On Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 08:38:04PM -0800, DougEwell2@cs.com wrote:
>Aren't Serbian and Croatian the standard example of two "languages" that are
>really the same language but are treated separately (a) for political reasons
>and (b) because Cyrillic is used to write the former and Latin to write the
>latter? Are there any linguistic or vocabulary differences between them?
They are very similar, but there are subtle differences. The reasons are
not just political but cultural and religious. The Serbians are mostly
Orthodox, which is why they use Cyrillic. The Croatians are mostly
Catholic, hence the use of the Roman alphabet. (It is a fairly precise
rule that you can tell whether a Slavic nation has been historically
Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic by which alphabet they use. Naturally,
there have been other developments, e.g., there is a strong Lutheran
minority in Slovakia, a strong Hussite tradition in Bohemia, etc. And,
of course, you cannot assume that any individual is of a specific
religion based on his nationality.)
Adam
-- Cogitans me cogito esse
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