Croatia

To which language should you translate to localize in Croatia?

Croatia is a small but geographically and climatically diverse country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe. Its coast lies on the Adriatic Sea, which historically had a great influence on Croatian language and culture. 

The country’s capital and largest city, Zagreb, forms the country’s primary subdivision, while other major urban centers include Split, Rijeka and Osijek. These cities are centers of Croatian dialects, each of them very similar to the other, but with clear-cut differences that spice up the richness of Croatian language and its variations. 

While the eastern part of Croatia, Slavonija, is dominated by a dialect most similar to standard Croatian or Shtokavian, people in the western part of the country on the border with Slovenia speak in the Kajkavian dialect, most notably known for having a lot of Germanisms because Croatia was once ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The southern part of Croatia, also known as Dalmatia, speaks in Ikavian dialect, filled with words borrowed from Italian, the region’s former ruler and trading partner. 

Croatian culture is known for being hospitable and having an easy-going attitude towards social interactions, so carefully groomed for generations with the help of the famous Croatian coffee culture, when friends and family meet in coffee shops to talk for hours.

Croatian

Hrvatska je mala, ali geografski i klimatski raznolika zemlja smještena na raskrižju Srednje i Jugoistočne Europe. Njena obala leži na Jadranskom moru koje je oduvijek imalo velik utjecaj na hrvatski jezik i kulturu.

Glavni grad i najveći grad zemlje, Zagreb, poslovno je i demografsko središte, dok su drugi važni urbani centri Split, Rijeka i Osijek. Ovi gradovi čine središta hrvatskih narječja koja, iako slična jedno drugome, posjeduju jasne razlike koje obogaćuju hrvatski jezik i njegove varijacije.

Dok istočnim dijelom Hrvatske, Slavonijom, dominira narječje najbliže standardnom hrvatskom jeziku, odnosno štokavskom narječju, stanovništvo u zapadnom dijelu, uz granicu sa Slovenijom, govori kajkavskim narječjem punim germanizama jer je Hrvatska nekoć bila pod vlašću Austro-Ugarske monarhije. Južni dio Hrvatske, Dalmacija, govori čakavskim narječjem, ispunjenim riječima posuđenim iz talijanskog jezika, budući da je Italija bila bivši vladar i važan trgovački partner te regije.

Hrvatska kultura poznata je po gostoljubivosti i opuštenom odnosu kada je riječ o obiteljskim i prijateljskim dinamikama, pažljivo njegovanim kroz generacije uz pomoć poznate hrvatske kulture ispijanja kave, kada se prijatelji i obitelj sastaju u kafićima te razgovaraju satima.

Iva Trcic, translator, writer and communication specialist

Official language

Croatian (91.4%)

Actual languages

Croatian (91.4%), Serbian (4.4%), Italian (0.5%), Albanian (0.4%), Bosnian (0.3%), Hungarian (0.2%), other (2.8%).

What the top 150 best localized websites in the world do in Croatia

(Top 150 websites listed in the Global by Design ranking – published annually by Byte Level Research, this report provides a list of globally localized websites, showcasing best practices and emerging trends in their globalization)

• 63/150 localize by translating into Croatian
• 1/150 localizes by translating into Croatian, French and Simplified Chinese
• 1/150 localizes by translating into both Croatian and Croatian Sign Language
• 1/150 localizes by translating into Spanish
• 1/150 localizes by translating into Italian
• 1/150 localizes by translating into both French and German
• 1/150 localizes by translating into Italian, Spanish, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Thai, Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese, Turkish, Romanian and Bahasa Indonesia