp by ISO 639-2), I see no content fork here. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 10:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Two "languages" with the same grammar, apart from a couple details equivalent to American "will" vs. British "shall". Please point out any content that is not forked. — kwami (talk) 11:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Grammatical features of Croatian language, both diachronically (for instance, the structure of declension or now extinct third future tense that is equal to the future in Russian, but non-existent in Serbian), or synchronically (the number of Croatian vowels differ from the number of Serbian or Bosnian; the morphology prescriptions are also different) are such that no cover term as Serbo-Croatian language is logical, which still persists due more to political than to linguistical reasons.
 * In Croatian language futur prvi is formed with the infinitive, in Serbian mostly with an explicative dependent clause.
 * Merging grammars of two different languages, why? I really do not understand that. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 12:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Because they're the same grammar. "In Serbian mostly" - exactly: There are a few minor differences, but they are not always consistent, and anyway can always be covered in a single article. This duplication of effort has been called "a huge waste of time" on one of the discussion pages. — kwami (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Kwami, is "the grammar is the same" your only argument? You are merging (without any apparent or sensible reason) two different grammars, which have different histories and scripts into some "Serbo-croatian" grammar which denoted merely a political creation (language) that never caught on. In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. And grammars of Croatian and Serbian ARE different.--Saxum (talk) 13:54, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It is the relevant argument, for that is what makes this a content fork.
 * I know what grammar is. (Standard) Serbian and Croatian are grammatically the same language, as is profusely documented in any number of sources, mostly at the SC article. This proposal was unanimously accepted by the linguistics projects, and I gave notice several times to make sure there were no valid objections.
 * The only objection is that many Croats do not like the term "Serbo-Croatian". However, that is a political argument, and in English the term is generally used for the language of which Croatian, Serbian, and Bosniac are official registers. On English WP, we use English terminology, but I moved the article to 'Serbian and Croatian grammar' to try to avoid offending Croats. However, the latter term may end up offending Bosniacs, and it may need to be moved back to SC. — kwami (talk) 14:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed the redundant material, which is the standard shared with Serbian and Bosnian, and tried to come up with an outline for an independent article. The only way I can think that this article can be justified is if it covered something other than the material at Serbian and Croatian grammar, which would mean covering something other than Shtokavian. Perhaps editors who know Chakavian and Kajkavian can expand those sections? — kwami (talk) 15:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I am currently a bit too tired to leave a smart and elaborate comment here, so here is a crude analogy: this article is to Serbo-Croatian grammar what Krafne is to Berliner (pastry). (Local crowd will understand it, apologies to all others...)
 * Are they the same thing? One could argue that they are not called the same, that maybe the jam is different and the dough recipes are slightly divergent, or that krafne have a distinct and separate history, or that they are eaten on different occasions.
 * These are all decent arguments - but let's face it, these things are essentially the same. Still, it is important to understand that "essentially the same" does not mean "identical", and that difference (or likeness) in naming does not imply a difference (or likeness) in substance. Should we infer that Croatian krafne are different than Serbian krofne because they are called differently? Should we imply that krofne in Serbia and Bosnia are the same?
 * Here in Wikipedia, "essentially the same" usually means "described in the same article". It is a matter of logic and utility, and not some kind of certificate of sameness. On the contrary: it is precisely this organization that offers the best opportunity to describe the differences in a systematic way, and to give the reader a sense of perspective. Either that, or a quadruple fork. GregorB (talk) 21:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No, not "either that". Croatian grammar is fine, but would need to be different material from Serbian grammar, whereas the old article was not: What Speedy is restoring is primarily how Croatian is the same as Serbian. We even have an article on the differences between Croatian and Serbian, so we need something specifically Croatian. My thought was that we could cover all three dialects, or the differences between them, since while Shtokavian is Serbian, Chakavian and Kajkavian are not. Either that or a simple merge, as everyone on the language project agreed.


 * The author of this article, User:Coldipa (his version here, essentially what Speedy is reverting to now), has agreed that the articles should be merged, since they duplicate each other.


 * There are quite a few editors here who make ridiculous claims, such as that Serbs need subtitles to understand Croatian television. Part of the problem may be to counter such nonsense without going overboard.


 * For the English reader, the subjects are effectively the same. For instance, US diplomats learn "Serbo-Croatian" at the FSI. Of course, they may concentrate on Serbian or Croatian, just as a learner of English may concentrate on RP or GA, but the language material is essentially the same. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics not only doesn't have separate articles on the grammar, but doesn't bother with separate articles for Croatian and Serbian at all! Separate WP grammar articles for the standard languages are no more justified than it would be to split British grammar and American grammar. Separate grammar articles for the dialects would be justified, IMO, if anyone cares to write about them.


 * — kwami (talk) 00:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

"For instance". Yeah, and for instance, in USA and South Africa there were official signs "whites only". "language material is essentially the same". Kwami, you don't speak Croatian nor Serbian, and than you dare to say something about the language material. Kwami, I still wait for your answer on those questions I gave you on your talkpage. Kubura (talk) 01:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You've been here long enough to know not to attack other editors, and to restrict the talk page to discussions on improving the article. And I've answered your questions. — kwami (talk) 01:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I haven't attacked you. You're avoiding discussion. You haven't answered on my questions from 25 May 2010. If you don't know Croatian, please, don't mess into topics you don't know. I'm not speaking Choctaw, so I'm not playing that I know more about Choctaw language than the Choctaw maternal speakers themselves. More questions for you: do you know anything about the historical development of Croatian grammars? Kubura (talk) 01:08, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If I answered your question, you'd just say that I haven't answered your question, so what's the point?
 * What we personally know is irrelevant, though of course it is better to know what you're talking about. What we rely on at WP are WP:reliable sources. The reliable sources demonstrate that Serbian and Croatian share a common grammar. That has been demonstrated ad nauseum. Therefore they are a single subject matter. Therefore they need to be merged.
 * Now, there's plenty that we can profitably discuss, such as: what is the best name for the merged article? and: is there s.t. we can write about here that wouldn't be a content fork? (I made a stab at the latter, but my attempt was rejected.) — kwami (talk) 01:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Every language in the world share some common grammar, but question is how similar they really are. I see above sentence: that has been demonstrated ad nauseum. - I question that.
 * Serbian and Croatian are different languages, history of written Croatian is over 10 centuries long, would-be SC language is imagined for the first time somewhere around 1850, and you can not learn it today either in Croatia or Serbia. So content in article on Croatian grammar can be about history of Croatian language grammars, it can write about grammars of three dialects Croatian language is stilized on, article can speak of todays changes. So article on Croatian grammar is not fork of SC grammar, actually it can be only other way around. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 23:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Questions for Kwamikagami
"What we rely on at WP are WP:reliable sources. The reliable sources demonstrate that Serbian and Croatian share a common grammar." What "reliable sources"? Graffiti on the wall? Maybe we misunderstood about my questions. So I'll repeat them here. Budući da se smatraš autoritetom za područje hrvatskog jezika, onda moraš znati govoriti i pisati taj jezik, njegovu povijest te političke progone i pokušaje zatiranja hrvatskog jezika, pa možeš razgovarati sa mnom na hrvatskom jeziku. Kad si već toliki stručnjak za hrvatski, moraš ga i znati. 1) Znaš li kad se prvi put spominje ime hrvatskog jezika i u kojem obliku? 2) Tko je otac hrvatske književnosti? 3) Kako se hrvatski jezik zvao kroz povijest? 4) Znaš li na kojem su jeziku pisali AVNOJ -eve dokumente? 5) Koje se jezike izričito navelo da se na njima mora pisati AVNOJ-eve dokumente? 6) Znaš li zašto su hrvatski kulturni djelatnici donijeli Deklaraciju o Deklaracija o nazivu i položaju hrvatskog književnog jezika? 7) Znaš li kakvim su pritiscima bili izloženi ti ljudi od strane vlastiju? 8) Je li ti poznato hrvatsko jezikoslovno nazivlje? 9) Znaš li kad je i zašto je uvedena nagrada dr Ivan Šreter i zašto ta nagrada nosi to ime? And more: 10) Znaš li zašto je hrvatski glagolski, a srpski imenični jezik? I što to uopće znači? Do you know what's article Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian talking about? 44,030 bytes of "it's the same"? Do you know anything about the syntax of Croatian language and syntax of Serbian language? And please. Many of us are working on articles, but we aren't the regular visitors of linguist Portals on wiki. If you wanted to change something, you had to put that on the talkpage and discuss it there. You didn't. First time the "merge" template appeared, it was quickly removed. So you had no consensus for your self-willing action. Kubura (talk) 01:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * First of all, speaking Croatian is not a requirement for writing the article. Second, we did post the merge notice on the page--for months! Vandalism is not discussion. There was no opposition in the discussion. The consensus was to merge, and we merged. If you now decide you want something different, then put in a request to have the article split. If you continue to edit war, I will request to have you blocked.
 * I've answered your "questions" many times. This is the last time I will take part in this little charade of yours.


 * 1) I don't know when the name 'Croatian' was first used. If you know, you can add it to the article. We call that collaboration. (Perhaps you're familiar with that concept?) In any case, that's a naming issue irrelevant to the merger.
 * 2) Different people have been called the father of Croatian lit. Who it truly is is a matter of opinion, not fact, as "father" is a subjective appellation. Again, this is irrelevant; it is a point for Croatian literature, not grammar.
 * 3) Croatian has, throughout history, been called just "Croatian" or occasionally "Croat", and just possibly "Cravat", but if so, the latter term never caught on. Do you know of any other word? (In English, of course. This is English WP.) :Ah! I have found a couple cases of it being called "Illyrian" or "Illyric" in the 1800s. In some cases it is contrasted with "Servian", and so would be Croatian, but in others it includes all Slavs of Dalmatia/Illyria, and so is the same as Serbo-Croatian. I don't think it was ever called "Dalmatian".
 * 4) The Anti-Fascist movement was a political movement. It has nothing to do with whether Croatian and Serbian share the same grammar.
 * 5) I have no idea. Perhaps you can demonstrate how it's relevant to the issue at hand?
 * 6) Sure, there are lots of nationalistic reasons behind every standard language. So what? No-one is denying that Croatian is a separate language standard. The question is whether it shares its grammar with Serbian, which it does.
 * 7) I won't say I understand the persecution that people have faced. I can't know, as I haven't been through it. But again, this is a political issue, and utterly irrelevant to the point at hand.
 * 8) We don't use "Croatian linguistic terms". This is English Wikipedia. We use English linguistic terms. This has also been pointed out to you numerous times, and is something that you refuse to accept. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
 * 9) The Šreter award is for the creation of novel Croatian words. This is an exercise in the artificial development of a language. Again, irrelevant to this article, which is about grammar. (See the word at the end of the article? "Grammar".)
 * 10) I have no idea what you're trying to say here. You'll have to dumb it down for me.
 * And please write in English. This is English WP. Don't play games to make a WP:point. — kwami (talk) 02:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually when vandal deletes something, or write something, normal users do not explain much why they deleted it. Your merge template was considered vandalism, and therefore no better argumentation on talk page. But now you have argumentation present here, and please regard it, thank you. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 04:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Since it was clearly not WP:vandalism, but a request for discussion, anyone who threw a temper tantrum and refused to discuss it forfeited the opportunity to be heard. The discussion is over, and the decision made. If you wish to start a new discussion, then request comment on splitting the article. — kwami (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Work (and plead)
I am working on article (adding new content), and using references for almost all content I write. I would be very happy if users who do not contribute content to article abstain of meddling (deleting parts of article), whichever reason they give, if they do not provide sources/references for their claims. Thank you. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 08:35, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I took the liberty of tagging the article with under construction. GregorB (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile you should not be forking the content of Serbian and Croatian grammar. The grammar of the standard language is now covered there, a decision made with months of notification and discussion, and any duplication of that article will be deleted. This article either needs to cover a different subject, or be a redirect, or perhaps you can think of some other use for it, but not just the same material under a different name or with different refs. — kwami (talk) 20:05, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Writes above: grammar of the standard language is now covered there - grammar of which standard language? Croatian? Serbian? Some third language?
 * If it isn't grammar of Croatian language, then anything written in this article is not content fork by definition. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 07:59, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Both, of course, as well as Bosnian and Montenegrin. Come on, you know this. Repeating all the declension and conjugation tables is, of course, content forking.
 * Since you've rejected attempts to create a valid article, and no-one else is contributing, we're back to a redirect. — kwami (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, who do you think you are? Who are you to allow yourself to determin what'll go into redirect or not? Other people are contributing or they've announced their contribution. This merging is the self-willing obliteration of a language. "grammar of the standard language is now covered there ". What standard language? Creating a Frankenstein out of two separate persons and artificially merge their properties? Kwami, do you know Croatian grammar? Kwami, this article isn't your property. Kwami, do you speak Bosnian language? Do you speak Montenegrin language? "Repeating all the declension and conjugation tables is, of course, content forking.". So, Lionel Messi appears in the article FC Barcelona, Argentina national football team and Lionel Messi, and since they have the same sections, we should redirect article FC Barcelona to Lionel Messi and Argentina national football team to Lionel Messi. Please, don't interfere into the topic you don't understand. Reminder: American Library of Congress determined abbreviations hrv and srp as sole valid abbreviations (instead of scr and scc). Decision was published 17 June 2008, and it became obligatory since 1 September 2008. So please, don't spread your personal attitude here. Kubura (talk) 01:45, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Notice of this merge was posted for months. There was no objection on the talk page, only discussion on how best to do it. Notice was posted on the language and linguistics projects. Consent was unanimous, with people bemoaning what a waste of time it was to write separate articles. Sorry, that's the consensus. It has nothing to do with ownership, mine or yours. — kwami (talk) 01:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I repeat: Merge notice was put on 20:00, 23 April 2010, 6 days later I see in history this: who ever put this "merge" on the article should be considered a vandal, well maybe not...errr... vandal, but definitely misguided person, or pretty ignorant of subject. So to write there was no objections is simply false. SpeedyGonsales (talk) 23:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * So? That person never bothered to discuss it, but instead deleted the merge tag, which makes him a vandal. Also, decisions are made on the strength of one's arguments. There was no argument, so he was of course ignored. No-one is interested in unanimity here, but in creating good articles. The unanimous opinion of everyone who bothered to discuss this was that the two articles, C grammar and S grammar, were a content fork. — kwami (talk) 02:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I would imagine that in order for an objection to the merge to be valid, i.e. even considered as such, it should be consisting of at least some kind of talkpage argument. There's really no question that the merge was unopposed, I would suggest that my countrymen propose an article split rather than engaging in an edit-war here.

P.S. "Misguided", "ignorant"? WP:NPA, keep it up gents... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 07:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Admin's tools used in case of conflict of interest
Kwamikagami has a conflict of interest. He has protected the page on his version. He permanently protected the page!! He lied in the edit summary "page merged per consensus". There's no consensus. So many reverts proves that. To make things worse, Kwamikagami doesn't know the matter. No basic knowledge about it. Kubura (talk) 01:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * There was very clear, indeed unanimous, consensus, after months of discussion, which you didn't bother to join. I only forgot to protect the redirect when I merged it. Once the nationalists came out of the woodwork, I asked for protection, and nothing happened. Something needed to be done to stop the ridiculous edit war going on here. As others have said, the merge is a done deal. If you wish to split the article, make a RfC etc. as I did to merge it, and if consensus swings back your way, we'll undo the merge. — kwami (talk) 03:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Conflict of interest?? LoL, after the merge was done and over with, engaging in a revert-war and undoing people's efforts out of hand in this manner is little more than edit-warring to vandalize Wikipedia. Besides, after the merge was properly done the redirect should've been protected immediately anyway. If you wish to split the article, I don't understand why you don't propose it instead of edit-warring over it here? No question at all about the propriety of kwami's actions... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 10:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

DIREKTOR, Kwamikagami has used its protection tool in the article in which he's in edit conflict. He's not allowed to do that. "The merge was done". Yeah, according to such logic, one can redirect article Earth to article Solar system since "topic of Earth is covered there". "engaging in a revert-war and undoing people's efforts". You mean deleting/blanking         ? You call these edits as "people's efforts"? Or blatant reverting like this one ? If you care so about people's efforts, than respect these: DIREKTOR, you're not neutral person. You've explicitly declared yourself as a person that wishes the revival of "Croato-Serbian language". Now you've turned to worse: you've removed Croatian from the first place and you've declared your mother tongue as "Serbocroatian". There was no consensus here to redirect this article. Kwamikagami got several opponents. He proved that he's doesn't know the matter ("Old Croatian"). It's irritating that Kwamikagami's opponents have to prove and reference every nanodetail, while he doesn't have to, since he finds his word as unquestionable "It's so because I said so.". Kubura (talk) 02:36, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In short, this is not a content dispute, and the page could and should have been protected anyway out of course. The merge, for whatever reason one may oppose it, was completed properly (whether you like it or no). Restoring the article after its merge (without consensus!) is little more than vandalism, and its prevention is not really an issue. Again, I suggest you try to split the article. --  DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 08:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Croatian grammar
Croatian grammar is not equal with serbo-croatian grammar!!!

--Dmitar Zvonimir (talk) 13:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sources? — kwami (talk) 22:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Sources for Croatian Grammar:
 * Bartol Kašić: Institutionum linguae Illyricae libri duo. Authore Bartholomaeo Cassio, Romae : Apud Aloysium Zanettum, 1604.

Bartol Kašić is Croatian cleric, name in Latin language is Cassius, Cassio. Born: Pag 15. VIII. 1575. - † Roma 28. XII. 1650.

see: --Dmitar Zvonimir (talk) 12:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Bartol Kašić
 * Gramatika hrvatskoga jezika
 * Pravopis hrvatskoga jezika
 * Hrvatski jezik
 * Ivan Broz
 * Ljudevit Jonke
 * Dalibor Brozović
 * Bogoslav Šulek...


 * We're aware of Kašić. But that doesn't answer the question. — kwami (talk) 13:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe you should read Kašić's grammar, for not only does it nowhere call the language "Croatian", but Illyrian, but it also explicitly states that the same language is spoken by people of other religions (Orthodoxs and Muslims). Which is understandable given that the only reason why he wrote the grammar in the first place was because he was commissioned to do so by Vatican in an effort to spread "proper" Christianity through propaganda. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

See the language of Kašić's grammar. That's not the language of Niš or Leskovac. Further, Vladimir Horvat in Bartol Kašić - otac hrvatskog jezikoslovlja, Sveučilište u Zagrebu-Hrvatski studiji/Filozofski fakultet Družbe Isusove u Zagrebu/Hrvatski povijesni institut u Beču, Zagreb, 2004, 2. ed., p. 323, ISBN 953-6682-49-4 has proved that Kašić considered Illyrian as Croatian. "''No, u njegovoj Gramatici nalazimo među pridjevima koji označavaju narodnu pripadnost (quod gentem vel nationem indicat) Slovinski Illyricus (str. 43), a u Rječniku nalazimo poredano na str. 48 i 279 Serbian language has no forms "harvatski, Harvat". They don't use "slogotvorno r" - and on the contrary, Croatian language has the forms "harvatski, hervatski, harvotski, Harvat, Hervat, Horvat, Harvot". Kubura (talk) 02:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Harvácchi, e, e = Sclavono, a, o
 * Harvatski, a, e = Sclavone, a, o
 * Harvát, ta, m = Croato

Congrats
Congratulations, wikipedia made news today because of this. '' Timbouctou 18:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

OPEN PAGE CROATIAN GRAMMAR
OPEN PAGE CROATIAN GRAMMAR !


 * As has been repeatedly rehashed, although vocabulary differs between Croatian and Serbian the grammar is the same. Matt J User&#124;Talk 13:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Talkpage merge
I propose this talkpage be merged with Talk:Serbo-Croatian grammar, and turned into a redirect. At this point it just serves as a place for (quote) "sourceless rants". -- Director  ( talk )  12:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Voting as the basis for merging articles??
As languages are living, breathing instruments of communication, could someone please inform me as to which academic institution is entrusted with regulating the "Serbo-Croatian" language? Where is "Serbo-Croatian" an official language of communication? I do not understand how a simple vote can merge the grammars of two distinct languages. There is absolutely no basis to merge the grammar sections of these languages and this merger only serves to devalue the worth of wikipedia. Redina (talk) 14:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)Redina


 * Sure. The regulating bodies are listed on the individual national standards. I'll merge to the infobox in the main SC article. — kwami (talk) 19:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge?
Apart from this article, we have Serbian grammar and Croatian grammar. Is there a plan to merge these two into Serbo-Croatian grammar? Since the overlap is 95%+, I see no point in keeping these three separate. A single article can also systematically describe differences between Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, etc. - this would be a bonus. GregorB (talk) 16:34, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Possibly. It will take me at least a month more to finish this article though, and by the time it's finished it will have basically everything that those 2 article have, plus a lot more. However, I suspect that lots of folks will object on nationalist grounds to the merger, so I suggest we leave it as a very last step. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Good. I agree, there might be a lot of flak, so the more complete this article is, the more likely it is that people would accept the merge. GregorB (talk) 18:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There's also Serbian declension... GregorB (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't discover this orphaned article until after I had proposed a merge at Wikiproject Linguistics. It looks like it hasn't been developed for a while, but it is already better developed than the others, and so far the proposal has met with support--among us so far there are six supporting editors, which should be enough to get the ball rolling. kwami (talk) 18:38, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles to merge:
 * Croatian grammar
 * Serbian grammar
 * Serbian declension
 * Serbian nouns
 * Serbian conjugation

Possible also
 * Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian


 * From the article Croatian grammar: "It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Serbo-Croatian grammar."


 * No wonder people don't take wikipedia for serious... -_-Saxum (talk) 18:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I merged the orphaned Serbian articles. This article is going to get pretty long with all the tables, though, so it would be a good idea to split off 'SC declension' and 'SC conjugation' articles. We could merge with the page histories above to retain those.

I went ahead and split off Serbo-Croatian phonology, as it's complete. We have a lot of phonology articles for other languages, so that's a good place to split. — kwami (talk) 00:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I would vote against merger. I created this article with the knowledge that the grammars are the same with differences English or German speakers would barely call different dialects, so I wouldn't cry if they do get merged. However, the vast majority of Croatians become livid at the suggestion that they are the same language. Also, Serbs mostly prefer to use Cyrillic for such articles. (The article Serbian grammar is in the Cyrillic.) Merging the two articles is making a statement that they are, in fact, the same language. I see the question here as being: should we decide the issue arbitrarily, or keep them separate in the name of objective distance and let people decide for themselves. In fact, people have a right to call their language whatever they want. This dispute itself should be the basis of a separate article. There are so many aspects of the conflict that are not dealt with on Wikipedia, or only piece-meal on different pages. Anyone want to provoke an editing war and write Croatian language dispute? One could argue on the other hand that the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, but not grammar, make them separate languages, just with the same grammar. — Coldipa (talk) 22:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That has been the concern with merging. However, other people have noted the colossal waste of time of writing the article twice under two names. It is the same grammar, apart from a few minor points (which AFAIK do not completely correlate with C or S in actual speech), which violates WP:content forking. As for Serbian, I was planning on merging that article today even without transcribing the Cyrillic. WP-en needs to be in Latin, or at least Latin transcription, and since Serbian is written in Latin too, there's really no excuse for an article in Cyrillic. — kwami (talk) 01:27, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I see that things have changed since I wrote the article. Serbian Grammar is now Serbo-Croatian Grammar, some parts of my original article have found their way into this article, and the SC grammar article has been improved enormously. So I guess I've officially waffled. I'm working on an article on the dispute and I'll try to be objective. Almost every article on sc linguistics has biased commentary included. I think the Croatian pov deserves an intelligent explanation more that random rants, and the nationalists still have a lot to learn about their own language.


 * I might only suggest that the merged article be called "Serbian and Croatian Grammar", an expression that is in use and would avoid the judgment that they are a single language. If they are merged, the Latin spelling must be shown throughout. Also, the section "Auxiliary Verbs jesam" seems absurd to me. It is like saying that be and is is not the same verb. I have never seen this stated anywhere in books on Croatian or on Serbian. Serbian forms are also shown throughout, without the Croatian forms (bejah, but not bijah). — Coldipa (talk) 19:33, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The move is probably a good idea as far as Croats go. But this also covers Bosnian and Montenegrin (those articles direct here), so there may be problem with them not being in the title. I'll try moving it; it may need to come back, depending on how "outraged" people become.
 * Latin is shown throughout; do you mean that Cyrillic shouldn't be shown? That would cut down the article substantially, which IMO would be a good thing.
 * Please edit the AUX section as you see fit.
 * Iyekavian forms are supposed to be included. Please add any that were missed. — kwami (talk) 02:24, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Serbian grammar
I redirected Serbian grammar. There are some things such as adjectives which are not yet covered here. However, that entire article was in Cyrillic, which isn't appropriate for WP-en. Anyone who wants that material included, please transcribe it to Latin, or both. — kwami (talk) 01:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Croatian grammar
This is now completely duplicated on this page. The only objection so far is that people would get upset for political/nationalistic reasons, which is a walled-garden issue, whereas everyone else has sees no point in keeping separate articles. — kwami (talk) 01:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Bu for poilitical reasons the so called serborcroatian was created. ??? So what i.t.f are you doing there?


 * No, "Serbo-Croatian" is the English name for Croatian+Serbian+Bosniac etc. — kwami (talk) 10:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The term "Serbo-Croatian" is confusing because it bears the same name as the official language of the former Yugoslavia. This language is no longer in use, but Serbian and Croatian are. Despite their colossal similarity they are still separate languages and cramming them together for the sake of Wikipedia's simplification is simply inaccurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruno Lovric (talk • contribs) 14:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Linguists don't see such a clear distinction - the question there is not about what political declarations have been made, but how to objectively describe varieties of speech by mutual intelligibility. Standard Serbian and Croatian are more similar to each otehr than many variants of languages considered dialects. This is not determined within linguistics by political, and linguists are instead neutral as to what constitutes a language or a dialect but may use reasonable descriptions of speech, and it is very practical and *a* fair description to describe 'Serbo-Croatian', and take note of the differences between its varieties. A variety of actual speech didn't die out instantly when Serbia and Croatia split politically. However, the concept of a unified Serbo-Croatian is still very much a valid one in the broader linguistic sense. This is not political. See for example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy

Serbia has its grammar and Croatia has its grammar, so I am not sure why typing Croatian grammar or Serbian grammar in Wikipedia takes me to the grammar of non-existing language: Serbo-Croatian?? This is not only disrespectful towards the official languages of these two countries, but it is also misleading.

Please do not label me as nationalistic because I come from mixed marriage and I love my Croatian mother just as much as I love my Serbian father. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruno Lovric (talk • contribs) 14:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No, because of the colossal similarities they are the same language, by definition: your mother and father can understand each other just fine. If you have a better name for it than the (in English common) Serbo-Croatian, we all are all ears.
 * Yes, while even every subsubsub(etc.)dialect can be considered to have its own grammar, they are lumped together because they are usually (virtually) identical. As Serbian grammar=Croatian grammar → =Serbo-Croatian grammar. There's nothing disrespectful about telling the truth.--JorisvS (talk) 13:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

rm. Cyrillic?
Since Serbian is biscriptal, and our readers all know the Latin alphabet, is there any reason to retain Cyrillic? The script is irrelevant to the grammar and therefore so to the article. Adding Cyrillic merely takes up a lot of space. The Russian article doesn't bother with Latin except when illustrating Croatian orthography, and that wouldn't seem to be a problem. kwami (talk) 08:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with either way. I wish that there were a way of selecting either (or both) scripts interactively, via templates. Sort of "Click this button to see the article in Cyrillic script". The biscriptal style as it is now used was inspired by that of Wayles Browne's article on SC gramar in Comrie&Corbett's The Slavonic languages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't want to delete anything until others chime in, but it would be easier to merge and expand if we left it out. I also doubt that that would inconvenience anyone, but best to wait. kwami (talk) 10:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I suddenly got motivated to work on this article. I'll keep the both spelling and add cross-links to Wiktionay for both of them (which are kept are different pages there). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:01, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Great! You'll do a much better job than I ever could.


 * BTW, I had started formatting all IPA with IPA and all SC with unicode, as otherwise they display inconsistently on a lot of browsers, and the SC accents can get pretty funky. I don't know how the bullet looks to you, separating S from C; I used the smaller raised dot in the phoneme table. I find the slash difficult to read: the words run together, and there's visual interference from the slashes bracketing the IPA. kwami (talk) 12:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right, looks much better with bullets. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Expanded the tooltip template to force formatting. If you add a third parameter |u}} or |unicode}} at the end, it formats the inline text (though not the popup text) as unicode, which helps with all those diacritics. — kwami (talk) 19:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

wikt links
The wikt links and tooltips are incompatible on my browser (FF), or at least with my WP settings. For example, when I mouse over muka, which has both, I only see wikt:muka in the pop-up window, not the translation. IMO the translations are useful, the links not so much. kwami (talk) 15:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to add a parameter to tooltip for it to format as unicode. That should clean up the page quite a bit, and be useful for other articles. kwami (talk) 15:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I found that combines tooltip and linking. How about creating a version of it that links to Wiktionary (with default wikt: prefix) and uses  by default (since it would be used for lots of foreign-language words, it would be good to enforce unicode) ? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay. Remind me in a couple days if I forget. I'm going to bed now. — kwami (talk) 07:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

"moved Serbo-Croatian grammar to Serbian and Croatian grammar: try to head off nationalistic outrage"
Just wait until Bosniaks and Montenegrins see the new title... :-)

No, seriously: I see no need to forestall trouble here. GregorB (talk) 16:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, the edit warring has already started at Croatian grammar, even with the new name. I rewrote it as a stub for all Croat dialects, minus the stuff already covered here. I imagine people won't be satisfied with that either, though. I'll move this article back, since the grammar sections of Bosnian & Montenegrin direct here. — kwami (talk) 16:45, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Page title and the usage of "Serbo-Croatian"
Now, Google gives about 1,920 hits for "Serbian grammar", 1,250 for "Croatian grammar", 253 for "Bosnian grammar", 194 for "Serbo-Croatian grammar" and 56 for "Montenegrin grammar". Also, a quick Amazon search reveals that a lot (I'd say majority) of the recently published language teaching material (in English) for B/C/S/M either focuses on just one of the languages or uses terms like "Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian" (eg. "Serbian: An Essential Grammar" by Lila Hammond, published by Routledge in 2005, or "Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary" by Ronelle Alexander, University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), with "Serbo-Croatian" mostly used by books published in the 1980's or 1990's. And, of course, "Serbo-Croatian" is not used anymore by the overwhelming majority of the native speakers, their media, books, dictionaries etc.

So, I'd say the current title and the usage of "Serbo-Croatian" here doesn't reflect the reality of the three (four) languages today accurately and should be changed accordingly ("Grammar of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian" with possibly Montenegrin added if anyone complains). Also, notwithstanding the extraordinary degree of similarity (if not identity) of the grammar topics for the languages, they really do live separate lives and merging them, to me, makes as little sense as merging, say, articles about all the small American towns with orthogonal street grids and 1000 inhabitants because they're all the same and can really be discerned from one another only by the people who live there. Simply, it's not the same, no matter how identical it might look if you stand far enough. --Elephantus (talk) 23:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * This was the reason for the recent move to "Serbian and Croatian grammar", but that left out "Bosnian". (Since Montenegrin doesn't actually exist yet, as anything more than an alphabet, I think we can ignore it for now.)
 * Your Google hits include large numbers of WP, WBooks, and their mirrors. Also, any returned number above about 700 is meaningless; for example, a return of 3 million might actually mean 600.
 * The con is that Grammar of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (alphabetically) or Grammar of Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian (by numerical importance, and closer to the familiar wording of 'Serbo-Croatian') is rather wordy.
 * Also, the nationalists have been objecting to the concept of lumping C in with S, not with the name itself. We've changed the name, and get the same objections.
 * IMO this is the kind of question best decided with wider input. Should we post a RfC or RfM? Perhaps we should give several choices, 'SC grammar, G of BCS, G of SCB, G of BCMS, G of SCBM'? — kwami (talk) 00:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * They exist as different national standards but are by linguistic criteria the same language. There is no "similarity" - their grammars are 99% the same, given the fact that all modern-day national standards invented by nationalists in the 1990s were created by minor deviations from the former common standard that existed for almost 2 centuries. They don't "live separate lives" because their speakers intermingle and communicate on a daily basis, especially in multiethnic state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not to mention the effects of Internet and TV, where you have Serbian shows regulary broadcasted on Croatian TV channels, and Croatian TV channels are viewable in pretty much all of Bosnia and Serbia.
 * to me, makes as little sense as merging, say, articles about all the small American towns with orthogonal street grids and 1000 inhabitants because they're all the same and can really be discerned from one another only by the people who live there.  - pointless analogy. Why don't you draw the more familiar analogy, say between American and British English, German of Austria/Germany/Switzerland, Spanish of Spain/Latin America, Protuguese of Brazil/Portugal... that have all more differences than B/C/S standards and yet have all the same grammar articles on Wikipedia?
 * Simply, it's not the same, no matter how identical it might look if you stand far enough. - No, it's pretty much the same. The same phonology, the same accentual system, the same inflection tables for nouns, adjectives, verbs (hundreds of them), the same complex syntax (with some minor differences). There is no reason to separate them as that would entail massive content forking. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:56, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think he was proposing splitting the article, just changing the name to avoid the term SC: the (single) grammar of (the standards) SCBM. — kwami (talk) 09:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Croatian Grammar is not equal with Serbo-Croatian Grammar. Serbo-Croatian have base in Serbian language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmitar Zvonimir (talk • contribs) 12:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, "Serbo-Croatian" is the name for Serbian and Croatian taken together. Even under Yugoslavia, it was a bi-standard, with a Serbian and a Croatian form. BTW, the English use of the term goes back at least to 1883 (Morfill, Slavic Lit.), long before Yugoslavia tried merging them. — kwami (talk) 13:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as "Serbo-Croatian". The so called "Serbo-Croatian language" was just a failed attempt to create something new, like Frankenstein's monster.--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 14:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You might want to review your history. The term existed long before the formation of Yugoslavia, and is the only colloquial term in English for the abstand language. If you can think of a better term, let's hear it. We can't exactly call this "grammar of the language-which-may-not-be-named". — kwami (talk) 14:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Croatian and Serbian languages (and their grammars) have existed long before any language mixture called "Serbo-Croatian".--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That is the misunderstanding here. SC is not a "mixture", it's just a language like any other. S and C are ethnicities, not languages. There are two literary traditions and two standards, base on ethnicity, but they are literatures and standards of the same abstand language. That's the linguistic understanding, as we've more than adequately demonstrated. — kwami (talk) 14:47, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, it is a mixture, nothing more and nothing less. Just a bad mixture. And if there is a so called "Serbo-Croatian language", then where are "Serbo-Croats"?--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 15:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Please read an introduction to linguistics, or even our article. Ethnicity is not the same thing as language. Hundreds of ethnicities speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese, for example. That doesn't make each of them a family of multiple languages. Serbs and Croats could have chosen different dialects as their standard languages, as the Bulgarians and Macedonians did. But they didn't: they chose the same dialect. That was their choice. — kwami (talk) 15:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Same dialect doesn't need to mean the same language. Serbian and Croatian languages were separate languages long before the artificial creation of so called "Serbo-Croatian". False language for non-existing nation and people.--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 15:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, you might want to review your history. You might also want to read the links I've provided, such as abstand, so that you understand the discussion. — kwami (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I know my history very well, but it seems that you don't know it. Croatian and Serbian are different languages, spoken by different people, in different countries. They are, and they were. There was no "Serbo-Croatian language" until Yugoslav communists attempted to mix Croatian and Serbian languages into one "über language".--Jack Sparrow 3 (talk) 08:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The self-imagined separate identity of the people or countries where the language is spoken is not a sufficient criterion to call their speeches (or codified national standards) different "languages". That's simply a long-perpetuated myth spread by nationalists, that there exists some kind of "right" to "language". It doesn't. While it may appear to you that the trivial differences of the speech of Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Podgorica, as well as the written literary forms of that speech, merit to be called "different languages", it is not necessarily so for external observers. You are biased and unable to make an objective estimate of the situation.
 * It has also been brought up to you that the codification Serbo-Croatian predates Communist Yugoslavia for a century. See, for example, this grammar book from 1899 written by the illustrious Croatian philologist Tomislav Maretić, where Serbo-Croatian is unambiguously portrayed as a singular language. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:52, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Of course Croats have a right to their own separate language. If they wish to make Chakavian official, who's to stop them? But saying they have a separate language, while continuing to speak the same language as the Serbs, is a matter of language politics and should be covered as such. — kwami (talk) 22:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwamikagami, please do not conduct your original research and don't write false information such "But saying they have a separate language, while continuing to speak the same language as the Serbs". Croats don't speak the same language as Serbs. --Roberta F. (talk) 23:50, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See, for example Croatian digital dictionaries. --Roberta F. (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you interpret "the same" as "identical", then look around, no one denies the two standards aren't identical. However, "the same language" means that whatever varieties are subsumed under it are mutually intelligible. Now, (standard) Croatian and Serbian are perfectly intelligible, and thus the same language, no matter the sensitivities of its various speaker communities. Kwami's statement is neither OR, nor false.
 * And please don't underscore your statements to give them extra force, that's shouty and isn't considered good talk practice. --JorisvS (talk) 10:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Croatian language has 32 votes

 * 1) Croatian language has 32 votes (diphtong ie, accents vocal ŕ).
 * 2) Serbian language has 30 votes.
 * 3) Voices in the Croatian language were distributed differently from votes in the Serbian language, here are some examples:
 * Croatian;opće, općina, svećenik, točno, točka, protupravno, protuustavno, protuobrana, speech; mlieko, sviet, cviet=written; mlijeko, svijet, cvijet, jučer, večer, također, križ, križari, suvremen, suradnik, gdje/di, dol, vol, sol, Atena, amen, gledatelj, slušatelj, posijetitelj, ignorirati,operirati, hrđa, hrapav, kuhati, kuhar,Afganistan, Babilon, Bizant, smijao, živio, mlio, zaljev, proljev, sljev, pogriješka, strijelica, tko, netko, svatko, itko, kemija, kaos, tjedan, povijest, raskružje, kruh......


 * Serbian; opšte, opština, sveštenik, tačno, tačka, protivpravno, protivustavno, protivodbrana, speech; mleko/mlijeko, svet/svijet, cvet/cvijet=written; mleko/mlijeko, svet/svijet, cvet/cvijet, juće, veće, takođe, krst, krstaši, savremen, saradnik, gde/đe, do, vo, so, Atina, amin, gledaoc, slušaoc, posetioc, ignorisati, operisati, rđa, rapav, kuvati, kuvar, Avganistan, Vavilon, Vizantija, smejao, živeo, mleo, zaliv, proliv, sliv, pogreška, strelica, ko, neko svako, iko, hemija, haos, sedmica, istorija, kružni tok, hleb.....
 * 1) In Croatian language attend three dialects (Kajkavian, Čakavian and Western-Štokavian) that are stylized according to the literature of Dubrovnik form Croatia.
 * 2) Serbian language is based a two dialect (Estern-Štokavian and Torlakian) and stylized according to the speeches Valjevo and Uzice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by — Coldipa (talk) 08:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It's called phoneme not a "vote". Diphthong ie does not a exist, it's a pure fantasy fabricated by Brozović in the 1990s to make "Croatian" apparently different than "Serbian". Nobody speaks that way, and nobody has analyzed the ije sequence as a "diphthong" beside that loon. See Serbo-Croatian_phonology. All the other Štokavian-based national varieties also have syllabic /r/, also with long rising accent (note that the accent itself does no call for a different phoneme). You might also check your orthography books, because half of your examples are illiterate (strijelica, cviet, pogriješka...). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:43, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Only in Croatian have diphthong ie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.168.111.235 (talk) 13:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Serbian → Serbo-Croatian
What is this? Croats, what the hell are you doing? Leave Serbian language alone! --Pepsi Lite (talk) 02:16, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the move must be due to those evil Croats!
 * Oh, wait. I forgot. We just heard above that it was due to those evil Serbs.
 * It couldn't be the result of a unanimous decision that it was stupid to have the same grammar article twice, once called "Croatian" and once called "Serbian". That would be ... rational. — kwami (talk) 03:51, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Completely new article
While deleting articles tagged for speedy, I found Talk:Croatian Grammar; while it wasn't as suitable as this article, it seemed perhaps to have some useful information, so I've moved it to Talk:Serbo-Croatian grammar/Version with merge possibilities. Please feel free to use it or to nominate it at WP:MFD; I don't really care (or know much) about this subject. Nyttend (talk) 16:08, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia article Serbo-Croatian grammar makes headlines in Croatia
Srpsko-hrvatski jezik ne postoji

Very shoddily written. The author claims that "six months ago, a group of Wikipedia editors started deleting everything labelled as Croatian language and replacing it with 'Serbo-Croatian'. What "everything" means is not elaborated further, and this claim appears to be simply made up. Is anyone aware of such an effort?

Furthermore, the author says that "after you search for Croatian language, a page opens in which it is only possible to choose Serbo-Croatian". This is illustrated by the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Croatian_grammar&redirect=no, which illustrates poor grasp of elementary reading and comprehension skills.

Of course, no attempt is made to address (or even mention, for that matter) the points made in the box on top of this page. GregorB (talk) 20:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * FTA (translated): "Regardless, I don't think that foreigners react to this and don't bother with these kinds of issues, just as Croats don't bother with differences between American and British language", told us a linguist Alemko Gluhak.
 * Yup, the "American and British language". And this Gluhak dude is one of the prominent linguists in Croatia, member of the national academy of arts and sciences. If an authoritative figure like himself spreads these kind of obvious untruths, imagine what an average person with basic schooling is to believe? Not to mention that he indirectly confirms that it is a single language, by drawing a comparison to American and British form of English, which is treated as a single language by pretty much all of the planet. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I do believe you're missing the point here. Although the article was obviously written in a sensationalist manner, the fact is that it doesn't paint a good picture of the English Wikipedia as far as the Croatian public is concerned. As for Gluhak's statements, keep in mind that they were relayed to us through journalists who are probably poorly informed about the matter. Nevertheless, at least one member of the Croatian parliament publicly talked about this on his blog, and even enclosed an e-mail sent to him by some loon who explicitly cited four of our articles (Slavic Languages, South Slavic languages, Croatian language and Croatian grammar) as examples of what he perceives as widespread persecution of the Croatian language on English Wikipedia. Whether these allegations are true or not is completely beside the point. As for my 2 cents, whether Croatian grammar is the same as Serbo-Croatian grammar is certainly not a topic for Wikipedians to debate and decide about, and as far as I'm concerned user kwami's edits constitute WP:OR. Regardless of my opinion, this is simply bad publicity and an embarrassment for Wikipedia. '' Timbouctou 22:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Whether these allegations are true or not is completely beside the point. - No, this is very important because it demonstrates to what extant these nationalists are indoctrinated with ethno-mythology. And why do we get so ardent "defenders" of completely separate treatment of "Croatian language", "Serbian language" and "Bosnian language". Because it's a part of their identity. These nutjobs don't care about how foreign scholarship perceives the big picture. They just ask for the confirmation of their identity, and dismiss everyone disagreeing with them as "Greater Serbian nationalist" (the article actually stated that everybody supporting the SC treatment is a Serb!).
 * And this is from Lesar's blog: Ako narodu želite oduzeti identitet, oduzmite mu jezik.. In translation: If you want to take away people's identity, take away their language. Typically Balkanic 19th century thinking of people=language=country. According to this formula, Americans and Australians would be British, Austrians and Swiss would be German, Brazilians would be Portuguese, Mexicans would be Spanish... Granted, there is some historical credibility to this claim given that "language engineering" has extensively happened in the region in the past 2 centuries...but what this article covers is not a result of any political directive: it's simply a common treatment of B/C/S(/M) national varieties of codified Neoštokavian that is in modern English language usually called BCS or Serbo-Croatian. Nobody's identity is being negated, nothing is being "censored"... If some Croats and Serbs have problems with the fact that their respective literary standards share pretty much all of grammar, that's an entirely different problem. Croatian and Serbian intellectuals have embraced the "common language" dogma for almost 2 centuries, for two decades they have been disagreeing...who knows, perhaps in a few more decades they'd be again gayly frolicking in a common cause?! Nobody has the crystal ball, and if you've been reading news, there is some kind of cooperation initiative among the post-yu states going on a multitude of economic and political scales. Some call it Jugosfera.
 * Regardless of my opinion, this is simply bad publicity and an embarrassment for Wikipedia. - There is no such thing as "bad publicity". The more learned folks are drawn to this page, the better. When Muslims got stirred-up because of Muhammad's pictures, the Foundation stood up to the principles of openness of all knowledge. They can cry a river about this article, but it will not be bent according to their personal make-believe. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Correct, it's not for us to decide. That's why we follow our sources, which are clear that BCS are a single language grammatically. And how is it OR to follow those sources per the unanimous opinion at WProject languages and elsewhere? There may be Greek blogs that bemoan that we have an article at 'Republic of Macedonia', Macedonian blogs that rant that we deny that they are the heirs of Alexander, New Age blogs outraged that we show astrology to be a superstition, but so what? We could also argue that the SC articles are an evil plot by Croats to deprive Serbs of their identity, since Serbian grammar also redirects to SC. Ditto with Bosnian. I don't find it embarrassing to be encyclopedic, even if that offends some people; it would be far more embarrassing to propagandize our articles in order to pacify every nut who takes exception to unbiased presentation. We're going to get bad publicity either way: which would you prefer it be for? — kwami (talk) 00:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A very good point. Also, while I agree that it's bad publicity, in a sense that it is bound to create a bad impression on an uninformed member of the public, I don't agree that it's an embarrassment for Wikipedia: it is the monitor.hr article that is embarrassing, and the already mentioned letter to M.P. Lesar is even worse than that. (Right-wing paranoia, confabulations, and bad spelling throughout.) Ultimately, it's better to do good and look bad than vice versa. GregorB (talk) 13:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Fork
There is a new fork, apparently: Grammar of Croatian language. GregorB (talk) 09:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Deleted & salted. — kwami (talk) 09:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Dative and locative
Is there an instance where the form of the dative and locative cases are not identical? --JorisvS (talk) 18:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Not really. In some dialects, there is a distinction in stress, and even that only in certain words. They can be considered merged for all intents and purposes. Still, the difference is traditionally preserved in curriculums. No such user (talk) 20:51, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects there is real morphological difference preserved (i.e different endings in D and L). In standard SC the difference is only in accents, e.g. in a-stem inanimate masculines (grȃd 'city' - D: grȃdu, L: u grádu; brȏd 'ship', D: brȏdu, L: na bròdu etc.). See for an overview of differences as well as pros and cons of the D-L syncretism (the bottom line of the discussion is that it's more economical to separate the cases than to handle many dual forms as corner cases in the new DL merger case). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:28, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Accent( shift)s in verbs and adjective inflection
What are the accents of verb and adjective forms? Are there any accent shifts in verb and adjective paradigms? --JorisvS (talk) 20:50, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There are accent shifts. They're largely unpredictable, unless you're a trained historical linguist (well, or a native speaker). No such user (talk) 11:42, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Are these a part of the regular inflection paradigms? --JorisvS (talk) 14:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, when I think about it, I cannot recall accent shifts in verb paradigms, but I cannot rule them out. In adjective declension, I'm sure they're present; however, they're a consequence of paradigm rather than its part. But I must ask: why do you ask? The issue is both complex and subtle; it is not something regularly covered even in university curriculums. Note that many "irregular" verbs have two apparent paradigms intertwined (note e.g. -š- and -đ- forms in wikt:naći), and adjectives have two forms (definite and indefinite), with subtly different declension (which also differ in accent), see e.g. wikt:velik. As a reasonably knowledgeable linguistic enthusiast, I cannot provide you any systematic overview of the issue without consulting (best) grammar books. No such user (talk) 07:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)


 * E.g. tkȁti "to weave", present tkȃm, aorist tkȁh, verbal noun tkánje. Within the same tense there can also be accent alternations in quality (e.g. dȁti "to give", present tense: 1st person singular dȃm, 1st person plural dámo, 3rd person plural dȁjū) and in place (e.g. tumáčiti "to interpret", aorist tense: 1st person singular tumáčih, 2nd person singular tȕmāči). Most native Neoštokavian speakers have these patterns internalized and are not aware of them. They are listed in comprehensive grammar books such as Barić et al. p248-273. I'm not aware of any SC dictionary that marks verbs by such paradigm. In fact, AFAIK the only Slavic language that has paradigmatic information for verbs systematically indicated is Russian with the scheme devised by Andrey Zaliznyak, which has been widely employed, even in bilingual FL-Russian dictionaries. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Remove Cyrillic?
Would anyone mind if I remove the Cyrillic spellings from the article? The Latin alphabet examples do the job just fine, at least for an English speaker to which the article is intended, and Cyrillic just presents a visual distraction (even for me as a native speaker) and makes it a pain to read. We are a source of information, not a vehicle of political correctness, and I don't recall ever seeing any textbook which systematically uses both Cyrillic and Latin in this manner (they pick one and stick to it). No such user (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see the encyclopedic value either. --JorisvS (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)