Endangered languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article appeared in Silly Linguistics #4

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By Mirza Glavić

While everyone is debating about Serbo-Croatian (or Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) and there are so many controversies over its name, or whether it is one language or several distinct ones, no one is paying attention to endangered languages that are actually dying. The three major peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina were at war in the early 90s, and now that they are at peace, everything in the country is divided so that all of them enjoy the same human rights.

However, if you are not a Bosniak or a Croat or a Serb, you are likely to face discrimination and suffer injustice in the society. The same goes with languages. Minority languages are officially recognized but that is just a piece of paper. In reality, it seems like those languages do not exist on this land at all. They are: Albanian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Italian, Ladino, Macedonian, Polish, Romanian, Rusyn, Slovak, Slovene, Turkish, Ukranian, and Yiddish.

Two of the world’s languages that UNESCO listed as endangered have speakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Judaeo-Spanish and Romani. Judaeo-Spanish is officially recognized as a minority language. It is also called Ladino, but as already mentioned, this recognition is just a piece of paper. Romani officially does not exist even though you can hear people speak it daily in the streets, on a bus etc.

Luckily, these two languages are also spoken in several other countries, among them Western European. Perhaps, these countries could help the Romani language survive extinction. Judaeo-Spanish (judeo-español, español judió / jidió, djudeo-espanyol, espanyol, djudyo/djidyo, גֿידֿייו / גֿודֿייו, איספאנייול, גֿודֿיאו-איספאנייול, ђудео-еспањол, еспањол, ђудjо / ђидjо) is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish, but also largely influenced by Semitic languages.

As you can see above, it is written in Latin, Cyrillic and Hebrew scripts, and has many different names. Ethnic groups who speak this language are mainly Sephardic Jews and Sabbateans.

The total number of native speakers varies from 60 000 to 300 000. According to UNESCO, this language is categorized as severely endangered. It is spoken only privately at home, and the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo still chants part of the Sabbath Prayers in Judaeo-Spanish. It is not taught in schools, and there are not any public signs in the cities in this language.

The literature mainly consists of religious books. Music could be a great cure for endangered languages. The Jewish Bosnian-American musician Flory Jagoda recorded two CDs of music in Judaeo-Spanish taught to her by her grandmother, a Sephardic folk singer, among a larger discography.

Romani (romani čhib) refers to many languages of the Romani people, as they are all different across the area where they are spoken which is large and the main languages of the countries in question had a great influence. However, they all belong to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. The one spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina is called Vlax Romani. The total number of native speakers is about 4 million, but the population is sparse around the world and they are minority in every country.

This makes UNESCO put it on its definitely endangered category. The major prejudice is that this is not a language at all, that the people are just speaking some gibberish they created among themselves so they can speak secretly, because they are considered evil, for some reason.

However, as mentioned, it belongs to the Indo-Aryan group and has a long and natural history. Also, it is standardized and has several ISO codes (depending on the variety) and is recognized by Glottolog. Like the former language discussed, the government does nothing to include this language in the “equal human rights”.

All in all, the lives of the endangered languages are made even more difficult in a country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs are all equal and at peace. The minorities are the ones who are marginalized and sometimes even treated as they are not humans. As a linguist, I must say that the language diversity is a beautiful thing. We should be more open and treat languages of other people equally, and maybe learn some.

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