Die südslawischen Standardsprachen

This volume contains a description of the history and development of the South Slavic standard languages Slovenian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (Serbo-Croatian), Bulgarian, and Macedonian. The recent shift of Serbian and Croatian from being variants to becoming standard languages, and the rise of Bosnian and Montenegrin are also taken into consideration. In the introductory chapter, the complicated linguistic situation of the Balkan Peninsula is described. Typologically, the South Slavic languages can be divided into a “Slavic” and a “Balkan” group; the introduction presents the most important characteristics of these two groups. Next, attention is directed towards the development of the South Slavic languages from their origins to the present, with short characteristic examples and interpretations accompanying the text. The socio-linguistic presentation always includes the political and cultural background. Demographic data are also considered essential. The interdisciplinary descriptions refer to the South Slavic languages with regard to historical linguistics, philology, socio-linguistics, and cultural and general history. The volume offers new insights into the complicated history of the mutual relations between the South Slavic languages, especially in recent times, a topic that until now has not been fully examined by Slavicists. The rise of modern standard languages is explained by providing a general history of the countries in question. The most recent examples are the rise of standard Bosnian and the planned standardization of Montenegrin.