But linguistically almost _the_ test of "what is a language" is mutual comprehensibility. If they are mutually comprehensible they you should be able to understand Bosnians or Croats.
If the communication problems result from shared cultural assumptions (eg religious, popular culture references) then this no different from speakers of various varieties of English.
Once you say they are mutually comprehensible you are saying that for non-social reasons they are the same language.
Caroline/secretlondon
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Filip Maljkovic Sent: 08 January 2006 11:20 To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia
The languages have started diverging a long time ago and since the 1990s, they have become more distant. It is true that the speakers of those 3 languages are mutually intelligible, but that doesn't mean that they speak the same language.
Moreover, they speak culturally and liguistically 3 different languages and it's sometimes hard for me to understand what Bosnians or Croats are saying just because of the diversity (I'm a Serb, by the way). Thanks for your time. Filip Maljkovic, bureaucrat from Serbian wikipeda _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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