What language is spoken in Croatia?

Known for the beautiful cities of Dubrovnik and Split, among others, but what language is spoken in Croatia?

Croatia, officially known as the Republic of Croatia, borders Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia-Herzegovina to the southeast, and Montenegrin, to the northwest with Slovenia and to the southwest with the Adriatic Sea; where it shares a maritime border with Italy. Since 2013 it is a member of the European Union.

What language is spoken in Croatia?

Croatia recognizes an official language, Croatian, spoken by 95% of the population. It is a Slavic language belonging to the Indo-European family. It is also one of the official languages of the European Union.

In Istria, a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea between the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner coast, in Croatia and Slovenia, it is co-official with the italian.

At the time it was part of the former Yugoslavia, the official language was Serbo-Croatian and the Serbian and Croatian variants were not distinguished, which were known as the Eastern or Western version and were even written with different alphabets.

Currently, there is a great protectionism with the language. Words with foreign origin (Austrian, Hungarian, Italian or Turkish) they are adapted and altered to the Slavic sounds of Croatian.

It is written using the Latin alphabet and has 3 dialects: Stocavian, Chakavian and Kaikavian which differ in vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax.

What other languages are spoken in Croatia?

By law, a minority language will be in official use in counties where they make up more than a third of the population or if local legislation deems it appropriate. These languages are: Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Italian, Ruthenian and Serbian.

The 2nd most spoken language is Serbian, followed by Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech and Slovak.

Croatia is a bilingual country, as 78% of the population knows at least one other language. The most learned foreign languages are English, German and Italian.

French and Russian are spoken by 4% of the population for each of these, and Spanish is known by 2% of the inhabitants of Croatia.

In what other country is Croatian spoken?

In Slovenia, 59% of the population speak Croatian. Other countries to which this language has spread include Germany, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Basic expressions

Would you like to know some of the basic expressions of this language?

Let's see some examples to motivate you to know it.

Good Morning! - Dobro jutro

Good afternoon! - Dobar dan

Good night! - Dobra večer (dobra vetcher)

Goodbye! - Doviđenja (dovidyegna)

See you later! - Vidimo se (Vidimo sé)

Yes – Da

No – Ne

Thank you – Hvala

Your welcome - Nema na čemu (nema na tchemou)

Okay– U redu (ou redou)

I don't understand - ne razumijem (né razoumiyem)

You can now add Croatian to your list of languages to learn.