The official language is Croatian. Laws passed in May 2000 regulate the status of minority languages and alphabets and their official use on the local level (Law on the Use of Language and Script of National Minorities in the Republic of Croatia, NN 51/00). The laws also offer the possibility of education programmes (primary and secondary school level) in minority languages (Law on Education in the Language and Script of National Minorities, NN 51/00, NN 56/00). Such programmes have been established for Czech, Hungarian, German, Serbian and Italian minorities. The first preregistered primary schools in the Serbian language were opened in 2002. The laws are implemented in areas where language groups are concentrated, e.g. the use of the Serbian language and Cyrillic alphabet in East Slavonia, of the Italian language in Istria, etc. These laws were received favourably by the ethnic minority groups. However, in 2013 the implementation of the double-script (Latin-Cyrillic) plaques on the official buildings in Vukovar and some other cities caused protests by the Croatian representatives of war veteran communities, and they are still in dispute. In addition, the implementation of education in minority languages in the same area that implies separated classrooms for Serbian and Croatian children is also put into question (see chapter 2.5.2) especially taking into account that Serbian and Croatian are mutually understandable. The discussions on the implementation of different models of education are in a process that would follow the rights acquired by law but also take into account the local situation.
In line with the Law on Croatian Radio-Television and the Law on Electronic Media, Croatian Radio-Television has special and regular news programmes in several minority languages. Local radio stations also have special programmes in minority languages.
The school curricula include supplements in minority languages (language, literature, history, art and music); there are optional programmes for mother tongue learning at various summer schools.
Apart from these supplementary minority language classes in schools, language pluralism is not widely debated due to the low numbers of linguistic minorities in Croatia, and the fact that Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian are mutually understandable.
A lot of attention has been paid to promotion of the Croatian language and culture abroad; teaching of the Croatian language and literature for Croatians in the Diaspora is supported through programmes of financing by the Ministry of Science and Education in 20 countries around the world. In some countries the classes are organised as a part of regular educational curricula, while in some countries it is organised as extracurricular activity in the auspices of Croatian Diaspora community activities. The Ministry of Science and Education also organises and finances the network of 34 Readers in the Croatian Language and Literature exchange positions in different higher education institutions in 25 countries around the world, as well as co-finances three centres for Croatian Studies in Australia, United Kingdom and Canada. The Ministry also partially supports around 40 independent reader positions that are outside its’ jurisdiction. Foreign students of Croatian gain scholarships at ‘Croaticum’ study programmes at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, as well as through a yearly Croatian Seminar for Foreign Slavic Studies Students or the ‘Zagreb School of Slavic Studies’ at the Inter University Centre (IUC) in Dubrovnik, which celebrated its’ 50th anniversary in 2022.
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