Wiktionary:About Serbo-Croatian

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

This page is trying to provide a comprehensive guideline for any issues that arise in connection with the Serbo-Croatian language entries on Wiktionary.

Introduction

Serbo-Croatian is a South Slavic language spoken prevalently in 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. Those 4 different standard languages are however based on the same dialect - Neoštokavian, 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. Each word in either of the standards merits inclusion, granted 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.

BCSM

This section is preliminary: it may change significantly and is not a subject of the ongoing vote

Given the potentially unnecessary political connotation the word Serbo-Croatian carries in some contexts, the L2 section name, as well as name of the language in all the other contexts where it is used on Wiktionary (translation tables, etymologies, appendices..), the term BCS(M) is used instead. As a L2 section name, the name of the language will be defined by using the template {{BCSM}}. The template at this moment only displays the 3-letter abbreviation "BCS", but is intended to support the future "Montenegrin language" when and if it becomes standardized.

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==.

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 (deprecated template usage) gȍvōr and (deprecated template usage) 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 head= parameter to specialized templates such as {{sh-noun}}, as well as general templates such as {{infl}}, as 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 (deprecated template usage) 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 free and mobile pitch-accent system rises the total number of morpho-accentological paradigms to several hundred, which cannot be easily encoded into Wikimedia 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 (deprecated template usage) govòriti / (deprecated template usage) гово̀рити and (deprecated template usage) ìći / (deprecated template usage) 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) and Ijekavian (Bosnian, Croatian and Bosnian Serbian). Each of these merits entries in either of the two scripts. Varieties in jat reflexes should be handled at ===Alternative forms=== header, immediately after the ==Serbo-Croatian== header. For example, the entry (deprecated template usage) mlijéko has its alternative forms header as:

===Alternative forms===
* (''Ekavian''): {{l|sh|mleko|mléko}}
* (''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 is assumed by 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 for Serbo-Croatian at English entries should be of the following format (at the translation entry of (deprecated template usage) 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 (deprecated template usage) organize.

* Serbo-Croatian:
*: Cyrillic: (''Serbian'') {{t|sh|организовати}}, 
*: Roman: (''Bosnian, Serbian'') {{t|sh|organizovati}}, (''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 spellings, as Bosnian and Croatian are 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 (deprecated template usage) 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.