How the Croats tied our necks and tongues
1. How the Croats tied our necks
The Croatian language might tie your tongue on a knot while you try to pronounce the Croatian word for a necktie kravata. Wait, how did we come to the necktie? Croatia gave this fashion garment to the world! The traditional picturesque knotted neckerchiefs, worn by the Croatian mercenaries in French service during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), transformed into a fashion craze firstly among the Royal court of Louis XIV and the French nobility and later throughout Europe under the name of cravate, a corrupt French pronunciation of the country’s name and its people.
2. Words without vowels
If you managed to deal with the kravata pronounciation, take a step further in the Croatian language to find out that words without vowels are there to be found. Just try pronouncing: brz (fast), krst (cross), krv (blood), prst (finger), trg (square), trn (thorn), smrt (death). Yes, you got it right, those words usually contain the semi-vowel “r”.
3. It is all in the ending
If the words without vowels are not a real hurdle for you, walk the next step to find out that in the Croatian language there are three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter); seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, instrumental); and two numbers (singular and plural). And, yeah, those reflect the endings of the Croatian nouns, pronouns and adjectives.
4. Different alphabets and scripts
Today, Croats are using exclusivity the Latin script, adopted in 1869 with the decision of the Parliament of Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia on the exclusive usage of Gaj’s Latin alphabet which to gradually replace the Cyrillic script, based on the Glagolitsa alphabet, and banned during the WWII throughout the Independent State of Croatia.
5. A plethora of dialects
The modern Croatian language holds so many different regional dialects that people from the northernmost have significant trouble understanding those from the very south of Croatia.
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