Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia

Official languages in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro differ in:

Table of contents

1 Writing 1.1 Script 1.2 Orthography 2 Speaking 2.3 Accentuation 2.4 Morphology 2.5 Syntax 2.6 Vocabulary 3 Important notes on understanding

Writing

Script

Though all could use either, the official language in Croatia and one of official languages in Bosnia that is called Bosnian language use exclusively the Latin alphabet while the official language in Serbia uses both Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet.

This is possible because all official languages have the same set of phonemes. In some regions of Serbia and Bosnia, the sound "h" does not exist but that is not part of the official languages. In some regions of Croatia and Bosnia, the sounds "č" and "ć" and also "dž" and "đ" are either indistinct or said as ć and đ respectively, but again that is not reflected in the official language.

Orthography

The official language in Croatia transliterates foreign names and often words even in children's books while the official language in Serbia transcribes them whenever possible regardless of alphabet. Officially Bosnian language follows Croatian suit, but many books and newspapers transcribe foreign names.

Speaking

Accentuation

Accentuation of the official languages is different. However, accentuation is different within Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia themselves, see below for full explanation.

Morphology

There are three variants of the Štokavian dialect that stem from different reflaction of proto-Slavic vowel jat. The jat appears in modern dialects in the following way: the Church Slavonic word for child, děte, is:

• dete in Ekavian
• dite in Ikavian
• dijete in Ijekavian

The official language in Serbia and Montenegro recognises ekavian and ijekavian as equal variants while official language in Croatia uses only ijekavian. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (regardless of the official language) and Montenegro ijekavian is used almost exclusively. Ikavian is limited to dialectal use in Dalmatia, Istria, Western Herzegovina and northern Bačka (Vojvodina) and by. So, for example:

English	ekavian	ijekavian	ikavian
wind	vetar	vjetar	vitar
milk	mleko	mlijeko	mliko
to want	hteti	htjeti	htiti
arrow	strela	strijela	strila
But:
small arrow	strelica	strelica strjelica	strilica

Morphological structure for some words is different between Croatian and Serbian. This follows from different number of vowels inventory in Croatian and Serbian. Apart from 6 vowels present in Serbian (a,e,i,o,u,/r/-r used in monosyllabic words), Croatian has |ie| ("jat diphthong") as a distinct feature leading to various morphological differences. For instance:

Croatian (Ijekavian) - Serbian (Ekavian and Ijekavian)

dolijevati - dolivati (add by pouring)

proljev - proliv (diarrhea)

zaljev - zaliv (gulf, bay)

utjecati - uticati (to influence)

Sometimes this leads to confusion: Serbian poticati (to stem from) is in Croatian "to encourage". Croatian "to stem from" is potjecati, while Serbian for "encourage" is podsticati.

Bosnian language allows both variants, and ambiguities are solved by preferring the Croatian variant, which is a general practice for Serbian-Croatian ambiguities.

As ijekavian is the common dialect of all official languages, it will be used for examples on this page. Other than this, examples of different morphology are:

English	official Serbian	official Croatian	official Bosnian
county	opština	općina	općina
male student	student	student	student
female student	studentkinja	studentica	studentica (studentkinja)
male professor	profesor	profesor	profesor
female professor	profesorka	profesorica	profesorica profesorka
\'But:'
male president	predsjednik	predsjednik	predsjednik
female president	predsjednica	predsjednica	predsjednica
male Black	crnac	crnac	crnac
female Black	crnkinja	crnkinja	crnkinja

Even some internationalisms are different:

English	official Serbian	official Croatian	official Bosnian
to organise	organizovati	organizirati	organizovati organizirati
to realise	realizovati	realizirati	realizirati
But:
to analyse	analizirati	analizirati	analizirati

Notes: term "ostvariti" is preferred over "realizovati/realizirati"; here the word has been used as it is an internationalism. In the Bosnian language, the variant in braces is also allowed, but the other variant is preferred.

Syntax

All three languages can form verb sub-phrases in two different ways, with use of infinitive, or with use of the helper word "da" (which could be translated to English as "to"; note that "da" also means "yes").

The sentence "I want to do that" could be translated with any of

• "Hoću to da uradim"
• "Hoću to uraditi"

Or "Will you do that?", which can be translated with both

• "Da li ćeš to da uradiš?"
• "Da li ćeš to uraditi?"

In most of Serbia and Bosnia, the first method is preferred in the vernacular, but in written language, the second method is frequently used to mean "will", while the first is used to mean "want to".

In Croatia, the second method is preferred and the first is frowned upon, but hyper-correctness sometimes produces awkward sentences. It is instead recommended that a different form is used, "Uradit ću to" and "Hoćeš li to uraditi?".

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is different to some extent. Examples:

English	in Serbia	in Croatia	in Bosnia
one thousand	hiljada	tisuća	hiljada tisuća
January 1	januar	siječanj	januar
table	sto astal trpeza	stol trpeza	sto hastal
rice	pirinač	riža	riža
carrot	šargarepa	mrkva	mrkva
oil	ulje zejtin	ulje	ulje
spinach	spanać	špinat	špinat
ladder	merdevine lotre lojtre	ljestve skale (colloq.)	merdevine ljestve
road 2	put cesta drum džada	put cesta	put cesta džada
But:
passport	pasoš	putovnica	pasoš

¹⁾ All month names are different.
²⁾ This is an excellent example of foreign influences. "Put" and "cesta" are Slavic, "drum" is Greek and "džada" is Turkish. Moreover, the central difference lies in the fact that Croatian is, unlike Serbian or Bosnian, a purist language.

Note that there are a few differences that can cause confusion, for example the verb "ličiti" means "to look like" in Serbian and Bosnian, but in Croatian it is "sličiti"; "ličiti" and means "to paint". The word "bilo" means "white" in ikavian, "pulse" in official Croatian and "was" in all official languages, although it's not so confusing when pronounced because of different accentuation.

Also note that in most cases Bosnian officially allows all of the listed variants, but in the name of "language richness" (or lack thereof), ambiguities are resolved by preferring the Croatian variant. Generally, no rule for the vocabulary treatment in Bosnian language can be deduced. Bosnian vocabulary writers based their decisions on usage of certain words in literary works by Bosnian authors.

Important notes on understanding

It is important to notice a few issues:

• Pronunciation and vocabulary differs among dialects spoken within Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia themselves. Each larger region has its own pronunciation and it is reasonably easy to guess where a speaker is from by their accent and/or vocabulary. Colloquial vocabulary can be especially different from the official standards.
  

This is one of the arguments for claiming it is all one and the same language: there are more differences within the official languages themselves then there are between various official languages.

• Serbs, Bosnians and Croats will each among themselves talk in a manner that is reasonably hard to understand to the others. Whereas, when communicating with each other, in the interest of easier understanding they will use terms that are easier to understand to all.
  

For example, to avoid confusion with month names, they can be referred to as the "first month", "second month" and so on which makes it perfectly understandable for others. In Serbia, month names are international ones so again understandable for anyone who knows e.g. English.

• Entire books and movies have been translated from one language to another. However, the translation of Serbian movie Rane into Croatian for example turned it from a tragedy into a comedy, as the whole audience was laughing at the "translation." On the other hand: probably the most bizarre case is Swiss psychologist Jung’s masterwork “Psychology and Alchemy,” translated into Croatian in 1986, and retranslated, in late 1990s, into Serbian not from the original German, but from Croatian. A translation and “translation’s translation” differ on virtually every page—orthographically, lexically, syntactically and semantically.