Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia

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

Writing

Script

Though all could use either, the official language in Croatia and one of the 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 regular 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 alphabetically transcribes (transliterates) foreign names and often words even in children's books, while the official language in Serbia performs a phonetic transcription of them whenever possible, regardless of alphabet. Officially the Bosnian language follows the Croatian example, but many books and newspapers phonetically 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 reflex 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 the official language in Croatia uses only ijekavian. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (regardless of the official language) and in 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

A few Croatian linguists have tried to explain the following differences in morphological structure for some words with introduction of a new vowel, "jat diphthong". This is not the opinion of most linguists.

English	Croatian (Ijekavian)	Serbian (Ekavian and Ijekavian)
add by pouring	dolijevati	dolivati
diarrhea	proljev	proliv
gulf, bay	zaljev	zaliv
to influence	utjecati	uticati

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

Another example for phonetical differences is words which have h in Croatian and Bosnian, but v in Serbian:

English	Serbian	Croatian and Bosnian
tobacco	duvan	duhan
to cook	kuvati	kuhati

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	Serbian (ijekavian)	Croatian	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
translator	prevodilac	prevoditelj	prevodilac
reader	čitalac	čitatelj	čitalac
But:
male president	predsjednik	predsjednik	predsjednik
female president	predsjednica	predsjednica	predsjednica
male Black	crnac	crnac	crnac
female Black	crnkinja	crnkinja	crnkinja
thinker	mislilac	mislilac	mislilac
teacher	učitelj	učitelj	učitelj

Also many internationalisms are different:

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

This is because, historically, internationalisms entered Croatian mostly through German, while Serbian received them through French and Russian, so different localization patterns were established based on those languages.

Notes: the 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

With modal verbs such as ht(j)eti (want) or moći (can), infinitive is prescribed in Croatian, while construction da (that/to) + present tense is preferred in Serbian. Again, both alternatives are present and allowed in Bosnian.

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

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

This difference partly extends to future tense, which in Serbo-Croatian is formed in a similar manner as in English, using (elided) present of verb "ht(j)eti" -> "hoću" -> "ću" as auxiliary verb. Here, the infinitive is formally required in both variants:

• "Da li ćeš to uraditi?" (Will/shall you do that?)

However, when da+present is used instead, it can additionally express the subject's will or intention to perform the action:

• "Da li ćeš to da uradiš?" (Will you/do you want to do that?)

This form is more frequently used in Serbia and Bosnia, while it can be found only occasionally in Croatian. In Croatia, the first method is preferred and the second is frowned upon although it is fairly common in the vernacular, but hyper-correctness sometimes produces awkward sentences. It is instead recommended that a different form is used: "Hoćeš li to uraditi?".

The nuances in meaning between two constructs can be slight or even lost (especially in Serbian dialects), in similar manner as the shall/will distinction varies across English dialects. Overuse of da+present is regarded as Germanism in Serbian linguistic circles, and it can occasionally lead to awkward sentences, for example, "I want to know whether I'll start working" would be:

• "Želim da znam da li ću da počnem da radim." (spoken Serbian)
• "Želim znati da li ću početi raditi" (spoken Croatian)

In Croatian it is again recommended that a different form is used: "Želim znati hoću li početi raditi".

In addition, when the subject of future tense is omitted, producing reversal of infinitive and auxiliary "ću", only final "i" of the infinitive is elided in Croatian, while in Serbian and Bosnian vernacular the two are merged into single word:

• "Uradit ću to." (Croatian)
• "Uradiću to." (Serbian/Bosnian)

Regardless of the spelling, the pronunciation is the same.

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 lotre
road 2	put cesta drum džada	put cesta	put cesta džada
But:
passport	pasoš	putovnica	pasoš

¹⁾ All month names are different. See below for full table
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" 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 in the name of "language richness" (or lack thereof), and 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.

In Croatian language months have Slavic names, while Serbian and Bosnian use the same set of international names as English.

English	Croatian	Bosnian and Serbian
January	Siječanj	Januar
February	Veljača	Februar
March	Ožujak	Mart
April	Travanj	April
May	Svibanj	Maj
June	Lipanj	Jun
July	Srpanj	Jul
August	Kolovoz	Avgust
September	Rujan	Septembar
October	Listopad	Oktobar
November	Studeni	Novembar
December	Prosinac	Decembar

International names of months are well understood in Croatian and several internationally important events are commolny referred to using the international name of the month: "1. maj", "8. mart", "oktobarska revolucija".

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 quite easy to understand to the others. Of course, when communicating with each other, in the interest of easier understanding they will use terms that are even 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.