Bosniaks are a South Slavic ethnic group, native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region of Sandžak. The term Bosniaks was re-instated in 1993 after decades of suppression in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Bosniak Assembly adopted the ethnonym to replace "Bosnian Muslims." Scholars believe that the move was partly motivated by a desire to distinguish the Bosniaks from the fabricated and imposed term Muslim to describe their nationality in the former Yugoslavia. These scholars contend that the Bosniaks are distinguishable from comparable groups (such as the Croats and the Serbs) due to a collective identity based on a shared environment, cultural practices and experiences.