For anyone who isn't balkan... Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian are just like American English, British English and Australian English.

The first time my (Croatian) son heard Serbian language I asked him: "Do you know which language that is?" He said "Croatian". That about sums it up.

Coming from a Serb. It will depend on who you ask, because of politics and all the bullshit. But in reality, it's the same language.

Dude even those different words are same we just use one more than other. Oprosti and izvini is both used in Serbian and Croatian . I can understand Croatian 99%

We Balkan people are very funny. For me it would be the same if someone said that speak Venecuelan, Columbian, Mexican, Equadorian etc instead of just Spanish. And believe me, Croatian/Serbian/MNE/Bosnian are more similar than those Spanish types of languages.

I live in Croatia. Once a friend of mine had a Serbian friend visit. We spent the day on a hike. The whole time they spoke together and perfectly understood each other.

Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrian language is one language with really minor diference...we don't need translator, we can speak between ourselves with understanding every single word...it's the same

Whom are you kidding? I may be Greek by nationality, but having completed my studies in Serbia, I have become proficient in the Serbian language. Last year, I had the pleasure of visiting Croatia with my friends to compare its coast with that of Greece. Croatia, without a doubt, is a stunning country. We travelled extensively and, thanks to my knowledge of Serbian, I could easily communicate with everyone we met. I was able to understand people from various cities like Split, Dubrovnik, Zagreb, and Pula with utmost ease. While some may argue that Serbian and Croatian are different languages, it is no different from Greece, where we have over a thousand different dialects. So, let's not indulge in any fantasy and accept the reality that they are one language.

Lol i can already imagine the drama in the comment section.

5:54 text in Croatian is COMPLETELY INCORRECT.

As a native Serbian speaker i'd like to give a few notes on the video. I'm sorry if someone already pointed them out. The difference for the word sorry is not really a difference, oprosti also means sorry in Serbian, it is just used in a more formal way. Also the second sentence is not grammatically correct in either language so i'm guessing it's from google translate. Uhvatiti means catch, and uzeti means take in both languages as far as i know. My ex girlfriend and a few of my friends are Croatian, and after talking to them for a few months you pretty much learn the few completely different words and you have no problem communicating. I met Croatians on my travels around Europe and we always speak our languages, to avoid politics we usually call it "Our" language (Naš jezik).

That's going to be an interesting comment section... I am Austrian and I think the differences between my dialect and northern German dialects is greater than, say, someone from Zagreb and Beograd. There are a lot of Serbians, Croatians and Bosnian in my City and they have absolutely no problem communicating.

Just imagine if Texas split from the rest of the US and started calling its language "Texan". That about sums it up.

Cvet and not svet

The similarities of Slavic languages have always fascinated me because I was born in Russia but I grew in Croatia and Poland as a kid so I spoke all three and when I moved to Germany as a kid my friends would ask me to speak all three and they thought they were the same.

5:59 Well, in Serbia we do not saying "nije znao kako plivati" but "nije znao da pliva". The difference between Serbian and Croatian is that in Serbian we often useing construction like "to do (swim) = da pliva" but in Croatian they more use "doing (swimming) = plivati". iIt's the same language.

A video on two languages: Serbian and Croatian Still waiting to hear which is the second one

There are more differences between the English spoken in New York and that spoken in New Jersy than between the Serbian and Croatian languages.

It's cvet, not svet. Svet means world.

I love when foreigners talk about similarities between us in ex YU.... seriously dude we understand each other perfectly fine.

The spoken languages are all basically the same. Most are based on the most common dialect. But even the more obscure dialect "accents" will be easily overcome between Bosniaks/Croats/Serbs - they can and do communicate with each other easily. The standardized languages are separate but these are just political fictions due to nationalism and hatred of each other after the bloody/genocidal Yugoslav wars. But due to the near-psychotic hatred that some of these peoples have for each other, they would never admit it.

This research/translation is horribly inadequate. At 5:54 , the croatian part (well actually everything) is completely wrong. 1) First of all “bilo” is the form that one would use for the neuter. Dečak (dječak) = boy, is masculine, therefore one should use the masculine form “BIO” in both serbian and croatian. 2) Same goes for “neko”, in this case, NEKI dječak/dečak. 3) “Nekada je bio dečak” (transl. There was once a boy) and “Bio je neki dječak” (transl. There was some boy) are not the same thing. Both sentences are used in both countries, but in this case, croatian translation is WRONG. “Nekada je bio dečak” sounds btw, already quite weird. The more adequate option would be “Nekada davno bio je dečak koji je živeo u šumi” -(if we know that the situation happened a long time ago). But if we don’t know when it has actually happened, we would have to say “Bio je dečak” or “Bio je dječak”. 3) Uzeo (uzeti) and uhvatio (uhvatiti) LITERALLY mean the SAME in srb-cro. Both are used commonly in Serbia and Croatia. 4) “Popeo stabla” doesn’t make sense. The “na” preposition (as the one used in the serbian translation) is missing. “Stabla” and “drveće” are both used in serbian and croatian and they are basically the same thing. Stablo may refer to one tree, for example. 5) ”Jednog dana je pao u reku i nije znao kako plivati”. The correct sentence would be: - Serbian: Jednog dana, pao je u reku i nije znao (kako) da pliva. - Croatian: Jednog dana, pao je u rijeku i nije znao (kako) plivati. The comma is essential in both translations. As for other things: “Češnjak” for garlic is also used in serbian. “Izvini” and “Oprosti” are the same and used in both countries frequently. Soooo..... here is a short explanation for all of you out there who are interested in South Slavic Studies. Croatian and Serbian are literally the same language. The more adequate way of expressing ourselves would be calling them simply the Dialects of Serbo-Croatian. The only “real” differences are 1. Serbian uses only Shtokavian dialect + usually (not necessarily, jekavian is also used) ekavian pronunciation. Example for ekavian is “dečak”. While, Croatian uses Shtokavian, Kajkavian and Chakavian dialects (Shtokavian is official though) + ONLY jekavian and ikavian pronunciation. Example, What are you saying, a boy has found the money? : Shtokavian + ekavian (Serbian): Šta kažeš, dečak je našao novac? Croatian variations: Shtokavian + jekavian: Što kažeš, dječak je našao jabuku? Kajkavian + jekavian: Kaj kažeš, dječak je... Chokavian + ikavian: Ča kažeš, dičak je... 2. There are two Future forms (tenses), Future first and Future second. Both are used in both “languages”, but Croatians tend to use the Future second more often than Serbs (this phenomena has been occuring in the last 20 years, before it was not that common). Examples, I will be famous: Future first (Serbian): Biću poznat. Future first (Croatian): Bit ću poznat. Future second (Croatian and Serbian): budem bio poznat. 3. Croatian tends to use infinitive speech: Moram raditi (I have to work), while Serbian uses the “da + present”: Moram da radim. There you go, basically the same.

Dude, did you Google Translate those Croatian passages?

Hey Michael! Very nice video! I am a native Serbian speaker and in my opinion, Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian are all the same language. The level of mutual intelligibility is I would say even higher than 97%. The biggest difference is the accent so I think that the situation is quite similar to the American English and British English, European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese etc. Some small differences exist in the vocabulary and the grammar, but that is also true in the examples I mentioned above. You did make a couple of mistakes in the sentences, and I would be happy to help you correct them if you are interested. All in all, a very nice video!

I'm Slovene, but when anyone from ex-Yu start to swear and insult the other, there is 120% mutual language intelligibility 😀

Bigger difference is between dialects within Croatia (like "zagorski" on north and dalmatian on south) then between standardised langages between those countries

Bullcrap, in Serbian "yat" can be pronounced either as "e", "je", "ije", or "i". It is modern invention for political purposes to claim that only "e" is Serbian and "ije" is Croatian. Vocabulary differs from region to region, Serbians say both "izvini/oprosti", or "vazduh/zrak", etc, some words are just used more commonly than some others. All South Slavic languages are basically the same language, they are spread like a gradient of speeches and dialects from Slovenia to Bulgaria. You can't draw a firm border between Serbian and Croatian speeches, or between Serbian and Bulgarian speeches, it is only a political decision from which village Serbian ends and Bulgarian starts.

You're wrong. "Ije" and "e" are both used in Serbian.

Ask this question to yourself and you can figure out the answer if these two are two different languages: On a job interview, when a Croat is asked, "Do you master any foreign languages?" Probably this Croat will answer, "Um, I do pretty well in English, German and Italian." No way he will include Serbian regardless how well he actually understand Serbian . Then why on earth he will not take the advantage and include Serbian as one of his mastered foreign languages? Or, on the other hand, will a Serb include Croatian as a foreign language in his CV for a job? I bet he won't, either. The answer is obvious. Unless you want to cheat yourself only because of politics.

Just a question to someone speaking serbian or so. ”Beli luk” litterally would be ”white onion” right? Cause ”belarus” means ”white russia” right? Cause in swedish ”garlic” translates to ”Vitlök” (white onion) And belarus is ”Vitryssland” (white russia)

It doesn't seem like the differences are greater than the differences in English from a native speaker from South Boston and one from South Carolina.

They are the same, Tudjman and Milosevic just invented separate languages for political reasons

can you do the same with slovak and czech ? yes, they are officially different languages but similarity and mutual intelligibility between them is very high aswell ...

We also say oprosti in Serbian, as Croatians use izvini. When you translated the sentences, it was like: Serbian: I love to read. Croatian: I love reading. I will comment now your example: Serbian: He didn’t know how to swim. Croatian: He didn’t know to swim. Sentences are the same. Our languages have minimal differences that are the most visible in one word: Što (in Croatian) or Šta (in serbian)- that is just one letter. Words like češnjak (cro) and beli luk (srb), are very rare, and if you say češnjak in Serbia or kruh (in serbian hleb, in english bread) everyone will understand what are you going to say. Kind greeting :)

I'm watching this video to find out if Luka Modric and Luka Jovic can understand each other lol

Interesting video . Have heard many discussions on the vocabulary differences of these two . An important one is the word for yes . I think a more interesting comparison would be between Bulgarian and Macedonian . :)

Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are more or less all mutually intelligible... unless you count their own vocabulary. Politically they’re all separate.

3:33 you have a typo Цвет Svet (it shold be cvet) svet is other word :)

The funny part about this whole situation is that in sections where you compared the lexical similarity and mutual intelegability, the words that were not so similar or were different, for example "stablo" and "drvo" are present and used simultaneously and both languages, but the translator that you were using just chose one over another.

Very helpful video, thank you.

So much sparring between Croats and Serbs. Someone show Bosnia some love. The battle does not occur just between Croats and Serbs. Toss Bosnia in the mix, and, well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. There are neighborhoods in Sarajevo that by literally crossing the street, you enter a whole new world. If you stay in the Federation, you can get by with either. Enter the RS, and all bets are off. The can be more Serb than Serbia! This whole argument over what to call this highly similar language is, I think, the overriding reason companies like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone have not bothered to lift a finger make a language program. Who wants to get caught in the political and cultural quagmire of this nonsense? Call the language High Jovian for what its worth, but I think anyone who wants to make a language program would have to simplify it to its initials. BCS, or BHS if you're cheeky. Some company offers US/UK English as separate language programs. So, there is hope yet. I would argue those two "variants/dialects" have more differences than the "language one dares not try to name as a single unit." My two KM.

3:32 great video but I found a mistake, on Latin scripts"цвет" is "cvet"

Excellent video! Your explanatory powers are a force to be reckoned with. Makes me wonder if you were trained as a teacher?! In any case, I'm blown away, especially if you wrote and edited that, too. Lotta work. Keep it up! --Matt

Those languages are the same just some words aren't same

This video reduces Croatian and Serbian to literary/standard languages. Yes, Croatian and Serbian standard/literary languages are quite similar, because they are both based mostly on New-Shtokavian complex of idioms, but their differances are way larger than between British and American English. Just go to the store and read a bit longer product description in Croatian and then in Serbian. There are no such differances between English in Britain and English in the USA. Furthermore, this guy forgot to mention that Serbs have two standards, ekavian (more used) and ijekavian (less used), while Croats only have jekavian as a standard (ikavian is used as a standard reflex of the yat by the Gradišće Croats who have their own standard Croatian language). Chakavian and Kajkavian, as well as Shtokakvian ikavian, and Old Shtokavian dialects are also part of Croatian language. Torlak, New Shtokavian ijekavian, as well as Old Shtokavian (ekavian and ijekavian) are also part of Serbian language. Try to compare Torlak of SE Serbia to Chakavian of NW Croatia, Old Shtokavian ekavian of parts of Serbia to New Shtokavian ikavian of S Croatia. Have you heard of "balkanski jezični savez"?! Read and learn!

Perhaps one day a fitting name will be created for the whole language, one that will satisfy everyone. For now, there is some spontaneous naming used sometimes at conventions and festivals in the region, such as "zajednički" (meaning "mutual, common"), or less formal "naški" (meaning "ours").

Very good video!

Great videoo!!!

it is the same language. Similarity between the two languages is larger than similarity within both languages. Serbs understand better Croats then they can understand some Serbs from south Serbia. Croats in general understand better Serbs than they can understand some Croats from north Croatia (Kajkavian dialect) and from islands (čakavian dialect)

Official languages are almost same but there are two still used dialects in croatian that are almost separate languages, chakavian and kajkavian which use ča/kaj and not što/šta and have a lot of italian/german loanwords funny thing is that kajkavian croat and chakavian croat when speaking in dialect can't understand each other

Me: Watches this for a bit. Also me: You just stared a gang war.

Yes its the fckin same thing like english and american english are the same

It’s the same language ...anyone that says otherwise is just a plain Moran ...don’t get me wrong some words here and there from certain towns but everyone from former Yugoslavia understands eachother ..some choose not too because of politics ..the only thing that’s different is religion

Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin are One Language.

Love it!!

Thanks for the interesting video! It would be interesting to see a similar comparison between Czech and Slovak

How does the old saying go? "A language is a dialect with an army and a flag."

Great video bro

In Serbian words for "forgive me" --- "izvini" and "oprosti" are equally used.

Very good video and research! You have some monor mistakes but still you've done great job! Warm greetings from Croatia!

This is going to be extremely controversial

4:23 In Serbian and Croatian we can say both izvini and oprosti.

Wait, there is a problem, i met in a chat a serbian guy who said to me "BRAT" which means brother, i used google translator and it was croatian....becase in serbian brother is "BRATE", is that a mistake or just a minor language difference?

it's basically opposite of english or french where you have an official written form thats pretty much same for all english/french speakers and then you have regional dialects or common folk variations that takes time to get used to. in serbo croatian continuum you have official croatian on one hand, official serbian on another and everything else in between. so in other words, everybody understands each other, but their "official" versions vary. so if a serbian guy goes to croatia he can talk to everybody, however if he goes to croatian school his form of language would be incorrect, but thats also true for croats from bosnia or even dalmatia.

Your background in this video is city in Serbia where i live called Užice

We use both češnjak and beli luk. Češnjak is an archaic term and each clove is still čen regardless of calling it beli luk (white onion). Zrak means ray and the term vazduh is common in ALL slavic languages. Both izvini and oprosti are used interchangeably. It is one language really.

who are the proponents of a separate language theory? name one?

The Mutual intelligibility slide is completely wrong in Croatian, we would never say this and it very broken. The actual sentence would be: "Nekada davno postojao je dječak koji je živio u šumi. Hvatao je ribe i penjao se na stabla. Jednoga dana, pao je u rijeku i nije znao kako plivati." Slavic languages have a fundamental difference between a verb that was already happening and is done and the one that is still always ongoing. And the sentence structure of both of those is just... Very wrong. About as wrong as "German of google translate" vs actual German... Just wanted to point this out.

It‘s the same language, just nationalism kicked in and you now you have 4 languages instead of one.

"Bilo je neko dječak koji je živio u šumi" Nailed it

5:52 But how did the story end ? Did he made it out of the water ? Probably he learned to swim after some seconds of struggling.

I come from the most southern part of the German speaking area in central Europe, namely northern Italy, and at school we once watched a movie spoken in the regional dialect of the most northern part of the German speaking area (--->Plattdeutsch) and we literally needed to have captions to understand anything at all. Sure there were some words in between that sounded familiar but due to vowel and consonant shifts in our dialect not present in northern German, as well as a very different pronounciation, it sounded more like unintelligible English to us than German. Yet both dialects are considered German.

I feel that some people who compare the languages have never heard of the term "synonyms". E.g, "što", "oprosti" and "Proučavam jezike i volim čitati" are perfectly valid words and statements in Serbian language (or rather the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croatian). Essentially, "Volim čitati" = "I like reading" and "Volim da čitam" = "I like to read"

*MONTENEGRIN AND BOSNIAN ARE NOT LANGUAGES* *!*

The linguistic distance that Serbian and Croatian have, those same distances in Latin languages are what is considered a "micro-accent".

The dialect differences are so insignificant that only us, locals, could sense it. Absolutely the same language! And our language is very difficult, yet so original and interesting to use and once, foreigners, learn it, they admit it.

fyi,the words like """svijetlo"" and ""svetlo"" we just dont have ije/je :P btw im croatian owo

I always understand when I talk to my friends from croatia and I'm Serb

so is serbo-croatian easier than russian ? or vice versa ?

Best difference between those is like USA vs UK english. Because for the most part it’s the same, SOME words are TOTALLY different, and many of the words are same but have a slight pronunciation difference.

Croatian and Serbian are two different languages. Similar does not mean "the same". Serbo-Croatian is a political construct, as a intermedial phase to serbize Croatian and finally assimilate Croats into Serbs.

i for example almost always understand croatian and im serbian, i have a lot of friends that are from croatia and there is definitely not anything you can call a "language barrier" or a "difference" or literally anything like that

Before the war all the kids in school in Yugoslavia, which was the country that incorporated both countries, were learning Serbo-Croatian, and no other language. There’s your answer.

Regarding the Google translation - 5:49 it's identical. You can use "I" -"Ja" in both versions and opt not to. Regarding 5:52 the Serbian google translation is grammatically correct (really awkwardly composed but to an extent correct) in both Croatian and Serbian, while the Croatian version of google translation is broken. It's grammatically incorrect in both the Serbian and the Croatian version of the language. The differences between Serbian and Croatian are purely semantic but even at that 99,9% mutually intelligible.

The two languages were politically brought to unity during Yugoslavian experiment.

just call them all ''NASHKI'' and thats it lol it's so funny NOBODY would even fight about it

I see what is confusing you there words that are used in both langueges but they are just not official

My entire family on my dads side lives in croatia. My dads cousin lives on the border to serbia. You can walk to Serbia, but my dads family understands russian, serbian, bosnian, montenegrin and ukranian, and i wanted to know if everyone in those countries understands eachother?

they are the same people but they hate each other :D and nobody knows why :D

Croatian is more original slavic than serbian, they have alot of turkish and english words.

>°< that's literally wrong It gives dialects which are spoken in the old Yugoslavian countries In Dalmatia we say both with izvini and oprosti

Can you please compare Czech and Slovak language? Im quite curious. I am Slovak. I think the languages are not so similar (just close as both beeing Slavic lanugages) but some people see it differently. :-)

I like your video, it was very open and very non black&white. You know, I'm not a linguist, and it might be the same language (not a nationalist so no problems there). But.. I really dislike when politics are brought up when speaking of separating the languages, but forgotten about when talking about what is unifying them. 1) 19 century - grammar: both Croats and Serbs choose dialects that were most similar to each other to be the official ones because politics. Croats could have a grammar more similar to Slovenian, and Serbs to Bulgarian, without any problems.. 2) vocabulary: 100 years of "the same language" with learning "the other word for it" does its job. And that was politics. Everyone older than 35 was exposed to "the other vocabulary" via school or TV, so intelligibility is highly increased by that. My conversation with a Serb (38 years) will go without stops, while my sisters (30 years) will go one or two sentences and then three explaining a word. Especially because the differences are on everyday things, and not the "complicated", like carrots, rice, pots, towels, belts, pants etc.. 3) -ije-je vs -e is a political thing as well. Doesn't reduce intelligibility at all. Also, dialects in Serbia and Croatia using -i and -e and -ije/je.. Like - "there is the difference ", while using the wrong cases or totally different words does't matter... Like I said, it still might be a one polycentric language, I don't know, but it is not ok to use the "politics" argument only at one side while ignoring it on the other side...

"Afrikaans" isn't just a variety of Dutch. That's a very oversimplified way of saying it.

I am Turkish and lived in Macedonia for a while. How similar is it to Macedonian, Serbian and Croatian?

U made mistake at translate on second example(about the boy who fell in river).

im croatian and i learned all the differences from some serbian comic books i read

You're brave. Nice video as always.

Yes and no. Standard Croatian and Standard Serbian (plus Bosnian and Montenegrin) are of course the same language. They are not really even different dialects, being based on the same East Herzegovinian dialect (though modern Standard Serbian is ekavian rather than ijekavian). However, if you were to take the dialect of someone from Rijeka and compared it to another person's from Vranje you could well say they speak different languages. So it all depends on what you define a "language" to be. Standard Croatian is native to virtually no one on the territory of modern Croatia (or at least didn't used to be) so what really constitutes the Croatian language, the East Herzegovinian standard or all the native dialects, or both? There's not really a right or wrong answer.

Same language, we can talk between each other easy.