Bosnian
босански/bosanski
Pronunciation	[bɔ̌sanskiː]
Spoken in	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Serbia  Montenegro  Kosovo[a]  Croatia  Slovenia  Macedonia  Albania  Turkey
Region	Southern Europe
Native speakers	2.2 million  (2004)[1] (number is ambiguous)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western Serbo-Croatian Štokavian dialect Bosnian
Writing system	Latin Cyrillic[2]
Official status
Official language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Montenegro
Recognised minority language in	Albania  Serbia  Kosovo[a]
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bs
ISO 639-2	bos
ISO 639-3	bos
Linguasphere	part of 53-AAA-g
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Bosnian language (bosanski/босански [bɔ̌sanskiː]) is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language,^[3][4][5] spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[6]

The same subdialect of Shtokavian is also the basis of standard Croatian and Serbian, as well as Montenegrin, so all are mutually intelligible. Up until the dissolution of former SFR Yugoslavia, they were treated as a unitary Serbo-Croatian language, and that term is still used to refer to the common base (vocabulary, grammar and syntax) of what are today officially four national standards. The Bosnian standard uses both Latin and Cyrillic alphabet.

The first official dictionary in the Bosnian language was printed in the early 1630s,^[7] while the first dictionary in Serbian was printed only in the mid-19th century. Written evidence and records point to the Bosnian language being the official language of the country since at least the Kingdom of Bosnia, as further corroborated by the declaration of the Charter of Ban Kulin, one of the oldest written state documents in the Balkans and one of the oldest to be written in Bosančica.^[8][9]

History[link]

The modern Bosnian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin alphabet. However, scripts other than Latin were used much earlier, most notably the indigenous Bosnian Cyrillic called Bosančica (literally "Bosnian script") and dates back to the late 10th and early 11th centuries AD.^[10] The Humac tablet, one of the oldest Bosnian literacy monuments, is written in this script. The script is of the greatest significance to Bosnian history and linguistics, since it is the one script that is purely native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and is linked to the Bosnian medieval monarchy and the medieval Bosnian religion where it was used abundantly. It can also be found in many royal state documents and as well on old stećaks. The substantial influence of bosančica on medieval Bosnia has unfortunately made it a target of controversial debates and propaganda^{[citation needed]} throughout the history which has led to the tendency of some Croat and Serb philologists and paleographers to deny the exclusivity of association of the script with medieval Bosnian state, and associate it to Croatian and Serbian cultural provenience, despite its geographical origin and the historical prevalence of usage. Other scripts used include: begovica (used by Bosniak nobility) and arebica, or Arabic script adjusted to write Slavic speech, also chiefly used by Bosniak nobility during the Ottoman era.

In addition, the oldest South Slavic document is the Bosnian statehood charter from 1189, written by Bosnian ruler Kulin Ban in Bosnian Cyrillic. Some other early mentions include one from July 3, 1436, where, in the region of Kotor, a duke bought a girl that is described as: "Bosnian woman, heretic and in Bosnian language called Djevena".

The irony of the Bosnian language is that its speakers are, on the level of colloquial idiom, more linguistically homogeneous than either Serbs or Croats but they failed, for the historical reasons outlined below, to standardize their language in the crucial 19th century. The first Bosnian dictionary, a rhymed Bosnian–Turkish glossary authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi, was composed in 1631. But unlike e.g. Croatian dictionaries, which were written and published regularly, Uskufi's work remained an isolated foray. At least two factors were decisive:

• The Bosniak elite wrote almost exclusively in foreign (Turkish, Arabic, Persian) languages. Vernacular literature, written in modified Arabic script, was thin and sparse.
• The Bosniaks' national emancipation lagged behind that of the Serbs and Croats, and since denominational rather than cultural or linguistic issues played the pivotal role, a Bosnian language project didn't arouse much interest or support.

Prescriptions for the language of Bosniaks in the 19th and 20th centuries were written outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Probably the most authentic Bosniak writers (the so-called "Bosniak revival" at the turn of the century) wrote in an idiom that is closer to the Croatian standard than to the Serbian (western Štokavian dialect, Ijekavian accent, Latin script), but which possessed unmistakably recognizable Bosniak traits, primarily lexical ones. The main authors of the "Bosniak renaissance" were the polymath, politician and poet Safvet-beg Bašagić and the storyteller Edhem Mulabdić.

During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian was introduced as the sole official language; it was the language of all Bosnians: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. This was in conjunction with administrator Benjamin von Kállay's promotion of Bošnjaštvo, a policy that aimed to inspire in Bosnia's people 'a feeling that they belong to a great and powerful nation'^[11] and viewed Bosnians as "speaking the Bosnian language and divided into three religions with equal rights."^[12][13] With the death of Kallay the policy was abandoned and in 1907 the name was changed to Serbo-Croatian, and this was the official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the parliamentary period, from the annexation until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I.

In the days of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia the lexis was influenced by standard Serbo-Croatian and the Latin script became dominant. The official language name was Serbo-Croatian.

On a formal level, the Bosnian language began to take a distinctive shape in the 1990s and 2000s: lexically, Islamic-Oriental loan words are becoming more frequent; phonetically: the phoneme /x/ is reinstated in many words as a distinct feature of vernacular Bosniak speech and language tradition; also, there are some changes in grammar, morphology and orthography that reflect the Bosniak pre-World War I literary tradition, mainly that of the Bosniak renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century. The legal distinction occurred in the mid 1990s. The 1993 language law declared that there was a single official language for Bosnians: "In the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Ijekavian standard literary language of the three constitutive nations is officially used, designated by one of the three terms: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian. Both alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic, are equal."^[14] However, the 1994 constitution declared that these were three official languages: "The official languages of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be: Bosnian language, Croat language and Serb language. The official scripts shall be Latin and Cyrillic."^[15]

The constitution of Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not recognize any language or ethnic group other than Serbian.^[16] Bosniaks were mostly expelled from the territory controlled by the Serbs from 1992, but immediately after the war demanded to restore their civil rights on those territories. The Bosnian Serbs refused to make references to the Bosnian language in their constitution and as a result had constitutional amendments imposed by High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch. However, the constitution of Republika Srpska refers to it as the "Language spoken by Bosniaks",^[17] due to the fact that the Serbs had to officially recognize it, but still avoid recognition of its name.^[18]

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO),^[19] United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN), and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) recognize the Bosnian language. Furthermore the status of the Bosnian language is also recognized by bodies such as the United Nations, UNESCO, and translation and interpreting accreditation agencies.^[20]

Serbia includes the Bosnian language as an elective subject in primary schools.^[21] Montenegro officially recognizes the Bosnian language, as its 2007 Constitution specifically states that while Montenegrin is the "official language," also "in official use are Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian languages."^[22][23]

Controversy[link]

Areas where Bosnian language is spoken (as of 2006).

The name for the language is a controversial issue, primarily for Croats and Serbs and it is alternatively referred to as "Bosniak" (bošnjački; also spelled "Bosniac").^[24] Of the three Bosnian ethnicities (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs) only the Bosniak ethnicity overwhelmingly speak the Bosnian language. The name "Bosnian language" is controversial for those Serbs and Croats who think the name of the language implies it is the language of all Bosnians, which includes Bosnian Croats and Serbs. Croats and Serbs mostly use the Croatian and the Serbian, respectively. It should be noted that all three languages are mutually intelligible and are examples of Ausbausprache. Due to the conjunction of historical circumstances, all are essentially identical due to being codified on the same Neoshtokavian dialect, with a number of people identifying their language as the unified Serbo-Croatian language.

A number of Croatian linguists, specifically Radoslav Katičić^{[citation needed]}, Dalibor Brozović^{[citation needed]}, and Tomislav Ladan^{[citation needed]}, consider the appropriate name to be "Bosniak" rather than "Bosnian" whilst some other Croatian linguists (Zvonko Kovač^{[citation needed]}, Ivo Pranjković^{[citation needed]}) recognize it as Bosnian. In the opinion of the former, the appellation "Bosnian" refers to the whole country, therefore implying that "Bosnian" is the national standard language of all Bosnians, not only Bosniaks. According to Croatian participant Radoslav Dodig, the renaming of "Bosniak" into "Bosnian" was not a process, but a semi-hidden maneuver.^{[25][dead link][26]}

Phonology[link]

Vowels[link]

The Bosnian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

The letter r can also represent a vowel, when surrounded by two other consonants as in the words brzo (quick), trn (thorn), mrk (dark), vrlo (very).

Consonants[link]

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English and most other Indo-European languages west of India, voicedness is phonemic, but aspiration is not.

In consonant clusters, all obstruents are either voiced or voiceless depending on the voicing of the final consonant in the cluster. This rule does not always apply to foreign words (Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton/ВашинГтон), personal names and across syllable boundaries.

/r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of the syllable nucleus in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r/. A similar feature exists in Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene, Czech, and Slovak. Very rarely, /l/ can be syllabic (in the name for the river Vltava, for example) as well as lj, m, n and nj in jargon.

Grammar[link]

Bosnian grammar from 1890.

The first dictionary of Bosnian language was published in 1631 as the Bosnian-Turkish Dictionary (1631). The first official Bosnian grammar reference book was published in 1890.

See also[link]

Bosnia and Herzegovina portal

• Bosnian Cyrillic
• Humac tablet
• Hval Manuscript
• Arebica
• Proto-Slavic
• Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
• Oriental Institute in Sarajevo

Bosnian language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bosnian language

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bosnian proverbs

External links[link]

• Basic Bosnian Phrases
• Learn Bosnian – List of Online Bosnian Courses

Notes[link]

References[link]

 This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document "2006 edition".

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Angelina Jolie
Jolie at the Cannes premiere of The Tree of Life in 2011
Born	Angelina Jolie Voight (1975-06-04) June 4, 1975 (age 37) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Citizenship	United States, Cambodia, Sarajevo (honorary)
Occupation	Actress, director, writer, producer, humanitarian
Years active	1982; 1991–present
Spouse	Jonny Lee Miller (1996–1999) Billy Bob Thornton (2000–2003)
Partner	Brad Pitt (2005–present)
Children	6
Parents	Jon Voight Marcheline Bertrand
Relatives	James Haven (brother) Chip Taylor (uncle)

Angelina Jolie ( /dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE, born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress and director. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011.^[1][2] Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as the world's "most beautiful" woman, a title for which she has received substantial media attention.^[3][4][5][6]

Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Jolie achieved wide fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and established herself among the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood with the sequel The Cradle of Life (2003).^[7] She reinforced her reputation as a leading action star with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and Wanted (2008)—her biggest non-animated commercial successes to date^[8]—and received further critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Jolie made her directorial debut with the wartime drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie now lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship notable for fervent media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.

Early life and family[link]

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the sister of actor James Haven, niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, and goddaughter of actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father's side, Jolie is of German and Slovak descent,^[9][10] and on her mother's side, she is of primarily French Canadian, Dutch, and German ancestry.^[9] Like her mother, Jolie has stated that she is part Iroquois;^[11] her only known Native ancestor was a Huron woman born in 1649.^[9]

Jon Voight at the Academy Awards in 1988; Jolie can be seen behind his right shoulder

After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother lived with their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions to focus on raising her children.^[12] As a child, Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father.^[13] When she was six years old, her mother and stepfather, filmmaker Bill Day, moved the family to Palisades, New York;^[14] they returned to Los Angeles five years later. She then decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions.

At the age of 14, Jolie dropped out of her acting classes and aspired to become a funeral director.^[15] She began working as a fashion model, modeling mainly in Los Angeles, New York, and London. During this period, she wore black clothing, experimented with knife play, and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend.^[13] Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home.^[12] She graduated from high school and returned to theater studies, though in recent times she has referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos."^[16]

Jolie suffered episodes of suicidal depression throughout her teens and early twenties.^[15] She felt isolated at Beverly Hills High School among the children of some of the area's affluent families, as her mother survived on a more modest income, and she was teased by other students, who targeted her for being extremely thin and for wearing glasses and braces.^[13] She found it difficult to emotionally connect with other people, and as a result she started to self-harm;^[17] later commenting, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me."^[18] She also began experimenting with drugs; by the age of 20, she had tried "just about every drug possible," including heroin.^[19]