Croatian

How to spell croatian

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce croatian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does croatian mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Croatia, its people, or their language.
2. nounA person from Croatia, or the South Slavic language spoken there.

Croatian in a sentence

• adjective

  The menu featured several croatian seafood dishes from the Dalmatian coast.

• noun

  The interpreter translated the contract from English into croatian for the client.

• adjective

  She spent the summer studying croatian history at a university in Zagreb.

• noun

  As a proud croatian, he still cooked his grandmother's traditional recipes.

Where does croatian come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is built on the name of Croatia, the country on the eastern Adriatic, which in turn comes from the people's own name for themselves, Hrvat, recorded in medieval Latin as Croata. The original meaning of that ethnic name is debated by scholars, with proposals linking it to an old word for a mountain dweller or to a personal or tribal name, so its deepest root is not fully settled. English added the familiar -an ending, the same suffix seen in Italian and Russian, to form an adjective and a noun describing the country, its people, and their South Slavic language. The form reached English through Latin and continental scholarship rather than directly, which is why the spelling keeps the Latin-style oa vowel pair of Croatia. The pronunciation runs the o and a into separate syllables, kro-AY-shun, and that hidden oa cluster is the main thing a writer has to remember.

How the word is built

• Croat- (from Hrvat, the native name of the people)
• -ia (place suffix, giving Croatia)
• -an (adjective/noun suffix: belonging to)