Hi! I am an outsider in this dispute, but I would like to give my opinion on the state of these four languages as I see them, after learning for some time Croatian, and having spoken with a friend who is more knowledgable than me. What I see is that Montenegrin uses the ijekavica dialect of the so-called Serbo-Croatian language (which I think is THE artificial one from the 5 mentioned), while the Serbians use the ekavica dialect. This makes every second word different. Even though either is acceptable, you wouldn't wanna mix them in an article (as mixing British or American spelling: no one would really notice), it would stop your "train of thought" to decode each woord and decide which dialect it was written in. Requiring the use of either one would be unfair, and would violate the free speech rights of either of them, also it would lead to some more unnecessary tension. Croatian uses latin script, and ijekavica (at least the official dialect), so Montenegrins could integrate there? Wrong. Montenegrin has many words borrowed from Turkish that Croatians might not understand, or would constantly replace with their Croatian counterparts, or just remove from articles. The difference of words and dialect is a main difference between Serbian in Croatian. Apart from the dialet problem mentioned with the Montenegrins, Serbian language tends to use Western words by transliterating it phonetically into Serbian language, while Croatian tends to invent their own words. Compromise on this ground would either ignite tension, or be a factor in "deteriorating" Croatian language by introducing foreign words, for which there is already a Croatian version in use. Bosnian: I'm no expert here, why this is a separate language :), if not for political reasons. I guess they have many Turkish words too. Anyway, if there is a Bosnian wiki, a Montenegrin one could also be. Also, if I'm correct Montenegro had its state television in the Serbia and Montenegro era, that was broadcast it Montenegrin (language/dialect). In conclusion, Serbo-Croatian was an invented language, without machine translation between the ijekavica/ekavica/ikavica dialects choosing either that is not the official in any a part of the region would lead to tensions, and the difference in words might also lead to misunderstandings, or at least heart national feelings if a "dialect version of a word" is changed to an other "for better understanding". Anyway, I hope I didn't upset any one, and that I wasn't factually wrong, or misleading. Regards, Bence Damokos ps. OFF. why are there so many wikis in Italy? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org