Influence of Bosnian dialects on youth speech in Slavonski Brod

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present research on language and identity of the youth in Slavonski Brod, the town on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, due to its geographical location, has been under a significant influence of the neighbouring Bosnian dialects. This is a town characterized by great immigration processes during 1990s, in the times of Croatian War for Independence and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Throughout history, Bosnian Sava basin was inhabited mostly by Croats. After the occupation of this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Serbs during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, Croats were forced to leave the area and they inhabited Slavonski Brod in great numbers. Today, twenty or so years after the occupation of Bosnian Sava basin, a great number of young people can be heard using elements of Bosnian lexicon as well as syntactic structures typical for the parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina where a considerable flow of refugees came from. Considering the representation of this language variety among the young, the authors raise the question if the Bosnian dialect of the Croatian language exists as a separate kind of youth speech. This paper will present a pilot research with the pupils from Primary school “Vladimir Nazor“in Slavonski Brod and outline the draft for further research.

Keywords

• youth speech
• bosnian dialects
• shtokavian vernacular
• slavonski brod
• identity