On 4/26/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Milos,
What are the differences between Ekavian-Iyekavian? If they're
relatively small, like spelling differences such as between US and
World English, I think such conversion would be unnessecary and maybe
even silly.
Let me try again... :)
1. You can write a lot of text in any standard English without
knowledge what is this English; almost always you would know is text
in Ekavian or Iyekavian during the first sentence.
2. Official Orthography of Serbian Language (Pravopis srpskoga jezika)
is written in two variants: Ekavian and Iyekavian.
3. Official language in Serbia is only Serbian. But, according to
Montenegro's constitution, official language is Serbian Iyekavian. I
think the same situation is in Republic of Srpska.
4. Around 20.000 lexemes was affected by this process (with around
150.000 word forms; Serbian language has inflection).
5. From the primary school to the university, people from different
parts of Serbian language area learn different standards. There are
much more Ekavians then Iyekavians (if we are talking only about
Serbian language area: more then 8 millions of Ekavians and less then
2 millions of Iyekavians). Serbian Wikipedia is dominant Ekavian, but
we should try to give articles in minority standard, too.
6. Let imagine such situation:
We have six persons. The first is from Belgrade (Serbia, speaks
Serbian Ekavian), the second is from Podgorica (Montenegro, speaks
Serbian Iyekavian), the third is from Banja Luka (Republic of Srpska,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, speaks Serbian Iyekavian), fourth is from
Zagreb (Croatia, speaks Croatian, which is also Iyekavian), fifth is
from Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina, speaks Croatian, which is also
Iyekavian) and the sixth is from Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina,
speaks Bosnian, which is also Iyekavian).
Persons from Zagreb (cro-iyekav), Belgrade (ser-ekav) and Podgorica
(ser-iyekav) would have some (but, very very little) problems to
understand some words which is spoken by person from Sarajevo
(bos-iyekav) because those words have Turkish origin. Persons from
Belgrade and Podgorica would have less problems then person from
Zagreb because there are some Turkish words which is used in speech in
Serbia. But, all of that problems are very very small. Persons from
Mostar (cro-iyekav) and Banja Luka (ser-iyekav) would not have any
problem to understand person from Sarajevo.
Persons from Sarajevo, Belgrade, Banja Luka and Podgorica would have
some problems to understand person from Zagreb (for example, Croatian
language has Slavic names of months, Serbian and Bosnian have Latin
names of months).
But, if any of Iyekavians send mail in Latin alphabet to the person
from Belgrade about usual things (how they feel, about weather, etc.),
person from Belgrade would have a lot of problems to recognize who was
that person by origin/location. Maybe person from Banja Luka listen
Croatian radio or television, maybe person from Podgorica does the
same... Maybe person from Mostar listen Serbian or Bosnian radio or
television, maybe person from Zagreb, too.
However, they can understand each other a lot better then they
understand Slovenians or Macedonians or Bulgarians. I think that you
have more problems to understand my English then we have to understand
each other :)
7. As I said before, if you think only in formal way, Serbian,
Croatian and Bosnian Wikipedia should be only one. And people from
those Wikipedias should not care if the article is in Serbian,
Croatian or Bosnian variant.
But, there are "some problems in communication" between Serbs, Croats
and Bosniaks and we can't have one Wikipedia. Also, there are some
cultural differences. And inside of Serbian speaking people, there are
some cultural differences, too. As a person who speaks majority
variant I have to think about minority and their needs.
P. S. I am just waiting the time when people from Montenegro would ask
for their own Wikipedia ;)