Why are Kajkavian dialects named Kajkavian?

The Kajkavian dialects are named after the specific interrogative pronoun used within that linguistic group to mean "what." In these dialects, spoken primarily in northwestern Croatia around the capital, Zagreb, the word for "what" is kaj.12

This naming convention is consistent across the three primary dialect groups of the Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian language:

• Kajkavian: Uses the pronoun kaj.12
• Chakavian: Uses the pronoun ča.12
• Shtokavian: Uses the pronoun što or šta.12

While these names are derived from these distinct pronouns, the dialect groups also exhibit significant differences in their vowels, consonants, word forms, and overall vocabulary.1