Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities

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Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities
Zakon o uporabi jezika i pisma nacionalnih manjina
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Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities (Croatian : Zakon o uporabi jezika i pisma nacionalnih manjina [1] ) is a law which defines the use of minority languages in Croatia. Additionally Croatian Constitutional law on national minorities rights and The Law on Education in language and script of national minorities explicitly define rights on usage of minority languages in Croatia. [2]

Contents

Rights

Serbian language as co-official minority language in municipalities in Croatia Serbian language in municipalities in Croatia.jpg
Serbian language as co-official minority language in municipalities in Croatia

Local governments to which this law applies (Municipalities of Croatia with at least one third of members of ethnic minority or municipality where right is defined by international agreement) are required to explicitly prescribe equal official use of minority language or script throughout its territory, regulate in detail realization of those rights and expressly prescribe all particular rights guaranteed by Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities. [3] They are required to define these rights in their local statutes. [3]

Implementation

In April 2015 United Nations Human Rights Committee urged Croatia to ensure the rights of minorities to use their language and alphabet. [4] The committee report stated that particularly concerns the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the town of Vukovar and the municipalities concerned. [4]

See also

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The Serbian language is one of the officially recognized minority languages in Croatia. It is primarily used by the Serbs of Croatia. The Croatian Constitution, Croatian Constitutional law on national minorities rights, Law on Education in Language and Script of National Minorities and Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities define the public co-official usage of Serbian in Croatia. Serbian and Croatian are two standardized varieties of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language. The majority of Serbs of Croatia use Ijekavian pronunciation of Proto-Slavic vowel jat except in the Podunavlje region in Vukovar-Syrmia and Osijek-Baranja Counties where local Serb population use Ekavian pronunciation. Post-World War II and Croatian War of Independence settlers in Podunavlje which have come from Bosnia, Dalmatia or Western Slavonia either use their original Ijekavian pronunciation, adopted Ekavian pronunciation or both of them depending on context. In 2011 Census majority of Serbs of Croatia declared Croatian standardized variety as their first language with Ijekavian pronunciation always being required standard form in Croatian. While Serbian variety recognizes both pronunciations as standard, Ekavian is the more common one as it is the dominant one in Serbia, with Ijekavian being dominant in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minority languages of Croatia</span>

The Constitution of Croatia in its preamble defines Croatia as a nation state of ethnic Croats, a country of traditionally present communities that the constitution recognizes as national minorities and a country of all its citizens. National minorities explicitly enumerated and recognized in the Constitution are Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Russians, Bulgarians, Poles, Romani, Romanians, Istro-Romanians ("Vlachs"), Turks and Albanians. Article 12 of the constitution states that the official language in Croatia is Croatian, but also states that in some local governments another language and Cyrillic or some other script can be introduced in official use.

References

  1. "Odluka o proglašenju Zakona o uporabi jezika i pisma nacionalnih manjina u Republici Hrvatskoj". narodne-novine.nn.hr. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  2. Serb Democratic Forum. "Provedba Ustavnog zakona o pravima nacionalnih manjina u jedinicama lokalne i područne (regionalne) samouprave" (PDF) (in Serbian). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 February 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
  3. 1 2 Ministry of Public Administration. "NAPUTAK ZA DOSLJEDNU PROVEDBU ZAKONA O UPORABI JEZIKA I PISMA NACIONALNIH MANJINA U REPUBLICI HRVATSKOJ" (PDF) (in Croatian). Retrieved 6 December 2014.
  4. 1 2 B92 (3 April 2015). "UN calls on Croatia to ensure use of Serbian Cyrillic" . Retrieved 2015-04-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)