The Croatian language employs the Latin (or Roman) alphabet. However, certain letters are modified or added for the Croatian language’s specific phonetic system.
Croatian is a Slavic language which developed, as all Slavic languages, from the Proto-Slavic language and is used by over 5.5 million people worldwide. It is the official language of the Republic of Croatia and one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and it is used by Croatian ethnic and language minority members in Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Italy and other countries home to members of the Croatian language community.
Standard language and dialects
The Croatian language includes the standard (i.e. literary) language and all the local vernaculars spoken by Croatians. There are three dialects: the Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kaikavian dialect (indicating the three different words used for the word “what” in each dialect: što, ča and kaj). Chakavian and Kaikavian dialects are spoken exclusively by Croatians, whereas, beside Croatians, the Shtokavian dialect is used by Bosniaks, Serbs and Montenegrins.
The literary and standard language is based on Western Shtokavian and is a product of over nine hundred years of literature written in a mixture of Croatian Church Slavonic language and archaic Chakavian.
Alphabet
The Croatian language employs the Latin (or Roman) alphabet. However, certain letters are modified or added for the Croatian language’s specific phonetic system. The Croatian alphabet contains a total of 30 letters, all of which are listed below.
For information about the pronunciation of the Croatian alphabet, please visit the web site: http://www.visit-croatia.co.uk/index.php/croatian-for-travellers/croatian-pronunciation/
Source: Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics
