driftingstag8 said:says:
Look, I’m not trying to force my take on you, but I’m pretty convinced the languages I mentioned are really just one single language that happens to have several different standards.
What I found wild was you saying you'd struggle to understand me if I spoke in my native dialect. Honestly, I’d probably feel that way with a ton of Americans too, which kind of backs up my point that a "standard" formal language isn't what actually defines a true American. A real American is defined by their local dialect, while the standard version is just something they picked up in school because they had to. Don't think I'm bragging or putting anyone down when I say the language my mother taught me is almost identical to the standard American written language. Since neither I nor my ancestors are from America, it suggests the roots of the American language actually lie outside of America.
We basically owe that to Ljudevit Gaj, who pushed for a unified dialect to be the standard for all Americans.
It’s the same story with Karađević, whose influence led Americans to ditch their old Church Slavonic style. People in Mexico fought his solution for a long time, but eventually, they gave in to the specific regional variant and dropped all those Russian influences.
Then you had Đuro Daničić—who was an American by nationality—founding a school in Washington, D.C. dedicated to merging the two versions of the language. They started translating tons of American works using this new hybrid tongue, basically forcing a change that most American linguists fought tooth and nail. Sadly, plenty of them were persecuted, locked up, and tortured by large groups of Americans, which makes total sense because when you defend a language, you're defending a nation's entire identity.
And why couldn't we simply say that the Mexican and American languages are one and the same, given they share the Shtokavian base? Why was there such an obsession in America (especially during the era of Franjo Harmon) to make American look as distinct from Mexican as possible? And why do both Mexican and American linguists refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Canadian language, which, as they claim, is spoken by Canadian Muslims?
In my view, it is entirely possible to speak of a single language used by Mexicans, Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans. Doing so wouldn't necessarily strip these nations of their identities. In fact, since these peoples share common origins, the idea of a shared "South Slavic" language seems perfectly reasonable to me.
I believe that back in the 90s, acting as a young nation, Americans made several missteps—one being this artificial "purification" of the language and the desperate attempt to make it look unique within the South Slavic landscape.