2008/9/10 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their language than to force a foreign language on them.
Except shifting language would be a one off cost where as you would have to keep translating all the new scientific papers (and there are a lot) if you wanted education in a non majpr language to keep up. Do translations of Nature into Serbo-Croatian even exist?
[citation needed]
See the relevant wikipedia article for the mess. Serbo-Croatian is convenient and people generally know what you are talking about. Central South Slavic diasystem is rather less well known.