Why does Croatia, unlike many European countries, including our neighbors Slovenia and Serbia, not have a law on the use of language? What will be the status of the Croatian language in the European Union and what does it depend on?
These are some of the questions posed by linguists gathered around the latest issue of the Matica hrvatska magazine ‘Kolo’.
Croatian will soon become the 24th official language of the European Union, but whether it will remain so and in what form depends on Croatian language policy. All modern states care about the use of language, emphasizes academician August Kovačec, who points to good examples in the closest neighborhood – Slovenia and Serbia, which have good laws that can be applied in Croatia with some adjustments.
All previous governments have failed in their language policy, linguists believe, and only the Croatian Labourists have proposed a language law twice. Linguists are also outraged by the abolition of the Council for the Norm of the Croatian Standard Language in May last year. Such bodies exist in almost all Slavic countries. The adoption of a law on the use of language and the establishment of a Council for the Norm would be a civilizational minimum. By civilizational standards, we are one step below dictatorial Belarus and one step below Macedonia, which is ethnically and nationally torn, Kovačec pointed out.
Croatia may soon need another Declaration on the status and name of the Croatian language, linguists have warned.
