Serbo-Croatian

Serbo-Croatian—also called Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian, or BCMS—is a Western South Slavic language spoken as the main tongue in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It functions as a pluricentric language, meaning it has four mutually understandable standard forms: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. The language took shape amid a complicated mix of dialects and religions, heavily influenced by the Ottoman Empire’s expansion and large-scale population shifts. Over time, the Shtokavian dialect spread further than others, becoming the dominant supradialect across the region.

Throughout the history of the South Slavs, local vernaculars and literary languages—such as Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian—developed on their own paths. Before the 1800s, these were referred to collectively as “Illyrian,” “Slavic,” “Slavonian,” “Bosnian,” “Dalmatian,” “Serbian,” or “Croatian.” The term “Illyrian” became common after 1832, when Ljudevit Gaj and other linguists met to discuss it, though it sometimes caused confusion with the ancient Illyrian language. The name “Serbo-Croatian” first appeared in 1824, used by Jacob Grimm, and was later promoted by the Viennese philologist Jernej Kopitar; Croatian grammarians in Zagreb adopted it in 1854 and 1859. At that time, Serb and Croat lands were still part of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires.

Today, the language is usually called by its standardized varieties—Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin—and rarely by sub-dialect names like Bunjevac or Šokac. In the language itself, it is formally known as *srpskohrvatski* or *hrvatskosrpski*. Historically, linguists such as Đuro Daničić and Tomislav Maretić referred to it as “Serbian or Croatian” and “Croatian or Serbian.” Native speakers often call it *naš jezik* (“our language”) or *naški* (“ourish”), a term used to sidestep linguistic debates. They traditionally describe it as *jedan ali ne jedinstven* (“one but not uniform”). In 1988, Croatian linguist Dalibor Brozović defended the term “Serbo-Croatian,” arguing it denotes both components of the same language and the region where it is spoken, including Bosnian and Montenegrin. Croatian linguist Mate Kapović proposed “Standard Shtokavian” as a neutral and precise alternative. Nowadays, “Serbo-Croatian” is controversial because many people believe national identity and language should match, but it remains in academic use due to the lack of a simpler term. After Yugoslavia’s breakup, “Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian” (BCS) emerged, often used in political contexts, including by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The standardization of Serbo-Croatian began in the mid-1800s with the Vienna Literary Agreement, signed by Croatian and Serbian writers and philologists decades before any Yugoslav state existed. From the start, literary Serbian and Croatian had slight differences, though both were based on the same Eastern Herzegovinian sub-dialect of Shtokavian. In the 20th century, Serbo-Croatian served as the lingua franca of Yugoslavia: it was the sole official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (where it was called “Serbo-Croato-Slovenian”) and later the official language of four of the six republics in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The country’s breakup reshaped language attitudes, splitting linguistic identity along ethnic and political lines. Since then, Bosnian has been established as a standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and efforts to codify a separate Montenegrin standard continue.

Like other South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian has a fairly simple sound system: five vowels and twenty-five consonants. Its grammar comes from Common Slavic, with complex inflection that includes seven grammatical cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Verbs show imperfective or perfective aspect, and the tense system is moderately complex. The language allows dropping pronouns (pro-drop) and has flexible word order, with subject–verb–object as the default. It can be written in either the Latin alphabet (Gaj’s version) or the Cyrillic script (Serbian Cyrillic), and spelling is highly phonemic across all standards. Although the standard varieties share many similarities, each has its own distinctive traits, though these differences are minimal.