(Redirected from Å tokavian)
'Shtokavian' or 'Å tokavian' is the primary dialect of the
Central South Slavic languages system:
Serbo-Croatian,
Serbian,
Croatian,
Montenegrin and
Bosnian languages.
The Å tokavian dialect is spoken in
Serbia,
Montenegro,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, the southern part of Austria’s
Burgenland and the greater part of
Croatia. The Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian
standard languages are all based on the Neo-Å tokavian dialect. Its name comes from the form for the interrogatory pronoun "what," which is ''Å¡to'' or ''Å¡ta'' in the Å tokavian dialect.
The primary subdivisions of Å tokavian are based on 2 principles: one is whether the subdialect is Old-Å tokavian or Neo-Å tokavian, and the different ways the old Slavic phoneme ''
jat'' has been changed. Generally, modern dialectology recognizes 7 Å tokavian subdialects (there are opinions that one or two subdialects more exist, but this is not universally accepted).
Early history of Å tokavian
The Proto-Å tokavian idiom had appeared in the 12th century. In the following century or two, Å tokavian was divided into two zones: western, which covered the major part of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Slavonia in
Croatia, and eastern, dominant in the easternmost
Bosnia and Herzegovina and greater parts of
Montenegro and
Serbia. The western Å tokavian was characterized by 3-accents speech, while eastern Å¡tokavian was marked by 2-accents. According to the research of historical linguistics, the old-Å¡tokavian was well established by the mid-
1400s. In this period it had been still mixed with Church Slavonic in various degrees, as well as with
Chakavian dialect in
Croatia and many parts of
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Å tokavian subdialects
The Å tokavian dialect is divided into Old-Shtokavian and Neo-Shtokavian subdialects.
Old-Shtokavian
Timok-Prizren (Torlakian)
Main articles: Torlakian
The oldest dialects stretch southeast from
Timok near the
Bulgarian border to
Prizren. There is disagreement among linguists whether these dialects belong to Å tokavian area, as there are many other morphological characteristics apart from rendering of ''Å¡to'' which would place them into a "transitional" group between Å tokavian and Eastern South Slavic languages (
Bulgarian and
Macedonian). These dialects split from the rest of the group at the onset of the Turkish conquest in the fourteenth century. The Timok-Prizren group falls to the
Balkan linguistic union: declension has all but disappeared, the
infinitive has yielded to
subjunctives ''da''-constructions, and adjectives are compared exclusively with suffixes. The accent in the dialect group is a stress accent, and it falls on any syllable in the word. The old semi-vowel has been retained throughout. The vocalic ''l'' has been retained (''vlk'' = ''vuk''), and some dialects don't distinguish ''ć/Ä'' and ''Ä‘/dž'' by preferring the latter, postalveolar variants. Some subdialects preserve l at the end of words (where otherwise it has developed into a short o) – ''doÅ¡l'', ''znal'', etc. (cf.
Kajkavian and
Bulgarian); in others, this ''l'' has become the syllable ''ja''.
Slavonian
Also called the '
Å okaÄki' or ''Archaic Šćakavian'' dialect, it is spoken by
Å okci that live in some parts of
Slavonia,
BaÄka,
Baranja,
Syrmia, in Croatia and Vojvodina, as well as in northern Bosnia. The Slavonian dialect has mixed ikavian and ekavian pronunciation. Ikavian is predominant in the Posavina, Baranja, BaÄka, and in the Slavonian sub-dialect enclave of
Derventa, while ekavian is predominant in
Podravina. There are also enclaves of one of both variants in the main territory of other and vice-versa, as well as mixed ekavian-ikavian and jekavian-ikavian areas. In some villages in
Hungary the original yat is preserved. Local variants can widely differ in the degree of neo-shtokavian accent influneces. In two villages in
Posavina, SiÄe and Magića Male the ''l'', as in the verb ''nosil'', has been retained in place of the modern ''nosio''. In some villages in the Podravina ''Är'' instead of the usual ''cr'' is preserved, for example in ''Ärn'' instead of ''crn''. Both forms are usual in Kajkavian but very rare in Shtokavian.
East-Bosnian
Also called ''jekavian šćakavian'', it has jekavian prounanciation in the vast majority of local forms and it is spoken by the majority of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) living in area that include bigger Bosnian cities
Sarajevo,
Tuzla and
Zenica, and by most of Croats and Serbs that live in that area. Together with basic jekavian pronunciation, mixed pronunciations exist in
Tešanj and
Maglaj ''dete-djeteta'' (ekavian-jekavian) and around
ŽepÄe and
Jablanica ''djete-diteta'' (jekavian-ikavian). In the central area of the subdialect, the
diphthong ''uo'' exists in some words instead of the archaic ''l'' and more common ''u'' like ''vuok'' or ''stuop'', instead of the standard modern ''vuk'' and ''stup''.
Zeta-South Sandžak
Also known as ''Old Ijekavian''. It is spoken in eastern Montenegro, in
Podgorica and
Cetinje, around the city of
Novi Pazar in eastern
Sandžak in Serbia, and in the village of
Peroj in
Istria. Together with the dominant jekavian pronunciation, mixed pronunciations like ''djete-deteta'' (jekavian-ekavian) around Novi Pazar and
Bijelo Polje, ''dite-Ä‘eteta'' (ikavian-jekavian) around Podgorica and ''dete-Ä‘eteta'' (ekavian-jekavian) in the village of Mrkojevići in southern Montenegro. Mrkovići are also characterised by remainings of ''Är'' instead of ''cr'' as in the previously mentioned villages in Podravina.
Some vernaculars have a special reflex of ÑŒ/ÑŠ in some cases (between a and e) which is very rare in stokavian and chakavian vernaculars (''sän'' and ''dän'' instead of ''san'' and ''dan''). Other special phonetic features inlude sounds like in ''iÊesti'' instead of ''izjesti'', as in ''Å›jekira'' instead of ''sjekira''. However these sounds are known also to many East-Herzegovina like those in
Konavle[1], and are not "Montenegrin" specificum. The loss of distinction between /lj/ and /l/ in some vernaculars is based on Albanian adstrate. Word ''pļesma'' is a hypercorrection (instead of ''pjesma'') since many vernaculars know lj>j.
All verbs in infinitive finish with "t" (example: pjevat). These future have also most respective vernaculars of East-Herzegovinian, and actually almost all Serbian and Croatian vernaculars.
The group ''a + o'' gave ''a'' ("ka" instead "kao", ''reka'' for ''rekao''), like in other Serbian and Croatian seaside vernaculars. Otherwise, more common is ao>o.
Currently there is an attempt by Montenegrin nationalists to create a separate
Montenegrin language from the
Serbian language standard based on the Zeta subdialect.
Kosovo-Resava
Also called ''Older Ijekavian'', spoken mostly in western and northeastern Kosovo and northeastern Serbia. Substitution of ''jat'' is dominantly ekavian even on the end of datives (''žene'' instead of ''ženi''), in pronouns (''teh'' instead of ''tih''), in comparatives (''dobrej'' instead of ''dobriji'') and in the negative of biti (''nesam'' instead of ''nisam'') and in
Smederevo-
Vršac speeches ikavian forms can be found. However those are considered to be part of a separate dialect.
Neo-Shtokavian
Western Ikavian
Also called Bosnian-Dalmatian, ''Younger Ikavian'' is spoken mostly by
Croats that live in
Lika,
Kvarner,
Dalmatia,
Herzegovina and
BaÄka and by
Bosniaks in western Bosnia mostly around city of
Bihać and in central Bosnia (
Travnik,
Jajce,
Bugojno,..). Exclusively ikavian, Bosnian and Herzegovinian forms use ''o'' in verb participle, while those in Dalmatia and Lika use ''-ija'' like in ''vidija''. Local form of
BaÄka was proposed as base of new
Bunjevac language proposed standard by some
Bunjevci in Vojvodina.
Å umadija-Vojvodina
Also called ''Younger Ekavian'', is spoken across most of Vojvodina, north-west Serbia, in Belgrade and in eastern Croatia around the town of
Vukovar. It is dominately ekavian (ikavian forms are of morphophonological origin). In some parts of Vojvodina old declination is preserved. Most Vojvodina dialects and some dialects in Sumadija have an opened ''e'' and ''o''. However the vernaculars of western Serbia, and in past to them connected vernaculars of (old) Belgrade and southwestern Banat (BorÄa,
PanÄevo, BavaniÅ¡te) are close to standard as a vernacular can be. The dialect presents a base for the Serbian Ekavian standard.
East Herzegovinian
Also called East Herzegovina-
Krajina and ''Younger Ijekavian''. It is the biggest Shtokavian and Serbo-Croatian dialect. It is spoken by most
Bosnian Serbs,
Croatian Serbs as well in western Serbia, western Montenegro and by very few
Croats in
Slavonia,
Banija,
Kordun where Serbs used to be majority and as well in east of
Neretva around city of
Dubrovnik, and is the basis of the Serbian standard, while Croatian standard is based on the historical mixture of few dialects, including non-shtokavian. Its south-eastern form is characterised by the total lack of sound that is sometimes not only left out or replaced by more common or but is replaced as well by less common and (''bijak, bijaku'' imperfect of verb ''biti''). Local forms in the
Žumberak enclave and around Dubrovnik have some special features, influenced from
Chakavian and the
western subdialect.
The yat reflexes
The Proto-Slavic vowel ''
jat'' has changed over time and is now being rendered in three different ways or reflexes:
★ In Ekavian (''ekavski''), ''jat'' has morphed into the vowel ''e''
★ in Ikavian (''ikavski''), the vowel ''i''
★ in Ijekavian or Jekavian (''ijekavski'' or ''jekavski''), the diphthong ''ije'' or ''je'' depending on whether the vowel was long or short.
Historically, the yat reflexes had been inscribed in Church Slavic texts before the significant development of štokavian dialect, reflecting the beginnings of the formative period of the vernacular. In early documents it is still either almost exclusively or predominantly Church Slavic of Serbian or Croatian variant (technical term is recension). First undoubtedly ekavian "yat reflex" had been inscribed in a document in Serbia ("beše"/it was), dated
1289, ikavian in Bosnia in
1331 ("svidoci"/witnesses), and first ijekavian in Croatia in
1399 ("želijemo"/we wish, a "hyperijekavism"). Partial inscriptions can be found in earlier texts (for instance, ikavian form is written in a few Bosnian documents in the latter half of the
13th century), but philologists generally accept the aforementioned data for yat reflexes. In second half of 20th century, many vernaculars with unsubstituted jat are found.
[2] The intrusion of the vernacular into Church Slavic grew in time, to be finally replaced by the vernacular idiom. This process has taken place for Croats, Serbs and
Bosniaks independently and without mutual interference until the mid-
19th century. Historical linguistics, textual analysis and dialectology have dispelled myths about allegedly "unspoilt" vernacular speech of rural areas: for instance, it is established that Bosniaks have retained phoneme "h" in numerous words (unlike Serbs and Croats), due to elementary religious education based on the Koran, where this phoneme is the carrier of specific semantic value.
Ekavian, sometimes called eastern, is spoken primarily in Serbia, and very limited area in eastern Croatia. Ikavian, sometimes called western, is spoken in western and central Bosnia, western Herzegovina, in Slavonia and the major part of Dalmatia in Croatia. Ijekavian, sometimes called southern, is spoken in many parts of Croatia including southern Dalmatia, most of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro. The following are some generic examples:
| English | Predecessor | Ekavian | Ikavian | Ijekavian |
|---|
| time | vrěme | vreme | vrime | vrijeme |
| beautiful | lěp | lep | lip | lijep |
| girl | děvojka | devojka | divojka | djevojka |
| true | věran | veran | viran | vjeran |
| to sit | sědĕti | sedeti (sèdeti) | siditi (sìdeti) | sjediti |
| to grow gray hairs | sÄ›deti | sedeti (sédeti) | siditi (sÃdeti) | sijediti |
| to heat | grějati | grejati | grijati | grijati |
Long ''ije'' is
diphthongal among the majority of Ijekavian speakers; some Croatian authors recognize it as 31st
phoneme of Croatian . In Zeta dialect and most of East Herzegovina dialect, it represents two
syllables though. Serbian phonologists do not recognize it as separate phoneme (possibly as a heritage that East Herzegoviniana was the native dialect of
Vuk Karadžić, the reformer of Serbian language). The distinction can be clearly heard in first verses of
national anthems of Croatia and
Montenegro—they're sung as "'''Lije-pa' na-Å¡a do-mo-vi-no''" and "''Oj 'svi-je-tla' maj-ska zo-ro''" respectively.
Ethnic affiliation of native speakers of Å¡tokavian dialect
During the 1st half of the 19th century, protagonists of nascent Slavic philology were, as far as South Slavic dialects were concerned, embroiled in frequently bitter polemic about "ethnic affiliation" of native speakers of various dialects. This, from contemporary point of view, rather bizarre obsession was motivated primarily by political and national interests that prompted philologists-turned-ideologues to express their views on the subject. The most prominent contenders in the squabble, with conflicting agenda, were Czech philologist
Josef Dobrovský, Slovak
Pavel Šafárik, Slovene
Jernej Kopitar and
Franc MikloÅ¡iÄ, Serb
Vuk Karadžić and Croatian
Bogoslav Å ulek and
Vatroslav Jagić.
Essentially, the dispute was about who can, philologically, be labelled as "Slovene", "Croat" and "Serb" with the very mundane aim of expanding one's national territory and influence. Born in the climate of romanticism and national awakening, these polemical "battles" only succeeded in poisoning relations between the aforementioned nations, especially because the Å¡tokavian dialect cannot be split along ethnic lines. Like many other dialects (for instance,
Plattdeutsch), it is "multiethnic" by its very nature.
However, contemporary native speakers, after process of national crystallization and identification had been completed, can be roughly identified as predominant speakers of various Å¡tokavian subdialects. Since standard languages propagated through media have strongly influenced and altered the situation in the 19th century, the following attribution must be treated with necessary caution.
The distribution of old-Å¡tokavian speakers along ethnic lines in present times is as follows:
★ Kosovo-Resava (Ekavian) dialect: vastly Serbian
★ Zeta-South Sanjak dialect (Ijekavian): Montenegrin, Bosniak and Serbian.
★ Slavonian dialect (fluctuating "yat": mainly Ikavian, also Ijekavian and Ekavian): vastly Croatian
★ Eastern-Bosnian dialect(Ijekavian): vastly Bosniak and Croatian
Generally, the neo-Å¡tokavian dialect is divided as follows with regard to the ethnicity of its native speakers:
★ Å umadija-Vojvodina dialect (Ekavian): vastly Serbian
★ Dalmatian-Bosnian dialect (Ikavian): vastly Croatian and Bosniak
★ Eastern-Herzegovinian (Ijekavian): Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Bosniak
| Group | Sub-Dialect | Serbian | Croatian | Bosnian | Montenegrin |
|---|
| old-Å¡tokavian | Kosovo-Resava | x | | | |
| Zeta-South Sanjak | x | | x | x |
| Slavonian | | x | | |
| Eastern Bosnian | | x | x | |
| neo-Å¡tokavian | Å umadija-Vojvodina | x | | | |
| Dalmatian-Bosnian | | x | x | |
| Eastern Herzgovinian | x | x | x | x |
Earliest texts of Å¡tokavian dialect
Proto-Å¡tokavian, or Church Slavic with ingredients of nascent Å¡tokavian, were recorded in legal documents like the charter of
ban Kulin, regulating the commerce between Bosnia and Dubrovnik in Croatia, dated 1189, and in liturgical texts like Gršković’s and Mihanović’s fragments, ca.
1150, in southern Bosnia or Herzegovina. Experts's opinions are divided with regard to the extent these texts, especially the Kulin ban parchment, contain contemporary Å¡tokavian vernacular. Mainly Å¡tokavian, with ingredients of Church Slavic, are numerous legal and commercial documents from pre-Ottoman
Bosnia,
Hum,
Serbia,
Zeta, and southern
Dalmatia, especially
Dubrovnik. First comprehensive vernacular Å¡tokavian text is the
Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, written a decade or two before
1400 in
Dubrovnik. In next two centuries Å¡tokavian vernacular texts had been written mainly in Dubrovnik, other Adria cities and islands influenced by Dubrovnik, as well as in Bosnia, by Bosnian Franciscans and Bosniak Muslim vernacular ''
alhamiado'' literature — the first example being "Chirwat turkisi" or "Croatian song", dated 1589.
Standard languages
Standard languages
Bosnian,
Croatian and
Serbian are all based on neo-Å¡tokavian dialect.
However, it must be stressed that standard languages, irrespectively of their mutual differences, have been stylised in such manners that parts of the neo-štokavian dialect have been retained—for instance, declension —but other features were purposely omitted or altered—for instance, the phoneme "h" was re-instated in standard languages.
The Croatian language has had a long tradition of Å¡tokavian vernacular literacy and literature. It took almost four and half centuries for Å¡tokavian to prevail as the dialectal basis for Croatian standard. In other periods, Äakavian and kajkavian dialects, as well as hybrid Äakavian–kajkavian–štokavian interdialect "contended" for the Croatian national koine — but eventually lost, mainly due to historical and political reasons. By
1650s it was fairly obvious that Å¡tokavian would become the dialectal basis for the Croatian standard, but this process was finally completed in
1850s, when neo-Å¡tokavian Ijekavian, based mainly on Ragusan (Dubrovnik), Dalmatian, Bosnian and Slavonian literary heritage became national standard language.
Serbian language was much faster in standardisation. Although
vernacular literature was present in the
18th century, it was Vuk Karadžić who, between
1818 and
1851, made a radical break with the past and established Serbian neo-Å¡tokavian folklore idiom as the basis of standard Serbian (until then, educated Serbs had been using Serbian Slavic, Russian Slavic and hybrid Russian-Serbian language). Although he wrote in Serbian Ijekavian, the majority of Serbs have adopted Ekavian, which is dominant in Serbia. Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia, as well as Montenegrins, use Ijekavian variant of standard Serbian language.
Bosnian language is only currently beginning to take shape. Bosniaks idiom can be seen as a transition between Serbian Ijekavian and Croatian languages, with some specific traits. After the collapse of Yugoslavia, Bosniaks affirmed their wish to stylise their own standard language, based on neo-štokavian dialect, but reflecting their characteristics—from phonetics to semantics.
Also, contemporary situation is unstable with regard to the accentuation, since phoneticians have observed that 4-accents speech has, in all likelihood, shown to be increasingly unstable, which resulted in proposals that 3-accents norm be prescribed. This is particularly true for
Croatian, where, contrary to all expectations, the influence of
Äakavian and
kajkavian dialects on the standard language has been waxing, not waning, in the past 50–70 years.
Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian standard languages, although all based on neo-štokavian dialect (or, more precisely, various subdialects) and mutually intelligible, are recognizably different in their prescribed forms as standard or literary languages. Their structures are almost identical in basic grammar, but have differences in other fields—from phonetics, phonology and morphology to syntax, semantics and pragmatics. For other traits, see
Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
Example: ''Što jest, jest; tako je uv(ij)ek bilo, što će biti, ( biće / bit će ), a nekako već će biti!''
(The first option in the middle of the sentence is a difference between Ekavian and Ijekavian. The second option in the middle is difference between Serbian and Croatian norms, respectively.)
Another "classic" example is:
:
:
:
:
References
External links
★
Map of Serbo-Croatian dialects according to Brabec, Kraste, and Živković
★
Map of štokavian dialects according to Dalibor Brozović
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