Dialects of Serbo-Croatian
Kajkavian is spoken in North Croatia, including the capital Zagreb, as well as in a few enclaves in Austria, Hungary, and Romania. Though its speakers are ethnic Croats and Kajkavian is thus generally considered a dialect of Serbo-Croatian, it is closer to neighboring Slovene than it is to Chakavian or Shtokavian. The Kajkavian area of Croatia is bordered on the northwest by Slovene language territory. It is bordered on the east and southeast by Shtokavian dialects roughly along a line that was the former division between Civil Croatia and the Habsburg Military Frontier; in southwest along Kupa and Dobra rivers, it persisted in ancient (medieval) contact with Chakavian dialects.
Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian
Serbian and Bosnian language standards tend to be inclusive, i.e. to accept a wider range of idioms and to use loanwords (German and Turkish), whereas the Croatian language policy is more purist and prefers neologisms to loan-words, as well as the re-use of neglected older words. Yet there is criticism of the puristic language policy even in Croatia, as exemplified by linguist Snježana Kordić. These approaches are, again, due to the different cultural, historical and political development of the three variants and the societies they are found in.