Projekt języka czarnogórskiego

Draft of the Montenegrin languageThe authors of the grammar of the Montenegrin language (Gramatika crnogorskoga jezika, Podgorica 2010) have constructed a linguistic system which definitely stands apart from other standards which grew out from the Shtokavian dialects. Such elements as phonemes |ś| and |ź|, potencijal imperfekta, the negative form of the verb biti, the doublets of the forms of the verb htjeti // šćeti, lexemes with results of iotacismes make up – against the Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian languages – a separate system both in terms of quality and quantity: potentially they are so frequent that would radically change the picture of Montenegrin texts with regard to the “classic” Shtokavian languages/dialects.In addition, the authors have managed to not go too far and have avoided a temptation to introduce into the system more specific characteristics, which have not been used by the modern language for a long time, such as, for example, the expanded form of the adjectival conjugation of the Njegošowski type: momci prsih vatrenijeh czy raniš od Vidova dana junačkijem i konjskijem mesom gavranove i mrke vukove! or phoneme |з|.In addition, it would also be difficult to specify the elements, which would prove unequivocally the tendency of the proposed Montenegrin standard becoming similar to one of the remaining Shtokavian languages.The weakness of the project is its potential nature. In case of the grammar, one cannot speak about the descriptive nature thereof. It is a proposal of the norm and the standard, which can genuinely come into existence solely given the support of the political elites and on the basis of their introduction into the educational and administrative system, as well as – which is most probably the most important and the most difficult aspect – given the goodwill of the decisive majority of the users of the Montenegrin language, which at the current point is rather out of the question