Eastern Herzegovinian covers large areas of
Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia,
Serbia, and
Montenegro. It is composed of two larger zones that are territorially separated: • Southeastern zone, where it originated from (eastern
Herzegovina, southern
Dalmatia, western Montenegro, western Serbia, eastern
Bosnia) • Northwestern zone (western Bosnia, northern
Dalmatian Hinterland,
Lika, parts of
Slavonia and
Baranja) The southeastern zone is territorially compact and continuous, while the northwestern zone is broken, discontinuous and interspersed with areas where other Shtokavian dialects are spoken. Being spoken on such a large area, Eastern Herzegovinian comes into contact with all of the other Shtokavian dialects, except those of the
Prizren-Timok zone, and also on northwest with the dialects of two other Western South Slavic (
Croatian) dialects:
Chakavian and
Kajkavian. In the south this dialect covers the area between the river of
Neretva and River Dubrovačka inlet, the area of
Dubrovnik and Dubrovnikan littoral (with own
Dubrovnik subdialect), eastern half of the
Pelješac peninsula, the island of
Mljet,
Konavle and Herzegovinian area, along the Adriatic coast all the way to
Risan in the
Bay of Kotor. On the territory of modern-day Montenegro it covers
Old Herzegovina with
Grahovo, northern
Pješivci, Župa,
Lukovo,
Drobnjaci, Uskoci,
Rovci,
Kolašin, and
Morača. During the
Bosnian War (1992–95), marked by large-scale migrations of the native population, Eastern Herzegovinian spread significantly in the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the
Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995) however, the number of Eastern Herzegovinian speakers significantly dropped, following the flight of some 300,000 Croatian Serbs, all of whom spoke the dialect. ==Notes==