Shtokavian or Štokavian (/ʃtɒˈkɑːviən, -ˈkæv-/; Serbo-Croatian Latin: štokavski / Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: штокавски, pronounced [ʃtǒːkaʋskiː]) is the prestige supradialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian standards. It is a part of the South Slavic dialect continuum. Its name comes from the form for the interrogative pronoun for "what": što. This is in contrast to dialects that are exclusive to Croatian language: Kajkavian and Chakavian (kaj and ča also meaning "what").
Shtokavian is spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the southern part of Austria's Burgenland, much of Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. The primary subdivisions of Shtokavian are based on three principles: one is different accents (whether the subdialect is Old-Shtokavian or Neo-Shtokavian), second is the way the old Slavic phoneme yat has changed (Ikavian, Ijekavian or Ekavian), and third is the presence of the Young Proto-Slavic isogloss (Schakavian or Shtakavian). Modern dialectology generally recognises seven Shtokavian subdialects.
