The issue of the status of the Croatian language, as stated at the beginning of the declaration, is primarily a legal issue and linguistic argumentation is a precondition for legal argumentation only to the extent that it has to answer the question if the Croatian language is a separate language, different from the Serbian, Bosniak or Montenegrin languages, and if the language of Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina is the same as the Croatian language in Croatia.
"Although Croats speak different dialects like other nations, the Croatian literary and/or standard language is one and unique," reads the document that was proposed by the HAZU Department for Philological Sciences.
The Croatian language serves to express the Croatian culture and the needs of the Croatian historical and national linguistic community.
"For Croats it functions equally as any other standard language functions for the people using it. Its repression or discrimination would constitute discrimination against Croats, their culture and language, in the European Union or in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a country where Croats are a constituent people. This would be a grave violation of human rights and the legal foundations of the international community, the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Union," reads the declaration, calling on the Croatian authorities, diplomats and scientists to protect the equality of the Croatian language on the international level and not sign any document that would relativise its status.