Gordana ILIC MARKOVIC
Universität Wien, Austria

From Serbian to Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian / Serbian / Croatian in Austria -
migrant pluricentricity reflecting complex historical and present developments

Keywords: Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, pluricentric language, migration’ language

This paper analyses development, changes and variations of the Serbian language, particularly through Serbian migration in Austria. Furthermore, it exemplifies how the language, developing in migration, can have an influence on the language in the country of origin. Based on the history of the Serbian language, in particular a period during which it was a minority language in the Habsburg Monarchy, this article will provide a further development of Serbian within Serbo-Croatian, from the beginning (the end of 19th century), and later within Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (the end of 20th century). Considering the varieties of Serbian language, , as an example, it will indicate interdependences of dominant and non-dominant variations, the role of minority and majority language and position of one standard within a pluricentric language. Since the end of the 17th century, there were two Great Migrations of Serbs to the Habsburg Monarchy. By the first decade of the 20th century there were almost two million Serbs living in Austro-Hungary. In the 18th century, the genesis of the Serbian dominant variety in migration was prevented due to its diglossia, division into a low and a high variety. At the beginning of the 19th century, a standard vernacular language was generated; that standardization process, formed up by the migration as a minority language,  strongly influenced further development of the  language dominant variety inside the country of origin, Kingdom of Serbia, by the middle of that century. At the same time, the long-time language contact with Croatian in the Habsburg Monarchy resulted in further development of the language and its pluricentric characteristic; hence, Serbo-Croatian was established in Austro-Hungary at the end of the 19th century (in education and administration). After World War I that pluricentric language approach was established in in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia) too.

Nowadays there are approximately 300.000 speakers of Serbian in Austria. The language was developed during the last fifty years from pluricentric Serbo-Croatian to pluricentric Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (constituted in Austria), under the influence of the language standarisation in former Yugoslavia and nowdays in Serbia, as well as contact in Austria with Croatian and Bosnian. German has the most important role in the formation of the migrants’ variety. The changes are apparent at multiple levels - lexikal, morphological and syntactic all together.

This paper will consider the process of the mentioned development of the Serbian language variety, particularly in Austria, and the process of interaction of the migrants’ and the language in Serbia through the constant private, economic and cultural contacts, as well as in the framework of newly established Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian. Although the motions in the language policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia since the 1990’s resulted in the shifting from pluricentric to national langauage approach, the pluricenticity still exists, especially in the migration. The question is whether that will be relevant in the future and if, and to what extent, for the language development in the countries of origin.