Croatian language

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/croatian-language

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the primary standard dialect?Ijekavian Neo-Shtokavian
2. What is the alphabet system?Gaj's Latin alphabet, a phonological orthography
3. How did Croatian become a standard language?The effort began in the mid-18th century using the Neo‑Shtokavian dialect. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Croatian Vukovians chose the Ijekavian variant and created grammar and spelling rules.
4. Why do we use the Gaj's Latin alphabet in Croatian?Ljudevit Gaj designed the alphabet to match Croatian sounds exactly. It uses letters and diacritics so each sound has one letter, making reading and writing easier.

Supradialect: A dialect that serves as a basis for a standard language or is widely understood across regions.
Lingua Franca: A language adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.
Phonological Orthography: A writing system where spelling closely reflects pronunciation, with a high degree of grapheme-phoneme correspondence.
Codification: The process of establishing and formalizing the rules of a language, including grammar and spelling.