Serbian language

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Serbian
српски
srpski
Pronunciation [ˈsr̩pskiː]
Spoken in See below under "Official status" in Central and in immigrant communities in Western Europe, as well as Northern America
Region Central Europe, Southeastern Europe
Total speakers Over 12 Million
Ranking Around 63
Language family Indo-European

• Balto-Slavic
  • Slavic
    • South Slavic
      • Western South Slavic[1]
        • Serbian

Official status
Official language in  Serbia
 Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Kosovo
 Montenegro[2]
Regional language in:
 Macedonia
 Croatia^{[citation needed]}
 Greece
 Romania[3]

Recognized minority language in:  Hungary[4]

 Slovakia[5]

Regulated by Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1 sr
ISO 639-2 srp
ISO 639-3 srp

     Countries where Serbian is an official language.      Countries where it is recognized as a minority language.

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Serbian (Serbian Cyrillic: Српски, Serbian Latin: Srpski, pronounced [ˈsr̩pskiː]) is a South Slavic language, spoken mainly in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora. Serbian is the official language in Serbia, one of the official languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and a minority language in Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Slovakia.[6] Standard Serbian is based on Stokavian dialect[7]. Standard Serbian is mutually intelligible with Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin, and most linguists still regard the four as just one genetic language—Serbo-Croatian.[8]

Serbian is the only European language with active digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. Latin alphabet is the same as for other Serbo-Croatian varieties, and based on the Ljudevit Gaj reforms.

History

Before 1400, most Serbian vernaculars had two accents, both with fall intonation—the short one and the long one. That is why they are called "old accents". By 1500, the old accents moved by one syllable towards the beginning of the word, changing their quality to rising accents. For instance, junâk (hero) became jùnāk. The old accents logically remained only when they were on first syllable. Not all dialects had this evolution; those who had it are called neo-shtokavian. The irradiation point was in east Herzegovina, between Prokletije mountains and town of Trebinje. Since the 16th century people had been emigrating from this area. The biggest migrations were to the north, then toward Military Krajina and to the seaside (Dalmatia, Istria, Dubrovnik area, including the islands of Mljet and Šipan). In the 1920s and 1930s the royal government tried to settle people from this poor mountainous area to the Kosovo basin. Vojvodina was settled with inhabitants from this area after WWII.

When all old accents had moved to the beginning of the word for one syllable, this was the result:

• In words with two or more syllables the last syllable cannot be stressed
• One-syllable words can have only falling accents
• In polysyllabic words, if an inner syllable is stressed, then it can have only a rising accent (there are exceptions - in standard and in many vernaculars, for instance when there is a ` - - combination)
• In a word with two or more syllables, if the first syllable is stressed, than it can have any of the four accents.

Writing system

Standard Serbian language uses both Serbian Cyrillic script (ћирилица) and Serbian Latin script (latinica). Although Serbian language authorities recognize the official status for both scripts in contemporary standard Serbian language, due to historical reasons, Cyrillic was made the Official script of Serbia's administration by the 2006 Constitution[9]. But the law does not regulate scripts in standard language, or standard language itself by any means, leaving the choice of script as a matter of personal preference and to the free will in all aspects of life (publishing, media, trade and commerce, etc), except in government paperwork production and in official written communication with state officials. Serbian is a rare and excellent example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them.

Alphabetic order

The sort order of the ćirilica (ћирилица) alphabet:

• Cyrillic order (called Azbuka (азбука): А Б В Г Д Ђ Е Ж З И Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О П Р С Т Ћ У Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш

The sort order of the latinica (латиница) alphabet:

• Latin order (called Abeceda (абецеда): A B C Č Ć D Dž Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S Š T U V Z Ž

The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, along with the Serbian Latin equivalent and the IPA value for each letter, in Cyrillic sort order:

Cyrillic Alphabet
Latin alphabet
IPA А а
A a
/a/ Б б
B b
/b/ В в
V v
/ʋ/ Г г
G g
/ɡ/ Д д
D d
/d/ Ђ ђ
Đ đ
/dʑ/ Е е
E e
/ɛ/ Ж ж
Ž ž
/ʒ/ З з
Z z
/z/ И и
I i
/i/
Cyrillic Alphabet
Latin alphabet
IPA Ј ј
J j
/j/ К к
K k
/k/ Л л
L l
/l/ Љ љ
Lj lj
/ʎ/ М м
M m
/m/ Н н
N n
/n/ Њ њ
Nj nj
/ɲ/ О о
O o
/ɔ/ П п
P p
/p/ Р р
R r
/r/
Cyrillic Alphabet
Latin alphabet
IPA С с
S s
/s/ Т т
T t
/t/ Ћ ћ
Ć ć
/tɕ/ У у
U u
/u/ Ф ф
F f
/f/ Х х
H h
/x/ Ц ц
C c
/ts/ Ч ч
Č č
/tʃ/ Џ џ
Dž dž
/dʒ/ Ш ш
Š š
/ʃ/

Phonology

South Slavic
languages
and dialects
Western South Slavic
Central South Slavic diasystem
Bosnian
Štokavian dialect
Croatian
Štokavian dialect
Čakavian · Kajkavian
Burgenland · Molise
Serbian
Štokavian dialect
Ekavian · Ijekavian · Younger Ikavian
Torlak dialect
Slavoserbian
Serbian Romany · Šop dialect · Užice dialect
Slovene
dialects
Prekmurian dialect · Resian dialect
Differences between standard
Bosnian · Croatian · Serbian