Bunjevac dialect

The Bunjevac dialect (bunjevački dijalekt), also known as Bunjevac speech (bunjevački govor), is a Neo-Shtokavian Younger Ikavian dialect of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language, preserved among members of the Bunjevac community mostly in the Bačka area of northern Serbia and southern Hungary (Bács-Kiskun County), particularly in Baja and surroundings. It is also found in Croatia (e.g. Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Lika-Senj County, Slavonia, Split-Dalmatia County, Vukovar-Srijem County), and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They presumably originate from western Herzegovina. Their accent is purely Ikavian, with /i/ for the Common Slavic vowels yat.

Bunjevac dialect has been included in the list of official public administrative languages of the Subotica Municipality in Serbia since 2021. And Croatia added in 2021 the Bunjevac dialect to the list of protected intangible cultural heritage. Within the Bunjevac community and between Serbia and Croatia is for several decades an ongoing language battle about the status of Bunjevac speech.