Croatian: Translation with certification & interpreting

Since 1990, Croatian has been the official language of Croatia and also the official language in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatian is also spoken in Slovenia, Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia. Today, there are about 6.2 million people who speak Croatian.

Croatian belongs to the western subgroup of the South Slavic family. Slovenian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian also belong to this group. Regarding vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar, the Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian languages are so similar that communication between the languages is possible without problems.

Within the Croatian language, a rough distinction is made between three dialect groups. Their names are based on the respective interrogative pronoun (kaj, ča or što). Kajkavian is spoken above all in Northern Croatia, Chakavian is mainly spoken in the Croatian coastal country and the Austrian Burgenland, and Shtokavian is primarily spoken by Serbs and Bosniaks. The Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian standard languages are based on the Shtokavian dialect.

Due to the different dialect groups, it is always advisable to use a specialist translator or interpreter who is familiar the major and minor differences between the respective language variants to guarantee optimal translation and interpreting. However, finding the suitable language mediator costs a lot of time and effort – which you can avoid very easily. At AP Fachübersetzungen, we have an extensive database and a strong network of competent and experienced Croatian interpreters and translators. If you entrust AP Fachübersetzungen with your Croatian translation or interpreting project, you can be sure that we will find the right language expert for you.

In the case of certified translations of documents and certificates, we only use experienced, publicly appointed and sworn Croatian translators to guarantee the impeccable quality and correctness of the Croatian translation of your documents. For your Croatian interpreting project, we will use our best court, consecutive, liaison, conference and simultaneous interpreters.

The unification of the Croatian language began in the 18^th century, but its history dates back much further than that. For a long time, all Slavs spoke the same Old Slavonic language, as evidenced by surviving historical and religious documents. Gradually, the language developed differently in individual areas. It was divided into many dialects, which then became independent languages. It has been proven that the written Croatian language began to develop parallel to the Old Church Slavic language and was at initially based on Chakavian.

Throughout its history, the Croatian language has had different names (Illyrian, Dalmatian, Slavonian) and made use of different writing systems depending on the region. Therefore, texts in Croatian from the Middle Ages can be written in Glagolitic, Cyrillic or Latin writing.

In 1836, the Croats attempted to unite their language with the Serbian language, resulting in the Shtokavsky dialect becoming the language commonly used, but the written language still used Latin letters.

The characteristic features of the contemporary Croatian language are a rich system of accents and the purity of sounds, which give it its melodic quality.

In 1971, Croatian linguists Milan Moguš, Stjepan Babić and Božidar Finka tried to publish a set of rules for spelling and grammar under the title "Croatian Orthography", abandoning the use of the politically correct term "Serbo-Croatian". The book was seized and banned from being printed, but one of the already existing copies somehow ended up in London, where it was published. To date, "Croatian Orthography" has already been printed in four editions and is considered the grammatical standard for the Croatian language.

The modern Croatian language uses the Latin alphabet plus some special characters and thus comprises 30 letters. Like German, the Croatian language has three different genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). While there are only four cases in the German language, Croatian has three additional cases, which means there are seven cases altogether.

To a large extent, the vocabulary of the Croatian language consists of native words from the Old Slavic language, both in the dialects and in the standard language. Because the territories once belonged to the dual monarchy Austria-Hungary, the Croatian language adopted many loan words from German.

Croatian belongs to the tonal languages – a fact that can at first cause difficulties for non-native speakers when learning the Croatian language. Tonal languages are languages in which the pronunciation also contributes to the meaning of a word. Of course, it is absolutely necessary to consider this fact in language mediation, and consequently, only a competent Croatian interpreter and translator should be used to guarantee impeccable communication between the parties. At AP Fachübersetzungen, we put special emphasis on professional competence, experience and reliability. When you commission AP Fachübersetzungen, you can be sure that we only use qualified linguists for the certified translation of your specialist texts and certificates as well as for interpreting jobs.