Sarajevo Call for 'Common Language' Meets Opposition

A declaration of a common language unveiled on Thursday in Sarajevo has angered those who insist four different languages are spoken across Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia, including Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

He told the local media: "How would it be supported? Who in Croatia can support it?" 

"The Croatian language is the language of Croatians defined by our constitution. The Croatian language is one of the official languages of the EU. For me that's all that matters," he said.

Zeljko Jozic, director of the Institute for Croatian Language and Linguistics, was also reported to oppose the initiative.

Meanwhile, Milanka Babic, professor of Serbian and a linguist at the University of East Sarajevo, was reported by Nezavisne Novine as saying that the declaration brought nothing new and had no binding force.

The document - drawn up by more than 30 experts from different fields after a series of regional conferences called "Languages and Nationalism" - aims to challenge the use of language in the Western Balkans as a political tool to stoke nationalist tensions.

Enver Kazaz, professor at the University of Sarajevo's faculty of philosophy, told media outlet Avaz: "This is the first such declaration, after the bloody wars of the former Yugoslavia, that has managed to attract a very large number of writers and intellectuals and a joint document that opposes linguistic nationalism."

The text of the declaration holds that the people Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia share a common tongue, although it does not name the language.

Writer and academic Igor Stiks, one of the signatories, explained that the aim was not to call for the creation of a single language, but to clarify that the countries share a...

Continue reading on: