Tag: Balkan language

It’s one of the most frequently asked questions about countries from the former Yugoslavia, and it's not an easy one to answer. In fact, you can accidentally get into trouble if you’re not careful. The question is of course: ’What language do they speak there?’  What language do they speak in the Balkans? If we're talking about the former Yugoslavian countries, it breaks down like this: The language spoken across the whole of the former Yugoslavia officially used to be called Serbo-Croat, but no-one calls it that anymore.  In Croatia, they call it Croatian, and they spell it with the Latin alphabet.  In Serbia, they call it Serbian, and they spell it with the Cyrillic alphabet.  In Bosnia and Herzegovina, they call it Bosnian (are you seeing a pattern here?), and they spell it with the Latin alphabet. In Macedonia, they call it Macedonian and spell it with the Cyrillic alphabet (but not before removing some of the more complicated grammar, making it - interestingly - as similar to Bulgarian as its Yugo-brothers).  In Montenegro, they confusingly use both alphabets and while it's officially called Montenegrin, in practice people there prefer the phrase naš jezik or naški (our language). Confused yet? And in Slovenia, the language is sufficiently different that it's its own thing, but all Slovenians will be able to speak and understand Serbo-Croat, the same as Germans can all speak “hoch-Deutsch” despite their regional dialects.  So, all the languages in the Balkans are the same? No (bear with me here)! Albanian, Romanian and Greek are obviously completely different (yes, they are in the Balkans too), but the rest share the same southern Slavic roots. Slovenian, Macedonian and Bulgarian are languages that I can figure out but can't speak fluently but Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are identical, despite