Resources for Croatian Language Hymns

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agp2176

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As some of you may have seen, I belong to and am cantor at an ethnic Croatian Roman Catholic parish. We are Latin Rite as opposed to Eastern.

That said, in an effort to preserve the special character of the parish I am always looking for Croatian language hymns.

I currently have the Hrvatska Misa as published by the Croatian Franciscans. That’s okay, but many of the hymns have no English equivalent and it has only the words.

I am looking from Croatian language translations of “popular” hymns. So far I have:

Amazing Grace – Milost
O Sanctissima – O Najsvetija
Immaculate Mary – Sred Te Se Pećine
What Friend We Have in Jesus - Kakav Prijatelj Je Isus
Nearer My God to Thee – Bliže O Bože Moj
Tantum Ergo – Divnoj Dakle
Come Holy Ghost – Kruže Života
Lord When You Came to Seashore – Krist na Žalu
Holy God We Praise Thy Name - Tebe Boga Hvalimo
O Slautaris Hostia – Riječ svevišnja

The goal here is to introduce Croatian language versions of familiar hymns as teaching hymns that are solely Croatian has a double problem of learned both the melody and words. At least in the case of say, Come Holy Ghost, I can do up song sheets with the Croatian words done phonetically. The melody is no issue there

So any one else have any hymns to share?

God bless

Tony
 
Sorry from bringing this thread from the dead; I’ve just stumbled on it, maybe it could be useful. The list continues with:
  • Abba Father - Abba Oče
  • Adoro Te divote - Klanjam ti se smjerno
  • Alabare (a mi Signor) - Svi slavimo
  • Angels we have heard on high - Mehki snežek
  • As The Deer - Kao košuta
  • Awesome God - Silan Bog
  • The Battle Hymn of the Republic 🙂 - Kriste u tvoje ime
  • Blessed assurance - Sretna sigurnost
  • De colores - De colores
  • Down by the riverside - Hajdemo zajedno
  • Give thanks - Zahvali
  • Go tell it on the Mountain - Idi kaži cijelom svijetu
  • He is Lord he is Lord - On je Bog (or “Ti si Bog”)
  • I am the Bread of Life - Ja sam Kruh Života
  • I’ve got peace like a river - To je mir kao rijeka
  • I will celebrate - Želim klicati
  • Jesu, Dulcis Memoria - Na Isusov se spomen sam
  • Jesus in the morning - Isus u jutro
  • Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho - Braćo moja, radujmo se
  • (the song of st Francis: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace) - Bože moj, dopusti mi
  • My Jesus, My Saviour - Moj Isus
  • O come All Ye Faithful - Pristupite vjerni
  • O when the saints Go Marching in - U onaj dan
  • Seek Ye First - Tražite najprije
  • (melody of) Scaraborough Fair - Obećana Djevica
  • Silent night - Tiha noć
  • Sing Hallelujah To The Lord - Pjevaj aleluja Isusu
  • Stabat mater - Stala plaćuć
  • Veni Sancte Spiritus - Dođi, Duše presveti
Most of the (modern) songs can be found at public.carnet.hr/FBL/scena/pjesmarica/index.php, or just google them. It could happen some of these are Protestant songs, but you’ll know better 🙂

BTW. what did you think by “We are Latin Rite as opposed to Eastern.”? Almost all Catholics in Croatia are Roman / Latin rite…

Enjoy,
Ivki
 
Just curious, Agp, how come you are in a Croatian parish? Is it a big community?
I’m Croatian and very rarely meet Croats abroad.
 
ivki said:
Sorry from bringing this thread from the dead; I’ve just stumbled on it, maybe it could be useful. The list continues with:

BTW. what did you think by “We are Latin Rite as opposed to Eastern.”? Almost all Catholics in Croatia are Roman / Latin rite…

Enjoy,
Ivki
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Hvala Ivki!

This is truly a blessing.

The reason for my statement was that many people upon hearing that we are a Croatian Catholic church assume that this means Greek Catholic. So it was just a clarification

God bless you!

Tony
 
Contra_Mundum said:
Just curious, Agp, how come you are in a Croatian parish? Is it a big community?
I’m Croatian and very rarely meet Croats abroad.
Click to expand...
This is a bit of story. I am ethnic Slovak. When I moved to my community, I joined the local territorial parish. I felt out of place there. So, I was talking to my neighbour and she told me about her parish, St Nicholas. I went, and it was as if I heard my grandpap speaking. All the good strong morals that I learned from him, I heard in the sermon from our priest at the time.

And so – been there ever since – went from parishioner to cantor!

God bless you

Tony
 
ivki said:
BTW. what did you think by “We are Latin Rite as opposed to Eastern.”? Almost all Catholics in Croatia are Roman / Latin rite… Ivki
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Hi Ivki,

Most people from Zumberak are Greek Catholics:eek:

As a matter of fact, one of the first Croatian churches in America was a Greek Catholic church started by Zumbercani…👍
 
I am glad to see there are other Croatians out there. My grandfather was very much involved in the Croatian nationalist movement, so much so that I believe he was wanted in Yugoslavia. I was happy to be able to see him one last time in Croatia just a month before he died in 2005. He always wanted to keep the Croatian culture and language alive in my family, and all my father’s siblings grew up speaking Croatian, even though they lived in Canada. Unfortunately, by the time my father went to school, they told my grandparents that they needed to speak only English in the home or else the children will never learn it properly (a complete lie). He lost any faculty for it later in life, so I never learned it myself. I would like to try to learn Croatian now. Are any of you not native speakers of Croatian? It seems very daunting to someone who has only studied romance languages (and a very little bit of German). There are quite a few declensions, and the vocabulary is all foreign. Is there any particular program you would recommend? Any suggestions of a place to start to become more familiar with the language? Thank you!
 
Patchunky said:
Most people from Zumberak are Greek Catholics:eek:
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Yes that be people in the Eparchy of Križevci. From what I understand there are only a around 5,000 ‘Croatian Greek Catholics’ left, however.
IntegraCatholic said:
It seems very daunting to someone who has only studied romance languages (and a very little bit of German). There are quite a few declensions, and the vocabulary is all foreign. Is there any particular program you would recommend? Any suggestions of a place to start to become more familiar with the language? Thank you!
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As I said, I am ethnic Slovak, but I felt it my duty as the grandchild of immigrants to preserve that wonderful culture that they brought with them. I have been the only one in my generation to attempt to learn that language. This has helped me to not only pick up a few words and phrase in Croatian, but also to be able to pick up a hymn and sing it phonetically, although I must admit t hat I am probably singing it in Croatian with a Slovak accent! 😃

Take a look at your local community college, they may have an intro course. They are easy and fun.

I had a great time staying for a weekend with my former parish priest’s sister in-law and her family in Zagreb. Their English was as good as my Croatian, but a smile and a ‘hvala’ go a long way!

God bless

Tony
 
IntegraCatholic said:
I would like to try to learn Croatian now. Are any of you not native speakers of Croatian? It seems very daunting to someone who has only studied romance languages (and a very little bit of German). There are quite a few declensions, and the vocabulary is all foreign. Is there any particular program you would recommend? Any suggestions of a place to start to become more familiar with the language? Thank you!
Click to expand...
I second the suggestion of doing a Croatian language course. I know a guy who used Teach Yourself Croatian CDs and books and managed to learn. (He did it for fun, no Croatian relation or anything :cool: )
It’s doable although not easy because it really is so different to germanic and romance laguages. In my experience, doing a language course in the country in which it is spoken is the best thing to do. Perhaps you could spend a couple or weeks or so in Croatia and do that? University of Zagreb offers Croatian for foreigners (or something like that) and there are summer courses available too.

My husband (scottish, struggling with Croatian but not giving up) says that listening to the radio helps - that way he gets used to the rhythm of the language, the pronounciation, the words, etc. Also, reading the papers and learning words. (Or perhaps ‘reading’ LOL)

Hope this helps a little bit. Good luck!! (Sretno!)
 
I have some friends who came to Zagreb to prepare the Taize European meeting, and spent 4 months living here. They had no clue about Croatian, but as people here are not so used to speak in English (or at least not to “switch” immediately), they learnt a lot, fell in love with the language and the country and are now learning it in different ways (at their own universities + at universities in Croatia and courses for foreigners).

Two ideas:
  1. Join www.livemocha.com free website for learning languages, including Croatian. It has 4 Croatian, nicely done courses, with pictures, audio, text, translations, tests… Also, it has “social” features, so your native speakers friends can grade your assignments and so on. If you need some help there, feel free to send me a PM.
  2. You could try watching the Croatian TV channels (I suppose you can subscribe somehow via satellite). The really good thing is that we have subtitles, not dubbings, for the foreign shows (which are plentful 🙂 ), so you can read the Croatian translation. And by the way, if anything is easy in Croatian, that’s pronouncing the words 🙂 You can get some TV shows (in Croatian, no subtitles) at: hrt.hr/index.php?id=enz , so you can watch the news 😃 (“Dnevnik”, “Vijesti”)
Yes, good luck 🙂 But once you know the basics, a bunch of languages from slavic family is at hand 🙂
 
ivki said:
IAnd by the way, if anything is easy in Croatian, that’s pronouncing the words 🙂
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That is very true, as everything is pronounced exactly as its spelled, although some words are a bit shy in the vowel department like the name Grgo and the town of Krk. Slovak does this too: Strč prst skrz krk which means stick your finger through your throat.This is unlike English where, given the rules, fish could be spelled GHOTI: GH=F as in tough, O=I as in women, and TI=SH as in action 🤷

God bless

Tony
 
IntegraCatholic said:
Are any of you not native speakers of Croatian?
Click to expand...
Yes. I only started studying it on my own for fun a short while ago.
It seems very daunting to someone who has only studied romance languages (and a very little bit of German). There are quite a few declensions, and the vocabulary is all foreign. Is there any particular program you would recommend? Any suggestions of a place to start to become more familiar with the language? Thank you!
Click to expand...
Compared to Japanese (which I’ve been trying to learn off and on for years), it seems pretty easy. But I’ve just started and have yet to encounter the hard parts.

I’ve been working through a book called Colloquial Croatian by Ivana Jovic. I’m pretty happy with it and would recommend it to you. You can find it on Amazon.
 
I’m guessing this thread is no longer active, but just in case, wanted to let you know there are are some Croatian hymns in the Cyber Hymnal™ at hymntime.com/tch/non/hbs/hbs.htm. We’d glad to consider posting more if someone will contribute them.

God bless,

Dick Adams
 
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