Croatian language

Croatian
hrvatski
Pronunciation[xř̩ʋaːtskiː]
Native toCroatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary (Bácska), Montenegro (Bay of Kotor), Romania (Caraș-Severin County), Serbia (Vojvodina),[1] Kosovo (Janjevo)
RegionSoutheast Europe
EthnicityCroats
Native speakers
L1: 5.1 million (including all dialects spoken by Croats) (2021)[1]
L2: 1.3 million (2012)[1]
Latin (Gaj's alphabet)
Yugoslav Braille
Glagolitic (historical)
Bosnian Cyrillic (historical)
Official status
Official language in
 Croatia
 Bosnia and Herzegovina (co-official)
 Montenegro (co-official)[3]
 Serbia (in Vojvodina)
 Austria (in Burgenland)
 European Union
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byInstitute of Croatian Language and Linguistics
Language codes
ISO 639-1hr
ISO 639-2hrv
ISO 639-3hrv
Glottologcroa1245
Linguaspherepart of 53-AAA-g
States and regions which recognize Croatian as (co-)official (dark red) or minority language (light red)
Croatian is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
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a Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet.

Croatian (/kroʊˈeɪʃən/ ⓘ; hrvatski [xř̩ʋaːtskiː]) is the standardised variety of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language[8][9][10][11][12][13] mainly used by Croats.[14] It is the national official language and literary standard of Croatia, one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, the Serbian province of Vojvodina, the European Union and a recognized minority language elsewhere in Serbia and other neighbouring countries.

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.[15] 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.[16] Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.[17]

Besides the Shtokavian dialect, on which Standard Croatian is based, there are two other main supradialects spoken on the territory of Croatia, Chakavian and Kajkavian. These supradialects, and the four national standards, are usually subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English; this term is controversial for native speakers,[18] and names such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" (BCMS) are used by linguists and philologists in the 21st century.[19]

In 1997, the Croatian Parliament established the Days of the Croatian Language from March 11 to 17.[20] Since 2013, the Institute of Croatian language has been celebrating the Month of the Croatian Language, from February 21 (International Mother Language Day) to March 17 (the day of signing the Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language).[20]

  1. ^ a b c Croatian at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ a b "Croatia: Language Situation". Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). The official language of Croatia is Croatian (Serbo-Croatian). [...] The same language is referred to by different names, Serbian (srpski), Serbo-Croat (in Croatia: hrvatsko-srpski), Bosnian (bosanski), based on political and ethnic grounds. [...] the language that used to be officially called Serbo-Croat has gotten several new ethnically and politically based names. Thus, the names Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are politically determined and refer to the same language with possible slight variations.
  3. ^ "Language and alphabet Article 13". Constitution of Montenegro. WIPO. 19 October 2007. Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian shall also be in the official use.
  4. ^ Slovenskej Republiky, Národná Rada (1999). "Zákon 184/1999 Z. z. o používaní jazykov národnostných menšín" (in Slovak). Zbierka zákonov. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  5. ^ "Národnostní menšiny v České republice a jejich jazyky" [National Minorities in Czech Republic and Their Language] (PDF) (in Czech). Government of Czech Republic. p. 2. Podle čl. 3 odst. 2 Statutu Rady je jejich počet 12 a jsou uživateli těchto menšinových jazyků: [...], srbština a ukrajinština
  6. ^ "2011. évi CLXXIX. törvény a nemzetiségek jogairól" [Act CLXXIX/2011 on the Rights of Nationalities] (in Hungarian). Government of Hungary. 22. § (1) E törvény értelmében nemzetiségek által használt nyelvnek számít [...] a horvát
  7. ^ "Legge 15 Dicembre 1999, n. 482 "Norme in materia di tutela delle minoranze linguistiche storiche" pubblicata nella Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 297 del 20 dicembre 1999". Italian Parliament. Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
  8. ^ Dalby, David (1999). Linguasphere. 53-AAA-g. Srpski+Hrvatski, Serbo-Croatian. Linguasphere Observatory. p. 445.
  9. ^ Benjamin W. Fortson IV (2010). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Blackwell. p. 431. Because of their mutual intelligibility, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are usually thought of as constituting one language called Serbo-Croatian.
  10. ^ Blažek, Václav. On the Internal Classification of Indo-European Languages: Survey (PDF). pp. 15–16. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  11. ^ Šipka, Danko (2019). Lexical layers of identity: words, meaning, and culture in the Slavic languages. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 206. doi:10.1017/9781108685795. ISBN 978-953-313-086-6. LCCN 2018048005. OCLC 1061308790. S2CID 150383965. Serbo-Croatian, which features four ethnic variants: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin
  12. ^ Ćalić, Jelena (2021). "Pluricentricity in the classroom: the Serbo-Croatian language issue for foreign language teaching at higher education institutions worldwide". Sociolinguistica: European Journal of Sociolinguistics. 35 (1). De Gruyter: 113–140. doi:10.1515/soci-2021-0007. ISSN 0933-1883. S2CID 244134335. The debate about the status of the Serbo-Croatian language and its varieties has recently shifted (again) towards a position which looks at the internal variation within Serbo-Croatian through the prism of linguistic pluricentricity
  13. ^ Kordić, Snježana (2024). "Ideology Against Language: The Current Situation in South Slavic Countries" (PDF). In Nomachi, Motoki; Kamusella, Tomasz (eds.). Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires. Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge. pp. 168–169. doi:10.4324/9781003034025-11. ISBN 978-0-367-47191-0. OCLC 1390118985. S2CID 259576119. SSRN 4680766. COBISS.SR 125229577. COBISS 171014403. Archived from the original on 2024-01-10. Retrieved 2024-01-23.
  14. ^ E.C. Hawkesworth (2006). "Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian Linguistic Complex". Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.).
  15. ^ Bičanić et al. (2013:55)
  16. ^ Bičanić et al. (2013:84)
  17. ^ "Croatia: Themes, Authors, Books". Yale University Library Slavic and East European Collection. 2009-11-16. Retrieved 2010-10-27.
  18. ^ Cvetkovic, Ljudmila (2010). "Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Or Montenegrin? Or Just 'Our Language'? – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty". Rferl.org. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  19. ^ "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian language (BCMS)". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-01-26.
  20. ^ a b "Mjesec hrvatskog jezika" [Croatian language Month]. ihjj.hr (in Croatian). Institute of Croatian language. Retrieved 22 February 2024.