Abstract
Eric Hobsbawm argues in Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 that ‘Languages multiply with states; not the other way round’ (1992: 63). Since Hobsbawm’s book was published a decade ago, we have witnessed the demise of the status of a shared Serbo-Croat language and its multiplication into four separate languages Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian, alongside the collapse of former Yugoslavia and the creation of new separate states. The language question in the region has been intimately bound up with the state of South Slav relations, often prefiguring political developments (Greenberg 1996). The Croatian linguist Ivo Pranjkovic has pointedly observed that ‘the perpetual politicisation of our standard idioms and Croato-Serbian relations must be borne in mind’ (Pranjković: 1993: 106).1 The accordance of language or dialect status has paralleled political aspirations endorsing Hobsbawm’s statement. In essence, the assertion of a common language with regional variations has been associated with South Slavism and the aspiration for a common state, while the assertion of distinct languages reflects ethnic divisions and the aspiration for separate states.
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Pupavac, V. (2003). Politics and Language Rights: A Case Study of Language Politics in Croatia. In: Hogan-Brun, G., Wolff, S. (eds) Minority Languages in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502994_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502994_8
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