EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 78 Dijete vs. Dite 440 / 600
Istria. One of the main differences is that Split area consistently uses the Standard
stress system, with all shifts, etc. while in Rijeka, the 'western' stress prevails.
Use of Ikavian is very widespread in Split and surrounding areas in everyday
communication. A lot of local musicians produce music with Ikavian words. There
are even novels and newspaper columns written in Ikavian. There are movies and
‘telenovelas’ with a lot of Ikavian forms. Since such songs and ‘telenovelas’ are quite
popular in countries of former Yugoslavia, everyone understands a bit of Ikavian,
despite it having no official status anywhere. (There's a small population in Northern
Serbia, called Bunjevci, which is – controversially – sometimes considered a separate
ethnic group in Serbia, and their language is Ikavian. They have primary schools in
Ikavian.)
The difference Ikavian vs. Standard Croatian is similar to e.g. difference between
Standard Serbian and Standard Croatian. However, bear in mind that there are
dialects in Croatia that much more divergent, to the point of being barely
understandable, having specific sounds, case forms, and so on! They will be
described in A8 Dialects.
Finally, Ikavian is far from homogeneous. What is spoken on islands would be very
different than what is spoken inland. Generally, on islands and smaller towns, you'll
see larger difference from the Standard and more specific forms.
There's one more difference that is completely independent of Ikavian, but some
Ikavian dialects, including Dalmatian hinterland, have it: loss of h. It was replaced by
either v or j, depending on the surrounding sounds, or simply lost, e.g. in the
beginning of the word (I have listed only nominatives):
Standard word
kruh bread
hladan adj. cold
snaha son's wife
suh adj. dry
h-less
kruv
ladan
snaja
suv
Today, most people in Split – especially when they speak privately – don't have h in
most words. This produces, with other differences described above, e.g. past forms
tija and tila, corresponding to Standard htio and htjela.
This loss also happened in large parts of Bosnia and whole Serbia (however,
Standard Serbian has restored h at the beginning of words, so it's hladan and suv in
Standard Serbian.)
There are also Ekavian dialects, where all changes are similar to ones described
above, but have e instead of i (lep, etc.). They prevail in Serbia, and the Standard
Serbian in Serbia is Ekavian. You can find more about Ekavian in A9 Bosnian, Serbian
and Montenegrin.