Montenegrin language
Montenegrin language (Montenegrin:
crnogorski jezik / црногорски језик) is the name given to the Ijekavian-
Štokavian dialect spoken in
Montenegro. Some
Montenegrins refer to their specific dialect as a language on its own, while others consider it a dialect of
Serbian language.
As of 2005, there is an ongoing controversy on this issue.
On the last
census in 2003, 21.53% of the population of Montenegro declared that Montenegrin is their native language. 63.5% of the population declared that Serbian language is their mother tongue. Given that 32% of the population declared themselves as
Serbs, and that it is quite unlikely that any of them would declare their language to be other than Serbian, it could be estimated that 31.5% of the population declared Serbian as their language while not declaring as ethnic Serbs (*note that Montenegrins consist 42% of the overall population of Montenegro, meaning that about 25% of ethnic Montenegrins consider Montenegrin their native tongue comparing to 75% who consider it to be Serbian).
The language issue is a debated issue in Montenegro. In the previous census of 1991, the majority of Montenegrin citizens declared themselves as speakers of the then official language:
Serbo-Croatian. According to the constitution of Montenegro, the official language of the republic, since 1992, is Serbian of the Ijekavian standard. After
World War II and until 1992, the official language of Montenegro was Serbo-Croatian. In the late nineties and early twenty-first century, organizations promoting Montenegrin as a distinct language appeared.
Some people might compare the situation with Montenegrin language with the position of
Croatian and
Bosnian languages, and even come to the conclusion that position of Montenegrin parallels the positions of the others. However, there are crucial differences between the three: while Croatian and Bosnian are
standard languages and
official languages, there is no accepted standard for Montenegrin and it is not official anywhere (the official language of the Republic of Montenegro is Serbian), although this is likely to change now Montenegro has regained its independence. Further, while most speakers of the Croatian and Bosnian dialects claim to speak Croatian and Bosnian language, respectively, most speakers of Montenegrin dialects still claim to speak the Serbian language.
|
Proposed Montenegrin language alphabet, which contains 3 more letters than Serbian-Croatian counterpart — Ś, Ź, and З |
The prevailing dialect spoken in Montenegro is Neoštokavian Ijekavian, similar to one spoken in most of
Eastern Herzegovina and
Dubrovnik area.
The vocabulary of the dialect has some distinct features, but words different from other dialects are few (e.g. "sjutra" is used in Montenegro instead of "sutra", which is used in standard Serbian, Bosnian or Croatian).
Proponents of Montenegrin favour the
Latin over the
Cyrillic alphabet and even propose amending of the alphabet with three letters Ś, Ź, and З (representing
IPA: , and respectively). While these
sounds can be heard with some Montenegrin speakers, they are rare and do not form
minimal pairs, and so are not considered
phonemes by that criteria. In addition, there are speakers in Montenegro who don't utter them and speakers of Serbian and Croatian outside of Montenegro (notably in
Herzegovina and
Bosanska Krajina) who do.
The chief proponent of Montenegrin is
Zagreb-educated dr
Vojislav Nikčević, professor at the Department of Language and Literature at the
University of Montenegro and the head of the
Institute for Montenegrin Language in the capital Podgorica. His dictionaries and grammars are printed by Croatian publishers as the major Montenegrin publishing houses such as
Obod in
Cetinje, as always, opt for the official nomenclature specified in the Constitution (Serbo-Croat until 1992, Serbian after 1992). Introduction of Montenegrin language has also been supported by other important academic institutions, such as
Matica Crnogorska and
Montenegrin Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Montenegro's prime minister
Milo Đukanović declared his open support for the formalization of the Montenegrin language by declaring himself as a speaker of the Montenegrin language, in an October 2004 interview with Belgrade daily
Politika. At one point during the
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, official Montenegrin government communiqués were officially given in
English and Montenegrin. The Government has since switched back to Serbian. The official web page of the President of Montenegro states that it is provided in "Montenegrin-Serbian version" (
Crnogorsko-srpska verzija). while the official website of the Government of Montenegro has an English and a
Serbian version. [
1]
In an attempt to resolve the language naming problem, in 2004, the government of Montenegro changed the school curriculum in such a way that name of the mandatory classes teaching the language was changed from "Serbian language" to "Mother tongue (Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian)". This change was made, according to the government, in order to better reflect the diversity of languages spoken among citizens in the republic and to protect human rights of non-Serb citizens in Montenegro who declare themselves as speakers of other languages.
This decision resulted in a dozen Serb teachers declaring a
strike and a number of parents refusing to send their children to schools. The cities affected by the strike included
Nikšić,
Podgorica,
Berane,
Pljevlja and
Herceg Novi.
*
Dialect continuum*
Montenegrins*
Zeta dialect (also called
East-Montenegrin) of the
Shtokavian dialect of the
Serbo-Croatian language.
*
Official government page with srpski or 'Serbian' at the bottom *
Official page of President of Montenegro with Crnogorsko-srpska verzija or 'Montenegrin-Serbian version' in top left corner *
Official page of Montenegrin Government with CRNOGORSKI or 'Montenegrin' in top left corner *
Montenegrin language on Montenegrina
