Sloveno-Croatian language

just found the article on the wikipedia about the Kajkavian dialect. a central sentence seems to be: "Although speakers of Kajkavian are Croats, and Kajkavian is considered a dialect of Serbo-Croatian, its closest relative is the Slovene language, followed by Chakavian and then Shtokavian. Kajkavian is part of a dialect continuum with both Slovene and Chakavian."

AFAIK the South Slavic languages became literary languages mostly in the 19th century. Is there any PoD that might lead to the Kajkavian dialect being used to create a common language of the Slovenes and Croats of Croatia Proper, with lesser influence from the people of Slavonia and Dalmatia and even less for the Serbs?

Assume that I know very little about languages beyond this. I mainly look at it for the implied political results, like the Slovenes and Croats feeling far less as relatives of especially the not-even-catholic Serbs if they don't share a language.
 
Ljudevit Gaj (the chief Croatian linguistic reformer) did support the idea of adopting a Kajkavian-based literary standard for Croats and forming a Slovene-Croatian language. He later abandoned this idea around 1835 in favor of a Shtokavian standard, believing it would be more representative of the Croats as a whole and more appropriate for his pan-Slavic leanings. A PoD that keeps him on his earlier course could be enough.

As for the political results, not sure. Without Gaj and his OTL politics, there is a good chance that the Serbs will be either fully neutral or allied with the Hungarians in the Hungarian Revolution. Don't know if this would have a major impact on the future of Hungary and the region, or just result in subtler and smaller changes.

In the long term...There would be a bigger rift between standardized Serbian and standardized Slovene-Croatian, but Kajkavians and Shtokavians can still understand each other with only a little effort. After all, OTL's Yugoslavism didn't exclude the Slovenes, nor Chakavian Croats. I guess there would be a little less contact between south Slavic intellectuals, so less opportunity to establish political ties and joint programs. Yugoslavism would probably still exist, but with some of its energy redirected to a broader pan-Slavism with Czechs, Slovaks etc.
 
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