With the break-up of former Yugoslavia the linguistic make-up within the mentioned area started to consolidate latent divergent standardisation processes leading to the “Ausbau” of even more standard varieties, like Bosnian. The region had been characterised by alternating phases of linguistic divergence and convergence since the early 19th century. Today’s Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian are polycentric, however were considered as one common language, Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian during Yugoslav times.
With today’s more stable political situation, there is no top-bottom linguistic divergence anymore as was the case in the early 1990s. Multi-’ethnic’ Bosnia remains a difficult area, although there is support among young linguists in the whole area for a polycentric description and rejection of any further divergence or prioritising and ranking of the standards in question, which mainstream politics to this day encourage for political reasons.
Migration from this area has occurred in many waves, of which the main ones can be identified as those around WWII, during the 1960s, the 1990s wars and recently, smaller groups.
Within Europe this migration took place from South to North, mainly to receiving countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In addition to this geographical journey, there is also a political one to be marked, namely that from a socialist (“Eastern”) to a democratic (“Western”) country.
All these aspects influenced the language perception of the migrants and their linguistic identity concerning their heritage language.
How did and do these affect language maintenance in Germany?
I have interviewed first, second and third generation migrants which again are members of three different waves regarding their attitudes, linguistic identity and language maintenance.
My research outcomes point to a high decrease in language maintenance within the second/third generation of the 1960s wave - unlike in the other groups with high maintenance. This was mainly fuelled by changing identity issues originating in the country of origin.
I would like to expand my research to migrants' communities in Australia, in order to compare and verify the linguistic and psychological impact of changes within the ‘home-country’ on migrant societies abroad.
Greenberg, R.D. (2004). Language and Identity in the Balkans. OUP.
