Croatian language
Encyclopedia
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats
, principally in Croatia
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
, the Serbia
n province of Vojvodina
and other neighbouring countries. They are varieties of the Serbo-Croatian language
, along with Serbian
, Bosnian
, and Montenegrin
.
Standard
and literary Croatian is based on the central dialect, Shtokavian
(Štokavian), more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian
, which is also the basis of standard Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. The two other principal Croatian dialects are Chakavian
(Čakavian) and Kajkavian
. These dialects, and the four national standards, are commonly subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English, though this term is controversial for native speakers and paraphrases such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles.
Vernacular texts in the Chakavian dialect first appeared in the 13th century, and Shtokavian texts appeared a century later. Standardization began in the period sometimes called "Baroque Slavism" in the first half of the 17th century, while some authors date it back to the end of 15th century. The modern Neo-Shtokavian standard that appeared in the mid 18th century was the first unified Croatian literary language.
Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.
was adopted as the language of the liturgy
. This language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical and non-liturgical, continued to be a part of the Glagolitic service as late as the middle of the 9th century.
Until the end of the 11th century Croatian medieval texts were written in three scripts: Latin, Glagolitic, and Croatian Cyrillic (arvatica, poljičica, bosančica/bosanica
), and also in three languages: Croatian, Latin
and Old Slavonic. The latter developed into what is referred to as the Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and 16th centuries.
The most important early monument of Croatian literacy is the Baška tablet
from the late 11th century. It is a large stone tablet found in the small church of St. Lucy on the Croatian island of Krk
which contains text written mostly in Chakavian, today a dialect of Croatian, and in Croatian angular Glagolitic script. It is also important in the history of the nation as it mentions Zvonimir, the king of Croatia at the time. However, the luxurious and ornate representative texts of Croatian Church Slavonic belong to the later era, when they coexisted with the Croatian vernacular literature. The most notable are the "Missal
of Duke Novak" from the Lika region in northwestern Croatia (1368), "Evangel from Reims" (1395, named after the town of its final destination), Hrvoje's Missal
from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404) and the first printed book in Croatian language, the Glagolitic Missale Romanum Glagolitice
(1483).
During the 13th century Croatian vernacular texts began to appear, the most important among them being the "Istrian land survey" of 1275 and the "Vinodol Codex" of 1288, both written in the Chakavian dialect.
The Shtokavian dialect
literature, based almost exclusively on Chakavian original texts of religious provenance (missal
s, breviaries
, prayer books
) appeared almost a century later. The most important purely Shtokavian vernacular text is the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book
(ca. 1400).
Both the language used in legal texts and that used in Glagolitic literature gradually came under the influence of the vernacular, which considerably affected its phonological
, morphological
and lexical
systems. From the 14th and the 15th centuries, both secular and religious songs at church festivals were composed in the vernacular.
Writers of early Croatian religious poetry
(začinjavci), translators and editors gradually introduced the vernacular into their works. These začinjavci were the forerunners of the rich literary production of the 15th and 16th centuries. The language of religious poems, translations, miracle and morality play
s contributed to the popular character of medieval Croatian literature.
from 1400) and are distinctly different from Church Slavonic. In the 14th and 15th centuries the modern Croatian language emerged, with morphology
, phonology
and syntax
only slightly differ from the contemporary Croatian standard language
.
The standardization of the Croatian language can be traced back to the first Croatian dictionary written by Faust Vrančić
(Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum—Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmatiae et Ungaricae, Venice 1595), and to the first Croatian grammar written by Bartul Kašić (Institutionum linguae illyricae libri duo, Rome 1604).
Jesuit
Kašić's translation of the Bible
(Old and New Testament, 1622–1636; unpublished until 2000), written in the ornate Shtokavian-Ijekavian dialect of the Dubrovnik
Renaissance literature is, despite orthographical differences, as close to the contemporary standard Croatian language as are the French of Montaigne
's "Essays" or the English of the King James Bible
to their respective successors—the modern standard languages.
This period, sometimes called "Baroque
Slavism", was crucial in the formation of the literary idiom that was to become the Croatian standard language
. The 17th century witnessed three developments that shaped modern Croatian:
This "triple achievement" of Baroque
Slavism in the first half of the 17th century laid the firm foundation upon which the later Illyrian movement
completed the work of language standardisation.
This standardised form became the cultivated elite language of administration and intellectuals from the Istrian Peninsula along the Croatian coast, across central Croatia up into the northern valleys of the Drava and the Mura. The cultural apogee of this unified standard in the 17th century is represented by the editions of "Adrianskog mora sirena" ("Syren of Adriatic Sea") and "Putni tovaruš" ("Travelling escort"). However, this first linguistic renaissance in Croatia was halted by the political execution of both dynasties by the Holy Roman Emperor
in Vienna in 1671. Subsequently the Croatian elite in the 18th century gradually abandoned this combined Croatian standard, and after an Austrian initiative of 1850, it was replaced by the uniform Neo-Shtokavian.
was a 19th-century attempt to forge a common South Slavic language, which in the end only succeeded in uniting the Croats and Serbs. Croatian itself had three major dialects, and there had been several literary language
s over four centuries. Croatian nationalist Ljudevit Gaj
standardized the Latin alphabet in 1830–1850. Although based in Kajkavian-speaking Zagreb
, Gaj supported using the more populous Neo-Shtokavian, a version of Shtokavian which emerged in the 15th and 16th century and became the main Croatian and Serbian literary language from the 18th century on, as the common literary standard for Croatian and Serbian. This was agreed at the Vienna Literary Agreement
of 1850. The 19th century linguists' and lexicographers' main concern was to achieve a more consistent and unified written norm and orthography, which led to a "passion for neologisms" or vigorous word coinage, originating from the purist
nature of Croatian literary language, which was not shared by Serbian.
, 3 of which are digraph
s. Thus, the orthography is largely phonemic
:
|-
|align="left"|Latin alphabet
IPA||A a
a||B b
b||C c
ts||Č č
tʃ||Ć ć
tɕ||D d
d||Dž dž
dʒ||Đ đ
dʑ||E e
e||F f
f
|-
|align="left"|Latin alphabet
IPA||G g
ɡ||H h
x||I i
i||J j
j||K k
k||L l
l||Lj lj
ʎ||M m
m||N n
n||Nj nj
ɲ
|-
|align="left"|Latin alphabet
IPA||O o
o||P p
p||R r
r||S s
s||Š š
ʃ||T t
t||U u
u||V v
ʋ||Z z
z||Ž ž
ʒ
|}
Croatian has pitch accent
: a vowel can be pronounced short or long, and when stressed (otherwise it is non-tonic) it carries either falling or rising tone. The following diacritical marks are used when vowels are stressed: short falling (double grave accent
), short rising (grave accent
), long falling (inverted breve
), long rising (acute accent
). Unstressed long syllables are marked with a macron
on vowels, and unstressed short vowels are not marked. This notation is used in linguistic literature, or when precision is necessary, such as to disambiguate between homograph
s. Apart from these signs, in general-purpose texts, the circumflex
(denoting a long vowel) can also be used to disambiguate homograph
s.
, has a rich system of inflection
. Pronouns, nouns, adjectives and some numerals decline
(change the word ending to reflect case, i.e. grammatical category and function), while verbs conjugate
for person and tense. As in all other Slavic languages, the basic word order is SVO; however, due to the use of declension to show sentence structure, word order is not as important as in languages that tend toward analyticity such as English or Chinese. Deviations from the standard SVO order are stylistically marked and may be employed to convey a particular emphasis, mood or overall tone, according to the intentions of the speaker or writer. Often, such deviations will sound literary, poetical or archaic.
Nouns have three grammatical gender
s (masculine, feminine and neuter) that correspond to a certain extent with the word ending, so that most nouns ending in -a are feminine, -o and -e neutral and the rest mostly masculine with a small but important class of feminines. Grammatical gender of a noun affects the morphology of other parts of speech (adjectives, pronouns and verbs) attached to it. Nouns are declined into 7 cases: Nominative
, Genitive
, Dative
, Accusative
, Vocative
, Locative
and Instrumental
.
Verbs are divided into two broad classes according to their aspect
, which can be either perfective (signifying a completed action) or imperfective (action is incomplete or repetitive). There are seven tenses, four of which (present, perfect, future I and II) are used in contemporary standard Croatian, with the other three (aorist, imperfect and plusquamperfect) used much less frequently – the plusquamperfect is generally limited to written language and some more educated speakers, while aorist and imperfect are considered stylistically marked and rather archaic. Note, however, that some non-standard dialects make considerable (and thus unmarked) use of those tenses.
mutual intelligibility
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, principally in Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, the Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n province of Vojvodina
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
and other neighbouring countries. They are varieties of the Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
, along with Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, Bosnian
Bosnian language
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, and Montenegrin
Montenegrin language
Montenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...
.
Standard
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
and literary Croatian is based on the central dialect, Shtokavian
Shtokavian dialect
Shtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
(Štokavian), more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian
Eastern Herzegovinian dialect
The Eastern Herzegovinian dialect is the most widespread dialect of the Štokavian dialect system, both by territory and the number of speakers...
, which is also the basis of standard Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. The two other principal Croatian dialects are Chakavian
Chakavian dialect
Chakavian or Čakavian is a dialect of the Croatian language. The name stems from the word for "what?", which is "ča" in Čakavian...
(Čakavian) and Kajkavian
Kajkavian dialect
The Kajkavian dialect is one of the three main dialects of Croatian. It has low mutual intelligibility with the other two dialects, Štokavian and Čakavian. All three are named after their word for "what?", which in Kajkavian is kaj....
. These dialects, and the four national standards, are commonly subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English, though this term is controversial for native speakers and paraphrases such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles.
Vernacular texts in the Chakavian dialect first appeared in the 13th century, and Shtokavian texts appeared a century later. Standardization began in the period sometimes called "Baroque Slavism" in the first half of the 17th century, while some authors date it back to the end of 15th century. The modern Neo-Shtokavian standard that appeared in the mid 18th century was the first unified Croatian literary language.
Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.
Early development
The beginning of the Croatian written language can be traced to the 9th century, when Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
was adopted as the language of the liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
. This language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical and non-liturgical, continued to be a part of the Glagolitic service as late as the middle of the 9th century.
Until the end of the 11th century Croatian medieval texts were written in three scripts: Latin, Glagolitic, and Croatian Cyrillic (arvatica, poljičica, bosančica/bosanica
Bosnian Cyrillic
Bosnian Cyrillic or Croatian Cyrillic, widely known as Bosančica, is an extinct Cyrillic script, that originated in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was widely used in Bosnia and Croatia . Its name in Bosnian and Croatian is bosančica or bosanica, which can literally be translated as Bosnian script...
), and also in three languages: Croatian, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Old Slavonic. The latter developed into what is referred to as the Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and 16th centuries.
The most important early monument of Croatian literacy is the Baška tablet
Baška tablet
Baška tablet is one of the first monuments containing an inscription in the Croatian language, dating from the year 1100.The tablet was discovered by scholars in 1851 in the paving of the Romanesque church of St. Lucy in Jurandvor, near Baška, on the island of Krk...
from the late 11th century. It is a large stone tablet found in the small church of St. Lucy on the Croatian island of Krk
Krk
Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county....
which contains text written mostly in Chakavian, today a dialect of Croatian, and in Croatian angular Glagolitic script. It is also important in the history of the nation as it mentions Zvonimir, the king of Croatia at the time. However, the luxurious and ornate representative texts of Croatian Church Slavonic belong to the later era, when they coexisted with the Croatian vernacular literature. The most notable are the "Missal
Missal
A missal is a liturgical book containing all instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the year.-History:Before the compilation of such books, several books were used when celebrating Mass...
of Duke Novak" from the Lika region in northwestern Croatia (1368), "Evangel from Reims" (1395, named after the town of its final destination), Hrvoje's Missal
Hrvoje's Missal
The Hrvoje's Missal is a 15th century Croatian Glagolitic missal, often considered the most beautiful and the most interesting Croatian Glagolitic book....
from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404) and the first printed book in Croatian language, the Glagolitic Missale Romanum Glagolitice
Missale Romanum Glagolitice
Missale Romanum Glagolitice is a Croatian language missal printed in 1483. It is written in Glagolitic script and is the first printed Croatian book and one of the first South Slavonic printed books. It is the first missal in Europe not published in Latin script...
(1483).
During the 13th century Croatian vernacular texts began to appear, the most important among them being the "Istrian land survey" of 1275 and the "Vinodol Codex" of 1288, both written in the Chakavian dialect.
The Shtokavian dialect
Shtokavian dialect
Shtokavian or Štokavian is the prestige dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, and the basis of its Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin standards...
literature, based almost exclusively on Chakavian original texts of religious provenance (missal
Missal
A missal is a liturgical book containing all instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the year.-History:Before the compilation of such books, several books were used when celebrating Mass...
s, breviaries
Breviary
A breviary is a liturgical book of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office...
, prayer books
Breviary
A breviary is a liturgical book of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office...
) appeared almost a century later. The most important purely Shtokavian vernacular text is the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book
Vatican Croatian Prayer Book
Vatican Croatian Prayer Book is the oldest Croatian vernacular prayer book and the finest example of early štokavian vernacular literary idiom....
(ca. 1400).
Both the language used in legal texts and that used in Glagolitic literature gradually came under the influence of the vernacular, which considerably affected its phonological
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and lexical
Lexicology
Lexicology is the part of linguistics which studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, relations between words , word groups and the whole lexicon....
systems. From the 14th and the 15th centuries, both secular and religious songs at church festivals were composed in the vernacular.
Writers of early Croatian religious poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
(začinjavci), translators and editors gradually introduced the vernacular into their works. These začinjavci were the forerunners of the rich literary production of the 15th and 16th centuries. The language of religious poems, translations, miracle and morality play
Morality play
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
s contributed to the popular character of medieval Croatian literature.
Modern language and standardisation
The first purely vernacular texts in Croatian date back to the 13th century (e.g. the Vatican Croatian Prayer BookVatican Croatian Prayer Book
Vatican Croatian Prayer Book is the oldest Croatian vernacular prayer book and the finest example of early štokavian vernacular literary idiom....
from 1400) and are distinctly different from Church Slavonic. In the 14th and 15th centuries the modern Croatian language emerged, with morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
and syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
only slightly differ from the contemporary Croatian standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
.
The standardization of the Croatian language can be traced back to the first Croatian dictionary written by Faust Vrančić
Faust Vrancic
Fausto Veranzio or Faust Vrančić was a polymath and bishop from the Venetian Republic.-Family history:...
(Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum—Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmatiae et Ungaricae, Venice 1595), and to the first Croatian grammar written by Bartul Kašić (Institutionum linguae illyricae libri duo, Rome 1604).
Jesuit
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
Kašić's translation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
(Old and New Testament, 1622–1636; unpublished until 2000), written in the ornate Shtokavian-Ijekavian dialect of the Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
Renaissance literature is, despite orthographical differences, as close to the contemporary standard Croatian language as are the French of Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
's "Essays" or the English of the King James Bible
King James Version of the Bible
The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...
to their respective successors—the modern standard languages.
This period, sometimes called "Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
Slavism", was crucial in the formation of the literary idiom that was to become the Croatian standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
. The 17th century witnessed three developments that shaped modern Croatian:
- The linguisticLinguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
works of Jesuit philologists KašićBartol KašicBartol Kašić was a Croatian linguist. He wrote the first Croatian grammar and translated the Bible and the Roman Rite into Croatian...
and MikaljaJakov MikaljaJakov Mikalja in Croatian, also Giacomo Micaglia in Italian, , was a linguist and lexicographer, born in Peschici, in the Italian region of Apulia, at that time under the Kingdom of Naples...
; - The literary activity of Bosnian FranciscanFranciscanMost Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
Matija DivkovićMatija DivkovicMatija Divković was a Croatian writer, the founder of the Croatian literature in Bosnia.-Life:Divković was born in Jelaške near Vareš in Bosnia. He probably joined the Franciscans in the nearest monastery in Olovo and was schooled there. He continued his studies in Italy, but then returned to...
, whose Counter-ReformationCounter-ReformationThe Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
writings, comprising popular tales from the BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, sermons and polemics, were widespread among CroatsCroatsCroats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
both in Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
and CroatiaCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
; - The poetry of Ivan GundulićIvan GundulicIvan Franov Gundulić is the most celebrated Croatian Baroque poet from the Republic of Ragusa. His work embodies central characteristics of Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation: religious fervor, insistence on "vanity of this world" and zeal in opposition to "infidels." Gundulić's major...
from Dubrovnik.
This "triple achievement" of Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
Slavism in the first half of the 17th century laid the firm foundation upon which the later Illyrian movement
Illyrian movement
The Illyrian movement , also Croatian national revival , was a cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of 19th century, around the years of 1835–1849...
completed the work of language standardisation.
First attempts at standardisation
In the late medieval period up to the 17th century, the majority of semi-autonomous Croatia was ruled by two domestic dynasties of princes (banovi), the Zrinski and the Francopan, which were linked by inter-marriage. Toward the 17th century, both of them attempted to unify Croatia both culturally and linguistically, selecting as their official language the transitional Ikavian–Kajkavian dialect, this being an acceptable dialect intermediate between all the principal Croatian dialects (Chakavian, Kajkavian and Shtokavian); it is still used now in northern Istria, and in the valleys of the Kupa, Mrežnica and Sutla rivers, and sporadically elsewhere in central Croatia also.This standardised form became the cultivated elite language of administration and intellectuals from the Istrian Peninsula along the Croatian coast, across central Croatia up into the northern valleys of the Drava and the Mura. The cultural apogee of this unified standard in the 17th century is represented by the editions of "Adrianskog mora sirena" ("Syren of Adriatic Sea") and "Putni tovaruš" ("Travelling escort"). However, this first linguistic renaissance in Croatia was halted by the political execution of both dynasties by the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
in Vienna in 1671. Subsequently the Croatian elite in the 18th century gradually abandoned this combined Croatian standard, and after an Austrian initiative of 1850, it was replaced by the uniform Neo-Shtokavian.
Illyrian period
The Illyrian movementIllyrian movement
The Illyrian movement , also Croatian national revival , was a cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of 19th century, around the years of 1835–1849...
was a 19th-century attempt to forge a common South Slavic language, which in the end only succeeded in uniting the Croats and Serbs. Croatian itself had three major dialects, and there had been several literary language
Literary language
A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
s over four centuries. Croatian nationalist Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the Croatian national reformation, also known as the Illyrian Movement.-Origin:...
standardized the Latin alphabet in 1830–1850. Although based in Kajkavian-speaking Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Gaj supported using the more populous Neo-Shtokavian, a version of Shtokavian which emerged in the 15th and 16th century and became the main Croatian and Serbian literary language from the 18th century on, as the common literary standard for Croatian and Serbian. This was agreed at the Vienna Literary Agreement
Vienna Literary Agreement
Vienna Literary Agreement is a designation of a meeting held in March 1850, when writers from Croatia, Serbia and one from Slovenia met to discuss the extent to which their literatures could be conjoined and united.-Historical context:...
of 1850. The 19th century linguists' and lexicographers' main concern was to achieve a more consistent and unified written norm and orthography, which led to a "passion for neologisms" or vigorous word coinage, originating from the purist
Croatian linguistic purism
One of the features of standard Croatian language and in common with several languages such as Czech, Finnish, Slovenian, Tamil or Turkish is word coinage using roots or elements perceived as being characteristic or unique to the speech of the community....
nature of Croatian literary language, which was not shared by Serbian.
Phonology and alphabet
Croatian has 30 phonemes—5 vowels and 25 consonants—corresponding to 30 letters of Croatian alphabetCroatian alphabet
Gaj's Latin alphabet is a variant of the Latin script used for Croatian language. It was devised by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1835, based on Jan Hus's Czech alphabet....
, 3 of which are digraph
Digraph
Digraph may refer to:* Digraph , a pair of characters used together to represent a single sound, such as "sh" in English* Typographical ligature, the joining of two letters as a single glyph, such as "æ"...
s. Thus, the orthography is largely phonemic
Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
:
-
- {| cellpadding=10 style="text-align:center;"
|-
|align="left"|Latin alphabet
IPA||A a
a||B b
b||C c
ts||Č č
tʃ||Ć ć
tɕ||D d
d||Dž dž
dʒ||Đ đ
dʑ||E e
e||F f
f
|-
|align="left"|Latin alphabet
IPA||G g
ɡ||H h
x||I i
i||J j
j||K k
k||L l
l||Lj lj
ʎ||M m
m||N n
n||Nj nj
ɲ
|-
|align="left"|Latin alphabet
IPA||O o
o||P p
p||R r
r||S s
s||Š š
ʃ||T t
t||U u
u||V v
ʋ||Z z
z||Ž ž
ʒ
|}
Croatian has pitch accent
Pitch accent
Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words...
: a vowel can be pronounced short or long, and when stressed (otherwise it is non-tonic) it carries either falling or rising tone. The following diacritical marks are used when vowels are stressed: short falling (double grave accent
Double grave accent
The double grave accent is a diacritic used in scholarly discussions of the Serbo-Croatian and sometimes Slovene languages. It is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet....
), short rising (grave accent
Grave accent
The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...
), long falling (inverted breve
Inverted breve
Inverted breve or arch is a diacritical mark ̑, shaped like the top half of a circle, that is, like an upside-down breve. It looks similar to the circumflex, but the circumflex has a sharp tip, whilst the inverted breve is rounded: compare  â Ê ê Î î Ô ô Û û with Ȃ ȃ Ȇ ȇ Ȋ ȋ Ȏ ȏ Ȗ ȗ ....
), long rising (acute accent
Acute accent
The acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
). Unstressed long syllables are marked with a macron
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
on vowels, and unstressed short vowels are not marked. This notation is used in linguistic literature, or when precision is necessary, such as to disambiguate between homograph
Homograph
A homograph is a word or a group of words that share the same written form but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings may be distinguished by different pronunciations, in which case the words are also heteronyms. Words with the same writing and pronunciation A homograph (from the ,...
s. Apart from these signs, in general-purpose texts, the circumflex
Circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...
(denoting a long vowel) can also be used to disambiguate homograph
Homograph
A homograph is a word or a group of words that share the same written form but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings may be distinguished by different pronunciations, in which case the words are also heteronyms. Words with the same writing and pronunciation A homograph (from the ,...
s.
Grammar
Croatian, like most other Slavic languagesSlavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, has a rich system of inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
. Pronouns, nouns, adjectives and some numerals decline
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
(change the word ending to reflect case, i.e. grammatical category and function), while verbs conjugate
Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
for person and tense. As in all other Slavic languages, the basic word order is SVO; however, due to the use of declension to show sentence structure, word order is not as important as in languages that tend toward analyticity such as English or Chinese. Deviations from the standard SVO order are stylistically marked and may be employed to convey a particular emphasis, mood or overall tone, according to the intentions of the speaker or writer. Often, such deviations will sound literary, poetical or archaic.
Nouns have three grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s (masculine, feminine and neuter) that correspond to a certain extent with the word ending, so that most nouns ending in -a are feminine, -o and -e neutral and the rest mostly masculine with a small but important class of feminines. Grammatical gender of a noun affects the morphology of other parts of speech (adjectives, pronouns and verbs) attached to it. Nouns are declined into 7 cases: Nominative
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
, Genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, Dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
, Accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
, Vocative
Vocative case
The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
, Locative
Locative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
and Instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
.
Verbs are divided into two broad classes according to their aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
, which can be either perfective (signifying a completed action) or imperfective (action is incomplete or repetitive). There are seven tenses, four of which (present, perfect, future I and II) are used in contemporary standard Croatian, with the other three (aorist, imperfect and plusquamperfect) used much less frequently – the plusquamperfect is generally limited to written language and some more educated speakers, while aorist and imperfect are considered stylistically marked and rather archaic. Note, however, that some non-standard dialects make considerable (and thus unmarked) use of those tenses.
Notturno (A. G. Matoš)
- Mlačna noć; u selu lavež; kasan
- Ćuk il' netopir;
- ljubav cvijeća – miris jak i strasan
- Slavi tajni pir.
- Sitni cvrčak sjetno cvrči, jasan
- Kao srebren vir;
- Teške oči sklapaju se na san,
- S neba rosi mir.
- S mrkog tornja bat
- Broji pospan sat,
- Blaga svjetlost sipi sa visina;
- Kroz samoću, muk,
- Sve je tiši huk:
- Željeznicu guta već daljina.
Lord's Prayer
- Oče naš, koji jesi na nebesima,
- sveti se ime Tvoje.
- Dođi kraljevstvo Tvoje,
- budi volja Tvoja,
- kako na Nebu, tako i na Zemlji.
- Kruh naš svagdašnji daj nam danas,
- i otpusti nam duge naše,
- kako i mi otpuštamo dužnicima našim.
- I ne uvedi nas u napast,
- nego izbavi nas od zla.
Bible (opening passage)
- U početku stvori Bog nebo i zemlju.
- 2 Zemlja bijaše pusta i prazna; tama se prostirala nad bezdanom i Duh Božji lebdio je nad vodama.
- 3 I reče Bog: "Neka bude svjetlost!" I bi svjetlost.
