Statistical Analysis of Texts of the Balkans Electronic Media Columnists

Abstract

This paper presents results of statistical analysis of some segments in texts of the four columnists in the Balkans electronic media: Bosnia and Herzegovina – Dnevni avaz (Muhamed Filipović), Serbia – Politika (Aleksandar Apostolovski), Croatia – Jutarnji list (Miljenko Jergović) and Montenegro – Vijesti (Miodrag Lekić). They write about different themes, in different language styles, but statistical analysis clearly points to large similarities in certain segments, such as number of particular alphabet letters, most common combinations of two or three words, etc. These results leave space to conclude that it is one polycentric language, which is not a rare phenomenon in the modern world. Naturally, the final judgement about this should be given by the linguists.