[Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

Sun Jan 8 16:41:02 UTC 2006

But linguistically almost _the_ test of "what is a language" is mutual
comprehensibility. If they are mutually comprehensible they you should be
able to understand Bosnians or Croats.

If the communication problems result from shared cultural assumptions (eg
religious, popular culture references) then this no different from speakers
of various varieties of English. 

Once you say they are mutually comprehensible you are saying that for
non-social reasons they are the same language. 

Caroline/secretlondon

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Filip Maljkovic
Sent: 08 January 2006 11:20
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

The languages have started diverging a long time ago and since the 1990s,
they have become more distant. It is true that the speakers of those 3
languages are mutually intelligible, but that doesn't mean that they speak
the same language.

Moreover, they speak culturally and liguistically 3 different languages and
it's sometimes hard for me to understand what Bosnians or Croats are saying
just because of the diversity (I'm a Serb, by the way). 
Thanks for your time.
Filip Maljkovic, bureaucrat from Serbian wikipeda
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