Concept
Croatian language
Overview
Croatian is the standard variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Croats. It is the national official language and literary standard of Croatia, one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, the Serbian province of Vojvodina, the European Union and a recognized minority language elsewhere in Serbia and other neighbouring countries.
In the mid-18th century, the first attempts to provide a Croatian literary standard began on the basis of the Neo-Shtokavian dialect that served as a supraregional lingua franca – pushing back regional Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian vernaculars. The decisive role was played by Croatian Vukovians, who cemented the usage of Ijekavian Neo-Shtokavian as the literary standard in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, in addition to designing a phonological orthography. Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.
Besides the Shtokavian dialect, on which Standard Croatian is based, there are two other main supradialects spoken in Croatia, Chakavian and Kajkavian. These supradialects, and the four national standards – Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian – are usually subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English; this term is controversial for native speakers, and names such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" (BCMS) are used by linguists and philologists in the 21st century.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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But in the majority of inferior languages, the process of “agglutination,” as it is called, has gone far enough to produce considerable stability in the compound words: there is a manifest integration. How small is the degree of this integration, however, when compared with that reached in well-developed languages is shown both by the great length of the compound words used for things and acts of constant…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what Croatian language is.
Under the old _régime_ it was unquestionably a most serious problem to give the children a full and free use of language. The reason was obvious. The natural motive for language was seldom offered. In the pedagogical text-books language is defined as the medium of expressing thought. It becomes that, more or less, to adults with trained minds, but it hardly needs to be said that language is primarily a social thing…
John Dewey, The School and Society Being three lectures
States what Croatian language is.
MARCH 15th, 1852. Bohemia and Croatia (another disjected member of the Slavonic family, acted upon by the Hungarian, as Bohemia by the German) were the homes of what is called on the European continent "Panslavism." Neither Bohemia nor Croatia was strong enough to exist as a nation by herself.
Friedrich Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution
States what Croatian language is.
Philosophers who discussed Croatian language
Related ideas
- Germany
- German language
- Hungary
- Poland
- North Macedonia
- Romania
- Romanian language
- Lewiston, New York
- Spanish language
- Serbo-Croatian
- University of Auckland
- United Kingdom
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Berlin
- Budapest
- Jagiellonian University
- Vernacular
- Australia
- New Zealand
- The Economist
- Vienna
- Zagreb
- Lingua franca
- Serbian language
Place in the tradition
Part of Language.