Shtokavian dialects History The Proto-Shtokavian idiom appeared in the 12th century. In the following century or two, Shtokavian was divided into two zones: western, which covered the major part of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Slavonia in
Croatia, and eastern, dominant in easternmost
Bosnia and Herzegovina and greater parts of
Montenegro and
Serbia.
Western Shtokavian was principally characterized by three-accentual system, while
Eastern Shtokavian was marked by two-accentual system. According to research of historical linguistics, the Old-Shtokavian was well established by the mid-15th century. In this period it was still being mixed with Church Slavonic to varying degrees, as geographically transitory to Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects spoken on the territory of today's Croatia, with which it had constituted a natural
dialect continuum.
Distribution and subdialects Originally the dialect covered a significantly smaller area than it covers today, meaning that the Štokavian speech had spread for the last five centuries, overwhelmingly at the expense of Čakavian and Kajkavian idioms. Modern areal distribution of these three dialects as well as their internal stratification (Štokavian and Čakavian in particular) is primarily a result of the
migrations resulting from the spread of
Ottoman Empire on the
Balkans. Migratory waves were particularly strong in the 16th–18th century, bringing about large-scale linguistic and ethnic changes on the Central South Slavic area (See:
Great Serb Migrations). By far the most numerous, mobile and expansionist migrations were those of Ijekavian Štokavian speakers of eastern
Herzegovina, who have flooded most of Western Serbia, many areas of eastern and western
Bosnia, large swathes of Croatia (
Banovina,
Kordun,
Lika, parts of
Gorski kotar, continental parts of northern
Dalmatia, some places north of
Kupa, parts of
Slavonia, southeastern
Baranya etc.). This is the reason why
Eastern Herzegovinian dialect is the most spoken Serbo-Croatian dialect today, and why it bears the name that is only descriptive of its area of origin. These migrations also played the pivotal role in the spread of Neo-Štokavian innovations. Shtokavian dialect spoken by Croats has more dialects, there are innovative new Shtokavian dialect ikavian as it is spoken in
west Herzegovina,
Dalmatian Hinterland,
Lika, parts of
Velebit area and in some places of
Gorski kotar,
Vojvodina,
Bačka and in neighboring Hungarian areas. New Shtokavian is spoken by Croats in
east Herzegovina, more recently in the
Dubrovnik area and in many places of the former
Military Frontier. The Shtokavian dialect is divided into Old Shtokavian and Neo-Shtokavian subdialects. Subdialects grouped under Old-Shtokavian are the following: •
Slavonian dialect (also called
Archaic Šćakavian). •
East Bosnian dialect (also called
Jekavian-Šćakavian); •
Zeta–South Raška dialect (also called
Đekavian-Ijekavian); •
Kosovo–Resava dialect (also called
Older Ekavian); •
Prizren–Timok dialect (also called
Old-Serbian) Neo-Shtokavian dialects comprise the following subdialects: •
Bosnian–Dalmatian dialect (also called
Western Ikavian,
Bunjevac dialect, or
Younger Ikavian); •
Bunjevac dialect (also called
Younger Ikavian,
Bosnian-Dalmatian, or
Western Ikavian); •
Dubrovnik dialect (also called
Western Ijekavian); •
Eastern Herzegovinian dialect (also called
Neo-Ijekavian); •
Užican dialect (also called
Zlatibor dialect); •
Šumadija–Vojvodina dialect (also called
Younger Ekavian); •
Smederevo–Vršac dialect.
Characteristics Shtokavian is characterized by a number of characteristic historical
sound changes,
accentual changes, changes in
inflection,
morphology and
syntax. Some of these isoglosses are not exclusive and have also been shared by neighboring dialects, and some of them have only overwhelmingly but not completely been spread on the whole Štokavian area. The differences between Štokavian and the neighboring Eastern South Slavic dialects of
Bulgaria and
North Macedonia are clear and largely shared with other Western South Slavic dialects, while the differences to the neighboring Western South Slavic dialect of Čakavian and Kajkavian are much more fluid in character, and the mutual influence of various subdialects and idioms play a more prominent role. General characteristics of Štokavian are the following: •
što or
šta as the demonstrative/interrogative pronoun; • differentiation between two short (in addition to two or three long) accents, rising and falling, though not in all Štokavian speakers; • preservation of unaccented length, but not consistently across all speeches; •
/u/ as the reflex of Common Slavic back nasal vowel
/ǫ/ as well as the syllabic
/l/ (with the exception of central Bosnia where a diphthongal
/uo/ is also recorded as a reflex); • initial group of
v- +
weak semivowel yields
u- (e.g.
unuk cr-, with the exception of Slavonian, Molise and Vlachia (Gradišće) dialect; • word-final
-l changes to
/o/ or
/a/; the exception is verbal adjective in the Slavonian southwest; •
d' > /dʑ/ () with numerous exceptions •
cr >
tr in the word
trešnja "cherry"; some exceptions in Slavonia, Hungary and Romania; • /ć/ and /đ/ from
jt,
jd (e.g.
poći,
pođem); exceptions in Slavonian and Eastern Bosnian dialect; • so-called "new iotation" of dentals and labials, with many exceptions, especially in Slavonia and Bosnia; • general loss of phoneme
/x/, with many exceptions; • ending
-ā in genitive plural of masculine and feminine nouns, with many exceptions; • ending
-u in locative singular of masculine and neuter nouns (e.g.
u gradu,
u m(j)estu); • infix
-ov- /
-ev- in the plural of most monosyllabic masculine nouns, with many exceptions (e.g. in the area between Neretva and Dubrovnik); •
syncretism of dative, locative and instrumental plural of nouns, with many exceptions; • preservation of ending
-og(a) in genitive and accusative singular of masculine and neuter gender if pronominal-adjectival declension (e.g.
drugoga), with exceptions on the area of Dubrovnik and Livno; • special form with the ending
-a for the neuter gender in nominative plural of pronominal-adjectival declension (e.g.
ova m(j)esta and no
ove m(j)esta); • preservation of
aorist, which is however missing in some areas (e.g. around Dubrovnik); • special constructs reflecting old dual for numerals 2–4 (
dva, tri, četiri stola); • many so-called "Turkisms" (
turcizmi) or "Orientalisms", i.e. words borrowed from
Ottoman Turkish. As can be seen from the list, many of these isoglosses are missing from certain Štokavian idioms, just as many of them are shared with neighboring non-Štokavian dialects.
Chakavian dialects History Chakavian is the oldest written Serbo-Croatian dialect that had made a visible appearance in legal documents – as early as 1275 ("Istrian land survey") and 1288 ("Vinodol codex"), the predominantly vernacular Chakavian is recorded, mixed with elements of Church Slavic. Archaic Chakavian can be traced back to 1105 in the
Baška tablet. All these and other early Chakavian texts up to the 17th century are mostly written in
Glagolitic alphabet.
Distribution and subdialects Initially, the Chakavian dialect covered a much wider area than today including about two thirds of
medieval Croatia: the major part of central and southern Croatia southwards of
Kupa and westwards of
Una river, as well as western and southwestern
Bosnia and Herzegovina. During and after the Ottoman intrusion and subsequent warfare (15th–18th centuries), the Chakavian area has become greatly reduced and in the Croatian mainland it has recently been almost entirely replaced by Shtokavian, so it is now spoken in a much smaller coastal area than indicated above. Chakavian is now mostly reduced in southwestern Croatia along the eastern Adriatic: Adriatic islands, and sporadically in the mainland coast, with rare inland enclaves up to central Croatia, and minor enclaves in Austria and Montenegro. • The majority of Adriatic islands are Chakavian, except the easternmost ones (
Mljet and
Elafiti); and easternmost areas of
Hvar and
Brač, as well as the area around the city of
Korčula on the island of
Korčula. • Its largest mainland area is the subentire
Istria peninsula, and Kvarner littoral and islands; minor coastal enclaves occur sporadically in the Dalmatian mainland around
Zadar,
Biograd,
Split, and in
Pelješac peninsula. • Within the Croatian inland, its major area is the Gacka valley, and minor enclaves occur in Pokupje valley and
Žumberak hills, northwards around
Karlovac. • Chakavians outside Croatia: minor enclave of
Bigova (Trašte) at
Boka Kotorska in Montenegro, the mixed
Čičarija dialect in Slovenia, refugees from the Turks in
Burgenland (eastern Austria) and SW Slovakia, and recent emigrants in North America (chiefly in
New Orleans,
Los Angeles, and
Vancouver). The Chakavian dialect comprises the following subdialects: •
Buzet dialect; •
Middle Chakavian; •
Northern Chakavian; •
Southern Chakavian; •
Southeastern Chakavian; •
Southwest Istrian.
Characteristics There is no generally accepted opinion on the set of characteristics a dialect has to possess to be classified as Chakavian (rather than its admixture with Shtokavian or Kajkavian), but the following characteristics are most commonly proposed: • interrogatory pronoun is
"ča" or
"zač" (in some islands also
"ca" or
"zace"); • old accentuation and 3 accents (mostly in ultima or penultima); • phonological features that yield /a/ for Old Slavic phonemes in characteristic positions: "language" is
jazik (or zajik) in Chakavian and
jezik in Shtokavian; • "j" replacing the Shtokavian "đ" (dj): for "between", Chakavian
meju, Shtokavian
među; • "m" shifts to "n" at the end of words: standard Croatian
volim ("I love"),
sam ("I am"),
selom ("village" – Instrumental case) become Chakavian
volin,
san,
selon. • in conditional occur specific prefixes:
bin-, biš-, bimo-, bite-,
bis • contracted or lacking aorist tense; • some subdialects on island of Pag have kept the archaic form of imperfect Besides the usual Chakavian (with typical pronoun "ča"), in some Adriatic islands and in eastern Istra another special variant is also spoken which lacks most palatals, with other parallel deviations called
"tsakavism" (cakavizam): • palatal "č" is replaced by the sibilant "ts" (c): pronouns
ca and
zac (or
ce and
zace); • palatals
š (sh) and
ž (zh) are replaced by sibilants
s and
z (or transitive sj and zj); •
đ (dj),
lj and
nj are replaced by the simple
d, l and
n (without
iotation); • frequent
diphthongs instead of simple vowels: o >
uo, a >
oa, e > '''', etc.; •
Yat (jat): longer
y (= ue) exists in addition to the usual short
i (or e); • appurtenance is often noted by possessive
dative (rarely adjective nor genitive); • vocative is mostly lacking and replaced by a nominative in appellating construction; • auxiliary particles are always before the main verb:
se- (self),
bi- (if),
će- (be). The largest area of tsakavism is in eastern Istra at Labin, Rabac and a dozen nearby villages; minor mainland enclaves are the towns Bakar and Trogir. Tsakavism is also frequent in Adriatic islands: part of Lošinj and nearby islets, Baška in Krk, Pag town, the western parts of Brač (
Milna), Hvar town, and subentire Vis with adjacent islets.
Kajkavian dialects History Dialectogical investigations of the Kajkavian dialect had begun at the end of the 19th century: the first comprehensive monograph was written in Russian by Ukrainian philologist A. M. Lukjanenko in 1905 (
Kajkavskoe narečie). Kajkavian is not only a folk dialect, but in the course of history of Serbo-Croatian it has been the written public language (along with the corpus written in Čakavian and Štokavian). Kajkavian was the last to appear on the scene, mainly due to economic and political reasons. Although the first truly vernacular Serbo-Croatian texts (i.e. not mixed with Church Slavonic) go back to the 13th century (Chakavian) and to the 14th century (Shtokavian), the first Kajkavian published work was
Pergošić's "Decretum" from 1574. After that, numerous works appeared in Serbo-Croatian Kajkavian literary language in the following centuries. Kajkavian literary language gradually fell into disuse since
Croatian National Revival, ca. 1830–1850, when leaders of the Croatian National Unification Movement (the majority of them being Kajkavian native speakers themselves) adopted the most widespread and developed Serbo-Croatian Shtokavian literary language as the basis for the Croatian standard language. However, after a period of lethargy, the 20th century has witnessed new flourishing of literature in Kajkavian dialect – this time as Croatian dialectal poetry, main authors being
Antun Gustav Matoš,
Miroslav Krleža,
Ivan Goran Kovačić,
Dragutin Domjanić,
Nikola Pavić etc. Nowadays, Kajkavian lexical treasure is being published by the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in "Rječnik hrvatskoga kajkavskoga književnoga jezika"/
Dictionary of the Croatian Kajkavian Literary Language, 8 volumes (1999).
Distribution and subdialects Kajkavian is spoken in
North Croatia, including the capital
Zagreb, as well as in a few enclaves in
Austria,
Hungary, and
Romania. Though its speakers are ethnic Croats, and Kajkavian is thus generally considered a dialect of Serbo-Croatian, it is closer to neighboring
Slovene than it is to Chakavian or Shtokavian. The Kajkavian area of Croatia is bordered on the northwest by
Slovene language territory. It is bordered on the east and southeast by Shtokavian dialects roughly along a line that was the former division between
Civil Croatia and the
Habsburg Military Frontier; in southwest, along the Kupa and Dobra rivers, it persisted in ancient (medieval) contact with Chakavian dialects. The major cities in northern Croatia with prevailing urban Kajkavians are, chiefly: Zagreb (old central city, Sesvete and V. Gorica), Koprivnica, Krapina, Križevci, Varaždin, Čakovec, etc. The typical and archaic Kajkavian is today spoken chiefly in
Zagorje hills and
Medjimurje plain, and in adjacent areas of northwestern Croatia where other immigrants and Štokavian standard had much less influence. The most peculiar Kajkavian archidiom
(Baegnunski) is spoken at
Bednja in northernmost Croatia. The mixed half-Kajkavian towns along the eastern and southern edge of Kajkavian-speaking area are
Pitomača,
Čazma,
Kutina,
Popovača,
Sunja,
Petrinja,
Ozalj,
Ogulin,
Fužine, and
Čabar, with included newer Štokavian enclaves of
Bjelovar,
Sisak,
Glina,
Dubrava, Zagreb and
Novi Zagreb. The southernmost Kajkavian villages are
Krapje at
Jasenovac; and
Pavušek,
Dvorišče and
Hrvatsko selo in Zrinska Gora. Kajkavian dialects have been classified along various criteria. Serbian philologist
Aleksandar Belić divided (in 1927) the Kajkavian dialect according to the reflexes of Proto-Slavic phonemes /tj/ and /DJ/ into three subdialects: eastern, northwestern and southwestern. However, later investigations have not corroborated Belić's division. Contemporary Kajkavian dialectology originates mainly from Croatian philologist
Stjepan Ivšić's work "Jezik Hrvata kajkavaca" ("The Language of Kajkavian Croats"), 1936, which is based on accentuation characteristics. Due to the great diversity of Kajkavian speech—primarily in phonetics, phonology and morphology—the Kajkavian dialectological atlas is notable for its bewildering proliferation of subdialects: anywhere from the four identified by Ivšić, up to six proposed by Croatian linguist
Brozović (a formerly accepted division), and even as many as—according to a monograph authored by Croatian linguist
Mijo Lončarić (1995)—fifteen. The most commonly accepted division of Kajkavian dialect lists the following subdialects: •
Zagorje–Međimurje; •
Turopolje-Posavina; •
Križevci-Podravina; •
Prigorje; •
Lower Sutlan; •
Goran.
Characteristics Kajkavian is closely related to Slovene and to
Prekmurje Slovene in particular. The speakers of Prekmurje Slovene are
Slovenes and
Hungarian Slovenes who belonged to the
Archdiocese of Zagreb during the Habsburg era. Higher amounts of correspondences between the two exist in inflection and vocabulary. Some Kajkavian words also bear a closer resemblance to other Slavic languages (such as
Russian) than they do to Shtokavian or Chakavian. For instance
gda seems (at first glance) to be unrelated to
kada, however, when compared to the Russian
когда, the relationship becomes more apparent, at the same time in Slovene:
kdaj, in Prekmurje Slovene
gda, kda. Kajkavian
kak (
how) and
tak (
so) are exactly like their Russian cognates, as compared to Shtokavian and Chakavian
kako and
tako, in Prekmurje Slovene in turn
tak, kak (in Slovene like Chakavian:
tako, kako). (This vowel loss occurred in most other Slavic languages; Shtokavian is a notable exception, whereas the same feature of
Macedonian is probably not a Serbian influence, because the word is preserved in the same form in
Bulgarian, to which Macedonian is much more closely related than to Serbian.) Another distinctive feature of Kajkavian is the use of another
future tense. Instead of Shtokavian and Chakavian future I ("ću", "ćeš", and "će" + infinitive), Kajkavian speakers use future II ("bum", "buš" and "bu" + active verbal adjective). Future II in Standard Croatian can only be used in subordinate clauses to refer to a condition or an action which will occur before other future action. For example, the phrase ''"I'll show you"
is "Ti bum pokazal"
in Kajkavian whereas in standard Croatian it is "Pokazat ću ti"
. This is a feature shared with Slovene: bom
, boš
, bo''.
Comparative analysis The Serbo-Croatian dialects differ not only in the question word they are named after, but also heavily in phonology, accentuation and intonation, case endings and tense system (morphology) and basic vocabulary. In the past, Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects were spoken on a much larger territory, but have subsequently been replaced by Štokavian during the period of migrations caused by Ottoman Turkish conquest of the Balkans in the 15th and the 16th century. These migrations caused the koinéisation of the Shtokavian dialects, that used to form the West Shtokavian (more closer and transitional towards the neighbouring Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects) and East Shtokavian (transitional towards the Torlakian and the whole Bulgaro-Macedonian area) dialect bundles, and their subsequent spread at the expense of Chakavian and Kajkavian. As a result, Štokavian now covers an area larger than all the other dialects combined, and continues to make its progress in the enclaves where subliterary dialects are still being spoken. The main bundle of isoglosses separates Kajkavian and Slovenian dialects on the one hand from Štokavian and Čakavian on the other. These are: • long falling accent of newer origin (neocircumflex); • development of the consonant group
rj (as opposed to consonant
/r/) from former soft ''/r'/
before a vowel (e.g. morjem
, zorja''); • reflexes of
/o/ or
/ọ/ of the old
Common Slavic nasal vowel /ǫ/, and not
/u/; • inflectional morpheme
-o (as opposed to
-ojo) in the instrumental singular of a-declension. Other characteristics distinguishing Kajkavian from Štokavian, beside the demonstrative/interrogatory pronoun
kaj (as opposed to
što/šta used in Štokavian), are: • a reflex of old
semivowels of
/ẹ/ (e.g.
dẹn št'
, žd'''; • depalatalization of ''/n'/
and /l'/''; •
/ž/ instead of
/dʒ/ (cf. Čk.
žep : Št.
džep); •
/č/ >
/š/ (cf. Čk.
maška : Št.
mačka); • word-initial consonant groups
čr-,
čri-,
čre- (cf. Čk.
črivo/črevo : Št.
cr(ij)evo, Čk.
črn : Št.
crn); •
conditional mood with
biš in the 2nd-person singular; • non-
syncretized dative, locative and instrumental plural. The differences among the dialects can be illustrated on the example of
Schleicher's fable. Diacritic signs are used to show the difference in accents and prosody, which are often quite significant, but which are not reflected in the usual orthography. style="font-size:90%;" :
Neoštokavian Ijekavian/Ekavian : Óvca i kònji :Óvca koja níje ìmala vȕnē vȉd(j)ela je kònje na br(ij)égu. Jèdan je òd njīh vȗkao téška kȍla, drȕgī je nòsio vèliku vrȅću, a trȅćī je nòsio čòv(j)eka. :Óvca rȅče kònjima: «Sȑce me bòlī glȅdajūći čòv(j)eka kako jȁšē na kònju». :A kònji rȅkoše: «Slȕšāj, ȏvco, nȃs sȑca bòlē kada vȉdīmo da čòv(j)ek, gospòdār, rȃdī vȕnu od ovácā i prȁvī òd(j)eću zá se. I ȍndā óvca nȇmā vȉše vȕnē. :Čȗvši tō, óvca pȍb(j)eže ȕ polje. :
Old Štokavian (Orubica, Posavina): :Óvca i kònji :Óvca kòjā nî ìmala vȕnē vȉdla kònje na brîgu. Jèdān od njȉjū vũkō tȇška kȍla, drȕgī nosȉjo vȅlikū vrȅću, a trȅćī nosȉjo čovȉka. : Óvca kȃza kȍnjima: «Svȅ me bolĩ kad glȅdām kako čòvik na kònju jȁšī». :A kònji kāzȁše: «Slȕšāj, ȏvco, nãs sȑca bolũ kad vȉdīmo da čòvik, gȁzda, prȁvī vȕnu od ovãc i prȁvī rȍbu zá se od njẽ. I ȍndā ōvcȁ néma vȉšē vȕnē. :Kad tȏ čȕ ōvcȁ, ȕteče ȕ polje. :
Čakavian (Matulji near Rijeka): :Ovcȁ i konjı̏ :Ovcȁ kȃ ni imȅla vȕni vȉdela je konjȉ na brȇge. Jedȃn je vȗkal tȇški vȏz, drȕgi je nosîl vȅlu vrȅt'u, a trȅt'i je nosîl čovȅka. :Ovcȁ je reklȁ konjȇn: «Sȑce me bolĩ dok glȅdan čovȅka kako jȁše na konjȅ». :A konjȉ su reklȉ: «Poslȕšaj, ovcȁ, nȃs sȑca bolẽ kad vȉdimo da čovȅk, gospodãr dȅla vȕnu od ovãc i dȅla rȍbu zȃ se. I ȍnda ovcȁ nĩma vȉše vȕni. :Kad je tȏ čȕla, ovcȁ je pobȅgla va pȍje. :
Kajkavian (Marija Bistrica): :õfca i kȍjni :õfca tera nı̃je imȅ̩̏la vȕne vȉdla je kȍjne na briẽgu. Jȇn od nîh je vlẽ̩ke̩l tẽška kȍla, drȕgi je nȍsil vȅliku vrȅ̩ču, a trẽjti je nȍsil čovȅ̩ka. :õfca je rȇkla kȍjnem: «Sȑce me bolĩ kad vîdim čovȅka kak jȃše na kȍjnu». :A kȍjni su rȇkli: «Poslȕhni, õfca, nȃs sȑca bolĩju kad vîdime da čȍve̩k, gospodãr, dȇ̩la vȕnu ot õfci i dȇ̩la oblȅ̩ku zȃ se. I ȏnda õfca nȇma vȉše vȕne. :Kad je to čȗla, õfca je pobȇ̩gla f pȍlje. :
English language : The Sheep and the Horses :[On a hill,] a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. : The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses". : The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool". : Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain. == Torlakian dialects ==