Croatian Translation

The preference for native words and the discipline of terminology

The written tradition of this language prefers equivalents coined from its own resources to words of international origin. In an official text that preference is not a question of style but a requirement of the standard language: in place of the widely known loanword, the established native equivalent is used. Even basic notions such as university, aeroplane and the number thousand have their own preferred forms in this language.

The second rule that follows from this is not to drift into the vocabulary of the neighbouring standard languages. Mutual intelligibility among the languages of the region is high, so a translator may reach for a term from a neighbouring standard without noticing. The result is a document that is grammatically sound but counts, for official purposes, as being in the wrong language.

Grammatical load and the length of the text

A seven-case declension system requires every element of a noun phrase to change together. A single ending in Turkish affects three or four words here, and it is in this agreement that most errors turn up at the revision stage. The distinction between completed and uncompleted action in verbs likewise determines, in a legal text, when an act is to be treated as performed.

Text volume grows moderately against the Turkish; the growth comes less from the number of words than from their length. That in turn creates line-breaking problems in narrow table columns and in the limited space beneath a stamp.

Concept	Form avoided	Form preferred
University	Equivalent of international origin	Natively coined equivalent
Aeroplane	Widely used word of foreign origin	The language’s own coinage
The number thousand	The form used in a neighbouring standard	This language’s own form
Legal terms	Shared regional usage	The definition in the legislation in force

Which documents come in heavily

Tourism, by way of seasonal employment, makes up a large share: employment contracts, professional certificates, medical reports and criminal record certificates are translated in quantity. The second share is shipping and shipbuilding; seafarers’ certificates, shipyard contracts, classification reports and technical specifications are in steady demand.

The third share is residence and family matters: birth, marriage and divorce records together with custody arrangements. The fourth is property; buying and selling along the coast keeps the translation of title deeds and tax documents in continuous supply. Higher education applications and the licensing files of the pharmaceutical and food sectors also account for appreciable volume.

Seasonal employment files carry a timing pressure all of their own: translations that must be finished before the season opens are squeezed into a short window, and dozens of similar files are prepared at once for the same employer. Keeping terms and formatting consistent then matters as much as translating each individual document correctly.

A separate discipline for promotional and web copy

Alongside document translation, demand for promotional and web content in this language runs high. Businesses offering accommodation, marina and healthcare services publish the material aimed at their own markets in this language. What governs here is not the exactness of document translation but the tone the intended reader expects.

Even so, the discipline of terminology does not slacken: the use of native equivalents is a mark of quality for the local reader in promotional copy too. Prices, distances and measurements are also given in the local format; changing the decimal separator and the way the currency is written is the smallest but most visible detail that keeps the text from smelling of translation.

Names, diacritics and dates

Surnames contain two accented letters that closely resemble one another, and the difference between them distinguishes meaning; the wrong mark makes the person impossible to find in a records search. Turkish special characters, for their part, are preserved and not swapped for similar-looking letters. Personal names are not inflected.

In dates the day and month figures are each followed by a full stop, with a space between them; when the month is written in words it goes into the genitive. Because the personal identity number is asked for in every transaction, the number on the document has to be carried across in full. The decimal separator is a comma.

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This page is for information; differences of writing system and typesetting can affect the delivery time. For the conditions that apply, consult the institution’s current list of required documents.