About the Croatian language

Croatian is spoken by about 7 million people, the majority (4.2 million) of whom live in the Republic of Croatia (Republika Hrvatska). It is the language of government there and is an official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Additionally Croatian is an official language in parts of Serbia, in the Austrian Burgenland, in a region of Hungary and a part of Montenegro.   Croatian is also spoken in countries other than those where it is an official language. Large Croatian communities are found in Western Europe, above all Germany and in Austria, and also in North America and Australia.

Croatian – closely related to Serbian and Bosnian

The Croatian language is very closely related to Serbian, and also with Bosnian and Montenegrin. If you learn Croatian, you will also be able to converse with speakers of these languages.   Croatian is, in contrast to Serbian, written not with Cyrillic but with the Roman alphabet, which makes learning the language easier.

There are a few additional signs in the Croatian alphabet:

Croatian – a Slavic language

Croatian belongs to the Slavic group of languages which in turn belongs to the Indo-European group of languages.
 
The Slavic languages are divided into the East Slavic (Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian), West Slavic (Polish, Slovakian and Czech) and the South Slavic language families.
The last group includes Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian and Serbian and the Croatian language.
 
All these languages have their origin in Proto-Slavic, that developed as a separate language family of the Indo-European group of languages about five thousand years ago.
Slavic languages are spoken today by about 300 million native speakers.

An overview of Croatian

1. Number of speakers: about 7 million
2. Official language in: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vojvodina (Serbia), Baranya (Hungary), Burgenland (Austria) and Boka Kotorska (Montenegro)
3. Spoken in: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Austria, Hungary, Montenegro, North America, Australia
4. South Slavic language
5. Seven cases:
   Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Locative, Instrumental and Vocative.
   Closely related to Serbian
6. Script:
   Roman alphabet with extra letters.
   These extra letters are fully integrated into the study software, so that they can be entered into the study exercises.

Would you like to learn more about Croatian?

We have assembled a small collection on interesting links for you.
Perhaps you will find them interesting.

• Learn the fifty most important words of Croatian, free and with audio.
• Here is the Wikipedia entry about the Croatian language.
• If you would like to learn Croatian, this link from the Croatian Language Institute provides further information.
• Would you like to learn Croatian tongue twisters to practice pronunciation?
• Would you like to learn Croatian?
  The Croatian Language courses from 17 Minute Language are available at various levels:
  Level A1/A2: Beginner’s Croatian
  Level B1/B2: Intermediate Croatian
  Level C1/C2: Advanced Croatian Vocabulary
  Business Croatian – Ideal for people working in Croatia
  Express Croatian: The quick start to learning Croatian for tourists