ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has been misused in Croatia and Serbia. The Charter, which aims to protect and promote the historical regional or minority languages of Europe, reads that a regional or minority language must be different from the official language of a state and must not be a dialect of the official language. Since the standard and official language of the Bosniaks, Croats, Montenegrins and Serbs is based on the same dialect and is an example of a typical pluricentric language such as English, German or Spanish, it should not be regarded as several minority languages according to the Charter. However, Croatia and Serbia use the Charter to separate children of different nationalities in schools on the pretext of different languages. The chapter also describes language-based segregation of students in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Japan’s efforts to alleviate it. Finally, the chapter informs about a public action performed by prominent scientists, writers, journalists, activists and other public figures from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, aiming to end language-based segregation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.
