Root cause of ethnic problem

The root of the problem is not one but many. To start with, one should ask himself why it came to a war in the first place, which, as long it concerns me, was caused by governments outside of the Yugoslavian border, namely Germany and the USA. Reasons for the acting on their behalf can easily be found in economical but also military tactical ideas. There are many that wouldn't agree with me, yet they usually seem to fail to do so due to nationalism, racism or simply misinformation on their part. It is well documented, although sparingly to be found in news media, that there was essential involvement of the two stated countries in plans of the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 80's. However, certainly - the people of Yugoslavia failed on their own. To let outer forces heat up old disputes and to act in the way they did, they've proven like many others in history, that humanity is yet far from ethereal. Yes, religious tensions acted and so did nationalistic and capitalistic ideas. They existed before but were usually controlled well during the times of Tito as ruler.

Now to answer your other question: Croatian and Bosnian are similar languages, so is Serbian. Once they were put together as an official language, the Serbo-Croatian. Some may again deny their similarity, unsurprisingly to their hatred, but fact is, they can understand each other quite well without too much effort. It should be noted however that due to the recent conflicts and the stronger nationalism in those countries, the languages are drifting apart, for example through reviving archaic words. Macedonian is harder to understand for Serbians, so it seems, despite bordering each other, but yet they have their similarities as well. Montenegrin is a recent invention - or so I think - again to rising nationalism in their area. Just a few years ago they were recognized as speakers of Serbo-Croatian, respectively Serbian.

Your surname Subhashisc = Subašic... You're ancestors are for sure from Dalmacia, somewhere around the road from Knin to Šibenik..

The root of the problem is neither religious nor ethnic. As everywhere else in the world, the root of the problem is politicians wanting to control more than they have at any one moment. They deliberately feed a religious or ethnic frenzy that allows individuals to plunder, seek revenge or otherwise act on their negative instincts using this artificial conflict as a shield to disguise their true motives.

Yugoslav people lived together peacefully for decades, going to the same schools, same holiday locations, serving the army together, working together and intermarrying as well. There were prejudices, as they are anywhere in the world, but these were within reasonable bounds. It took years of strenuous political warmongering by politicians and criminals acts by their allies in the underworld to create the conditions for ethnic and religious conflict. It was not easy, but they worked hard at it and somehow pulled it off.

Now, they are saying the Americans and/or Germans instigated the whole thing and that the locals somehow had no choice but to go and slaughter their neighbors. Not very convincing, this is another excuse, just like the first one. There is no religious conflict, there is no ethnic conflict, only greed and anger at one's own lack of success in life.