Montenegrin language

Montenegrin /ˌmɒntɪˈniːɡrɪn/ (crnogorski/црногорски) is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian used byMontenegrins and the official language of Montenegro. Standard Montenegrin is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian.

Montenegro’s language has historically and traditionally been called Serbian. The idea of a Montenegrin standard language separate from Serbian appeared in the 2000s after the Serbia-Montenegro breakdown, via proponents of Montenegrin independence. Montenegrin became the official language of Montenegro with the ratification of a newconstitution on 22 October 2007. The Montenegrin standard is still emerging. Its orthography was established on 10 July 2009 with the addition of two letters to the alphabet, though the grammar and a school curriculum are yet to be approved.

Language standardization

In January 2008, the government of Montenegro formed the Council for the Codification of the Montenegrin Language, which aims to standardize the Montenegrin language according to international norms. Proceeding documents will, after verification, become a part of the educational programme in Montenegrin schools.

The first Montenegrin standard was officially proposed in July 2009. In addition to the Serbo-Croatian standard, the proposal introduced two additional letters, ⟨ś⟩ and ⟨ź⟩, to replace the digraphs ⟨sj⟩ and ⟨zj⟩. The Ministry of Education has accepted neither of the two drafts by the Council for the Standardization of the Montenegrin language, but instead adopted an alternate third one which was not a part of their work. The Council has criticized this act, saying it comes from “a small group” and that it contains an abundance of “methodological, conceptual and linguistic errors”.

On 21 June 2010 the Council for General Education adopts the first Montenegrin Grammar.

So far only the website of the Montenegrin Parliament uses the letters ⟨ś⟩ and ⟨ź⟩. The websites of the Montenegrin President and Montenegrin Government still use the old orthography.

Area (blue) where a plurality of respondents identified themselves as Montenegrin speakers in the 2003 census in Montenegro

Official status and speakers’ preference

In the previous census of 1991, the vast majority of Montenegrin citizens, 510,320 or 82.97%, declared themselves speakers of the then official language: Serbo-Croatian. The 1981 population census also recorded a Serbo-Croatian-speaking majority. However in the first Communist censuses, the vast majority of the population declared Serbian their native language. Such is also the case with the first recorded population census in Montenegro in 1909, when approximately 95% of the population of the Principality of Montenegrodeclared Serbian their native language. According to the Constitution of Montenegro, the official language of the republic since 1992 is Serbian of the Ijekavian standard.

After World War II and until 1992, the official language of Montenegro was Serbo-Croatian. Before that, in the previous Montenegrin realm, Serbian was the language in usage. The Serbian language was the officially used language in Communist Montenegro until after the 1950 Novi Sad Agreement that defined the Serbo-Croatian language, and “Serbo-Croatian” was introduced into the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro in 1974. In the late 1990s and early 21st century, organizations promoting Montenegrin as a distinct language appeared, and since 2004 the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro regime introduced the term to usage. The new constitution, adopted on 19 October 2007, deemed Montenegrin to be the official language of Montenegro.

The most recent population census conducted in Montenegro was in 2011. According to it, 36.97% of the population (229,251) declared Montenegrin their native language, and 42.88% (265,895) declared Serbian their native language.

Mijat Šuković, a prominent Montenegrin lawyer, wrote a draft version of the constitution which passed the parliament’s constitutional committee. Šuković suggested Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro. The Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, had a generally positive attitude towards the draft of the constitution but did not address the language and church issues, calling them symbolic. The new constitution was ratified on 19 October 2007, declaring Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro, as well as recognising Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

The ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro and Socialdemocratic Party of Montenegro stand for nothing but plainly renaming the country’s official language into Montenegrin, meeting opposition from the Socialist People’s Party of Montenegro, the People’s Party, the Democratic Serb Party, the Bosniak Party, the Movement for Changes as well as the Serb List coalition led by the Serb People’s Party. However, a referendum was not needed, as a two-thirds majority of the parliament voted for the Constitution, including the ruling coalition, Movement for Changes, the Bosniaks and the Liberals, while the pro-Serbian parties voted against it and the Albanian minority parties abstained from voting. The Constitution was ratified and adopted on 19 October 2007, recognizing Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro.

According to the latest poll of 1,001 Montenegrin citizens conducted by Matica crnogorska in 2014:

Linguistic considerations

A proposed Montenegrin alphabet which contains two more letters than the Serbian counterpart — S and Z

A proposed Montenegrin alphabet which contains two more letters than the Serbian counterpart — Ś and Ź

Montenegrins speak Štokavian subdialects, some which are shared with neighbouring Slavic nations:

Montenegrin alphabet

The proponents of the separate Montenegrin language prefer using the Latin alphabet over the Cyrillic alphabet. In both alphabets there are two additional letters (bold), which are easier to render in the Latin alphabet due to their existence inPolish, but which must be created ad hoc when using Cyrillic.

Literature

Many literary works of authors from Montenegro provide examples of the local Montenegrin vernacular. The medieval literature was mostly written in Old Church Slavonic and its recensions, but most of the 19th century works were written in some of the dialects of Montenegro. They include the folk literature collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and other authors, as well as books of the writers from Montenegro such as Petar Petrović Njegoš’s Gorski vijenac (The Mountain Wreath),Marko Miljanov’s Primjeri čojstva i junaštva (The Examples of Humanity and Bravery), etc. In the second half of the 19th century and later, the East Herzegovinadialect, which served as a base for the standard Serbo-Croatian language, was often used instead of the Zeta-Sanjak dialect characteristic of most dialects of Montenegro. Petar Petrović Njegoš, one of the most respectable Montenegrin authors, changed many characteristics of the Zeta-Sanjak dialect from the manuscript of his Gorski vijenac to those proposed by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić as a standard for the Serbian language.

For example, most of the accusatives of place used in the Zeta-Sanjak dialect were changed by Njegoš to the locatives used in the Serbian standard. Thus the stanzas “U dobro je lako dobar biti, / na muku se poznaju junaci” from the manuscript were changed to “U dobru je lako dobar biti, / na muci se poznaju junaci” in the printed version. Other works of later Montenegrin authors were also often modified to the East Herzegovinian forms in order to follow the Serbian language literary norm. However, some characteristics of the traditional Montenegrin Zeta-Sanjak dialect sometimes appeared. For example, the poem Onamo namo byNikola I Petrović Njegoš, although it was written in the East Herzegovinian Serbian standard, contains several Zeta-Sanjak forms: “Onamo namo, za brda ona”(accusative, instead of instrumental case za brdima onim), and “Onamo namo, da viđu (instead of vidim) Prizren”, and so on.

Language politics

Most mainstream politicians and other proponents of the Montenegrin language state that the issue is chiefly one of self-determination and the people’s right to call the language what they want, rather than an attempt to artificially create a new language when there is none. The Declaration of the Montenegrin PEN Centerstates that the “Montenegrin language does not mean a systemically separate language, but just one of four names (Montenegrin, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) by which Montenegrins name their part of [the] Shtokavian system, commonly inherited with Muslims, Serbs and Croats“. The introduction of the Montenegrin language has been supported by other important academic institutions such as the Matica crnogorska, although meeting opposition from the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Some proponents go further. The chief proponent of Montenegrin is Zagreb-educated Dr. Vojislav Nikčević, professor at the Department of Language and Literature at the University of Montenegro and the head of the Institute for Montenegrin Language in the capital Podgorica. His dictionaries and grammars were printed by Croatian publishers since the major Montenegrin publishing houses such as Obod in Cetinje opted for the official nomenclature specified in the Constitution (Serbian until 1974, Serbo-Croatian to 1992, Serbian until 2007). Nikčević advocates amending of the Latin alphabet with three letters Ś, Ź, and З and corresponding Cyrillic letters С́, З́ and Ѕ (representing IPA [ç], [ʝ] and [dz] respectively).

Opponents acknowledge that these sounds can be heard by many Montenegrin speakers, however, they do not form a language system and thus are allophonesrather than phonemes. In addition, there are speakers in Montenegro who do not utter them and speakers of Serbian and Croatian outside of Montenegro (notably in Herzegovina and Bosanska Krajina) who do. In addition, introduction of those letters could pose significant technical difficulties (the Eastern European character encoding ISO/IEC 8859-2 does not contain the letter З, for example, and the corresponding letters were not proposed for Cyrillic).

Montenegro’s current prime minister Milo Đukanović declared his open support for the formalization of the Montenegrin language by declaring himself as a speaker of Montenegrin in an October 2004 interview with Belgrade daily Politika. Official Montenegrin government communiqués are given in English and Montenegrin on the government’s webpage. The official web page of the President of Montenegro states that it is written in the “Montenegrin–Serbian version” (Crnogorsko-srpska verzija).

In 2004, the government of Montenegro changed the school curriculum so that the name of the mandatory classes teaching the language was changed from “Serbian language” to “Mother tongue (Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian)”. This change was made, according to the government, in order to better reflect the diversity of languages spoken among citizens in the republic and to protect human rights of non-Serb citizens in Montenegro who declare themselves as speakers of other languages.

This decision resulted in a number of teachers declaring a strike and parents refusing to send their children to schools. The cities affected by the strike includedNikšić, Podgorica, Berane, Pljevlja and Herceg Novi.