Was the Croatian Language Invented by a Disgruntled Dutch Speaker?

You are here:

Home
Language
Was the Croatian Language Invented by a Disgruntled Dutch Speaker?

Vowels, vowels, vowels! That’s what it’s all about. The way the vowels are used give a language its distinct difference. Some languages like their words ending in vowels to make it flow and others don’t. 99% of languages hold a balance in most words of usually 2 vowels together sometimes 3 but not more than that.

But that’s not the case with the Croatian and Dutch languages. Here we go from a language that is afraid of using vowels (Croatian) and one that is an abuser of the vowel. If their were ever penalties for the overuse of the vowel Dutch would get a fine. The Dutch language is also multiskilled for being able to combine the same vowel (double) with another.

We have the northern city of Leeuwarden, the different combination of 2 u’s together as in the word duur- dear (expensive), When you search for Dutch pronunciation you will find sections on how to pronounce a 3 or 4 letter diphthongs like ingesneeuwd- snowed in, or vermoeid- be tired, maaien- to mow, or geeuwen- to yawn. Where some languages need fewer letters, Dutch needs more. Compare nieuw, with English new, German neu, and Danish nyt.

Dutch people (Photo credit: Nikola Nikolski)

The disgruntled Dutch person then went to Croatia with his fear of vowels and started a new language. He invented words without vowels. Unheard of in 99.9% of languages. He lived on the island of Krk, in northern Croatia. There he invented words like Brk- a moustache, cvrst-strong, smrt- to die, and a great list of onomatopoeia’s (this word itself is an abuse of vowels, let’s also point the finger at the Greek langauge) grc- for a spasm, smrd- for smell, and prd, for the word fart. Croatian’s could have developed a whole vocabulary for this last one.

Vowels (Photo credit: chrisinplymouth)

If you have a fear of vowels we’ll just leave you with a few words from Dutch to spread fear inside you. How about these words zandzeepsodemineraalwatersteenstralen, meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornissen ? Hope it didn’t scare you too much.

If you like our post Was the Croatian Language Invented by a Disgruntled Dutch Speaker? please feel free to share it with your friends, click the Facebook or Digg like button, or share it with other social media.