The dialects of Serbo-Croatian include the vernacular forms and standardized sub-dialect forms of Serbo-Croatian as a whole or as part of its standard varieties: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. They are part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages that joins through the transitional Torlak dialects the Macedonian dialects to the south, Bulgarian dialects to the southeast and Slovene dialects to the northwest.
The division of South Slavic dialects to "Slovene", "Serbo-Croatian", "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian" is mostly based on political grounds: for example all dialects within modern Slovenia are classified as "Slovene", despite some of them historically originating from other regions, while all dialects in modern Croatia are classified as "Croatian" (or "Croato-Serbian" before 1990) despite not forming a coherent linguistic entity (and some are proven to originate from parts of what is today Slovenia). Therefore, "Serbo-Croatian dialects" are simply South Slavic dialects in countries where a variant of Serbo-Croatian is used as the standard language. However, in broad terms, the Eastern South Slavic dialects differ most from the Western South Slavic dialects.
The primary dialects are named after the most common question word for what: Shtokavian (štokavski) uses the pronoun što or šta, Chakavian (čakavski) uses ča or ca, Kajkavian (kajkavski), kaj or kej. The pluricentric Serbo-Croatian standard language and all four contemporary standard variants are based on the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of Neo-Shtokavian. The other dialects are not taught in schools or used by the state media. The Torlak dialect is often added to the list, though sources usually note that it is a transitional dialect between Shtokavian and the Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects. Burgenland Croatian and Molise Slavic are varieties of the Chakavian dialect spoken outside the South Slavic dialect continuum, which combine influences from other dialects of Serbo-Croatian as well as influences from the dominantly spoken local languages.
Another frequently-noted distinction among the dialects is made through the reflex of the long Common Slavic vowel jat; the dialects are divided along Ikavian, Ekavian, and Ijekavian isoglosses, with the reflects of jat being /i/, /e/, and /ije/ or /je/ respectively.
Main dialects
Shtokavian dialects
History
The Proto-Shtokavian idiom appeared in the 12th century. In the following century or two, Shtokavian was divided into two zones: western, which covered the major part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slavonia in Croatia, and eastern, dominant in easternmost Bosnia and Herzegovina and greater parts of Montenegro and Serbia. Western Shtokavian was principally characterized by three-accentual system, while Eastern Shtokavian was marked by two-accentual system. According to research of historical linguistics, the Old-Shtokavian was well established by the mid-15th century. In this period it was still being mixed with Church Slavonic to varying degrees, as geographically transitory to Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects spoken on the territory of today's Croatia, with which it had constituted a natural dialect continuum.
Distribution and subdialects Originally the dialect covered a significantly smaller area than it covers today, meaning that the Štokavian speech had spread for the last five centuries, overwhelmingly at the expense of Čakavian and Kajkavian idioms. Modern areal distribution of these three dialects as well as their internal stratification (Štokavian and Čakavian in particular) is primarily a result of the migrations resulting from the spread of Ottoman Empire on the Balkans. Migratory waves were particularly strong in the 16th–18th century, bringing about large-scale linguistic and ethnic changes on the Central South Slavic area (See: Great Serb Migrations).
By far the most numerous, mobile and expansionist migrations were those of Ijekavian Štokavian speakers of eastern Herzegovina, who have flooded most of Western Serbia, many areas of eastern and western Bosnia, large swathes of Croatia (Banovina, Kordun, Lika, parts of Gorski kotar, continental parts of northern Dalmatia, some places north of Kupa, parts of Slavonia, southeastern Baranya etc.). This is the reason why Eastern Herzegovinian dialect is the most spoken Serbo-Croatian dialect today, and why it bears the name that is only descriptive of its area of origin. These migrations also played the pivotal role in the spread of Neo-Štokavian innovations.
Shtokavian dialect spoken by Croats has more dialects, there are innovative new Shtokavian dialect ikavian as it is spoken in west Herzegovina, Dalmatian Hinterland, Lika, parts of Velebit area and in some places of Gorski kotar, Vojvodina, Bačka and in neighboring Hungarian areas. New Shtokavian is spoken by Croats in east Herzegovina, more recently in the Dubrovnik area and in many places of the former Military Frontier.Radoslav Katičić; Hrvatski jezik (Croatian language) p. 29; Školska knjiga, Zagreb,
The Shtokavian dialect is divided into Old Shtokavian and Neo-Shtokavian subdialects.
Subdialects grouped under Old-Shtokavian are the following: Slavonian dialect (also called Archaic Šćakavian). East Bosnian dialect (also called Jekavian-Šćakavian); Zeta–South Raška dialect (also called Đekavian-Ijekavian); Kosovo–Resava dialect (also called Older Ekavian); Prizren–Timok dialect (also called Old-Serbian)
Neo-Shtokavian dialects comprise the following subdialects: Bosnian–Dalmatian dialect (also called Western Ikavian, Bunjevac dialect, or Younger Ikavian); Bunjevac dialect (also called Younger Ikavian, Bosnian-Dalmatian, or Western Ikavian); Dubrovnik dialect (also called Western Ijekavian); Eastern Herzegovinian dialect (also called Neo-Ijekavian); Užican dialect (also called Zlatibor dialect); Šumadija–Vojvodina dialect (also called Younger Ekavian); Smederevo–Vršac dialect.
Characteristics Shtokavian is characterized by a number of characteristic historical sound changes, accentual changes, changes in inflection, morphology and syntax. Some of these isoglosses are not exclusive and have also been shared by neighboring dialects, and some of them have only overwhelmingly but not completely been spread on the whole Štokavian area. The differences between Štokavian and the neighboring Eastern South Slavic dialects of Bulgaria and North Macedonia are clear and largely shared with other Western South Slavic dialects, while the differences to the neighboring Western South Slavic dialect of Čakavian and Kajkavian are much more fluid in character, and the mutual influence of various subdialects and idioms play a more prominent role.
General characteristics of Štokavian are the following:Cited after što or šta as the demonstrative/interrogative pronoun; differentiation between two short (in addition to two or three long) accents, rising and falling, though not in all Štokavian speakers; preservation of unaccented length, but not consistently across all speeches; /u/ as the reflex of Common Slavic back nasal vowel /ǫ/ as well as the syllabic /l/ (with the exception of central Bosnia where a diphthongal /uo/ is also recorded as a reflex); initial group of v- + weak semivowel yields u- (e.g. unuk < Common Slavic *vъnukъ); schwa resulting from the jer merger yields /a/, with the exception of Zeta-South Sandžak dialect; metathesis of vьse to sve; čr- > cr-, with the exception of Slavonian, Molise and Vlachia (Gradišće) dialect; word-final -l changes to /o/ or /a/; the exception is verbal adjective in the Slavonian southwest; d' > /dʑ/ (<đ>) with numerous exceptions cr > tr in the word trešnja "cherry"; some exceptions in Slavonia, Hungary and Romania; /ć/ and /đ/ from jt, jd (e.g. poći, pođem); exceptions in Slavonian and Eastern Bosnian dialect; so-called "new iotation" of dentals and labials, with many exceptions, especially in Slavonia and Bosnia; general loss of phoneme /x/, with many exceptions; ending -ā in genitive plural of masculine and feminine nouns, with many exceptions; ending -u in locative singular of masculine and neuter nouns (e.g. u gradu, u m(j)estu); infix -ov- / -ev- in the plural of most monosyllabic masculine nouns, with many exceptions (e.g. in the area between Neretva and Dubrovnik); syncretism of dative, locative and instrumental plural of nouns, with many exceptions; preservation of ending -og(a) in genitive and accusative singular of masculine and neuter gender if pronominal-adjectival declension (e.g. drugoga), with exceptions on the area of Dubrovnik and Livno; special form with the ending -a for the neuter gender in nominative plural of pronominal-adjectival declension (e.g. ova m(j)esta and no ove m(j)esta); preservation of aorist, which is however missing in some areas (e.g. around Dubrovnik); special constructs reflecting old dual for numerals 2–4 (dva, tri, četiri stola); many so-called "Turkisms" (turcizmi) or "Orientalisms", i.e. words borrowed from Ottoman Turkish.
As can be seen from the list, many of these isoglosses are missing from certain Štokavian idioms, just as many of them are shared with neighboring non-Štokavian dialects.
Chakavian dialects
History
Chakavian is the oldest written Serbo-Croatian dialect that had made a visible appearance in legal documents – as early as 1275 ("Istrian land survey") and 1288 ("Vinodol codex"), the predominantly vernacular Chakavian is recorded, mixed with elements of Church Slavic. Archaic Chakavian can be traced back to 1105 in the Baška tablet. All these and other early Chakavian texts up to the 17th century are mostly written in Glagolitic alphabet.
Distribution and subdialects
Initially, the Chakavian dialect covered a much wider area than today including about two thirds of medieval Croatia: the major part of central and southern Croatia southwards of Kupa and westwards of Una river, as well as western and southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina. During and after the Ottoman intrusion and subsequent warfare (15th–18th centuries), the Chakavian area has become greatly reduced and in the Croatian mainland it has recently been almost entirely replaced by Shtokavian, so it is now spoken in a much smaller coastal area than indicated above.
Chakavian is now mostly reduced in southwestern Croatia along the eastern Adriatic: Adriatic islands, and sporadically in the mainland coast, with rare inland enclaves up to central Croatia, and minor enclaves in Austria and Montenegro. The majority of Adriatic islands are Chakavian, except the easternmost ones (Mljet and Elafiti); and easternmost areas of Hvar and Brač, as well as the area around the city of Korčula on the island of Korčula. Its largest mainland area is the subentire Istria peninsula, and Kvarner littoral and islands; minor coastal enclaves occur sporadically in the Dalmatian mainland around Zadar, Biograd, Split, and in Pelješac peninsula. Within the Croatian inland, its major area is the Gacka valley, and minor enclaves occur in Pokupje valley and Žumberak hills, northwards around Karlovac. Chakavians outside Croatia: minor enclave of Bigova (Trašte) at Boka Kotorska in Montenegro, the mixed Čičarija dialect in Slovenia, refugees from the Turks in Burgenland (eastern Austria) and SW Slovakia, and recent emigrants in North America (chiefly in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Vancouver).
The Chakavian dialect comprises the following subdialects: Buzet dialect; Middle Chakavian; Northern Chakavian; Southern Chakavian; Southeastern Chakavian; Southwest Istrian.
Characteristics There is no generally accepted opinion on the set of characteristics a dialect has to possess to be classified as Chakavian (rather than its admixture with Shtokavian or Kajkavian), but the following characteristics are most commonly proposed:
interrogatory pronoun is "ča" or "zač" (in some islands also "ca" or "zace");