OSIJEK, Sept 14 (Hina) - Milan Mogus, a vice-president of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences on Tuesday spoke at the Second congress of Croatian Slavists, which is being held in Osijek. In the past century the Serbian language
was imposed on Croats as a language standard and elements which did not exist in Serbian were declared provincialisms. However, the Croatian language, which has been constructed for centuries, could not be wiped out even by the several centuries of the Ottoman rule, the German-Hungarian occupation, or the influence of Vuk Karadzic and the two Yugoslavias, Mogus said. At the end of the last century, the Croatian language - in line with the then accepted new German philological school - the so-called "Junggrammatiker", was standardised according to the neo-stokavian dialect - the language of ordinary people. The rich literary language, which the Croats
OSIJEK, Sept 14 (Hina) - Milan Mogus, a vice-president of the
Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences on Tuesday spoke at the Second
congress of Croatian Slavists, which is being held in Osijek.
In the past century the Serbian language was imposed on Croats as a
language standard and elements which did not exist in Serbian were
declared provincialisms.
However, the Croatian language, which has been constructed for
centuries, could not be wiped out even by the several centuries of
the Ottoman rule, the German-Hungarian occupation, or the
influence of Vuk Karadzic and the two Yugoslavias, Mogus said.
At the end of the last century, the Croatian language - in line with
the then accepted new German philological school - the so-called
"Junggrammatiker", was standardised according to the neo-
stokavian dialect - the language of ordinary people.
The rich literary language, which the Croats had been nurturing for
centuries, was not interesting to "Junggrammatiker". They claimed
that what one had to start with was the actual vernacular, which
they claimed was what the works of the Serbian folklorist and
language reformer, Vuk Karadzic, were based on. This is how
Karadzic's language became a model not only for the Serbs but also
for the Croats and it remained so until today, Mogus said.
He recalled that the name Croatian or Serbian was introduced in the
second half of the 19th century, whereas the name Serbo-Croatian
was introduced at the end of the century.
Croatian linguists chose a lesser of two evils, Mogus said.
Choosing the name Croatian or Serbian was the only way to warn about
the deformity of the language which, as such, existed only in
Yugoslavia and nowhere else, Mogus concluded.
The second Croatian congress of Slavists has gathered about 300
Croatian and foreign Slavists and Croatists.
(hina) jn rml