Language, nationalism and war in Yugoslavia

Abstract

This paper is a provisional investigation of the sociolinguistics of the Yugoslav wars, stressing the close connections between language and nationalism and showing how language played di€erent roles in the events leading to the disintegration of the federation and warfare on its territory. Following some background information on the former Yugoslavia, it is shown how the national elites in its republics replaced communism with nationalism in order to retain power, the process being announced in, and accompanied by, developments concerning language. The central portion of the article presents a detailed analysis, classi®cation, and illustration of the linguistic and rhetorical devices used for purposes of mobilization and manipulation of the di€erent ethnic groups in con¯ict. The examples were collected by the author in the period 1992±1996, mainly from Serbian regime±controlled media, but it is pointed out that the same manipulative techniques were applied by the other warring parties. The warning is sounded that such continuous and violent abuse of language may have certain consequences for its future use. This is followed by a quick comparative survey of the language situation in the new states arising in the Serbo-Croatianspeaking area. The concluding section o€ers a summary view of the lessons and implications of this case study.

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