Applied Languages

    Posted by Jaiken Struck on September 1st, 2009

Three years after it was decided that Croatia’s neighbour Montenegro actually exists, this now extends also to the Montenegrin language, which now enjoys an officially sanctioned orthography and concomitant dictionary. In any other country this news would not cause much excitement, but in Montenegro, whose cultural and national identity has for over a century been reduced to the nebulous cliche of ‘the Serbian Sparta’, this news is of great and indeed historic significance, since it was not long ago that it seemed that a Montenegrin-language orthography could not be published without the dispatch to Montenegro of peace-keeping troops.

The official council for standardisation of the Montenegrin language was divided over the issues of introduction of new letters, and consistent application of the ijekavski ‘jot’ transliteration. The differences between the two camps and their supporters was soon leaked to the media, whereupon things escalated as the public got engaged in a matter of which it knew next to nothing. The long and painful debate was finally stopped by the minister of education and science, Sreten Škuletić, who published the findings of the expert commission set up by his ministry.

It was a good decision, and right on time. For, as the poet and president of the Montenegrin Society of Independent Writers, Milorad Popović, stated during a TV debate, the exhausting dispute over standardisation of the Montenegrin language aided precisely those who have persistently denied that the language really existed.

The expert commission was composed of respected scholars, and Minister Škuletić told the press that the arguments of both sides of the divided Council had been taken into account. Thanks to consistent application of the jekavski ‘jot’ transliteration, the alphabet has gained two new letters: s and z. This was perceived as a victory for the Council faction, which relied in large measure on the work of the late professor Vojislav Nikčević.

Those who approve the new orthography insist that it avoids the practice of a violent intervention into the body of the language aimed at making it maximally different from the neighbouring languages. The orthography has simply taken into account the wealth of Montenegrin speech forms, and in doing so has allowed everyone to carry on speaking and writing as before. The orthography is consequently not an act of imposition, but rather removes impositions on Montenegrin culture and language.

Those who do not approve the new orthography are divided into two camps: supporters of the Serb language, who remain convinced that Montenegro’s true identity is Serb; and supporters of the Montenegrin language who believe that the new orthography keeps the language old-fashioned.

Read more: Bosnian Institute

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Language and Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.