Talk:Charter of Ban Kulin/Archive 1

Archive 1

Question

What did people in 12th century Bosnia call their language? It could surely not have been "Serbo-Croatian"? And before Ivan lashes out at me, I am not disputing the existence of a "Serbo-Croatian" language but merely asking for its name in 12th century Bosnia. Was it possibly "Bosnian"? I imagine very few non-Ivan users agreeing on the Miroslav Gospel being written in Serbo-Croatian as opposed to Serbian. I'm afraid that referring to this charter by the term "Serbo-Croatian" is anachronistic seeing how it is largely a historiographic article. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 22:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

So it turns out the Miroslav Gospel is written in Old Church Slavonic, hence meaning the charter of Ban Kulin should be written in Bosnian Old Church Slavonic? I'd say we use that term and stay clear of the anachronism. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 22:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Admittedly I know very little about the characteristics of this charter, and just read that the language of the charter is completely free of Church Slavonic influence. Question remains however, S-C seems out of place. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 22:25, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I.e. does Dženeta Jukan (2009), Jezik Povelje Kulina bana, Diplomski rad, p. 13 really use the term "Serbo-Croatian" for the claim. I'm not in favor of misrepresenting sources. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 22:39, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Fran Markowitz. Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope - page190: The 1189 Charter of Ban Kulin, written in the Bosnian vernacular with a distinctive local script. Note that the term Bosnian is being used in a regional sense here, which is what we also should. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 22:51, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Uh, the much more obvious question here is why are were referencing a diplomski rad from an encyclopedia article? Surely there is no scarcity of reliable sources on this topic? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 00:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The source was used by Ivan when writing up the current article and I assumed it to be "at the very least" a PhD dissertation which I believe are citable. If Ivan allocates truly reliable (and for obvious reasons non-Yugoslav era) sources which speak of the charter in terms of "Serbo-Croatian" then be my guest. However, I'm almost positive most contemporary sources would refer to the language as "Bosnian" (purely territorially and unrelated to Bosniaks) or simply Slavic. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 00:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not PhD dissertation it's normal diplomski rad. It's mostly a compilation of various sources. Where the sources (Peco, Damjanović, Skok, Ivšić, Ham) write Serbo-Croatian or Štokavian, Dženeta writes Bosnian, and that's about the only original part in it ;) But yeah it should be replaced by the referenced sources themselves. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:45, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Miroslav's gospel is written in Church Slavonic of Serbian recension and that's what its article says. "Bosnian language" was invented in the 1990s. No the people themselves didn't refer to it as Serbo-Croatian, but neither did they call it Bosnian. We apply modern notions of language retroactively. The language of Ban Kulin Charter's is old form of Shtokavian that is ancestral to modern Serbo-Croatian (all varieties thereof). Bosniak nationalist claim it's "Bosnian", Serbian nationalist that it's Serbian (because of Cyrillic script and mountains of "evidence" that medieval Bosnia was populated by Serbs), and Croatian linguist normally treat as historical form of Croatian (there are two copies in Dubrovnik Archive), e.g. in Matasović's Poredbenopovijesna gramatika hrvatskog jezika. NPOV wording would be either Old Štokvian or Old Serbo-Croataian. The problem with Old Štokavian is also that it means another thing - Shtokavian dialect without neoštokavian accent retraction, and that's the usage of that term in 99% of cases. So Old Serbo-Croatian seems to be the most fitting. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Ivan, when was Serbian and Croatian invented then? And why is it claimed that the Law codex of Vinodol of 1288 was written in "Croatian language" as opposed to S-C? Surely, the "Croatian language" wasn't standardized either in 1288 if that is what you mean by "invented"? Well, Bosniak "nationalists" seem to be right on this one, since pretty much the entire western scholarship also agrees on Bosnia being "Bosnian" instead of "Serbian" or "Croatian". Considering Bosnia to be Bosnian is not exactly illicit "nationalism" dear Ivan, but if anything a defense against preposterous and ever more tiresome Serb and Croat nationalist irredentist claims. Serb and Croat identities are irrelevant, and at most peripheral, to Bosnia in a historic perspective. The circumstances of the emergence of "Bosnian Croats" and "Bosnian Serbs" is well-documented. You can accuse all sides of nationalism but the Bosnian one is surely the least corrupt (so far). As already stated, be so kind as to present modern reliable sources which use the 19th-century term "Serbo-Croatian" in relation to a 12th-century document. I've already demonstrated Fran Markowitz to use the term Bosnian, not alluding to the 1990s standard, but to the historical state actually being called Bosnia (and ironically this "Serbo-Croatian" document is its birth certificate). Until you find those sources please change Law codex of Vinodol as being written in S-C; you wouldn't want to make me think you acknowledge a Croatian language in the Middle Ages but not a Bosnian one, now would you? To be perfectly frank with you, the Croatian language is probably the most artificial of all the varieties considering its supposed speakers called their language rather Slavonian and Dalmatian well into the 1800s. I don't know if that could be a source of complex..speaking of lies and invention back and forth..Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 18:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Vinodol Codex is written in Chakavian dialect not Shtokavian. 12th century Shtokavian didn't have dialectal variation, so the language of Kulin Charter can't be neither Bosnian nor Croatian/Serbian. Vinodol Codex can be considered Serbo-Croatian in an extended dialectal sense. We can say that the language of Kulin Charter is old form of Shtokavian or Old Serbo-Croatian, but not of any particular form of Serbo-Croatian. We can also say that the language of Kulin Charter is considered a form of Old Bosnian/Old Croatian/Old Serbian by the respective nationalist linguists, if that can be sourced of course (for Old Bosnian we have Dženeta's thesis ;) Since Chakavian is both classified as Croatian and Serbo-Croatian, and not claimed by other ethnicities, stating that it's language is a form of Croatian is not discriminatory and maintains NPOV. I don't get why this is so hard to understand. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Aha I see, adopting and adjusting theses according to one's own agenda. That's a "Balkanite" (used by yourself) if I ever knew one! Chakavian (especially in the Middle Ages) is a Serbo-Croatian dialect and has no historic relation to a language (or ethnic group) that was generated in the 1800s, and revived in the 90s, based on nationalist Croat ambitions. Also, speaking of "NPOV", the term "Serbo-Croatian" (purely as a term) is not neutral considering it omits Bosniaks to the delight of Serb and Croat nationalists. Point is, Bosnian is since the 90s a language specifically associated with Bosniaks, however in a historic perspective it is also the only rational term one can apply to the Slavic language spoken in Bosnia simply due to territorial bonds. We have a reliable source which describes the vernacular as "Bosnian" and I would like that view to be represented. Finally, wikipedia is not a forum and I'm afraid we tend to use it as such you and I. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 16:11, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It's the most neutral of the used terms. BCS is opaque and Bosnian is compromised by relating to the Bosniak variety of SC. Historical usage of Bosnian is always as a regional term and as such is worthless, just as "Illyirian language", "Dalmatian language", "Slavonian language" and a plethora of other regional terms that are anachronistic now. I'm fine with a legacy setion "Kulin Charter is considered by Bosniak historians and linguists as one of the first examples of Old Bosnian language" or something like that, but we also need to represent other (Croat and Serb) sides as well. 12th century Ragusans didn't speak "Old Bosnian". --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:11, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

A legacy section would be a good idea provided that we avoid giving undue weight to sheer nationalist jargon in the style of "Bosnia is this and that according to". It has to be handled delicately and at least with some flicker of rationale to the various claims. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 21:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

@DemirBajraktarevic: - So according to you 12th century Duborovnikans/Ragusans which have preserved their two copies of the charter, in the exact same language as Kulin's copy, were speaking Old Bosnian? :) Look, it's not a problem to mention that Kulin Charter is treated as "corner stone of Bosnian statehood", "birth certificate of Bosnian language" or whatever, but that 1) must be sourced 2) it has to be in a separate section and not in the entire article because according to others it's also a part of history of "Croatian language" (and quite possibly of "Serbian language" as well, due to Cyrillic script...). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:28, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

May I ask where this discussion between you and Demir is taking place? The "corner stone" and "birth certificate" aspects fit in the legacy section, no? Also, I have already put forward a source which categorizes the charter as part of the Bosnian vernacular. We should initiate a "legacy" talk below and plan for that section accordingly. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 21:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

What source? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:16, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

• See this study by Josip Vrana, p. 46 (42 inside the PDF document). After paleographic analysis he concludes: Primjerak A vjerojatno, a primjerci B i C sigurno potječu od pisara, koji su živjeli i stekli svoju obrazovanost u Dubrovniku ili u njegovoj okolici. Iz toga se može zaključiti, da je takva grafija bila u upotrebi na području Dubrovačke općine, a također i u susjednim područjima. To možemo zaključiti još iz činjenice, što je istom grafijom pisano i Miroslavljevo evanđelje.. Regarding linguistic analysis, he concludes (p. 53): Navedeni primjeri ne mogu se doduše označiti kao isključive osoobine dubrovačkoga govora, ali·oni dokazuju, da jezik Kulinove isprave imade zajedničkih crta s dubrovačkim ispravama iz prve polovice XIII. stoljeća ili takvima, kod kojih je dubrovačka kancelarija sudjelovala u njihovoj izradbi. Držim, da ne ću pogriješiti, ako i na osnovu jezičnih osobina Kulinovu ispravu uvrstim među ove posljednje. Kod formulacije hrvatskoga teksta sudjelovali su dubrovački izaslanici, a i sam tekst primjerka A prema svim znacima koncipirao je pisar iz njihove sredine. However, he concludes that the charter was written at Kulin's court on the basis of how the date was written. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:50, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Copy-paste will have to suffice here. Fran Markowitz. Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope - page190: The 1189 Charter of Ban Kulin, written in the Bosnian vernacular with a distinctive local script. Actually, I don't speak BSC and am not in the mood to fiddle around with the substandard translation Google might offer, but considering the source appears to be Croatian I can only assume it argues a "Croat" character for the charter/language. On the contrary, I can make out that references are made to the Republic of Dubrovnik, a unit which was definitely not "Croat" in the Middle Ages by any standard. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 20:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Your source is a bit subpar - ethnography book written by anthropologist? Lol. Vrana is a real linguist. If you don't speak Serbo-Croatian you really shouldn't deal with this topics because 99% of sources are in SC. "Bosnian vernacular" could mean whatever, and doesn't even contradict what I said. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

99% of those Yugoslav-era sources are outdated due to their partisan scholarship. I wouldn't care much either for the "sources" produced under the regime of Pol Pot. Vrana is just one of many scholars and his assessment is not a universal fact as suggested by you. Had you been completely non-biased whilst editing you'd be sure to add "According to Vrana" in each of the paragraphs. Fran Markowitz is an acclaimed cultural anthropologist and exactly the kind of academic to deal with ethnography considering that Ethnography, as the empirical data on human societies and cultures, was pioneered in the biological, social, and cultural branches of anthropology. How awkward to have your little attempt to discredit overthrown by your own lack of basic knowledge (and one much worse than my lack of BSC). "Bosnian vernacular" means that this piece of document is first and foremost associated with the Bosnian geopolitical and socio-cultural sphere (as opposed to Serbo-Croatian (anachronistic), Serb (not true), Croat (not true) or modern Bosniak (anachronistic)). Also, I don't understand why so much emphasis is being placed with analyzing the Dubrovnik copies. Is anyone seriously disputing the originality of this Bosnian document because copies were made in Dubrovnik? Who cares about copies, it is the original that matters. Gosh. I know that David Copperfield has been copied into Chinese speech, but is it a Chinese masterpiece maybe? This has got to be one of the cheapest Croat nationalist attempts to claim this document by referring to a region (Dubrovnik) that ironically wasn't even Croat. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 19:05, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

These are scholarly sources - you're quoting a BA thesis written by a student which is 99% copy/paste with Štokavian and Serbo-Croatian replaced with Bosnian - if that is not fabrication I don't know what is. The other source of yours is some ethnography book written for general public by a person who doesn't even speak Serbo-Croatian, let alone a being a specialist in paleography and historical linguistics. Your talkpage conspiracy-theoretic rants on "partisan scholarship" are amusing, but I can't let you propagate that to articles. If you have scholarly sources that corroborate that Ban Kulin Charter actually originates from Bosnia, feel free to add them. Otherwise - goodbye. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

How distasteful, really. I am not invoking any BA thesis (that source was used by you and your touch for scholarly sources). It would never cross my mind. What a bunch of nonsensical nonsense (with regard to your anti-Markowitz defamation). "Actually originates from Bosnia"? Are you serious? Are we kidding here? Where from would it otherwise originate? Was Kulin the Ban of Bosnia or Dubrovnik? Was the Bosnian court of Ban Kulin undercover Dubrovnikans? And you are certain that I am the one who promotes conspiracies and fringe-theories? The things you write are..otherworldly...a "Dubrovnikan" document written by the court of the Bosnian ban!?!...You have effectively forfeited your discussion privileges with me. I am treating this on an exclusively citation basis from now on. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 20:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that you actually read the updated article - according to the paleographic-linguistic analysis by Vrana, the charter was written by scribes from the Dubrovnik area, at the Kulin's court. That is the conclusion from the referenced study - 60 pages of text which are 10x more worth as a reference than your petty copy/pasted BA thesis and some randomly googled ethnography book combined. Why? Because they were written by a scholar who studied bosančica his entire life, and is a specialist in the field. It is a synthesis of all scholarship on the Charter until it was written. Sadly, you cannot understand a single word of the text since you don't speak Serbo-Croatian - but luckily there are people like me here to illuminate the unwashed masses. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

So, Radoje was a scribe from Dubrovnik hired by the Bosnian ban to write the charter somewhere in Bosnia (Mile?)? Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 21:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Latin part of the copy A was written by the scribe Marin already in Dubrovnik, and the Serbo-Croatian part was written by Kulin's scribe Radoje at Kulin's court. Neither of the three preserved copies however was the original (which is also indicated by the leak of seal). Radoje however was not from Bosnia, but from Travunia-Zeta area, just as the scribes who wrote copies B and C. That is the conclusion of Vrana's study. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Apparently, the Slavic Shtokavian part was written on the initiative of the Bosnian ban using the Bosnian script. Bosnia is knowingly also the dialectal base of Western Shtokavian. Whichever way one looks at it, the Slavic part is first and foremost a Bosnian document. Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 00:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Even the ultra-nationalist Croatian wikipedia writes the following Povelja bosanskog bana Kulina je najstariji dosad pronađeni očuvani bosanski državni dokument i jedan od najznačajnijih dokumenata bosanskohercegovačke povijesti. (Charter Bosnian Ban Kulin is the oldest preserved Bosnian state document and one of the most important documents of Bosnian history), but according to Mr Stambuk's original research we have now been proved that the charter of Ban Kulin is in fact the oldest Dubrovnikian document! Praxis Icosahedron ϡ (TALK) 20:54, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure it's important for the notion of Bosnian statehood - but that's a political not linguistic aspect, not touched upon in the article at the moment. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:56, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK

It is such a shame that this article was not nominated for WP:DYK. It is too late now, unfortunately, but it would have looked great on the main page. Surtsicna (talk) 19:26, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Jas315

Stop vandalizing the article with nationalist propaganda and self-published sources. As I said in the discussion above - it's OK to list Kulin Charter as "the jewel of Bosnian language" or whatever, but it has to be 1) put into context (who said it, why and when) 2) backed up by reliable sources not some randomly googled web pages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

"Serbo-Croatian language" (created 1954 in old Hungarian town Novi Sad) in Bosnia in 11th century?

"Serbo-Croatian" language in Bosnia in 11th century? In that time Serbs and Croats didn't existed at all. "Old Serbo-Croatian" language? This Wikipedia shit is real shit, when every Serbian and Croatian fascist is able to write what ever they like. It is Bosnian language. "Serbo-Croatian language" was created 1954 in Hungarian town occupied by Serbia with name Novi Sad, by Serbian and Croatian ultranationalists hidden inside communist party of the former Yugoslavia. It is a artificial "language".

The Serbs and Croats vandalizing the Bosnian section on Wikipedia, and best is to forbid to all Serbs and Croats to even visit Wikipedia website. If not Bosnian section of the Wikipedia will be full of the nationalist fake propaganda and self-published sources from lying Serbs and Croats, I mean they created from theirs imaginations theirs fake histories, so ban those lying Serbs and Croats from Wikipedia, it is best solution.

What is understood as Bosnian language today was invented and standardized during the 1990s. The language of Kulin's Charter has nothing to do with modern Serbo-Croatian varieties, but rather with their ancestral forms which is in Wikipedia covered under the term Serbo-Croatian. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:51, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

"In that time Serbs and Croats didn't existed at all." -- Actually they did, centuries earlier some guy was Dux Croatorum ("Duke of Croats"), there was also Serbia etc. dnik ► 09:37, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

References

Not serbo-croatian, but OCS old-church-slavic

The charter was not written in Serbo-Croatian, hence it didn't exist then. There existed Serbian, and there existed a separate Croatian, which were in their literature exactly the same since it was written in OCS Old Church Slavic as all slavic nations of that time (except Poland) had their literature written in. This charter is also written in old church slavic. Serbo-Croatian was invented in the 19th to 20th century, to unify Serbian proper and its shtokavian dialect, with the Croatian chakavian and kajkavian, as well as shtokavian dialects. Similar to the creation and dissolution of Czecho-Slovakian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.191.186.115 (talk) 19:36, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

This is simply not true. The charter is not Old Church Slavonic, as can easily be seen from many features:

• no nasal vowels: присеꙁаю instead of Old Church Slavonic присѧꙁаѭ, тисꙋка instead of Old Church Slavonic тꙑсѫща
• Proto-Slavic ť becomes ć (written as k) instead of Old Church Slavonic št: хоке instead of Old Church Slavonic хоще, тисꙋка instead of Old Church Slavonic тꙑсѫща. This is a feature typical of the Serbo-Croatian area, not found in the southern dialects that Old Church Slavonic was based on.
• use of the letter ꙉ for palatalized d (in Old Church Slavonic it was only used for palatalized g)
• use of ꙋ instead of Old Church Slavonic въ to mean ‘in’
• use of ѣ instead of Old Church Slavonic аꙁъ to mean ‘I’
• total lack of the letter ъ and the separate sound it represents (this charter merges ъ and ь)
• use of the ending -ьски instead of Old Church Slavonic -ьскъ and -ьскꙑ

and so on. It is true that Serbo-Croatian as such was standardized in the 19th century on the basis of a Štokavian dialect, but unfortunately there is no other common name to describe the various lects that existed in the area before standardization. There certainly was not a ‘Serbian, and ... a separate Croatian’ but rather a continuum of dialects; it might make some sense to call Štokavian, Kajkavian, and Čakavian separate languages pre-standardization, if anything. In practice, linguistic literature (and thus Wikipedia) treats them all as dialects of BCSM/Serbo-Croatian/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, as they share common developments with each other despite not strictly forming a clade. Also, the situation of modern Serbo-Croatian is not really comparable to that of Czecho-Slovakian; Czech and Slovak were standardized on the basis of two separate dialects, whereas all the Serbo-Croatian national varieties are standardized on the basis of the same dialect (Eastern Herzegovinian Neoštokavian). Vorziblix (talk) 01:27, 23 March 2018 (UTC)