Hrvatski pravopis

Croatian orthography

Croatian orthography of the Institute for Croatian Language and Linguistics is a phonological orthography with morphonological elements. It is phonological because it is based on the sound principle. According to this principle, in Croatian it is written, for example, wireless, dot, fall off, subprogram, clear out, slave, pre-accession, wedding. The morphonological principle is applied when the phonetic composition of the building blocks is preserved so that phonetic changes at the morpheme boundary are not recorded, i.e. the recognizability of the morpheme in the word is taken into account. According to the morphological principle, it is written, for example, city, Croatian, below average, once, fifty-third, underestimate, underline, subpoint, president. Adherence to spelling rules is mandatory in the neutral use of standard language, in the scientific and administrative functional style of standard language, and in the informative genre of journalistic functional style (news, notices, comments, etc.). Deviation from the orthographic principles is allowed in conversational and literary-artistic functional style and in journalistic functional style genres that are close to literary-artistic functional style (columns, essays, etc.). Croatian spelling consists of spelling rules, notes, explanations, tips, a glossary and a spelling dictionary. In addition to the printed edition, it was also published on the website of the Institute for Croatian Language and Linguistics, at pravopis.hr. The online version of Croatian orthography is designed as a hypertext with links to notes, explanations and language tips, as well as a glossary. The glossary explains the names that appear in the spelling rules. Taj će pojmovnik korisnicima Hrvatskoga pravopisa omogućiti da razumiju jezikoslovni naziv koji se nalazi u pravilima. The spelling dictionary provides an exhaustive list of words and expressions and their forms with which a spelling problem is associated. In the spelling solutions, we followed the Croatian spelling tradition, so as a rule we did not change the solutions that are the same in all modern spellings. The rare solutions that we have changed, we have changed in accordance with the principles of systematicity and authentication and confirmation in use.