engleski

On attitudes to Croatian dialects and on their changing status

The communicative role of Croatian dialects and attitudes towards them have been neglected by Croatian linguists, absorbed in normativism. Dialects appeared to them transient and doomed to death, parasitic and only historically interesting. On the other hand, criticism by the leading philological authorities of the normative ideology, on which the Croatian standard language has ideally relied since the end of the ninteenth century, has caused confusion among the general public as to what Standard Croatian should be like. The average speaker seems to have sought refuge in the local dialects, for which at least there is no doubt about their Croatianness. Thus dialects have gained in importance through a kind of misunderstanding. Their use nowadays is an inadequate substitute for the standard language in certain domains. A way to clarify the communicative roles of the standard and dialects has been suggested.

Croatian dialects, attitudes, standard language, misunderstanding

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