SERBS FAIL IN RENEWED ATTEMPT TO DENY EXISTENCE OF CROATIAN

( Editorial: --> 8127 ) ZAGREB, Sept 4 (Hina) - Members of a Serbian delegation at the recent 12th international Slavonic congress have failed in yet another attempt to prove the Croatian language does not exist. During the congress in Krakow, Poland, from August 27 to September 3, Serb Slavists also unsuccessfully tried to prove everything written in the Croatian stokavian dialect, which is the standard form in the Croatian language, belonged to Serbian culture. More than 1,100 Slavonic experts from 40 or so countries from every continent took part in the congress which had a special discussion on the standardisation of Slavic languages. After returning from the Congress, Croatian delegation member Josip Bratulic, who is the president of Croatia's cultural institution Matica Hrvatska, told Hina that Croatian reports at the conference were well received and resulted in lively discussions. "Especially discussed were the problems of languages, because the Serbian delegation distributed its Slovo - A Declaration on the Serbian language - in which it said there was no Croatian language, that all stokavian speakers of Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim faith were Serbs and that as a result all works written in stokavian belonged to Serbian culture," Bratulic said. He added that such a stance had been presented before meetings of language commissions and provoked a specific chaos. "We expected this, and this was common in previous years during Yugoslav linguistic congresses," the Matica Hrvatska president said, adding that in the meantime some Serb Slavists in Krakow in discussions with Croatian delegation members had apologised and distanced themselves from the Declaration and their colleagues. Bratulic said 20 or so foreign non-Croat Slavists made presentations on Croatian themes and summaries of their materials for the congress were written in Croatian. The next international Slavonic congress will be held in 2002 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (Hina) mbr jn /lml 042010 MET sep 98