|
|
|
|
|
|
by velcro
2047 days ago
|
|
|
Yes of course there are synonyms in all languages - but I specified "a lot more words". If you look at the link I included in my first reply under "vocabulary comparison" you'll see an example of what I mean. And thats just the biggest one - there are islands in Croatia where I (as a native speaker) might have better luck understanding Czech than the local variants. Don't think that undermines my claim at all - they understand the words because they're familiar within the slavic language group in general (even though they might be derivations and used or spelled differently). Its like saying Italian/Spanish are the same because speakers might understand words between them. With the translation argument - you also of course have to ignore the fact that Serbia writes in cyrillic and Croatia in latin alphabet. |
|
|
Basically, the point is about what defines a language as a distinct one.
Grammar is pretty much the same with one standard preferring one form or the other (eg. infinitive vs "da" + present). Vocabulary is over 90% identical, though I am sure top 500 words in both spoken dialects have a larger discrepancy. Alphabets are different, but they are almost bijectively mapped (only differ orthographically in digraphs like NJ/Nj/nj where Cyrillic has only Њ/њ), and you may have missed it, but Serbian population actually uses Latin script for >80% of all Serbian writing.
The article mentions a push to differentiate languages further, probably most evident in Croatia in early 90s.
But three students in Bosnia speaking identical language (grammar/vocabulary thougj the script might differ) of 3 different nationalities would officially claim they speak three different languages. If you don't see the absurdity in that, that's up to you.