After gaining independence in 1992, this Balkan republic went its own way, and three were proclaimed as state languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian. The close connection of peoples who once lived as one family on the territory of the SFRY made itself felt.
Some statistics and facts
- The population of the country is slightly less than 3.8 million people. Of these, 43.5% are Bosniaks or Muslims, 31% are Serbs and 17.5% are Croats.
- Every tenth inhabitant of the republic is a Roma.
- The literacy rate of the Bosnians, despite the low economic standard of living, is very high and the educated people are 98%.
- All three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina are mutually intelligible and are dialects of Serbo-Croatian.
- The republic signed the European Charter for Regional Languages, according to which the dialects of many national minorities are recognized in it. In the country you can hear Polish and Romanian, Yiddish and Albanian, Italian and Hungarian.
Muslim language
The self-designation of the majority of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina "Muslims" speaks of their religion. It is the Muslims who prefer Bosnian as their native language, and its main differences from the related Serbian and Croatian are in a special kind of borrowings. They appeared during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and came from Turkish, Arabic and Persian languages. Almost one and a half million people speak Bosnian, including in neighboring Kosovo. Bosnian is accepted as official in the regions of Montenegro and in several communities in Serbia.
As an alphabet, the Muslims use two scripts at once - the Latin alphabet and the Cyrillic-Vukovic alphabet.
Tourist notes
The level of foreign language proficiency among residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not very high, but in the capital and large cities you can find English-speaking staff in hotels, cafes and restaurants. Things are much better at ski and beach resorts, where Bosnia and Herzegovina strives to reach the level of European class in all respects and is desperately fighting for tourists. In such places there is a chance to meet Russian-speaking staff and receive the necessary and important information in their native language. The abolition of visas for Russian travelers and attractive prices for everything also greatly contribute to an increase in the tourist flow to the Balkan republic.
