It is based on the Western variant of the Shtokavian dialect and uses the Latin alphabet. Differences from other versions include differences in vocabulary, declination of masculine adjectives and word derivation.
During the early 1990s a surge of Croatian nationalism led to introduction of many neologisms and obsolete words into the language, especially in the state-controlled mass media, causing some Croatian linguists and journalists to call it Newspeak. This was a deliberate attempt to assert its separateness from the Serbian language. However, by early 2000s, the usage of many of the new words was abandoned.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump