Somehow, right around the first anniversary of the publication of the Declaration on a Common Language, the book by Ranko Bugarski was presented Do you speak in common? whose subject is the current linguistic situation in the newly created states on the territory of the Serbo-Croatian/Croatian-Serbian language. The book examines the possibilities of calming the heated passions that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dissolution of the Serbo-Croatian language, and calls for the adaptation of identity politics in all four resulting states to the linguistic reality. The book was written in the desire to present a valuable initiative of a large number of dedicated people, formulated by the aforementioned Declaration and the project that preceded it, Language and Nationalisms, in the cover of the book, and thus remain permanently recorded. The book was published by the XX Century Library in partnership with the Krokodil Association and the ZFD Belgrade organization.
"WEATHER": Two years have passed since the launch of the Languages and Nationalisms project, and one year from the publication of the Declaration on a Common Language. What are the effects?
EARLY BULGARIAN: The Project and the Declaration have to a certain extent established the public in the region, bringing to light something that - as it turned out - many people who speak today's divided Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or Montenegrin languages are deeply aware of, and that is that all of them, contrary to the official language policy, essentially standard variants of one language, the one that was previously called Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian, and which the Declaration neutrally calls a common language. Evidence for this is the empirical fact that speakers of all these varieties still communicate with each other without any difficulty, despite years of linguistic engineering aimed at separating them. In other words, this document points to a widespread (though often tacit) feeling that there is a fundamental rift between language reality and language policy, and calls for its overcoming or at least mitigation. Its effect can only be long-term, through the spread of general social awareness of this important issue.
Although "Time" it was written about last year in issues from 1369 to 1374, let's repeat: what is common language?
It is the language used naturally and daily by speakers and writers of variously named national varieties, whose normal specificities do not make communication difficult. Such a language is called a polycentric standard language in sociolinguistic theory, and well-known examples are English with British, American and other variants, variants of German in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, French in France and Quebec, Spanish in Europe and South America, etc. In our case, the Declaration does not name that language because national or geographical naming proved to be problematic, but foresees that everyone can call it what they want: more important than the name is the awareness of a common means of communication and creativity.
The question you asked in the title of the prologue of the book whether a common language can contribute to reconciliation is rhetorical, but still: how language affects relations between nations?
I answer that question in the affirmative. Hate speech played a significant role in the disintegration of the Yugoslav state, so if someone really cares about reconciliation, it can be achieved again on the linguistic level, but with a significantly different use of the available linguistic resources. Namely, every language can be warlike as well as peace-making, and in that sense, it can influence relations between nations. Speaking metaphorically, we have seen what the armed language of war looks like, and now we need to persistently use the peace potential of the same language system.
Language is created by those who speak it. However, It is known that Bosnian, Montenegrin, the Croatian and Serbian languages did not emerge, so to speak, from the people, they were already imposed from the political top. Does politics dictate the language we speak??
Politics can hardly impose the language we speak, because it exists before and outside of any politics, but it can determine its social status and official name. It is precisely the name that separates the mentioned languages to the greatest extent, enabling manipulations by creating the impression that since there are four names in circulation, we have four different languages, which is a misconception that the Declaration explicitly points to.
What is objectionable to the Declaration??
A lot of things; in the book that is the reason for this conversation, I made a catalog of negative reactions and accompanied them with my comment. We have heard that it is a political pamphlet with the aim of restoring Yugoslavia under the command of Serbia and with Serbo-Croatian as the official language, that it was compiled by a group of unauthorized and incompetent usurpers with dishonorable intentions and in the service of vested interests, that it is directed against this or that nation and its language, and a bunch of similar nonsense. In these attacks, some of which took place even before the publication of the Declaration, thus unprecedented, words were often not chosen; its respected signatories were disparaged, and in Croatia they were even declared national traitors and became the target of public persecution.
Why, of all the former republics of the SFRY, is it possible to talk without an interpreter?, the Croatian state leadership was the only one to react negatively to the Declaration?
Because the political, cultural and national elites in Croatia, who owe their power and privileges largely to the process of disunification of the Yugoslav peoples initiated and successfully completed by them and the dissolution of their federation, are particularly sensitive to anything that even hints at a return to the common past ; the word itself is on them common in the title of the still unpublished Declaration acted as a red rag. Roughly: as soon as we were finally enthroned in our own state ("the thousand-year dream"), here are these damned South-Unitarians who would throw us back into the shackles of some sort of Serbia... The political leaders of the other three countries, whatever they thought, did not come out with such a harsh condemnations and to that extent they acted more wisely. And in Croatia itself, and this should be emphasized, a large number of denounced signatories and their like-minded people came forward decisively and courageously in defense of the Declaration.
According to one of the positions, Serbian is the real language because it is older, and Montenegrin is not because it is new. Is there a hierarchy among languages?
The attitude that only Serbian is the language, while the remaining three are only its variants, is the foundation of Serbian linguistic nationalism. On the contrary, the Declaration's point of view is that such a thing is in principle impossible with polycentric languages, whose variants are by definition basically equal in that capacity, although they often differ greatly in everything else - chronology of origin, number of speakers, prestige, etc. Although certain hierarchies can be established by other characteristics, in this context it is not possible, so the argument that one variant is a language because it is older, and another is only its variant because it is younger, is irrelevant. As much as the variants of the world languages mentioned earlier differ in some parameters, they have in common precisely that they are variants of English, German, French or Spanish, while none of them is the language itself. This also applies to the case you mention, whatever anyone else thinks about the identity of the Montenegrin language.
The declaration was recently signed by Noam Chomsky, American linguist and philosopher, and among about 10.000 signatories of the Declaration include a linguist from Great Britain, SAD, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Greek, Australia and other countries. What does that say about the Declaration??
Contrary to criticism from political and certain academic circles close to them, the Declaration was initially supported with their signatures by numerous members of the scientific, cultural and artistic elites of various nationalities from all four countries, who were then joined by thousands of other signatories from the region and diaspora, as well as other countries. around the world. As you note, that impressive number includes some prominent linguists from various countries. It should be borne in mind that the Declaration, as an appeal to the political authorities and the domestic public, was released only in the language it calls common - and yet it received the spontaneous support of certain foreign linguists who understand that language. And speaking more broadly, it is easy to imagine what the international response would have been if it had been posted on the Internet and translated into English. All this convincingly testifies, in addition to the social topicality, to the purely linguistic foundation of this document.
The book also published a third addition to your list of 1060 sinkholes from the book Sarmageddon in Mesopotamia, which brings 355 new ones, recorded for the last two years. What does this increase mean compared to the previous period??
He talks about the growing popularity of lexical blends, as creations created by combining two words or their parts, which barely existed in our language until a few decades ago, while today they multiply at a high speed in some registers and styles. It has already become quite normal, and even expected, for some current person or new phenomenon to be baptized with a fountain. Thus, due to the affair with Serbian chocolates for Croatian children, the Croatian president was immediately renamed on social networks Chocoland, while in Serbia the newly appointed prime minister immediately became gamer; and the anger of the people of Belgrade due to the chaotic excavation of the streets, including the route to Zvezda Stadium, gave birth to the toponym Raskopabakan. It is, therefore, about the affirmation of a media-attractive creative process as an expression of a modern casual and humorous attitude towards the things and phenomena that surround us.
Among the latest jargonisms in the last chapter of the book are those that testify to the influence of political events on language, for example Bakiriada, Duklaniada, opposition... Please comment.
Suffix jargonisms of this type belong to the same stylistic pattern and psychological milieu as the just mentioned slurs, only that the same or similar effect is achieved by other morphological means; and since in our country politics has entered almost every pore of life, the characteristic examples you give also belong to that world. By far the most common sequel –anyway, without which it seems impossible to live today, embodies this tendency to express a non-committal, humorous and even mocking attitude towards what is named or commented on.
The state advocates for the preservation of the language, so far, mainly by agitating for the preservation of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. What would be your advice: how to guard your tongue, from what and from whom?
Caring for the language, in the sense of taking systematic measures for its harmonious development, in order for it to perform its many and varied functions in society as successfully as possible, is a normal component of the language policy of modern countries. However, such care in Serbia - to the extent that it exists - takes place in the sign of, as you say, the preservation of the language, which is a significant conceptual difference. While development implies dynamism and adaptation, conservation refers to the static maintenance of some desirable state in order to avoid threatening changes. In the case of the Serbian language, preservation essentially means preservation of a better past, glorification of its supposedly threatened Vukovar-Cyrillic heritage, while the weaknesses in its current functioning go into the background - not to mention its adequate profiling as an instrument of modern life in the future. In this sense, I would say that the language should be protected from its strict guardians, and it should be allowed to develop freely and creatively, of course to a certain extent directed in order to avoid chaos. The biggest threat to the Serbian language is not some kind of dark foreign forces like Latin, Anglicisms or the Internet, but stubborn domestic illiteracy and lack of culture.
And how would you define the dominant understanding of culture in Serbia today?, in connection with the language but also in general?
Judging by the current programs, actions and priorities of institutions in charge of culture, the picture is rather gloomy; here are just some examples. The much-criticized Strategy for the Development of the Culture of the Republic of Serbia from 2017 to 2027, which, among other things, talks about the heroic dimension of Serbian culture, contains a special section on nurturing the Serbian language and the Cyrillic alphabet, which practically amounts to prescribing measures to protect the Cyrillic alphabet by discriminatory and unconstitutional suppression of the Latin alphabet from public space, which is the point of the announced changes to the Law on the Official Use of Languages and Letters. And the glorious past rises in every occasion: while we watch the series "Nemanjići", a monument to Stefan Nemanjić was announced in front of the future Nemanjić Museum in the building of the railway station. A cynic could say that the future is still being taken into account, because the Ministry of Culture joined the campaign to increase the birth rate by announcing a competition for the most successful slogans, which invite us to something let's fasten it so that nothing gets stuck.
The indestructible folklore string of our self-proclaimed cultists comes to the fore during the competition for support of cultural projects, where anonymous committees of the Secretariat for Culture of Belgrade award projects of phantom citizens' associations. Some of them are called "Who reads does not skita" and "Run to the library" (at least these have something to do with books, unlike, for example, painting Easter eggs), and there are also traditionalist-patriotic ones, such as "This is how it was played and sang", "Sing and triple", "Saint Sava in April", "Serbia is born" or "Serbian elegy". On the other hand, the Serbian PEN Center and the Serbian Literary Society remain without dinars of support. In addition, the populist is walking the line of least resistance. It is much easier - and cheaper - to launch verbal campaigns for the protection of the Cyrillic alphabet than to work systematically and persistently to raise the unacceptably low level of literacy (in any script) and language culture; to talk about the glorious past rather than to trace the probable future; come up with slogans and threaten "lazy people" with an ultrasound instead of providing them with decent conditions for giving birth and raising children; to support dubious products of popular culture than to lead a well-designed cultural policy. The above examples bear witness to the dilettantism that governs the culture of Belgrade and Serbia under the protection of party eligibility.
