I sometimes wonder how Croatians from other parts of the country understand each other. I know that all countries have dialects and dialect words, but Croatia seems to take the regional vocabulary to a different level.
One of the fun projects in the early years of the Total Project, before TCN, was an occasional language series on Total Hvar looking at the Hvar dialect compared to standard Croatian with Professor Frank John Dubokovich, Guardian of the Hvar Dialects.
What started out as a bit of fun with the infamous Dalmatian Grunt in the first episode above, quickly got quite a following, with more than 50,000 views for that first article. About 20 more videos followed until they were taken down by YouTube for reasons unknown.
We continue to restore the Professor’s linguistic colossus to the Internet with the latest in the series, a rather illuminating look at the differences in various words on the subject of vegetables and how they differ between standard Croatian and Hvar dialect.
The Professor confessed to me before shooting this lesson that there was something about the Hvar dialect word for ‘aubergine’ that made his want to get up and dance. He was even kind enough to demonstrate some of his moves during the lesson.
With thanks to Zdravko for his more understandable version for those learning Croatian vegetables, as well as to Marion in her role as Executive Aubergine Holder.
You can follow more of the linguistic musings of the Professor as the series develops by subscribing to the TCN Talks YouTube channel.
For the very latest from the island of Hvar, follow the dedicated TCN section.
