Croatian: The language with 30 letters
Croatian is a South Slavic language with around 7 million native speakers in Croatia, neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a large diaspora. The first inscription in Croatian dates from the 11th century, and it was standardized to modern Croatian in the 19th century. It shares similarities with Serbian, and, although historically linked, both are now considered different languages.
3 interesting facts about the Croatian language
Croatian contains letter constructions such as dž, lj, and nj that are pronounced and treated as single letters.
Unlike the English language, which only consists of 26 letters, the Croatian language has 30 letters.
Bartol Kašić wrote and published the first Croatian Grammar in 1604 which was written in Latin.
Origin of the language
In the 7th century, the Croats migrated with other South Slavic tribes. Over time, they developed a separate and unique language similar to Proto-Slavic and Old Church Slavonic languages. The language was also influenced by neighboring countries and occupying powers such as the Ottomans, Venetians, Hapsburgs, and Hungarians.
History of the language
Croatian lords used the Latin language and letters in early scripts, and Croats were first mentioned in the 9th century. After the Byzantine theologians, Saint Cyril and Methodius, spread Christianity, they also developed the first alphabet. Croatia adopted the Glagoljica alphabet and created a localized version.
The Baska tablet of the 11th century is the first noted Croatian inscription. In the 14th century, Croatians adopted Latin letters, and the first written Croatian document in Latin was a poem called “The Sibenik prayer.” In the 19th century, the Ilirski movement was a national campaign that chose the Štokavian dialect as the standard, keeping Kajkavian and Čakavian as local dialects. Many linguists created grammar books and dictionaries, leading to the modern standardized Croatian language.
Learning the language
It is estimated that an English speaker can learn Croatian in 1100 hours.
How to say ten common words and phrases in the Croatian language
Here are a few common words and phrases in the Croatian language that you can learn quickly.
Croatian language for beginners
Ten basic words to start learning in Croatian:
Hello = Zdravo
I love you = Volim te
Good morning = Dobro jutro
Thank You = Hvala
How are you = Kako si
Congratulations = Čestitke
Bye = Doviđenja
Good night = Laku noć
Happy Birthday = Sretan rođendan
Family = Obitelj
Of all things, I liked books best.
Nikola Tesla
Inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer
Yet we are all just ordinary people, and the only thing that matters is whether someone is good or not.
Miro Gavran
Short story writer and author
Listen: I always return to myself.
Vesna Parun
Poet
Fun facts about the Croatian language
Three major dialects
Croatian has three major dialects—Kajkavian, Štokavian, and Čakavian—which also have their minor dialects.
No silent letters
Croatian does not have any silent letters or letter combinations, making learning and reading it easier.
Numerous tenses
The Croatian language mainly consists of four past tenses, one present tense, and two future tenses.
FAQ
Aside from unique letters, the Croatian national language has many different case endings. For example, one ending has seven cases.
Croatian is most similar to the Serbian and Bosnian languages. Some linguists consider it a Serbo-Croatian language, but they are distinctly different languages that share a considerable amount of lexis and grammar although Serbian uses the Cyrillic alphabet.
Croatian is one of the most complex languages for native English speakers to learn. On average, English speakers will need a whole academic year, roughly more than 1,100 hours to master the language.
All nouns in Croatian are masculine, feminine, or neuter. Thus for animate objects, if a person or an animal is male, its grammatical gender will be masculine, and the same applies to females.
