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I'm wondering if someone could put the differences between Bunjevac speech and standard Croatian into perspective -- preferably comparing it to differences between various English or Germanic or Romance accents/dialects/languages.

For example, are the two about as far apart as (standard) British English and American (completely mutually intelligible, can understand each other with no difficulty), or as a heavy Scottish accent and British English (difficult to understand it if unfamiliar with it), etc.

Any other information that can shed light on the question is appreciated too. Like, roughly speaking how mutually intelligible are the two with each other? Are the accents so different that it takes practice to understand it for standard Croatian speakers? How dissimilar are the vocabularies? Etc.

user4555
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    Welcome to Language Learning Stack Exchange. Please be aware that this is a site about learning (and teaching) languages. Your question, as it currently stands, appears to ask about the differences between to variants of Croatian and does not look like a question about learning either variant. – Tsundoku Feb 10 '18 at 19:13
  • It might help to rephrase the question to be more about mutual intelligibility (e.g. how easy it is for a speaker of one to adapt to the other) and ask for linguistic information as support. – Robert Columbia Feb 11 '18 at 04:06
  • What is your native language, and which other languages you know? So we can put the eventual answer in some perspective. – Peter M. - stands for Monica Feb 12 '18 at 02:52

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I don't think we have experts on Croatian dialects here. From wikipedia page, it seems rather close dialect.

In many slavic-speaking areas, having a local dialect is normal, and people are familiar with communicating with someone speaking different dialect.

I would suggest to find online some people in areas where Bunjevac dialect is common (locals from some cities, like Subotica) and ask them. Using platforms like couchsurfing, mylanguageexchange, AirBnB or whatever you can find, contact locals from target cities, and ask. They might not understand English, but all mentioned platforms list the language the host understands.

Also, Croatian is part of language is Serbo-Croatian continuum, where differences is not in language but in the religion: spoken in Serbia (written in Cyrillic script, mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians), Croatia (written in Latin, mostly Roman Catholics), Bosnia (written in Latin, many Muslims).

Peter M. - stands for Monica
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  • I am no expert but my first husband was from a remote island where I learner Croatian because I had to. That enabled me to understand people between Koprivnica in the north and the very South of Montenegro. The Serbian language is very close, too as is Bosnian. You will find no bigger differences than between Ulster and Yorkshire. – Annette Flottwell Feb 26 '18 at 00:50