Serbo-Croatian

The early roots of the Serbo-Croatian language can be traced back to the 9th century, when Old Church Slavonic was adopted by churches across Slavonic nations. Through interaction with written scripts, over centuries, Serbo-Croatian would begin to emerge as both a spoken and a written language.

Still, in such a diverse region facing many cultural and political tensions, standardization of Serbo-Croatian became a task difficult to accomplish. It wasn’t until the formation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that a standard Serbo-Croatian effort became popular, along with the unification of the various peoples, and their diverse culture in media, literature, and other art forms.

While the disintegration of Yugoslavia led to the development of independent languages, for many of the Serbo-Croatian-speaking peoples, the language still serves as a common point of communication, and an important language for businesses to consider at 19 million speakers worldwide.

Accurate translations are tougher than they might seem, in large part since direct translations often miss the mark, or simply do not make sense. Each language is formed through its own culture, and so there may be words, phrases, or expressions in one language that do not exist in another language, or whose closest translation has quite a different literal meaning.

It’s essential to have a dedicated translation service that understands and navigates these cultural differences, and is able to translate your message as accurately and cohesively as possible. Quality translations aren’t just good for communication and business, they’re also a way to respect the culture and the language.