Shtokavian

Shtokavian
štokavski / штокавски
Native toSerbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo
Standard forms
Dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-1sh
ISO 639-3hbs
Glottologshto1241
Linguasphere53-AAA-ga to -gf &
53-AAA-gi (-gia to -gii)
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Area where Shtokavian standard languages are spoken by the majority or plurality of inhabitants (in 2005)

Shtokavian or Štokavian (/ʃtɒˈkɑːviən, -ˈkæv-/; Serbo-Croatian Latin: štokavski / Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: штокавски, pronounced [ʃtǒːkaʋskiː])[1] is the prestige supradialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards.[2] It is a part of the South Slavic dialect continuum.[3][4] Its name comes from the form for the interrogative pronoun for "what" što (Western Shtokavian; it is šta in Eastern Shtokavian). This is in contrast to Kajkavian and Chakavian (kaj and ča also meaning "what").

Shtokavian is spoken in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, much of Croatia, and the southern part of Austria's Burgenland. The primary subdivisions of Shtokavian are based on three principles: one is different accents whether the subdialect is Old-Shtokavian or Neo-Shtokavian, second is the way the old Slavic phoneme jat has changed (Ikavian, Ijekavian or Ekavian), and third is presence of Young Proto-Slavic isogloss (Schakavian or Shtakavian). Modern dialectology generally recognises seven Shtokavian subdialects.

Distribution of Shtokavian subdialects before 20th century
  1. ^ "štókavskī". Hrvatski jezični portal. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  2. ^ Sussex & Cubberly (2006:506) "The core of the modern literary languages and the major dialect area, is Shtokavian (što 'what'), which covers the rest of the area where Serbo-Croatian is spoken."
  3. ^ Crystal (1998:25)
  4. ^ Alexander (2000:4)