Correlation of Similarities and Differences in the Croatian and Serbian Languages

The article introduces a comparative analysis of some interlingual variant formations in the linguistic structures of the Croatian and the Serbian literary languages. The general integration processes that occurred in the Slavic linguistic world in the XIX and the early second half of the XX centuries did not unite individual Slavic languages or their variants. By the end of the XX century, linguistic convergence was replaced by linguistic divergence. After the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the new states that arose in the post-Yugoslavian space fixed the status of Croatian and Serbian as official languages. At present, Croatian and Serbian have their own codified norms; they develop and function autonomously and independently in different ethnic cultures and states. The widening gap between the post-Yugoslavian states of Serbia and Croatia contributed to the interlingual divergence between these languages. Their linguistic structure has multiple differences at phonetic, phonological, grammatical, lexical, syntactic, and stylistic levels. This research showed that the most prominent differences occur at the lexical level. As for linguistic standardization and codification, the Croatian language reveals a prescriptive-descriptive approach to language regulation, while Serbian is characterized by a descriptive-prescriptive approach. The authors illustrate this conclusion by various intervariant or equivalent language units from parallel reference books and online discourse.

1. Stepanov G. V. National language. Linguistics: Big Encyclopedic Dictionary, ed. Yartseva V. N. 2nd ed. (reprint) Moscow: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1998, 326. (In Russ.)

2. Domashnev A. I. The main features of polynational languages. Languages of the world: problems of language variation, ed. Yartseva V. N. Moscow: Nauka, 1990, 74–96. (In Russ.)

3. Coric B. Some actual problems of the Serbian language. Study and teaching of the Serbo-Croatian language and Yugoslav literature in a non-Slavic environment: Proc. Intern. Conf., Moscow, 5–6 Apr 1996. Moscow, 1996, 51–52. (In Russ.) EDN: VNFNHF

4. Gudkov V. P. Slavistics. Serbistika. Moscow: MSU, 1999, 208. (In Russ.)

5. Nechaevskiy V. O. Variation of units of the lexical level of the language. Fundamentals of lexical variology. Moscow: Military University, 2021, 230. (In Russ.)

6. Gudkov V. P. The morphological willfulness of the Serbo-Croatian word veche(r). Slavistic collection: in honor of the 70th anniversary of professor P. A. Dmitriev, eds. Safronov G. I., Lilich G. A. St. Petersburg: SPbSU, 1998, 144–151. (In Russ.) EDN: UDYSWR

7. Bagdasarov A. R. Croatian literary language of the second half of the ХХ century. Moscow: Vneshtorgizdat, 2004, 164. (In Russ.)

8. Bagdasarov A. R. Hrvatski književni jezik i njegova norma. Rijeka: Maveda i HFDR, 2010, 196.

9. Dulichenko A. D. Introduction to Slavic philology. 3rd ed. Moscow: FLINTA; Nauka, 2016, 720. (In Russ.)

10. Chekmonas V. N. Introduction to Slavic philology. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1988, 292. (In Russ.)

11. Ivic P. Serbian people and their language. Beograd: Srpska knjizevna zadruga, 1971, 327. (In Serb.)

12. Ivic P. Linguistic circumstances. History of the Serbian people. Beograd: Srpska knjizevna zadruga, 1983, book 6, vol. 2, 257–290. (In Serb.)

13. Dmitriev P. A., Safronov G. I. From the history of Russian-Yugoslav literary and scientific relations. Leningrad: Leningrad University Publ., 1975, 200. (In Russ.)

14. Samardžija M. Srpsko-hrvatski objasnidbeni rječnik. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2015, 599.

15. Srpski pogledi na odnose između srpskog, hrvatskog i bošnjačkoga jezika, ur. Tošović B., Wonisch A. Graz-Beograd: Institut für Slawistik der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz; Beogradska knjiga, 2010, I/1, 753.

16. Silić J. Hrvatski i srpski jezik. Zbornik zagrebačke slavističke škole: Trideset godina rada (1972–2001). Zagreb, 2001, 147–155.

17. Ham S. Po jeziku Hrvati. Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 2022, 376.

18. Bašić-Kosić N. Vukovci i hrvatski jezični standard: hrvatski u srpskohrvatskom tijesku. Zagreb: Fakultet Hrvatskih studija Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2021, 885.

19. Bagdasarov A. R. Ethnolinguistic conflictology in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: sociolinguistic aspect of Croatian-Serbian relations. Globalization – ethnicization: ethnoculture and ethnography processes. Moscow: Nauka, 2006, book 2, 119–152. (In Russ.)

20. Martynova M. Yu. Language processes in the Balkans in the context of identity problems. In: Alòs i Font H., Diaz A., Zegnani S., Kucherova I. A., Martynova M. Yu., Sokolovskiy S. V., Filippova E. I., Filbon A. Language policy, conflicts and Reconciliation. 2nd ed. Moscow: IEA RAN, 2018, 229–269. (In Russ.) EDN: MHJMVN

21. Ivic P. Serbian people and their language. Moscow: Indrik, 2017, 384. (In Russ.)

22. Starčević A., Kapović M., Sarić D. Jeziku je svejedno. Zagreb: Sandorf, 2019, 394.