Talk:Serbian

Untitled
Okay, so the invitation: Whoever is speaking Serbian please contribute to this article. --ThomasK 17:04, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is a great start, but it is my understanding that the Ijekavica dialect is used in Croatia, the Ekavica dialect is used in Serbia, while both are used in Bosnia. Maybe then it would be better to reserve Ekavski for Serbian and Ijekavski for Croatian. This is an ongoing debate, though there should probably at least be an explanation and distinction between the two dialects. Also, it would be more useful to write in the accents and to distinguish between long and short vowels, as that is the only differnce between words such as gràd (short vowel: hail) and grád (long vowel: city). --MitchC 15:55, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Dialect and other things
I'm studying Serbian in the Republika Srpska of Bosnia where the ijekavski dialect is used, but with mostly Serbian grammar and vocabulary. That's why the vocab is in that dialect. Maybe a good solution would be to add the ekavski version, where different, in italics or in brackets next to the ijekavski word.

Also, I think the page is getting too long and should be broken up into a few different pages: maybe one for grammar and one for vocab, to start with.

In fact, I want to break up the vocab further into separate lessons, which would be much more useful for someone trying to learn Serbian. User:Dannya222 12:32, 11 August 2005

I believe that Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian should be merged into ONE article (Serbo-Croatian) as they are the SAME language, separated by only a few minimal regional vocabulary differences. Having three is absolutely inefficient

I agree 100%, the page is too long. It'd be great to have real lessons with manageable chunks of vocab and grammar, but breaking it up into seperate grammar and vocabulary sections would be a great start.

As for the dialects, I think it is generally accepted that Ekavski is the main dialect of Serbian (and Serbia) while Ijekavski is that of Croatian; Serbian newspapers and websites use the Ekavica dialect, for example. So as this is an online book for Serbian, I think most students would want to learn the main and most common dialect of Serbian (in Serbia): Ekavski. But Ijekavski should also be included along with an explanation of the usage of different dialects in different regions. Thoughts? --MitchC 17:52, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

That's no true, Ekavski isn't the main Serbian dialect. Both Ekavski and Ijekavski are equal, although Ijekavski is older are more correct to use, since Serbian epic poems and other folk literature is written in it, Ijekavica is the language of Serbs from Montenegro, including Montenegrins, who speak Serbian, too (there's no "Montenegrin" language), Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbs from Croatia and Western Serbia. Only the people of the Southern, Eastern, Central, and Northern Serbia uses the Ekavica dialect. Plus, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, the most famous Serbian linguist, creator of the Modern Serbian language, was using Ijekavski dialect. When modern Serbian literary language was normed, Ijekavica (also spelled Jekavica) was adopted as the only dialect. Ekavica was accepted later, since the most of the Serbian cultural centres were in Ekavski region, the Northern Serbia (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica...). Croatian language, however, was Ekavski at first, but later Croatian linguists (Ljudevit Gaj was the famous one) accepted Ijekavica. It's also not true that both Ekavica and Ijekavica are used in Bosnia. The whole Bosnia and Herzegovina is Ijekavski region. Difference between Serbian and Croatian isn't dialect, it's the script (of course, there are some words and phrases characteristic only for Croatian). While Serbian uses both Cyrillic and Latin script, Croatian language uses Latin executively. Bosnian uses both scripts, too, and it's more similar to Serbian than Croatian is. These three languages are very, very similar, and they have the same origin. A Serb, a Bosniak, a Montenegrin, and a Croat (native speakers of Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian languages) could always understand each other without any translating. That's why many linguists considered these languages as one single, called Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian.--Ђорђе Д. Божовић 17:42, 6 October 2005 (UTC)