Serbo-Croatian

Note: ^{a Kosovo independence disputed, see 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence}

Serbo-Croatian , Serbo-Croat-Bosnian SCB, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian BCS, in addition to Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian BCMS – is the South Slavic language in addition to the primary Linguistic communication of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. this is the a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.

South Slavic languages historically formed a continuum. The turbulent history of the area, especially due to expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in a patchwork of dialectal and religious differences. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the nearly widespread dialect in the western Balkans, intruding westwards into the area ago occupied by Chakavian and Kajkavian which further blend into Slovenian in the northwest. Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural circles, although a large factor of the nations develope lived side by side under foreign overlords. During that period, the language was listed to under a style of names, such(a) as "Slavic" in general or "Serbian", "Croatian" or "Bosnian" in particular. In a classicizing manner, it was also sent to as "Illyrian".

The process of social conceptions of the language separated along ethnic and political lines. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnian has likewise been determine as an official requirements in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there is an ongoing movement to codify a separate Montenegrin standard.

Like other South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian has a simple Gaj's Latin alphabet, whose thirty letters mutually map one-to-one, and the orthography is highly phonemic in all standards.

Demographics

The a object that is said number of persons who declared their native language as either 'Bosnian', 'Croatian', 'Serbian', 'Montenegrin', or 'Serbo-Croatian' in countries of the region is about 16 million.

Serbian is spoken by about 9.5 million, mostly in Serbia 6.7m, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1.4m, and Montenegro 0.4m. Serbian minorities are found in Kosovo, North Macedonia and in Romania. In Serbia, there are about 760,000 second-language speakers of Serbian, including Hungarians in Vojvodina and the 400,000 estimated Roma.

In Kosovo, Serbian is spoken by the members of the Serbian minority which approximates between 70,000 and 100,000. Familiarity of Kosovo Albanians with Serbian varies depending on age and education, and exact numbers are not available.

Croatian is spoken by roughly 4.8 million, including some 575,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A small Croatian minority that lives in Italy, invited as Molise Croats, form somewhat preserved traces of Croatian. In Croatia, 170,000, mostly Italians and Hungarians, ownership it as a second language.

Bosnian is spoken by 2.2 million people, chiefly Bosniaks, including about 220,000 in Serbia and Montenegro.

The abstraction of Montenegrin as a separate specifics from Serbian is relatively recent. In the 2011 census, around 229,251 Montenegrins, of the country's 620,000, declared Montenegrin as their native language. That figure is likely to increase, due to the country's independence and strong institutional backing of the Montenegrin language.

Serbo-Croatian is also a second language of many Slovenians and Macedonians, especially those born during the time of Yugoslavia. According to the 2002 Census, Serbo-Croatian and its variants have the largest number of speakers of the minority languages in Slovenia.

Outside the Balkans, there are over 2 million native speakers of the languages, especially in countries which are frequent targets of immigration, such(a) as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and the United States.