Standard Bosnian

Bosnian language

Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....

, Croatian

Croatian language

Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...

 and Serbian

Serbian language

Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

 are different national literary and official register

Register (sociolinguistics)

In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...

s of the Serbo-Croatian language

Serbo-Croatian language

Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...

.
In socialist Yugoslavia, the official policy insisted on one language with two standard varieties – Eastern (practiced in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina by all nationalities, either Ekavian or Ijekavian) and Western (practiced in Croatia by all nationalities, Ijekavian only). However, since the late 1960s, because of discontent in Croatian intellectual circles, Croatian cultural workers started to refer to that language exclusively as 'Croatian literary language', or sometimes 'Croatian or Serbian language', as it was common before the Yugoslavia.