{"id":1364,"date":"2011-01-30T22:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T20:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2011-01-24T12:56:58","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T10:56:58","slug":"das-serbokroatische-zwischen-linguistik-und-politik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1364","title":{"rendered":"Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik"},"content":{"rendered":"
Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik: <\/strong>Mit einer Bibliographie zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenstreit. By Bernhard Gr\u00f6schel<\/strong>. (LINCOM studies in slavic linguistics 34.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2009. Pp. vi, 440. ISBN 9783929075793<\/a>. $115.78 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Marc Pierce<\/strong><\/a>, University of Texas at Austin<\/em><\/p>\n

This book offers an extremely thorough discussion of the language controversy after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Bernhard Gr\u00f6schel evaluates the question of whether Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian are to be treated as separate languages or as dialects of the same language, and aims to give proper attention to linguistics, sociology, politics, and communications while doing so.\u00a0 It covers largely the same ground as Robert D. Greenberg\u2019s Language and identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croation and its disintergration <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), but is considerably longer than Greenberg\u2019s work (and often engages critically with it). According to the back cover, it is intended for Slavic and general linguists as well as for political scientists and historians interested in questions of language, nationalism, and politics.<\/p>\n

The book contains twelve chapters: \u2018Geschichte des Serbokroatischen und seiner Benennungen bis zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenschisma\u2019 (5\u201350), \u2018Sprach-varianten: Relation zum Systembegriff und Variantentypen\u2019 (51\u201384), \u2018Ausbausprachen und Kultur-dialekte\u2019 (85\u201391), \u2018Die Standardsprachenproblematik\u2019 (92\u2013131), \u2018Wechselseitige Verst\u00e4ndlichkeit von Idiomen\u2019 (132\u201351), \u2018Sezession des Kroatischen\u2019 (152\u201374), \u2018Sprachliche Emanzipationsbestrebungen der bosnischen Muslime\u2019 (175\u2013259), \u2018Isolierung des Serbischen\u2019 (260\u201379), \u2018Montenegrinisch: Komponente des Serbischen oder autonome Sprache?\u2019 (280\u2013311), \u2018Sprache und Sprecher: Folk linguistics\u2019 (312\u201329), \u2018Sprache und Recht: Amtssprachen und amtliche Glottonyme\u2019 (330\u201350), and \u2018Bestandsaufnahme und Ausblick\u2019 (351\u201379). There is also an enormous bibliography.<\/p>\n

These chapters address a number of important and relevant issues, including the history of the language(s) once called Serbo-Croatian, structural differences between Serbian and Croatian, the linguistic status (e.g. standard language, language, or dialect) of these languages, folk linguistics, and the legal status of various languages. The author concludes that it is legitimate to speak of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian as separate languages, as long as one keeps in mind that strictly linguistic criteria alone do not suffice to capture what is meant by language.<\/p>\n

In many respects, this is an admirable book. It is clearly written and the discussions are invariably thorough. I do suspect that the book will be of more use for Slavic linguists than general linguists. However, this book deserves to have much wider circulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik: Mit einer Bibliographie zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenstreit. By Bernhard Gr\u00f6schel. (LINCOM studies in slavic linguistics 34.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2009. Pp. vi, 440. ISBN 9783929075793. $115.78 (Hb). Reviewed by Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin This book offers an extremely thorough discussion of the language controversy after the breakup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}