Bosnian language

Bosnian language
Name	Bosnian
Nativename	bosanski / босански
States	Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia
Region	Southeast Europe
Ethnicity	Bosniaks
Speakers	~2.5 million
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam2	Balto-Slavic
Fam3	Slavic
Fam4	South Slavic
Fam5	Western South Slavic
Fam6	Serbo-Croatian
Script	Latin (Gaj's Latin alphabet), Cyrillic (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet)
Nation	Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro (co-official), Serbia (co-official in Sandžak)
Minority	Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia
Iso1	bs
Iso2	bos
Iso3	bos
Glotto	bosn1245
Glottorefname	Bosnian
Lingua	part of 53-AAA-g

Bosnian language. It is one of the standardized varieties of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language, primarily used by the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian diaspora. The language is official in Bosnia and Herzegovina and holds co-official status in Montenegro and parts of Serbia, such as the Sandžak region. Its modern standardization was solidified after the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Yugoslav Wars, distinguishing it through specific lexical, phonological, and historical cultural choices.

History

The linguistic history is deeply intertwined with the medieval Bosnian Kingdom and the influence of the Bosnian Church, which used a specific Bosnian Cyrillic script known as Bosančica. During the Ottoman period, significant lexical borrowings from Turkish, Arabic, and Persian entered the vernacular, influenced by Islamic culture and administration. The 19th-century Illyrian movement, led by figures like Ljudevit Gaj, promoted South Slavic unity and laid the groundwork for standardization, which was later formalized in the Vienna Literary Agreement. The 20th century saw its development within Yugoslavia, with its distinct status being fully affirmed after the Dayton Agreement and recognized by the International Organization for Standardization.

Geographical distribution

It is the primary official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina, spoken predominantly in entities like the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. Significant speaker communities exist as a recognized minority language in neighboring countries including Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and North Macedonia. Beyond the Balkans, substantial diaspora communities in Austria, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, the United States, and Australia, particularly in cities like St. Louis, maintain its use through cultural associations and media.

Phonology

The sound system is characterized by a rich set of 25 consonants and five vowel phonemes, featuring the distinctive Shtokavian dialect's pitch accent system with four tones. It retains the consonant phoneme /h/, a feature often lost in neighboring standards, in words like lahko. The dialectal base is the Neo-Shtokavian-Ijekavian pronunciation, seen in the reflex of the old Slavic vowel *ě as ije or je, as in lijep. Key phonological processes include final-obstruent devoicing and assimilation, similar to other South Slavic standards like those of Croatian and Serbian.

Grammar

It follows a highly fusional morphology with seven grammatical cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, and locative. Nouns are inflected for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, plural, with vestiges of the dual). The verbal system is complex, distinguishing perfective and imperfective aspect, and includes a supine and a l-participle for forming the perfect tense. Syntax typically follows a SVO order but is flexible due to case marking.

Vocabulary

The core lexicon is Slavic, with many shared cognates in Serbian, Croatian, and Montenegrin. A defining characteristic is the preservation of numerous Orientalisms borrowed during the Ottoman era, such as šećer (sugar) and merhamet (compassion). There is also a conscious revival or preference for archaic Slavic words and unique neologisms, distinguishing it from other standards, alongside modern international borrowings primarily from English and German. Historical literary works, like those of Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić, have significantly shaped its modern literary vocabulary.

Writing system

It is written in two alphabets: the Latin alphabet using Gaj's Latin alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet using the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. The Latin script is more common in everyday use and official contexts in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Cyrillic is official in Republika Srpska. Both alphabets have a one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. The historical Bosančica script is now of antiquarian interest, studied by scholars like Franz Miklosich.

Status and recognition

It is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as constitutionally established by the Dayton Agreement. Its standard is regulated by the University of Sarajevo's Institute for Language and philology department. Internationally, it is recognized as a distinct standard language by bodies like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 639 code 'bs'). It is a compulsory subject in the educational curricula of Bosniak-majority schools and is used in the media, notably by broadcasters like BHRT, and in the literary publications of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Academy of Sciences and Arts.