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Croatian Language Facts

If you’re thinking about learning Croatian it’s always good to know a little about the origins and history of the language you are learning. Here, Cactus Language offers up our most interesting Croatian language facts:

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5 Interesting Croatian Language Facts

1. The Origins

Croatian is a South Slavic language and is derived from Old Church Slavonic. In the 19th century, South Slavic nations merged into a united kingdom and unified their very similar languages. The 20th century Yugoslavia used Serbo-Croatian to maintain unity across the country. After taking its independence in 1991, Croatia decided to reform Croatian to differentiate it from Serbian.

2. The Speakers

It is estimated that Croatian is spoken by around 5 million speakers. It is an official language in Croatia, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina (along with Serbian and Bosnian).

3. The Difference

Croatian is the standardised form of Serbo-Croatian used in Croatia. It is mutually intelligible with Serbian and Bosnian and shares strong similarities and a common history. The definition of Croatian is controversial and the language is often referred to as Serbo-Croat or Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) in English.

4. The Alphabet

Reflecting Croatia’s position at the crossroads between Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire, Croatian used to be written with three different alphabets: Cyrillic, Glagolitic and Latin. Since the 19th century, Croatian has been using Gaj’s Latin alphabet.

5. The Declaration

1967 is a milestone in the history of Croatian language. That year, Croat scholars addressed the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language to the Yugoslavian authorities. It helped protecting Croatian language’s independence.

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Frequently asked questions

What will I learn?

Our Course Outlines give an overview of the content and learning framework of Cactus courses. Includes themes, grammar and vocabulary you can typically expect to cover. These are intended as a guide only. Language teachers may at times adapt the course content to suit the specific level, aims and interests of the class.

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You will need a course book to attend your course. Course books are not included in the course fees. We recommend that you buy your own course book separately before your course starts. We will let you know which course book you will require and advise where you can purchase this. Please note that a course book often covers more than one level. So if you progress to the next course, you may not necessarily need to buy a new book. Again, we will advise you of this at the time. The course book is chosen by our teachers and academic team. This is based on which book is most suitable for the level of the class whilst offering the most communicative approach.

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