Bosnia & Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country on the Balkan peninsula of South Eastern Europe. 

Learn more about Bosnia and Herzegovina

• • Population: 2.6 million (4.3 million before the war in the 1990s)                                                                                             

  • Capital: Sarajevo

  • Language: Bosnian (until 1990's known as Serbo-Croatian)

  • Ethnic groups: Bosniak (48%), Serb (37%), Croat (14.3%), other (0.6%) (2000 census)

  • Religion: Islam (40%),Orthodox (31%), Roman Catholicism (15%), Other (14%)

  • Literacy: 97%

Language

Until 1990's Serbo-Croatian was the official language of Yugoslavia.  After that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are called separate languages, although created from one linguistic system.  The division into three separate languages is considered more political than linguistic and an SLP can use information about Bosnian phonology and grammar included in Serbian.

Speech-Language Pathology in Bosnia:

There is a four-year training program that includes special education classes as well as speech-language pathology, and students may choose to focus on hearing children or children with hearing impairments. Now approximately 12 students can graduate annually from the University of Tuzla, but they work primarily in special schools as special ed teachers since there is little integration and mainstreaming in Bosnia.

Implications for SLPs

It is important to remember that people, regardless of their ethnicity or culture, are unique individuals who experience a varied set of experiences. These experiences may be similar to other individuals within their culture, but they could be very different. If you encounter a person from Bosnia in your practice, remember that although they belong to the overarching “Bosnian” or “Yugoslavian” culture, they are also unique individuals. Given that, the following may be helpful when working with individuals from this region of the world.6)

• Bosnian recent history of the war, ethnic cleansing and rape used as a weapon affected the ones who came to the US as war refugees. Be sensitive when discussing politics and religion. The ex-Yugoslavians may be reluctant to talk about the war.

• Bosnian Muslims (called Bosniaks) lived in a communist Yugoslavia, where religion was treated as “opium for masses”. Thus the public manifestation of religious symbols was frowned upon. While working with Bosniaks one should remember that:

• • The Balkan war radicalized some individuals; the national identity is equated with the adherence to a given religion (Bosniaks-Islam, Serbs- Orthodox Christianity, Croats- Roman Catholics).

  • Make sure that you are aware of Ramadan dietary limitation if working with Muslim patients with dysphagia.

  • Many Bosniaks grew up in a westernized society and do not adhere to any religion.

  • Intermarriages were common in Yugoslavia

  • A bilingual Bosnian/Serb/Croat may have speech and language differences in English as a result of the transfer of phonological/grammatical rules from their native language to English. If these rule transfers are consistent with the rules outlined in the language section, they may not indicate disorder.

  • Bosnian/Serb/Croat may consider mental illness and disability as shameful, and as a result deny services or deny existing problems.

 Original Contributor: Gosha Spiess, Winter term 2009

References and Resources