- Official language in
- Croatia
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Croatian is the official language of Croatia. The Croatian Constitution places the Croatian language and the Latin script in official use in the Republic of Croatia; in individual local units, the constitution allows another language and the Cyrillic or another script to be introduced into official use alongside Croatian and the Latin script, under conditions set by law.
Sources
Script & pronunciation
Croatian is written in the Latin script, which the constitution places in official use together with the language. This Latin script is historically paired one-to-one with the Cyrillic script also used to write the same language, and the Unicode Standard notes that a set of compatibility digraphs — two letters standing for one sound — is provided for this one-to-one match. Example: this app's card Jako ste ljubazni ("You are very kind") contains one such digraph, lj, in ljubazni. This app's Croatian cards give the language only in this Latin spelling, without a separate romanization field, as in Dobrodošli u Hrvatsku ("Welcome to Croatia").
Sources
- Constitution of the Republic of Croatia (2013 consolidated text), Article 12 "Official Language" — Article 12
- The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0.0 — Core Specification, Chapter 7: European Alphabetic Scripts — §7.1.4 "Latin Extended-B" (Serbo-Croatian compatibility digraphs)
Grammar essentials
Certain short, unaccented Croatian words — enclitics, such as the question particle li, forms of the verb biti ("to be"), and pronoun objects — do not begin a clause; grammars of the language describe them as coming together instead, right after the clause's first word or phrase, in one fixed position with a strict internal order. Example: this app's card Zovem se... ("My name is...") places the verb Zovem first and the reflexive clitic se immediately after it, as its word breakdown shows. Croatian also marks a noun's grammatical role with case endings: the language has seven cases — nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, and instrumental. Example: this app's card Za jednu osobu ("For one person") puts the accusative form jednu after the preposition za, because osoba ("person") is a feminine noun.
Sources
- Browne, Wayles (2004). "Serbo-Croatian Enclitics for English-Speaking Learners." Journal of Slavic Linguistics 12(1-2):249-83 — p.250, Rule 1 ("All clitics in a clause must come together")
- Alexander, Ronelle (2006). Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Grammar with Sociolinguistic Commentary. University of Wisconsin Press — §64 "Clitic ordering within the XYZ model", p.82
- Alexander, Ronelle (2006). Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Grammar with Sociolinguistic Commentary. University of Wisconsin Press — Table of Contents, Chapter 17 (the seven cases)
Politeness & etiquette
Croatian marks politeness through its pronouns for "you": Croatia's own spelling rules capitalize the second-person singular and plural pronouns and possessives — Ti, Tvoj, Tebi and Vi, Vaš, Vama — specifically when they address one particular person out of respect, and keep them lowercase when addressing a group or unspecified people. Example: this app's card Vi ("You (polite)") notes that vi is used with strangers and staff while ti is used with friends and children; because the same vi is also the plural "you", a gesture is needed to show whether one person or several are meant.
Sources
- Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje. Hrvatski pravopis, rule 4.1.3 "Riječi iz poštovanja i počasti" — Rule 4.1.3 (capitalized Ti/Tvoj/Tebi, Vi/Vaš/Vama for respectful address to one person)