Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Discuss the LLORG's and HTLAL forum's past and its future here.
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Chung
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Languages: SPEAKS: English*, French
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STUDIED: Azeri, BCMS/SC, Estonian, Finnish, Korean, Latin, Northern Saami, Russian, Slovenian, Turkish
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Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Chung » Sun Apr 10, 2016 5:44 pm

It seems that my profiles regularly exceed the character limit for posts and PMs so here's another one in two parts. Comments from anyone are welcome (*cough* Daniel N *cough* NIKOLIĆ *cough* Radioclare *cough* reineke *cough).
1 x

User avatar
Chung
Blue Belt
Posts: 529
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:39 pm
Languages: SPEAKS: English*, French
STUDIES: Hungarian, Italian, Ukrainian
OTHER: Czech, German, Polish, Slovak
STUDIED: Azeri, BCMS/SC, Estonian, Finnish, Korean, Latin, Northern Saami, Russian, Slovenian, Turkish
DABBLED: Bashkir, Chuvash, Crimean Tatar, Inari Saami, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Meadow Mari, Mongolian, Romanian, Tatar, Turkmen, Tuvan, Uzbek
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Chung » Sun Apr 10, 2016 5:47 pm

PART 1

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LANGUAGE PROFILE - BOSNIAN / CROATIAN / MONTENEGRIN / SERBIAN (SERBO-CROATIAN)

General information

Bosnian (bosanski/босански), Croatian (hrvatski), Montenegrin (crnogorski/црногорски) and Serbian (srpski/српски) are standard languages derived from a sub-dialect of Neo-Štokavski previously spoken natively in far southern Croatia, southeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Montenegro and southwestern Serbia. In total approximately 20 million people worldwide are native speakers of these standard languages which are most closely related to Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian and less so to other Slavonic languages such as Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Czech. Before 1991, the label, "Serbo-Croatian" was the prevailing label in the English-speaking world. However the current nomenclature reflects an explicit link between language and national identity held by language planners in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia regardless of the standard languages' common derivation from a particular sub-dialect in the recent past. For this profile, I will use the label "BCMS/SC" acknowledging the nomenclature used in the recent past and that some potentially useful learning material were published before the discarding of the term "Serbo-Croatian" by the successor states of communist Yugoslavia.

The usefulness of BCMS/SC is highest in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. It also has some use in the disputed territory of Kosovo thanks to roughly 10% of its population declaring itself as one of Bosniak, Croatian (Janjevci), Montenegrin or Serbian as well as in Macedonia and Slovenia as a legacy of mandatory education in BCMS/SC during the era of Yugoslavia. For BCMS/SC-speaking communities outside the Balkans, one can usually communicate in other languages (e.g. one can usually communicate in English with Serbs who live in the USA, in German with Croats who live in Germany). As is the case in Eastern Europe, ESL teaching is widespread and many young adults and teenagers speak at least some English. Italian is also known to varying degrees among Croats living along the Adriatic coast while in northern Serbia one can sometimes hear Hungarian and Slovak thanks to the presence there of Hungarian and Slovak minorities respectively.

The intra-relationship of BCMS/SC also reflects political decisions and the history of the region's ethnic relations. The differences between them are quite subtle and do not often hinder understanding or can at times even be imperceptible to native speakers. Moreover, the differences in linguistic features do not match the geographical divisions in the area because of natural migration and forced eviction of people throughout the history of the Balkans. The similarity between Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian is much higher than that between various Chinese “dialects” or between Norwegian and Swedish. In this way, it is possible to rely on only one standard language (from Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin or Serbian) and be able to communicate effectively and seamlessly with all educated natives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

In cases where speakers would feel that their words would be unclear, they would use a term which is considered to be better understood. However, one should be aware that natives of the respective countries sometimes have strong feelings about “their” language or dialect. For example, a Croat may be quick to correct someone if that person were to use inadvertently a word or phrase that is considered “un-Croatian” (i.e. something that is more frequently used by people living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro or Serbia.) even though this word or phrase in question is understood by anyone in Croatia and part of standard Croatian per descriptive dictionaries. For learners accustomed to or fluent in pluricentric languages such as English, German, Portuguese or Spanish, they may find it socially beneficial to be aware of characteristics, words or structures prescribed or occurring most frequently in the respective standard languages. An analogy of this kind of care from learners of English would be for them to note that using “to dispatch” instead of "to ship" in the USA may cause Americans to insist on using the latter even though the former is understandable but being perceived as something “un-American”. In a more general sense, learning BCMS/SC is a useful introduction to future learning of Slavonic languages as it still shares many of the features in other Slavonic languages. Regardless of which “letter” of BCMS/SC learners focus on or choose, they should not be surprised to hear from native speakers on being praised for using “Bosnian”, “Montenegrin” or “Serbian” perfectly even if the learner has focused on “Croatian”, for example.

Varieties/dialects

A national standard of BCMS/SC is taught in all schools and as noted above bear status as official languages in those former Yugoslavian republics. Regardless of the arguments made in emphasizing the distinctiveness of each “letter” in BCMS/SC or suggesting mutual unintelligibility, one can almost always rely on knowledge of whatever standard language he or she has learned when communicating with Bosnians, Croats, Montenegrins or Serbs. However recall that BCMS/SC represents standard languages that derive from a particular sub-dialect (East Herzegovinian Neo-Štokavian) that is actually not native to many people from the former Yugoslavia. The region’s dialectal variation is most apparent among Croats but is also present to a certain degree among Bosniaks, Montenegrins and Serbs.

The native dialects of Croats can be broadly classified into three groups: Čakavski, Kajkavski and Štokavski. These names are based on the word meaning “what” (i.e. “ča”, “kaj”, “što”) in the respective groups.

The dominant group is Štokavski and one of its sub-dialects is the basis of modern standard Croatian. The second-most prevalent one is Kajkavski and spoken in northwestern Croatia including the capital, Zagreb. Despite the historical importance of Kajkavski as “Zagreb’s dialect”, the local dialect has been overwhelmed by Štokavski thanks to migration of Croats from other regions and public education elevating the Neo-Štokavski standard language. The third group is Čakavski and is now confined to the coastline of Croatia and its islands. Although some language planners and more nationally-minded folk in Croatia would like to elevate the profile and place of Kajkavski or Čakavski dialects as a way of distinguishing standard Croatian from the other standards, relatively few items from Čakavski or Kajkavski vocabulary and virtually none from their respective phonology or morphology have become codified or entrenched in modern standard Croatian.

All of the other peoples natively use a form of Štokavski although some of their sub-dialects differ noticeably from the respective standard languages despite their derivation from the same Štokavski sub-dialect. Indeed there are also “Old-Štokavski” dialects (as opposed to the aforementioned “Neo-Štokavski” ones) which differ primarily in accentuation and these are used in parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. Furthermore the Old-Štokavski dialects encountered in Kosovo and far southeastern Serbia (also known as “Torlak” dialects) resemble Bulgarian and Macedonian to the point that some Bulgarian linguists treat “Torlak” as a group of Bulgarian subdialects.

It is for political reasons that BCMS/SC was codified using a particular Neo-Štokavski sub-dialect. The decisive codification efforts occurred starting in the 19th century despite the creation of literature or texts dating from the Renaissance or earlier in Čakavski, Kajkavski or Slaveno-Serbian (a hybrid liturgical/literary language combining a Štokavski dialect with Old Church Slavonic and Early Modern Russian).

There is another set of variations that the learner may encounter that corresponds partially to the national standards. This set of variations arises from the evolution of a vowel called “yat” and is sometimes spelled as ě (likely pronounced as “ae”). The vowel evolved into e, (i)je or i starting no later than the Middle Ages. The terms “ekavski”, “(i)jekavski” and “ikavski” are often used to represent the outcomes of this sound-change.

Example: (ě “yat”)

child || děte (Old Church Slavonic) | dete (Ekavski - “yat” > e) | dite (Ikavski - “yat” > i) | dijete ((I)jekavski - “yat” > -ije-)

need || trěbati (Old Church Slavonic) | trebati (Ekavski - “yat” > e) | tribati (Ikavski - “yat” > i) | trebati ((I)jekavski - “yat” > -e-) (short “yat” after the r became e in (I)jekavski instead of “-ije-” or “-je-”. Thus the forms *trijebati or *trjebati do not exist.)

crossing || prělaz (Old Church Slavonic) | prelaz (Ekavski) | prelaz OR: prijelaz (Ikavski and (I)jekavski) (long “yat” from the old prě- prefix becomes -e- or -ije in Ikavski and (I)jekavski.)

Modern standard Bosnian, modern standard Croatian and the emerging modern standard Montenegrin are “Štokavski-(I)jekavski”; Modern standard Serbian comes in two sub-variants being either “Štokavski-(I)jekavski” like the other three standards or “Štokavski-Ekavski”. The degree of these codifications being “ekavski”, “ikavski” or “(i)jekavski” do not conform to the neat borders of an atlas. For example, some dialects in northern Serbia are “Štokavski-Ikavski” rather than “Štokavski-Ekavski” or “Štokavski-(I)jekavski” as in modern standard Serbian. Ikavski dialects are also spoken in parts of Croatia and Bosnia. In turn, the Ikavski dialects of Croatia tend to be “Čakavski-Ikavski” in addition to “Štokavski-Ikavski”, as is found in Bosnia. In far southeastern Serbia, the “Torlak” dialects encountered are strictly speaking “Štokavski-Ekavski” but as noted earlier their noticeable similarity to Bulgarian and Macedonian give rise to contention that such dialects are not Serbian but rather extensions of Macedonian or Bulgarian instead. There are also the Krashovani living in Romania who are native-speakers of a “Torlak” dialect but consider themselves to be Croats.

The variations are interesting from a linguist's viewpoint but are a headache for politicians and nationalists who try to identify or settle territorial disputes and ethnic differences using linguistic criteria. When one notes the lexicons used by Bosnians, Croats, Montenegrins and Serbs one can also notice that Bosnians and Croats tend to prefer certain usages over ones used in Montenegro and Serbia, while on the other hand Bosnians, Montenegrin and Serbs prefer certain usages over those used in Croatia. It can be bewildering to a foreigner who tries to learn the nonstandard speech of natives.

Learning with a background in other languages

According to FSI, it takes approximately 1100 class hours to achieve professional speaking and reading proficiency in Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian. To this one can add Montenegrin. It follows from FSI's scale that the degree of difficulty in learning BCMS/SC for a monolingual speaker of English is roughly the same as that of Farsi, Greek, Hindi-Urdu, Russian or Turkish.

For speakers of English, the greatest difficulties in my opinion are:

1) Verbal aspect
2) Mastering the tones and variable stress.
3) Syntax
4) Nominal and adjectival declension
5) Vocabulary
6) Negotiating the linguistic sensitivity of some native speakers of BCMS.

The last point refers to the fact that all learners should be aware of some of the prescriptions or tendencies that distinguish the standard languages from each other. Although this may seem unnecessary to those accustomed to languages such as English, Portuguese or Spanish, it should not be dismissed completely when learning BCMS/SC. This is attributable to the sometimes high sensitivity among some native speakers on the matter caused by the politicization of language and the presence of natively-produced dictionaries and grammar manuals which emphasize the characteristics, expressions, words or tendencies that distinguish the standard languages even if they do not reduce mutual intelligibility to a significant degree.

10 observable distinctions that I’ve encountered as a learner of BCMS/SC are as follows:

i) All standard languages use the Latin alphabet, but Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian can also use modified Cyrillic alphabets (although the use of Bosnian Cyrillic is rare).

ii) The infinitive is used much more frequently in Croatia than it is in Serbia and Montenegro. Frequency for using the infinitive in Bosnia and Herzegovina falls between the levels observed in the other countries.

iii) Standard Bosnian and standard Croatian often incorporate foreign names in their original spelling. Standard Montenegrin and Serbian often incorporate foreign names after having changed their original spelling so that they correspond to the convention of the BCMS/SC alphabets.

iv) The Montenegrin alphabet includes the letters ś / ć and ź / з́ which could be represented in the original alphabets for BCMS by šj / шj and žj / жj respectively. The addition of new letters in the Montenegrin alphabet has been criticized as politically-motivated since the sounds represented by the new letters of the Montenegrin alphabet are not observed reliably among Montenegrins and could have been expressed visually without modification of the existing alphabets.

v) Standard Croatian prescribes that the final –i in the infinitive be elided in spelling when immediately followed by the future marker. Standard Montenegrin and standard Serbian prescribe that the final –ti in the infinitive be elided and then combined with the future marker. Standard Bosnian officially prescribes that either treatment is correct. However the difference in spelling does not lead to a difference in pronunciation and speakers of BCMS/SC pronounce the resulting construction identically.

E.g.

English: “I shall be”
Standard Bosnian: bit ću OR biću
Standard Croatian: bit ću
Standard Montengrin and Standard Serbian: biću

All forms from BCMS/SC derive from a combination of infinitive biti “to be” and the future marker ću (ćeš, će etc.)

vi) The nominal derivational suffix –lac is used less frequently in Standard Croatian than it is in the other standards.

vii) The verbal derivational suffix –irati is used more frequently in Standard Croatian than it is in the other standards.

viii) Using “štokavsko-ekavski” realizations of “yat” (see “Varieties / dialects”) almost always marks the user as “Serbian”.

ix) Croats often construct binary questions (i.e. “yes-no”) by placing li after the main verb at the head of the sentence. Such questions among Montenegrins and Serbs are more often constructed by placing Da li before the main verb at the head of the sentence. Bosnians use both versions without a marked preference. Use of these constructions is a matter of probability as neither form is “more correct” than another, despite preferences suggesting otherwise among Croats on one hand and Montenegrins and Serbs on the other.

x) An examination of the lexical stock gives the clearest indication of how some native speakers of BCMS/SC have come to insist that their respective national standards are separate languages. Words of demonstrably Slavonic origin that differ either in spelling or in form have ended up being used by the variants to express the same concept or object.

E.g.

ko? (BMS); tko? (C) “who?”
šta? (BMS); što? (C) “what?”
otok (BC – < Proto-Slavonic *tokъ“flow”); ostrvo (MS – < Proto-Slavonic *o-strovъ) “island”
pozorište (BMS – derivative. Cf. pozrieť “to look” (Slovak)); kazalište (C – derivative. Cf. pokazać “to show” (Polish)) “theater”

There are also false friends and partial false friends:

E.g.

igrati "to play" (C); igrati "to play; to dance" (BMS)
kovčeg "coffin; suitcase; trunk" (B); kovčeg "suitcase; trunk" (C); kovčeg " coffin; trunk" (MS)
majka "grandmother" (B); majka "mother" (CMS)
slovenski "Slovenian" (BC); slovenski "Slavonic" (MS)

Grammatical overview

Stress in BCMS/SC is variable and in turn, stressed syllables can be pronounced with a rising or falling pitch that is either long or short. This also means that vowels can be long or short. Sometimes, stress with pitch-accent will distinguish different forms or words:

Ex. valjati “to roll” (long rising tone on initial 'a' which is stressed); valjati “to be good” (long falling tone on initial 'a' which is stressed)

The stress and pitch-accent of BCMS/SC words aren't marked by accents or diacritics in most texts. Thus it's difficult for a learner of BCMS/SC to know how to pronounce correctly an unfamiliar word that he or she sees in print unless the pitch and stress are marked explicitly (as is the case in etymological dictionaries or a few textbooks for foreigners.)

In spite of these facts, the variable stress and pitch-accent give to spoken BCMS/SC a certain melody and rhythm that is unique from most other Slavonic languages. Especially perceptive students may also note that some of the distinctions in pitch-accent have faded among many Croats and Serbs outside very careful speech. In general, educated Bosnians are now most likely to speak in a way that is closest to descriptions in standard textbooks on BCMS with all of the prescribed subtleties in stress and pitch-accent.

Like most other Slavonic languages, BCMS/SC has elaborate inflections for nouns and adjectives.

Grammarians usually identify seven cases for nouns and adjectives: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental and vocative.

However the endings for dative and locative have almost totally merged and it may be helpful for beginners not to make a big deal of the distinction between locative and dative (i.e. for practical purposes it uses SIX rather than seven cases). However, if you are learning the language with a background in other Slavonic languages whose declensions do noticeably distinguish dative from locative, then it may be helpful to make a distinction when learning BCMS/SC in order to keep things “consistent” in your mind.

There are two numbers: singular and plural

There are three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter with masculine divided further into animate and inanimate categories in the declensions of the nominative and accusative.

There are three moods: indicative, conditional and imperative

There are two voices: active and passive

There are seven tenses: past, present, future I, future II, aorist, imperfect and pluperfect. However, the last is used in older literature and rarely heard in speech. The brevity of aorist and imperfect forms compared to those in past tense have made them useful in instant messaging and SMS.

There are two verbal aspects: imperfective and perfective (these aspects deal with the concept of whether the verb describes an action that was/is/will be repetitive/ongoing OR an action that was/is/will be completed.). This means that most actions are expressed with an imperfective and a corresponding perfective verb.

Because of BCMS/SC's inflections, personal subject pronouns are usually omitted unless the speaker wishes to emphasize or clarify the subject of a sentence. Syntax is usually subject-verb-object but this can change depending on the focus or nuance that a speaker wishes to convey. Thus, syntax can be rather flexible compared to English as much of the relevant grammatical information of a sentence is revealed in the inflections, suffixes and prefixes of the words. Syntax is also affected by “enclitics” and there is a strict order when using them.

Adjectives precede and agree with the nouns that they describe

E.g.

engleski jezik "English language"
engleska žena "English woman"
englesko selo "English village"
engleski gradovi "English cities"
engleske žene "English women"
engleska sela "English villages"

In turn, some adjectives can take endings that determine whether the object is definite or indefinite.

dobar kompjuter "a good computer"
dobri kompjuter "the good computer"

In addition to the native Slavonic vocabulary, BCMS/SC has borrowed many words from other languages, including Czech, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian and Turkish. Latin and Old Church Slavonic loanwords are also present because of the influence of Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity respectively. English loanwords are more prevalent nowadays than in older varieties of BCMS/SC because of the influence of American pop culture, the internet and sports.

The distribution or incorporation of loanwords isn't uniform as standard Croatian tends to have more neologisms or calques in place of borrowings whereas the other standard languages tend to have fewer neologisms or calques. However when loanwords appear in any of the standards, there is a tendency for Croatian prescriptions to be more tolerant toward loanwords or constructions of Latin, Hungarian, Germanic, Greek or Western Slavonic origin, while Bosnian ones are most likely to incorporate elements of Arabic, Iranic or Turkish origin. Montenegrin and Serbian lexicons are more likely to contain words or expressions that entered as borrowings from Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Russian and Turkish. These preferences illustrate the perceptions of the planners who wish to associate certain cultures or civilizations with their own cultures using the composition of the word stock.

Ex.

rujan "September" (C - from Czech řijen “October”) vs. septembar (BMS)

pregled "survey" (BCMS/SC - from Czech přehled) vs. Croatian-codified alternative of prijegled (substitution of first e with ije is in line with a strong tendency to treat an expression of “Štokavsko-Ekavski” as being "un-Croatian")

organizirati "to organize" (BC - from German organisieren) vs. organizovati (BMS - -ovati suffix is of Slavonic origin)

realizirati "to realize" (BC - from German realisieren) vs. realizovati (BMS - -ovati suffix is of Slavonic origin)

kočija "coach" (BCMS/SC - from Hungarian kocsi)

soba "room" (BCMS/SC - from Hungarian szoba)

varoš "town" (BCMS/SC - from Hungarian város)

minuta "minute" (BCMS/SC - from Italian minuto) vs. minut (BMS) (“minut” is masculine instead of feminine like “minuta”)

siguran "definite, sure" (BCMS/SC - from Italian sicuro)

boja "colour" (BCMS/SC - from Turkish boya)

ćilim "thick oriental carpet" (BCMS/SC - from Farsi گلیم ('gilīm'))

džep "pocket" (BCMS/SC - from Turkish cep)

hefta "week" (B - colloquial - ultimately from Farsi هفته ('hafte')); ned(j)elja, sedmica (BMS - standard terms and from Proto-Slavonic *nedělja and *sedmь respectively); tjedan (C - from Proto-Slavonic *tědьnъ)

kompjuter, internet, menadžer (manager) (BCMS/SC - all from English)

Spelling in BCMS/SC is phonemic in a limited sense with each grapheme matching a unique sound but as mentioned earlier the spelling often does not give clues about the location of stress and quality of pitch-accent in words. All standards use the Latinic with special characters č, ć, đ, š, ž in addition to those familiar to English-speakers. The Montenegrin version is distinguishable from the original Latinic alphabet of BCMS/SC by including ś and ź. In addition a modified Cyrillic alphabet is used with the Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian standards. In practice, however, Bosnian is rarely expressed in Cyrillic, while usage of Cyrillic in Montenegro and Serbia is less common outside rural areas. The modified Cyrillic alphabet for BMS is similar to other Cyrillic alphabets of Slavonic languages but contains the characters ћ, ђ, џ, j, љ and њ. As mentioned above Montenegrin Cyrillic uses also ć and з́ which are unknown in Bosnian and Serbian Cyrillic.

BCMS/SC recognizes a T-V distinction with 2nd person singular forms (e.g. ti / ти) restricted to addressing one person informally or intimately. 2nd person plural forms (e.g. vi / ви) are used otherwise.

Mutual intelligibility with other languages

Most English-speaking learners will find little in BCMS/SC that is instantly familiar at the outset apart from most of the Latinic version of the alphabet and the occasional loanword (e.g. fudbal, grejpfrut, muzika, sport).

BCMS/SC is intelligible in varying degrees to native speakers of other Slavonic languages without courses or special training, although this "untrained intelligibility" isn't that high unless one knows Bulgarian, Macedonian or Slovenian. Here are some hints that may help with making sense of BCMS/SC for people speaking at least one Slavonic language other than BCMS/SC.

1) Like Western Slavonic and the other Southern Slavonic languages, several older combinations of a vowel and a liquid often reversed to become combinations of a liquid and vowel. This is unlike the case of the Eastern Slavonic languages which show this development only when the ancestral syllable had rising (pitch-)accent, and then only when it was the initial syllable. Otherwise this last set of languages is now often marked by a vowel preceding and following the liquid.

E.g.

*gor > grad "city" (BCMS/SC, Slovenian), град "city" (Bulgarian, Macedonian), hrad "castle" (Czech, Slovak), gd "castle" (Polish) (cf. город "city" (Russian), город "citadel" (Ukrainian))

*kortъkъ > kratak (BCMS/SC), кратък[/b] (Bulgarian) [i]ktký (Czech), краток (Macedonian), ktki (Polish), ktky (Slovak), kratek (Slovenian), krotki (Lower Sorbian) "short" (Cf. кароткі (Belorussian), короткий (Russian, Ukrainian))

*melko > ml(ij)eko (BCMS/SC), мля[b]ко (Bulgarian), m[b]léko (Czech), млеко (Macedonian), mleko (Polish, Slovenian), mlieko (Slovak), mloko (Lower Sorbian, Upper Sorbian) "milk" (cf. мaлaко (Belorussian), молоко (Russian, Ukrainian))

2) The nasal vowels ę and ǫ from Proto-Slavonic evolved to e and u respectively in BCMS/SC. The first development is in common with that of the other Southern Slavonic languages, while the latter is in common with that of the Eastern Slavonic languages, Slovak, and to a lesser extent with Czech and Sorbian.

E.g.

*jьmę > ime (BCMS/SC, Slovenian), име (Bulgarian, Macedonian) "given name" (cf. імя (Belorussian), jméno (Czech), imię (Polish), имя (Russian), meno (Slovak), mě (Lower Sorbian), mjeno (Upper Sorbian), ім'я (Ukrainian))

*krǫglъ > круглы (Belorussian), okrugao (BCMS/SC), круглый (Russian), okrúhly (Slovak), круглий (Ukrainian) "circular, round" (cf. кръгъл (Bulgarian), okrouhlý (Czech), okrągły (Polish), okrogel (Slovenian))

*zǫ > zub (BCMS/SC, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian), зуб (Belorussian, Russian, Ukrainian) "tooth" (cf. зъб (Bulgarian), заб (Macedonian), ząb (Polish), zob (Slovenian)

3) The speech territory of BCMS/SC shows the most reflexes of the ancestral vowel *ě. The Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and one of the Serbian codifications are such that the reflexes are je or ije. A second Serbian codification is such that the reflex is e. Some subdialects in the former Yugoslavia also show a reflex of i. These subdivisions in the evolution of *ě in BCMS/SC are known as ekavian, ikavian, and (i)jekavian. The development of ekavian coincides to a greater or lesser degree with a similar trend in Belorussian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Slovak and Slovenian. The development of ikavian coincides to large extent with a similar trend in Ukrainian. The reflex of (i)je has no neat parallel in the other Slavonic languages.

E.g.

*měsęcь > месяц (Belorussian, Russian), mesec (BCMS/SC - Ekavian/"Serbian", Slovenian), misec (BCMS/SC - Ikavian), mjesec (BCMS/SC - Ijekavian), месец (Bulgarian, Macedonian), měsíc (Czech), miesiąc (Polish), mesiac (Slovak), mjasec (Lower Sorbian), měsac (Upper Sorbian), місяць (Ukrainian)

*rěka > рака (Belorussian), reka (BCMS/SC - Ekavian/"Serbian", Slovenian), rika (BCMS/SC - Ikavian), rijeka (BCMS/SC - Ijekavian), река (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian), rieka (Slovak), ріка (Ukrainian) "river" (cf. řeka (Czech), rzeka (Polish) - evolution of *ě set off change to the original preceding r such that this consonant's pronunciation in Czech and Polish is now rather close to s in "pleasure" as marked by ř and rz respectively)

4) In common with Czech, Macedonian, Slovak and Slovenian, BCMS/SC uses vocalic r (i.e. r acts like a vowel)

*pьrstъ > prst (BCMS/SC, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian), прст (Macedonian) "finger" (cf. пръст (Bulgarian), перст (Russian - archaic), porst (Upper Sorbian), перстень (Ukrainian))

trgovina "commerce" (BCMS/SC, Slovenian), trh "market" (Czech, Slovak), трговија "commerce" (Macedonian) (cf. търговия "commerce" (Bulgarian), targ "market" (Polish), торговля "commerce" (Russian), торг "market" (Ukrainian))

5) -l at the end of a syllable as found in other Slavonic languages (or in Polish and sometimes ľ in Slovak) is very often -o in BCMS/SC.

E.g.

d(ij)etao "woodpecker" (BCMS/SC) (cf. дзяцел (Belorussian), datel (Czech), dzięcioł (Polish), дятел (Russian, Ukrainian), ďateľ (Slovak), detel (Slovenian))

On je kupio knjigu "He bought a book" (BCMS/SC) (cf. On koupil knihu (Czech), On kupił książkę (Polish), Он купил книгу (Russian), On kúpil knihu (Slovak))

veoma "very" (BCMS/SC) (cf. velmi (Czech), veľmi (Slovak))

6) Like one of the standard variants of Slovenian, BCMS/SC is codified with pitch-accent (these distinctions are not always followed in the speech of some Croats and Serbs).

7) General future activity is typically expressed by combining shortened forms of ht(j)eti "to want" with the infinitive of the second verb with the shortened forms of ht(j)eti being related to the Bulgarian ще and Macedonian ќe.

Ja ću pisati (BCMS/SC), Аз ще пиша (Bulgarian), Јас ќе пишувам (Macedonian) "I shall write / be writing" (cf. Я буду пісаць (Belorussian), Já budu psát (Czech), Ja będę pisać (Polish), Я буду писать (Russian), Ja budem písať (Slovak), Jaz bom pisal (Slovenian), Я буду писати / Писатиму (Ukrainian))

9) As in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Sorbian, the aorist and imperfect are still considered part of modern BCMS/SC (i.e. not obsolete), however their use is more restricted than in Bulgarian and Macedonian by tending to occur in literary environments or instant messaging/SMS.

10) Unlike other Slavonic languages which also maintain case distinctions, the endings for dative and locative singular have almost totally merged while those of the dative, locative and instrumental plural have merged. The degree of syncretism is much more pronounced than in the other Slavonic languages apart from Bulgarian and Macedonian, and is clearest in the declension of adjectives.

E.g.

"Help my old friend!" / "In my old friend [there] is a good heart. / My old friend has a good heart."

Pomogni mojem starom prijatelju! (dative) / U mojem starom prijatelju je jako srce. (locative) (BCMS/SC - endings have merged)

Pomoz mému starému příteli! (dative) / V mém starém příteli je dobré srdce. (locative) (Czech - endings have not merged)
Pomóż mojemu staremu przyjacielowi! (dative) / W moim starym przyjacielu jest dobre serce. (locative) (Polish - endings have not merged)
Помоги моему старому приятелю! (dative) / В моëм старом приятеле - доброе сердце. (locative) (Russian - endings have not merged)
Pomôž môjmu starému priateľovi! (dative) / V mojom starom priateľovi je dobré srdce. (locative) (Slovak - endings have not merged)
Допоможи моєму старому приятелю! (dative) / У моïм старім приятелі - добре сердце. (locative) (Ukrainian - endings have not merged)

"...toward old buildings / ...in old buildings / ...with old buildings"
...prema starim zgradama (dative) / ...u starim zgradama (locative) / ... sa starim zgradama (instrumental) (BCMS/SC - endings have merged)

...ke starým budovám (dative) / ... ve starých budovách (locative) / ... se starými budovami (instrumental) (Czech - endings have not merged)
...ku starym budynkom (dative) / ... w starych budynkach (locative) / ... ze starymi budynkami (instrumental) (Polish - endings have not merged)
...к старым зданиям (dative) / ... в старых зданиях (locative) / ... со старыми зданиями (instrumental) (Russian - endings have not merged)
...ku starým budovám (dative) / ... vo starých budovách (locative / ... so starými budovami (instrumental) (Slovak - endings have not merged)
...к старим будинкам (archaic - dative) / ... у старих будинках (locative) / ... зо старими будинками (instrumental) (Ukrainian - endings have not merged)
Last edited by Chung on Sun Apr 10, 2016 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Chung » Sun Apr 10, 2016 5:53 pm

PART 2

---

Literature / Media / Film / Music

The cultures associated with BCMS/SC are not very well-known to foreigners outside the oft-repeated and traditional religious distinction where Bosniaks are Islamic, Croats are Roman Catholic, and Montenegrins and Serbs are Eastern Orthodox. BCMS/SC literature in the broadest sense of the word could arguably begin with bards’ recitations of epic poetry in an area stretching from Croatia through Bosnia and Herzegovina and into Montenegro and Serbia. Epic poetry is particularly important in Montenegrin and Serbian culture for it provided touchstones in the later establishment of national identity. Petar II Petrović Njegoš’ combination of epic, poem and play “Gorski vijenac” ("The Mountain Wreath") is an important document of Montenegrin literary and cultural expression. For Serbs, epic poetry kept alive the memory of the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 between Serbs and Turks and later provided the corpus for codifying modern standard Serbian. Literary expression in BCMS/SC has also attained a somewhat higher external profile through the works of the Bosnian Croat Ivo Andrić (awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961). Among the individual cultures, learners can occupy themselves by exploring writers who are renowned among each of the nations using BCMS. Mak Dizdar, Meša Selimović are important Bosnian literary figures while among the Croats, Ivan Gundulić, Miroslav Krleža, August Šenoa, and Dubravka Ugrešić are prominent writers. In addition to Njegoš, the novelist Mihailo Lalić has established himself as a notable figure in Montenegrin literature. Those interested in Serbian literature will likely encounter the works of Miloš Crnjanski, Milorad Pavić, Isidora Sekulić, Svetlana Velmar-Janković, and Zoran Živković.

Musical traditions in the former Yugoslavia go back at least to traditions of religious hymns in Old Church Slavonic from the Early Middle Ages. Nowadays each of the Bosnians, Croats, Montenegrins and Serbs have musical traditions and a learner can certainly enhance the learning experience by taking in songs in BCMS. Some distinctive styles to look for are Croatian groups of klapa (a form of a capella singing), Bosnian sevdalinka which are reminiscient of blues, and Serbian turbo-folk (which is either reviled or loved because of its hybrid folk-rock-pop-dance nature and lyrics with overtones of sex, material wealth and violence). Goran Bregović and his Balkan brass band may elict some recognition from people outside the Balkans with his songs “Kalashnikov” and “Bubamara”. Rock, metal, pop, dance, hip-hop and rap are also represented by artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

Films in BCMS/SC are also another gateway into appreciating the cultures while improving language competency. It must be remembered that cinematographic production in BCMS/SC begin in earnest in Yugoslavia and as such films are often presented as being produced in “Serbo-Croatian”. Notwithstanding the nomenclature, watching these films will certainly improve the learner’s passive understanding of BCMS/SC. Notable Bosnian films include “No Man’s Land” and “Grbavica”. “Tko pjeva zlo ne misli”, “Rondo”, “Život sa stricem”, “Ta divna splitska noć”, “Neka ostane među nama” are some Croatian films worth watching while “Pogled sa Ajfelovog Tornja” and “Imam Nešto Važno Da Vam Kažem” are two examples of Montenegrin films. A few prominent Serbian films are “Bitka na Neretvi”, “Crna mačka, beli mačor”, “Dom za vešanje”, “Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T.”, “Otac na službenom putu” and “Podzemlje”.

Learning material

i) Books

Learning materials for foreigners nowadays accommodate the sociolinguistic conclusion that BCMS are separate entities worthy of designated materials. However one may still profitably learn BCMS using older courses designated as “Serbo-Croatian”. In general, materials bearing the “Serbo-Croatian” designation lean towards teaching “Štokavsko-Ekavski” or the most common sub-variant of modern standard Serbian, but they also introduce some elements which would be marked by native speakers as typical of standard Croatian. Outside Alexander’s course, I do not know of any self-instructional courses for English-speakers for Bosnian to say nothing of Montenegrin.

1) Teach Yourself Croatian (David Norris et al.) (price: approx $25 US)

- It comes with two CDs or audio cassettes and a textbook.
- What I enjoyed most about this course was that it had lively dialogues and useful information on grammar. It also comes with exercises for each chapter and answers at the back of the book.
- What I enjoyed least about this course was that its presentation of grammar was somewhat unstructured and could intimidate the learner at first. In the interest of keeping lively dialogues, it's natural that the language used would have relatively complex structures for a beginner and some idioms. The grammar section of each chapter would focus on the grammatical aspects of each set of dialogues. It would have been desirable if the textbook had included more exercises.

2) Teach Yourself Serbian (David Norris and Vladislava Ribnikar) (price: approx. $25 US)

- It comes with two CDs or audio cassettes and a textbook.
- This course follows the layout of “Teach Yourself Croatian” with each chapter containing a few dialogues, notes on grammar and culture, and exercises with answer key in the back of the textbook. For some reason “Teach Yourself Serbian” is longer containing more information, exercises and lessons than “Teach Yourself Croatian”. As a result it takes the learner farther along than “Teach Yourself Croatian”. Transcripts of dialogues and vocabulary is printed in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets with entire chapters alternating regularly between the scripts after the third chapter.
- If one wanted to start learning BCMS and were given a choice between these two courses from “Teach Yourself”, I would recommend starting with “Teach Yourself Serbian” unless I had an overwhelming desire to focus on standard Croatian. The more extensive coverage in “Teach Yourself Serbian” offers a better introduction to BCMS than “Teach Yourself Croatian’s” more perfunctory treatment.

3a) Colloquial Croatian (Celia Hawkesworth) (price: approx. $40 US)
3b) Colloquial Croatian and Serbian (Celia Hawkesworth) (price: approx. $40 US)
3c) Colloquial Serbian (Celia Hawkesworth) (price: approx. $40 US)

- Each course comes with two CDs or audio cassettes and a textbook.
- What I liked about these courses was that each one had good dialogues and useful information on grammar. They also come with exercises for each chapter.
- However, there are serious problems with Hawkesworth’s courses compared to “Teach Yourself Croatian” or “Teach Yourself Serbian”. One frustrating problem is that only about a third of the exercises have answers at the back of the book. Another problem is that the glossaries at the back of the books are inadequate and only some of the dialogues have complete lists for new vocabulary. All of this is very surprising for kits that are sold as self-instructional courses. Given a choice between Norris and Hawkesworth courses, I would choose Norris' “Teach Yourself Course”. This is rather unusual as I often find Routledge's “Colloquial” series to be better than its counterparts in McGrawHill's “Teach Yourself” series.
- Despite the nominal difference in the courses as implied by the titles, the similarities between these courses outweigh the differences and most disturbingly for the learner, Hawkesworth’s courses all suffer from the same set of problems to the point where I would not recommend them to prospective students of BCMS.

4) Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language (Thomas Magner) (price: approx. $30 US)

- It originally was accompanied with 5 CDs which have recordings of all of the dialogues. The dialogues are also available online from the audio archive at Indiana University. See the subsection “Online material and links to information of interest” below for the URL.
- What I enjoy most about this kit is that you can acquire a reasonably good grasp of basic Croatian or Serbian. It has thirty chapters and each chapter begins with either a dialogue or descriptive text. In some chapters there are interesting (if sometimes obsolete) notes on culture and geography as well as jokes and songs. Each chapter has four or five groups of exercises ranging from translation to fill-in-the-blank to writing short paragraphs on various themes. (e.g. “my vacations”, “my meals”, “my nationality”, etc.). There is also a short chapter devoted to texts in Croatian and Serbian (in Cyrillic and Latin alphabets) and are meant to give practice in reading formal language.
- Strangely, Magner presents all of the relevant grammatical points in a separate section in the back. As such, one would have to flip back and forth between the chapter's text and the relevant grammar. I found this to be rather frustrating and I often ended up referring to the index in order to find the explanation to the grammar that was relevant to the chapters' respective dialogues and exercises.
- The glossary at the end of the book is thorough and lists every word that appears in the dialogues. For each noun, the glossary indicates the gender and any irregular forms associated with it. For each verb, the glossary indicates the aspect and pattern of conjugation. Where necessary, the glossary indicates whether the word is “(I)jekavski” (i.e. more frequent outside Serbia) or “Ekavski” (i.e. more frequent in Serbia)
- This is a rather old textbook (published in 1989) and not without mistakes in typing or choice of words. However of all of the available textbooks out there this one makes a clear distinction between Croatian and Serbian and treats the two best-known standards quite evenly. Each dialogue appears on the same page in the two standards (with the Serbian one sometimes in Cyrillic) and the corresponding exercises focus on each variant. Magner's approach is a compromise in that the separated presentation of Croatian and Serbian aligns to sociolinguistic criteria but the combined treatment effectively aligns with the conclusions of comparative linguistic analysis where the two are variants of the same language.
- Magner's textbook is not in the same mold as “Teach Yourself Croatian” or “Colloquial Croatian”. For someone who is learning on his or her own and using this book, I would suggest that he or she get the help of a native speaker of BCMS/SC to correct the exercises as there are no answers at the back of the book.

5) FSI Serbo-Croatian Basic Course, vols. 1-2*

- The complete set comes with 46 audio cassettes or CDs and 2 textbooks.
- As this course was designed by the Department of State, it is held to be in the public-domain in the USA.
- This is a standard FSI Basic course and relies on drills and exercises to reinforce your knowledge of the language.
- It is designed in FSI's drab style and is meant for those with plenty of motivation and discipline.
- The course was created for those who wanted to work in the Foreign Service during the Cold War and includes situations that may be somewhat quaint in 2010.

6a Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Textbook (with exercises and basic grammar) (price $39.95 US) (Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursac)
6b) Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar (with sociolinguistic commentary) (price $39.95 US) (Ronelle Alexander)
6c) Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Audio Supplement (6 CDs to accompany Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Textbook) (price $29.95 US) (Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursac)

- These were the first textbooks on BCMS/SC produced in North America after the breakup of Yugoslavia and take into account the prescribed differences between Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.
- The layout of the contents are arranged so that the Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian dialogues are lined up beside each other with the accompanying explanations pointing out differences where important.
- The course also has the advantage of having accentuation/pitch-accent indicated for every word thus providing an extra hint for students learning proper pronunciation of words.
- Although the course's primary audience is beginning students who attend formal classes, the authors have provided freely-downloadable answer keys to most of the exercises at the website for the course. See the subsection “Online material and links to information of interest” below for URL.
- The grammar manual is an excellent and detailed resource and its second part also contains an unbiased and clear account of the historical development of Serbo-Croatian and its later fragmenting to contemporary Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.
- The 6 CDs in the audio supplement are illustrative of the sensitivity (or arguably the absurdity) of the clash between sociolinguistic and structural linguistic conclusions. Each of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian is allotted 2 CDs with recordings of all dialogues. The result is that roughly 95% of the audio material has been triplicated, and so someone intent on learning one standard can safely ignore the audio on the remaining 4 CDs.
- The 2nd edition of the textbook was released in the summer of 2010.

7a) English-Serbo-Croatian Dictionary (ed. Morton Benson) (price: variable)**
7b) Serbo-Croatian-English Dictionary (ed. Morton Benson) (price: variable)**

- These two volumes remain the most comprehensive and largest dictionaries of their type despite drawing more on literary attestations rather than colloquial ones and being completed before the emergence of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian standards. Each volume contains approximately 60,000 headwords.
- Despite purist sneering at including words of an officially non-existent language (i.e. "Serbo-Croatian"), Benson's dictionaries still blow away the competition of two-way English-BCMS/SC dictionaries that have been published after the collapse of Yugoslavia. Among its virtues are that all headwords are indicated with diacritical marks showing pitch-accent and stress placement while the aspectual counterpart(s) for almost each verb have been placed alongside.
- These dictionaries may still be found on Amazon Marketplace at sellers of used-books offering each volume from anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars.

8) Standard English-Serbo-Croatian, Serbo-Croatian-English dictionary (Morton Benson) (price: approx. $35 US)*

- This is a condensed version of the dictionaries in 7a) and 7b). It's probably the only worthwhile dictionary in the English-speaking world that is reasonably accessible and in stock at most booksellers.
- Its strengths and weaknesses are similar to the dictionaries in 7a) and 7b).
- What I enjoy least about this dictionary is that Benson has not included the conjugation patterns of the verbs. This can be quite frustrating when dealing with irregular verbs which are often troublesome for foreign learners.

9) Langenscheidt Taschenwörterbuch Kroatisch (price: approx. 30 Euros)**

- This is a surprisingly useful dictionary that for which I can't find an English equivalent anywhere in Langenscheidt's series.
- It is useful in that it not only shows conjugational patterns after most verbs, but it also indicates the aspectual pair (perfective vs. imperfective) and for all Croatian words, it also marks the position of stress and long vowels (stress, pitch and length are not marked in standard Croatian spelling).
- The downsides are that it is rather expensive for its size (it's only a “pocket dictionary” of about 950 pages with 75 000 entries) and that its only in German-Croatian/Croatian-German.
- Naturally almost all of the content is usable for someone focused on the other standards because of the very high degree of overlap.

10) Horvát-magyar kisszótár & Magyar-horvát kisszótár (Croatian-Hungarian small dictionary and Hungarian-Croatian small dictionary) (price: approx. 5500 forints ~ $26 US)**

- This is a pair of small dictionaries that I bought when I was in Hungary. (approx. 25,000 entries for each part)
- For most verbs, it shows the aspectual pair (imperfective vs. perfective) in the Hungarian-Croatian part and also some conjugational information for each verb in the Croatian-Hungarian part.
- All Croatian nouns are linked to charts in the back which show the pattern of declension. This is quite handy when you encounter exceptions.
- Unlike the German dictionary by Langenscheidt, this Hungarian dictionary doesn't show the accent or pitch pattern of the words.
- The downsides are that this pair of dictionaries is quite small and are not very useful unless you know some Hungarian or have a bilingual Hungarian dictionary (e.g. Hungarian-English etc.) to make sense of the Hungarian translations)
- Naturally almost all of the content is usable for someone focused on the other standards because of the very high degree of overlap.

11) Mađarsko-srpski, srpsko-mađarski rečnik (Hungarian-Serbian, Serbian-Hungarian dictionary) (price: approx. 750 dinars ~ $7 US)**

- For most verbs, it shows the aspectual pair (imperfective vs. perfective) in the Hungarian-Serbian part and also some conjugational information for each verb in the Serbian-Hungarian part.
- All Serbian nouns are linked to charts in the back which show the pattern of declension. This is quite handy when you encounter exceptions.
- Unlike the German-Croatian/Croatian-German dictionary by Langenscheidt, this Hungarian dictionary doesn't show the accent or pitch pattern of the words.
- The downsides are that this dictionary is quite small and not very useful unless you know some Hungarian or have a bilingual Hungarian dictionary (e.g. Hungarian-English etc.) to make sense of the Hungarian translations.
- Naturally almost all of the content is usable for someone focused on the other standards because of the very high degree of overlap.

12) Savremeni englesko-srpski i srpsko-engleski rečnik I-II (Contemporary English-Serbian & Serbian-English Dictionary I-II) (ed. Danko Šipka) (price: approx. 5500 dinars ~ $60 US)

- These two volumes are less comphrensive than the dictionaries edited by Morton Benson but still have headwords marked for pitch-accent and stress placement while the aspectual counterpart(s) for almost each verb have been placed alongside. Each volume contains approximately 30,000 headwords.
- Depending on your point of view, this dictionary has the advantage of being published in Serbian Cyrillic (including being arranged per the sequence of that alphabet) in line with the current (i.e. 2013) tendency for Serbian dictionaries to be published using Cyrillic (N.B. Benson's dictionaries are published in Latinic).
- These dictionaries are most readily obtainable from Serbian bookstores, but may turn up as imports in online booksellers.

13) Language and Identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its Disintegration (Robert Greenberg) (price: approx. $20 US)

- This book is an excellent survey for learners who are interested in the sociolinguistic background and want external insight into attitudes of native speakers of BCMS/SC on whether one is dealing with separate languages or not. Greenberg focuses on presenting facts and putting his observations in a way where he leaves it to readers to come to their own conclusions or dig further in the topic.

* The FSI course in Serbo-Croatian focuses on “Ekavski” (basically “Serbian”) but has some chapters that are in “(I)jekavski” (“Bosnian”, “Croatian”, “Montenegrin” or “Serbian”).

I advise that anyone who wants to learn Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian that relying on “Serbo-Croatian” materials should not cause any problem with the majority of people from the former Yugoslavia. In fact native speakers take pleasure in seeing outsiders learn any form of BCMS/SC because of the low associated profile among the world’s languages and perception that foreigners are intimidated by it. In any case, their often positive reaction works well given that there are still rather few materials in English that are designed for only one of Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian (to say nothing of Montenegrin which is not yet fully standardized). However don't be surprised if now and then some native speakers are quick to correct your “Serbo-Croatian” on the grounds that you are using something that is not typical of their respective national standard. It's a shame since the course by FSI is of otherwise high quality and Ohio State University still sells an excellent combined set of textbooks, workbooks and recordings in “Serbo-Croatian” by Biljana Šljivić-Šimšić et al. for beginning, intermediate and advanced students. It's disappointing that courses with useful exercises and notes are spoiled by political considerations.

** Among recently-published bilingual dictionaries of BCMS/SC with another language, dictionaries meant for speakers of languages other than English are most likely to find some useful! According to one of my friends, the English-Croatian/Croatian-English dictionaries that were edited by Zeljko Bujaš are a better choice for learning Croatian but are expensive outside Croatia (approx. price: $90 US for each volume) and aren't quite as useful as Langenscheidt's Taschenwörterbuch and the Croatian-Hungarian dictionary that I have mentioned. Bujaš doesn't indicate much grammatical information in his entries and I get the impression that most English-BCMS/SC or BCMS/SC-English dictionaries are produced with the native speaker of BCMS/SC in mind as opposed to the native speaker of English. The emergence of the large English-Serbian/Serbian-English dictionaries compiled by Danko Šipka and Boris Hlebec in the recent past do largely alleviate this apparent gap in BCMS/SC lexicography, however those insistent on learning variants other than Serbian may find that they lack the last ounce of desired coverage despite their size and comprehensiveness.

ii) Online material and links to information of interest

Discussions, posts or logs on how-to-learn-any-language.com or language-learners.org involving BCMS/SC
- BCS – FSI Course Worthwhile?
- Best way to start learning Bosnian
- Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian
- Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian
- Croatian
- Croatian/Bosnian
- Croatian: što and šta
- Hey, so… Croatian?
- How to begin Serbian from scratch…
- Is Croatian considered hardcore?
- Croatian links?
- Montenegrin
- Orthographical Question about Croatian
- Pitchless Serbian?
- Radioclare's 2016 log (Croatian/Russian)
- Russian and Serbian grammar question
- Russian from Serbo-Croatian - how easy?
- Sapedro’s Croatian log
- Serbo-Croatian
- Serbo-Croatian – a tonal language?
- ”Serbo-Croatian” and its descendants

Juxtaposed analysis of divergent words and phrases in dialogues and narratives from “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” arranged sequentially by chapter as presented in the log Chung at work / Chung pri práci.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15 and conclusion

Analysis and critique of differences presented in the monograph “Corpus-Based Comparison of Contemporary Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian” by Bekavec et al. as presented in the log Chung at work / Chung pri práci.
Abstract and phonological differences
Morphological differences
Lexical differences
Syntactic differences
Semantic differences
Conclusion

Other forums or discussion on other forums
- Unilang’s forum for BCS

Discussions at WordReference involving BCMS/SC:
- Montenegrin: is it different from Serbian/Croatian?
- Serbian/Croatian (BCS): Differences
- Serbian/Croatian (BCS): One language?
- Serbo-Croatian (BCS): Dialects

General collections of links
- A wide-ranging website on many aspects of the language (e.g. grammar, online courses, education, professional organizations, media)
- Large lists of links related to each of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia hosted by University College London.

General treatment and descriptions of BCMS/SC's learning difficulty
- Concise but helpful descriptions of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian at the Language Materials Project of UCLA.
- Wikipedia's articles on Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian and Serbo-Croatian
(The contents of the Croatian and Serbo-Croatian articles in particular have been heatedly disputed as can be seen by examining the talk pages and archives. However these are useful for showing to foreigners the amount of emotion surrounding the treatment of BCMS/SC as separate languages or linguistic variants and perceptions of the connection between language and ethnic origin.)
- Wikipedia's article on the differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian.
- Wikipedia's article on Čakavski.
- Wikipedia's article on Kajkavski.
- Wikipedia's article on Štokavski.
- Wikipedia’s article on Torlak.
- A map of dialects in the former Yugoslavia.
- An article that describes the German influence on Croats' speech during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Dictionaries and other databases
- Extensive monolingual explanatory dictionary of modern standard Croatian. Despite its nominal focus on Croatian, this dictionary can be used by anyone learning BCMS since the entries give information on meaning and inflection that are almost always equally applicable to words prescribed in the other standard languages.
- Extensive monolingual dictionaries of modern standard Serbian. Despite their nominal focus on Serbian, these resources can be used by anyone learning BCMS since the entries give information on meaning and inflection that are almost always equally applicable to words prescribed in the other standard languages. The spelling dictionary (Правописни речник) is usable without registration, while the remaining sources require registration (although it's free).

Online courses, downloadable material or lists of available courses
- A brief evaluation of various textbooks and references for English-speaking learners of Southern Slavonic languages
- A free description of the grammar of standard Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian in .pdf
- Pravopis srpskog jezika (Manual of Serbian Orthography)
- Gramatika srpskog jezika (Manual of Serbian Grammar)
- Česte jezičke greške i nedoumice (Frequent Errors and Doubts [in the Usage of Serbian])
- ”Spoken Serbo-Croatian Vol. 1” hosted at ERIC (text only)
- ”Spoken Serbo-Croatian Vol. 2” hosted at ERIC (text only)
- DLI's cultural background sheets for Bosnian and Croatian
- DLI's audio-textual Language Survival kits for Serbian:
Air Crew
Basic
Civil Affairs
Cordon & Search/Raid
Force Protection
Medical
Military Police
Navy
Public Affairs
Weapons
- Authentic materials from DLI's GLOSS (Global Language Online Support System) in Croatian/Serbian with learning activities (run a search after having selected the language)
- The website for “Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Textbook” (includes link to answer keys on the right)
- Audio for Thomas Magner’s course “Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language” as .mp3 files at the audio archive of Indiana University
- Larisa Zlatić's tips and resources for Serbian.
- Prof. Danko Šipka's online material for his introductory course in BCS (type 000000000 [i.e. 9 zeros] to log in)
- Daniel's lessons of Croatian for beginners.
- Marina Petrović's lessons of Serbian for beginners.
- Croatian in Croatia and Serbian in Serbia from Langmedia at Five Colleges Center for the Study of World Languages (video reenactments of language in use with transcripts and translations to English)
- CultureTalk Bosnia and Herzegovina, CultureTalk Croatia and CultureTalk Serbia from Langmedia at Five Colleges Center for the Study of World Languages (short videos on cultural topics with transcripts and translations to English)

Literature and authentic texts
- Online collection of Bosnian literature
- Online collection of Croatian poetry
- Online collection of Croatian literature (i.e. prose and poetry)
- Small online library for Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža with texts.
- Online collection of Montenegrin literature
- Online collection of Serbian literature
- Online collection of texts by writers from the former Yugoslavia.
- Online collection of parallel texts on various topics from Croatian culture

Bookstores that have material of interest to learners of BCMS/SC
- Algoritam
- Bay Foreign Language Books Ltd.
- Bubamara Knjižara (Ladybug Book Café)
- Croatian Ethnic Institute Bookshop
- Interliber – Internet knjižara – Sarajevo
- Knjigaknjiga
- Knjižara
- Profil
- Schoenhof’s
- Serbica Books
- Superknjižara
- Sveznadar
- Zagreb Croatian Bookshop
- The website of the Foreign Languages Publication department of Ohio State University. (Select a language from the pull-down field beside the box for “Language”. This organization also sells textbooks, workbooks and cassettes for languages other than Šljivić-Šimšić's Serbo-Croatian resources.)

Credits

This is a somewhat modified version of my BCMS/SC profile in the "Collaborative Writing" subforum last edited on Oct. 25, 2014 at how-to-learn-any-language.com.
Last edited by Chung on Wed Apr 13, 2016 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Radioclare » Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:31 pm

Wow! That's amazing :D

It's difficult to add anything to a profile which is already so comprehensive, but a few suggestions...

In practice, however, Bosnian is rarely expressed in Cyrillic, while usage of Cyrillic in Montenegro and Serbia is less common outside rural areas.


Do you think it is worth emphasising though that it would be advisable for someone learning Serbian to get comfortable with both alphabets? I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've seen Cyrillic used in Montenegro, but although I have only spent a few days in Serbia I had the impression that it would be difficult to function there without reading both alphabets.

- Daniel's lessons of Croatian for beginners.


I think Daniel's live site has now moved to http://www.easy-croatian.com/

Some suggestions re additional resources...

Hippocrene Croatian
This is much better than the disappointing Colloquial book and the grammar is more clearly explained/more detailed than Teach Yourself. Each chapter starts with an audio dialogue which is played twice; once at normal speed and once very slowly, giving you space to repeat the sentences aloud yourself. I found this particularly useful for practising intonation. Stressed syllables are indicated in all the vocab lists, although it isn't as comprehensive as the BCS textbook and doesn't indicate whether the stress is short/long/rising/falling.

For more advanced learners (of Croatian), I recommend 'Hrvatska na prvi pogled' which is a textbook (all in Croatian) about Croatian culture that has been written for learners of Croatian as a foreign language and is aimed at learners at B2 and above. There are chapters about Croatian history, politics, geography etc. I'm only partway through it at the moment and sometimes I think the text is quite dense/more difficult than I would expect for something aimed at B2, but overall it's a well-written book and to my knowledge it is unique in being a cultural textbook aimed at learners of the language.

A book I would caution against anyone buying is 'Croatian Grammar' by Vinko Grubišić (see this scathing review!).

In terms of online resources, the university of Zagreb has received funding to create a course called HR4EU. I've been testing it out and would say that while it's still in a 'beta' stage at the moment, it has the potential to be a really useful course for beginners in the future.
Last edited by Radioclare on Thu Apr 14, 2016 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Sun Apr 10, 2016 11:04 pm

Holy moley, didn't see that coming!

You, Sir, are truly a gentleman and a scholar.

Chung wrote:
E.g.

majka "grandmother" (B); majka "mother" (CMS)


majka can mean both "mother" and "grandmother" in Serbia depending on the accent.

Since I wouldn't be able to write the correct diacritics (ȁ, à, ȃ, á) even if my life depended on it, I had to make a recording.

If I had to take a guess, this is how I would write 'em.
mâjka = mother
mȁjka = grandmother





Radioclare wrote:
In practice, however, Bosnian is rarely expressed in Cyrillic, while usage of Cyrillic in Montenegro and Serbia is less common outside rural areas.


Do you think it is worth emphasising though that it would be advisable for someone learning Serbian to get comfortable with both alphabets? I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've seen Cyrillic used in Montenegro, but although I have only spent a few days in Serbia I had the impression that it would be difficult to function there without reading both alphabets.

I wouldn't really say that it would be difficult to function, unless of course you had to go to the post office and fill out an "уплатница" or you wanted to know what's written on your utility bills.

But who knows, maybe I'm missing something?

edit: fixed typos
Last edited by NIKOLIĆ on Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Radioclare » Mon Apr 11, 2016 6:57 am

I wouldn't really say that it would be difficult to function, unless of course you had to go to the post office and fill out an "уплатница" or you wanted to know what's written on your utility bills.

But who knows, maybe I'm missing something?


Your opinion is a lot more valid than mine :) I had the impression that when I was in Niš there were more basic things like some bus timetables and restaurant menus that were written in Cyrillic. But I had travelled there from Skopje so perhaps I am mixing the two places in my head.

I think it's good to read your utility bills though - mine are nearly always wrong :lol:
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Serpent » Mon Apr 11, 2016 11:55 pm

Chung wrote:English loanwords are more prevalent nowadays than in older varieties of BCMS/SC because of the influence of American pop culture, the internet and sports.
Only American? Maybe Anglophone in general?

BCMS/SC recognizes a T-V distinction with 2nd person singular forms (e.g. ti / ти) restricted to addressing one person informally or intimately. 2nd person plural forms (e.g. vi / ви) are used otherwise.
Maybe ie rather than eg? :)

перстень (Ukrainian)
Russian too :)

В моëм старом приятеле - доброе сердце.
Is it okay that this sounds really strange? Normally we'd say у моего старого приятеля.

I'd also point out that BCSM will be useful for communication with monolingual Slavic speakers, which is embarrassingly common. In the context of tourism they'll probably also understand another Slavic language.

Great job overall, as always :D
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Daniel N. » Tue Apr 12, 2016 8:29 am

This is an excellent post, however, I found few details (that are common in views from outside) worth commenting upon.

Chung wrote:In total approximately 20 million people worldwide are native speakers of these standard languages

Nobody can be a "native speaker of a standard language", and, in fact, many people in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, even Bosnia don't really speak a standard language, even in the most official situations (e.g. in a court of law). It all depends on the dialect they were raised in, if it's quite distant from the standard, then most people are actually unable (and often unwilling) to speak standard — and it involves even very educated people.

Chung wrote:In this way, it is possible to rely on only one standard language (from Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin or Serbian) and be able to communicate effectively and seamlessly with all educated natives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

I don't think education is important here. Even educated young people today are much less exposed to other languages/variants than before, an that even puzzles older people who were much more exposed to other variants (via books and TV).

Chung wrote:The native dialects of Croats can be broadly classified into three groups: Čakavski, Kajkavski and Štokavski. These names are based on the word meaning “what” (i.e. “ča”, “kaj”, “što”) in the respective groups.

This is a very, very rough and proviso classification that maybe should have been abolished long ago. It does not apply to Croats only, as there's no clear-cut borders between Croatian Kajkavski and dialects in Slovenia; some dialects considered Kajkavski in Croatia are actually closer to dialects in Slovenia; Štokavski goes all over Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia, etc. Besides, there are dialects that share features of Kajkavski and Čakavski, Čakavski and Štokavski, etc.

Chung wrote:the evolution of a vowel called “yat” and is sometimes spelled as ě (likely pronounced as “ae”).

It is spelled so only in reconstructions of Common Slavic and transliterations of Cyrillic and Glagolitic texts, and by no means it was pronounced [ae] in the entire South Slavic territory (this pronunciation is probable for the Bulgarian area).

Chung wrote:short “yat” after the r became e in (I)jekavski instead of “-ije-” or “-je-”

It is often stated so, but actually not accurate: it become /e/ when preceded by /r/ and another consonant in the same syllable. If it was just /r/, then you get /je/, e.g. rješenje vs. rešenje solution, rječnik vs. rečnik dictionary and some other examples.

Chung wrote:The degree of these codifications being “ekavski”, “ikavski” or “(i)jekavski” do not conform to the neat borders of an atlas. For example, some dialects in northern Serbia are “Štokavski-Ikavski” rather than “Štokavski-Ekavski” or “Štokavski-(I)jekavski” as in modern standard Serbian. Ikavski dialects are also spoken in parts of Croatia and Bosnia.

It's worth noting that all these out-of-place dialects are results of migrations, and indeed most people who speak Ikavski in northern Serbia don't consider themselves Serbs, but Croats or Bunjevci.

This story about Ikavski is way oversimplified. There are dialects where short yat turned into /i/, and long yat into /je/; there are dialects where yat changed to either /i/ or /e/ depending on the surrounding sounds (the famous Meyer-Jakubinskij law). Finally, individual Ikavski words (e.g. sikira axe) can be found deep into nominally Ekavian areas.

Chung wrote:Croats often construct binary questions (i.e. “yes-no”) by placing li after the main verb at the head of the sentence. Such questions among Montenegrins and Serbs are more often constructed by placing Da li before the main verb at the head of the sentence.

This applies only to standard writing. In speech and casual writing, da li is much more common than verb + li even in Croatia. So saying "Croats often..." is misleading.

ko? (BMS); tko? (C) “who?”
šta? (BMS); što? (C) “what?”

This again applies to standard languages (and formal writing) only, as šta and ko are very widespread in speech in Croatia, unlike e.g. word pozorište theatre.

It would be better to express it like this: differences in details of grammar, colloquial words etc. are not a distinguishing marker (or they are not a strong one, e.g. in verb trebati, use of infinitive), and differences in cultural words (theatre, cinema, priest) are a strong marker.

Chung wrote:Stress in BCMS/SC is variable and in turn, stressed syllables can be pronounced with a rising or falling pitch that is either long or short. This also means that vowels can be long or short.

This, again, applies only to standard languages and these dialects that are close to it. In speech of many people, there's no difference in vowel length in Croatia, and in large parts of Serbia, most unstressed long vowels have shortened.

Chung wrote:However the endings for dative and locative have almost totally merged and it may be helpful for beginners not to make a big deal of the distinction between locative and dative

Actually, the (standard) difference is not in endings, it's in stress of some nouns.

Chung wrote:There are seven tenses: past, present, future I, future II, aorist, imperfect and pluperfect. However, the last is used in older literature and rarely heard in speech. The brevity of aorist and imperfect forms compared to those in past tense have made them useful in instant messaging and SMS.

Actually, the pluperfect is much more often used than the imperfect. Aorist is still sometimes seen, but imperfect is basically gone in most areas. Also, this statement about "brevity of imperfect" is copied over and over, but it's actually not true: past of biti (e.g. 3rd pers. pl.) is bili su, while imperfect is bijahu.

What is actually going on: people are using the aorist tense for many verbs (not just perfective) but this is by no means a recent tradition, and these forms are still very rare compared to the past tense. Besides, some people (e.g. from Bosnia and Serbia) will use the aorist tense in speech, but with a bit shifted meaning (for an action that has just happened or it's about to happen at the very moment of speaking).

Chung wrote:This means that most actions are expressed with an imperfective and a corresponding perfective verb.

This is a bit confusing statement.

Chung wrote:Because of BCMS/SC's inflections, personal subject pronouns are usually omitted unless the speaker wishes to emphasize or clarify the subject of a sentence.

In some constructions, subjects are obligatory, e.g. when you use the conjunction a. And it's not clear that omitting pronouns is due to inflections: e.g. Mandarin drops pronouns, and it has no inflections. It seems that mandatory pronouns are rather an areal feature of a number of Western European languages (French, English, German, Swedish, etc.)

Chung wrote:Adjectives precede and agree with the nouns that they describe

In epic songs, but even today in the vocative case, adjectives often come after the noun they describe.

Chung wrote:Montenegrin and Serbian lexicons are more likely to contain words or expressions that entered as borrowings from Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Russian and Turkish. These preferences illustrate the perceptions of the planners who wish to associate certain cultures or civilizations with their own cultures using the composition of the word stock.

Actually, there are only a few words of Greek origin used in Serbia that are not used elsewhere. Even the Standard word for Jesus used everywhere (Isus) is a clearly Greek influence.

Chung wrote:rujan "September" (C - from Czech řijen “October”) vs. septembar (BMS)

I don't think Standard Croatian rujan is a loanword, but it's worth knowing that in Croatia, standard names of months are actually seldom used, but ordinal numbers are used instead. It's a characteristic of Croatia and partially Montenegro.

Chung wrote:tjedan (C - from Proto-Slavonic *tědьnъ)

I'm not sure that word existed in Proto-Slavonic (your form is Old Chuch Slavonic anyway, but I don't think that word was written down in OCS), since it's quite restricted in Slavic languages, and it would be definitely *tědьnь and not *tědьnъ.

Chung wrote:Croatian-codified alternative of prijegled

It's obsolete, you can find an example here, 100 years ago http://dizbi.hazu.hr/object/8719 another example http://www.gskos.unios.hr/~descape/file ... pojeno.pdf

Chung wrote:Spelling in BCMS/SC is phonemic in a limited sense with each grapheme matching a unique sound but as mentioned earlier the spelling often does not give clues about the location of stress and quality of pitch-accent in words.

A problem is that most sequences -ije- are not pronounced as 2 syllables in Standard Croatian, and it's not distinguished when it's pronounced as two syllables, and when as one. Besides, vowel length is normally not written.

Chung wrote:Unlike other Slavonic languages which also maintain case distinctions, the endings for dative and locative singular have almost totally merged

This merger D = L in singular also applies to Standard Slovene, but it does not apply to all dialects in Croatia and Slovenia (and maybe even not elsewhere). Again, the difference in Štokavian and Standard BCMS is not in the endings but in stress of (a few) nouns, but there are dialects which preserve all differences in both singular and plural.
Last edited by Daniel N. on Wed Apr 13, 2016 3:22 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Daniel N. » Tue Apr 12, 2016 8:49 am

Chung wrote:among the Croats, Ivan Gundulić, Miroslav Krleža, August Šenoa, and Dubravka Ugrešić are prominent writers.

It would be very hard to find a Croat reading Gundulić (who lived 1589-1638) unless he or she has to, or someone studies Renaissance literature. Out of these four, only Dubravka Ugrešić is alive, and she's far from the most influential/popular. I would at least consider Bosnian/Croatian Miljenko Jergović, Croatian Pavao Pavličić and some others to be far more influential (e.g. Ferić, etc.).

Chung wrote:Notable Bosnian films include “No Man’s Land” and “Grbavica”. “Tko pjeva zlo ne misli”, “Rondo”, “Život sa stricem”, “Ta divna splitska noć”, “Neka ostane među nama” are some Croatian films worth watching while “Pogled sa Ajfelovog Tornja” and “Imam Nešto Važno Da Vam Kažem” are two examples of Montenegrin films. A few prominent Serbian films are “Bitka na Neretvi”, “Crna mačka, beli mačor”, “Dom za vešanje”, “Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T.”, “Otac na službenom putu” and “Podzemlje”.

While “Tko pjeva zlo ne misli” can be definitely classified as a "Croatian" movie (since it includes Croatian script, locations, and most actors), I doubt that “Bitka na Neretvi” can be classified as "Serbian", since it was a major all-Yugoslav production about a great battle in the WWII with actors from all over, and it was directed by Veljko Bulajić, who was born in Montenegro but spent almost all life in Zagreb, Croatia — where he still lives today. It's best called "Yugoslav".

Also, “Otac na službenom putu” can be hardly classified as "Serbian". Written by Bosnian Abdulah Sidran, directed by Emir Kusturica — another Bosnian who will later declare himself a Serb, and change his name to Nemanja — it's basically a Bosnian movie, but not about a Bosnian-specific subject.

Also, two perhaps most popular, but also highly regarded Yugoslav movies that can be rightfully called "Serbian" are not mentioned: Maratonci trče počasni krug and Ko to tamo peva. The last is generally considered a masterpiece and once a while shown on Croatian TV even in the 21st century (despite being from 1980).

Chung wrote:Outside Alexander’s course, I do not know of any self-instructional courses for English-speakers for Bosnian to say nothing of Montenegrin

Midhat Riđanović, a Bosnian linguist, recently wrote comprehensive Bosnian for Foreigners, but I don't think it can be regarded as a "course".
Last edited by Daniel N. on Tue Apr 12, 2016 2:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Proposed BCMS/SC profile

Postby Longinus » Tue Apr 12, 2016 10:47 am

The majority of the bookstore links are dead. I haven't tried the other links yet. I have also ordered books from:

http://ri-exlibris.hr/
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