Talk:Croats

Archive 1 (-November 2006)

Croats in Argentina

Sorry but 440,000 Croats in Argentina is WAY TOO MUCH. I'm an argentine of croatian background and that numbers triples the usual estimate of about 135,000-140,000. By the way, the source cited for the 440,000 figure is dated in 1971! Ivok85 - 7 February 2008

Croatian upper estimate

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The reference does not state there is a total of 9 million Croats in the world. Somebody simply added the reference's statement of 4 million Croats living abroad to the 4 million census population of Croatia. Do not return this number unless the source says, specifically, that 9 million Croats live in the world. Horvat Den 08:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you an idiot, or do you enjoy pissing people off? The number of Croatian citizens abroad are not counted twice. The number is estimated this large because it counts all people who have at least partial Croat ancestry (people such as myself since I am half Croat). - King Ivan 08:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You have no idea what you're talking, as most blind nationalists don't. Look at what the source says. "4.5 million Croats live abroad." This does NOT mean that we can simply add 4.5 million to the population of the coutnry of Croatia and get a random number. In the 4.5 million abroad inclue literally hundreds of thousands of people who are simply working abroad and are counted TWICE in the population abroad and the Croatian census. Furthermore, the other source, is from an ethnologue report. I don't need to reiterate for the billionth time what that means. Horvat Den 08:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You really are a troll aren't you. This page is about an ethnic group, NOT people who are merely citizens of Croatia regardless of ethnicity, so you're argument about foreign workers is flawed since there are Croatian citizens who aren't Croats who live abroad. Also, you really need to learn how to speak English properly since it is hard to communicate with you. - King Ivan 08:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Everyone, please keep WP:CIVIL. I addressed the issue on my talk page once before. If one counts just the censuses and estimate numbers abroad (without Croatia and BiH), the figure is around 1.2 mil, which summed up gives 5.7 mil, roughly corresponding with Ethnologue's guesstimate of 6.2 for Croatian speakers. Like Ivan said, the remainder is attributed to persons of Croatian ancestry, chiefly in the New World—while many abroad workers in Western Europe tend to return to the country, those from New World practically always stay there.

The phenomenon of double counting, to which Den tries to attribute the number inflation, perhaps exists, but it's not so statistically significant. Take Austria (page 7) as example: counting together, there is total of 45,000 Burgenland- and "mainland"-Croats of Austrian citizenship but 105,000 Ausländer. However, I'm not sure if Croatian census takes those into account at all. There might be a "double counting" error of 100-300,000 but, taking into account fuzziness of the numbers, it hardly matters. The number of Croatian citizens residing outside of Europe is very small, so that the "double counting" hardly can contribute to the numbers.

I see that Croatian Emmigrant Adresary [1] have updated their site since the reference was added (ref 23 updated by myself), and addresses the issue "hitting the nail":

Prihvaćen je podatak da izvan granica Republike Hrvatske, u susjednim državama i diljem ostalih europskih zemalja i širokog svijeta, živi isto toliko Hrvata koliko i unutar državnih granica. Dakle, 4,5 milijuna ljudi hrvatske narodnosti ili podrijetla. Ta je procjena uvelike pretjerana, a pošto ne postoje bolje mogućnosti statističkog određivanja, prihvatljiv je kriterij da se smatra Hrvatom svaku osobu u svijetu koja po zakonu ima pravo na hrvatsko državljanstvo. A takovih osoba ima preko 1 milijun u Europi, više od 2 milijuna u Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama i Kanadi, 500.000 u Južnoj Americi te 300.000 u Australiji i Novom Zelandu. Od njih oko 25 posto govori ili razumije hrvatski.

I'm lazy to translate it at the moment, but I'm willing to if requested. Duja► 11:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Duja, I appreciate your input, but one must think about this for a moment. Where would the 4 million Croats be!? There's 300,000 or so in the USA and 500,000 in Germany and probably AT MOST 500,000 in Australia. That still leaves over 2 million! So the double counting (or the counting of nonethnic Croats) is definitely not negligible. Horvat Den 19:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm a Serb from Croatia living in Canada. I have been counted as a Croatian in the Canadian census because my passport states that i was born in Croatia. Thus, my "place of origin" is Croatia. Is there a way to remove people such as myself for being included as a Croatian? since we clearly are not Croatian, based on our different cultures. And also based on the divergence of Serbian and Croatian history in the last 18 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Babic (talk • contribs) 13:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Pictures

According to the picture in the infobox, all distinguished Croats are bearded and all Croats are male. Well, it should be more representative, if you know what I mean... For example, Tito wasn't bearded, and he is very known. And if you don't like Tito, you have Pavelić, Tuđman, Maček - all without beard. Also Krleža, Ujević and Ivo Andrić, who was not Serb, but Croat.

Pavelic? I noticed Adolf is not on the Germans article, nor Benito on Italians. Is there the need to make an exception here? Macek and Tudjman might be good examples, despite their controversial characters... but Tito and Andric simply do not belong there. --PaxEquilibrium 23:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A Macek is even more controversial personality than Tudjman, considering he is not an ethnic Croat at all. --PaxEquilibrium 23:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

About those pictures, there could be more, Croats gave many famous people to the world.

I disagree. Macek was a Croat. It is a Croatian name. Andric maybe not, with the fact he was raised by a Bosnian Serb family, but Tito was Croatian. Unfortunately, but he was. Josip is a name common to only one nation, Broz a last name common to only that nation as well.

btw. I know why you write these things. And I think Croats themselves are a better judge who is Croatian and who isn't.

Afrika, like I said - Vladko Macek was a Croatian patriot/nationalist, regardless of the fact that he's not an "ethnic" Croat. His father was Slovene and mother Czech. --PaxEquilibrium 09:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

PaxEquilibrium: I don;t think Tito should be compared to Musolini and Hitler. Totally different characters

If I'm not wrong, the article is about Croats, NOT about good Croats. Wikipedia is about good and bad things alike, you know. And all those who think Tito is not among the most famous Croats (or half-Croats) in the history, they should educate themself better. NB. Hitler emerged on the Austrians page. I would also suggest Marko Marulić, Matija Vlačić and Antun Vrančić. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.198.8.211 (talk) 23:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Iranian theory

The Origins section of the article currently reads "The "Iranian" theory suggests that the Croats are descendants of ancient Persia (cf. Alans), this theory is based purely on linguistic correlation and development of the Croatian name." However, to my knowledge, the Iranian theory doesn't say that the Croats are descendants of an Iranian tribe, only that the name is of Iranian origin, because the Slavic tribe which settled modern day Croatia putatively had a Iranian ruling caste, which lent its name to the entire tribe/people. So, the text should be changed. Cheers Osli73 01:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Diaspora is not the correct word

To refer to people of Croatian ancestry outside of Croatia as a "diaspora" is incorrect. Diaspora is used to refer to peoples who have been forced to leave their homelands. Wikipedia defines diaspora "to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands". To say that people of Croatian descent living abroad have been forced to leave their country is POV and should be changed. Better to use something neutral like "Croats around the world" or other. Please don't take offence, I'm only trying to avoid an incorrect and POV use of words. Regards Osli73 01:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

No, a diaspora does not just include people who have been forced to leave their homeland, but also people who have left by choice and the descendant of those who have left —KingIvan 01:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ivan, please read the definition of diaspora (see my quote from Wikipedia above). Osli73 01:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it says "forced or induced" - meaning they don't have to be forced to leave, but were "induced" into leaving for economic reasons and so on. —KingIvan 08:32, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Image

I don't think Eric Bana is a legitimate representative of the Croat people. He's Australian and only half Croat ethnically. Horvat Den 15:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think he's a pretty good example of the Croat diaspora, but if you truly do believe he shouldn't be included, you could edit the image and replace him with someone else - it's a free image. (I pretty much added him to the image, because I thought it was a bit dull in all black and white, and he was one of the few I could find a free colour image for). —KingIvan 02:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

We should place Nikola Tesla on the images.

I agree. Not only this but could someone tell me who is the person in the first picture? I don't recognize it. Also the 'King Tomislav' picture is of very bad quality, there are images of far better quality such as this http://www.croatianhistory.net/gif/krek24.jpg (painting of Kreković) or a better scan of current picture http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-3/1157859/tomislav.jpg

Anyway I think there are people who deserve to be up there far more, people like nobel prize winners Prelog and Ružička. People like Penkala, Gundulić, Bošković...

Also I looked on Google and I have found better quality images for Vrančić http://www.nsk.hr/UserFiles/Image/Bastina/Portreti%20autora/vrancic-portret(1).jpg http://www.nsk.hr/UserFiles/Image/Bastina/Portreti%20autora/vrancic-portret.jpg, Meštrović (portrait of his when he was younger) http://www.mdc.hr/mestrovic/grafika/fundacija/media/aktivnosti/izlozbena/04-ivan-mestrovic-gtdr.jpg

In the end I think the best composite should be made of: Jelačić, Gundulić, Bošković, Ružička, Prelog, Mohorvičić, Vrančić, Meštrović. I don't know about Klović, but maybe he could be squeezed in as well, maybe making a composite of ten people, like 5 upper and lower line instead of four with a bit smaller sized images. --Tar-Elenion 17:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Look, if you can find good quality, free images of people whom you consider notable enough to be in the picture, then add them to it. I still think all of the current ones should remain, and if you can find some free images of the people mentioned above, then add them to the pic. (P.S, I also have no idea who the first person is, but he was there when I added more people, and I felt uncomfortable removing someone that someone else considers worthy to be on the main picture.) —KingIvan 07:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we should put Goran Višnjić in place of Bana. In my opinion, we should stick to just Croats with ties to Croatia (i.e. more than just ethnicity.) Like Penkala is not an ethnic Croat, yet he represents Croatia more than Bana (who is seen as more Australian). And same with Tesla (who has more ties to Serbia than Croatia) so he shouldn't be there either. I don't know how to change the pictures, but if someone agrees with me, than please do. --Jesuislafete 03:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll replace Bana with Višnjić if you can provide a free/public domain image of him. I currently cannot find a free image of him, but if you can, please direct me to it and I'll add him. —KingIvan 06:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that the image is far too overloading. Do you see any other ethic group-related article with so many images? With all due respect to Klovic's life achievements, I don't think that he can even closely be compared to King Tomislav, Miroslav Krleza, Andrija Mohorovicic, Ivan Mestrovic, Josip Jelacic and Ante Starcevic.

I also suggest removing Ante Starcevic from the pics. I think that we should take as positive as possible people and put there. We'll end up nowhere putting highly controversial figures. --PaxEquilibrium 18:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it probably should be cut down to no more than six. I think the following should stay:

• Ivan Gundulić
• King Tomislav
• Ivan Meštrović
• Miroslav Krleža
• Josip Jelačić
• Andrija Mohorovičić

If no one disagrees with this, I'll make the change. —KingIvan 07:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me. I also agree that we have too many people up there as it is. But I would suggest removing King Tomislav from your list and leaving Faust Vrančić. Tar-Elenion 11:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Nikola Tesla was Serb born in region what today is Croatia.

--Čikić Dragan (talk) 19:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Who the f**k said anything about Tesla check the Serbs page there you will find Tesla. P.S. you are a Serb nationalist, I have seen your comment on how Bosniak muslims should be noted as Serbs by origin. You are blind because of your nationalism I don't say that Bosniak muslims are Croats only but also Serbs. It's stupid to say that someone is something (let's say Serb) if he thinks he isn't.

Let's get back to the page I think you should put Starčević in the picture of famous Croats because he isn't the father of the nation for nothing. You should put out king Tomislav who we know very little of or Jelačić who was very unpopular in Croatia during his lifetime because of his stupid loss of 40 000 Croat lives in fighting against the Hungarian revolution and because of the thing that his economical reformations were pretty bad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carib canibal (talk • contribs) 16:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 23:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

17.85% Croat

What's this about being 'half Croat'. It means someone should be a 100% Croat to actually be a Croat? I suppose there are people like that but then we would create a national body of a few hundred thousand Croats, maybe even less. Take for example Robert De Niro. He is like more Irish than Italian by antcestry but we would still describe him as a man of Italian roots. And he is Italian by origin, not Irish.

You are right even some ˝100%˝ Croats aren't Croats. As an example Krsto Novoselić the bassist of Nirvana who is a 100% croat, during the war in Croatia in 1992, (if he even knew about it) he was protesting about some Erotic music law crap. would you call that a Croat? same with Malkovich although he's only half-cro it's the same thing. I don't think these ˝Croats˝ even know of their ancestry. A good example of croatodom is an amer. football player who is Croat by his mother and his father is dutch german ancestry, He always says that he's a Croat+ he's a Catholic + He has a tatoo of šahovnica on his right shoulder. So you're right you don't have to be a Croat( by blood) at all to be a Croat you only need to think yourself that you're a croat. Carib canibal (talk) 17:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is there...

... a large space left between the intro and rest of the text? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.197.146 (talk) 19:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Twice

All three groups migrated to Europe during the upper paleolithic around 30,000-20,000 BC. Later, neolithic lineages, originating in the Middle East and that brought agriculture to Europe, are present in surprisingly low numbers. - This excerpt occurs twice in Croats#OriginsNorgy (talk) 09:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Croats in France, why no mention?

In the listing of Croats living in other countries around the world, France for some reason was left out or unmentioned. Yugoslavian peoples had long migrated and lived in France. I would love for edits and further inclusion on the number of ethnic Croats living in France. Croatians came to France during WWI, the 1920's/30's, WWII and the 1950's/60s for political (anti-Fascist or anti-Communist) asylum and economic reasons (guest worker program by the French government) to produced Croatian French descendants.

I entered a reference to the Illyrian Provinces of Napoleonic France, which was the name of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia in the early 19th century (1805 to 1821) in Napoleon I's failed attempt to create and establish his idealistic "United Italy empire", as there are Latin (Roman-Greek-Adriatic) influences in Croatian culture which was well enriched by German- Austrian-Hungarian cultural influences. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 07:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Number of Croats

I am deleting source http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=hrv and number which is supported with this source. Reason for deleting is that this source is speaking about language usage and not about number of Croats. --Rjecina (talk) 12:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Remove it then. However, be advised that changing figures without a new source is against the rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.148.41 (talk) 12:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

We must write this step by step. Number of Croats in Croatia is 3977171 [2] . Number of Croats outside Croatia and Bosnia is 4.5 milion [3]. Now I only need number of Croats in Bosnia and we will have final number.--Rjecina (talk) 12:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

So, so far that is around 8.5 million? Correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.165.70.74 (talk) 12:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

If we want to trust CIA site number of Croats is 14.4 % out of 4,590,310 [4] . This number is 656,414 Croats.

Croatia:3,977,171

Bosnia : 656,414

World :4,500,000

---

         9,133,585

We can write 9 millions and delete smaller number ?!--Rjecina (talk) 12:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah I agree to that. Although, I bet a million dollars that within a week, at least one nationalist vandal will come here and try to change that number even though it is sourced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.165.70.74 (talk) 12:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Etymology of "Croat" and "Hrvati"

I can't find anywhere in this article where it explains the etymology of the terms "Croat" and "Hrvati." Can it be added? Badagnani (talk) 21:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Not easily, it needs separate article rather. There are a few theories, not possible to write it in a few sentences. Zenanarh (talk) 22:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

However, something is already mentioned here - Iranian theory, probably the most convincing one. There was an article about Croatian origins where this theory was presented almost in a whole. Unfortunatally that article was deleted, for a very stupid reason: some other theories were blanked first and not editted again, so someone deleted it all. Zenanarh (talk) 22:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Surely that's a slightly different issue, though? Badagnani is referring to the etymology of the word 'Croat', not the origins of Croats as a group (although they will obviously be linked). Cordless Larry (talk) 22:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course, I know what etymology is ;) Iranian theory is actually etymology in the most important part, isn't it?

SaRasVATi (Sanskrit, 3.750 BC), H(A)RahVAiTi - AuRVAT - HARVAT (Zend-Avestan), HuRaVAT (Aryan-Hurrian), ARaQuUTtu (Assyrian, spoken Arvat), ARroMATi - HaRrauMATiš - ARraoVATiš - H(A)RruMATiš (Elamite), H(A)RauVATiš - H(A)RauVATaiia - H(A)RahVATiš - H(A)RauVATiya - H(A)RauVATim - ARruVAuTti - H(A)RraoVATiš (Old-Persian), ARUhaATtu i ARrahUTti (Akkad-Babylonian, spoken H(A)RVAT and HRVAT), HRUhATti (Aramaic), HoRoHoAD (1st century from HoRohVAT), ARiVATes and ARViATes (Latin pre-forms, 1st century), HORoUAThos and HOROAThos (Tanais, 2nd/3th century) CHROATorum (document by king Trpimir I, 852), CRUATorum (Šopot, 9th century), HRoBAToi: read HrOVAToi (DAI), HARVAT - HORVAT - HRVAT (modern forms).

according to the Iranian theory (about name not about people!). Zenanarh (talk) 07:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am referring to the origin of the words "Croat" and "Hrvatski." I see now that there's some discussion of the etymology of "Hrvatski," but don't see where the English "Croat" comes from. Badagnani (talk) 22:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought that 'Croat' was a corruption of 'Hrvat' (think also cravat) but I don't have a reference for that. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

This would seem highly likely. It should be addressed in the article. Badagnani (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

This online etymology dictionary states:

Croat

see cravat.

cravat

1656, from Fr. cravate, from Cravate "Croatian," from Ger. Krabate, from Serbo-Croat Hrvat "a Croat," from O.Slav. Churvatinu "Croat," lit. "mountaineer, highlander," from churva "mountain" (cf. Rus. khrebet "mountain chain"). Cravats came into fashion 1650s in imitation of linen scarves worn by Croatian mercenaries in the French army in the Thirty Years War.

Cordless Larry (talk) 23:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe "Croat" could be simply derived from Medieval graphic forms in Latin (documents written in Latin) - Chroatorum, Cruatorum, or Catalogus ducum et regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae (825),..., probably via Old French to French and then to English, rather than cravate or corruption of Hrvat, just my little POV :). Zenanarh (talk) 08:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I wrote an article on that: Name of Croatia, whose name fits in other "country name etymology" articles here on Wikipedia. Ethnicon is almost 100% of Iranian origin, for a thorough linguistic discussion on it see in the ==External links== section an excerpt from Gołąb's book posted on Cybalist by someone that deals specifically with this issue (and proposes some alt. explanations). That article needs more work though. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:50, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Why not link this Name of Croatia article more clearly in the Croatia and Croat articles? It's basic information that should be easily found in these articles. Badagnani (talk) 04:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I've linked it from this article, feel free to add it to [[Croatia]]. Perhaps the template {main} would be more convenient. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Croatian British. Badagnani (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)