Novi Pazar means New Bazaar in Serbian, or Bosnian as many locals prefer to call what I try to diplomatically refer to as “your language”, here in the Sandžak where even the name of the language is under dispute. Notwithstanding the rise of the English-only movement, language conflicts remain an issue of which most Americans remain blissfully ignorant.

Sure, some native Americans—not to be confused with Native Americans—may bitch about “immigrants who refuse to learn English.” However, the power of the English language in America renders this a non-problem. Even if immigrants do not manage to learn the language, their children invariably do, and more importantly, they want their children to learn it. After all, not learning English will surely limit their children’s opportunity and many make their way to the United States to make a better life for their kids—just as I imagine my ancestors did.

No one moves to America to be poor. Despite conservative complaints about immigrants who sponge off the welfare system, many immigrants tend to stay away from the government out of fear of deportation and because encounters with the government are never positive in their homelands. The children of immigrants are often bilingual and the grandchildren are often unilingual—in English.

The situation is quite different here in the country formerly known as Yugoslavia. Outside of Slovenia and Macedonia at the northern and southern extremes of the country, most of the population speaks the language formerly known as Serbo-Croatian. Serbs tend to write it in the Cyrillic alphabet and Croats always in the Latin alphabet but it was unquestionably the same language.

There are various dialects and variations in words and pronunciations across the land, but these differences do not wholly follow boundaries between republics and sometimes there are equally large differences within republics. One example of a "major" difference is what I think of as the “ij” difference. “Thank you very much” is translated as “hvala lepa” in many places but as “Hvala lijepa” in Zagreb (and here in Novi Pazar despite being part of Serbia). It amounts to inserting an extra “ee” sound in a lot of words.

Only an ignoramus or an ardent nationalist (often the same thing?) would dispute that the languages spoken in Croatia and Serbia are mutually intelligible and essentially the same language. Nevertheless, while languages are dying out around the world, they are fruitfully multiplying here. Where Serbo-Croatian used to reign, we now have Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.

And if you go to your local language bookstore, you will find dictionaries for each of them. Now, I imagine that this is no different from Britain, Canada, and the United States, which each have their own standard spellings and some vocabulary differences. However, only the occasional haughty Brit insists that I speak “American” rather than “English.”

Simply how you label your language is an identity indicator around here. At the International University of Novi Pazar, one brochure I read said that foreign students must understand either Serbian or Bosnian. Now, they understand perfectly well that they are virtually one and the same but both must be named to avoid offense, especially since many Muslims increasingly identify as Bosniaks along with their co-religionists in Bosnia.

Croatia is taking the emphasis of national differences to its logical (or illogical) conclusion by actively working to make Croatian more and more different from Serbian through the promotion of new words. In much of the world, speaking a language spoken elsewhere is seen as an advantage. Croatian nationalists are pushing the country in the opposite direction because they want to differentiate themselves.

Indeed, while praising imperialism in any way in thoroughly unpopular in left-wing circles, it did often leave a language heritage that gives a country an economic advantage and an opening to a larger cultural heritage. I doubt all of those call centers would be located in India if the British Raj hadn’t occurred. Similarly, when I visited Kazakhstan, many continued to learn and to value Russian for not just the business advantages but because it allowed them to access a larger culture which they admired.

Yugoslavia is not the only place where language nomenclature is heavily freighted with symbolism. When Spain was debating the EU Constitution, the Spanish government translated it into Catalan.—a sensible decision since Catalan is unquestionably a different language from Castillian, the politically correct label in Spain for what we tend to call Spanish because Catalan along with Basque and Gallego are also languages of the Spanish state.

However, according to Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett, the Valencian government demanded a separate translation of the Constitution into Valencian. The Spanish government complied by providing exactly the same document as they had in Catalan, except that it was labeled “Valencian”. Apparently, the major difference between Catalan and Valencian is that the Valencians don’t want their language named for their northern neighbors.

I just hope that no one gives them the idea of requesting translators for meetings held in Barcelona though I imagine many would volunteer for the easy money. At that point, life will imitate art. I recall L. Frank Baum having fun with Munchkins who demanded a translator when speaking to the Winkies in one of the Oz books.