Wiktionary:About Serbo-Croatian

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Introduction

Serbo-Croatian is a South Slavic language spoken prevalently in the modern-day states of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro. Today, each of those states regulates its own standard language, the prestigious literary idiom, termed Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin, respectively. These four different standard languages are, however, based on the same dialect—Neo-Shtokavian—and hence are mutually intelligible and have almost identical grammar and most of the lexis.

The term Serbo-Croatian on Wiktionary acts as a generic container to all 4 national varieties and related dialects, including Old Shtokavian, Kajkavian and Chakavian. Each word in any of the standards or dialects merits inclusion, provided that it satisfies Wiktionary criteria for inclusion. Various variant forms of the same word (e.g. Ijekavian–Ekavian pairs), or words that are confined to a specific standard or a region should be handled by means described below.

Entry format

You are advised to read Wiktionary:Entry layout explained first. It sets forth the general formatting rules for entries, as well as those specific to the English language.

Headers

The entry on the Serbo-Croatian word should be inserted into the article in alphabetical order. It begins with the level-two header

==Serbo-Croatian==

and ends with four dashes (----) in an otherwise empty line if another language follows. If the "Serbo-Croatian" header is not at the top of the page, i.e., there is at least one other level-two header somewhere above it, make sure it also has four dashes atop.

All the other L2 headers for Serbo-Croatian varieties (==Bosnian==, ==Croatian==, ==Serbian== and ==Montenegrin==) are obsoleted by L2 ==Serbo-Croatian== and the content of the respective sections should be subsumed under the Serbo-Croatian section.

The headers allowed below the "Serbo-Croatian" header are the same as those used for English entries. They also have the same order and levels as for English words, and the format of their content will generally be identical as well, though certain differences between the two languages have to be taken into account, such as the "Declension" header.

The headword

Serbo-Croatian is written in both Cyrillic script and Roman script. The two are not mixed together. Hence, identical entries in both scripts should be created, mutually linking among one another.

For nouns, the template {{sh-noun}} should be used, as can be illustrated at the example entries at gȍvōr and го̏во̄р, which have the following headword lines:

 {{sh-noun|g=m|head=го̏во̄р|c|govor|gȍvōr}}

 {{sh-noun|g=m|head=gȍvōr|r|говор|го̏во̄р}}

The first named parameter to template g= is the gender. It can take values m, f or n, for masculine, feminine and neuter gender, respectively.

The named parameter head= is for the specification of the headword that should be displayed instead of the one corresponding to the entry name. Serbo-Croatian (all standard varieties) are based on the Neoštokavian idiom that has 4-way pitch accent system that is denoted by diacritics: double grave (short falling), grave (short rising), inverted breve (long falling) and acute (long rising), plus the macron to denote post-tonic lengths. Such accent marks should be specified as alternative displays, by means of the head= parameter to specialized templates such as {{sh-noun}}, as well as general templates such as {{head}}, as the alt= parameter to {{t}} (when adding translations), or as the second unnamed parameter to {{l}} (when linking to specific entries in various lists) and {{term}} (when mentioning SC words).

The first unnamed parameter can take values of c and r, denoting Cyrillic and Roman script respectively. This parameter is needed so that the appropriate fonts can be loaded in the browser in order to properly display letters with diacritics.

General templates however take the explicit Cyrillic script parameter as sc=Cyrl (for Roman script it is not needed as it is presumed to be the default one).

The last two unnamed parameters are for the alternative script spelling in 2 forms: with and without diacritic marks. The template uses them to generate a link to the appropriate Serbo-Croatian entry in the alternative script.

Inflection templates

Various templates are created in order to provide inflections of inflecting words. Detailed information on each of those can found on their respective talk pages. All the templates should use additional <nowki>sc=Cyrl</nowiki> parameter with Cyrillic-script content.

For nouns, this is the: {{sh-decl-noun}} template. It accepts 14 parameters, corresponding to seven cases and two numbers (singular and plural). Example of its usage can be found on the entry gȍvōr.

====Declension====
{{sh-decl-noun
|govor|govori
|govora|govora
|govoru|govorima
|govor|govore
|govore|govori
|govoru|govorima
|govorom|govorima
}}

All inflected case forms must be provided manually in order to provide the possibility of entering accentual paradigms in each of the inflected forms. Serbo-Croatian morphology is not extremely complex, but its free and mobile pitch-accent system raises the total number of morpho-accentological paradigms to several hundred, which cannot be easily encoded into the MediaWiki template language. Most contributors will, however, only enter normal inflection without accent marks.

For verbs, the standard inflection template is {{sh-conj}}. For example of usage, see the inflection tables of govòriti / гово̀рити and ìći / ѝћи.

====Conjugation====
{{sh-conj
|pr.va=
|p.va=
|vn=
|pr.1s=
|pr.2s=
|pr.3s=
|pr.1p=
|pr.2p=
|pr.3p=
|f1.hr=
|f1.stem=
|impf.1s=
|impf.2s=
|impf.3s=
|impf.1p=
|impf.2p=
|impf.3p=
|impt.2s=
|impt.1p=
|impt.2p=
|app.ms=
|app.fs=
|app.ns=
|app.mp=
|app.fp=
|app.np=
}}

The first 3 parameters (present verbal adverb, past verbal adverb and verbal noun) are optional and only those forms that the verb in question actually has should be passed to the template, and the rest omitted. The difference in spelling of the Future I between Croatian and Bosnian/Serbian in -ti verbs is handled with parameters f1.hr and f1.stem - the former should contain the infinitive without the final -i for -ti verbs. For -ći verbs, both those parameters must be identical to the infinitive form.

Varieties and dialects

Standard Serbo-Croatian varieties are of two forms: Ekavian (Serbian in Serbia) and Ijekavian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian in Bosnia-Herzegovina). Each of these merits entries in either of the two scripts. Different jat reflexes should be linked to under an ===Alternative forms=== header, immediately after the ==Serbo-Croatian== header. For example, the entry mlijéko has its alternative-forms header as:

===Alternative forms===
* {{qualifier|Ekavian}}: {{l|sh|mleko|mléko}}
* {{qualifier|Ikavian}}: {{l|sh|mliko|mlíko}}

Each of these other alternative forms is a full-blown entry by itself. Care should be taken, however, not to provide the Ikavian variant in Cyrillic script, because it has and is historically been written only in Roman script. Also, since the Ikavian form is sub-literary, it should not appear in example sentences, translation tables, or any other similar places.

All the other differences between codified varieties of Serbo-Croatian are to be handled similar to the reflex of jat, at the ===Alternative forms=== header. These include:

• verbs in -irati (Croatian and Bosnian) vs. verbs in -ovati/-isati (Bosnian and Serbian)
• miscellaneous differences in derivational morphology (e.g. agentive suffixes -ka vs. -ica)

More of such differing details can be found at the Wikipedia article Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

When particular spelling or meaning is only confined to a certain region or standard, it should be marked with a context label such as (Croatian), (Serbian), (Bosnian) or (Montenegrin). Additionally, one should further elaborate on the usage, distribution and the "standard" status of the term in the ====Usage notes==== sections, which is intended for such purpose (see WT:ELE). If there is no regional label specified, it is assumed that the term or meaning is common for or codified varieties of Serbo-Croatian, which should be the case in some 95% of words. Ekavian and Ijekavian variants should be unmarked in the definition lines, since their assignment to the particular standard may be assumed from the spelling itself. Ikavian variants, on the other hand, should always have {{Ikavian}} context label, since the Ikavian form (both Štokavian and Čakavian) is sub-literary and not a part of any standard.

Non-standard dialects such as Kajkavian, Čakavian and Torlakian should be marked with their respective context labels such as {{Kajkavian}}, {{Chakavian}} and {{Torlakian}}. Wiktionary allows creating dialectal terms, but one should take care to provide at least one citation for them, as they are not found in the usual dictionaries, but in specialized ones.

Translations

It should be noted that there is no consensus to exclude Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian in translation sections. However, there is no rule against converting Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian to Serbo-Croatian in translation sections, or vice versa.

Translations for Serbo-Croatian at English entries should be of the following format (at the translation entry of speech):

* Serbo-Croatian:
*: Cyrillic: {{t|sh|говор|alt=го̏во̄р|m|sc=Cyrl}}
*: Roman: {{t|sh|govor|alt=gȍvōr|m}}

As with definition lines, in the absence of regional labels, it is assumed that the word is valid in all varieties. Note the usage of alt= parameter that provides alternative display with accent marks, and the sc=Cyrl in case of Cyrillic spelling.

In case of regional differences, thinks get a bit more complicated. For example, at the translation table of organize.

* Serbo-Croatian:
*: Cyrillic: (''Serbian'') {{t|sh|организовати|орга̀низовати|sc=Cyrl}}, 
*: Roman: (''Bosnian, Serbian'') {{t|sh|organizovati|orgànizovati}}, (''Croatian'') {{t|sh|organizirati|alt=organizírati}}

Translation that pertains only to a particular national standard should be marked with a label (some with multiple ones, if they're shared). Also, care should be taken only to provide Cyrillic script for Serbian-specific or universal forms, as Bosnian and Croatian are normally only written in Latin script.

For variant jat reflexes, on the other hand, both Ekavian and Ijekavian forms should be listed next to one another, with specifiers (Ekavian) and (Ijekavian) respectively, in both scripts. E.g., at the translation table for milk:

* Serbo-Croatian:
*: Cyrillic: (''Ekavian'') {{t|sh|млеко|alt=мле́ко|n|sc=Cyrl}}, (''Ijekavian'') {{t|sh|млијеко|alt=млије́ко|n}}
*: Roman: (''Ekavian'') {{t|sh|mleko|alt=mléko|n}}, (''Ijekavian'') {{t|sh|mlijeko|alt=mlijéko|n}}

The order of scripts and jat variant forms should match the above example.

External links

It is permissible to link to the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Wikipedias using the codes lang=bs, lang=hr and lang=sr as well as to the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia (lang=sh). The {{pedia}} shall be used under the ===External links=== header to save space when linking to more than one Wikipedia, as this saves space, as the {{wikipedia}} template takes up more space on a page. {{wikipedia}} is acceptable when only linking to one Wikipedia, and should be used directly under the ==Serbo-Croatian== header.

• w:Serbo-Croatian