Talk:Serbo-Croatian#Political Context is Unclear

{{Moved discussion from|User talk:TaivoLinguist#Recent Revert|2=Vipz (talk) 19:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)}}

(I am copying this discussion from my Talk Page to here since it now includes three participants. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 21:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC))

Hello TaivoLinguist. In you recent [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serbo-Croatian&diff=prev&oldid=1193368998 revert of my edit on the Serbo-Croatian] article, you mentioned it is not a commonly used term. While Serbo-Croatian appears to be the commonly used term, Croato-Serbian seems significant enough as even in the infobox “hrvatskosrpski” (Croato-Serbian) is denoted in the line “srpskohrvatski / hrvatskosrpski” right under the Serbo-Croatian term. So it seemed logical to me. Why would it be less worthy or common an alternative than “Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS)”? I’m a bit confused on this reasoning.

[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian-language/Serbo-Croatian-in-the-20th-century-and-after Britannica also states] “Croato-Serbian” as a direct alternative which seems to imply it is a commonly known alternative term. “In 1945 the victorious communist-led Partisans under Josip Broz Tito reestablished Yugoslavia. The new government at first treated Croatian and Serbian as separate languages, alongside Slovene and newly standardized Macedonian. But soon it began pressing for a unified Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian).” [https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/04/10/is-serbo-croatian-a-language Here is another example were both are stated as if commonly interchangeable.]”Some 17m people in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro speak variations of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian.” Hence why I went ahead with the edit and didn’t figure it would be contested really.

It’s already listed here as well: Serbo-Croatian_(disambiguation)

Also you mentioned that a few of the other alternative names in the lead are unnecessary. Which specifically were you referring to? Cheers. OyMosby (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

:According to WP:LEAD, only "significant alternative names" should appear in the lead sentence. Other names can, and should, occur in the "Name" section. The title of the article is still the most common name used and the others are scattered without any consensus on what might replace S-C, therefore none of them should occur in the lead sentence as far as I'm concerned and they all should be listed at the front of the Name section. The fact that there is a name in the Croatian language that begins with hrvatsko- is immaterial because the English Wikipedia is based on English language usage only. "Serbo-Croatian" is presently and historically the primary name used by linguists, and there is no consensus on what the "new" name should be that includes "Bosnian" (no English-speaking linguists are using "Montenegrin" at this time because Montenegrin doesn't differ from Serbian as much as Bosnian and Croatian do). I have a grammar of the language that puts them in alphabetical order (BCS), but all the other grammars and book chapters in my library are just S-C. The problem is that someone writing for Bosnians or as a Bosnian will use BCS, a Serbian will use SCB or SBC, and a Croatian will use CBS or CSB. There is simply no generally accepted version that is more popular than any other. So clutter in the lead sentence is death to Wikipedia. All "clutter" should be placed in the section where it belongs, in this case, in the Name section. And I caution you against using Britannica as some sort of authority above and beyond all others. It's not. It's no more authoritative than the New York Times as far as Wikipedia is concerned. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 10:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

::FWIW, I agree with TL on this. Move everything but S-C to the names section. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

:::Why would you agree that S-C is the variant to use for the Bosnian language which is not mentioned? That's irrational and illogical. Bosnian people will object to this rebranding of their language. 95.156.146.133 (talk) 07:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

::::What the Bosnian masses think (in your opinion) is irrelevant here - all that matters is what the Reliable Sources state. 2603:6080:21F0:79E0:21AB:1689:30D3:85A1 (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Because of all the confusion, and to try to prevent further biased attempts at editing and edit wars, as someone born in the former Yugoslavia let me offer some context and further information from a native speaker without a nationalist bias. I ask those who are experts at editing to use the information here to add to the article.

Of course Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, and Montenegrin are linguistically one language, and all my compatriots know this rationally, except that today out of varied political reasons many prefer to fantasize that these are completely separate languages. But practice shows the truth, e.g., we don't use subtitles for films and TV series recorded in any of the four variants, and in one or two cases when this was attempted, it quickly ceased because it had the tendency of making even a drama film elicit a comedic response at the absurdity (this famous comedy sketch from the 1980s illustrates this perfectly and would be great to include in the article, there are English subtitles, but it is best if you can understand the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMlLPRj64iA).

It is part of nationalist propaganda after the wars in the 90s to declare the Serbo-Croatian language as something which was attempted in Yugoslavia and which no longer exists, while the reality is that many centuries before there was a Yugoslavia the native speakers of those languages commonly and matter-of-factly identified them as one and the same language, even though they also used their distinctive national name for the language (which is their right), just like as an American in patriotic fervor might say "I speak American" and at the same time understand that American and British are both variants of the same English language.

Following are two examples that I think should be placed in the article.

The priest and scholar Ivan Paštrić in 1699 made a copy of the Lectionary of Bernardine of Spalato and described the script and language as "Character est Cyrillianus, lingua Serviana vel Croatica vel Dalmatica vulgaris" - "the script is Cyrillic, the language is Serbian or Croatian or Vulgar Dalmatian" (by "Vulgar Dalmatian" he probably meant to differentiate it from the literary "Dalmatian" used in the liturgy, which was another name for Church Slavonic).

This is from John Fine: When ethnicity did not matter in the Balkans, p. 444.

Another example (https://digitalna.nsk.hr/?pr=i&id=10660) is the dictionary of Peter Loderecker and Faust Vrančić (Fausto Veranzio), in which in his Foreword Vrančić says "jazik dalmatiski, hrvatski, srpski, ili bosanski (jere ovo sve jedan jazik jest)" - "the language Dalmatian, Croatian, Serbian, or Bosnian (because all of this is one language)".

The most frequently used name for that common language from the Middle Ages onward was Slavonic/Slavic ("slovinski", or in the north "slovenski") or (at least from the 15th century onward) Illyrian. The term "Serbo-Croatian" was created and began to be used extensively in the 19th century because Ferdinand I of Austria banned the name "Illyrian" in 1843 for political reasons, to prevent the forming of a unified Illyrian nation/state, which would result in Austria losing a vast ammount of territory.

Unlike those original terms, the term "Serbo-Croatian" is controversial, sounds artificial and leaves out the other nations as if they are inferior, as well as leads to interminable bickering about which of the two largest nations should come first, and the term "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" as a name for a language is an unwieldy mess. However, calling it today the "Slavic language" or even a novel term like the "South Slavic language" can easily lead to misunderstandings, which is why Illyrian was chosen as preferable by the Illyrian movement in the 19th century, until Ferdinard I banned the name and forced them to choose something else.

Of course, until the linguistic consensus shifts to a different name, Serbo-Croatian remains the internationally recognized and accepted name, however much it bothers those of the nationalist persuasion, who do not care to admit that despite their many differences the nations of the former Yugoslavia are actually in many ways very similar.

Also, linguistically speaking Chakavian and Croatian Kajkavian (to differentiate it from Slovenian, which is by its nature also a kajkavian language) are languages and do not properly belong to SC, the former should be in a subgroup of North South Slavic together with Slovenian, and the latter in a special subgroup of West South Slavic. It is for political reasons that this is not done, but in recent times Kajkavian has begun to slowly assert this right, while Chakavian so far has not and, unlike Kajkavian, is quickly losing ground to SC. I suggest adding a sentence that there is a debate among linguists as to whether these two are dialects of SC or separate languages. 86.33.68.239 (talk) 07:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

:Wikipedia Talk Pages are not the place for long speeches about your personal opinions. They are for the discussion of Reliable Sources for the improvement of the article. 2603:6080:2104:8C48:35CA:33D1:12F:A1A3 (talk) 12:49, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

{{Edit semi-protected|Serbo-Croatian|answered=yes}}

Illyrian, there is no claims proving any of the languages are linked to Illyrian. Albanian can be traced back to illyrian , slavic languages cant 2A03:4B80:A01C:D020:544:BE2B:8679:47A6 (talk) 13:50, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

:File:Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. CMD (talk) 14:48, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

"(intention to be readable internationally, as Latin is taught in all four countries speaking the language)"

I don't really know whether these countries learn the Latin language, but given the section this is found in, this should probably say "Latin alphabet/letters". I think this ambiguity could be fixed.

I'm writing this in the talk page because I might be wrong, so I don't want to edit the article just yet. 82calamities (talk) 11:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:{{Fixed}}, thank you for bringing attention to this issue. –Vipz (talk) 16:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

User:Aca, please abstain making major edits ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serbo-Croatian&diff=1288257046&oldid=1287212016]) removing reliably sourced information which is significant to the understanding of the topic, without proper discussion as well as edit summary substantiation (as WP:POV isn't it). Miki Filigranski (talk) 17:02, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Miki Filigranski: Hi, thank you for your comment! The material I removed conflicts with several policies and guidelines, including WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Firstly, the disputed material reads like an argument in favor of a nationalist interpretation of pre-19th-century Dalmatian writers (as demonstrated by bolding and "{{xt|before Serbo-Croatian ideology appeared}}"), rather than neutrally reporting what modern Croatian linguists say about the Serbo-Croatian language. Secondly, the narrative about 30–odd Catholic writers from Dalmatia is given multiple paragraphs of detail (including two block quotes), yet it represents a niche historical claim far less central to the linguistic debate over Serbo-Croatian than mainstream scholarship. Lastly, the text is simply not related to the subject, as it focuses almost entirely on pre-19th-century Dalmatian writers' ethno-religious identity and loyalty to Catholic Christendom—a historical narrative that is not directly about contemporary linguistic viewpoints. Including it here unnecessarily bloats the section and distracts readers from the actual scholarly debate on Serbo-Croatian classification. – Aca (talk) 17:28, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::The removed material is indeed not relevant to the subject of the article, other issues aside. It should be removed. –Vipz (talk) 20:22, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::NPOV has almost nothing with it. The whole scope of sub-sections "Croatian linguists" and "Serbian linguists" is showing nationalist POVs (which can be even more expanded, especially of the Serbian linguists). Their POV is more or less different than international mainstream POV. I've removed unnecessary statements you mention. Other part of the section does not distract, it's factual information even common knowledge, without which this complex topic & scientific debate since the mid-19th century cannot be understood. There exist other sources for it, there's no UNDUE issue. --Miki Filigranski (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@Miki Filigranski: Your edits still don't address the issue. Both quotations are about ethnic identity of Dubrovnik, and, as you yourself wrote here, Dubrovnik's literature. That's not the topic here and we don't need in–depth discussion about that in this article. Feel free to move it somewhere else. This whole section needs rewriting (expecialy "{{xt|A more detailed overview...}}" part) to comply with the encyclopedic standards and tone, and I would like to address that as well, following this discussion. – Aca (talk) 22:06, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Moved. Feel free to explain what would rewrite.--Miki Filigranski (talk) 22:53, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Awesome, thanks! This whole "detailed overview" should be presented in simple prose, without indentations and bulleted lists. Gröschel's opinion should also be moved out of this section. The material should be summarized a bit, but all the relevant points should stay, including the references. You're welcome to edit it if you are interested. I intended to edit the section gradually in the coming period. – Aca (talk) 23:14, 1 May 2025 (UTC)