talk
Now this is something to talk about! First, as a foreign visitor, you will probably find a way to communicate. Most people, especially the younger and in the cities, can speak and understand at least some English. German is also often taught at school, French is restricted to a very thin elite, but Hungarian remains native to 14 percent of the population and is spoken by many more, making them the largest minority group in Serbia.
If you are studying Serbian, Vojvodina may be your best place to start using it. The speech there is slow and clear, indeed it can be so slow that it has become the butt of jokes. But Serbian is by no means the only language you may hear in that province. With over three quarters of the population now claiming Serbian as their mother tongue, it is true that Vojvodina is no longer the linguistic mosaic that it used to be. But it remains ethnically diverse and many Vojvodinians take pride in preserving their various native languages. No less than six are considered official: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, and Rusyn. They may soon be joined by the Serbo-Croatian dialect spoken by the Bunjevci, an ethnic group from northwestern Vojvodina, which is a controversial matter as both Serbs and Croats claim the Bunjevci as their own.
German, or rather its dialect called Danube Swabian, was native to one quarter of Vojvodinaâs population before the Second World War, and spoken by many more. But most ethnic Germans were either deported or killed in the warâs aftermath. With just over three thousand local Germans remaining dispersed throughout Vojvodina today, their dialect is all but extinct. Some members of other tiny minorities, hailing from various parts of the Habsburg Empire the Czechs, the Ukrainians, etc. and the former Yugoslavia the Macedonians, the Albanians, etc. also try to preserve their native languages. Vojvodina is home also to the Roma or Gypsies, many of whom speak their various mother tongues. Last but not least, some of the newest immigrants speak Chinese.
