Javni bilježnik utvrđuje istovjetnost stranke.

Yes. Javni bilježnik is the standard Croatian term for a notary public.

• javni = public
• bilježnik = notary / record-keeper in this legal sense

As a phrase, it functions as one legal title. Croatian often uses an adjective + noun where English uses a fixed job title.

Because javni has to agree with bilježnik in:

• gender: masculine
• number: singular
• case: nominative

Here, bilježnik is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative singular, and the adjective matches it:

• javni bilježnik = masculine singular nominative

If the noun changed, the adjective would change too.

Here utvrđuje means something like:

• establishes
• verifies
• ascertains
• determines

In legal or administrative Croatian, utvrditi / utvrđivati is a very common verb for officially establishing a fact.

So this is not just casual finding out. It sounds formal and procedural.

Utvrđuje is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• from the imperfective verb utvrđivati

It agrees with the subject javni bilježnik = he/she/it establishes.

In legal language, the present tense is often used for:

• general procedures
• official duties
• rules
• statements of what is normally done

So it can sound like The notary verifies... in the sense of standard procedure.

Istovjetnost means identity or sameness, and in legal/administrative usage it often refers to a person’s identity being established.

This is a fairly formal word. In everyday speech, learners may more often meet identitet, but istovjetnost is very common in official Croatian.

So in this sentence it means the notary is verifying the identity of the person/party involved.

Because stranke depends on istovjetnost.

This is a noun + genitive structure:

• istovjetnost = identity
• stranke = of the party / of the client

So literally it is the identity of the party.

Croatian often expresses this kind of relationship with the genitive case, where English uses of.

Stranke is genitive singular.

It is genitive because it follows the noun istovjetnost and tells us whose identity is being established:

• istovjetnost stranke = the identity of the party/client

This is a very common pattern in Croatian:

• ime osobe = the name of the person
• adresa tvrtke = the company’s address
• istovjetnost stranke = the identity of the party/client

Not here.

Stranka can mean different things depending on context:

• customer/client
• party in a legal or administrative process
• political party

In this sentence, because the context is legal and involves a notary, stranka means the party involved or the client, not a political party.

Because Croatian has no articles.

There is no direct equivalent of English a/an or the. Croatian usually leaves definiteness to:

• context
• word order
• the situation
• sometimes additional words if needed

So Javni bilježnik utvrđuje istovjetnost stranke can naturally correspond to English with the even though Croatian does not say it explicitly.

Yes, istovjetnost is the direct object of utvrđuje.

It is in the accusative singular, but for many feminine nouns ending in -ost, the nominative and accusative forms are the same:

• nominative: istovjetnost
• accusative: istovjetnost

So even though the form does not change, its role in the sentence does:

• subject: javni bilježnik
• verb: utvrđuje
• object: istovjetnost stranke

Yes, Croatian word order is more flexible than English, because case endings show grammatical relationships.

For example, other orders may be possible in context, but the neutral and most natural legal-style order here is:

• Javni bilježnik utvrđuje istovjetnost stranke.

This is a straightforward subject + verb + object order, which is clear and standard.

In official or legal language, Croatian often prefers this kind of orderly, neutral structure.

The main things English speakers usually notice are these letters and combinations:

• j = like English y
  • javni sounds roughly like YAHV-nee
• lj = a soft ly sound
  • bilježnik
• ž = like the s in measure
• đ = a soft sound similar to j in Jeff, but palatalized
  • utvrđuje

Very rough pronunciation guide:

• Javni ≈ YAHV-nee
• bilježnik ≈ bee-LYEZH-neek
• utvrđuje ≈ oot-VRJU-ye or oot-VRDJOO-ye approximately
• istovjetnost ≈ ees-toh-VYET-nost
• stranke ≈ STRAHN-keh

The exact pronunciation depends on accent, but those are good learner approximations.

Yes, identitet stranke is understandable and can also occur, but istovjetnost stranke sounds especially formal and administrative.

A rough distinction is:

• identitet = identity
• istovjetnost = identity / sameness, often in official verification language

In this kind of legal sentence, istovjetnost sounds very natural and institutional.