On the pronunciation of Serbo-Croat

Yugoslav names and words appear in the text in their original Serbo- Croat spelling, as they did in the first edition. However, in this revised edition the use of diacritic symbols has been abandoned so as to reduce clutter. No attempt has been made to anglicize words, as this would simply complicate matters. Fortunately, Serbo-Croat is one of the easiest European languages to speak, being strictly phonetic — pronounced as it is written — and each letter retains a fixed sound. Readers cannot go far wrong if the sounds of English vowels and consonants are adopted, with the following exceptions:

• where a "c" appears at the end of a word, as in such names as Jekic, it is pronounced "ch" — in other usage it is "ts", as in cats, flotsam, tse-tse fly, or like the "t" in future
• Dj is pronounced "j" as in just — by itself "j" is always "y", as in young
• "Lj" is roughly equivalent to the sound of "l-ya", clipped as in colliery; similarly, "Nj" resembles the "n" sound as in pinion, canyon
• "r" is sometimes a vowel, strongly rolled; "h" is harsh, or guttural

In many instances, too, "s" and "z" may be pronounced "sh" and "zh" respectively. This is most often the case where proper names are encountered in the text.