On external standardization of the Serbian language

Written by Prvoslav Radić, this article appeared on the journal Južnoslovenski filolog in 2008.
 
The weakening and the consequent dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia left their mark, among other things, upon the dissolution of the so-called Serbo-Croatian language. The external political influence that was felt in the dissolution of former Yugoslavia is today taking part in the linguistic formation of the new standards. However, the way the destruction of Yugoslavia could not be imagined without consequences upon, first of all, the Serb people, so the transformation of the “Serbo-Croatian” language into a series of linguistic standards – its heirs, cannot occur without refusing the rights of the parts of the Serb people (for instance, in Croatia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Montenegro), first of all, to linguistic and cultural, that is, national identity. This can easily be illustrated by the external influences in the areas of linguistic engineering and they can be divided into extensive (for instance, advertising and advertisement instructions, radio and TV programs) and intensive (textbooks, manuals and the like).