Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language

The declaration regarding the name and position of the Croatian literary language ( kroat. Deklaracija o nazivu i položaju hrvatskog književnog jezika ) directed against a perceived as a centralist Yugoslav language policy and the associated disadvantage of the Croatian literary language from the Serbian. Thus, the dominance of the Serbian language of the Croatian, eg in legislation, the media, the administration, diplomacy and developed in the parlance of the Yugoslav army to have. It was in March 1967 signed and published by numerous Croatian cultural organizations, including the Matica hrvatska and the Croatian PEN Club.

The political leadership of Yugoslavia condemned the Croatian declaration as " nationalist aberration ".

Prehistory

While the rules for the spelling of the Serbo-Croat more or less tacitly came about (though the spelling is in some ways from the Broz - Boranićev - spelling, the " Croatian Duden " difference, ) rejected, became the new spelling of many Croatian linguists, the text of which the declaration of the name and position of the Croatian written language worked out.

Main demands

• Previously considered " kroatoserbische variant of Serbo-Croatian or kroatoserbischen language" called standard variety in the future as " the Croatian literary language " to describe this, "It is the inalienable right of every people to describe his language with its own name, regardless of whether it is a a philological phenomenon is, which belongs also to any other people in the form of a special language variant or even a whole ";

• To emphasize the equality of Croatian and Serbian standard variety in the Yugoslav Constitution by " the four literary languages ​​Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian " are mentioned in the same breath;

• That in the public life of the Croatian Republic of exclusively the Croatian standard variety used "and that civil servants, teachers and the public workers, regardless of where they come from, use the written language of the environment in the service in which they operate ."

Effects

The Matica hrvatska broke away from the 1954 agreement concluded in Novi Sad and began designing a new spell - standard work.

In 1971, the pravopis Hrvatski (Croatian spelling ) Stjepan Babić, Bozidar Farms and Milan Mogus which has been prohibited, but a little later appeared in London as a photocopied version appeared. The published work in 1973 Pregled gramatike hrvatskoga književnog jezika ( overview of the grammar of the written Croatian language ) was also banned.

Development after 1971

As one of the consequences of this declaration shall be the Croatian Spring.

In 1974 it came in Yugoslavia as a result of the Croatian Spring amendments to the Constitution. The end of 1988, the Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia, these changes declared invalid, since in their opinion, the designation Croatian language disadvantages the Serbs in Croatia in public life.

On the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the declaration in 2012 this was published again in the Croatian weekly forum, accompanied by a critical analysis.