Serbian language in Croatia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Serbian language is one of the officially recognized minority languages in Croatia. It is primarily used by the Serbs of Croatia. The Croatian Constitution, Croatian Constitutional law on national minorities rights, Law on Education in Language and Script of National Minorities and Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities define the public co-official usage of Serbian in Croatia. Serbian and Croatian are two standardized varieties of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language. The majority of Serbs of Croatia use Ijekavian pronunciation of Proto-Slavic vowel jat except in the Podunavlje region in Vukovar-Syrmia and Osijek-Baranja Counties where local Serb population use Ekavian pronunciation. Post-World War II and Croatian War of Independence settlers in Podunavlje which have come from Bosnia, Dalmatia or Western Slavonia either use their original Ijekavian pronunciation, adopted Ekavian pronunciation or both of them depending on context. According to data from the 2021 census, almost two-thirds of Serbs of Croatia declared Croatian standardized variety as their first language with Ijekavian pronunciation always being required standard form in Croatian. While Serbian variety recognizes both pronunciations as standard, Ekavian is the more common one as it is the dominant one in Serbia, with Ijekavian being dominant in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Croatia.
The Orthodox liturgical book Varaždin Apostol from 1454 represents the oldest preserved text in Cyrillic from the territory of today's Croatia.[1] Croatian Constitutional law on ethnic minorities rights, one of only two constitutional laws in country, was adopted in 2002.[2]
In 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Committee urged the Croatian government to ensure the right of minorities to use their language and script.[3] The report noted the 2013 Anti-Cyrillic protests in Croatia and municipalities concerned.[3] Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said that his country welcomes the UN Human Rights Committee's report.[4]
Instruction in Serbian language
Most schools with instruction in Serbian are located in Vukovar-Srijem and Osijek-Baranja County in the area of former Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Syrmia where rights on education in minority languages were provided during the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium based on the Erdut Agreement. Along with those schools there is also Kantakuzina Katarina Branković Serbian Orthodox Secondary School in Zagreb.
In the school year 2010–2011, 3,742 students attended preschools, elementary, and secondary schools in Serbian.[5] Some 59 educational institutions offered instruction in Serbian language that year and 561 instructors and teachers worked in them.[5] In school year 2011–2012 the total number of students was 4,093 in 63 educational institutions and 563 educators and teachers worked in them.[5] Number of classes or groups in this period increased from 322 to 353.[5]
As a chair at the Department of South Slavic languages, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb has the Chair of Serbian and Montenegrin literature.[6]
Other forms of cultural autonomy
Various minority organizations use Serbian in their work. One of them, Association for Serbian language and literature in Croatia from Vukovar is a nonprofit professional organization that brings together scientists and technical workers in the Republic of Croatia engaged in studying and teaching of Serbian language and literature.
