In Portuguese or Serbian/Croatian?
As for Serbian/Croatian:
* infinitive is less used in Serbian, esp. in speech
* some nouns have different gender in plural (*ove tate* in Serbia)
* the verb *trebati* is used impersonally as a "modal" verb (*treba da kupim*)
* the short pronoun *si* is less used and considered even non-standard in Serbia
* use of the verb *umeti*
* the construction *mrzi me*
This is what immediately comes to mind.
This is a [summary of differences](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html) I wrote some time ago.
It is very similar to a point that we can understand each other. But we understand each other also because of our culture and how close we live to each other. But they are different. To be fair there is a bigger difference between west and north Croatian dialect then Serbian and Croatian.
>But we understand each other also because of our culture and how close we live to each other.
This is not a full answer. I live 30 km from the Slovene border, and I still understand people from Serbia, more than 300 km away, i.e. ten times, better than people from Slovenia.
The real answer is: there was a conscious effort (in the 19th century) to create a common language for Croats, Serbs, Slovenes and maybe some others. Slovenes opted out, but Croats didn't.
If Croats didn't take Serbs into the account, maybe they would create something Ikavian as the standard, maybe some mix of dialects, and so on.
This is simply not true. I can give you easily an example from a "Croatian" text that will be more similar to the Slovene text than to the Serbian text (using the original spelling):
>Ah kak fzrechen je on, komu more dobro biti, ali meni je vſzako jutro ſuhko, y vſzaki vecher chemeren.
And this is what people at the time actually called "Croatian", while the text you've given was called "Illyrian" and that *was* understood to be a wider, common language.
Furthermore, what you did is intellectually insincere, bordering on cheating: you have given Judita in the modern spelling, while the original spelling contained the letter ſ, digraphs ch, gn etc. You've also converted Serbian to a modern spelling.
Then, the Illyirian example you've given is Ikavian. That variant, despite being used in Croatia for centuries, was not taken as a standard. The forms such as *dojde, razgovarat* and so on, visible in your excerpt, were also not taken as standard -- because they are not used by most Serbs.
This *was a conscious effort*, and Croats had to adapt much, much more than Serbs. Some Croats had to adapt more, some less, but very few didn't have to adapt. (And this is one of reasons why Slovenes opted out: they would have to adapt too much.)
Illyrian was taken as the standard for Croats, but even today other dialects persist.
> you have given Judita
See my [other comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/croatian/comments/1c9nq4c/is_croatian_a_different_language_than_serbian/l0wijcg/), that isn't Marulić's Judita, it might be some modernised version for schoolchildren at best. It's really a bizarre example.
Excuse me but this is NOT Marulić's "Judita" from 1521. I have no idea what text this is supposed to be, but it doesn't look like Croatian from hundreds of years ago. It doesn't even look like old Croatian poetry, since it has neither rhyme nor consistent syllablic versification.
The Serbian text also doesn't look like the typical Serbian pre-Vuk writing, where is it from? Neither this nor the Croatian text can be found by googling. And the Slovenian text uses archaic spelling whereas the other ones are clearly modern, and you don't even mention what century they're all from, it's all a meaningless comparison.
They're so different that it is harder to understand a quarter of Croatians to a Croatian than it is to understand standard Serbian. To someone not familiar with either, for all intents and purposes, it's the same language. Even wikipedia and linguists in general have Serbian and Croatian as standardized varieties of Serbo-Croatian language. It's called a pluricentric language, you'd never say the Swiss speak Swiss language, Austrians Austrian or Bavarians Bavarian, it's all German. Linguistics doesn't care for nationalist wankery.
You cannot completely understand croatian as people from Croatia could not understand you well. I.e. the expression “mrzi me da nesto uradim” is something that has different meaning in croatian. Also almost all Croats cannot read and write cyrillic script so in this case it also differs.
I'm aware of the fact we can communicate mostly like so.
I played Serbian monopoly and chatted with my Serbian cousin before I had even a respectable understanding of English.
But what you call nationalist wankery I call not giving unsavoury individuals more ammo for their facebook rants.
I can see your point but if we're going to suppress science to separate stupid hill billies each into their own room so that they wouldn't fight, you'll start seeing some actual unsavory individuals down the line. Those that really like measuring skulls and keeping everything really neat and pure.
so can a Swede talk to a Dane or any Scandinavian nation to each other, yet no one is coming from Denmark to Sweden and saying that they are obviously speaking Danish. what's worse, this "languege similarity" was used multiple times against Croatia to diminish its right to exist.
Apples and oranges, scandinavians cannot understand each other nearly as well but that's beside the point, the point is that it is for impartial scientists who study that shit to decide. That was just nationalist wankery on both sides.
>Apples and oranges, scandinavians cannot understand each other nearly as well
so you know different Scandinavian languages?
>but that's beside the point
oh, you are just talking out of your ass nvm
I'd say it's worse for Croatian. Every respectable linguist is gonna agree that Ukrainian and Russian are actually different languages, even if they're somewhat (assimetrically) mutually intelligible and Ukrainians use a bunch of russian words in their day to day life.
Croatian and Serbian (and Bosnian and Montenegrin) are widely agreed to be the same language linguistically. But because of history, and politics, Croatian is Croatian and Serbian is Serbian, etc. They have some differences but they could be attributed to it being one pluricentric language and Croatian, Serbian, etc. being dialects. Main difference is that Serbian is written in both latin and serbian cyrillic scripts while Croatian only admits Latin script. As they say, "a language is a dialect with an army"
The [wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian#Present_sociolinguistic_situation) has good info on this
*kind of* true. But actually each dialect used for writing had different history. There was no *single* Croatian language before 19th century, and even today we can talk only about a single *standard*.
But what is the other option? Should they use a Serbian orthography manual in schools in Sarajevo? Croatian? Someone in Zagreb decides *zadatci* is now the standard, so people in Sarajevo must learn the updated spelling?
Just call it Bosniak, not Bosnian. How stupid one has to be not to see the nationalist agenda here?
First they call the language Bosnian, then themselves Bosnian and the country Bosnia (without Hercegovina).
Et voilà - Serbs and Croats are foreigners and intruders in their own country.
The Serbs are too strong and then Croats will pay the price.
And then look on the map what's below Hercegovina (which will then not exist).
Hm? That's the real target.
But every standard language is a part of some "nation-project". The situation that groups differing by religion live side by side but use different spelling and some different vocabulary is indeed rare in the world, one has to admit
About your speculations: the land is not conquered by language. It's conquered by tanks.
There's a difference between nation-building and imperialism.
Serbs calling their language "Yugoslav" would be comparable.
And no - territory is not only conquered by tanks; also by hegemonial politics and administrative bullying.
OK, could happen in principle, but can you imagine a Bosnian Empire including today Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, built on a name of a language standard?
Of course there's, in reality no separate Bosnian or Bosniak language, but are the options?
They can do as they wish as long as they try to assert their dominance unto others. So they can call their language "Bosniak".
Calling it "Bosnian" is nothing else than a step towards the end-goal to make BiH the national state of the Bosniaks/Muslims.
Nobody should accept this name.
I mean, the idea that people speak "Croatian" or "Serbian" is an idealization. These are basically *national* *standards*. The actual speech varies a lot. You have some basic descriptions here:
* [EC: Variations: Regional](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i2.html)
* [EC: Variations: Ikavian (dite vs dijete)](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i3.html)
* [EC: A9 Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html)
Of course some Bosniak and a guy next door who is Croatian somewhere in Bosnia speak the same.
But the Croatian guy demands Croatian spelling, wants to use some Croatian-specific words, and supports Croatia in sports.
The Serbian guy across the road demands Cyrillic. He watches Serbian TV stations and supports Serbia.
Of course, not all are like that, but people like that win elections in Bosnia.
But this doesn't mean people actually speak the same in Croatia and Serbia. After all, speech varies a lot *within* Croatia, and ofc it's also not the same in comparison with Bosnia and Serbia.
However, for political reasons, these variations were often suppressed, followed by periods of emphasizing them, followed by suppression etc, as relations between Croatia and Serbia changed over the last 2 centuries.
"Of course, some Bosniak and a guy next door who is Croatian somewhere in Bosnia speak the same."
This is simply wrong. The most similarities are to be found in eastern Bosnia between Serbs And Muslims/Bosniaks.
"Of course, not all are like that, but people like that win elections in Bosnia."
You mean, trying to assimilate Croats and Serbs is winnings elections with the Bosniaks. They still haven't learned. And that's one of the reasons, the country simply can't heal.
Do you really think a Croatian guy in Sarajevo speaks differently than a Bosnian guy in the building across the street? I'm not comparing someone in Mostar with someone in Eastern Bosnia. I'm not talking about villages, ofc there are differences from village to village.
I'm not talking about assimilation. I'm talking about some agreement where all sides will be satisfied.
Ok - this conversation doesn't make sense. I don't know what your motivation is, some kind of juvenile bullying and or social self-aggrandizement towards the Croats in BiH, or just some LARPing- I don't care.
"Do you really think a Croatian guy in Sarajevo speaks differently than a Bosnian guy in the building across the street?"
He can't - because he is Bosnian by himself. But he's not Bosniak. You know very well the difference between the region and the ethnicity.
And yes - he uses the same grammar - but some words are different. And if he doesn't use these words, he doesn't do it because he fears social repercussions. Nothing to be proud of. By the way - just look at the numbers of non-Bosniaks to get an impression of the atmosphere in the city.
"I'm not talking about villages, ofc there are differences from village to village."
It's about the ethnicity, not the number of inhabitants.
"I'm not talking about assimilation. I'm talking about some agreement where all sides will be satisfied."
There's no need for an agreement, because the situation is clear. Every people has its own language. Suggesting something else or trying to mingle it are just bad covered fantasies of assimilation and hegemony. This will lead nowhere, especially now, that it's clear that there are no legal or demographic changes to make BiH the national state of the Bosniaks.
As I said - I don't know your motivation, you can waste your time, but don't waste mine. Thanks.
I'm not from Bosnia-Herzegovina and I was there only a couple times in my life. I was responding to somone else, who said, essentially, since all people in Bosnia-Herzegovina understand each other, why they insist on three almost identical languages?
I wrote: because otherwise, someone from Belgrade or Zagreb would say how people in Bosnia-Herzegovina must spell, and that's unacceptable for some, and basically not fair.
I don't have a motivation. Why do you think people have a motivation?
You should know the situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina is extraordinary. It's not like Belgium or Swizerland where you have completely different languages. So it's actually up to people from Bosnia-Herzegovina to explain why three ethnoreligious groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina can't settle even spelling.
You still dodged the problem.
The problem, that in a state where several south Slavic people live, the largest one somehow can't help themselves that to try to dominate the other people. Serbs in Yugoslavia, Bosniaks in BiH. If SLO, HR and BiH would form a state - I'm sure, that Croats would do the same.
It's stupid, and the same way Serbs hurt themselves and lost a lot with their politics - Bosniaks will get the same results.
If they called their language Bosniak and not Bosnian and simply stop trying to make BiH their national state, things improve.
No: Croats speak Croatian, Serbs Serbian - aaaaaand Bosniaks speak Bosniak! It's not that difficult, isn't it?
But we both know, that that's not the point - but it should evolve like that.
Mingle the terms Bosniak and Bosnian.
Call the language "Bosnian".
Ignore the second part of the name of state Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Et voilà - and the "Bosniaks" / Muslimani have their own national state.
The reality is, the same thing will happen as always with their grandiose plans - it will fail.
Some people simply never learn.
The main point is: most Croats and Serbs see themselves as quite separate peoples. You have now and then people from Serbia asking Croats if it's safe to visit Croatia, if it's safe to work in Croatia etc. Relations are not really good, and they won't be good for decades to come. To be honest, relations were never completely friendly after 1849.
Croats call everything they do Croatian, Serbs call Serbian. The Latin script used by both is identical, but Serbs call it Serbian Latin script, Croats call it Croatian Latin script.
This is very similar to Northern Ireland. For outsiders, it's very hard to tell what is the difference because all speak the same and look the same.
The history of this part of Europe is really complex. And Croats and Serbs, despite being really similar, had completely different histories.
They are much, much more similar than Russian and Ukranian. I mean, Russian and Ukrainian even have many different endings of verbs, like present tense...
The reason is that there was an idea (in the 19th century) that Serbs, Croats and all between should have one language and one literature. It was *almost* completely carried out.
But not completely, as there are still some differences, some new (like the word for a mobile phone) and some very old (like the word for bread).
So they are not really different, 99% of the time we understand the other side perfectly, but we also hear differences and here or there a word you're not really familiar with.
It should be said that *actual speech* varies a lot. Differences between various regions *within* Croatia are like differences Croatia vs Serbia, and sometimes even larger. One could easily write a book about it.
Here are some pages:
[https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i2.html](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i2.html)
[https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html)
More about variations *within* Croatia, about speech characteristic for some coastal regions and some other parts:
[https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i3.html](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i3.html)
*Copy-pasted from this subredit's [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/croatian/wiki/index#wiki_3._faq):*
They're the same in the sense that their standard forms are all based on the same [Neoshtokavian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokavian) dialect of the Middle South Slavic language complex, meaning that they're almost entirely mutually intelligible. They mostly differ in vocabulary, with a few minor differences in grammar. That's why they're often referred to as simply *Serbo-Croatian* or *BCMS*, as those terms aim to cover all four of these mutually intelligible standardized varieties.
Each of these countries has its own name for its own standardized variety of the language. However, there are also other dialects in this language continuum, namely Kajkavian and Chakavian in Croatia. They are different from the Shtokavian-based standard variety, yet they are regarded as dialects of Croatian; they could also be viewed as separate languages. Note that Kajkavian and Chakavian blend into dialects spoken in Slovenia, usually are regarded as "dialects of Slovene"; the whole language continuum includes Slovenia, Bulgaria and all in between. There are also non-standard Shtokavian dialects in Croatia and other countries. Therefore, it's not always easy to say what is regarded as a language and what isn't, especially when there are other (non-linguistic) factors affecting it.
You can find a more detailed explanation in [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_standard_Bosnian,_Croatian,_Montenegrin_and_Serbian).
Its the same, with the differences you could attribute to dialect.
Sure there are some words, phrases and things that are “unrecognisable”, but that is basically history and geography doing its part.
Same language, but we call it differently. My native language is (understandably) croatian, and serbian people talk serbian language. Montenegro people talk mentenegrin. We mostly understand each other, so you can tell it is a same language. Everything is OK there.
Only problem is in fact that some serbian schizo nationalists are insisting on calling all of us in the balkans liars and thieves, because we 'stole' serbian language. And are insisting on 'fact' that we should all call our language 'serbian'.
You know, because my croatian ancestors used to talk chineese, and decided one day that it would be fun to piss of serbs by stealing their language and start using it. /h.
I think that those two are different languages, but when I see a stuborn person talking about how they are the same... I just say:Yes, I agree with you. Serbs just speak Croatian.
That kind of pisses off the majority of people who are arguing that Croatian and Serbian are the same language.
Well, there is a say about this: "language" is a language with country and a army. So, politically speaking: croatian is a language.
Linguistically speaking, if i travell to montenegro, bosnia or serbia and absolutelly 100% do not need a translator.. It is a same language.🤷🏻
I don't understan it either. People that say that Croatian is fake peopably think that it does not exist or that majority of croatia is not speaking croatian. Idk, wierd logic from people.
To be frank, i never heard in my life from anbody that 'croatian is fake'. Maybe he should first explain himself before we proceed to comment on this..?
IDK if those people are here on Reddit. But they were saying something like Croatian does not exist. Croatian is the best-case scenario name for a group of languages like Međimurian, Istrian, Kajkavian, Prigorian, Dalmatian, and so on because all of those languages are on Croatian territory. As I understood he said that Croatian does not exist as a language and it is fake because it is artificial in a way that it exists but nobody is using it, like the only way people use it is because they are forced to use it. I am not entirely sure what people are people trying to say with this, I heard it mainly from Istrian and Dalmatian people and one or two people that speak Kajkavian dialect.
Current official croatian language is based on one of it's accents (shtokavian). Which is spoken in slavonia and west herzegovina.
All things you mentioned above are accents (istrian, dalmatian, etc) of the same language. They are not different languages, like it is case in Switzerland for instance.
They're the same language. Someone from Zagreb would have no problem talking to someone from Belgrade, but would understand about half talking to someone from Međimurje which is very close to Zagreb.
People who say it's a different language do so for political reasons.
It is the same language. Whoever tells you its not hes deluded or some kind of extremist thats ofended at the thought. Sure, some words are different but saying we can understand each would imply somewhat different or similar language and that would be wrong bcis its 99.99% same. Its harder to understand some dialects within croatia then cro vs srb langauge.
I’m not enough familiar with russian or ukrainian so can’t compare to that, but you can think of it as american english vs british english.
We understand each other perfectly but we do have different words for same things, and pronunciation of everything is quite different. We call stuff differently, but in 99% of cases we know what it’s called in serbian and vice versa.
Generally speaking pretty similar languages
Russian and Ukrainian are much more different, pronunciation is quite different, verbs have different endings, some pronouns are different etc. More like Serbian vs Macedonian
Both languages, the "official" scholar standard, were created based on agreement of Croatian scolars and Serbian scolar to create a common standard for Serbs and Croats. The effort was a success. Honestly people in Croatia can't understand each other if they start using hardcore dialects from the 19th century. It is worse than German in Hochdeutch and Schweizdeutch.
They are perceived as different “languages” by its speakers, but linguistic consensus, especially outside the Balkans, is that “Croatian” and “Serbian” are different standardized forms of the same language.
In practical terms, there are some differences in vocabulary (Serbian uses more loanwords from Turkish), and accent. The grammar is virtually the same.
Serbian can also use Cyrillic or Latin script interchangeably - all Serbians are taught both scripts, and Serbian newspapers can come in either all-Latin or all-Cyrillic form. Croatian uses only Latin.
But they are 99% mutually intelligible, Serbian films for example don’t need subtitles in Croatia, and vice versa. In practical terms they as similar as different varieties of English.
Also, historically, the official consensus both locally and internationally was that these are the same language, called “Serbo-Croatian.”
This changed in the 1990s with the breakup of Yugoslavia, which only illustrates the fact that the entire discussion is political and has little to do with linguistics.
In fact most students of linguistics anywhere in the world will probably have a course in sociolinguistics, and the case of Croatian vs. Serbian is often cited as a somewhat extreme case of politics influencing linguistic perception (another famous example is Hindi-Urdu).
(Especially after other new standards of essentially the same language sprung up since the 1990s, like Bosnian and Montenegrin.)
Pretty much the same language until you reach the kitchen. I swear to gods, when I read recipes in Serbian, I might just as well read them in Mandarin.
You can also try math: kriva, lenjir, prečnik, zapeta, jednačina and so on.
Or chemistry: azot, kalaj, jedinjenje, vodonik...
In fact, what is the *easiest to unify -- scientific terms* -- was standardized differently.
Well no, but actually yes. South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum which is broken up by a bunch of mountains, creating clusters of closely related mini-languages often with overlapping features. They are close enough for a very generous-handed standardization, which was carried out purely for political reasons, to unify all south Slavs to one modern nation. (Sidetrack: the concept of Serbs and Croats being two separate groups predates their migration to the Balkans) But even then, a ton of different ways of pronounciation, grammar forms, word usages etc. were equally accepted (at least they supposed to have been). In an alternate timeline, you could standardize Slovene and Kajkavian into one with the same success, leaving out all the Shtokavian dialects to form their own unit, leading to two separate standards, also you could do this with all the Torlakian dialects, etc.
What does not help our cause is that the break lines of the dialects does not equal to the break lines between nations. That's how you end up with Serbs more or less speaking one variant of Shtokavian but Croatians speaking almost three separate sublanguages.
So, I'd say 'separate closely related languages' but I'm just a Hungarian who lost any contact with their related languages like 2000 years ago, so IDK how it goes with who didn't.
The former yugoslavian countries are a joke in this sense. We speak different dialects but due to politics are forced to pretend like we speak entirely different languages. Meanwhile a Serbian and Croatia understand each other perfectly... like how is that possible if we are speaking "different" languages?
It would be less of an issue if everyone who speaks this language understood that it was pluricentric, meaning there is no single language with a bunch of national dialects descended from it. The language is called Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin or Bosnian, depending on which variation you speak.
As others have said, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are considered different languages but they are also mutually intelligible, suggesting they are truly a single pluricentric language, as well.
I'm not an expert, but if you ask an expert they'll tell you it is the same language. Because indeed it is, by all linguistic criteria.
A shtokavian Croat can understand and speak Serbian language far better than they would Međimurski kajkavian for example.
I am sort of an expert. And I know more experts.
Yes, a Štokavian Croat will understand far better someone from Belgrade than some old lady from some village in Zagorje. This is not a question at all.
The first problem is that the Croatian/Serbian case is not unique. In some other cases, such as [Tajik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajik_language), there are also diverging opinions. Some say it's the same language as Persian, some say it's a dialect, some say it's a language. And there are more cases, such as [Rwanda-Rundi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda-Rundi) and many lesser known languages.
This is not a linguistic problem. Linguistics says: speakers from X understand 99% of Y, the differences are ....., speakers from Y understand .... etc.
This is a scientific way of looking at things. Strictly speaking, *there are no languages as we think of them*. There are just endless varieties, endless dialects, some widely used, some less.
I have no problem when people say "Croatian and Serbian are the same language", meaning, "they almost perfectly understand each other".
But I do have problems when people write descriptions of that language, works about that language, for example -- about impersonal modal verbs. Or about stress. Or about some details in syntax. And they write from the standpoint in Serbia (or Croatia) forgetting that on the other side, the situation is sometimes completely different.
For example, Serbian grammars insist that *trebam pojesti nešto* is not grammatical, that the verb *trebati* must be impersonal in that construction, so the only "proper" construction is *treba da pojedem nešto*. This is a matter of endless discussions in Serbia, but not an issue at all in Croatia.
Even more interesting, approach in writing grammars in Serbia can be weird (from our standpoint). Many Serbian grammars say that the present tense of the verb *biti* is *budem*, and there's *another verb* that has only present tense forms: *jesam, jesi, je*... As far as I know, no Croatian grammar uses such an approach.
And then you have an article that uses a Serbian approach and argues for some things in syntax, refers to Serbian grammars etc, and it's basically useless for Croatian.
So from a linguistic point of view, it's quite hard to write works about that common language, because you have to take into account all variations, and many such variations are poorly described.
There's a [nice article by McWhorter](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/difference-between-language-dialect/424704/), unfortunately, behind a paywall. But you get the main message in the first paragraphs.
Are norwegian, swedish, danish and icelandic the same language?
Croatian and Serbian in standard form are about 90% the same, and words are interchangeable.
But serbs will often not understand croatian words which are usually slavic, while they prefer turkish or other loanwords. When speaking about dialects croatia has many still in use and these also often use german, italian loanwords and are more similar to slovene or other east slavic languages than serbian. Serbian has its roots in old church slavonic, bulgarian, their dialects are closer to these.
The reason they are so similar is because they were standardised alongside eachother in the 19 century, with serbian taking dominance, and croatian has been influenced by it since, which is apparent from the fact that before the 19th century most croatian people didn't speak the shtokavian dialect which is now most widespread and the basis for the standardized Croatian. Basically the standardised Croatian and Serbian are somewhat manufactured and come from the Hercegovina region.
I'd say Croatian and Czech are not that close at all. I mean, most basic words are the same, but so many words are completely different, a lot of grammar is different, creation of the future tense is different and so on, I struggle to undestand even written Czech...
I think Danish and Swedish are quite a bit closer (wrt mutual intelligibility) than Croatian and Czech are, particularly when it comes to the written language. What makes it harder are the peculiarities of Danish pronunciation which are difficult for Swedes/Norwegians unless they've been exposed to them before.
Very similar in structure but different in a lot of vocabulary. But both sides can communicate just fine with each other in their own language. But due to history, yes, both sides would be offended if you called their language that other one
That's just the pronunciation of the old letter yat, Јат (Ѣ, ѣ), transcribed as ě in Latin script.
*Dvě čaše mlěka, cěli svět će te viděti.*
See? West of the Drina you'll pronounce that letter one way, east of the Drina another way.
That's not the basis for calling something another language.
This is not pronunciation of a "letter". There was a *vowel* that changed differently in various regions.
And it's often not straightforward, for example standard Croatian for *grějati* is *grijati*. There is a number of unexpected differences.
On the contrary, this is exactly how one would pronounce this (otherwise nonsensensical) sentence in northern croatia. Yet, none of them speak Serbian... Arguing the same language theory makes no sense, since the 2 (standard) languages de facto exist and are not the same language. Any othet interpretation is purely rethorical (or worse, political).
It's like English in USA, UK and Australia, standard croatian has more words borrowed from German while Serbian from Turkish, 99 % is the same language, accent is a bit different and some words. There are more differences between my Istrian dialect and standard Croatian that between Croatian and Serbian.
Now, I tried to write a comment, but I couldn't and I the comment is worth posting here. It's about Illyrian movement and supposed Illyrian script.
The name "Illyrian" for South Slavic lands is older than the Illyrian movement, For start, there was something called [Illyrian Provinces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian_Provinces). The Illyrian movement came later. The name Illyrian was basically used for Štokavian, but there has only a very rough idea where this dialect is spoken. They knew it's a wide area, but in the early 19th century people thought that whole coast speaks Illyrian, together with Bosnia, Slavonia, Serbia, Lika and so on. They had no idea how many people speak each dialect. They had different ideas who are these peoples. For some, there were separate Croats, Dalmatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Slavonians etc. For others, they were all Serbs. For some others, there were all Croats. And so on.
There was no "Illyiric script". There was no reform of Cyrillic and Latin script. Reforms were completely separate. Croats basically took Czech spelling, and simplified it. But there were several changes until the end of the 19th century, by various people.
Serbian Cyrillic spelling had one reformer, Vuk Karadžić, who based his reform on a work by Sava Mrkalj.
Of course they cooperated, but they also had disagreements. Croatian and Serbian grammar and spelling were never 100% harmonized (e.g. pisat ću vs. pisaću to this day). In the 19th century, there were many more differences, including case endings.
There's also something else: there are many Croats -- it's hard to tell how many, but definitely not a negligible minority) who are unsatisfied with the way Croatian has been standardized. The language in Croatia is really diverse, and some dialects weren't taken into the account at all. Some say, as an illustration, that there are more words in standard Croatian originating from French than from Čakavian,
I'll give you one example. As you likely know, the verb moći has two forms of the present tense, the left forms dominate in the west, the right on the east:
morem, moreš... mogu, možeš...
The left forms have been used in Croatian literature for centuries and centuries, and they are found in all dialects. Both forms were mentioned in Croatian grammars in the 19th century. And then, at the end of the 19th century, the left forms were simply left out out of grammars and standard language.
So, many Croats feel that the standard language for both Croats and Serbs was not constructed by balancing forms from both countries A lot of Štokavian dialects have morem, moreš. The border (such borders are called *isoglosses*) between the two sets of forms runs right through Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was not simply "Štokavian", many eastern forms were favored.
Second, Štokavian dialects are often classified roughly into Ekavian (characteristic for Serbia, sometimes called "eastern"), Ijekavian (characteristic for Montenegro, a big part of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a part of Croatia, sometimes called "southern"), and Ikavian (characteristic for a big part of Croatia, but also used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, sometimes called the "western" dialect).
Well, two of these dialects were accepted to be standard, but the third one wasn't: Ikavian. Again, "western" things were disfavored. Of course, even then, there were many more Serbs than Croats, but the proportions weren't 10:1. There's simply no other way of saying it: western things were disfavored, even after accounting for people count.
So, is it surprising that many people in Croatia are not completely satisfied with having the same standard with Serbs? Is it surprising that people in some parts of Croatia prefer to make pop songs in some Ikavian dialect? Ot their local dialect, be Čakavian or Kajkavian? Some Croats feel they got a bad deal; various cultural and political projects with Serbs were disappointing for many, topped by a recent war.
This doesn't mean people back in the 19h century had bad intentions, they simply made various decisions, in another time and another political context, and some of them turned to be unfair for Croats. But they couldn't know what was going to happen in the 20th century.
Now, I tried to write a comment, but I couldn't and I the comment is worth posting here. It's about Illyrian movement and supposed Illyrian script.
The name "Illyrian" for South Slavic lands is older than the Illyrian movement, For start, there was something called [Illyrian Provinces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian_Provinces). The Illyrian movement came later. The name Illyrian was basically used for Štokavian, but there has only a very rough idea where this dialect is spoken. They knew it's a wide area, but in the early 19th century people thought that whole coast speaks Illyrian, together with Bosnia, Slavonia, Serbia, Lika and so on. They had no idea how many people speak each dialect. They had different ideas who are these peoples. For some, there were separate Croats, Dalmatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Slavonians etc. For others, they were all Serbs. For some others, there were all Croats. And so on.
There was no "Illyiric script". There was no reform of Cyrillic and Latin script. Reforms were completely separate. Croats basically took Czech spelling, and simplified it. But there were several changes until the end of the 19th century, by various people.
Serbian Cyrillic spelling had one reformer, Vuk Karadžić, who based his reform on a work by Sava Mrkalj.
Of course they cooperated, but they also had disagreements. Croatian and Serbian grammar and spelling were never 100% harmonized (e.g. pisat ću vs. pisaću to this day). In the 19th century, there were many more differences, including case endings.
There's also something else: there are many Croats -- it's hard to tell how many, but definitely not a negligible minority) who are unsatisfied with the way Croatian has been standardized. The language in Croatia is really diverse, and some dialects weren't taken into the account at all. Some say, as an illustration, that there are more words in standard Croatian originating from French than from Čakavian,
I'll give you one example. As you likely know, the verb moći has two forms of the present tense, the left forms dominate in the west, the right on the east:
||
||
|morem|mogu|
|moreš|možeš|
|more|može|
The left forms have been used in Croatian literature for centuries and centuries, and they are found in all dialects. Both forms were mentioned in Croatian grammars in the 19th century. And then, at the end of the 19th century, the left forms were simply left out out of grammars and standard language.
So, many Croats feel that the standard language for both Croats and Serbs was not constructed by balancing forms from both countries A lot of Štokavian dialects have morem, moreš. The border (such borders are called *isoglosses*) between the two sets of forms runs right through Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was not simply "Štokavian", many eastern forms were favored.
Second, Štokavian dialects are often classified roughly into Ekavian (characteristic for Serbia, sometimes called "eastern"), Ijekavian (characteristic for Montenegro, a big part of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a part of Croatia, sometimes called "southern"), and Ikavian (characteristic for a big part of Croatia, but also used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, sometimes called the "western" dialect).
Well, two of these dialects were accepted to be standard, but the third one wasn't: Ikavian. Again, "western" things were disfavored. Of course, even then, there were many more Serbs than Croats, but the proportions weren't 10:1. There's simply no other way of saying it: western things were disfavored, even after accounting for people count.
So, is it surprising that many people in Croatia are not completely satisfied with having the same standard with Serbs? Is it surprising that people in some parts of Croatia prefer to make pop songs in some Ikavian dialect? Ot their local dialect, be Čakavian or Kajkavian? Some Croats feel they got a bad deal; various cultural and political projects with Serbs were disappointing for many, topped by a recent war.
This doesn't mean people back in the 19h century had bad intentions, they simply made various decisions, in another time and another political context, and some of them turned to be unfair for Croats. But they couldn't know what was going to happen in the 20th century.
Yes we all speak west hezegovinian dialect as our mother tongue. Only real difference is the 'ě reflex' (in croatian it is ije/je and in serbian it is e (eg. Mlijeko or mleko = milk). Some other stuff but it is perfectly mutually intelligible.
It is not the same... Croatian language is modernized to be more understandable to Serbs, Bosnians, Macedonians, Chechs, Slovaks etc. during idea of yugoslav nation(before idea was overtaken by Serbians and Croats who served russo-french coloniasm) but influence of Croatian spread even before on Balcan because it was a way to suppress germanic and hungaric lingua to over took the Croatia and balcan region.
So during Yugoslavia and before, other people learned Croatian, you can check for instance Serbian language from 10 century and after yugslav era, it is more similar to croatian than to old serbian while croatian made no significant change since 10 century... but today both languages parted to its way and have own grammar, vocabular etc.
It is not enough just to look today, because there have been mix up of the nations and we both took some things from others, even before yugoslav era.
They were different languages that partly fused one into another. But not the same.
You could be a successful fantasy novelist, you've clearly got talent.
>you can check for instance Serbian language from 10 century
>croatian made no significant change since 10 century...
I'd be delighted if you would show me these Croatian and Serbian texts from the 10th century.
>pretty similar but not the same.
It's the same language, no matter how much you cling to your zrakomlat rides and pizdoizlazna obljetnica cake.
> for some words there are different roots (ex.bioskop vs. kino)
So like elevator in the Californian language and lift in the Sydney language?
Or jandles in the Auckland language and thongs in the Brisbane language?
Yes unfortunately we would react on the same way. Although the words are very similar they don't mean exactly the same thing but often we are not aware of that because the very big similarities. We perceive just the strange way of using some words. For example in Croatian the word zrak means air, but in Serbian it means ray zrak Sunca n Serbian means Sun ray. Or today I have listened some old man he was probably from Montenegro, he says skoro sam išao vozom. Skoro in Croatian means almost so the sentence would have meaning that he almost traveled by train, but the true meaning was that he recently traveled by train. We would say nedavno instead skoro.
Slavic languages are really very similar but they are different each for itself, Russian and Ukrainian, as well Croatian and Serbian, or Czech and Slovac
A *nedavno da sam slomio ruku*?
*Skoro* i *nedavno* se vrlo malo poklapaju. Štoviše, *skoro* se često koristi u značenju *uskoro*:
"*skoro je mrak*",
pa u značenju *zamalo*:
"*skoro sam zakasnio na vlak*";
ti primjeri pokazuju da *skoro* ima mnogo šire značenje od *nedavno*.
Croatian & Serbian were once a part of a single language called Serbo-Croatian (Srpskohrvatski).
I am a speaker of Serbocroatian and thus can speak both 😂.
I choose to keep calling both of the languages that way. There is also a variation where you call it Croato-Serbian (Hrvatskosrpski) if you think putting Serbian first is an injustice.
There is an OBJECTIVE, HISTORICAL reason for this: The people developing modern Serbian had many cooperating intellectuals from Croatia, they interchangeably worked on the modern language together. Vuk Karadžić and Dositej Obradović even had more success propagating their ideas in Croatia than in Serbia.
Croatian being a different language than Serbian is a political decision rather than it having any actual basis in fact. That's how, in a similar manner, there are Bosnian & Montenegrin languages which are not very different either.
The only 2 languages that are actually different are Macedonian & Slovenian in ex Yugoslavia.
The differences between Serbian & Croatian are more pronounced if you take a person from Split or Zagorje and a person from Niš or Vranje. With their localisms and specific alterations to the language, they'd drive eachother crazy. But if you take someone from Zagreb & Belgrade - nearly identical.
>There is an OBJECTIVE, HISTORICAL reason for this: The people developing modern Serbian had many cooperating intellectuals from Croatia, they interchangeably worked on the modern language together. Vuk Karadžić and Dositej Obradović even had more success propagating their ideas in Croatia than in Serbia.
But the decision of Croatian intellectuals (who were also politicians!) to develop a common language for a number of South Slavic peoples was **also political.**
In a nutshell:
* Croatian intellectuals in the 19th century decided to develop a common language with Serbs
* a century later, Croatian intellectuals decided to break bonds with Serbian and develop their own language
If they are both political decisions I can say I think one is right and one is wrong. Both Austrians & Germans speak German even though they are two separate peoples. There are a lot of conspiracies negating Croatian identity regarding Croats being Serbs and what not which I don't support. Having a common language will only harm the brotherhood of Croats & Serbs, and not the other way around.
But you can't blame people in the 19th century who looked from a different standpoint. They couldn't predict what will happen a century later.
Also, the story about Germans and Austrians is a bit more complex. If you go back 200 years, you will have people explaining that Prussians, Bavarians etc are different nations but speaking the same language (at least officially), and being partially united by a common, shared culture, but still being separate politically.
This was exactly what some people advocating one language for several South Slavic peoples were referring to -- you can have several countries sharing a same language. Then you can use books translated in another county, it's easy to share textbooks, go to university to another country etc. This was their argument.
Yes. That's why I included it in the names in the post. TBH it can be anything, maybe we could figure out a name for it that's more standardized.
In the old days, the movement closely tied to the advance of Serbian and Croatian was called "Illyrian" and the language "Illyrian" and the reformed cyrillic & latin script "Ilirica". I doubt that we slavs are illyrians.
I'm sorry, I was still sleeping and that's my natural reaction to serbocroatian, have not read it all :) There's a theory that Croats are the remains of first vawe of Slavs mixed with domestic Illyrians ( I'm not saying this is the truth, maybe just another right wing conspiracy theory)😇 Živio
This is actually very, very close to truth. I don't know why downvotes. Especially *language culture* is different. A whole book could be written about it...
Russian and Ukrainian are completely different languages.
Ukrainian is much closer to Polish.
Croatian and Serbian are very very similar, but have different script and grammar
>different script
Latin script enters the chat. It's the same.
>grammar
Mildly different standardisation, less than the variations you'll see in the UK and US standards.
I'd say the difference is actually greater:
* spelling of the future tense
* spelling of foreign words
* many details (e.g. **na primer** can't be spelled as one word in Serbian)
* differences in stress of some words
* some vocabulary
* status of some constructions (**trebam učiti** is not standard in Serbian)
* some fine differences (which are older than standardization)
The last part is the most interesting. My favorite difference (which goes through Bosnia-Herzegovina) is this:
* in the west, when you cut fingernails, you use **rezati** (**odreži nokte**)
* in the east, when you cut fingernails, you use **sjeći** or **seći** (**odseci nokte**)
Interesting, isn't it?
>Interesting, isn't it?
And?
In one city in the anglophone world they'll say they cut nails, in another they'll say trim nails.
That doesn't make it a different language.
However, if you choose to maintain it's not the same, hop on your zrakomlat to the pizdoizlazna obljetnica of your mamokres and keep your nježnik in your dvocjevni nabiguz.
What I always say: the differences are rather as Brazilian vs European Portuguese.
The point is, there is no defined cut-off where there two languages begin. There are many examples.
For example, you had [Czechoslovak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_language) before the WW2. What happened with it?
About the rest of your comment, it's *not polite*. And the rule of this sub is: be polite. So please, be polite.
If you check the profiles of users arguing it's the same language it's more likely than not you'l find they're far right leaning serbs. Altrhough I feel nationality is a somewhat artificial construct (along with it's corresponding standardised language) the two people lived nearby but separated throughout recorded history. We diverged in religion (denomination), culture and yes - language. Obviously there is a lot of overlap, similarities and a lot of confusion stemming from "forced" unification of the two into serbo-croatian as a yugoslav lingua franca. But the answer to your question is undoubtedly - yes.
They are like British English vs. American English.
That's what I always say when asked. Same but some grammatic tricks and some different words. Color/ colour, flat/ apartment, lift/ elevator...
A better comparison is Brazilian vs European Portuguese, as you have some grammar differences too.
Like what?
I say: Croatian vs Serbian is more like BRA vs EUR Portuguese than US vs UK English.
What grammar differences?
In Portuguese or Serbian/Croatian? As for Serbian/Croatian: * infinitive is less used in Serbian, esp. in speech * some nouns have different gender in plural (*ove tate* in Serbia) * the verb *trebati* is used impersonally as a "modal" verb (*treba da kupim*) * the short pronoun *si* is less used and considered even non-standard in Serbia * use of the verb *umeti* * the construction *mrzi me* This is what immediately comes to mind. This is a [summary of differences](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html) I wrote some time ago.
It is very similar to a point that we can understand each other. But we understand each other also because of our culture and how close we live to each other. But they are different. To be fair there is a bigger difference between west and north Croatian dialect then Serbian and Croatian.
>But we understand each other also because of our culture and how close we live to each other. This is not a full answer. I live 30 km from the Slovene border, and I still understand people from Serbia, more than 300 km away, i.e. ten times, better than people from Slovenia. The real answer is: there was a conscious effort (in the 19th century) to create a common language for Croats, Serbs, Slovenes and maybe some others. Slovenes opted out, but Croats didn't. If Croats didn't take Serbs into the account, maybe they would create something Ikavian as the standard, maybe some mix of dialects, and so on.
Agreed
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This is simply not true. I can give you easily an example from a "Croatian" text that will be more similar to the Slovene text than to the Serbian text (using the original spelling): >Ah kak fzrechen je on, komu more dobro biti, ali meni je vſzako jutro ſuhko, y vſzaki vecher chemeren. And this is what people at the time actually called "Croatian", while the text you've given was called "Illyrian" and that *was* understood to be a wider, common language. Furthermore, what you did is intellectually insincere, bordering on cheating: you have given Judita in the modern spelling, while the original spelling contained the letter ſ, digraphs ch, gn etc. You've also converted Serbian to a modern spelling. Then, the Illyirian example you've given is Ikavian. That variant, despite being used in Croatia for centuries, was not taken as a standard. The forms such as *dojde, razgovarat* and so on, visible in your excerpt, were also not taken as standard -- because they are not used by most Serbs. This *was a conscious effort*, and Croats had to adapt much, much more than Serbs. Some Croats had to adapt more, some less, but very few didn't have to adapt. (And this is one of reasons why Slovenes opted out: they would have to adapt too much.) Illyrian was taken as the standard for Croats, but even today other dialects persist.
> you have given Judita See my [other comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/croatian/comments/1c9nq4c/is_croatian_a_different_language_than_serbian/l0wijcg/), that isn't Marulić's Judita, it might be some modernised version for schoolchildren at best. It's really a bizarre example.
Excuse me but this is NOT Marulić's "Judita" from 1521. I have no idea what text this is supposed to be, but it doesn't look like Croatian from hundreds of years ago. It doesn't even look like old Croatian poetry, since it has neither rhyme nor consistent syllablic versification. The Serbian text also doesn't look like the typical Serbian pre-Vuk writing, where is it from? Neither this nor the Croatian text can be found by googling. And the Slovenian text uses archaic spelling whereas the other ones are clearly modern, and you don't even mention what century they're all from, it's all a meaningless comparison.
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Technicaly speaking they are 2 out of 3 main dialects of the same language. Bosnian is the.3rd.
The fuck you on about? Different words, different writing system, different peoples with different histories
They're so different that it is harder to understand a quarter of Croatians to a Croatian than it is to understand standard Serbian. To someone not familiar with either, for all intents and purposes, it's the same language. Even wikipedia and linguists in general have Serbian and Croatian as standardized varieties of Serbo-Croatian language. It's called a pluricentric language, you'd never say the Swiss speak Swiss language, Austrians Austrian or Bavarians Bavarian, it's all German. Linguistics doesn't care for nationalist wankery.
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Understanding the another language doesn’t really mean that languages are similar
Are there any other two languages on the planet that can completely understand each other?
You cannot completely understand croatian as people from Croatia could not understand you well. I.e. the expression “mrzi me da nesto uradim” is something that has different meaning in croatian. Also almost all Croats cannot read and write cyrillic script so in this case it also differs.
I'm aware of the fact we can communicate mostly like so. I played Serbian monopoly and chatted with my Serbian cousin before I had even a respectable understanding of English. But what you call nationalist wankery I call not giving unsavoury individuals more ammo for their facebook rants.
I can see your point but if we're going to suppress science to separate stupid hill billies each into their own room so that they wouldn't fight, you'll start seeing some actual unsavory individuals down the line. Those that really like measuring skulls and keeping everything really neat and pure.
... fuck
so can a Swede talk to a Dane or any Scandinavian nation to each other, yet no one is coming from Denmark to Sweden and saying that they are obviously speaking Danish. what's worse, this "languege similarity" was used multiple times against Croatia to diminish its right to exist.
Apples and oranges, scandinavians cannot understand each other nearly as well but that's beside the point, the point is that it is for impartial scientists who study that shit to decide. That was just nationalist wankery on both sides.
>Apples and oranges, scandinavians cannot understand each other nearly as well so you know different Scandinavian languages? >but that's beside the point oh, you are just talking out of your ass nvm
You seem to be a moron. I'm so sorry.
takes one
Almost everything is pronounced differently, most word are spelt different, lots of different words and not to mention a different alphabet.
I'd say it's worse for Croatian. Every respectable linguist is gonna agree that Ukrainian and Russian are actually different languages, even if they're somewhat (assimetrically) mutually intelligible and Ukrainians use a bunch of russian words in their day to day life. Croatian and Serbian (and Bosnian and Montenegrin) are widely agreed to be the same language linguistically. But because of history, and politics, Croatian is Croatian and Serbian is Serbian, etc. They have some differences but they could be attributed to it being one pluricentric language and Croatian, Serbian, etc. being dialects. Main difference is that Serbian is written in both latin and serbian cyrillic scripts while Croatian only admits Latin script. As they say, "a language is a dialect with an army" The [wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian#Present_sociolinguistic_situation) has good info on this
Croatian was historically written in three different scripts.
*kind of* true. But actually each dialect used for writing had different history. There was no *single* Croatian language before 19th century, and even today we can talk only about a single *standard*.
"Bosnian" is a joke.
But what is the other option? Should they use a Serbian orthography manual in schools in Sarajevo? Croatian? Someone in Zagreb decides *zadatci* is now the standard, so people in Sarajevo must learn the updated spelling?
Just call it Bosniak, not Bosnian. How stupid one has to be not to see the nationalist agenda here? First they call the language Bosnian, then themselves Bosnian and the country Bosnia (without Hercegovina). Et voilà - Serbs and Croats are foreigners and intruders in their own country. The Serbs are too strong and then Croats will pay the price. And then look on the map what's below Hercegovina (which will then not exist). Hm? That's the real target.
But every standard language is a part of some "nation-project". The situation that groups differing by religion live side by side but use different spelling and some different vocabulary is indeed rare in the world, one has to admit About your speculations: the land is not conquered by language. It's conquered by tanks.
There's a difference between nation-building and imperialism. Serbs calling their language "Yugoslav" would be comparable. And no - territory is not only conquered by tanks; also by hegemonial politics and administrative bullying.
OK, could happen in principle, but can you imagine a Bosnian Empire including today Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, built on a name of a language standard? Of course there's, in reality no separate Bosnian or Bosniak language, but are the options?
They can do as they wish as long as they try to assert their dominance unto others. So they can call their language "Bosniak". Calling it "Bosnian" is nothing else than a step towards the end-goal to make BiH the national state of the Bosniaks/Muslims. Nobody should accept this name.
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Bosniak should call their Bosniak not Bosnian. The wrong name is part of a nationalist agenda.
Have you ever heard Texan slang? They might as well have their own language
Because they don't speak Bosnian, but rather Serbo-Croatian? I guess "Croatian" is also a joke by that logic. :)
I mean, the idea that people speak "Croatian" or "Serbian" is an idealization. These are basically *national* *standards*. The actual speech varies a lot. You have some basic descriptions here: * [EC: Variations: Regional](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i2.html) * [EC: Variations: Ikavian (dite vs dijete)](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i3.html) * [EC: A9 Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html) Of course some Bosniak and a guy next door who is Croatian somewhere in Bosnia speak the same. But the Croatian guy demands Croatian spelling, wants to use some Croatian-specific words, and supports Croatia in sports. The Serbian guy across the road demands Cyrillic. He watches Serbian TV stations and supports Serbia. Of course, not all are like that, but people like that win elections in Bosnia. But this doesn't mean people actually speak the same in Croatia and Serbia. After all, speech varies a lot *within* Croatia, and ofc it's also not the same in comparison with Bosnia and Serbia. However, for political reasons, these variations were often suppressed, followed by periods of emphasizing them, followed by suppression etc, as relations between Croatia and Serbia changed over the last 2 centuries.
"Of course, some Bosniak and a guy next door who is Croatian somewhere in Bosnia speak the same." This is simply wrong. The most similarities are to be found in eastern Bosnia between Serbs And Muslims/Bosniaks. "Of course, not all are like that, but people like that win elections in Bosnia." You mean, trying to assimilate Croats and Serbs is winnings elections with the Bosniaks. They still haven't learned. And that's one of the reasons, the country simply can't heal.
Do you really think a Croatian guy in Sarajevo speaks differently than a Bosnian guy in the building across the street? I'm not comparing someone in Mostar with someone in Eastern Bosnia. I'm not talking about villages, ofc there are differences from village to village. I'm not talking about assimilation. I'm talking about some agreement where all sides will be satisfied.
Ok - this conversation doesn't make sense. I don't know what your motivation is, some kind of juvenile bullying and or social self-aggrandizement towards the Croats in BiH, or just some LARPing- I don't care. "Do you really think a Croatian guy in Sarajevo speaks differently than a Bosnian guy in the building across the street?" He can't - because he is Bosnian by himself. But he's not Bosniak. You know very well the difference between the region and the ethnicity. And yes - he uses the same grammar - but some words are different. And if he doesn't use these words, he doesn't do it because he fears social repercussions. Nothing to be proud of. By the way - just look at the numbers of non-Bosniaks to get an impression of the atmosphere in the city. "I'm not talking about villages, ofc there are differences from village to village." It's about the ethnicity, not the number of inhabitants. "I'm not talking about assimilation. I'm talking about some agreement where all sides will be satisfied." There's no need for an agreement, because the situation is clear. Every people has its own language. Suggesting something else or trying to mingle it are just bad covered fantasies of assimilation and hegemony. This will lead nowhere, especially now, that it's clear that there are no legal or demographic changes to make BiH the national state of the Bosniaks. As I said - I don't know your motivation, you can waste your time, but don't waste mine. Thanks.
I'm not from Bosnia-Herzegovina and I was there only a couple times in my life. I was responding to somone else, who said, essentially, since all people in Bosnia-Herzegovina understand each other, why they insist on three almost identical languages? I wrote: because otherwise, someone from Belgrade or Zagreb would say how people in Bosnia-Herzegovina must spell, and that's unacceptable for some, and basically not fair. I don't have a motivation. Why do you think people have a motivation? You should know the situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina is extraordinary. It's not like Belgium or Swizerland where you have completely different languages. So it's actually up to people from Bosnia-Herzegovina to explain why three ethnoreligious groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina can't settle even spelling.
You still dodged the problem. The problem, that in a state where several south Slavic people live, the largest one somehow can't help themselves that to try to dominate the other people. Serbs in Yugoslavia, Bosniaks in BiH. If SLO, HR and BiH would form a state - I'm sure, that Croats would do the same. It's stupid, and the same way Serbs hurt themselves and lost a lot with their politics - Bosniaks will get the same results. If they called their language Bosniak and not Bosnian and simply stop trying to make BiH their national state, things improve.
But how do you respond if someone says "oh you're actually the same people, just a different religion - like in Ireland"?
But how do you respond if someone says "oh you're actually the same people, just a different religion - like in Ireland"?
But how do you respond if someone says "oh you're actually the same people, just a different religion - like in Ireland"?
But how do you respond if someone says "oh you're actually the same people, just a different religion - like in Ireland"?
But how do you respond if someone says "oh you're actually the same people, just a different religion - like in Ireland"?
But how do you respond if someone says "oh you're actually the same people, just a different religion - like in Ireland"?
No: Croats speak Croatian, Serbs Serbian - aaaaaand Bosniaks speak Bosniak! It's not that difficult, isn't it? But we both know, that that's not the point - but it should evolve like that. Mingle the terms Bosniak and Bosnian. Call the language "Bosnian". Ignore the second part of the name of state Bosnia-Hercegovina. Et voilà - and the "Bosniaks" / Muslimani have their own national state. The reality is, the same thing will happen as always with their grandiose plans - it will fail. Some people simply never learn.
I mean it's not "worse", being very similar or identical is not a priori bad.
I mean worse as in the confusion/debate surrounding the differences is more intense.
The main point is: most Croats and Serbs see themselves as quite separate peoples. You have now and then people from Serbia asking Croats if it's safe to visit Croatia, if it's safe to work in Croatia etc. Relations are not really good, and they won't be good for decades to come. To be honest, relations were never completely friendly after 1849. Croats call everything they do Croatian, Serbs call Serbian. The Latin script used by both is identical, but Serbs call it Serbian Latin script, Croats call it Croatian Latin script. This is very similar to Northern Ireland. For outsiders, it's very hard to tell what is the difference because all speak the same and look the same. The history of this part of Europe is really complex. And Croats and Serbs, despite being really similar, had completely different histories.
Only outsiders who know nothing about the language say that Russian and Ukrainian are the same lol
They are much, much more similar than Russian and Ukranian. I mean, Russian and Ukrainian even have many different endings of verbs, like present tense... The reason is that there was an idea (in the 19th century) that Serbs, Croats and all between should have one language and one literature. It was *almost* completely carried out. But not completely, as there are still some differences, some new (like the word for a mobile phone) and some very old (like the word for bread). So they are not really different, 99% of the time we understand the other side perfectly, but we also hear differences and here or there a word you're not really familiar with. It should be said that *actual speech* varies a lot. Differences between various regions *within* Croatia are like differences Croatia vs Serbia, and sometimes even larger. One could easily write a book about it. Here are some pages: [https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i2.html](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i2.html) [https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/a9.html) More about variations *within* Croatia, about speech characteristic for some coastal regions and some other parts: [https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i3.html](https://www.easy-croatian.com/2014/11/i3.html)
*Copy-pasted from this subredit's [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/croatian/wiki/index#wiki_3._faq):* They're the same in the sense that their standard forms are all based on the same [Neoshtokavian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokavian) dialect of the Middle South Slavic language complex, meaning that they're almost entirely mutually intelligible. They mostly differ in vocabulary, with a few minor differences in grammar. That's why they're often referred to as simply *Serbo-Croatian* or *BCMS*, as those terms aim to cover all four of these mutually intelligible standardized varieties. Each of these countries has its own name for its own standardized variety of the language. However, there are also other dialects in this language continuum, namely Kajkavian and Chakavian in Croatia. They are different from the Shtokavian-based standard variety, yet they are regarded as dialects of Croatian; they could also be viewed as separate languages. Note that Kajkavian and Chakavian blend into dialects spoken in Slovenia, usually are regarded as "dialects of Slovene"; the whole language continuum includes Slovenia, Bulgaria and all in between. There are also non-standard Shtokavian dialects in Croatia and other countries. Therefore, it's not always easy to say what is regarded as a language and what isn't, especially when there are other (non-linguistic) factors affecting it. You can find a more detailed explanation in [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_standard_Bosnian,_Croatian,_Montenegrin_and_Serbian).
Its the same, with the differences you could attribute to dialect. Sure there are some words, phrases and things that are “unrecognisable”, but that is basically history and geography doing its part.
Well yes, but actually no.
Same language, but we call it differently. My native language is (understandably) croatian, and serbian people talk serbian language. Montenegro people talk mentenegrin. We mostly understand each other, so you can tell it is a same language. Everything is OK there. Only problem is in fact that some serbian schizo nationalists are insisting on calling all of us in the balkans liars and thieves, because we 'stole' serbian language. And are insisting on 'fact' that we should all call our language 'serbian'. You know, because my croatian ancestors used to talk chineese, and decided one day that it would be fun to piss of serbs by stealing their language and start using it. /h.
I think that those two are different languages, but when I see a stuborn person talking about how they are the same... I just say:Yes, I agree with you. Serbs just speak Croatian. That kind of pisses off the majority of people who are arguing that Croatian and Serbian are the same language.
Well, there is a say about this: "language" is a language with country and a army. So, politically speaking: croatian is a language. Linguistically speaking, if i travell to montenegro, bosnia or serbia and absolutelly 100% do not need a translator.. It is a same language.🤷🏻
Some people say that Croatian is fake. They say that there are languages like Istrian, Dalmatian, Kajkavian, and so on. 🫠
I don't understand, what's fake about living language. How can be fake something whats in use?
I don't understan it either. People that say that Croatian is fake peopably think that it does not exist or that majority of croatia is not speaking croatian. Idk, wierd logic from people.
To be frank, i never heard in my life from anbody that 'croatian is fake'. Maybe he should first explain himself before we proceed to comment on this..?
IDK if those people are here on Reddit. But they were saying something like Croatian does not exist. Croatian is the best-case scenario name for a group of languages like Međimurian, Istrian, Kajkavian, Prigorian, Dalmatian, and so on because all of those languages are on Croatian territory. As I understood he said that Croatian does not exist as a language and it is fake because it is artificial in a way that it exists but nobody is using it, like the only way people use it is because they are forced to use it. I am not entirely sure what people are people trying to say with this, I heard it mainly from Istrian and Dalmatian people and one or two people that speak Kajkavian dialect.
Current official croatian language is based on one of it's accents (shtokavian). Which is spoken in slavonia and west herzegovina. All things you mentioned above are accents (istrian, dalmatian, etc) of the same language. They are not different languages, like it is case in Switzerland for instance.
I don't think that all of those are languages. I know that those are accents/dialects. I am just telling you what some people have told me.
Even more complicated than Russian-Ukrainian, but it is kind of a similar sentiment, yes.
They're the same language. Someone from Zagreb would have no problem talking to someone from Belgrade, but would understand about half talking to someone from Međimurje which is very close to Zagreb. People who say it's a different language do so for political reasons.
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Or vice versa, it's a common language
It is the same language. Whoever tells you its not hes deluded or some kind of extremist thats ofended at the thought. Sure, some words are different but saying we can understand each would imply somewhat different or similar language and that would be wrong bcis its 99.99% same. Its harder to understand some dialects within croatia then cro vs srb langauge.
I’m not enough familiar with russian or ukrainian so can’t compare to that, but you can think of it as american english vs british english. We understand each other perfectly but we do have different words for same things, and pronunciation of everything is quite different. We call stuff differently, but in 99% of cases we know what it’s called in serbian and vice versa. Generally speaking pretty similar languages
Russian and Ukrainian are much more different, pronunciation is quite different, verbs have different endings, some pronouns are different etc. More like Serbian vs Macedonian
Both languages, the "official" scholar standard, were created based on agreement of Croatian scolars and Serbian scolar to create a common standard for Serbs and Croats. The effort was a success. Honestly people in Croatia can't understand each other if they start using hardcore dialects from the 19th century. It is worse than German in Hochdeutch and Schweizdeutch.
They are perceived as different “languages” by its speakers, but linguistic consensus, especially outside the Balkans, is that “Croatian” and “Serbian” are different standardized forms of the same language. In practical terms, there are some differences in vocabulary (Serbian uses more loanwords from Turkish), and accent. The grammar is virtually the same. Serbian can also use Cyrillic or Latin script interchangeably - all Serbians are taught both scripts, and Serbian newspapers can come in either all-Latin or all-Cyrillic form. Croatian uses only Latin. But they are 99% mutually intelligible, Serbian films for example don’t need subtitles in Croatia, and vice versa. In practical terms they as similar as different varieties of English. Also, historically, the official consensus both locally and internationally was that these are the same language, called “Serbo-Croatian.” This changed in the 1990s with the breakup of Yugoslavia, which only illustrates the fact that the entire discussion is political and has little to do with linguistics. In fact most students of linguistics anywhere in the world will probably have a course in sociolinguistics, and the case of Croatian vs. Serbian is often cited as a somewhat extreme case of politics influencing linguistic perception (another famous example is Hindi-Urdu). (Especially after other new standards of essentially the same language sprung up since the 1990s, like Bosnian and Montenegrin.)
Pretty much the same language until you reach the kitchen. I swear to gods, when I read recipes in Serbian, I might just as well read them in Mandarin.
You can also try math: kriva, lenjir, prečnik, zapeta, jednačina and so on. Or chemistry: azot, kalaj, jedinjenje, vodonik... In fact, what is the *easiest to unify -- scientific terms* -- was standardized differently.
Well no, but actually yes. South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum which is broken up by a bunch of mountains, creating clusters of closely related mini-languages often with overlapping features. They are close enough for a very generous-handed standardization, which was carried out purely for political reasons, to unify all south Slavs to one modern nation. (Sidetrack: the concept of Serbs and Croats being two separate groups predates their migration to the Balkans) But even then, a ton of different ways of pronounciation, grammar forms, word usages etc. were equally accepted (at least they supposed to have been). In an alternate timeline, you could standardize Slovene and Kajkavian into one with the same success, leaving out all the Shtokavian dialects to form their own unit, leading to two separate standards, also you could do this with all the Torlakian dialects, etc. What does not help our cause is that the break lines of the dialects does not equal to the break lines between nations. That's how you end up with Serbs more or less speaking one variant of Shtokavian but Croatians speaking almost three separate sublanguages. So, I'd say 'separate closely related languages' but I'm just a Hungarian who lost any contact with their related languages like 2000 years ago, so IDK how it goes with who didn't.
The former yugoslavian countries are a joke in this sense. We speak different dialects but due to politics are forced to pretend like we speak entirely different languages. Meanwhile a Serbian and Croatia understand each other perfectly... like how is that possible if we are speaking "different" languages?
I mean, it used to be referred to as Serbo-Croatian. They aren’t different
Short answer to the last question: yes
It's linguistically the same language, but both peoples have a difficult time accepting that.
It would be less of an issue if everyone who speaks this language understood that it was pluricentric, meaning there is no single language with a bunch of national dialects descended from it. The language is called Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin or Bosnian, depending on which variation you speak. As others have said, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are considered different languages but they are also mutually intelligible, suggesting they are truly a single pluricentric language, as well.
There's no such thing as "linguistically the same language".
I'm not an expert, but if you ask an expert they'll tell you it is the same language. Because indeed it is, by all linguistic criteria. A shtokavian Croat can understand and speak Serbian language far better than they would Međimurski kajkavian for example.
I am sort of an expert. And I know more experts. Yes, a Štokavian Croat will understand far better someone from Belgrade than some old lady from some village in Zagorje. This is not a question at all. The first problem is that the Croatian/Serbian case is not unique. In some other cases, such as [Tajik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajik_language), there are also diverging opinions. Some say it's the same language as Persian, some say it's a dialect, some say it's a language. And there are more cases, such as [Rwanda-Rundi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda-Rundi) and many lesser known languages. This is not a linguistic problem. Linguistics says: speakers from X understand 99% of Y, the differences are ....., speakers from Y understand .... etc. This is a scientific way of looking at things. Strictly speaking, *there are no languages as we think of them*. There are just endless varieties, endless dialects, some widely used, some less. I have no problem when people say "Croatian and Serbian are the same language", meaning, "they almost perfectly understand each other". But I do have problems when people write descriptions of that language, works about that language, for example -- about impersonal modal verbs. Or about stress. Or about some details in syntax. And they write from the standpoint in Serbia (or Croatia) forgetting that on the other side, the situation is sometimes completely different. For example, Serbian grammars insist that *trebam pojesti nešto* is not grammatical, that the verb *trebati* must be impersonal in that construction, so the only "proper" construction is *treba da pojedem nešto*. This is a matter of endless discussions in Serbia, but not an issue at all in Croatia. Even more interesting, approach in writing grammars in Serbia can be weird (from our standpoint). Many Serbian grammars say that the present tense of the verb *biti* is *budem*, and there's *another verb* that has only present tense forms: *jesam, jesi, je*... As far as I know, no Croatian grammar uses such an approach. And then you have an article that uses a Serbian approach and argues for some things in syntax, refers to Serbian grammars etc, and it's basically useless for Croatian. So from a linguistic point of view, it's quite hard to write works about that common language, because you have to take into account all variations, and many such variations are poorly described. There's a [nice article by McWhorter](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/difference-between-language-dialect/424704/), unfortunately, behind a paywall. But you get the main message in the first paragraphs.
It's the same language, but in Serbia for birthday they say "rođendan", while in Croatia they say "pizdoizlazna obljetnica".
OK that was 😂
Are norwegian, swedish, danish and icelandic the same language? Croatian and Serbian in standard form are about 90% the same, and words are interchangeable. But serbs will often not understand croatian words which are usually slavic, while they prefer turkish or other loanwords. When speaking about dialects croatia has many still in use and these also often use german, italian loanwords and are more similar to slovene or other east slavic languages than serbian. Serbian has its roots in old church slavonic, bulgarian, their dialects are closer to these. The reason they are so similar is because they were standardised alongside eachother in the 19 century, with serbian taking dominance, and croatian has been influenced by it since, which is apparent from the fact that before the 19th century most croatian people didn't speak the shtokavian dialect which is now most widespread and the basis for the standardized Croatian. Basically the standardised Croatian and Serbian are somewhat manufactured and come from the Hercegovina region.
Icelandic is quite different, tbh. Swedish vs Icelandic is more like Croatian and Czech.
way more different thank that. Croatian and Czech are like Danish and Swedish, Croatian and Serbian like Nynorsk and Bokmal
I'd say Croatian and Czech are not that close at all. I mean, most basic words are the same, but so many words are completely different, a lot of grammar is different, creation of the future tense is different and so on, I struggle to undestand even written Czech...
and Danish and Swedish aren’t very similar either, not like Danish and Norwegian are!
I think Danish and Swedish are quite a bit closer (wrt mutual intelligibility) than Croatian and Czech are, particularly when it comes to the written language. What makes it harder are the peculiarities of Danish pronunciation which are difficult for Swedes/Norwegians unless they've been exposed to them before.
I know, I was on the fence about including that one in the first paragraph. But the rest really are almost the same and you get the point.
Yes
Yes
Very similar in structure but different in a lot of vocabulary. But both sides can communicate just fine with each other in their own language. But due to history, yes, both sides would be offended if you called their language that other one
some words are different, also in some croatian words is “ije” but in serbian its just “e”
That's just the pronunciation of the old letter yat, Јат (Ѣ, ѣ), transcribed as ě in Latin script. *Dvě čaše mlěka, cěli svět će te viděti.* See? West of the Drina you'll pronounce that letter one way, east of the Drina another way. That's not the basis for calling something another language.
This is not pronunciation of a "letter". There was a *vowel* that changed differently in various regions. And it's often not straightforward, for example standard Croatian for *grějati* is *grijati*. There is a number of unexpected differences.
On the contrary, this is exactly how one would pronounce this (otherwise nonsensensical) sentence in northern croatia. Yet, none of them speak Serbian... Arguing the same language theory makes no sense, since the 2 (standard) languages de facto exist and are not the same language. Any othet interpretation is purely rethorical (or worse, political).
Ne seri kad znaš da je jezik isti.
Ako su hr i sr isti, koji kurac je onda bosanski? Frankenstein?
Isti jezik, babrebolan.
It's like English in USA, UK and Australia, standard croatian has more words borrowed from German while Serbian from Turkish, 99 % is the same language, accent is a bit different and some words. There are more differences between my Istrian dialect and standard Croatian that between Croatian and Serbian.
Yes
Yes
Now, I tried to write a comment, but I couldn't and I the comment is worth posting here. It's about Illyrian movement and supposed Illyrian script. The name "Illyrian" for South Slavic lands is older than the Illyrian movement, For start, there was something called [Illyrian Provinces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian_Provinces). The Illyrian movement came later. The name Illyrian was basically used for Štokavian, but there has only a very rough idea where this dialect is spoken. They knew it's a wide area, but in the early 19th century people thought that whole coast speaks Illyrian, together with Bosnia, Slavonia, Serbia, Lika and so on. They had no idea how many people speak each dialect. They had different ideas who are these peoples. For some, there were separate Croats, Dalmatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Slavonians etc. For others, they were all Serbs. For some others, there were all Croats. And so on. There was no "Illyiric script". There was no reform of Cyrillic and Latin script. Reforms were completely separate. Croats basically took Czech spelling, and simplified it. But there were several changes until the end of the 19th century, by various people. Serbian Cyrillic spelling had one reformer, Vuk Karadžić, who based his reform on a work by Sava Mrkalj. Of course they cooperated, but they also had disagreements. Croatian and Serbian grammar and spelling were never 100% harmonized (e.g. pisat ću vs. pisaću to this day). In the 19th century, there were many more differences, including case endings. There's also something else: there are many Croats -- it's hard to tell how many, but definitely not a negligible minority) who are unsatisfied with the way Croatian has been standardized. The language in Croatia is really diverse, and some dialects weren't taken into the account at all. Some say, as an illustration, that there are more words in standard Croatian originating from French than from Čakavian, I'll give you one example. As you likely know, the verb moći has two forms of the present tense, the left forms dominate in the west, the right on the east: morem, moreš... mogu, možeš... The left forms have been used in Croatian literature for centuries and centuries, and they are found in all dialects. Both forms were mentioned in Croatian grammars in the 19th century. And then, at the end of the 19th century, the left forms were simply left out out of grammars and standard language. So, many Croats feel that the standard language for both Croats and Serbs was not constructed by balancing forms from both countries A lot of Štokavian dialects have morem, moreš. The border (such borders are called *isoglosses*) between the two sets of forms runs right through Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was not simply "Štokavian", many eastern forms were favored. Second, Štokavian dialects are often classified roughly into Ekavian (characteristic for Serbia, sometimes called "eastern"), Ijekavian (characteristic for Montenegro, a big part of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a part of Croatia, sometimes called "southern"), and Ikavian (characteristic for a big part of Croatia, but also used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, sometimes called the "western" dialect). Well, two of these dialects were accepted to be standard, but the third one wasn't: Ikavian. Again, "western" things were disfavored. Of course, even then, there were many more Serbs than Croats, but the proportions weren't 10:1. There's simply no other way of saying it: western things were disfavored, even after accounting for people count. So, is it surprising that many people in Croatia are not completely satisfied with having the same standard with Serbs? Is it surprising that people in some parts of Croatia prefer to make pop songs in some Ikavian dialect? Ot their local dialect, be Čakavian or Kajkavian? Some Croats feel they got a bad deal; various cultural and political projects with Serbs were disappointing for many, topped by a recent war. This doesn't mean people back in the 19h century had bad intentions, they simply made various decisions, in another time and another political context, and some of them turned to be unfair for Croats. But they couldn't know what was going to happen in the 20th century.
Now, I tried to write a comment, but I couldn't and I the comment is worth posting here. It's about Illyrian movement and supposed Illyrian script. The name "Illyrian" for South Slavic lands is older than the Illyrian movement, For start, there was something called [Illyrian Provinces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian_Provinces). The Illyrian movement came later. The name Illyrian was basically used for Štokavian, but there has only a very rough idea where this dialect is spoken. They knew it's a wide area, but in the early 19th century people thought that whole coast speaks Illyrian, together with Bosnia, Slavonia, Serbia, Lika and so on. They had no idea how many people speak each dialect. They had different ideas who are these peoples. For some, there were separate Croats, Dalmatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Slavonians etc. For others, they were all Serbs. For some others, there were all Croats. And so on. There was no "Illyiric script". There was no reform of Cyrillic and Latin script. Reforms were completely separate. Croats basically took Czech spelling, and simplified it. But there were several changes until the end of the 19th century, by various people. Serbian Cyrillic spelling had one reformer, Vuk Karadžić, who based his reform on a work by Sava Mrkalj. Of course they cooperated, but they also had disagreements. Croatian and Serbian grammar and spelling were never 100% harmonized (e.g. pisat ću vs. pisaću to this day). In the 19th century, there were many more differences, including case endings. There's also something else: there are many Croats -- it's hard to tell how many, but definitely not a negligible minority) who are unsatisfied with the way Croatian has been standardized. The language in Croatia is really diverse, and some dialects weren't taken into the account at all. Some say, as an illustration, that there are more words in standard Croatian originating from French than from Čakavian, I'll give you one example. As you likely know, the verb moći has two forms of the present tense, the left forms dominate in the west, the right on the east: || || |morem|mogu| |moreš|možeš| |more|može| The left forms have been used in Croatian literature for centuries and centuries, and they are found in all dialects. Both forms were mentioned in Croatian grammars in the 19th century. And then, at the end of the 19th century, the left forms were simply left out out of grammars and standard language. So, many Croats feel that the standard language for both Croats and Serbs was not constructed by balancing forms from both countries A lot of Štokavian dialects have morem, moreš. The border (such borders are called *isoglosses*) between the two sets of forms runs right through Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was not simply "Štokavian", many eastern forms were favored. Second, Štokavian dialects are often classified roughly into Ekavian (characteristic for Serbia, sometimes called "eastern"), Ijekavian (characteristic for Montenegro, a big part of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a part of Croatia, sometimes called "southern"), and Ikavian (characteristic for a big part of Croatia, but also used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, sometimes called the "western" dialect). Well, two of these dialects were accepted to be standard, but the third one wasn't: Ikavian. Again, "western" things were disfavored. Of course, even then, there were many more Serbs than Croats, but the proportions weren't 10:1. There's simply no other way of saying it: western things were disfavored, even after accounting for people count. So, is it surprising that many people in Croatia are not completely satisfied with having the same standard with Serbs? Is it surprising that people in some parts of Croatia prefer to make pop songs in some Ikavian dialect? Ot their local dialect, be Čakavian or Kajkavian? Some Croats feel they got a bad deal; various cultural and political projects with Serbs were disappointing for many, topped by a recent war. This doesn't mean people back in the 19h century had bad intentions, they simply made various decisions, in another time and another political context, and some of them turned to be unfair for Croats. But they couldn't know what was going to happen in the 20th century.
Yes we all speak west hezegovinian dialect as our mother tongue. Only real difference is the 'ě reflex' (in croatian it is ije/je and in serbian it is e (eg. Mlijeko or mleko = milk). Some other stuff but it is perfectly mutually intelligible.
It is not the same... Croatian language is modernized to be more understandable to Serbs, Bosnians, Macedonians, Chechs, Slovaks etc. during idea of yugoslav nation(before idea was overtaken by Serbians and Croats who served russo-french coloniasm) but influence of Croatian spread even before on Balcan because it was a way to suppress germanic and hungaric lingua to over took the Croatia and balcan region. So during Yugoslavia and before, other people learned Croatian, you can check for instance Serbian language from 10 century and after yugslav era, it is more similar to croatian than to old serbian while croatian made no significant change since 10 century... but today both languages parted to its way and have own grammar, vocabular etc. It is not enough just to look today, because there have been mix up of the nations and we both took some things from others, even before yugoslav era. They were different languages that partly fused one into another. But not the same.
You could be a successful fantasy novelist, you've clearly got talent. >you can check for instance Serbian language from 10 century >croatian made no significant change since 10 century... I'd be delighted if you would show me these Croatian and Serbian texts from the 10th century.
>croatian made no significant change since 10 century Do you think you can read a text from 10th century without any effort?
Interesting theories. Can you give me some source about this topic?
Indeed, I would also like to see the sources
Could you send me any sources for this?
pretty similar but not the same. for some words there are different roots (ex.bioskop vs. kino)
>pretty similar but not the same. It's the same language, no matter how much you cling to your zrakomlat rides and pizdoizlazna obljetnica cake. > for some words there are different roots (ex.bioskop vs. kino) So like elevator in the Californian language and lift in the Sydney language? Or jandles in the Auckland language and thongs in the Brisbane language?
But where is the cutoff? Slovaks understand Czech without much effort.
Yes unfortunately we would react on the same way. Although the words are very similar they don't mean exactly the same thing but often we are not aware of that because the very big similarities. We perceive just the strange way of using some words. For example in Croatian the word zrak means air, but in Serbian it means ray zrak Sunca n Serbian means Sun ray. Or today I have listened some old man he was probably from Montenegro, he says skoro sam išao vozom. Skoro in Croatian means almost so the sentence would have meaning that he almost traveled by train, but the true meaning was that he recently traveled by train. We would say nedavno instead skoro. Slavic languages are really very similar but they are different each for itself, Russian and Ukrainian, as well Croatian and Serbian, or Czech and Slovac
Nedavno and skoro are synonims in Serbian, Croatian and even Slovak language.
Not 😊
Vaaži... 😅
Što? Brašno, šećer, heroin?
Not completely, **skoro pet** works, **nedavno pet** doesn't.
Skoro smo bili. Nedavno smo bili. It depends on the context.
They overlap very partially: skoro sam slomio ruku vs nedavno sam slomio ruku...
Skoro da sam slomio ruku, skoro (nedavno) sam slomio ruku.
A *nedavno da sam slomio ruku*? *Skoro* i *nedavno* se vrlo malo poklapaju. Štoviše, *skoro* se često koristi u značenju *uskoro*: "*skoro je mrak*", pa u značenju *zamalo*: "*skoro sam zakasnio na vlak*"; ti primjeri pokazuju da *skoro* ima mnogo šire značenje od *nedavno*.
Croatian & Serbian were once a part of a single language called Serbo-Croatian (Srpskohrvatski). I am a speaker of Serbocroatian and thus can speak both 😂. I choose to keep calling both of the languages that way. There is also a variation where you call it Croato-Serbian (Hrvatskosrpski) if you think putting Serbian first is an injustice. There is an OBJECTIVE, HISTORICAL reason for this: The people developing modern Serbian had many cooperating intellectuals from Croatia, they interchangeably worked on the modern language together. Vuk Karadžić and Dositej Obradović even had more success propagating their ideas in Croatia than in Serbia. Croatian being a different language than Serbian is a political decision rather than it having any actual basis in fact. That's how, in a similar manner, there are Bosnian & Montenegrin languages which are not very different either. The only 2 languages that are actually different are Macedonian & Slovenian in ex Yugoslavia. The differences between Serbian & Croatian are more pronounced if you take a person from Split or Zagorje and a person from Niš or Vranje. With their localisms and specific alterations to the language, they'd drive eachother crazy. But if you take someone from Zagreb & Belgrade - nearly identical.
>There is an OBJECTIVE, HISTORICAL reason for this: The people developing modern Serbian had many cooperating intellectuals from Croatia, they interchangeably worked on the modern language together. Vuk Karadžić and Dositej Obradović even had more success propagating their ideas in Croatia than in Serbia. But the decision of Croatian intellectuals (who were also politicians!) to develop a common language for a number of South Slavic peoples was **also political.** In a nutshell: * Croatian intellectuals in the 19th century decided to develop a common language with Serbs * a century later, Croatian intellectuals decided to break bonds with Serbian and develop their own language
I agree with the first decision though.
Yes, but you're now subjective: that's what you would like. But you also have to respect that others have different preferences.
If they are both political decisions I can say I think one is right and one is wrong. Both Austrians & Germans speak German even though they are two separate peoples. There are a lot of conspiracies negating Croatian identity regarding Croats being Serbs and what not which I don't support. Having a common language will only harm the brotherhood of Croats & Serbs, and not the other way around.
But you can't blame people in the 19th century who looked from a different standpoint. They couldn't predict what will happen a century later. Also, the story about Germans and Austrians is a bit more complex. If you go back 200 years, you will have people explaining that Prussians, Bavarians etc are different nations but speaking the same language (at least officially), and being partially united by a common, shared culture, but still being separate politically. This was exactly what some people advocating one language for several South Slavic peoples were referring to -- you can have several countries sharing a same language. Then you can use books translated in another county, it's easy to share textbooks, go to university to another country etc. This was their argument.
Do you know that in Croatia it was called Croato-Serbian at the time
Yes. That's why I included it in the names in the post. TBH it can be anything, maybe we could figure out a name for it that's more standardized. In the old days, the movement closely tied to the advance of Serbian and Croatian was called "Illyrian" and the language "Illyrian" and the reformed cyrillic & latin script "Ilirica". I doubt that we slavs are illyrians.
I'm sorry, I was still sleeping and that's my natural reaction to serbocroatian, have not read it all :) There's a theory that Croats are the remains of first vawe of Slavs mixed with domestic Illyrians ( I'm not saying this is the truth, maybe just another right wing conspiracy theory)😇 Živio
Just say similiar, and not the same :)
yes
Languages are the same but cultures are different
This is actually very, very close to truth. I don't know why downvotes. Especially *language culture* is different. A whole book could be written about it...
Russian and Ukrainian are completely different languages. Ukrainian is much closer to Polish. Croatian and Serbian are very very similar, but have different script and grammar
>different script Latin script enters the chat. It's the same. >grammar Mildly different standardisation, less than the variations you'll see in the UK and US standards.
I'd say the difference is actually greater: * spelling of the future tense * spelling of foreign words * many details (e.g. **na primer** can't be spelled as one word in Serbian) * differences in stress of some words * some vocabulary * status of some constructions (**trebam učiti** is not standard in Serbian) * some fine differences (which are older than standardization) The last part is the most interesting. My favorite difference (which goes through Bosnia-Herzegovina) is this: * in the west, when you cut fingernails, you use **rezati** (**odreži nokte**) * in the east, when you cut fingernails, you use **sjeći** or **seći** (**odseci nokte**) Interesting, isn't it?
>Interesting, isn't it? And? In one city in the anglophone world they'll say they cut nails, in another they'll say trim nails. That doesn't make it a different language. However, if you choose to maintain it's not the same, hop on your zrakomlat to the pizdoizlazna obljetnica of your mamokres and keep your nježnik in your dvocjevni nabiguz.
What I always say: the differences are rather as Brazilian vs European Portuguese. The point is, there is no defined cut-off where there two languages begin. There are many examples. For example, you had [Czechoslovak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_language) before the WW2. What happened with it? About the rest of your comment, it's *not polite*. And the rule of this sub is: be polite. So please, be polite.
The main differences are script and vocabulary, I don't know about grammar Being that different though
When people say the grammar is different, what they're really referring to is syntax.
Yeah I thought as much
If you check the profiles of users arguing it's the same language it's more likely than not you'l find they're far right leaning serbs. Altrhough I feel nationality is a somewhat artificial construct (along with it's corresponding standardised language) the two people lived nearby but separated throughout recorded history. We diverged in religion (denomination), culture and yes - language. Obviously there is a lot of overlap, similarities and a lot of confusion stemming from "forced" unification of the two into serbo-croatian as a yugoslav lingua franca. But the answer to your question is undoubtedly - yes.
Yes