Croatian Language, an Introduction to Serbo-Croatian

[@yuribliman8999]

As a Russian and Ukrainian native speaker, I find the Croatian language pretty intelligible. As far as I understand, Croatian grammar is closer to Ukrainian grammar, especially to the Western dialects of the Ukrainian language. Croatian shares a lot of its vocabulary with the other Slavic languages. I had the experience of speaking with Croats and Bosniaks in my native languages, it was a bit of a struggle but not too much.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Seems like with Slavic Languages you get a bit extra for free.

[@yuribliman8999]

@@BenLlywelyn Yup

[@filipmiocic5184]

As a Croat, I understand Russian more than Ukrainian, probably because of Old Church Slavonic influence on Russian.

[@malimate2660]

Logically, because White Croatia existed in Ukraine, and in Croatia we have the same toponyms and hydronyms as in Ukraine...Kijevo, Vinica, Dobra, Jamnica, Viškovo, Rastoke, Dubravka, Roć, Bar, Dobrinj, Dolina, Dubrava, Ivanci, Jasenica, Poljana, Jamnica, Trpinja, Zavidovići, Sambor, Zagvozd, Verhovine,, and Ikavica also connects us.....vira, lito, tilo, bila, svit, nedilja, potribno, cina, likar, dilo, uspih, susid, grih, rika, slipa, stina, svitlo, siditi, viter, zamina, zavisa, želizo, zvir,misto,povist...juha,cukar,stegna,zviri,bižati, kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXScZpeIoqiejKM

[@malimate2660]

@@filipmiocic5184 Google Jurij Križanič Юрий Крижанич

[@flimsedom]

I once tried to learn Serbocroatian. It was quite fun to sprinkle this language into my repertoire. As a German native speaker I was told to pronounce the words with a Viennese accent (always stressing the first syllable for instance) and this made it easy to read it. Thank you very much for sprinkling your videos and kind regards!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you. I suppose going with a southern German accent makes sense if it id what you know, to sprinkle in.

[@alandedic2868]

Nema toga jezika kojega spominješ.

[@flimsedom]

@@alandedic2868 Kad sam naučio jezik, tako se službeno zvao.

[@alandedic2868]

@@flimsedom Gdje? U Zagrebu službeno bio hrvatski!

[@dankadesign7462]

​@@flimsedomdont bother explaining .Croatian will never learn the lesson.Thanks to Yugoslavia they still exist as nation.All knows that is basically Serbian language with slang same in Croatia Bosnia and Montenegro.

[@vaidotast]

It is interesting for me as a Lithuanian to watch this video as I see so many similarities in grammar and even in words. The Proto-Balto-Slavic language had to be awesome :)

[@colinafobe2152]

this is the first time I hear that from Lithuanian person. Usually they tend to put fence between them and Slavs, because of bad history with Russians I am sure

[@vaidotast]

@@colinafobe2152 Yeah... Too much hurtful killing and exiles with Moscowices... Even for other Slavs too. The usual chat with foreigners goes like this - "Oh, Lithuanian? It sounds like / is similar to Russian, right?" I guess it is kinda hurtful. So we have this prejudice to instantly say "No". I personally really like languages and find it fascinating to find similarities. Baltic and Slavic split several thousand years ago but apart from Latvians, which are the only other big Baltic tribe left, Slavs are the closest we have :)

[@raderadumilo7899]

The dialects of Serbo-Croatian vary quite a bit. The north-west of Croatia, and south of Serbia speak virtually different languages from the rest of the area where the language is spoken. When I served in the army in the south of Serbia, it took me two months to start understanding my sergeant. 😂 Also, I've spent a lot of time in Zagorje (north-west of Croatia). Takes a while to start compiling.

[@danijeljovic4971]

2:40 it's ironic how Bosniaks are totally fine with this language being called Serbo-Croatian even though their ethnicity isn't included in the name meanwhile Serbs roll their eyes when they see it and Croats have a full blown meltdown

[@stefanodadamo6809]

Bosniaks just chill in front of a well deserved Turkish coffee or, if they aren't this paragon of Muslim piety, a sacrosanct slivovica.

[@denislakos9853]

@@stefanodadamo6809 that is because there is no Serbian language...

[@boske_77]

It's because they know their language is fake, but adding so called "Croatian" in a name of Serbian language, that is only real language of those three that call themselves, is just a butchering of a name and historical fabrication.

[@denislakos9853]

​@@boske_77there is no such thing as Serbian language.

[@domca4617]

​@@denislakos9853Or croatian

[@robertberger4203]

Another interesting characteristic of Serbo-Croatian is its pitch accent . You can change the meaning of a word with intonation . This is also true of Slevenian .

[@MUb2024]

shtokavian dialect which is pretty much "serbo-croatian" standardized language spread from western serbia (rascia region) and bosnia and herzegovina, with partly monte negro and dalmatia region( mainly dubrovnik)

[@darkoracic9694]

Nos da ! I am a Croat who used to live and work in North Wales for 5 years. I want to inform you, without any political notions, that serbian langugage sounded much different before the croatization made by Vuk Karadžić. Very similar to bulgarian, containing about 4000 turcisms and 4 cases only compared to croatian, 7. Todays serbian is a croatized version of 19.th century original which is readily available from serbian literature from 19th century.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Prynhawn da. Come back to Cymru and speak Croatian.

[@stefanpavlovic4191]

If this is "without any political notions" than i am Gengis Kan, no really! I mean do you really, but really beleve that serbian was "croatised" in 19. century, because that is simply not true. Where did you find that information, in what sourse, probably some propaganda and hate, just not croatian Wikipedia 😄You just wrote comment full of lyies, propaganda and hate, not to mention false "facts"! Also Serbian even than HAD 7. cases, again that serbian had "4 cases only compared to croatian, 7. umm NO IT DIDN'T, is simply a made up "fact", sorry to inform you, without any political notions. 😃Vuk Karadzic changed the writing system not the language itself, he just codified language that was already speaking among Serbs and dich the language that was only used in church or by very small minority and only in literature, dead language basically.. And he used dialect from his native Hercegovina (is that Croatia umm?) that was then and today is populated by ortodox Serbs. It didn' quite sounded like Bulgarian, thy are nott the same and always had bigger diferencies than serbian-croatian.. Oh and again that myth about "4000 turcisms", when you think about that you need to be really dumb to beleve that.. If serbians speak so many turkish words than thy would not needing translator with turks and it would be salled turko-serbian😄 In fact ther is wayyyy les than that, and just to point many of that turcisms is not turkish words to begin with! Like defter, from greek defteros- skin, and i would bet that many of other turcism are not even speaking in modern turkish.. Ataturk in 1930 "cleansed" language from foreighn words and many of that turcism whee purget.. So please go to Cymru and stop spreading lyes and misinformation, you are not up to speak about serbo-croatian brate! 😆

[@srbadijaradovic6198]

Now why would you say something like that?! Not only is it not true but it's just rude...

[@darkoracic9694]

@@srbadijaradovic6198 read the Karadžić's Memoars! Then read the serbian press and literature from 19.th century. Then ask your self why many Serbs use only 4 cases in their everyday speech combined with a lot turcisms. What happened that the language in the serbian press and literature suddenly changes after Karadžić's reform? And whose words does he openly takes and from whose dictionaries to replace 4000 actively used turcisms?

[@miovicdina7706]

​@@darkoracic9694Well as you said yourself, those were turcisms, i.e. foreign Turkish words introduced into the original South Slavic that was spoken in Serbia before the l slamic Ottoman invasion. So Vuk Karadzic and his Slavic linguistic movement re-introduced Slavic words back into the South Slavic spoken in Serbia, i.e. the Serbian. Those words were still used in Croatia. But it's not like he took some Croatian-only words and shoved them into Serbian.

[@nenadbulic6214]

I attended a Croatian school and learned in the Croatian language, but I understand Serbian because of its influence on TV, radio, magazines, and comics back in the Yugoslavian era. I remember an example from the YU army when I was not allowed to say "Razumijem" (I understand/ On command/ Yes Sir) but "Razumem", although the right Croatian translation is "Na zapovjed". There are many examples where the same word has different meaning (CRO sunčeva zraka - SRB sunčev zrak; svježi zrak - svež vazduh; točka - tačka, tačka gnjojiva - kolica đubriva, etc.)

[@BenLlywelyn]

Good to get two for one.

[@XYZOxyz]

You understand it because it's the same language, not because of the "influence".

[@nenadbulic6214]

Da imaš pravo, to je uistinu jedan jezik, iako vi govorite srpski, a mi hrvatski. Mada mi ne pručavamo srpsku književnost, a ni vi našu. Nikada nisam pisao na ćirilici, jer nisam imao potrebe za tim. Ali sam na TV Zagreb bio bombardiran sa crtićima na srpskom, dječjim srpskim serijama, partizanskim filmovima u kojima više ili manje glume Srbi, stripovima iz Gornjeg Milanovca, a o muzici da i ne pričam. Ali da, imaš pravo, svi smo mi isti narod koji priča jedan isti jezik.

[@HibikiKano]

Speaking as a Slovene from the central region who is too young to have had S-C thought in school, and has very limited exposure to Serbian or Croatian media. With great effort I can somewhat understand the kajkavan dialect or Croatian and the effort is mutual thank to kajkavan being more exposed to Slovene media and language. The further away the harder it gets on both sides, quite quickly becomes unintelligible. Sure if I switch to Standard-Slovene intelligibility stretches a few villages further down. But Standard-Slovene is largely synthetic, made to connect the major Slovene dialects together, and formed in a time when they tried to remove non-Slavic influences from the language, making up new words to fill those gaps, or just plugging them by taking words from S-C or Slovakian. Also the accent and stress change to how normal Slovenes speak in their native dialects often breaking the flow of the language.

[@BenLlywelyn]

From what I understand Slovenian diverged earlier from Serbo-Croatian off of Slavic as South Slavic broke up. Thank you for yout imput on dialects.

[@HibikiKano]

@@BenLlywelyn That bit is still somewhat contested. There was a period when academia wanted to find links between Yugoslav nations, making some up along the way. Sadly those papers remain quite sticky and it's hard to figure out which were fabricated at the time and which not mostly due to how much later research is based on them. I mean when the beginnings of the standard grammars were written by Jernej Kopitar (Slo), Vuk Karadžič (Srb), Ludovit Gaj (Cro) in close cooperation, but still some discordant thoughts. In Slovenia Kopitar wished to make a Slovene Grammar that would link it to a unified south Slavic language gradually moving Slovene bit by bit towards a common language, and while he had supporters and still has them to this day in academia, there was also harsh opposition. Matija Čop a contemporary at the time as well as the prime poet France Prešeren wished to make a high Slovene as the Czechs, Poles and Germans did, without outside influences without purging of the current language or replacing with new "pure-south slavic" terms. That is a conflict that still exists in Slovene academia. Historically speaking. On one hand we know that early Slovenes split from Samos empire in the 7th century as the Carinthian dukes. Probably one of the most known was Valuk who the Friulian princes wrote about as a Slavic duke not subordinate to the Franks, Avars nor Lombards. Something Serbs and Croats ignore as unimportant history. And Austrians often like to dispute stating that the region was always Germanic, but considering that the Italians have period documents about trade and political relations with Slavic Valuk, it is hard to accept Austrian claims) Till the 9th century when they joined the Frankish empire where they remained under the Frankish empire and their successors till WW1. The Freising manuscripts as the earliest form of Slovene from 10th century, some say it could have been a copy of tests from the 9th century, is already quite distinct from the 11th century Baška tablet Croatian Church Slavonic. And the Freising manuscripts sound quite slovene by now, not modern but from a village that you cant pinpoint what dialect it's from. So by this its hard to say Slovene split from Serbo-Croatian because the lack of links to Serbs and Croats of the time. On the other hand there is so much still unknown from the times, and might have even been lost for good thanks to WW2 and the mass books burnings from castles and churches during the war by Italians and Germans and after the war by the Communists. Just to point out how different and sometimes alien current Standard Slovene is to the dialects, here is an interactive map of all of Slovene dialects with sound and transcription narecja.si/ (I will shamelessly advertise this link, because I think its a great source and would be a shame if it disappears. Sometimes the voice takes time to load though.)

[@filipmiocic5184]

So you don't understand Croatian that well? I ask because almost all Slovenians I know speak Croatian very well, and usually understand us much better than we understand them. My experience is that I don't understand Slovenian spoken in a dialect, but I somehow understand Standard Slovenian if spoken slowely. Written may be understood if its written in Standard form (dialects are hard, sometimes impossible, at least for me).

[@tienshinhan2524]

@@filipmiocic5184 Only elder Slovenes speak Crotian (Serbo-Croatian), those one who live in Yugoslavia. Young Slovenes don't speak. I am also Shtokavian speaker & I don't understand Slovene so much, basic stuff.

[@tienshinhan2524]

@@HibikiKano I am Serb & you Slovenes are for my "South Slavicized" West Slavs. You are/were the same as Czechs & Slovaks & Moravians. That term that you are today called "South" Slavs is another story. Slovene didn't split from "Serbo-Croatian" ... the language is not from the same root as Serbo-Croatian. By the way I like Slovene language, although I don't understand you.

[@NoahNobody]

Have you heard about Interslavic?

[@BenLlywelyn]

No.

[@kieronhoswell2722]

@@BenLlywelyn I think you'd find it interesting.

[@lazarstojanovic3796]

@@kieronhoswell2722 Not sure how interesting it would be to someone who is not a native Slavic language speaker honestly :/ Slavs get all overexcited because they can understand it without learning, but to Ben it might be just anther Slavic language that he needs to learn in order to understand. I have recently seen a short on a Latin language Esperanto, that might be very easy for English language speakers to understand as well.

[@SionTJobbins]

interslavic is super interesting. All slavic speakers seem to be able to undertand it with no previous exposure. I with I could speak a Slavic language to see and understand how it works.

[@giig697]

Thanks!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you very much for that.

[@LiorSultanov]

As a Russian speaker I think that I would discern most of the vocabulary in a text and would grasp some parts of the spoken language. The sentences were similar most of the time but admittedly also relatively basic. I feel like the phonology makes it easier to understand than, say, Polish. I find it interesting that West and South Slavs put the reflexive pronouns before the verb while East Slavs after it so that it merges.

[@BenLlywelyn]

After the verb? Fascinating.

[@NenadRaos]

Many ado about spelling. Croatian, as well as Serbian, are strictly phonetical languages. You need 15-30 min to learn correctly read in Croatian. There is also an error in this video. Ny is not Ny but Nj because there is no letter y in Croatian (as well as letters Q and W).

[@BenLlywelyn]

Yes.

[@varnica408]

As a Croatian I understand that the languages are practically the same but the main points of differences are the latinica-cirilica you pointed out, serbians dont use the infinitive form of verbs (example: ”I want to work” -> cro is w’ the infitive: “Želim raditi”; serb is wout but w’ “da” and present form: “Želim da radim”), and obviously there are going to be differences in vocabulary. But from my experience living in coastal Dalmatia I have an easier time understanding a person from Belgrade than somebody coming from Zagorje region like city Čakovec or something like that. On the other hand a Belgradian has no chance understanding a person from Dalmatian islands and I, from the coastal area, can; just like the Čakovecian can understand Slovenian a lot more easier than me. So to conclude you this explenation of vocab - theres a lot of dialects and neighboring regions always have something similar in dialect vocabs but as closer u get to the Italian, Slovenian or Albanian border the differences become more extreme. I would also like to explain you why we call our “croatian” group of dialects like so and “serbian” group of dialects like so - first of all the main point, if you are catholic then you are a croat and if orthodox then serbian, also again cirilica latinica, but to clear things a little - the type of letter specific group writes usually is also followed by a specific religion (cirilica connected to orthodox, latinica to catholic; except for minorities like for example, orthodoxian living in croatia is going to be used to writing in latinica but is going to be refered as a croato serbian which probably doesn't make sense to you i suppose haha but to put in a nutshell a serbian living in croatia probably writes in latinica and vice versa) For the end i would like to just ask you to not really mock (i assume u didnt want to sound like that in the video) the absurdity that one language is croatian and the other serbian even though it sounds the same to you cus people here are sensitive to that topic cus as u know things happend not long ago. This sounded like a cliche liberal american girl asking for an apology after a racist joke but listen bro, we here in balkans like to joke about everything, as you can see from the first part of this sentence hahaha,... but balkan politics brother...thats when a conversation can become really ugly😂 And btw u dont have to apologize for the part mentioned in the last part of my comment, we dont hate people cus of that u are just giving us a reason to hit you when we see you next time in person but after that we go get some drinks together - thats how we work😆

[@BenLlywelyn]

Balkan politice are a tangle.

[@gordonpi8674]

Serbo-Croatian is one of the most beautiful languages in the world.

[@octavian8b]

One interesting fact is that in Bosnia and Herzegovina they use both alphabets 😅. Latin and Cyrilic. Also, regarding J, someone from the region told me that it is pronounced like YA.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Interesting, Bosnia must be a middle ground for many things.

[@octavian8b]

@@BenLlywelyn well, it's an interesting country... They are divided almost perfectly like 1/3 Croats, 1/3 Serbs and 1/3 Bosnians. Also, from the religious point of view they are 1/3 Christian Catholic, 1/3 Christian Orthodox and 1/3 Muslims (guess who is who). They have 3 presidents, one for each nationality in the country and, as I asked two Bosnians how their country works, they told me "even we don't know that...". I recommend, if you're curious, to look into it. Bosnia and Herzegovina feels a lot like a compromise of a country and a mini-Yugoslavia from some points of view.

[@BenLlywelyn]

I suppose confusion is better than war.

[@danebajrovic8021]

As a Croatian who live in contact whit some other Bosniaks and having some Balkan Slavic muslim ancestry myself I can tell Bosnia is actually about half muslim and half Christian(chatolic and orthodox) whit mostly Sephardic Jewish minority respectively

[@kitanowitsch]

In Serbia we use both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, too.

[@danebajrovic8021]

I speak a mxed dialect of my village, mix of štokavian and čakavian dialects but I can speak Brinje čakavian as well. Thanks for the video

[@BenLlywelyn]

Welcome.

[@morismateljan6458]

A quick way to differentiate two ch's: Č - gotcha! Ć - got ya!

[@arnazaron]

"se smiju" is a reflexive verb, 3rd p. pl. indicative. It cannot be a noun in a locative. and "naše žene" is nominative plural. but the form with dative you're talking about is possible. it would require an adverb though.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Hvala.

[@joshadams8761]

Lovely to see this LangFocus-style video! Since you know both Romanian and Croatian, you might enjoy doing a video on the Balkan Sprachbund.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you. Never said I know Croatian! But a Balkan Sprachbund video sounds fascinating.

[@adokce]

First 3 minutes 45 seconds are probably could probably be shortened to 20 seconds. oversimplification of history lead to you saying a some incorrect stuff. it's ok, this is not a history channel. Your pronounciation is pretty good and you gave a great overview of the language. What may be interesting for you and viewers of the channel is some of the Croatian island's "dialects". As a Bosnian, I was surprised to not understand a host at a hotel in Novalja, Pag (Croatia), where I expected to hear just a local-flavored Croatian, but ended up not understanding him at all. I wondered if he was a foreigner owning a property there. Turns out, he was a local and they speak some language that is a mix of Croatian and Italian, which I couldn't understand.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Island dialects. Interesting. Thank you.

[@stipe3124]

I think that Novalja is one of those places where they speak Cakavica/Tsakavica Ts/C instead of Č or Ca and not Ča, but i am not sure 100%

[@adokce]

@@stipe3124 probably, but I also remember them having literally different vocabulary, for example tomato is neither "rajcica" nor "paradajz".

[@stipe3124]

@@adokce Pomidora? That is what people use in most of Dalmatia for "Rajčica"

[@adokce]

@@stipe3124 yes. that's the example he gave. But I also couldn't understand him anything when he was explaining stuff about the hotel and rooms.

[@000netko]

16:56 just a slight mistake I couldn't blame you for making because even most Croats don't know the difference. The "se" in the sentence is not a pronoun but a particle. They're written the same and spoken the same, and it can be hard to differentiate, but it's basically defined as a particle word when it doesn't make sense for a pronoun to be there. Example: "Odijevam se - I'm dressing myself" here it's a pronoun "Smijem se - I'm laughing" here it's a particle because you can't laugh yourself in the same grammatical sense that you dress yourself. Not sure why it's like that, Croatian can be weird sometimes putting random words there just because it sounded right to a bunch of people a couple hundred years ago.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you for clarity. Hvala.

[@a.n.6374]

7:40 except it's not the same, but you have 6-7 different cases, meaning a different suffix depending on the word's function in the sentence. Yes in the simple examples you give it's in the nominative case so no suffix, but then it gets progressively harder. I am one of the special cases - a Bulgarian. I have struggled with Serbian and Czech enough. The only simple thing about this languages are the verb tenses. Not a lot of them :D

[@BenLlywelyn]

Fewer verbs would be handy.

[@TomislavMor]

Small correction on the letters. It's not ny and ly, it's nj and lj. Pronounced like you said. Advice for speaking Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian: Come to the Balkans and listen. I would also recommend an old video: "Serbian Language lesson 1 : turrets" by gradualreport. It's funny but true. Here we all curse a lot. And don't mind those who insist Croatian and Serbian are different. They are a same language, with the same grammar and same sentence structure. Many words are different, that's true, but those serbian words are still used in Croatia, at least in the eastern part. If the different words mean different language, than Dalmatian is different language from Croatian, because of all the italianisms. And don't get me started about dialects from Zagorje... Most of the people in Croatia will better understand Serbian language, than the dialect north of Zagreb. We are all the same, divided a long time ago by eastern and western roman border, and then by religion.

[@malimate2660]

The standardized language for Yugoslavia in Croatia was Croatian-Serbian, and in Serbia Serbo-Croatian............ The language is standardized from Croatian dictionaries...........that's how Vuk Karadžić writes...

[@igorinaKC]

Nebi to bilo baš tak. Kad sam ja išao u školu, za vrijeme Jugoslavije, u mojoj učeničkoj knjižici u osnovnoj školi i u indeksu u srednjoj naziv predmeta je bio "Hrvatski ili srpski jezik i književnost", a u udžbeniku za taj predmet tekstovi na hrvatskom su bili pisani latinicom, a tekstovi na srpskom jeziku ćirilicom. Za hrvatsko-srpski nisam čuo nikad, a za srpsko-hrvatski tek kad sam došao na odsluženje vojnog roka u JNA.

[@malimate2660]

@@igorinaKC Probaj na Google...............imaš dosta knjiga o tome..

[@MegaTratincica]

A very interesting and simple presentation of the Croatian standard language. I congratulate you on the effort of correct pronunciation, but it would be better if the sentence examples were pronounced by someone who is a native Croatian language. Thus, 'foreigners' would gain a better insight into the 'soundness' of the language. In any case, well done! 😊

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you very much.

[@fics-il3qn]

Velika pohvala na Vašem trudu!👍🌺Puno ljubavi iz Istre!🤗💗

[@smileyface3956]

For the thing as the same language: in the 19th century they made efforts to unite the south slavs so they made the new standardized language. In the kingdom of Croatia Chakavian was the main language used. When the ottomans came many chakavians escaped. And they later made the languages the same. Croatian is a diffirent language.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Ottomans left different amounts in different places, for sure.

[@joejohnson6327]

Love speaking Chakavian to Serbian tourists. 😁

[@smileyface3956]

@@joejohnson6327 Hahahaha Ši. Ki dijalekt ti povedaš. Ja povedam Kastafski govor.

[@XYZOxyz]

Croatia was never a kingdom or an independent state

[@XYZOxyz]

​@@joejohnson6327And Serbs understand all of it because you're all speaking their language😂

[@perun7078]

Came here after watching several different videos on this subject. Not one of the authors, spoke of the language and culture policies in former SFRJ or Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Almost 100 years of authoritarian (avoiding "totalitarian" on purpose) unitarism would influence differencies and peculiarities among ethnicities. Before that, both Croatian and Serbian culture were consistantly humiliated and denied by foreign invader(s) for centuries. Different languages - same diacritical sistem. Both Slavic, and mostly(!) mutualy understandable. Just love foreigners explaining "me" to me.

[@SlaviSokol]

As a slavic speaker I understand 90% with some minor differences exp. : "plav-é" we use as : light in color "vrata" - gate "obitelj" (obyvateľ) - resident

[@filipmiocic5184]

Which Slavic language do you speak?

[@SlaviSokol]

@@filipmiocic5184 Slovak, also some Polish, Rusian

[@filipmiocic5184]

@@SlaviSokol Common word fir blue color is "plava", but there is also "sinja", when talking about color of the sea - "sinje more" "Vrata" is common word for door, there is also "dveri" for describing some big door, for example door of some castle - "dveri dvorca/zamka" ("dvorac/zamak" - castle) "Obitelj" is common word for family. It comes from verb "obitavati", which means to live in some place.

[@SlaviSokol]

@@filipmiocic5184 In slovak " plavé vlasy " means : light hair ( mostly blond, but not necessarily) theoretically "plavo modrá" could be understood as : light blue. But we dont use it this way. Light blue is : " belasá. And dark blue is : mordá. Sinje is same as in Russian " Sinaja" also in Greek is something similar . vrata,dvere,zámok is the same here.

[@filipmiocic5184]

@@SlaviSokol Thank you for answer! As a Slovak speaker, how would you describe the difference between Slovak and Czech? I've read they are mutually intelligible, but I don't know how different they are. For example, Croatian and Serbian are basically fully mutually intelligible, but in public space in Croatia, Serbian is presented as foreign language, as foreign as Italian or Hungarian, even tough it is possible to write full page of IDENTICAL text in Serbian and Croatian. Is it possible with Czech and Slovak?

[@000netko]

20:54 it should be "manje smiješna" because "manje smiješnija" is the same thing as saying "less funnier" in English

[@xerxesgemao1259]

I can't remember how I got here, but I actually spent 8 mins of this vid... and I'm drunk.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Glad I could make you forget your woes.

[@stipe3124]

Croatian on the coast both Chakavian and Sthokavian has many Latin words so we can understand something from Italian. For example sentence from Istrian Song "Ka di su ta vrata kroz ka san PASA,Ja bin se TORNA" which means "Where are those Doors that i past trough, i would return"

[@Semprini537]

I bet you had some trouble while learning our easy language

[@BenLlywelyn]

All languages have challenges.

[@tienshinhan2524]

Can you make video about Macedonian?

[@alexcro4769]

It`s a Bulgarien language

[@BenLlywelyn]

Oh, controversy!

[@tienshinhan2524]

@@alexcro4769 Everyone has it's own opinian about that. I am Serb & Macedonian is something between Serbian & Bulgarian, if i'm honest.

[@dennynisevic7848]

​@@tienshinhan2524tako je brate

[@glennlanham6309]

I could have used this in 1998-2000, but I lived in an Italian community over there....

[@BenLlywelyn]

Maybe you will get another chance.

[@zoranorlic2423]

If you learn Croat, you will be absolutely fine everywhere in the former YU. I would not advise you to go to Kosovo or Western Macedonia. But, that is for another topic.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@TheSouth-j7f]

Serbo-Croatian which was the official language of the old Federal Yugoslavia from 1954, died with the death of Federal Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. This combined language no longer taught in Croatia or Serbia.

[@BenLlywelyn]

War has a way of giving birth to things over time.

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

You don't know anything about that. I was educated in Croatia in the Croatian-Serbian language, and in Serbia they were educated in the Serbo-Croatian language, and the official position was that it is one language because there is less difference between Serbo-Croatian and Croatian-Serbian than the difference between the German language in Austria and Germany. In world linguistics, even now, only the Serbo-Croatian language is recognized because that variant is spoken by the majority of the population of the former Yugoslavia. Look for what Snježana Kordić, who is a world expert in linguistics, has to say about it on KZbin. Snježana Kordić is a Croatian from Osijek and for many years she was a professor in Germany. Now she lives in Croatia and is unemployed. What do you think is the reason why there is no work for her in Croatia? It is obvious that they consider her politically unsuitable.

[@TheSouth-j7f]

@@zoranmarjanovic6638 I am glad you made the point that during the socialist Federal Yugoslavia the official language in socialist Croatia was Croato-Serbian or the Croatian or Serbian languages not Serbo-Croatian which was the official language of Federal Yugoslavia and Serbia. This was the decision of the Yugoslav communist party from 1954, although there was some limited opposition from Croatia academic circles during the 1960s. These days the "Croatian or Serbian" language is no longer taught in Croatia. The Croatian school language textbooks do not include half of the book in Serbian and the Cyrillic alphabet anymore as they did during communist times.

[@ProjectMirai64]

Nice!

[@dankadesign7462]

Sorry man but what you saying its not true - Latinica is serbian as well and Serbs using all the time.Pls if you dont know something at least dont spread false information (for any reason that you have).Any normal person realize the language is the same.There is Croatian slang as Bosnian but all of them have root in Serbian language.What you saying is that there are Uk language Australian language and USA language insted of English used in 3 diferent countries.!!

[@maspalfiker]

Why is it so important for the "Western" intelectuals to keep putting Croatian and Serbian into the one same language? Both exhisted well before exYugoslavia where they were put into one language because of politics. These two are very simmilar, but it is only the foreigners who have a problem with them being separate languages.

[@thesljivo4101]

It is the same language - standard Croatian and standard Serbian even use THE SAME dialect as the basis of their standardisation. There is arguably less difference between them than between Lower Saxon and Swiss German. Western intellectuals just read grammars published by Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian linguists.

[@BenLlywelyn]

I am not being Bosnia between you two here.

[@thesljivo4101]

@@BenLlywelyn just keep being Herzegovina, since the dialect, which became the basis for all four standards, originated from there ;)

[@tranquility6358]

Because it's basically the same language with minor grammar and vocabulary differences. Mutual intelligibility is extremely high. Both Serbian and Croatian are standardized varieties of Serbo-Croatian, both use the shtokavian dialect as the basis of this standardization. You've got it backwards my friend, politics is the reason both states insist on their language being separate.

[@maspalfiker]

@@tranquility6358 basically these 2 are 1 language, no argument there, but as both are already recognised as 2, I see no reason for constant questioning if it is 1 language. Try writing an official document for public institutions in Serbia or Croatia in a mix of Serbo-Croatian, and see if they accept it. It is as it is. In everyday speach and contact it is not as important, especialy for foreigners.

[@RicoBanani]

I love your presentations! Pozdrav iz Hrvatske!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Hvala.

[@octavian8b]

First comment! ❤😂😊

[@BenLlywelyn]

Second!

[@nebojsaivanovic7652]

Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic je izmislio azbuku,Srbsko Hrvatski jezik,blago tebi kada si ti nasao da nas ucis nasem pravopisu

[@BenLlywelyn]

Hvala!

[@igorinaKC]

In Croatia there is job, and people whos job it is are called "court interpreter for the Serbian language". Others are "court interpreter for the German language", court interpreter for the Italian language" etc.If Croatian and Serbian are same language ther would be no need for "court interpreter for the Serbian language".

[@BenLlywelyn]

Sounds complex.

[@NenadRaos]

Jebao sam devu. This sentence have quite different meaning in Croatian and Serbian!@@BenLlywelyn

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

A film from Serbia was once broadcast in the Zagreb cinema. The film is subtitled in Croatian. For the first 15 minutes of the film, every spoken word in the film was completely identical to the subtitled text, which caused frenetic laughter from the audience.

[@TinchiZG]

You can say : Pojela je jabuku s vilicom. S or sa= with.

[@joejohnson6327]

Imenica u instrumentalu u rečenici ima značenje društva ili sredstva. Vilica je sredstvo, a ne društvo. Kad ima značenje sredstva, imenica u instrumentalu dolazi bez prijedloga. Možeš se "šetati S prijateljem" ili "ljubiti S mužem", ali ne možeš "jesti S vilicom", već samo "jesti vilicom" jer je vilica sredstvo kojim se jede, a ne živo biće s kojim si u društvu.

[@tienshinhan2524]

Serbo-Croatian is central South Slavic not Western sub-group. I am native Shtokavian "Serbo-Croatian" speaker.

[@SlaviSokol]

I guess this was most difficult video to make.

[@BenLlywelyn]

It was a challenge!

[@nikoladjurica8914]

Serbian and Croatian are the same language of different standards, just like US and UK English.

[@naserivic4018]

It is impossible for 4 "different" nations to create the same language that differs in a few words. If we know (who wants to know) that the Bosnian nation was created in 1993, the Montenegrin nation in 1945 and the Croatian nation after 1834, things become clearer. These are politically and violently created nations. There are no nations, their kingdoms, nor states in the Middle Ages. YES, they have fairy tales about their kingdoms in the Middle Ages and nothing more. If Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosniak languages ​​exist today in the political sense, then Irish, Australians, Americans and others who speak English could say that it is not English but Australian, American or Irish. Why don't Austrians speak Austrian but Germans or Swiss who speak German don't say it's Swiss???

[@LiorSultanov]

Kutija should be a loanword because it sounds like kutu in Turkish.

[@morismateljan6458]

It is- There's an astounding number of Turkish loanwords, by proxy Arabic and Persian too. And even more so in Serbian and Bosnian everyday speech.

[@alexcro4769]

Croatian is Croatian and Serbian is Serbian, two similar languages with many different words. English is not Scotish od Irish

[@XYZOxyz]

Croatian is Serbian just like we don't have Canadian or Australian language.

[@alexcro4769]

@@XYZOxyz Croatian is croatian language and serbian is just mix croatian with a lot turkys words and phrases. Serbs was a Turkish slavs 600 years and chenged a own croatian language

[@XYZOxyz]

@alexcro4769 Bla bla bla...croatian is a dialect of Serbian and croats are converted Serbs. Also croatia never existed prior to 1941, but present day "croats" were austrian slaves for centuries

[@AMEurope333]

There is only the Serbian-Croatian language. The Bosnian and Montenegrin languages were politically invented for ethno-engineering.

[@BenLlywelyn]

I do admit identity is complicated and new standards have been created.

[@AMEurope333]

@@BenLlywelyn It is not complicated, you just need to follow what is an ethnonym and what is a region name derived from toponyms (Montenegro - black mountain, river Bosnia) while understanding the difference between the concept of statehood/nationality and ethnicity. It is also necessary to know historical data about changing identities during, for example, the Ottoman occupation of the Balkan Peninsula. I will give an example - where did the Herzegovinian language disappear?

[@ivicaanic5213]

nope sorry, not fully correct, Bosnian and Montenegrin are one of standards and are totally equal to Croatian or Serbian as such. All of them can be seen as artificial political engineering - from linguistical standing we are talking about only one pluricentric language, yes, and that is Serbo-Croatian where Serbia and Croatia mean final geographical borders of language area and nothing more. It is quite simple actually as soon politics is out.

[@AMEurope333]

@@ivicaanic5213 Bosnian and Montenegrin political languages are not languages because they are not based on ethnicity and therefore cannot be equal to Serbo-Croatian. According to such logic, every village can have its own language.

[@maspalfiker]

There are 2 languages, Croatian and Serbian. In Bosnia and Montenegro the languages used are a blend of the two, in Bosnia more Croatian influence, and in Montenegro Serbian, with the exception of them also using "ijekavski" dialect like Croatia, unlike the Serbian "ekavski".

[@lukajakobovic]

I can understand why are you thinking that serbian and croatian are same. But. Serbia and Croatia came to exist in 7th century. They both speaks old slavic back then. Leater croatian splits from than language, so did cerbian. Serbo-croatian, in the other hand came to exist in 20th century and broke apart in 20th century. So like Czechia and Slovakia didn't arise from Czechoslovakia, but rather Czechoslovakia came to exist when these two join, serbian and croatian didn't arise from serbocroatian but serbocroatian arise when these two merge. It isn't like american english and brittish english that are diferent but still same language because they have same rooths. Croatian and serbian rooths has that much similarity like ukrainian and russian, and both are separate. Allso, they have 90% similar vocabulary, but gramatics are little more difrent, And officialy they are separate. And, argument that they can understand each other is dumb because ukrainians understand Russians, and Spanish is understundable to the Portuguese. I hope I help you to understand why I said this.

[@magdalenabuljan7219]

😂😂😂🇭🇷 History of croatian language is very different compared to other south slavic nations. Until 19th century croatian language was separate language, it had nothing to do with other south slavic nations. Mad Croats decided to unite croatian language with other south slavic languages in order to create the same Standard literary language for ALL south slavs to achieve impossible mad south slavic unity. Croatian man Ljudevit Gaj in 1830 created croatian Latin alphabet called Gajica, later ALL south slavic nations including Slovenia adopted croatian Latin Alphabet. In❤ 1558 Croatian language was named as Mother of all slavic languages, croatian language then became one of the official languages at Western universities of that time. The first Croatian dictionary was published in 1595, the first Croatian Grammar book was published in 1604, ❤❤❤ Croats are the first Slavic people to publish a book in their own language in 1483. Other south slavic nations published their first dictionaries several centuries later compared to Croatia. Croatian language and literature went through Renaissance and Enlightenment periods something that other south slavic nations never experienced because they were never part of the Latin catholic civilisation in the first place.

[@JVladan]

what you explained is shtokavian language, with historical roots in Herzegovina, the basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin. The Croatian claims to have 2 more dialects, basicaly other languages (chakavian and kaykavian), which I, as native shtokavian speaker have hard time understanding. Intelligibility is around 50%. To call them all the same language is a kind of lie, a political construct

[@BenLlywelyn]

Only showing people basics so they can enjoy Croatia more.

[@MaroPincevic]

That language does not exist; there is the Croatian language or Croatian languages, so this is purely a Chetnik attempt at appropriating someone else's culture.

[@BenLlywelyn]

No attempt made.

[@XYZOxyz]

There's no "croatian" language. It's a dialect of Serbian.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Croato-Serbian or Serbo-Croatian?

[@XYZOxyz]

@@BenLlywelyn Neither one exists. It's a name communists/fascists made up to appease others in the former Yugoslavia

[@XYZOxyz]

@@BenLlywelyn Neither one exists. Something communists made up.

[@XYZOxyz]

@@BenLlywelyn Neither one exists, something fascists made up

[@XYZOxyz]

@@BenLlywelyn Neither one exists

[@colinafobe2152]

bad expert you are if state that Serbs use Cyrillic and Croats Latin. Serbian language use both Cyrillic and Latin and it is personal preference. I write Serbian in cursive Latin and capitals in Cyrillic. Some newspapers are written in Cyrillic some in Latin

[@markozurak5206]

Ne pričaj gluposti

[@colinafobe2152]

@@markozurak5206 jedina glupost je tvoj komentar. ako si iz Srbije i to kazes onda ostavi komentar, pa makar i ovakav na cirilici, ako si iz Hrvatske onda ne znas o prilikama u Srbiji i srpskom jeziku

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

Latin was the official script in the Yugoslav army. I'm not sure if the official alphabet in Serbia is Latin and Cyrillic, but I live in Serbia and I wrote every official document in Latin and I never had any objections because of that. In Croatia, I would have a problem even if I signed in Cyrillic, although they claim that Cyrillic is also their script. It is interesting that the greatest Croatian nationalist (father of the nation), Ante Starčević, wrote in Cyrillic all his life and spoke with an Ekavian pronunciation, the kind of accent spoken in Serbia.

[@danijelhrup9715]

Listen... Once and for all!!! Croatian and Serbian language are not same, you are talking about that Yugoslavian language Croat and Serbs are very different people...

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

You don't know anything about that. More than 70% of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks have the same genetics. If you had come to the promenade in Osijek in Croatia 40 years ago and talked to the youth, you would have had no idea who was a Serb and who was a Croat.

[@dennynisevic7848]

Tako je Danijela, pozdrav iz Miami

[@dejanpurisic5938]

Original croatian language is dead like latin. When croats came to Balkan they took Serbian language because mayority of Balkan was Serbian language. You have original croatian language in archives in Budapest, Hungary.

[@ivanpetrisevac7906]

there is not serbo Croatian only Croatian .there are about 9 million in the world that speak Croatian

[@BenLlywelyn]

How do Serbs feel? Maybe share?

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

You don't know anything about it:kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHbSgp-vqZ17gbc

[@YoutubeUsername7777]

sorry but no such thing as croatian language. It's a very small dialect variation of serbian language.

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

There is a Croatian language. It is Chakavian. Kajkavian is Slavic. There is a large Croatian diaspora in Italy and the Czech Republic. They moved from Croatia 150-200 years ago. Even now they speak Chakavian and do not even know the current Croatian language. Croatian President Milanović spoke about this when he was on an official visit to Italy and the Czech Republic. Štokavci in the territory of the former Yugoslavia and even beyond are of Serb origin, and I can give you a lot of historical documents about that. Even the Šokci are of Serb origin, which the Austrian Empire lists as pure Serbs in its censuses, while Slovenes and Croats are listed as Illyrian-Serbs.

[@BenLlywelyn]

There has been a war and we should be sensitive to those on all sides.

[@YoutubeUsername7777]

@@BenLlywelyn There has been a war between Brits and Americans and yet Americans still speak English.

[@TinchiZG]

Jesene is not right . Jesen, jeseni, jesenas, jesenima is corect.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Hvala.

[@Nannas-cp5nd]

There is NO Serbo- Croatian language!!!!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you for watching.

[@videoizazov]

Good video. As native Serbian speaker I would say that č is exactly as ch in check. Yes Croats tent to soften it a tiny bit. But in Serbian (and we do use latin alphabet beside cyrilic) it is just how Americans would pronounce ch in check. Clear, strong CH. Exactly how it sounds in American English. Ć is like TUlip in British English. ˈTJUː.lɪp... only say it faster, and first sound you hear is Ć 😊

[@BenLlywelyn]

Oh, well thank you!

[@Armo_12]

Yugoslavia made Croat- Serbo languague in Croatia and in Serbia Serbo-Croat languague and that is normaly different langues .One example bred on Croatian languague is kruh on Serbian languague hljeb and in Croatia we have lot difference on north,south,west.For word what ( nord Croatia- Kaj ,south ča,Dubrovnik što) We take for official što ,and Bosniaks dont exist.That are just people that take islam religion because easyer life under Ottoman empire and only Croatia have literature in 14,15,16,17 century because others was under Ottomans.Simply they dont have niether wrighters niether books then niether literature and that is because Ottoman emperi

[@zoranmarjanovic6638]

Your poor illiterate mother. The Serbian language was one of the four official languages ​​in the Ottoman Empire. I can't be surprised how uneducated you are. The Life of Saint Simeon was written in 1208 in the Old Slavonic language in the Serbian variant. Until the 14th century, Serbs wrote on parchment, and from the 14th century on paper. Dušan's Code was written in 1349 and is considered the first constitution in Europe. Both hljeb and kruh are Croatian words. I will write to you in Croatian so that you understand better: Tisuću hljebova kruha - Miroslav Krleža . O hljebovima i kruhu je pisala i Katarina Zrinski . Kruh je opšti pojam a hljebovi su komadi kruha pa imamo dva hljeba , pet hljebova itd ...