The language that is called Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian (BCMS) is commonly referred to and was once known as Serbo-Croatian. After the Dayton Accords and the development and strengthening of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Yugoslav wars, Serbo-Croatian became Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian (BCS). Montenegro gained independence from Serbia in 2006. Last year, as Montenegro is attempting to pull itself onto the world stage, the Montenegrin language threw itself into the BCS combo. Thus, we are now calling it BCMS. The Montenegrin government has been working to reform the language and get the peoples of the world to recognize that the language of Crna Gora is not like the others. In an attempt to tip their hat to Montenegro (and possibly throw Serbia the bird), the U.S. government tells us students that we should recognize the M in BCMS.
This recognition is easier said than done for us students. Despite each of us choosing a language within the mix to focus on, we essentially learning a hodge-podge of one language that has become four distinct dialects with particular grammatical and vocabulary nuances over more than a decade. Hence, one might argue that I am learning four languages. The jury is still out; there are many elements to consider.
the bombing ridge...
I went to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina this weekend. As I hope you know, Sarajevo was heavily bombed and nearly destroyed during the Bosnian War of the Yugoslav Wars. The Dayton Peace Accords were signed in 1995. The twenty year anniversary of a devastating war approaches and signs of the damage suffered remain. The bulk of the city has been rebuilt or resurfaced, but markers remain. Buildings are still riddled with bullet holes; bomb crevices remain in the pavement as ‘Sarajevo Roses,’ construction continues, and many buildings are left to ruin.
Sarajevo Rose -- a shell fell here
Citizens take pride in their resilience and ability to rebuild their city and their lives. However, some still hold on to the past. As buses approach the city from the southeast, passengers will see a factory in shambles. Half the roof is bombed out, fire damage is pervasive, and shell remnants can be see across the entirety of its structure. Why does such a vast structure at such a vital and visible place in the city sit untouched? A young Bosnian-Croat college student said, “You wonder why it still exists like that? The people of Bosnia want you to remember. They want the world and anyone that enters Sarajevo to remember how they suffered.”
holes
I have never walked through the streets of such a place. Land mines are still buried all around the city. An ancient Jewish cemetery will sits as the bombs left it; people afraid to step foot in it because of the land mines that remain. Monuments were constructed to remember the fathers, mothers, and children that died. Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs continue to live side by side, many of them holding on to bitter hatred, others attempting to live in peaceful and reconciled unity. A generation of young adults grew up without fathers.
Attempting to argue that these people do not have their own uniqueness, culture, social customs, and existence seems absurd to me. Having studied it, heard it, and existed in this place, not recognizing Bosnian as its own distinct language is baffling to me. These people, this place, their language is not Serbian; it is not Croatian; it is not Montenegrin.
The word on the street in Podgorica says that I am wrong. Five middle-aged gents in a bar in Podgorica tell me that the only languages of my BCMS claims that actually exist are Croatian and Serbian. Five Montenegrin men, all of whom were born in Podgorica, informed me that the Montenegrin language doesn’t actually exist, but rather, they and the citizenry of Montenegro actually speak Serbian. I am told that Bosnian is not a language. Further, they tell me that no genocide actually happened during the Yugoslav wars. The victims of atrocities were actually the people of Serbia and Montenegro. Serbs were the victims.
As we were leaving the bar, Ranko asked us if we would return again tomorrow. Interestingly, rather than saying ‘sutra,’ the Serbian variant of ‘tomorrow’, he said ‘šutra,’ the Montenegrin variant of ‘tomorrow.’ The people of Montenegro speak Serbian and Bosnian is not a language. I rest my case.
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3 August 2011 at 2:55 am
ida
Why isn’t peoples’ language in the U.S. called U.S.ian then? The U.S. speaks English even though the country is independent of English. There is said to be more differences in U.S. and British English than Serbian and those other dialects of it. And you know it was Croat linguist Ljudevit Gaj who decided to have Croats use the Serbian language (the western dialect of the Serbian language), because previous to this Croats spoke a language closer to Slovenian.
And in Bosnia 1/3 of the population is Serbian – and Serbs outnumbered the Bosniaks if you go back before the world wars. Austrian census of the late 1800′s had Serb over 40% of Bosnia’s population and Muslims at 30-something percent. So today it is reversed between them. It is foreign meddling which seeks to divide the people into ethnically pure and divided and occupied statelet at the expense of the Serbs.
The mainstream media gagged information on what was happening to the Serbs but people working with refugees note it is the Serbs who have the signs of direct severe torture and beatings while the others do not.
CNN even would show the funeral of killed Bosnian Serb children and present them as Muslims by carefully clipping out the images of the Orthodox priest conducting the ceremony. There was tons of that kind of ‘reporting’ throughout the war as the west wanting to break up the country and expand control NATO/U.S. bases into the region. Many incidents were staged for the cameras (cameras were at the ready pre-set up to record things as they happened). And UN soldiers living there during the war have written and testified that the Muslim/Sarajevo government side did many of the attacks and had there snipers using buildings in the so-called “Sniper’s Alley” as they knew Serbs would automatically be blamed. Yet in the very few times the UN investigation, they’d find it was the Muslim snipers shooting out of the former Parliamentary building and the like and that they sniped at civilians and the UN.
3 August 2011 at 5:07 am
Mark
The language situation is not at all unlike what England faced during the Saxon invasions and again when the Vikings and then Normans arrived: generations growing up and speaking variant dialects of one or more parent languages while hating or attempting to live in peace with those who spoke the other language.
7 August 2011 at 6:40 am
kathleen
Obviously, I am ignorant about much concerning the age old hostilities but “VIva la difference!’ May we learn to cherish and celbrate that which is different about us instead of seeing cultural variety as something to fight about. It is amazing to me that you seem to have the ability to be able to converse with the natives about these issues in their own language after only a few weeks of study. You are amazing.