Le serbo-croate (bosniaque, croate, monténégrin, serbe) : de l'étude d'une langue à l'identité des langues

Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian) : From the Study of a Language to the Identity of Languages The article deals with the linguistic system which includes the standard Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin languages. The structure of these standards (the history of their formation is noted) shows that it is a unique linguistic system, with several essentially lexical variations. The intercomprehension between these standards exceeds that between the standard variants of English, French, German, or Spanish. Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are not translated from one into another. At most one саn 'Serbianize', 'Croatianize', 'Bosnianize', or 'Montenegrinize' a text written in one of the other variants. Moreover, they are not new and did not appear with the breakup of Yugoslavia. Each one simply acquired its own name and the status of an autonomous standard language. The teaching of the linguistic system presupposes (as for English or Spanish) that the learners have a passive knowledge of ail the standards and that they actively speak at least one of them. As for the problem of designating a unique linguistic system and standards, it is closely linked to the identity function of the language, both unifying (for a given group of speakers) and differentiating (in relation to other groups). This article provides several examples, citing the two names for the variant spoken in Bosnia, 'Bosnian' and 'Bosniac', and the term 'Serbo-Croatian', still used by many speakers. The case of Serbo-Croatian and its standard variants shows what the criteria of differentiation between languages саn be in linguistics and the role of the identity function of each language.Thomas Paul-Louis. Le serbo-croate (bosniaque, croate, monténégrin, serbe) : de l'étude d'une langue à l'identité des langues. In: Revue des études slaves, tome 74, fascicule 2-3, 2002. pp. 311-325