Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian

Though all of the language variants could theoretically use either, the scripts differ:

• Bosnian and Montenegrin officially use both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, but the Latin is in widespread use.
• Croatian exclusively uses the Latin alphabet.
• Serbian uses both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Cyrillic is the official script of the administration in Serbia and Republika Srpska, but the Latin script is most widely used in media and especially on the Internet.

All standard variants have the same set of 30 regular phonemes, so the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian Latin and Serbian Cyrillic alphabets map one to one with one another and with the phoneme inventory.

Some linguists analyze the yat reflexes ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ije⟩, commonly realized as [ie] in Croatian and Bosnian dialects, as a separate phoneme – "jat diphthong" – or even two phonemes, one short and one long. There are even several proposals by Croatian linguists for an orthography reform concerning these two diphthongs, but they have not been seriously considered for implementation.

The ongoing standardization of Montenegrin has introduced two new letters, ⟨Ś⟩ and ⟨Ź⟩, for the sounds [ɕ] and [ʑ] respectively. These are optional spellings of the digraphs ⟨sj⟩ and ⟨zj⟩. Critics note that [ɕ] and [ʑ] are merely allophones of /sj/ and /zj/ in Herzegovinian dialects such as Montenegrin, so the new letters are not required for an adequate orthography.

Most dialects of Serbia originally lack the phoneme /x/, instead having /j/, /v/, or nothing (silence). /x/ was introduced with language unification, and the Serbian standard allows for some doublets such as snaja–snaha and hajde–ajde. However, in other words, especially those of foreign origin, ⟨h⟩ is mandatory.

In some regions of Croatia and Bosnia, sounds for letters ⟨č⟩ (realized as [tʃ] in most other dialects) and ⟨ć⟩ [tɕ] merged or nearly merged, usually into [tʃ]. The same happened with their voiced counterparts, i.e. ⟨dž⟩ and ⟨đ⟩ merged into [dʒ]. As result, speakers of those dialects often have difficulties distinguishing these sounds.

The Serbian variety usually phonetically transcribes foreign names and words (although both transcription and transliteration are allowed), whereas the Croatian standard usually transliterates. Bosnian accepts both models, but transliteration is often preferred.

Also, when the subject of the future tense is omitted, producing a reversal of the infinitive and auxiliary "ću", only the final "i" of the infinitive is orthographically elided in Croatian and Bosnian, whereas in Serbian the two have merged into a single word:

• “Učinit ću to.” (Croatian)
• "Uradit ću to." (Bosnian)
• "Uradiću to." (Serbian/Montenegrin)

In general, the Shtokavian dialects that represent the foundation of the four standard varieties have four pitch accents on stressed syllables: falling tone on a short vowel, written e.g. ⟨ı̏⟩ in dictionaries; rising tone on a short vowel, written e.g. ⟨ì⟩; falling tone on a long vowel, written e.g. ⟨î⟩; and rising tone on a long vowel, written e.g. ⟨í⟩. In addition, the following unstressed vowel may be either short, ⟨i⟩, or long, ⟨ī⟩. In declension and verb conjugation, accent shifts, both by type and position, are very frequent.

The distinction between four accents and preservation of post accent lengths is common in vernaculars of western Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in parts of Serbia, as well as in parts of Croatia with strong Serb presence. In addition, a distinct characteristics of some vernaculars is stress shift to proclitics, e.g. phrase u Bosni (in Bosnia) will be pronounced /ǔ bosni/ instead of /u bôsni/ as in northern parts of Serbia.

The northern vernaculars in Serbia also preserve the four-accent system, but the unstressed lengths have been shortened or disappeared in some positions. However, the shortening of post-accent lengths is in progress in all Shtokavian vernaculars, even in those most conservative in Montenegro. Stress shift to enclitics is, however, in northern Serbia rare and mostly limited to negative verb constructs (ne znam = I don't know > /nê znaːm/).

The situation in Croatia, is however, different. A large proportion of speakers of Croatian, especially those coming from Zagreb, do not distinguish between rising and falling accents.[11][12] This is considered to be a feature of the Zagreb dialect, which has strong Kajkavian influence, rather than standard Croatian.[12]

Regardless of vernacular differences, all three standard varieties exclusively promote the Neo-Shtokavian four-accentual system. Both dialects that are considered to be the basis of standard Serbian (Eastern Herzegovinian and Šumadija-Vojvodina dialects) have four accents.

There are three principal "pronunciations" (izgovori/изговори) of the Štokavian dialect that differ in their reflexes of the proto-Slavic vowel jat. Illustrated by the Common Slavic word for "child", dětę, they are:

• dite in the Ikavian pronunciation
• dijete in the Ijekavian pronunciation
• dete in the Ekavian pronunciation

The Serbian language recognizes Ekavian and Ijekavian as equally valid pronunciations, whereas Croatian and Bosnian accept only the Ijekavian pronunciation. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (regardless of the official language) and in Montenegro, the Ijekavian pronunciation is used almost exclusively.

Ikavian pronunciation is nonstandard, and is limited to dialectal use in Dalmatia, Lika, Istria, central Bosnia (area between Vrbas and Bosna), Western Herzegovina, Bosanska Krajina, Slavonia and northern Bačka (Vojvodina). So, for example:

A few Croatian linguists have tried to explain the following differences in morphological structure for some words, with the introduction of a new vowel, "jat diphthong". This is not the opinion of most linguists.

Sometimes this leads to confusion: Serbian poticati (to stem from) is in Croatian and Bosnian "to encourage". Croatian and Bosnian "to stem from" is potjecati, whereas Serbian for "encourage" is podsticati.

Standard Bosnian allows both variants, and ambiguities are resolved by preferring the Croatian variant; this is a general practice for Serbian–Croatian ambiguities.

The phoneme /x/ (written as h) has been volatile in eastern South Slavic dialects. In Serbian and some Croatian dialects (including some of those in Slavonia), it has been replaced with /j/, /v/, or elided, and subsequent standardization sanctioned those forms:

However, /x/ and /f/ have been kept in many words as a distinct feature of Bosnian speech and language tradition, particularly under influence of Turkish and Arabic, and even introduced in some places where it etymologically did not exist. Those forms were in the mid 1990s also accepted in the orthography of the Bosnian language.[16][17] However, 2018, in the new issue of the Orthography of the Bosnian language, words without the phoneme /x/ (written as "h") are accepted due to their prevalence in language practice.[18]

Because the Ijekavian pronunciation is common to all official standards, it will be used for examples on this page. Other than this, examples of different morphology are:

Also many internationalisms and transliterations are different:

(cf. German organisieren, konstruieren, analysieren)

Historically, modern-age internationalisms entered Bosnian and Croatian mostly through German and Italian, whereas they entered Serbian through French and Russian, so different localization patterns were established based on those languages. Also, Greek borrowings came to Serbian directly, but through Latin into Croatian:

Most of terms for chemical elements are different: for international names, Bosnian and Croatian use -ij where Serbian has -ijum (uranij–uranijum). In some native names, Croatian have -ik where Serbian has -(o)nik (kisik–kiseonik 'oxygen', vodik–vodonik 'hydrogen') and Bosnian accepts all variants. Yet others are totally different (dušik–azot 'nitrogen', kositar–kalaj 'tin'). Some element names are the same: srebro (silver), zlato (gold), bakar (copper).

Some other imported words differ by grammatical gender, feminine words having an -a suffix and masculine words having a zero-suffix:

In Serbian and Bosnian, the pronoun what is što when used as a relative, but šta when used as an interrogative; the latter applies also to relative sentences with interrogative meaning. Croatian uses što in all contexts (but in colloquial speech, "šta" is often used).

This is applicable only to the nominative and the accusative – in all other cases, the standards have the same forms: čega, čemu etc. for što.

In Croatian, the pronoun who has the form tko, whereas in Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin it has ko, but again, in colloquial speech, the initial "t" is usually omitted. The declension is the same: kome, koga, etc. In addition, Croatian uses komu as an alternative form in the dative case.

The locative pronoun kamo is only used in Croatian:

With modal verbs such as ht(j)eti (want) or moći (can), the infinitive is prescribed in Croatian, whereas the construction da (that/to) + present tense is preferred in Serbian. This subjunctive of sorts is possibly an influence of the Balkan sprachbund. Again, both alternatives are present and allowed in Bosnian (the first one is preferred in orthography, the latter is more common in colloquial language).

The sentence "I want to do that" could be translated with any of

• Hoću to da uradim.
• Hoću to učiniti.

This difference partly extends to the future tense, which in Serbo-Croatian is formed in a similar manner to English, using (elided) present of verb "ht(j)eti" → "hoću"/"hoćeš"/ ... > "ću"/"ćeš"/ ... as auxiliary verb. Here, the infinitive is formally required in both variants:

• Ja ću to uraditi. (I shall do that.)

However, when da+present is used instead, it can additionally express the subject's will or intention to perform the action:

• Ja ću to da uradim. (I will do that.)

This form is more frequently used in Serbia and Bosnia. The nuances in meaning between the two constructs can be slight or even lost (especially in Serbian dialects), in similar manner as the shall/will distinction varies across English dialects. Overuse of da+present is regarded as Germanism in Serbian linguistic circles, and it can occasionally lead to awkward sentences.

However, Croatians seldom naturally use da+present form. Instead, a different form can be used to express will:

• Ja hoću to uraditi. (I want to do that.)

(The sentence would sound more Croatian, but keep the same meaning, if it stated: "Želim to učiniti.", as "uraditi" is uncommon in Croatian).

In interrogative and relative constructs, standard Croatian prescribes using the interrogative participle li after the verb, whereas standard Serbian also allows forms with da li. (A similar situation exists in French, where a question can be formed either by inversion or using est-ce que, and can be stretched in English with modal verbs):

• Možeš li? (Can you?) (Croatian)
• Both Možeš li? and Da li možeš? (Can you, Do you can?) are common in Serbian.

In addition, non-standard je li ("Is it?"), usually elided to je l' , is vernacular for forming all kinds of questions, e.g. Je l' možeš?. In standard language, it is used only in questions involving auxiliary verb je (="is"):

• Je li moguće? (Is it possible?) (Croatian)
• Both Je li moguće? and Da li je moguće? are common in Serbian.

In summary, the English sentence "I want to know whether I'll start working" would typically read:

• Želim da znam hoću li početi da radim. (spoken Serbian)
• Želim znati hoću li početi raditi. (spoken Croatian)

although many in-between combinations could be met in vernacular speech, depending on speaker's dialect, idiolect, or even mood.

The Croatian avoidance of da li is largely an expression of prescriptivism. In everyday speech in Croatia, da li is used, in fact, extensively, but avoided in written language.

In formal Croatian, verb trebati (need or should) is transitive, as in English.[20] In Serbian and Bosnian, it is impersonal, like the French il faut, or the English construct is necessary (to); the grammatical subject is either omitted (it), or presents the object of needing; the person that needs something is an indirect grammatical object, in the dative case.[21] The latter usage is, however, also encountered in Croatian, especially in spoken form.[20]):

The greatest differences between the standards is in vocabulary. However, most words are well understood, and even occasionally used, in the other standards. In most cases, common usage favors one variant and the other(s) are regarded as "imported", archaic, dialectal, or simply more rarely used.

¹ Bosnian linguists claim that word "nogomet" is widely used in Bosnian (same as in Croatian); still, the form "fudbal" is in majority use among Bosnians (see FK Sarajevo, FK Željezničar Sarajevo and FK Velež), but NK Čelik).

Note that there are only a few differences that can cause confusion, for example the verb "ličiti" means "to look like" in Serbian and Bosnian, but in Croatian it is "sličiti"; "ličiti" means "to paint (a house)". However, "ličiti" is often used Croatian in the meaning of "to look like".

The word "bilo" means "white" in the Ikavian accent, "pulse" in official Croatian, and "was" in all official languages, although it is not so confusing when pronounced because of different accentuation (bîlo or bílo = white, bı̏lo = pulse, bílo = was).

In Serbian and Bosnian, the word izvanredan (extraordinary) has only the positive meaning (excellent), vanredan being used for "unusual" or "out of order"; however, only izvanredan is used in Croatian in both contexts.

Also note that in most cases Bosnian officially allows almost all of the listed variants in the name of "language richness", and ambiguities are resolved by preferring the Croatian variant. Bosnian vocabulary writers based their decisions on usage of certain words in literary works by Bosnian authors.

The months have Slavic-derived names in Croatian, wheres Serbian and Bosnian have almost the same set of Latin-derived names as English. The Slavic-derived names may also be used in Bosnian, but the Latinate names are preferred.

The Latin-derived names of the months are well understood in Croatia and are used in several fixed expressions such as Prvi Maj (May 1), Prvi April (April Fools' Day) or Oktobarska revolucija (October Revolution).

In spoken Croatian and in western Bosnia it is common to refer to a month by its number. Therefore, many speakers refer to the month of May as peti mjesec ("the fifth month"). Saying sedmi peti (seventh of fifth) would be the equivalent of May 7.