Clothing
We have Croatia to thank for one of the world’s most common articles of dress. Croatian mercenaries in the 16-1700s wore colorful scarves around their necks and made them popular among the other Europeans they encountered. They were called cravat, a mispronunciation of Hrvat, or Croat. Now we know them as neckties.
Music
One of the most lovely and distinctive forms of folk music I know is Croatian, called klape. Listen here:
Shakespeare
One of my favorite Shakespearean plays, “Twelfth Night, Or What You Will,” is set in a fictionalized Illyria. In actual history, Illyria was the whole Adriatic coastline of what is now Croatia.
Language
Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro speak basically the same language, only Croatia uses the Latin alphabet, Serbia uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and Bosnia and Montenegro use both. It is related to Russian, and I studied Russian in high school, making my beginning acquisition of Croatian in the five weeks I was there in 2008 much easier.
