What language is spoken in Croatia?
Croatia
A 2011 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language. According to a survey ordered by the European Commission in 2005, 49% of Croatians speak English as the second language, 34% speak German, 14% speak Italian, and 10% speak French. Russian is spoken by 4% each, and 2% of Croatians speak Spanish. However, there are large municipalities that have minority languages that include substantial populations that speak these languages. An odd-majority of Slovenes (59%) have a certain level of knowledge of Croatian. The country is a part of various language-based international associations most notably the European Union Language Association.
Serbo-Croatian
In the mid-19th century, Serbian (led by self-taught writer and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić) and most Croatian writers and linguists (represented by the Illyrian movement and led by Ljudevit Gaj and Đuro Daničić), proposed the use of the most widespread dialect, Shtokavian, as the base for their common standard language. Karadžić standardised the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, and Gaj and Daničić standardized the Croatian Latin alphabet, on the basis of vernacular speech phonemes and the principle of phonological spelling. In 1850 Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists signed the Vienna Literary Agreement, declaring their intention to create a unified standard. Thus a complex bi-variant language appeared, which the Serbs officially called "Serbo-Croatian" or "Serbian or Croatian" and the Croats "Croato-Serbian", or "Croatian or Serbian". Yet, in practice, the variants of the conceived common literary language served as different literary variants, chiefly differing in lexical inventory and stylistic devices. The common phrase describing this situation was that Serbo-Croatian or "Croatian or Serbian" was a single language. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the language of all three nations was called "Bosnian" until the death of administrator von Kállay in 1907, at which point the name was changed to "Serbo-Croatian".
Makarska
As in Dalmatia as a whole, the Austrian authorities imposed a policy of Italianization, and the official language was Italian. The Makarska representatives in the Dalmatian assembly in Zadar and the Imperial Council in Vienna demanded the introduction of the Croatian language for use in public life, but the authorities steadfastly opposed the idea. One of the leaders of the National (pro-Croatian) Party was Mihovil Pavlinović of Podgora. Makarska was one of the first communities to introduce the Croatian language (1865).
Serbo-Croatian
Croatian is the official language of Croatia, while Serbian is also official in municipalities with significant Serb population.
Croats
In the 19th century Croatian romantic nationalism emerged to counteract the non-violent but apparent Germanization and Magyarization. The Croatian national revival began in the 1830s with the Illyrian movement. The movement attracted a number of influential figures and produced some important advances in the Croatian language and culture. The champion of the Illyrian movement was Ljudevit Gaj who also reformed and standardized the Croatian literary language. The official language in Croatia had been Latin until 1847, when it became Croatian. The movement relied on a South Slavic and Panslavistic conception, and its national, political and social ideas were advanced at the time.
Dalibor Brozović
Instead of "Serbo-Croatian", Brozović preferred the term "Central South Slavic diasystem", asserting separate language status for Croatian and Serbian. However, Brozović advocated the term "Croato-Serbian" even in 1988. As far as language status is concerned, Brozović has asserted for nearly three decades that "the Serbian and Croatian variants are (...) phenomenons, which are analogous to the English and American variants"; "As in other cases where several nations use one standard language (German, Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese standard language), the standard Croato-Serbian language is not unified. In linguistics (especially in sociolinguistics), the realizations of such standard languages are called "variants of a standard language"". Brozović maintained that it is "a fact that Serbs and Croats have a common language", and he described it as pluricentric even in 1992. In the 1990s, Brozović became one of the leading proponents of linguistic purism in Croatia.
Croats of Serbia
The 1910 Austro-Hungarian census also showed large differences in the numbers of those who considered themselves Bunjevci and Šokci, and those who considered themselves Croats. According to the census, in the city of Subotica there were only 39 citizens who declared Croatian as their native language, while 33,390 citizens were listed as speakers of "other languages" (most of them declared Bunjevac as their native language). In the city of Sombor, 83 citizens declared Croatian language, while 6,289 citizens were listed as speakers of "other languages" (mostly Bunjevac). In the municipality of Apatin, 44 citizens declared Croatian and 7,191 declared "other languages" (mostly Bunjevac, Šokac and Gypsy).
Burgenland Croatian
Smaller Croatian minorities in western Hungary, southwestern Slovakia, southern Poland and southern Czech Republic are often also called Burgenland Croats. They use the Burgenland Croatian written language and are historically and culturally closely connected to the Austrian Croats. The representatives of the Burgenland Croats estimate their total number in all three countries and emigration at around 70,000.Burgenland Croatian was the language of Croatian refugees who fled Croatia during the Turkish Wars and settled in the western part of what was then Hungary, the area where they still live. Burgenland Croats included speakers of all three dialects of the Serbo-Croatian language (Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kajkavian), with the majority being the Chakavians. They originally came from the river Una valley.
Burgenland Croats did not take part in the shaping of the present standard Croatian in the 19th century. Instead, they constructed their own written standard based mainly on the local Chakavian speech and adopted the Croatian alphabet, a modified Latin alphabet, as their script.
Serbs of Croatia
Serbian language is officially used in 23 cities and municipalities in Croatia.
In April 2015 United Nations Human Rights Committee has urged Croatia to ensure the right of minorities to use their language and alphabet. Committee report stated that particularly concerns the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the town of Vukovar and municipalities concerned. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said that his country welcomes the UN Human Rights Committee's report.
Serb Democratic Party (Croatia)
The self-professed main goal of SDS was to protect the Serb population, which it reckoned endangered as per the new Croatian Constitution that revoked the status of its Serbs from a constituent nation to a national minority. On July 6, 1990, Milan Babić convened a meeting of representatives of Serb-populated municipalities, where they rejected the constitutional changes which would preclude such municipal associations, introduce exclusively Croat symbols, and change the name of the language spoken in Croatia (from "hrvatskosrpski" Croato-Serbian to "hrvatski" or Croatian). SDS also countered HDZ's desire of an independent Croatia, wishing instead to remain a part of Yugoslavia.
Demographics of Croatia
The Croatian language is the official language, but minority languages are officially used in some local government units. Croatian is declared as the native language by 95.60% of the population. A 2009 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language—most often English. The main religions of Croatia are Roman Catholic (86.28%), Eastern Orthodoxy (4.44%) and Islam (1.47%). Literacy in Croatia stands at 98.1%. The proportion of the population aged 15 and over attaining academic degrees grew rapidly since 2001, doubling and reaching 16.7% by 2008. An estimated 4.5% of the GDP is spent for education. Primary and secondary education are available in Croatian and in languages of recognised minorities. Croatia has a universal health care system and in 2010, the nation spent 6.9% of its GDP on healthcare. Net monthly income in September 2011 averaged 5,397 kuna ( 729 euro). The most significant sources of employment in 2008 were manufacturing industry, wholesale and retail trade and construction. In October 2011, unemployment rate was 17.4%. Croatia's median equivalent household income tops average Purchasing Power Standard of the ten countries which joined the EU in 2004, while trailing the EU average. 2011 census recorded a total of 1.5 million private households, which predominantly owned their own housing. Average urbanisation rate in Croatia stands at 56%, with augmentation of urban population and reduction of rural population.
Hungarians of Croatia
In addition, 10,231 people identified Hungarian language as their mother tongue.
Languages of the Republic of Macedonia
Serbian (српски, "srpski") is a standardized register of the Serbo-Croatian language spoken by Serbs, mainly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and Macedonia. It is official in Serbia and one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is the principal language of the Serbs. Serbian is mainly spoken in the municipalities of Čučer Sandevo (~20% of the population) and Staro Nagoričane (19%).
Vlachs in the history of Croatia
According to Stjepan Pavičić (1931), the Romance Vlachs or Morlachs of the Dinara and Velebit lost their Romance language by the 14th or 15th century, or were at least bilingual at that time. The so-called Istro-Romanians, called by themselves "Rumeri" or "Vlasi", continued to speak their language on the island of Krk (extinct in the 20th century; recorded Pater Noster) and villages around the Čepić lake in Istria, while other communities in the mountains (Ćićarija) above the lake preserved the Shtokavian-Chakavian dialect with Ikavian accent from the southern Velebit and area of Zadar. The documents about Vlachs from Cetina county indicate Chakavian dialect with Ikavian accent.
Igor Vujić
In March 2013 Vujić was invited to play for the national team of Croatia by head coach Slavko Goluža. 
Vujić speaks Croatian, Slovenian, English and Italian.
Dalmatian language
Dalmatian or Dalmatic was a Romance language spoken in the Dalmatia region of present-day Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. The name refers to a tribe of the Illyrian linguistic group, Dalmatae. The Ragusan dialect of Dalmatian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa, although in later times Venetian (representing the Romance language population), then Eastern Herzegovinian dialect of Serbo-Croatian (for the Slavophone population), came to supersede it.
Italian language in Croatia
The 2011 Census in Croatia reported 17,807 ethnic Italians in the country (some 0.42% of the total population). Ethnologue reported 70,000 persons whose first language is Italian or Venetian in 1998 (referring to Eugen Marinov's 1998 data). This population was composed of 30,000 ethnic Italians and 40,000 ethnic Croats and persons declared regionally ("as Istrians"). Native Italian speakers are largely concentrated along the western coast of peninsula Istria. Because of Croatian trade and tourist relations with Italy, many Croats have some knowledge of the language (mostly in the service and tourist industries).
Italian language
Italian ("italiano" or ) is a Romance language. Italian, together with Sardinian, is by most measures the closest language to Vulgar Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City and western Istria (in Slovenia and Croatia). It formerly had official status and is still widely spoken in Albania, Malta, Monaco, and in some parts of France (especially Corsica, Nice, Savoie), Greece (Ionian Islands and Dodecanese) and Montenegro (Kotor), as well as in former Italian East Africa and Italian North Africa regions where it plays a significant role in various sectors. Italian is also spoken by large expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. It also has official minority status in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages.
Linguistic rights
Croatian language is the stated to be the official language of Croatia in Article 3 of the Croatian constitution. The same Article of Constitution stipulates that in some of local units, with the Croatian language and Latin script, in official use may be introduce another language and Cyrillic or some other script under the conditions prescribed by law. The only example of the use of minority language at the regional level currently is Istria County where official languages are Croatian and Italian. In eastern Croatia, in Joint Council of Municipalities, at local (municipal) level is introduced Serbian as co official language. Each municipality, where a certain minority has more than one third of the population, can if it wants to introduce a minority language in official use.
Minority languages of Croatia
There are three other central libraries in Croatia. Bosniak's community central library is located in the town of Sisak, Albanian one in Zagreb and Slovenian in Karlovac.
Serbo-Croatian
The topic of language for writers from Dalmatia and Dubrovnik prior to the 19th century made a distinction only between speakers of Italian or Slavic, since those were the two main groups that inhabited Dalmatian city-states at that time. Whether someone spoke Croatian or Serbian was not an important distinction then, as the two languages were not distinguished by most speakers. This has been used as an argument to state that Croatian literature Croatian per se, but also includes Serbian and other languages that are part of Serbo-Croatian, These facts undermine the Croatian language proponents' argument that modern-day Croatian is based on a language called Old Croatian.
Minority languages of Croatia
In the first years after introduction of new Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities some local governments resisted implementation of its legal obligations. In 2005 Ombudsman report, municipalities of Vojnić, Krnjak, Gvozd, Donji Kukuruzari, Dvor and Korenica were mentioned as those that do not allow the official use of the Serbian language, although the national minority in these places meets the threshold provided for in the Constitutional Act. The report pointed out that Serbian minority in Vukovar can not use Serbian language although minority constituted less than one percent less population than it was prescribed by law. After 2011 Croatian census Serbs of Vukovar meet the required proportion of population for co-official introduction of Serbian language but it led to Anti-Cyrillic protests in Croatia. In April 2015 United Nations Human Rights Committee urged Croatia to ensure the right of minorities to use their language and alphabet. Committee report stated that particularly concerns the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the town of Vukovar and municipalities concerned. The Constitutional Court of Croatia upheld the legislation on the use of minority languages. It relied on a newly developed concept of national identity.
Croatian studies
Croatian studies (Croatian: "Kroatistika", German: "Kroatistik", Polish: "Kroatystyka") is an academic discipline within Slavic studies which is concerned with the study of Croatian language, literature, history and culture. Within Slavic studies it belongs to the South Slavic subgroup.
Minority languages of Croatia
Italian minority has realized much greater rights on bilingualism than other minority communities in Croatia. La Voce del Popolo is an Italian language daily newspaper published by EDIT (EDizioni ITaliane) in the city of Rijeka. Central Library of Italians in Croatia operates as a section of Public library in Pula.
Dialects of Serbo-Croatian
The major cities in northern Croatia with prevailing urban Kajkavians are chiefly Zagreb (old central city, Sesvete and V. Gorica), Koprivnica, Krapina, Križevci, Varaždin, Čakovec, etc. The typical and archaic Kajkavian is today spoken chiefly in Zagorje hills and Medjimurje plain, and in adjacent areas of northwestern Croatia where other immigrants and Štokavian standard had much less influence. The most peculiar Kajkavian archidiom "(Baegnunski)" is spoken at Bednja in northernmost Croatia. The mixed half-Kajkavian towns along the eastern and southern edge of Kajkavian speaking area are Pitomača, Čazma, Kutina, Popovača, Sunja, Petrinja, Ozalj, Ogulin, Fužine, and Čabar, with included newer Štokavian enclaves of Bjelovar, Sisak, Glina, Dubrava, Zagreb and Novi Zagreb. The southernmost Kajkavian villages are Krapje at Jasenovac; and Pavušek, Dvorišče and Hrvatsko selo in Zrinska Gora.
Bosnian language
Bosnian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin. Until the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia, they were treated as a unitary Serbo-Croatian language, and that term is still used in English to subsume the common base (vocabulary, grammar and syntax) of what are today officially four national standards, although this term is controversial for native speakers, and paraphrases such as "Serbo-Croato-Bosnian" (SCB) or "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian" (BCS) are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles.
Krk
Krk is well known for its historical language diversity. The Middle Chakavian dialect of Croatian is the primary dialect used on the island. Up to 1898 (the day the last speaker of Dalmatian language, Tuone Udaina died), five languages were spoken on the island: Venetian, Croatian, Dalmatian, Istro-Romanian.
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The population of Yugoslavia spoke mainly three languages: Serbo-Croatian, Slovene and Macedonian. The Serbo-Croatian language was spoken by the populations in the federal republics of SR Serbia, SR Croatia, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, and SR Montenegro – a total of 12,390,000 people by the late 1980s. Slovene was spoken by approximately 2,000,000 inhabitants of SR Slovenia, while Macedonian was spoken by 1,210,000 inhabitants of SR Macedonia. National minorities used their own languages as well, with 506,000 speaking Hungarian (primarily in SAP Vojvodina), and 2,000,000 persons speaking Albanian in SR Serbia (primarily in SAP Kosovo), SR Macedonia and SR Montenegro. Turkish, Romanian (primarily in SAP Vojvodina), and Italian (primarily in Istria and parts of Dalmatia) were also spoken to a lesser extent. The Yugoslav Albanians, almost exclusively Ghegs, chose to use the unified literary language of Albania predominantly based on Tosk Albanian (a different dialect), for political reasons.
Demographic history of Croatian Baranja
(*) Total number of speakers of South Slavic languages (Serbian, Croatian, and Šokac) in Croatian Baranja can be estimated at around 15,000 (29.6%).
Croats of Slovenia
It seems however that the great majority of Croats living in Slovenia uses Slovene as their primary language of communication.
In 2001, only around 2,700 people spoke either Croatian or a combination of Croatian and Slovene at home, which is a significant decrease from in 1991, when their number was around 10,000.
Slovene Istria
According to the 2002 census, Slovene is spoken as the first language by 70.2% of the inhabitants of Slovenian Istria, Italian by 3.3%, and various forms of Serbo-Croatian, dominated by Croatian, by 16% of the population. The highest percentage of Italian speakers is in the municipality of Piran (7%), while the highest percentage of Croatian speakers is in Izola (31%). General population polls have shown that the majority of the population in Slovenian Istria conversational in several languages: Slovene, Italian, Croatian and English.
Bosnian language
The Bosnian language (; "bosanski" / босански ) is the standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian mainly used by Bosniaks. Bosnian is one of three such varieties considered official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Croatian and Serbian, and also an officially recognized minority or regional language in Serbia, Montenegro, and the Republic of Kosovo.
Serbo-Croatian
Croatian is spoken by roughly 4.8 million, including some 575,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A small Croatian minority that lives in Italy, known as Molise Croats, have somewhat preserved traces of the Croatian language. In Croatia, 170,000, mostly Italians and Hungarians, use it as a second language.
Languages of Slovenia
The population of Slovenia has become more diverse in regard to its language through recent decades but is still relatively homogenous — Slovene was in 2002 the first language of 87.8% of the inhabitants. It was followed by Croatian (2.8%), Serbian (1.6%) and so-called Serbo-Croatian (1.6%). Italian and Hungarian language, protected by the Constitution of Slovenia, had lower numbers of native speakers.
Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian
In socialist Yugoslavia, the official policy insisted on one unitary language with two regional normative varieties—Eastern (used in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina by all ethnicities, either with the Ekavian or the Ijekavian accent) and Western (used in Croatia by all ethnicities, the Ijekavian accent only). However, due to discontent in Croatian intellectual circles, beginning in the late 1960s Croatian cultural workers started to refer to the language exclusively as 'the Croatian literary language', or sometimes 'the Croatian or Serbian language' (these two names were also prescribed in the Croatian constitution of 1974), as was common before Yugoslavia. The language was regarded as one common language with different variants and dialects. The unity of the language was emphasized, making the differences not an indicator of linguistic divisions, but rather factors enriching the 'common language' diversity. In addition, Yugoslavia had two other official languages on the federal level, Slovenian and Macedonian, reflecting Yugoslavia's acceptance of diversity with regards to language use. No attempts were made to assimilate those languages into the Serbo-Croatian language.
Italian language in Croatia
In the past the language had a much larger population than it does now: the Italian (Venetian speaking) population constituted (according to the Italian linguist Bartoli) nearly one third of Dalmatians in the second half of the 18th century. According to the Austrian census it had decreased from 22% in 1816 to 12.5% in 1853, down to a mere 2.9% in 1910.
Vlachs in the history of Croatia
The term Vlachs () was initially used in medieval Croatian and Venetian history for a Romance-speaking pastoralist community, called "Vlachs" and "Morlachs", inhabiting the mountains and lands of the Croatian Kingdom and the Republic of Venice (Venetian Dalmatia) from the early 14th century. By the end of the 15th century they were highly assimilated with the Slavs and lost their language or were at least bilingual, while some communities managed to preserve and continue to speak their language (Istro-Romanians).
Vlachs in the history of Croatia
The Vlachs were predominantly Orthodox Christian by religion, and also, the traditional social grouping of Vlachs was the Orthodox group itself. The Orthodox Vlachs spoke the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect while the Catholic Vlachs (the Bunjevci), spoke the Western Herzegovinian dialect. The Vlachs were also called on some occasions as "Rasciani sive Serviani" and "Valachicae seu Rascianae gentis", which was an exonym for the Serbs or Orthodox Christians. In the 1500–1800 period in Europe, the religious difference was one of the main cultural differences in ethnic groups. The state triangle at Lika in what is today Croatia was an area in which Roman Catholicism, Serbian Orthodoxy, and Islam met. Ethno-confessionally, the Orthodox Vlachs were part of the Serb identity since the mid 16th-century.
Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg)
In the 19th century Croatian romantic nationalism emerged to counteract the non-violent but apparent Germanization and Magyarization. The Croatian national revival began in the 1830s with the Illyrian movement. The movement attracted a number of influential figures and produced some important advances in the Croatian language and culture. The champion of the Illyrian movement was Ljudevit Gaj who also reformed and standardized the Croatian literary language. Official language in Croatia has been Latin until 1847 when it has become Croatian.
Serbian language in Croatia
The Orthodox liturgical book Varaždin Apostol from 1454 represents the oldest preserved text in Cyrillic from the territory of today's Croatia. Croatian Constitutional law on national minorities rights, one of only two constitutional laws in country, entered into force on 23 December 2002.
Demographics of Croatia
A 2009 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language. According to a survey ordered by the European commission in 2005, 49% of Croatians speak English as their second language, 34% speak German, and 14% speak Italian. French and Russian are spoken by 4% each, and 2% of Croatians speak Spanish. A substantial proportion of Slovenes (59%) have a certain level of knowledge of the Croatian language.
Education in Croatia
The majority of the schools teach either English, German or Italian as soon as the first grade. The majority of schools offer a second language starting from the 4th grade. The most popular foreign languages are English, German and Italian, followed by Spanish, French and Russian.
Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102)
The Kingdom of Croatia (, ), or Croatian Kingdom (), was a medieval kingdom in Central Europe comprising most of what is today Croatia (without western Istria and some Dalmatian coastal cities), as well as most of the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Kingdom existed as a sovereign state for nearly two centuries. Its existence was characterized by various conflicts and periods of peace or alliance with the Bulgarians, Byzantines, Hungarians, and competition with Venice for control over the eastern Adriatic coast. The goal of promoting the Croatian language in the religious service was initially brought and introduced by the 10th century bishop Gregory of Nin, which resulted in a conflict with the Pope, later to be put down by him. In the second half of the 11th century Croatia managed to secure most coastal cities of Dalmatia with the collapse of Byzantine control over them. During this time the kingdom reached its peak under the rule of kings Peter Krešimir IV (1058–1074) and Demetrius Zvonimir (1075–1089).
List of revived languages
The Dalmatian language was spoken in Dalmatia, a coastal region of Croatia, in the Middle Ages. Its last known native speaker was Antonio Tuone Udaina, who died on June 10, 1898, as the result of an explosion. The Dalmatian language is being revived by pro-autonomist Dalmatian activists, and today is estimated that there are about 20 fluent Dalmatian speakers and more than one hundred people with some knowledge of the language.
Official language
When Croatia declared independence (1991) it defined its official language as Croatian, and Serbia likewise defined its official language as Serbian. Bosnia-Herzegovina defined three official languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. From the linguistic point of view, the different names refer to national varieties of the same language, which is known under the appellation of Serbo-Croatian. It is said by some that the Bosnian government chose to define three languages to reinforce ethnic differences and keep the country divided.
The language used in Montenegro, traditionally considered a dialect of Serbian, became standardized as the Montenegrin language upon Montenegro's declaration (2006) of independence.
Croats of Serbia
Croats are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Vojvodina province. According to the 2011 census, there are 47,033 Croats living in Vojvodina. The Croatian language is one of the official languages of provincial administration of Vojvodina.
Serbs of Croatia
Although 2011 census puts Serbs as the largest national minority in Croatia with 4.4% of the total population, the number of people who had declared Serbian language as their native is 52,879 (1.23% of the total population).
Croats
Besides Shtokavian, Croats from the Adriatic coastline speak the Chakavian dialect, while Croats from the continental northwestern part of Croatia speak the Kajkavian dialect. 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 the 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.
Minority languages of Croatia
During Napoleon I's invasion of Croatia in the early 19th century, a large portion was of the country was converted into the Illyrian Provinces ("Provinces illyriennes)" and incorporated as a French province in 1809. French rule established the official language of the autonomous province to be French followed by Croatian, Italian, German, and Slovene. According to a study commissioned by France's Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, 10% of Croatian speak French.
Languages of the European Union
Due to the close similarity between Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrinwhich are mutually intelligibleit was proposed that only one hybrid language be accepted as an official EU language as opposed to four separate ones (as in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) in order to reduce translation costs. In negotiations with Croatia, however, it was accepted that Croatian would become a separate official EU language.
Croatian literature
A special place in the literature of the 18th century is held by the poet and writer Filip Grabovac and the Franciscan writer Andrija Kačić Miošić. Grabovac's ""Cvit razgovora naroda i jezika iliričkoga aliti rvackoga"" (Conversation of peasants and the Illyrian language), from 1747 unites Croatian medieval literature with that of the Bosnian Franciscans, while Kačić's ""Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskoga"" (Peasant conversation of Slavic people) from 1756 in verse and prose, was once one of the most widely read books in the Croatian language (translated into a dozen languages and has been reprinted almost 70 times by the end of the 20th century). It was this work, together with that of Matija Antun Relković, that definitively set the idioms for the Croatian language in the Croatian National Revival movement. Relković, as a prisoner in Dresden, compared Slavonia with Germany in his 1762 poem ""Satir iliti divji čovik"" (Satyr or Wild man). Relković's influence is generally contained in his linguistic idioms and other grammatical and philological works. Having spread the štokavian idiom in the second half of the 18th century, he is, along with Andrija Kačić Miošić, considered to be one of the most decisive influences that helped shape the Croatian standard language.
Bosnian language
Some Croatian linguists (Zvonko Kovač, Ivo Pranjković, Josip Silić) support the name "Bosnian" language, whereas others (Radoslav Katičić, Dalibor Brozović, Tomislav Ladan) hold that the term "Bosnian language" is the only one appropriate and that accordingly the terms Bosnian language and Bosniak language refer to two different things. The Croatian state institutions, such as the Central Bureau of Statistics, use both terms: "Bosniak" language was used in the 2001 census, while the census in 2011 used the term "Bosnian" language.
Italian language in Croatia
For various reasons—mainly related to nationalism and armed conflict—the numbers of Italian speakers in Croatia declined during the 20th century, especially after the Second World War in a period known as the Istrian exodus, when about 90% Italian-speaking Istrians and Dalmatians left Yugoslav dominated areas in the eastern Adriatic. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians in the country.
Burgenland Croatian
Burgenland Croatian written language is based mainly on the local Chakavian dialect with some influences from the other Croatian dialects spoken in Burgenland. It uses the Latin alphabet with the same diacritical modifiers as the Croatian alphabet. In the course of language development it acquired some of its own specialised vocabulary, sometimes different from that used in standard Croatian.
Minority languages of Croatia
In 2011 there was 11 elementary schools in which students from Slovak minority were able to learn Slovak language. Those schools were located in Ilok, Osijek, Soljani, Josipovac Punitovački, Markovac Našički, Jelisavac, Miljevci, Zdenci, Lipovljani and Međurići. Gymnasium in Požega was the first high school in Croatia to introduce Slovak language education into its elective curriculum. "Union of Slovaks" in cooperation with the "Slovak Cultural Center" in Našice publish magazine Prameň in Slovak language. On the 200th anniversary of birth of Štefan Moyses in 1997 Croatian branch of Matica slovenská set a bilingual memorial plate at the building of the Gornji Grad Gymnasium in Zagreb. In 2003 second bilingual plate commemorating the work of Martin Kukučín was set up in Lipik. Matica slovenská in Zagreb published more than 10 books in Slovak language over the years. In 1998 Central Library of Slovaks in Croatia was established as a section of Public library in Našice and as of 2016 its users had access to more than 4,000 volumes.
List of lingua francas
Serbo-Croatian is a lingua franca in several of the territories of the former Yugoslavia, that is, modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. In those four countries it is the main native language, and is also spoken by ethnic minorities. For example, a Hungarian from Vojvodina and an Italian from Istria might use it as a shared second language. Most people in Slovenia and Macedonia can understand or speak Serbo-Croatian as well. It is a pluricentric language and is commonly referred to as Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian or Montenegrin depending on the background of the speaker.
Slovenia
A significant number of people in Slovenia speak a variant of Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin) as their native language. These are mostly immigrants who moved to Slovenia from other former Yugoslav republics from the 1960s to the late 1980s, and their descendants. In 2002, 0.4% of the Slovenian population declared themselves to be native speakers of Albanian and 0.2% native speakers of Macedonian. Czech, the fourth-largest minority language in Slovenia prior to World War II (after German, Hungarian, and Serbo-Croatian), is now the native language of a few hundred residents of Slovenia.
Snježana Kordić
With a plethora of quotations from German, French, Polish and English linguistic literature, Kordić demonstrates that the language of Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins is a polycentric language, with four standard variants spoken in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Slovaks of Croatia
Towns:Municipalities:Villages:, Slovak language is officially used in one municipality and one other settlement in Croatia, according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Serbian language in Croatia
The Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities provides for a mandatory co-official use of minority languages in municipalities of Croatia with at least one third of members of ethnic minoritiy. Municipalities Dvor, Gvozd, Jagodnjak, Šodolovci, Borovo, Trpinja, Markušica, Negoslavci, Biskupija, Ervenik, Kistanje, Gračac, Udbina, Vrbovsko, Donji Kukuruzari, Erdut and Vukovar, according to the provisions of law, are obliged to grant equal co-official use of Serbian language and Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. Law enforcement is facing great resistance in the part of the majority population, most notably in the case of Vukovar where it led to 2013 Anti-Cyrillic protests in Croatia.
Geography of Croatia
The Croatian language is Croatia's official language, but the languages of constitutionally-recognised minorities are officially used in some local government units. Croatian is the native language identified by 96% of the population. A 2009 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language—most often English. The largest religions of Croatia are Roman Catholicism (86.3%), Orthodox Christianity (4.4%) and Islam (1.5%). Literacy in Croatia stands at 98.1%. The proportion of the population aged 15 and over attaining academic degrees has grown rapidly since 2001, doubling and reaching 16.7% by 2008. An estimated 4.5% of GDP is spent for education. Primary and secondary education are available in Croatian and in the languages of recognised minorities. Croatia has a universal health care system and in 2010, the nation spent 6.9% of its GDP on healthcare. The net monthly income in September 2011 averaged 5,397 kuna ( ). The most significant sources of employment in 2008 were wholesale and retail trade, the manufacturing industry and construction. In October 2011, the unemployment rate was 17.4%. Croatia's median equivalent household income tops the average Purchasing Power Standard of the ten countries which joined the EU in 2004, while trailing the EU average. The 2011 census recorded a total of 1.5 million private households; most owned their own housing.
Croatian literature
Croatian medieval prose was written in two languages: Croatian and Church Slavonic, using three different alphabets, Glagolitic, Latinic and Bosnian Cyrillic. Among these there was some interaction, as evidenced by documents carrying two forms of letters; especially with respect to Glagolitic and Cyrillic texts, and some Latin relied on Glagolitic forms. That interaction makes Croatian writing unique among Slavic prose, and even in European literature. Croatian medieval literature reflects the general trends within European literature, though there were some different traits, for example literature directed at the common people; a strong background tradition of oral literature, blending religious topics and interweaving of genres. A significant part of Croatian early literature is based on translations, with typical Central European edits. Croatian early literature was influenced from two spheres: from the East (Byzantine and Church Slavonic inheritance) and from the West (from Latin, Italian, Franco-Italian and Czech traditions).
From the 14th century, the western influence remained strong in Croatian literature. Recognizing these patterns, Croatian authors, mostly anonymous, adapted their work to the specific needs of the community in which and for which they wrote. Despite their writings being in large part translations, this literature achieved a notably artistic level of language and style. One of the most significant achievements was keeping alive the Church Slavonic literal language (especially in the Glagolitic alphabet). In later periods elements of that language came to be used in expressive ways and as a signal of "high style", incorporating current vernacular words and becoming capable of transferring knowledge on a wide range of subjects, from law and theology, chronicles and scientific texts, to works of literature. Such medieval works in the people's own language are the starting point for the literature of later periods. Anonymous poets and singers, developing their own styles, of typically religious poetry, and of this period, were referred to as the "začinjavci" by later authors and sources.
Demographics of Croatia
From 1961 to 1991, the official language was formally designated as Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian. Even during socialist rule, Croats often referred to their language as Croato-Serbian (instead of Serbo-Croatian) or as Croatian. Croatian and Serbian variants of the language were not officially recognised as separate at the time, but referred to as the west and east version, and had different alphabets: the Latin alphabet and Serbian Cyrillic. Croatians are protective of their language from foreign influences, as the language was under constant change and threats imposed by previous rulers (i.e. Austrian German, Hungarian, Italian and Turkish words were changed and altered to "Slavic" looking/sounding ones).
Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia
At Franz Joseph's insistence, Hungary and Croatia reached the Compromise (or "Nagodba" in Croatian) in 1868, giving the Croats a special status in Hungary. The agreement granted the Croats autonomy over their internal affairs. The Croatian ban would now be nominated by the Hungarian prime minister and appointed by the king. Areas of "common" concern to Hungarians and Croats included finance, currency matters, commercial policy, the post office, and the railroad. Croatian became the official language of Croatia's government, and Croatian representatives discussing "common" affairs before the Hungarian diet were permitted to speak Croatian. A ministry of Croatian Affairs was created within the Hungarian government.
Minority languages of Croatia
6,287 declared Czechs live in Bjelovar-Bilogora County. 70% of them stated that their native language is Czech. Ambassador of Czech Republic in Croatia stated that intention to limit usage of Serbian Cyrillic would negatively affect Czechs and other minorities in Croatia. Central Library of Czechs in Croatia operates as a section of Public library in Daruvar. In an interview in 2011 Zdenka Čuhnil, MP for the Czech and Slovak minorities, stated that Czech minority, based on its acquired rights, have the legal right to use its language in 9 local units (municipalities or towns) while in practice usage of that right is enabled only in one unit and partially in one more. She also stated that in the case of Slovak minority out of 6 units (5 based on acquired rights and one on the basis of proportionality) is free to use its rights only in one.
Serbian language in Croatia
Most schools with instruction in Serbian are located in Vukovar-Srijem and Osijek-Baranja County in the area of former Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia where rights on education in minority languages were provided during the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium based on the Erdut Agreement. Today with those schools there is also Kantakuzina Katarina Branković Serbian Orthodox Secondary School in Zagreb.
Bartol Kašić
Kašić called the language used in "Ritual rimski" as "naški" ("our language") or "bosanski" ("Bosnian"). He used the term "Bosnian" even though he was born in a Chakavian region: instead he decided to adopt a "common language" ("lingua communis"), a version of Shtokavian Ikavian, spoken by the majority the speakers of Serbo-Croatian. He used the terms "dubrovački" (from Dubrovnik) for the Ijekavian version used in his Bible, and "dalmatinski" (Dalmatian) for the Chakavian version.In Croatian:
Shtokavian
Croatian has had a long tradition of Shtokavian vernacular literacy and literature. It took almost four and half centuries for Shtokavian to prevail as the dialectal basis for the Croatian standard. In other periods, Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects, as well as hybrid Chakavian–Kajkavian–Shtokavian interdialects "contended" for the Croatian national koine – but eventually lost, mainly due to historical and political reasons. By the 1650s it was fairly obvious that Shtokavian would become the dialectal basis for the Croatian standard, but this process was finally completed in the 1850s, when Neo-Shtokavian Ijekavian, based mainly on Ragusan (Dubrovnik), Dalmatian, Bosnian, and Slavonian literary heritage became the national standard language.
Dialects of Serbo-Croatian
Kajkavian literary language gradually fell into disuse since Croatian National Revival, ca. 1830–1850, when leaders of the Croatian National Unification Movement (the majority of them being Kajkavian native speakers themselves) adopted the most widespread and developed Serbo-Croatian Shtokavian literary language as the basis for the Croatian standard language. However, after a period of lethargy, the 20th century has witnessed new flourishing of literature in Kajkavian dialect – this time as Croatian dialectal poetry, main authors being Antun Gustav Matoš, Miroslav Krleža, Ivan Goran Kovačić, Dragutin Domjanić, Nikola Pavić etc. Nowadays, Kajkavian lexical treasure is being published by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in "Rječnik hrvatskoga kajkavskoga književnoga jezika"/"Dictionary of the Croatian Kajkavian Literary Language", 8 volumes (1999).
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian (; / also called Serbo-Croat , Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), or Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS)) is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties.
Minority languages of Croatia
The Constitution of Croatia in its preamble defines Croatia as a nation state of ethnic Croats, a country of traditionally present communities that the constitution recognizes as national minorities and a country of all its citizens. National minorities explicitly enumerated and recognized in the Constitution are Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Russians, Bulgarians, Poles, Romani, Romanians, Turks, Vlachs and Albanians. Article 12 of the constitution states that the official language in Croatia is the Croatian language, but also states that in some local governments another language and Cyrillic or some other script can be introduced in official use.
Bartol Kašić
In almost 200 pages and two parts ("books"), he provided the basic information on the Croatian language and explained the Croatian morphology in great detail. The language is basically Shtokavian with many Chakavian elements, mixing older and newer forms. For unknown reasons, the grammar was not accompanied by a dictionary, as was the practice with Jesuit dictionaries and grammars of Croatian.
Jakov Mikalja
It was the first Croatian dictionary, with Croatian (under name of "Illyric" or "Slovinian") as the starting language (in the very same dictionary, he treats the terms Croatian, Slovinian and Illyric as synonyms ). An Important thing to note is that Micaglia names in his dictionary Croatian language as ""Illyric"" or "Slovinian", Italian as ""Latin"", which he names as the ""students' language"" (diacki). The introduction to the dictionary has a "Latin" dedication, a note to the reader in Italian ("Al benigno lettore"), a presentation of the alphabet and orthography in Latin and Croatian ("Od ortographie jezika slovinskoga ili načina od pisanja"), and an Italian grammar in Croatian ("Grammatika Talianska").
Croatian language
The most prominent recent editions describing the Croatian standard language are:Also notable are the recommendations of "Matica hrvatska", the national publisher and promoter of Croatian heritage, and the Lexicographical institute Miroslav Krleža, as well as the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Vlachs in the history of Croatia
Socioculturally, there were two main ethnic divisions in the Croatian Military Frontier, those of the "native" "Croats" and "immigrant" "Vlachs". The Croats were Catholics, Habsburg subjects, made up of an agrarian population concentrated around frontier towns, of nuclear families, and linguistically predominantly Chakavian-speaking (or Chakavian-based speech). The Vlachs were holders of patriarchal-pastoral culture of the Dinaric, refugees from Ottoman and Venetian territories, of extended families, and linguistically Neo-Shtokavian-speaking.
Cyrillic alphabets
Cyrillic alphabet is used in present-day Croatia among the Serb minority. In Croatian schools the Cyrillic alphabet was taught during the time Croatia was part of Yugoslavia.
Serbian language in Croatia
In April 2015 the United Nations Human Rights Committee urged the Croatian government to ensure the right of minorities to use their language and alphabet. The report noted the use of Serbian Cyrillic in Vukovar and municipalities concerned. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said that his country welcomes the UN Human Rights Committee's report.
Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian
Serbian and Bosnian language standards tend to be inclusive, i.e. to accept a wider range of idioms and to use loanwords (German and Turkish), whereas the Croatian language policy is more purist and prefers neologisms to loan-words, as well as the re-use of neglected older words. Yet there is criticism of the puristic language policy even in Croatia, as exemplified by linguist Snježana Kordić. These approaches are, again, due to the different cultural, historical and political development of the three variants and the societies they are found in.
Croatian language
Standard Croatian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian, which is also the basis of Standard Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. In the mid-18th century, the first attempts to provide a Croatian literary standard began on the basis of the Neo-Shtokavian dialect that served as a supraregional "lingua franca" pushing back regional Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian vernaculars. The decisive role was played by Croatian Vukovians, who cemented the usage of Ijekavian Neo-Shtokavian as the literary standard in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, in addition to designing a phonological orthography. Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.
Šokac
Šokac ("Šokački jezik") was a language listed in Austro-Hungarian censuses. Population censuses performed in Austria-Hungary recorded the native language of the citizens, whereby Šokac was declared as native language to one part of the population, presumably members of the Šokci ethnic group. According to the 1910 census, the speakers of Šokac were recorded in the Bačka-Bodrog County, in the municipalities of Apatin, Baja, Odžaci, and Palanka. Although, not very different from Croatian or Serbian Shtokavian speech, Šokac could be identified along with Slavonian subdialect of the "old-Štokavian" speech. Today, most of the members of the Šokci community declare themselves as Croats in the census, and their language as Croatian or Serbian.
Croatian language
The Illyrian movement was a 19th-century pan-South Slavic political and cultural movement in Croatia that had the goal to standardize the regionally differentiated and orthographically inconsistent literary languages in Croatia, and finally merge them into a common South Slavic literary language. Specifically, three major groups of dialects were spoken on Croatian territory, and there had been several literary languages over four centuries. The leader of the Illyrian movement Ljudevit Gaj standardized the Latin alphabet in 1830–1850 and worked to bring about a standardized orthography. Although based in Kajkavian-speaking Zagreb, Gaj supported using the more populous Neo-Shtokavian – a version of Shtokavian that eventually became the predominant dialectal basis of both Croatian and Serbian literary language from the 19th century on. Supported by various South Slavic proponents, Neo-Shtokavian was adopted after an Austrian initiative at the Vienna Literary Agreement of 1850, laying the foundation for the unified Serbo-Croatian literary language. The uniform Neo-Shtokavian then became common in the Croatian elite.
Međimurje County
The official language of Međimurje County, as in the whole of Croatia, is the Shtokavian dialect of Croatian. However, the local dialect is Kajkavian, which is commonly spoken and understood among the people native to the region. In Kajkavian there is a number of Hungarian and German loanwords, but the Međimurian Kajkavian dialect sees the strongest Hungarian and German influence. The Međimurian dialect forms dialect continuum to the Prekmurje dialect (Southern Dolinsko dialect near Lendava) and the dialect of Prlekija. The artists of the Međimurje seek to cultivate the local dialect, including Franjo Mesarić–Frenki writer and poet, and Vlado Mihaljević, writer, singer, cantor and searcher.
Constitution of Croatia
Article 12 states that the official language is Croatian in the Latin script and that in some areas, together with the Croatian language and Latin script, other languages, such as Cyrillic or any other legal language can be used.
List of official languages
Croatian:
Serbo-Croatian
In 1954, major Serbian and Croatian writers, linguists and literary critics, backed by Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska signed the Novi Sad Agreement, which in its first conclusion stated: "Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins share a single language with two equal variants that have developed around Zagreb (western) and Belgrade (eastern)". The agreement insisted on the equal status of Cyrillic and Latin scripts, and of Ekavian and Ijekavian pronunciations. It also specified that "Serbo-Croatian" should be the name of the language in official contexts, while in unofficial use the traditional "Serbian" and "Croatian" were to be retained. Matica hrvatska and Matica srpska were to work together on a dictionary, and a committee of Serbian and Croatian linguists was asked to prepare a "pravopis". During the sixties both books were published simultaneously in Ijekavian Latin in Zagreb and Ekavian Cyrillic in Novi Sad. Yet Croatian linguists claim that it was an act of unitarianism. The evidence supporting this claim is patchy: Croatian linguist Stjepan Babić complained that the television transmission from Belgrade always used the Latin alphabet— which was true, but was not proof of unequal rights, but of frequency of use and prestige. Babić further complained that the Novi Sad Dictionary (1967) listed side by side words from both the Croatian and Serbian variants wherever they differed, which one can view as proof of careful respect for both variants, and not of unitarism. Moreover, Croatian linguists criticized those parts of the Dictionary for being unitaristic that were written by Croatian linguists. And finally, Croatian linguists ignored the fact that the material for the "Pravopisni rječnik" came from the Croatian Philological Society. Regardless of these facts, Croatian intellectuals brought the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language in 1967. On occasion of the publication's 45th anniversary, the Croatian weekly journal Forum published the Declaration again in 2012, accompanied by a critical analysis.
Croatia–Italy relations
Although stormy at best when parts of Croatia were under direct Italian control during the second world war, today the relations between the two countries can be described as "very friendly", and both countries wish to improve their relations. Along with sharing a historically strong adherence to the Roman Catholic religion, they have various cultural similarities, with Croatia considered the most "Italian" of all the Slavic countries. Italian is a fairly popular foreign language in Croatia, with 15% of Croatians able to speak it well enough to have a conversation, according to Eurobarometer.
Minority languages of Croatia
In 2004 Hungarian minority asked for introduction of Hungarian language in town of Beli Manastir as an official language, referring to the rights acquired prior to 1991. Hungarian minority at that time constituted 8,5% of town population. Central Library of Hungarians in Croatia operates as a section of Public library in Beli Manastir.
Kajkavian
There are differing opinions over whether Kajkavian is best considered a dialect of Serbo-Croatian or a fully-fledged language of its own, as it is only partially mutually intelligible with other dialects and bears more similarities to Slovene (especially the Prekmurje dialect) than to the prestige Shtokavian dialect (which forms the basis of the national normative registers of Serbo-Croatian) in terms of phonology and vocabulary. Notable Croatian linguists consider Kajkavian to be a language in its own right, with its own established dialects and documented literature. Croatian linguist Stjepan Ivšić has used Kajkavian vocabulary and accentuation, which significantly differs from that of Shtokavian, as evidence. Furthermore, there is no clear demarcation between Slovene dialects and Kajkavian. Thus, it has low mutual intelligibility with Shtokavian, on which Croatia's standard language is based. Linguist Josip Silić, one of the main initiators behind the standardisation of the Croatian language, also regards Kajkavian as a distinct language by dint of its having significantly different morphology, syntax and phonology from the official Shtokavian-based standard. As of 2015, historic Literary Kajkavian has a separate language ISO 639-3 code – "kjv". Active attempts are being made by some organizations to widen its recognition and status, which has thus far included introduction of elective school subjects in Kajkavian in some parts of Croatia.
Hungarians of Croatia
, Hungarian is officially used in two municipalities and four other settlements in Croatia, according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Croats of Serbia
Croatian is listed as one of the six official languages of Vojvodina, autonomous province located in the northern part of the country which traditionally fosters multilingualism, multiculturalism and multiconfessionalism. Some people of Croat ethnic descent have held high positions in Serbia, such as Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Speaker of the National Assembly.
Serbian language in Croatia
Various minority organizations use Serbian in their work. One of them, Association for Serbian language and literature in Croatia from Vukovar is a nonprofit professional organization that brings together scientists and technical workers in the Republic of Croatia engaged in studying and teaching of Serbian language and literature.
Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina speak Croatian, a standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian language, spoken by the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even though most of them speak in the Ijekavian, also the norm among Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs, Ikavian is also used and was widespread in larger parts of Bosnia.
Republic of Ragusa
According to Graubard:
Croatian was normally spoken among lower classes, Italian among the upper. Ragusans were in general bilingual, speaking Croatian in common day-to-day duties and Italian in official occasions or mixing both. Literary works of famous Ragusans were written in both Croatian and Italian. Among them are the works of writers Džore Držić, Marin Držić, Ivan Bunić Vučić, Ignjat Đurđević, Ivan Gundulić, Šišmundo (Šiško) Menčetić, and Dinko Ranjina.
South Slavic languages
This dialect is spoken primarily in the federal state of Burgenland in Austria and nearby areas in Vienna, Slovakia, and Hungary by descendants of Croats who migrated there during the 16th century. This dialect (or family of dialects) differs from standard Croatian, since it has been heavily influenced by German and Hungarian. It has properties of all three major dialectal groups in Croatia, since the migrants did not all come from the same area. The linguistic standard is based on a Chakavian dialect, and (like all Chakavian dialects) is characterized by very conservative grammatical structures: for example, it preserves case endings lost in the Shtokavian base of standard Croatian. At most 100,000 people speak Burgenland Croatian and almost all are bilingual in German. Its future is uncertain, but there is movement to preserve it. It has official status in six districts of Burgenland, and is used in some schools in Burgenland and neighboring western parts of Hungary.
Borovo, Croatia
Serbian Language and Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is the second official language in the municipality of Borovo alongside with the Croatian language which is official at the national level. Both Serbian and Croatian language are standardized varieties of the Serbo-Croatian language. According to the municipal Statute, individuals who are members of the Serbian national minority are ensured the freedom of expression of national belonging and freedom to use their language and script in public and private use on the whole territory of the Municipality of Borovo. The statute guarantees that the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet will be used in the same font as Latin alphabet in text of the local seals and stamps, on official plates of public representative, executive and administrative bodies, as well as on those of legal persons with public authorities. For the coming and from the past sessions of the Municipal Assembly Councillor or any other citizen have the right to get all of the working and official materials bilingually, and those materials must be in the same font in both languages. According to the municipal Statute, on the entire territory of the Municipality bilingual signs of same font are used for written traffic signs and other written traffic markings, street and squares names and names of settlement and geographical localities. Equal public use of Serbian language is required on the basis of Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities in the Republic of Croatia and relevant national laws since the country is a party to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Istro-Romanian language
Since 2010, the Croatian Constitution has recognized Istro-Romanians as one of 22 national minorities. However, because of its very small number of speakers, living in about eight minor hamlets and two considerable villages, notably Žejane and Šušnjevica, there is no public education or mass media in Istro-Romanian language.
Croatian language
Croatian, although technically a form of Serbo-Croatian, is sometimes considered a distinct language by itself. Purely linguistic considerations of languages based on mutual intelligibility ("abstand" languages) are frequently incompatible with sociopolitical conceptions of language so that varieties that are mutually intelligible may be considered separate languages. Differences between various standard forms of Serbo-Croatian are often exaggerated for political reasons. Most Croatian linguists regard Croatian as a separate language that is considered key to national identity. The issue is sensitive in Croatia as the notion of a separate language being the most important characteristic of a nation is widely accepted, stemming from the 19th-century history of Europe. The 1967 Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language, in which a group of Croatian authors and linguists demanded greater autonomy for the Croatian language, is viewed in Croatia as a linguistic policy milestone that was also a general milestone in national politics.
Serbo-Croatian
Enisa Kafadar argues that there is only one Serbo-Croatian language with several varieties. This has made it possible to include all four varieties in a new grammar book. Daniel Bunčić concludes that it is a pluricentric language, with four standard variants spoken in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The mutual intelligibility between their speakers "exceeds that between the standard variants of English, French, German, or Spanish". Other linguists have argued that the differences between the variants of Serbo-Croatian are less significant than those between the variants of English, German, Dutch, and Hindi–Urdu.
Slovenes of Croatia
Slovenes of Croatia (, ) are one of 22 national minorities in Croatia. According to 2011 census, there were 10,517 Slovenes in Croatia, with majority (approximately 60%) living in only three counties Istria County, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and consolidated city-county Zagreb.
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic is in official use in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the Bosnian language "officially accept[s] both alphabets", the Latin script is almost always used in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereas Cyrillic is in everyday use in Republika Srpska (and is used only by the Serbs in the country). The Serbian language in Croatia is officially recognized as a minority language, however, the use of Cyrillic in bilingual signs has sparked protests and vandalism.
Serbo-Croatian
The opinion of the majority of Croatian linguists is that there has never been a Serbo-Croatian language, but two different standard languages that overlapped sometime in the course of history. However, Croatian linguist Snježana Kordić has been leading an academic discussion on this issue in the Croatian journal "Književna republika" from 2001 to 2010. In the discussion, she shows that linguistic criteria such as mutual intelligibility, the huge overlap in the linguistic system, and the same dialect basis of the standard language are evidence that Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are four national variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language. Igor Mandić states: "During the last ten years, it has been the longest, the most serious and most acrid discussion (…) in 21st-century Croatian culture". Inspired by that discussion, a monograph on language and nationalism has been published.