this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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i can't tell if this is serbocroatian or slovenian or something else but i'm too afraid to ask
Serbocroatian is long gone, it was a construct made up back in Yugoslavia. It was basically Serbian written in latin (basically... there were some things from Croatian, but very little).
It's Croatian. Serbian and Croatian are similar, but Serbian is written in Cyrillic, while Croatian in Latin.
A majority of linguists consider Serbocroatian to be one language, there are many distinct dialects (with different countries having different standards). The writing system is irrelevant, the writing system isn't the language (this can be seen in Mongolian, Tibetan, Hindustani, Persian, Kazakh, previously Azerbaijani, and contemporary Chinese languages as well). Also you can write Serbian in Latin script (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Serbian)
They are no less mutually intelligible than what are considered different dialects of other languages. In fact as someone who can read Russian & Polish I can understand a good amount of written Serbocroatian with trouble (it's a lot harder than reading something like Ukrainian due to linguistic distance), it's significantly closer between Serbian & Croatian varieties. Often people on media/politics pretend not to understand the other though due to mutual hatred from nationalism.
I would like to spend a lot of time on the language one day, I haven't done much besides read some from grammar books on it. I like it a lot.
Yes, you can write Serbian in latin, but not on any documents... as in, you can do it, but informally.
You are correct about the politics part. Serbs and Croats understand each other perfectly, so do Bosnisnas. The odd balls out were Slovenian and Macedonian, with Slovenian (IMO) being a little bit harder to decypher than Macedonian.
Government issued documents are in Cyrillic by default in Serbia, but official documents can be written in Latin as well. It's not forbidden to use either of the alphabets. Most of the ads, signs and similar material are written indeed in Latin.
For "backwards compatibility" I presume... and also catering to Croats and Bosnians that live in Serbia.
I'd say it's a habit now more than anything. It's also more convenient not having to configure computer and phone, etc. Latin has become dominant. Everyone still learns both and has to know how to write in print and cursive. But no one writes print Cyrillic by hand anymore, or at least very few. I still prefer cursive Cyrillic to anything else, because it flows better. But print Latin is what most kids write these days from what I've seen. There has been suggestions of government incentive to keep Cyrillic. Proposal was to give some tax deductions if companies use Cyrillic for most things. Probably didn't go far. But it is a cultural heritage worth keeping.
Cyrillic is a must here (Macedoia). Sure, we text and may write in Latin (not all the time though), but other than that, yeah, we still use Cyrillic.
I just text in Latin. Can't really get accustomed to the Cyrillic keboard, 4 more letters and my fingers are thick 😂.
Russians are die hard though, they don't write Russian in Latin... ever 😂.
I should probably start typing more in Cyrillic, even my messages. Most people will laugh at me for doing so.
Yeah, mine as well 😂... cuz most know I type texts and chat client messages in latin only 😂.
Ye AFAIK Slovenian is considered a very different language by most and Macedonian is significantly more grammatically similar to Bulgarian. I'm not very sure about Macedonian tho.
Yes, gramatically, it's similar to Bulgarian (we don't have cases like the others, we solve that with adverbs and adjectives), but in terms of words, it's similar to Serbian and Croatian. Regarding sentence structure, yes, it's similar to Bulgarian, with emphasis sounding more like Serbian or Croatian (Bulgarian sounds more like Russian).
Slovenia was under Austro-Hungary during the last 5 centuries (20th century excluded), so they have a lot of German (Austrian) lingo in their vocabulary, plus sentence formation is also kind of confusing (for me at least).
It's Serbocroatian, Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian.
It's not Czech. I'd say it's Croatian.
Yep, Croatian.