THE LANGUAGE FOR "GOOD CROATS"

Draft Law on Croat Language:

AIM, Zagreb, June 13, 1995 Towards the end of April, two draft laws which are, after long announcements, expected to finally regulate the language of the Croats were handed to the Chairman of the Chamber of Representatives of the Croat Assembly. The Draft Law on Croat language and Draft Law on the State Office for Language are works of Vice Vukojevic, deputy of the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), who in the past three years distinguished himself as the Chairman of Assembly Committee for Victims of War, and, in accordance with his duty and diligent counting of remains in mass graves, earned the epithet of the coroner on duty of Croatia. Whether a coincidence or not, but Vukojevic's "drafts" were preceded by President Tudjman's announcement of a final settlement of the issue of Croat language. Namely, in his Christmas address to the nation, the Croat President warned about the danger of an invasion of foreign words in Croat language, making it known that not only the Assembly and the Government, but the municipal and city administrations should give this problem their attention. The President also announced the necessity of foundation of a Government office for language, on the occasion.

In the preamble to his "Draft Laws", Vukojevic clarified that in the course of its history, Croatia was under strong political, administrative and cultural influence of other nations and states, which mostly had a bad effect on the purity and order of Croat language, so that, according to his assessment, the linguistic situation in the Republic of Croatia was exceptionally bad. The most difficult period for Croat language was during second Yugoslavia when it was presumptuously and insolently corrupted by Serbian. Only in the independent Republic of Croatia, possibilities have been created for giving back Croat language its honour and dignity, and thereby to the Croat people, which Vukojevic intends to initiate by getting rid of a thick layer of the total of 30 thousand foreign words (loan-words, vogue-words) which mar linguistic purity.

Draft Law on Croat Lnguage introduces the so-called root orthography. "Permanently speaking personnel (announcers and correspondents)" in Croat Radio-Television must faultlessly speak Croat language (Article 8), films in foreign languages which are piblicly presented, rented and sold in the Republic of Croatia must be translated into Croat language, they must be very understandable and they must be written completely legibly (Article 9). Article 21 stresses that this Law comes into force on the eighth day of its publication in the "National Journal", and it will be applied as of September 1, 1995, with the explanation that it is assumed that it will be adopted by the end of July 1995, and the new school year starts in September, when schools and universities will have to coordinate their currilae with the provisions of this law.

Giving back Croat language its true nature and returning it to its roots and orthography, according to Vukojevic's documents, can be achieved by a planned and all-inclusive policy pursued from a single expert centre which will be an order-issuing authority. The other Draft Law, therefore, refers to foundation of a State Office for Croat Language which would supervise "implementation of the Law on Croat Language", including, according to the author's conception, inspection of school and university textbooks for all subjects, linguistic advising of all writers and publishers of literary and educational works, supervision of language in the press, theatres, films, radio and television stations (...) in other words, each and every printed or broadcast word in Croatia would have to get the approval of this "Supreme language editor", that is, the head of the State Office for Croat Language who would be nominated and relieved from duty by the President of Croatia in person. Draft of this law prescribes also penalty clauses for speaking and writing in non-Croat language which may bring, besides fines, imprisonment of up to six months.

"Croat language is sufficiently powerful and healthy substance, that it needs no legal regulations to survive. Experience shows that such cases are unnecessary and unsuccessful in practice", this is a comment of the writer Zvonimi Majdak on Vukojevic's legal drafts on language. In case such proposals are adopted, Majdak says he will stop writing, and another writer, Goran Tribuson, says "after introduction of this 'root' orthography, I could enroll in the first grade of elementary school". These are just a couple out of many negative reactions of Croat writers, linguists and publishers published in a recent poll of the "Feral Tribune". Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Editor-in-Chief of Vijenac and President of the Croat PEN centre says that he does not "even wish to think about Vukojevic's work" because for him "it is fascistoid and makes me sick".

Publicist Branimir Donat reminds that Ante Pavelic, head of the quisling Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from the times of the Second World War, insisted on root orthography: "We should know that the roots of Croatia are not in root orthography, on the contrary, I guarantee that if it is adopted, in the next thirty years, together with all the known and unknown problems, Croatia will have a new one - the issue of literacy of the nation, which is not a national virtue and characteristicn now". The fact that an office would be founded which would rely on monstrous regulations and methods from the NDH is unacceptable as it is, publisher Nenad Popovic says. "After all, the 'Novi Sad' orthography (adopted in 1961) ended up as the language of the JNA (Yugoslav people's Army), language of repression, because the state stood behind it. It is especially in bad taste that something like this is proposed in the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the tragedy of the Second Woirld War."

All countries have language policy and partly it is pursued by means of laws. But, most frequently, legal regulations refer to the part which is called planning of the status of language, that is, to the choice of languages or idioms which will be used in public communication. Very rarely, at modern times one could even say, exceptionally, laws regulate and plan what a language which will be used in public communication will be like. In France, for instance, there is a law which partly determines what the linguistic corpus must look like, but that is exactly the case which showed that such attempts are unsuccessful and that planning of the corpus of a language must be done in a completely different way.

"It is strange in the whole story that this draft proposes radical changes in the orthography and vocabulary", Dubravko Skiljan, a linguist, says. "Such changes are in fact impossible to implement, because they produce whole generations of illeterate people. Namely, at the moment orthography is radically changed, the entire population becomes illiterate until it learns the new orthography, so that in the next several years, our whole population would be illeterate. And elimination of foreign words from public communication would make us mute. Prescribed penalties for violation of linguistic rules include imprisonment, implying a totalitarian way of thinking. Certain patterns are now being repeated which, despite all terrible things which are surrounding us, we believed had disapperaed from this space fifty years ago".

Vukojevvic's draft laws on language are one move in a row of characteristic moves of the current Croat policy. Noone, not even the author himself, however big a layman he may be, believes that language of public communication can be changed so quickly. Besides for communication, language is used as a symbol around which different types of communities gather. The current Croat regime has used symbols as means of differentiation for the past several years. This draft law symbolically forms language in such a way that population of Croatia can clearly be differentiated in relation to it (by adopting or rejecting it). By rejecting to use this language, the Serbs will clearly identify themsleves, as well as Yugo-nostalgics and incorrigible communists, but this time finally, it will also be possible to distinguish "good" Croats from the "bad" ones. If Vukojevic's plan passes, the "good" Croats will be those who will be ready to accept the new language as a symbol which surpasses everything, whether they will talk like that or not. This will also show even within the party of the proposer who is "true", and who has in fact "strayed off".

BRANKA VUJNOVIC