You will not need Bosnian. Anyone under about forty in Sarajevo speaks usable English, often very good English, and the hospitality trade speaks it fluently. What Bosnian buys you is a different reception. This is a country that gets few enough visitors making the effort that dobar dan and hvala land as a small compliment rather than as a tourist's party trick.
A caution on everything below. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country of roughly three million people, three constituent peoples, two entities and a great many opinions, and no set of generalisations survives contact with an actual person. Treat this as a starting point, not a rulebook.
The fifteen
These are lifted straight from the phrasebook, so the spelling and the pronunciation guide match the audio exactly. Tap Hear it on any of them to open that phrase in the phrasebook and play it.
- Dobar dan DOH-bar DAHN Good day (more formal) Hear it: Dobar dan, Good day (more formal)
- Zdravo ZDRAH-voh Hello Hear it: Zdravo, Hello
- Drago mi je DRAH-goh mee yeh Nice to meet you Hear it: Drago mi je, Nice to meet you
- Kako ste? KAH-koh steh How are you? Hear it: Kako ste?, How are you?
- Dobro sam, hvala DOH-broh sahm, HVAH-lah Fine, thanks Hear it: Dobro sam, hvala, Fine, thanks
- Molim MOH-leem Please Hear it: Molim, Please
- Hvala HVAH-lah Thank you Hear it: Hvala, Thank you
- Hvala vam puno HVAH-lah vahm POO-noh Thank you very much Hear it: Hvala vam puno, Thank you very much
- Nema na čemu NEH-mah nah CHEH-moo You're welcome Hear it: Nema na čemu, You're welcome
- Izvinite eez-VEE-nee-teh Excuse me (getting attention) Hear it: Izvinite, Excuse me (getting attention)
- Žao mi je ZHAH-oh mee yeh Sorry Hear it: Žao mi je, Sorry
- Govorite li engleski? GOH-voh-ree-teh lee EN-gleh-skee Do you speak English? Hear it: Govorite li engleski?, Do you speak English?
- Ne razumijem neh rah-ZOO-mee-yem I don't understand Hear it: Ne razumijem, I don't understand
- Živjeli ZHEEV-yeh-lee Cheers! Hear it: Živjeli, Cheers!
- Doviđenja doh-vee-JEH-nya Goodbye Hear it: Doviđenja, Goodbye
Why "please" is on that list
Because molim is genuinely useful, and it does three jobs. It is "please" on the end of a request. It is "you're welcome" after someone thanks you. And said on its own with a rising tone it is "sorry, what?", which is the single most valuable thing you can say when a reply arrives faster than you can parse it.
Dobar dan leads the list rather than zdravo because it is the safer of the two. Zdravo is fine with people your own age and younger. Dobar dan works with everyone: shopkeepers, older people, officials, anyone behind a counter. Getting this the wrong way round is the commonest small error visitors make.
What the language is called
Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin are, linguistically, one language. Speakers understand each other completely. Politically they are four, and which name a person uses tells you something about them. In Sarajevo, say bosanski. "Serbo-Croatian" is the old Yugoslav term and now sounds either nostalgic or pointed, depending on who hears it. It is not worth the ambiguity.
The differences that do exist are small and mostly vocabulary. Bosnian keeps more Turkish borrowings, particularly around food, coffee and hospitality, so kahva for coffee where a Serb might say kafa, and sat for hour and clock alike. Nobody will correct you for using the wrong one.
Two alphabets. Bosnian is written in Latin and Cyrillic, and both are official. Sarajevo runs on Latin, so this phrasebook does too, and you will not need to read Cyrillic in the city. Cross into Republika Srpska, which includes East Sarajevo and the road to Belgrade, and signage flips to Cyrillic. Learning to sound out the road signs is an hour well spent if you are driving.
The spelling is phonetic. One letter, one sound, always, which makes it far more forgiving than it looks. The ones worth knowing: c is "ts", č and ć are both roughly "ch", š is "sh", ž is the "s" in "measure", j is "y", and đ and dž are both roughly "j" as in "jam". Read anything exactly as written and you will be understood.
Coffee is a ritual, not a drink
This is the thing to actually understand about Sarajevo. Coffee is not caffeine delivery and it is not a fifteen minute break. It is the social unit of the day, and an invitation na kahvu means an hour or two of sitting, not a quick cup. Drinking it fast, or taking it away in a paper cup, misses the point so completely that it reads as slightly sad.
Bosnian coffee arrives as a small copper pot, the džezva, a handleless cup called a fildžan, a sugar cube and usually a piece of Turkish delight. Pour a little, let the grounds settle, and do not stir the pot. The traditional method is to hold the sugar cube in your teeth and drink through it, or dip it first. The grounds at the bottom are not to be drunk. Espresso and cappuccino are everywhere too, and ordering one is not a failure.
The related word is ćeif, which has no clean English translation: the particular pleasure of doing something slowly and entirely for its own sake. It is the closest thing Bosnia has to a national value, and it is the opposite of an efficient itinerary.
The war, and what not to ask
Sarajevo was besieged for nearly four years, from 1992 to 1996, the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. Everyone you meet over about thirty-five lived through it or left because of it. The evidence is still in the buildings, and the sarajevske ruže, the Sarajevo Roses, are mortar scars in the pavement filled with red resin where people were killed.
Two rules follow, and they are the most important things on this page.
Do not open with it. People will talk about the war, sometimes at length and with startling directness, but let them choose the moment. Arriving as a visitor and steering the conversation to the siege within ten minutes is a well known and unwelcome tourist habit. The city is not a memorial and the people living in it are not exhibits.
Do not ask which group someone belongs to. Bosniak, Croat, Serb, or none of the above, it is not a neutral question, and asking it tells your host you have arrived expecting to sort them into a box. Do not guess from a name either. Sarajevo has always been a mixed city and plenty of people are mixed themselves, which is precisely the thing the war was fought over. Related: do not offer confident opinions about the Dayton Agreement, Republika Srpska, or who was to blame. Ask questions and listen.
Genocide denial is a live and painful issue, particularly regarding Srebrenica. If you go to the Tunnel of Hope, the Srebrenica gallery, or the History Museum, go quietly and do not take cheerful photographs of yourself there.
A city of four faiths on one street
Within a few hundred metres of the old town you will find a mosque, an Orthodox church, a Catholic cathedral and a synagogue, which is why the city calls itself the Jerusalem of Europe. Sarajevo is majority Bosniak and therefore culturally Muslim, but it is a secular and relaxed place: alcohol is sold openly, headscarves are a minority choice, and the call to prayer is part of the soundscape rather than a summons for most people.
Practical notes. Dress modestly to enter a mosque, cover your head if you are a woman, take your shoes off, and do not go in during prayers unless invited. During Ramadan, daytime eating in the street is best avoided out of courtesy, and the city becomes extraordinary after sunset. Pork is served in plenty of places but is absent from others without comment, which is why the phrasebook carries Ima li ovo svinjetine? rather than assuming.
Hospitality is not optional
The word to know is bujrum, a Turkish borrowing meaning roughly "come in", "help yourself", "please do". You will hear it constantly. If you are invited into a home you will be fed, and the offer will be repeated after you decline, because declining once is treated as politeness rather than as an answer. Accept something, even a small something. Take a gift: sweets, coffee, flowers, or something from home.
Shoes come off at the door of any home, always, without discussion. Slippers will usually be offered.
Greetings are a handshake, firm, with eye contact, for everyone in the room including children. Close friends do the three cheek kiss, starting on the left. Among Bosniaks you will hear merhaba and selam as greetings. You can use merhaba comfortably in the old town. Do not reach for selam alejkum unless you are Muslim yourself, since it carries a religious claim that merhaba does not.
Practicalities that catch visitors out
- Money
- The convertible mark, konvertibilna marka, written KM or BAM. It is pegged to the euro at just under two marks to one, so halving a price in marks gives you euros near enough. Get the peg the wrong way round and you will think everything is twice the price it is.
- Cash
- Still essential, which is the opposite of Scandinavia and catches people out. Cards work in hotels, supermarkets and the better restaurants, but ćevapi counters, taxis, market stalls, small cafés and the bus to Mostar are cash. Carry small notes. ATMs are plentiful; ones charging no fee of their own are less so.
- Tipping
- Round up, or about ten per cent for a proper meal. It is genuinely appreciated rather than expected, and it is not the American obligation. Leave it in cash on the table even when you pay the bill by card.
- Trams and trolleybuses
- Buy the ticket before you board, from a kiosk, then validate it in the machine on the tram itself. A ticket bought from the driver costs more. An unvalidated ticket counts as no ticket at all, and inspectors do check. This trips up more visitors than anything else on this list.
- Taxis
- Metered and cheap by British standards. Insist on the meter, or agree the fare first. Sarajevo Taxi and Žuti Taxi are the reliable ones, and both can be called or booked through an app.
- Smoking
- Indoors, in cafés, commonly. The law has tightened but enforcement is patchy. If this matters to you, sit outside, which is where everyone wants to sit anyway.
- Water and air
- Tap water is excellent and comes off the mountains. The air is not: Sarajevo sits in a bowl and suffers a serious winter inversion, so between November and February the pollution can be among the worst in Europe. Check before you plan a hilltop walk.
- Ordering burek
- In Bosnia, burek means the meat one and nothing else. Cheese is sirnica, spinach and cheese is zeljanica, potato is krompiruša. Asking for "burek with cheese" is the most reliable way to mark yourself as a visitor, and the person serving you will enjoy it.
- Ćevapi
- Ordered by the count, usually five or ten, and served in somun flatbread with raw onion and kajmak. Sarajevo argues with Banja Luka and Travnik about whose are best. Having a view on this is a good way into a conversation.
Time, and the pace of things
Social time is elastic. Turning up fifteen or twenty minutes after the agreed time for a coffee or a dinner is normal rather than rude, and the British instinct to apologise profusely for it will confuse people. Business and official appointments are a different matter and run to the clock.
Bureaucracy, by contrast, is slow and paper heavy, a genuine legacy of a state built by a peace treaty. If something official needs doing, allow the whole morning, take your passport, and expect a numbered ticket.
Beyond Sarajevo
Everything above holds for the city. Outside it, two things shift. English gets thinner quickly in small towns and among older people, so the phrasebook earns its keep more in Jajce or Trebinje than on Ferhadija. And in Republika Srpska, the Cyrillic alphabet and Serbian vocabulary are the norm, and the politics are sharper. The phrases in here are understood perfectly everywhere in the country. Where they might land as a statement rather than as a courtesy is a matter of the ear that hears them, not of the words.
Mostar is a two hour drive or a spectacular train ride south, and the train is one of the best value scenic journeys in Europe. Book the train, do not just turn up, and take cash.
If you remember only three things
- Dobar dan and hvala will carry you through almost every interaction.
- Do not raise the war first, and never ask which group someone belongs to.
- Carry cash in marks, and never hurry a coffee.