Croatian language

The Croatian language is spoken mainly throughout the countries of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the surrounding countries of Europe. Croatian grammar is the grammar of the Croatian language. The Croatian language consists of three vernaculars (Kaikavian, Chakavian and Shtokavian).

Croatian
hrvatski
Pronunciation	[xř̩ʋaːtskiː]
Native to	Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia (Vojvodina), Montenegro, Romania (Caraș-Severin County), Slovenia, and diaspora
Region	Balkans
Ethnicity	Croats
Native speakers	5.6 million (2006)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western Serbo-Croatian Croatian
Writing system	Latin (Gaj's alphabet) Cyrillic Croatian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Croatia Bosnia and Herzegovina Serbia (Vojvodina) European Union
Recognised minority language in	Montenegro Austria (in Burgenland) Hungary (in Baranya County) Italy (in Molise) Romania (in Carașova, Lupac)
Regulated by	Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hr
ISO 639-2	hrv
ISO 639-3	hrv
Linguasphere	part of 53-AAA-g
Traditional extent of Serbo-Croatian dialects in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatian language Baska tablet 1100.

Croatian Prayer Book 1380-1400.

Croatian grammar books show that the codification of the language started at the beginning of the 17th century (the first grammar was written by Bartol Kašić in Latin in 1604). This means that the rules for the language were written down. From 1604 to 1836 there were 17 grammars. Most of them described the Štokavian dialect, but some were about Kajkavian. In the 19th century, more grammars based on Štokavian were written. They were "Nova ricsoslovnica illiricka", written by Šime Starčević (1812), and "Grammatik der illyrischen Sprache", written by Ignjat Alojzije Brlić (1833),. Even before the 19th century, the three dialects of the Croatian language were almost equally used. However, the way each dialect was written down varied throughout Croatia. Near the Adriatic coast, it was more similar to Italian, and near the Hungarian border, it was more similar to Hungarian. All grammars of the above period (1604-1836) used three accents: acute, grave and circumflex, Starčević's grammar is an exception as it uses a system of four accents. In 19th century, Ljudevit Gaj proposed new letters from Czech (č,ž,š,ľ,ň,ď and ǧ). The letters that were accepted were č, ž and š, and from Polish, ć. For other phonemes (sounds), the digraphs that were accepted were ie, lj, nj and dž. Later dj or gj was changed to đ (according to proposal by Đuro Daničić).

Orthography

The Croatian language uses a Latin script of 30 letters and one diphthong "ie" or "ije", and "ŕ". This system is called gajica in Croatian (or Croatian Gaj's Latin alphabet). The name came from Ljudevit Gaj. The letter order (and whole alphabet) is called abeceda in Croatian, because the first 4 letters are spelled "a, be, ce, de". For writing foreign names and words, and in some professions, the Croatian language uses letters which do not belong to gajica, like "X, x (iks), Y,y (ipsilon)" and others.

Croatian alphabet (Gaica) 1830.c

• 
  (a)
• 
  (be)
• 
  (ce)
• 
  (če)
• 
  (će)
• 
  (de)
• 
  (dže)
• 
  (đe)
• 
  (e)
• 
  (ef)
• 
  (ge)
• 
  (ha)
• 
  (i)
• 
  (je)
• 
  (ka)
• 
  (el)
• 
  (elj)
• 
  (em)
• 
  (en)
• 
  (enj)
• 
  (o)
• 
  (pe)
• 
  (er)
• 
  (es)
• 
  (eš)
• 
  (te)
• 
  (u)
• 
  (ve)
• 
  (ze)
• 
  (že)

Grammatical cases

In Croatian, nouns change form depending on the composition of the sentence. This is called declension. For people who are learning Croatian, declension is the most difficult part of the language to master. It is very complicated and time-consuming to explain it and because of that we will use simpler techniques. However, many languages have noun and pronoun declension, including English. In English, though, only pronoun declension now remains. Let us start by explaining all of the seven Croatian grammatical cases. The technique that is most frequently used in determining grammatical cases (the same technique is used in Croatian schools when taught to children) is by asking yourself a question when you are trying to figure out which case a noun should be in. In Croatian, grammatical cases are called padeži (plural) and padež (singular).

• Example:

1. In this example you will be shown how to determine a noun's grammatical case by using the table below.
2. Krešimir is going to school. (Krešimir ide u školu.)

The question you will ask yourself here is: “Where is Krešimir going?”. And the answer is that he's going to school. By looking at the table below you will see that the question 'where' is used for the Locative case.

Grammatical case	The question you are ask yourself	Example
Nominativ (Nominative)	Tko? Što? (Who or what?)	Jabuka je fina. (The apple is delicious.)
Genitiv (Genitive)	Koga? Čega? Čiji? (Who? Of What? Who's?)	Ovo radim zbog jabuke. (I'm doing this because of the apple.)
Dativ (Dative)	Komu? Čemu? (Whom or what am I going toward?)	Idem prema jabuci. (I am going toward the apple.)
Akuzativ (Accusative)	Koga? Što? (Whom or what?)	Ne vidim jabuku. (I do not see the apple.)
Vokativ (Vocative)	Oj! Ej! (Oi! Hey!)	Oj, jabuko! (Oi, apple!)
Lokativ (Locative)	Gdje? U komu? U čemu? (Where? In what? In who?)	Živim u jabuci. (I live in the apple.)
Instrumental	S kime? S čime? (With whom or with what?)	Trčim s jabukom. (I am running with the apple.)

Gender

Croatian nouns are divided into three genders: the masculine, feminine and neuter gender. To know a noun's gender is very important because it affects all the words in a sentence that are tied to the noun, such as adjectives. A gender is determined by the noun's ending (with some exceptions). This makes it easier to tell what gender a noun is without memorizing the gender of every word. See the table below. Nouns retain their gender in plural. For instance, even though the noun 'žene' (women) ends in -e, it is of the feminine gender.

Ending	-a	-e, -o	-k, -l, -r, -d... (and all other letters)
Gender	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine
Example	žena (woman)	sunce (sun)	metak (bullet)

Grammatical aspects

Croatian verbs have two grammatical aspects: the perfective and imperfective. The perfective aspect depicts an action that has already been finished. The imperfective aspect depicts an action that is still continuing. So, each verb in its infinitive form can be written in 2 ways: in its perfective and imperfective aspect. The table below is showing 5 verbs both in their perfective and imperfective aspects.

Imperfective aspect in infinitive	Perfective aspect in infinitive
Trčati. (To run. infinite action)	Odtrčati. (Definite action, the running has been done with.)
Sjediti. (To sit. infinite action)	Sjesti.
Plivati. (To swim. infinite action)	Odplivati.
Graditi. (To build. infinite action)	Izgraditi.
Popravljati. (To fix/repair/mend. infinite action)	Popraviti.

Grammatical tenses

In Croatian, there are seven grammatical tenses. They can be divided in two ways: by the time they take place in and by their complexity. Simple tenses consist of only 1 word (simple tenses are aorist, imperfect, and present) while complex tenses consist of 2 or even 3 words (complex tenses are pluperfect, perfect, first future, second future) because they also consist of auxiliary verbs. Also, some grammatical tenses cannot be formed with both grammatical aspects, they work with only one aspect.

Tense	Description	Example
Pluperfect	An action that has happened before another action (same as English past perfect).	Mladen je bio ručao. (Mladen had had lunch.)
Imperfect	Past tense that is formed only by imperfective verbs. An unfinished past tense.	Mladen trčaše. (Mladen was running.)
Aorist	Past tense (not used much nowadays). It is the same as Perfekt. Can be formed only with verbs in perfective states.	Mladen odtrčaše. (Mladen was running but he finished sometime in the past.)
Perfect	Main past tense. Can be formed by both imperfective and perfective verbs.	Mladen je trčao. (Mladen was running).
Present	Present tense.	Mladen ruča. (Mladen is having lunch.)
First future	Future tense.	Mladen će ručati. (Mladen will have lunch.)
Second future Before-future tense.	Used in expressing a future action that will happen before another future action.	Ako bude kiša uskoro pala, suša će prestati. (If rain soon falls, the drought will end.)

Common phrases

• Basic and common expressions:

Croatian	English
Da	Yes
Ne	No
Što	What
I	And
Ili	Or
Bok	Hi, bye
Zbogom	Goodbye
Dobar dan	Good day
Dobro jutro	Good morning
Dobra večer	Good evening
Laku noć	Good night
Možda	Maybe
Kada	When
Gdje	Where
Kako	How
Hvala	Thanks
Dođi	Come

• Colours:

Croatian	English
Zlatna	Golden
Zelena	Green
Crvena	Red
Žuta	Yellow
Smeđa	Brown
Narančasta	Orange
Crna	Black
Plava	Blue
Ružičasta	Pink
Ljubičasta	Purple
Siva	Grey
Bijela	White
Tirkizna	Turquoise
Srebrna	Silver

• Days, months & seasons

The Croatian week starts with Monday and ends with Sunday, unlike weeks from some other countries, where Sunday is the first day and Saturday the last.

• Days:

Croatian	English
Ponedjeljak	Monday
Utorak	Tuesday
Srijeda	Wednesday
Četvrtak	Thursday
Petak	Friday
Subota	Saturday
Nedjelja	Sunday

• Months:

Croatian	English
Siječanj	January
Veljača	February
Ožujak	March
Travanj	April
Svibanj	May
Lipanj	June
Srpanj	July
Kolovoz	August
Rujan	September
Listopad	October
Studeni	November
Prosinac	December

• Directions

Croatian	English
Sjever	North
Jug	South
Istok	East
Zapad	West
Gore	Up
Dolje	Down
Lijevo	Left
Desno	Right

• Prepositions

Croatian	English
Na	On
Uz	By
Ispod/pod	Under, below
Iznad/nad/ober	Above
U	In
Ispred	In front of
Iza	Behind

• Numbers

0 - Nula
1 - Jedan
2 - Dva
3 - Tri
4 - Četiri
5 - Pet
6 - Šest
7 - Sedam
8 - Osam
9 - Devet
10 - Deset
11 - Jedanaest
12 - Dvanaest
13 - Trinaest
14 - Četrnaest
15 - Petnaest
16 - Šesnaest
17 - Sedamnaest
18 - Osamnaest
19 - Devetnaest
20 - Dvadeset
30 - Trideset
40 - Četrdeset
50 - Pedeset
60 - Šezdeset
70 - Sedamdeset
80 - Osamdeset
90 - Devedeset
100 - Sto
1,000 - Tisuću
1,000,000 - Milijun
1,000,000,000 - Milijarda

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Areas where Croatian language is spoken of central South Slavic dyasistems (as of 2006)

Different languages

English	Croatian	Serbian
Compare	Usporedba	Поређење (Poređenje)
Europe	Europa	Европа (Evropa)
Netherlands	Nizozemska	Холандија (Holandija)
Italians	Talijani	Италијани (Italijani)
Universe	Svemir	Васиона (Vasiona)
Spine	Kralježnica	Кичма (Kičma)
Air	Zrak	Ваздух (Vazduh)
Education	Odgoj	Васпитање (Vaspitanje)
Week	Tjedan	Седмица (Sedmica)
History	Povijest	Историја (Istorija)
Pantaloons	Hlače	Панталоне (Pantalone)
Belly	Trbuh	Стомак (Stomak)
Science	Znanost	Наука (Nauka)
Personally	Osobno	Лично (Lično)
Persona	Osoba	Лице (Lice)
United Nations	Ujedinjeni Narodi	Уједињене Нације (Ujedinjene Nacije)
Bread	Kruh	Хлеб (Hleb)
Artificial	Umjetno	Вештачки (Veštački)
Cross	Križ	Крст (Krst)
Democracy	Demokracija	Демократија (Demokratija)
Detection	Spoznaja	Сазнање (Saznanje)
Island	Otok	Острво (Ostrvo)
Officer	Časnik	Официр (Oficir)
Road traffic	Cestovni promet	Друмски саобраћај (Drumski saobraćaj)
Autobahn	Autocesta	Аутопут (Autoput)
Length	Duljina	Дужина (Dužina)
Association	Udruga	Удружење (Udruženje)
Factory	Tvornica	Фабрика (Fabrika)
General	Opće	Опште (Opšte)
Christ	Krist	Христoс (Hristos)
I'm sorry	Oprosti	Извини (Izvini)
Native language standard	Materinski jezićni standard	Матерњи језички стандард