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Croatian

Serbo-Croatian is a Slavic language and as such belongs to the IndoEuropean (or Indo-Hittite) family of languages. This family includes languages from East Pakistan to Great Britain and the New World. Slavic is one of the branches of this family and includes Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian. Other branches are: Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, etc.), Italic (Latin, from which we get the Romance languages such as Rumanian, Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese), Celtic (Welsh, Irish, etc.), Hellenic (Greek), Armenian, Albanian, Baltic (Lithuanian, LatVian), Indic (Sanskrit, Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Gujerati, etc.), Iranian (Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, etc.).

Even within the standard Serbo Croatian language there are accepted variations, which set off an eastern variety of dialect from a central one. Although they are the same language and mutually intelligible, there are enough differences between the two to make it more advisable for a beginner to learn one or the other, rather than mix the two. The eastern dialect is spoken in Serbia, the central in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro and parts of western Serbia. The eastern type is standard for Belgrade and the central is the accepted standard in Zagreb, though the local dialect of the latter is somewhat different.

The eastern dialect is normally written in cyrillic letters and the central uses latin letters in Croatia, but cyrillic in Montenegro, and both cyrillic and latin in Bosnia and Hercegovina. In these units the Basic Sentences and Conversation drills are given in both latin and cyrillic, the version in latin letters being representative of central speech and that in cyrillic representing an eastern variety. Elsewhere latin letters are used but eastern speech.

These lessons are intended to give the beginner a useful oral command of the Serbo Croatian language and a reading knowledge somewhat broader than his speaking ability.

About the Serbo Croatian Language

Serbo-Croatian is spoken in the territories of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. Their geographical positions at the beginning of 1992 comprise when they were parts of the former Yugoslavia. The standard literary form of the Serbo Croatian Language is called "stokavski" and can be classified in two variants. One variant of the language is called the Eastern Variant and is spoken largely in Serbia, while the other is called the Western Variant and is spoken in Croatia and most of Bosnia-Hercegovina. However, it is not an easy task to describe exactly where the border runs between them. Serbo-Croatian, as spoken in Montenegro, for example, contains features of both variants.

The two variants of the language are so close that a thorough knowledge of the western variant will enable you to understand and communicate with a speaker of the eastern variant. Native speakers tend to avoid the lengthy title Serbo-Croatian "srpskohrvatski" in favor of the shorter titles Croatian "hrvatski" and Serbian "srpski". The shorter titles reflect their national identity.

Serbo-Croatian is an easy language to spell and pronounce. Each letter is pronounced separately, and each word is spelt as it is pronounced. The alphabet has 30 letter.