Breakdown of Nitko ne govori, a ova tišina je sumnjiva.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
a
and / but
ovaj
this (m) / ova (f), ovo (n)
ne
no, not
govoriti
to speak
nitko
nobody
tišina
silence
sumnjiv
suspicious
Questions & Answers about Nitko ne govori, a ova tišina je sumnjiva.
Why do we say ne govori when nitko already means 'nobody'?
This is the rule of double negation, and it is mandatory in Croatian. Whenever you use a negative pronoun like nitko (nobody) or ništa (nothing), the verb must also be negative. In English, 'nobody doesn't speak' sounds wrong, but in Croatian, saying nitko govori would be grammatically incorrect.
How would I say 'Nobody is saying anything' using this same structure?
You would add ništa (nothing) to the sentence, which becomes Nitko ništa ne govori. In Croatian, you can stack multiple negative words in the same sentence, and the verb still stays negative. You literally say 'Nobody nothing doesn't speak'.
The English translation uses 'and', so why does the Croatian sentence use a instead of i?
The conjunction i is used for simply adding similar things together. The conjunction a is used when there is a slight contrast, a shift in scene, or a change in focus between two clauses. Here, the focus shifts from the lack of people speaking to the nature of the tišina (silence).
Why does the adjective sumnjiva end in -a?
Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. It describes tišina (silence), which is a feminine noun. Therefore, the base masculine adjective sumnjiv (suspicious) takes the feminine ending -a.
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