Which dialects are Croatian?

Abstract

The article elaborates the history of the central South Slavic diasystem with its division into three periods aand gives their concise characterization. The author draws our special attention to the Croatian idioms of this genitic-linguistic whole, particularly to vocalism as the most important feature of the physiognomy of individual dialects. Alongside the distribution of the five dialects prior to the migrations (cakavian, kajkavian, West-§tokavian, East- stokavian and torlakian), the author delineates the New-stokavian innovations and the great migrations which began in the XVth century. The migrations, during which cakavian, kajkavian and stokavian speakers with older characteristics moved out of many areas, greatly determined the future language relationships and the future cultural and political history of the South Slavic peoples. The author reaches the following conclusions: Cakavian (6 dialects), kajkavian (6 dialects) and a part of stokavian are Croatian dialects; Croatian as a literary language is a distinct Slavic language; but Croatian organic idioms as well have numerous particularities in comparison with the other languages of the central South Slavic diasystem.