Ever since Croatia’s independence, Croatian language has gone through one reform after another. The objective of all these reforms has been to make the language as different from Serbian as possible. Since my “return” eleven years ago, I have been surprised by weird words again and again. Many of them are incomprehensible. Thus I make sure to switch to English whenever I come across new Croatian words in bulk. For instance, I would never use Croatian in my word processing or spreadsheet software. The same is true whenever I go to an automatic teller machine. I switch to English to avoid confusion. Now that I have to fill all sorts of forms in connection with taxes, I am often lost in translation. I have no idea what a particular form is about or what is wanted from me. The language I find there is atrocious. But I just found a new word that quite stunned me: nadnevak. I guessed what it could be only from its place in a form, but I was still amazed by the invention. It means “date” and it replaces the old datum. The Latin word for “given” has given us both “date” and “data” in English, but it was not good enough for the zealous Croatian linguists. By the way, the main problem with the old word is that it is used in Serbian, as well. God forbid. Now I find myself walking around and spouting the crazy word every once in a while. “Nadnevak,” I twist my mouth in mock seriousness. Each and every time I burst into laughter without fail.

Addendum (February 12, 2017)

I just went through the ordeal of filling the main Croatian tax form once again. The stupidity of the document is mind-boggling, to say the least. When I was finished, I came to the date one more time. Before I signed the form, I chuckled at the moronic word. “Nadnevak,” I read it aloud, “nadnevak!” Only then I noticed yet another gem of Croatian bureaucracy. Namely, the place where the date is to be written is divided into three rows of boxes—one each for the day, month, and year the document is signed. The first two have two boxes each, but the third one has no less than five boxes. Five?! The only rational explanation of this feature of the main tax form is that it will not be changed for the next eight-thousand years or so. Behold, the Croatian tax authority is not fooling around with time.