Google translate lists different options for Croatian and Serbian language. But does it provide different translations? I tested on the following excerpt of relatively simple English text, taken from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz:
Here are the comparative results:
"Croatian" translation Jednog od njihovih platforma stepenice spustili u kuću, a djeci i čarobnjaka istražuju nakon rasvjeta jedna fenjer pokazati im put. Nekoliko priča prazna soba nagrađeni potrazi, ali ništa više, tako da nakon nekog vremena da se vrati na platformi ponovo. Da li je bilo koja vrata ili prozora u donjem sobe, ili nije trenice kući bio tako gust i debeo, bijeg mogao biti lako, ali da ostane ispod je kao biti u podrum ili držati na brodu, i oni nisu poput tame ili vlažnom mirisati. |
"Serbian" translation Jednog od njihovih platforma stepenice spustili u kuću, a deci i čarobnjak istražuju nakon rasveta jedna fenjer pokazati im put. Nekoliko priča prazna soba nagrađeni potrazi, ali ništa više, tako da nakon nekog vremena da se vrati na platformi ponovo. Da li je bilo koja vrata ili prozora u donjem sobe, ili nije trenice kući bio tako gust i debeo, bijeg mogao biti lako, ali da ostane ispod je kao biti u podrum ili držati na brodu, i oni nisu poput tame ili vlažno mirisati. |
The expected differences are in the Ijekavian : Ekavian pairs (i.e. in one letter): (deprecated template usage) gdje : (deprecated template usage) gde, (deprecated template usage) vidjeti : (deprecated template usage) videti, (deprecated template usage) djeca : (deprecated template usage) deca.
There is one word wrong in the Serbian translation: Ijekavian (deprecated template usage) bijeg has its proper Ekavian pair (deprecated template usage) beg.
There is only one other difference, the Serbian translation has drveta where Croatian has drva, for the translation of "wood". The lemma form of this word is drvo, and it's the same in both of the standards (being an inherited word). However it has the dual inflection: the usual thematic, and the consonatal t-stem, the latter one only with the sense "tree in growth" (drvo can mean both "wood", and "tree"). The preposition of (translated as od) binds the genitive case, which is drva and drveta respectively.
So it appears that the Google Translate engine uses the same algorithm to translate both of these "langauges". It also apparently uses the same lexical database, with items that are different among the standards tagged as "Serbian" and "Croatian" respectively. Sometimes these are not even properly tag (as in the case of bijeg).
Note also, since Serbian is standardized in both Ekavian and Ijekavian variety, the only difference among the translation would be in the abovementioned inflection of drvo.