JoLIE 12:3/2019
LANGUAGE POLICY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA AND ITS ETHNO-LINGUISTIC CONTEXT:
DO LANGUAGES CAUSE INTER-ETHNIC TENSION IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA?
Azamat Akbarov
Silk Road International University of Tourism, Uzbekistan
Abstract
After the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991, the new independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina was inundated by a horrible ethnic conflict, which led to inhumane violence and mass killings that ended with genocide. The Bosnian war resulted in the death of about 100,000 people, over half of whom were Bosnians. Two decades later, the violence has stopped, but the conflict in Bosnia has not yet come to an end; hasty social segregation, undertaken as a result of the 1995 Dayton Accords, which intended an immediate stopping of the violence, is still in force. The current distribution of population and languages is evidence of this segregation. Two different ethnic minorities live in two Bosnian political units, the Srpska Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Serbs in the first and Bosnians in the second. In these circumstances, which are very sensitive, the government was recently worried that the ordinary publication of statistical data on ethnic groups might lead to violence. The languages representing these two groups are important indicators of social presence and power. Signboards in the main streets of the capital cities of both countries (Sarajevo in the Federation and Banja Luka in Serbian Republic) were scrupulously photographed for the purpose of assessing the presence of Serbians and Bosnians. The presence of the English language in Bosnia was also documented. An assumption was made that the linguistic majority would correspond to the ethnic majority in both main streets, and that English would be used in advertising. The number of photos in which each language was used was calculated to determine the frequency and the situations in which the languages are commonly used. An analysis of these results showed that English is the second most used language in both streets after Bosnian, while comparatively little presence of the Serbian language in both streets showed that the language environment in Bosnia does not facilitate peace and making peace.
Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina; Linguistic landscape; Language policy; Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.
References
Akbarov, A. (2018). Linguistic Explorations of Multilingualism. Applied Linguistics Papers. 25(2), pp.1–10.
Backhaus, P. (2007). Linguistic Landscapes. A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
(2006). Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of the Public Space: The Case of Israel, International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 7-30. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668383
Center for Justice and Accountability. (n.d.). Bosnia and Herzegovina: Torture and Ethnic Cleansing in the Bosnian War. Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims During Bosnian War. Mehinovic v. Vuckovic. https://cja.org/what-we-do/litigation/mehinovic-v-vuckovic/
Garde, P. (2004). Unity and Plurality in the Serbo-Croatian Linguistic Sphere. In T. Judt, & D. Lacorne (Eds.), Language, Nation and State: Identity Politics in a Multilingual Age. (pp. 215-230). Europe in Transition: The NYU European Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982452_10
Gorter, D. (Ed.) (2006). Linguistic Landscape: A New Approach to Multilingualism. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Grbavac, I. (2013). Linguistic Landscape in Mostar. Jezikoslovlje, 14(2–3), 501-515.
Gröschel, B. (2001). Bosnisch oder Bosniakisch? Zur glottonymischen, sprachpolitischen und sprachrechtlichen Fragmentierung des Serbokroatischen. In Waßner, Ulrich Herman (Ed.) Lingua et Linguae. Festschrift für Clemens-Peter Herbermann zum 60. Geburtstag (pp. 159-188). Aachen.
Jahić, Dž. (1991). Jezik bosanskih muslimana. Sarajevo: Biblioteka Ključanin.
Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1997). Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X970161002
Malcolm, N. (1996). Bosnia: A Short History. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Mulalić, A., & Akbarov, A. (2012). Historical and Socio-Political Features of Language in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Motif Akademi Halkbilimi Dergis, 5(9), 22-28.
Obralić, N., & Akbarov, A. (2012). The Dynamics and Factors of Ethno-Linguistics in Language Policy of Western Balkan. Motif Akademi Halkbilimi Dergis, 5(9), 29-36.
Power, S. (2002). A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Basic Books.
Šestić, M., & Akbarov, A. (2012). Analysis of translations of Turkish Lexeme in the Novel “The Bridge over the Drina” by Ivo Andrić. Journal of Language and Literature Education, 4, 84-93.
How to cite this article: Akbarov, A. (2019). Language policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its ethno-linguistic context: do languages cause inter-ethnic tension in Bosnia and Herzegovina?. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 12(3), 7-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2019.12.3.1
For details on subscription, go to: http://jolie.uab.ro/index.php?pagina=-&id=19&l=en