Recent referendums
44-585: The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia ( Croatian : Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske ) is an institution that acts as the interpreter and guardian of the Croatian Constitution and which monitors the conformity of laws with the Constitution as well as protection of human rights and freedoms of citizens that are guaranteed by the Constitution. It is considered to be de facto
88-461: A common polycentric standard language is used, consisting of several standard varieties , similar to the existing varieties of German , English or Spanish . The aim of the new Declaration is to stimulate discussion on language without the nationalistic baggage and to counter nationalistic divisions. The terms "Serbo-Croatian", "Serbo-Croat", or "Croato-Serbian", are still used as a cover term for all these forms by foreign scholars, even though
132-579: A date specified by the Court. The Court also provided Parliament with the necessary number of representatives which must confirm the Act to make it legitimate. On November 14, 2013, Constitutional Court in a 13–0 statement sent to the State Election Commission stated that there is no constitutional obstacle to hold a 2013 referendum on defining marriage as a union between men and a woman, in
176-523: A separate language that is considered key to national identity, in the sense that the term Croatian language includes all language forms from the earliest times to the present, in all areas where Croats live, as realized in the speeches of Croatian dialects, in city speeches and jargons, and in the Croatian standard language. The issue is sensitive in Croatia as the notion of a separate language being
220-408: A systemic phenomenon" and that exceptional individual cases must be justified by being connected, for example, with deep-rooted social and cultural characteristics of the society. On February 21, 2017, Constitutional Court announced that it held in a 12–1 decision that it won't accept constitutional complaints submitted by the conservative NGO's Croatian Movement for Life and Family (in 1991) and In
264-447: Is also official in the regions of Burgenland (Austria), Molise (Italy) and Vojvodina (Serbia). Additionally, it has co-official status alongside Romanian in the communes of Carașova and Lupac , Romania . In these localities, Croats or Krashovani make up the majority of the population, and education, signage and access to public administration and the justice system are provided in Croatian, alongside Romanian. Croatian
308-399: Is no doubt of the near 100% mutual intelligibility of (standard) Croatian and (standard) Serbian, as is obvious from the ability of all groups to enjoy each others' films, TV and sports broadcasts, newspapers, rock lyrics etc.", writes Bailyn. Differences between various standard forms of Serbo-Croatian are often exaggerated for political reasons. Most Croatian linguists regard Croatian as
352-640: Is no regulatory body that determines the proper usage of Croatian. However, in January 2023, the Croatian Parliament passed a law that prescribes the official use of the Croatian language, regulates the establishment of the Council for the Croatian language as a coordinating advisory body whose work will be focused on the protection and development of the Croatian language. State authorities, local and regional self-government entities are obliged to use
396-1099: Is officially used and taught at all universities in Croatia and at the University of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Studies of Croatian language are held in Hungary (Institute of Philosophy at the ELTE Faculty of Humanities in Budapest ), Slovakia (Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University in Bratislava ), Poland ( University of Warsaw , Jagiellonian University , University of Silesia in Katowice , University of Wroclaw , Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan ), Germany ( University of Regensburg ), Australia (Center for Croatian Studies at
440-612: Is represented by the editions of " Adrianskoga mora sirena " ("The Siren of the Adriatic Sea") by Petar Zrinski and " Putni tovaruš " ("Traveling escort") by Katarina Zrinska . However, this first linguistic renaissance in Croatia was halted by the political execution of Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan by the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I in Vienna in 1671. Subsequently, the Croatian elite in
484-602: Is still used now in parts of Istria , which became a crossroads of various mixtures of Chakavian with Ekavian, Ijekavian and Ikavian isoglosses . The most standardised form (Kajkavian–Ikavian) became the cultivated language of administration and intellectuals from the Istrian peninsula along the Croatian coast, across central Croatia up into the northern valleys of the Drava and the Mura . The cultural apex of this 17th century idiom
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#1732783370411528-573: Is the national official language and literary standard of Croatia , one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , the Serbian province of Vojvodina , the European Union and a recognized minority language elsewhere in Serbia and other neighbouring countries. In the mid-18th century, the first attempts to provide a Croatian literary standard began on the basis of
572-653: Is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet . Besides the Shtokavian dialect, on which Standard Croatian is based, there are two other main supradialects spoken on the territory of Croatia, Chakavian and Kajkavian . These supradialects, and the four national standards, are usually subsumed under the term "Serbo-Croatian" in English; this term is controversial for native speakers, and names such as "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" (BCMS) are used by linguists and philologists in
616-566: The Latin alphabet and are living in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina , different parts of Croatia , southern parts (inc. Budapest ) of Hungary as well in the autonomous province Vojvodina of Serbia . The Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics added the Bunjevac dialect to the List of Protected Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Croatia on 8 October 2021. Article 1 of
660-982: The Macquarie University ), Northern Macedonia (Faculty of Philology in Skopje ) etc. Croatian embassies hold courses for learning Croatian in Poland, United Kingdom and a few other countries. Extracurricular education of Croatian is hold in Germany in Baden-Württemberg , Berlin , Hamburg and Saarland , as well as in North Macedonia in Skopje , Bitola , Štip and Kumanovo . Some Croatian Catholic Missions also hold Croatian language courses (for. ex. CCM in Buenos Aires ). There
704-537: The 18th century gradually abandoned this combined Croatian standard. The Illyrian movement was a 19th-century pan- South Slavic political and cultural movement in Croatia that had the goal to standardise the regionally differentiated and orthographically inconsistent literary languages in Croatia, and finally merge them into a common South Slavic literary language. Specifically, three major groups of dialects were spoken on Croatian territory, and there had been several literary languages over four centuries. The leader of
748-436: The 1978 Law should be formally and substantially aligned with the Constitution, abolished with a deferment effect, that the new one should be enacted, and that it is the duty of the state to protect the right to live of the unborn being. Following Court's decision, the Croatian Parliament is permanently banned from enacting a law which would effectively ban abortion. The Constitutional Court consists of thirteen judges elected by
792-887: The 21st century. In 1997, the Croatian Parliament established the Days of the Croatian Language from March 11 to 17. Since 2013, the Institute of Croatian language has been celebrating the Month of the Croatian Language , from February 21 ( International Mother Language Day ) to March 17 (the day of signing the Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language ). In
836-619: The 50th anniversary of the Declaration, at the beginning of 2017, a two-day meeting of experts from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro was organized in Zagreb, at which the text of the Declaration on the Common Language of Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs and Montenegrins was drafted. The new Declaration has received more than ten thousand signatures . It states that in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro
880-552: The Constitutional Court are located or are in session (the Parliament, Government and the Court are all located at St. Mark's Square ) On July 6, 2011, Constitutional Court ruled that this law, which restricts a Constitutional liberty – the right to free gathering, was not passed by the majority necessary to override the Constitution on that matter. The Court's decision was that the law shall be put out of effect at
924-441: The Court asked Croatian Parliament to "provide a stable regulatory framework of the referendum process that meets the standards of a democratic society as soon as possible". The Court also decided that "any amendments to the Constitution which would define marriage as being union between a man and a woman should not have any effect on the further development of the legal framework of the institution of same-sex unions in accordance with
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#1732783370411968-497: The Croatian Parliament with qualified majority (101 out of 151) for a term of eight years from among notable jurists, especially judges, public prosecutors, lawyers and university professors of law. The Court elects its own President for a term of four years. Before they take the office, judges must take an oath in front of the President of the Republic . Following table contains names of sitting justices as of 11 October 2017 when
1012-600: The Croatian language. The current standard language is generally laid out in the grammar books and dictionaries used in education, such as the school curriculum prescribed by the Ministry of Education and the university programmes of the Faculty of Philosophy at the four main universities . In 2013, a Hrvatski pravopis by the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics received an official sole seal of approval from
1056-735: The Holy Widow Judith Composed in Croatian Verses ". The Croatian–Hungarian Agreement designated Croatian as one of its official languages. Croatian became an official EU language upon accession of Croatia to the European Union on 1 July 2013. In 2013, the EU started publishing a Croatian-language version of its official gazette. Standard Croatian is the official language of the Republic of Croatia and, along with Standard Bosnian and Standard Serbian , one of three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina . It
1100-639: The Illyrian movement Ljudevit Gaj standardized the Latin alphabet in 1830–1850 and worked to bring about a standardized orthography. Although based in Kajkavian-speaking Zagreb , Gaj supported using the more populous Neo-Shtokavian – a version of Shtokavian that eventually became the predominant dialectal basis of both Croatian and Serbian literary language from the 19th century on. Supported by various South Slavic proponents, Neo-Shtokavian
1144-544: The Ministry of Education. The most prominent recent editions describing the Croatian standard language are: Also notable are the recommendations of Matica hrvatska , the national publisher and promoter of Croatian heritage, and the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography , as well as the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts . Numerous representative Croatian linguistic works were published since
1188-618: The Name of the Family (in 2010) to review conformity of the 1978 Law on Health Measures for the Realization of the Right to Freely Decide on Childbirth with the Constitution. While presenting the decision, Chief Justice Miroslav Šeparović stated that abortion was a controversial and a deep moral, philosophical, legal and medical issue about which there was no consensus and which therefore causes serious divisions in many societies, adding that
1232-469: The Neo-Shtokavian dialect that served as a supraregional lingua franca – pushing back regional Chakavian , Kajkavian , and Shtokavian vernaculars . The decisive role was played by Croatian Vukovians , who cemented the usage of Ijekavian Neo-Shtokavian as the literary standard in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, in addition to designing a phonological orthography. Croatian
1276-591: The Republic ), legislative ( Parliament ) and judicial ( Supreme Court ) branches. According to the Articles 126–132 of the Croatian Constitution , Constitutional Court shall: Act of Supplements and Alterations to the Law on Public Gathering stipulated that no public gatherings could be held within 100 meters of buildings in which the Croatian Parliament, President of Republic, the Croatian Government or
1320-561: The constitutional requirement that everyone in Croatia has the right to be respected and right of legal protection of their personal and family life and human dignity". The Court pointed out that it had never received any request or proposal to review the constitutionality of the provisions of the Family Law that regulated marriage as a union between a man and woman, or provisions of the Law on Same-Sex Unions . The Court therefore considered that
1364-535: The fact that existing law contains certain institutions that no longer exist in the Croatian constitutional order (since the Law is based on the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution ) and that the adoption of the 1990 Croatian Constitution built a brand new legal and institutional framework of health, social, scientific and educational system. New law should determine the educational and preventive measures "so that abortion should be an exception". In sole dissenting opinion , Judge Miroslav Šumanović, among other things, stated that
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1408-561: The frequency of use. However, as professor John F. Bailyn states, "an examination of all the major 'levels' of language shows that BCS is clearly a single language with a single grammatical system." Croatian, although technically a form of Serbo-Croatian , is sometimes considered a distinct language by itself. This is at odds with purely linguistic classifications of languages based on mutual intelligibility ( abstand and ausbau languages ), which do not allow varieties that are mutually intelligible to be considered separate languages. "There
1452-433: The highest judicial authority because it can overturn Supreme Court decisions on the basis of constitutional breaches. It is not considered as being part of the judicial branch of government, but rather a court sui generis , and it is therefore often colloquially referred to as a "fourth branch of government", alongside the traditional model of tripartite separation of powers into the executive ( Government / President of
1496-564: The independence of Croatia, among them three voluminous monolingual dictionaries of contemporary Croatian. In 2021, Croatia introduced a new model of linguistic categorisation of the Bunjevac dialect (as part of New-Shtokavian Ikavian dialects of the Shtokavian dialect of the Croatian language) in three sub-branches: Dalmatian (also called Bosnian-Dalmatian), Danubian (also called Bunjevac), and Littoral-Lika. Its speakers largely use
1540-503: The last appointments occurred. 45°49′00″N 15°58′24″E / 45.81671°N 15.97341°E / 45.81671; 15.97341 Croatian language North America South America Oceania Croatian ( / k r oʊ ˈ eɪ ʃ ən / ; hrvatski [xř̩ʋaːtskiː] ) is the standardised variety of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language mainly used by Croats . It
1584-754: The late medieval period up to the 17th century, the majority of semi-autonomous Croatia was ruled by two domestic dynasties of princes ( banovi ), the Zrinski and the Frankopan , which were linked by inter-marriage. Toward the 17th century, both of them attempted to unify Croatia both culturally and linguistically, writing in a mixture of all three principal dialects (Chakavian, Kajkavian and Shtokavian), and calling it "Croatian", "Dalmatian", or "Slavonian". Historically, several other names were used as synonyms for Croatian, in addition to Dalmatian and Slavonian, and these were Illyrian (ilirski) and Slavic (slovinski) . It
1628-458: The most important characteristic of a nation is widely accepted, stemming from the 19th-century history of Europe. The 1967 Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language , in which a group of Croatian authors and linguists demanded greater autonomy for Croatian, is viewed in Croatia as a linguistic policy milestone that was also a general milestone in national politics. On
1672-438: The question on when life begins was not for the Court since it can only answer questions of legislation. According to Court's decision, it recognized constitutionally guaranteed value of unborn being and not its right to life but rather public interest of the state to protect it. The Court considered that abortion as a constitutional or a human right doesn't exist. According to the Court, the right of privacy of women, which includes
1716-482: The referendum on the definition of marriage is not a referendum on the right to respect for family life, because it is constitutionally guaranteed to all persons, regardless of sex and gender, and is under the direct protection of both, the Constitutional Court itself and the European Court of Human Rights. In conclusion, the Court warned that "incorporation of legal institutes in the constitution shouldn't become
1760-494: The right of freedom, dignity and the protection of family and private life, exists, which gives woman autonomy to a certain period (in Croatia 10 weeks after conception) during which woman can freely decide whether she wants to give birth or not, but after that period of time birth becomes public interest which protects the right to life of the unborn. With this decision, the Court obligated the Croatian Parliament to enact new law within two years and has warned it to take into account
1804-470: The same time pointing out that the referendum revealed numerous problems in the Referendum law and opened a number of legal questions that required answers. Nevertheless, the Court stressed that decision on the referendum was passed by a majority of 104 MPs and that since it was made with more votes than the majority needed to even change the Constitution itself, the referendum should be held. In addition,
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1848-426: The speakers themselves largely do not use it. Within ex-Yugoslavia, the term has largely been replaced by the ethnopolitical terms Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. The use of the name "Croatian" for a language has historically been attested to, though not always distinctively. The first printed Croatian literary work is a vernacular Chakavian poem written in 1501 by Marko Marulić , titled " The History of
1892-584: Was adopted after an Austrian initiative at the Vienna Literary Agreement of 1850, laying the foundation for the unified Serbo-Croatian literary language. The uniform Neo-Shtokavian then became common in the Croatian elite. In the 1860s, the Zagreb Philological School dominated the Croatian cultural life, drawing upon linguistic and ideological conceptions advocated by the members of the Illyrian movement. While it
1936-556: Was dominant over the rival Rijeka Philological School and Zadar Philological Schools , its influence waned with the rise of the Croatian Vukovians (at the end of the 19th century). Croatian is commonly characterized by the ijekavian pronunciation (see an explanation of yat reflexes ), the sole use of the Latin alphabet, and a number of lexical differences in common words that set it apart from standard Serbian. Some differences are absolute, while some appear mainly in
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