Key Points in Serbia-Montenegro Deal

Key points of the EU-sponsored plan signed Thursday to preserve the alliance between Serbia and Montenegro:

Yugoslavia gets a new name: Serbia and Montenegro. The name Yugoslavia, first introduced in 1929, will be discarded.

A new, single-chamber parliament will provide ``positive discrimination'' for Montenegro's representatives, to give the tiny republic of 650,000 people legislative parity with Serbia, whose population is 10 million.

The parliament will elect a president. A five-member government will be in charge of foreign affairs, defense, international economic relations, internal economic relations and protection of minorities and human rights.

The armed forces will be under the command of a council consisting of the head of state and the presidents of Serbia and Montenegro. Officers and soldiers will serve on the territory of their respective member state - a key demand by Montenegro, which objected to its soldiers serving in Serbia.

Some ministries and other joint institutions will be moved from Belgrade to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica.

The two economies will be united in a common market, but no provision has been made for a joint currency. Serbia uses the Yugoslav dinar, while Montenegro has opted for the euro.

After a three-year period, both entities will have the right to hold referendums on independence.

The union will have a single seat in international institutions such as the United Nations, but representatives from the two entities will take turns as heads of mission.

The only thing they didn't mention is that half of all Montenegrin Serbs live in Serbia. In fact, one may wonder if Serbia has any other talent. Miloshevich is only one of them; Zhelko Raznatovich -- Arkan was one; Radovan Karadzhich is one, as was his name-sake Vuk Stefanovich-Karadzhich, father of the bastardized Serbian language/alphabet; so was the famous Milovan Djilas, the first "Dissident," and one-time Tito's Numero 2; Petar-Petrovich Nyegosh, a poet and priest-prince of Montenegro, one of the most cherrished heroes of Serb literature ("Gorski Viyenats" and many more), etc.

Without Montenegrins, the Serbian Orthodox Church would have been beheaded when its Patriarchy was destroyed by Turks in the city of Pech, in Kosovo, in the 17th century as a reprisal for Serbian uprisings. Montenegrins kept the Church alive.

But, the key to understanding this issue was best put by none other than the first and last Montenegrin King, Nikola I Petrovich: "All Montenegrins are Serbs, but not all Serbs are Montenegrins."

"Bastardized Serbian alphabet and language"??? Are you on drugs?

No, are you? You were probably wiened on the myth more than on fact about this guy and his "delo." Worse, you don't respond with reason but with emotion, so why waste time reasoning with you?

The Serbian literary language developed after the 1860's in cosmopolitan Belgrade, where it becamse known as the "Belgrade style." Urban intellectuals enriched the impoverished language with foreign words and more flexible sentence structure.

What Vuk proposed is the language he heard peasants speak. That's what made him so popular wiht Yugoslav communists later on, but fortunately Elmer Fudds of the world do not generally determine a country's literary language.

Vuk's elimination of the letter yat created two versions of the written language -- which resulted in serious, even catastrophic, complications. Until that time, the Serbian language was written the same way regardless which pronunciation you used -- ekavski or iyekavski. So, that was a setp backwards.

He introduced the letter "j" in order to make it more palatable to the Croatians and Slovenes, but in the process totally departed from any Serbian 1,000-year old tradition. The letter was not necessary.

What did Vuk really accomplish? Very few countries have phonetic languages and yet their litteracy rates are equivalent or higher than that among the Serbs. No advantage there. How phonetic a language is has no bearing whatsoever on how successful or powerful a country becomes. Japanese people write with four different alphabets daily, yet have no similar problems to what the Serbs have experienced.

Proposing that West Virginian local dialect becomes the nation's model official written language would not be received well. Neither would be a porposition to do the same with "ebonics." Just as "Cockney" English -- the spoken language of the "common folk" -- is not a serious pretender for English literary supremacy, one can say the same for Platt Deutsch in Germany. Yet, in Serbia, Vuk was trying to push precisely the "common folk" version of the language as Serbia's official written languge.

Contrary to what they fed you in school over there, Vuk managed to succeed only in pushing his decrepit version of the Cyrillic (for political reasons). The language of the pig farmers was luckily never entrenched as the official Serbian language.

That's a load of irrelevant bull$hit, Kosta. Vuk has been dead 150 years and today's Serbian language has evolved so much that it's hardly the language the Serbs - either peasants or urban cosmopolites - spoke in the early and mid 1800s. Even if Vuk had never been born, the language would've changed.

I disagree with you on all counts. Vuk made the language more logical; he did not "bastardize" it. He merely reformed it. He did not impose his revised language on the people. It was vice versa - he simply adjusted the written language to the way it had already been spoken.

Changes in a language do occur on their own, and the populus accepts them. My friends (Serbs from Bosnia, in all cases) always laugh at the way I speak, not so much because of the accent but also because of the words I (and other "northerners") use; words which are not commonly used in other parts of Serbia. But, hey, that's the way WE speak.

Language experts claim that the purest Serbian is spoken in Hertsegovina. That may be so, but only some 5% of the Serbs are from Hertsegovina. What is the standard Serbian language anyway? And why are you even mentioning the Slovenes and the Croats? They had nothing to do with it. They had their own languages and were using the Latin alphabed, weren't they?

If you don't know what Slovenes and Croats had to do with this, it merely reinforces my impression that you kow knowing about this subject and therefore must rely on emotional outbursts ("That's a load of irrelevant bull$hit), and anecdotal hearsay, instead of on facts.

Vuk made the language more logical. Now that's a pearl if i have ever head one. What exactly does that mean? I know it's a commonly used cliche, but it means absolutely nothing. It is pure nonsense. Bulgarian developed under similar cirucmstances and with similar roots as Serbian and is, in fact, very easily understood by the Serbs, yet you mean to tell me that somehow Bulgarian is more "awkward" or "illogical?" Last time I checked, the litteracy rate in Bulgaria was one or two percentage points higher than in Serbia!

Another one is Vuk has been dead 150 years and today's Serbian language has evolved so much that it's hardly the language the Serbs - either peasants or urban cosmopolites - spoke in the early and mid 1800s

Did you read "Gorskiy Vienats" in its original, printed in 1847? I rest my case.

The reason why the Hertsegovian form of the langue is the "purest" is because Vuk said so and because that's the BS you were fed in communist Serbian schools. Vuk had his (decrepit) reasons and they were more due to his ignorance and prejudice than anything else.

If you read Tsar Dushan's Law, you will find that it is written in common language understood by everyone. But, I bet you have not read one single original document in old Serbian, regardless of the date. Vuk's language had no memories of Serbian written cultural heritage since hardly any modern Serb can even begin to read and understand any of the Serbian litterature that's older than 100 years -- thanks to Vuk!

But that was just fine with the communist educators who raised you on their milk. You know who you are but you have no idea why, just like most of the Serb generations born without collective memory.

Vuk was opposed by not such an ignorant bunch as it is commonly depicted. It's just that the opposition to Vuk was removed or minimized in post-modern Titoslavia and since Serbs could not even begin to read their own culutral heritage more than a century old, who would know the diference!

Until Vuk, Serbs of Montenegro and Hertsegovina and Krayina and Shumadia, and Banat and Bachka, regardless how they pronounced their words all wrote the same way. There was no "ekavski" and "iyekavski" pravopis; there was one Serbian language, written in one alphabet (as is the case with all civilized European languages), and all Serbs could read their history -- in both the church and ecclasiastical form. Those who could read, that is.

I will repeat my main point,aside from the fact that Vuk destroyed the unity of the languge in written and alphabetical form, and that is that the phoney phonetics, which everyone thinks makes Serbian some hot language, has nothing to do with litteracy or greatenss of any nation. No great nation on this earth uses phonetic alphabet as its claim to fame. So, what constructive outcome are we to thank Vuk for? Greater litteracy rate? BS! Simpler language? Hardly! They can't even agree on grammar, let alone the written form; do you understand the stupidity and duplicity of using two alphabets, especially since they were created for reasons other than linguistic necessity. Did it make Serbian a universal language? NO! Did it make it more "logical?" NO! Did it divide the lnaguge? YES! Did it enrich it? NO! Serbian now borrows German and English words instead of Russian, but still borrows them nonetheless. So, what good did this man Vuk do that was so great for the Serbian people? One is almost left with the impression this myth of Vuk has created that without Vuk Serbs would be fat, dumb and happy. Today they are neither fat nor happy, but logic still escapes them.

You are literally the first person I have 'met' in my life that's complaining about the Serbian language. What do you suggest? That we re-introduce the slaveno-serbski? Tsrkveno-srpski?

If anyone should complain, it's gonna be the SANU. I don't see them complaining.

The only problem I see with the Serbian language is that it is being poisoned by the Latin alphabet. Public display of the Latin alphabet should be outlawed - just like English is outlawed in Quebec [shops that display English are subject to hefty fines!].

I don't have a problem with my language. Do you?

And save your "Communists taught you" BS for somebody else. Name one Yugoslav person who was born between 1945 and 1985 and hasn't been "taught" by the Communists.

I am not complaining about the Serbian language, Banat. Please re-read what I wrote without emotion and you'll get the point. Vuk was not necessary, as you pointed out, and what he did wasn't all that great -- for the Serbian language. I may be the first to say so that you know of, but I am certainly not the only one.

Vuk did make Serbian simpler to write, but he went overboard -- for political reasons. Instead of a "j" he could have used "soft yer" (which he used to create Cyrillic "nj" and "lj" equivalents of the Croatian). So, "j" was an unnecessary and duplicitious addition. More importantly, he should have left the "yat" to preserve Serbian as a unified language regardless of the "narechye" (ekavski or iyekavski). With the alphabet as is today, with soft yer and a yat, Serbian would be 98% phonetic (vice 99%), and it would have been preserved as a unified language with one alphabet, characteristic of Serbs as a nation.

Two letters, Banat. That's it. The problem with Latin alphabet poisoning that you talk about would not be possible had Vuk's intentions been to truly reform the language for Serbs without introducing Yugoslav characteristics into it.

Personally, I think the esthetics of the alphabet would have been enhanced with the yer and the yat as well, but that's a matter of taste.

SANU doesn't go there because it is a highly emotional and explosive issue. Any attempt to reform the reformed language would be seen as a "nationalist" excess, and as "novogovor" the Croatians are criticized for.

In otherwords, Vuk is untouchable and his reforms are dogma that cannot possibly be improved on or critiqued. I disagree, but then I am just a lone voice challenging a myth.

If you love your language, as I do, you should try those two letters and see how they fit and look. The soft yer replaces the j, and yat replaces any word where e/iye difference eixsts (detsa, dete, lep, svet, etc.). I also think Serbian schools owe it to their children to teach them the old azbuka just so they can read some of the works older than those printed after Vuk's reforms took hold, rather than being told what they were all about. It would allow them to read (and comprehend substantial amounts of) Russian and Bulgarian text, modern and ancient.

All of us born in the period you mention were taught in communist schools. Some of us, however, questioned what we were thought. I am one of them. I have my own free will and I am not entirely a "product of the environment."

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