Croatian

Croatian is that form of Serbo-Croatian spoken by Yugoslavia's Croatian population and written in the Roman alphabet. Except for their scripts, Croatian and Serbian are really the same language, though a slightly different intonation or the use of a certain word will sometimes indicate whether one is a Serb or a Croat. For the word "train" the Serbs generally say voz as against Croatian viak, while for "dance" the Serbs prefer igra and the Croatians pies. For "music" the Serbs say muzika as against Croatian glazba, while for "theater" there is Serbian pozoriste and Croatian kazaliste. In each casc, however, both alternatives are understood perfectly well by everyone.

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The Croatian word for Croatian is hrvatski, and for Serbian srpski. The letter r frequently serves as a vowel, as for example in the words prst (finger), vrt (garden), krv (blood), brz (fast), crn (black), and trg (market). The Italian city of Trieste is spelled Trst in Croatia.