Novi Sad agreement

The Novi Sad Agreement (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Novosadski dogovor, Cyrillic: Новосадски договор) was a document composed by 25 Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian writers, linguists and intellectuals to build unity across the ethnic and linguistic divisions within Yugoslavia, and create the Serbo-Croatian language standard.

Sponsored by the Serbian cultural organization's journal Letopis Matice srpske editorial board, talks on the use and acceptability of the Serbian, which uses Cyrillic and is centered on the city of Belgrade (known as the eastern variety of Serbo-Croatian) and Croatian dialect (which uses the Latin script, centered on the city of Zagreb, and is known as the western variety of Serbo-Croat) took place in the city of Novi Sad, in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. Two days of discussion from 8 through 10 December 1954, resulted in the signing of the agreement, which laid out ten conclusions regarding the language.

The agreement focused on the similarities between the two dialects, and was primarily concerned with reconciling the different dialects for the benefit of a federal Yugoslavia. The agreement stated that groups of linguists and intellectuals from both the eastern Serbian variant and the western Croatian variant would work together towards establishing a single dictionary and terminology.

The agreement also stated that the future language should develop naturally, although it was being forged by political will and pressure from both dialects.

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