Ethnic Gropus

More than 95% of population of Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs to one of its three constitutive ethnic groups: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats . The term constitutive refers to the fact that these three ethnic groups are explicitly mentioned in the constitution, and that none of them can be considered a minority or immigrant.

While each have their own standard language variant and a name for it, they speak mutually intelligible languages. On a dialectal level, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks speak a variety of Štokavian dialects: Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats "southern" neo-Štokavian; Croats and Bosniaks "western" neo-Štokavian and Bosniaks and Croats "eastern-Bosnian" old-Štokavian. These dialects are mutually intelligible, but have fixed phonetic, morphological and lexical differences. The question of standard language of Bosnia and Herzegovina is resolved in such a way that three constituent ethnic groups have their educational and cultural institutions in their respective native or mother tongue languages: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

The most easily recognizable feature that distinguishes the three ethnic groups is their religion, with Bosniaks predominantly Muslim, Serbs predominantly Orthodox Christians, and Croats Catholic Christians.

This has led some to believe that these ethnic groups emerged from religious groups in a process that occurred in 19th century. On the other hand, numerous historians, culturologists and ethnologists consider that Croats and Serbs have merely completed their ethnic integration in the 19th century (like, for instance, Norwegians or Slovaks), while Bosniaks crystallized into a separate ethnic group only at the end of the 20th century. A Y chromosome haplogroups study published in 2005 found that "three main groups of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in spite of some quantitative differences, share a large fraction of the same ancient gene pool distinctive for the Balkan area".
This supports the view that Bosniaks are autochthonous population of Bosnia (descendants of the same tribes that formed Serbs and Croats), regardless of their religious preferences (i.e. not only Muslims, but also Orthodox, Catholics or any other group in the country). A term for "Serb" or "Croat" as an autochthonous inhabitant was virtually unknown in Bosnia before 19th century when the idea of identifying Bosnian Orthodox population with Serbs started to grow in Serbia with strong political substance, especially after Ilija Garasanin's silent program for a Greater Serbia - Nacertanije.

In the same time the opposing political forces in the neighboring Croatia started to claim Bosnian Catholics as Croats, bringing confusion to the mainly apolitical population.