Rade and Jasna Kronja were in Zagreb a short while ago. We are friends since our university days. This morning I found Rade’s electronic-mail message from Alma Ata, where he works as an architect since a few years ago. He wanted to thank me for my hospitality, which consisted of a dinner, and asked me for a small favor. Namely, he wanted a copy of Snježana Kordić’s Jezik i nacionalizam (Language and Nationalism).[1] I responded that the book would be on its way as soon as I got his whereabouts. I also mentioned that I had heard of her book and that I had read a newspaper article of hers, which I quite liked. She is one of the rare Croatian linguists fighting for Croatian language without nationalist interventions meant to make it as different from Serbian as possible. At any rate, an hour later I already had the book, which I will send to Rade as soon as I get his address in Kazakhstan. It has just crossed my mind to read the book in the meanwhile. But then I reminded myself that I read Croatian only under extremely unusual circumstances.

Addendum (March 20, 2013)

Rade asked me to keep the book until his and Jasna’s next visit. We will meet in a few hours, and I will give him the book at long last. For better or worse, I have not read it. I just leafed through it, on a couple of occasions and it was clear that Kordić and I agreed on everything concerning language. We are on the same page, as it were. Perhaps I would go a step farther, though. I have adopted the terminology introduced by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and thus I call the language of Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs by the court’s felicitous acronym: BCS. If Serbo-Croatian is dead, BCS will never die. The Hague be praised!

Footnote

1. Zagreb: Durieux, 2010.