Serbian language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Serbian
српски језик
srpski jezik
Pronunciation:    [ˈsr̩pskiː]
Spoken in:    See below under “Official status”, besides that in Croatia and as an immigrant’s language spread over Central and Western Europe, as well as Northern America
Region:    Central Europe, Southern Europe
Total speakers:    Over 12 Million
Ranking:    Around 63
Language family:    Indo-European
Balto-Slavic
South Slavic
Western South Slavic
Serbian
Official status
Official language in:     Serbia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Montenegro- 64% of the population[1]
Athos, Greece[2]
Croatia (regional)[3]
Macedonia (regional)
Romania (regional)[4]
Recognized minority language in:
Slovenia[5]
Hungary[6]
Regulated by:    Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1:    sr
ISO 639-2:    srp
ISO 639-3:    srp

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
The Serbian language (Serbian: српски језик) is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora. Standard Serbian is based on the Shtokavian dialect, like the modern Croatian and Bosnian, with which it is mutually intelligible, and was previously unified with under the standard known as Serbo-Croatian. It counts among the official (and minority) languages of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia and Hungary.
The alphabet used to write Serbian is a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet, devised by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. The Serbian Latin alphabet is based on Ljudevit Gaj’s reform.
Serbian orthography is very consistent: it is an approximation of the principle “one letter per sound”. This principle is represented by Adelung’s saying, “Write as you speak and read as it is written”, the principle used by Vuk Karadžić when reforming the Cyrillic orthography of Serbian in the 19th century.

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Serbian Cyrillic script)
South Slavic
languages
and dialects
Western South Slavic
Croatian
Western Štokavian
Čakavian · Kajkavian
Burgenland · Molise
Serbo-Croatian
Štokavian diasystem
Serbian
Eastern Štokavian
Western Štokavian
Torlakian
Slavoserbian
Romano-Serbian · Raška dialects · Shopski dialect
Bosnian
Central Štokavian
Slovene
dialects
Differences between standard
Croatian / Serbian / Bosnian
Non-ISO recognized languages
Montenegrin  · Bunjevac
Šokac
Eastern South Slavic
Church Slavonic (Old)
Bulgarian
Banat · Greek Slavic
Shopski · Meshterski · more
Macedonian
Dialects
Aegean Macedonian
Spoken Macedonian
Standard Macedonian
Transitional dialects
Eastern-Central
Torlak dialects · Našinski
Western-Central
Kajkavian
Alphabets
Modern
Gaj’s Latin1 · Serbian Cyrillic
Macedonian Cyrillic
Bulgarian Cyrillic
Slovene
Historical
Bohoričica · Dajnčica · Metelčica
Arebica · Bosnian Cyrillic
Glagolitic · Early Cyrillic
1 Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet.
v • d • e
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (Serbian: српска/Вукова ћирилица, srpska/Vukova ćirilica, literally “Serbian/Vuk’s Cyrillic alphabet”) is the official and traditional alphabet used to write the Serbian language. It is an adaptation of the Cyrillic alphabet for the Serbian language, and was developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. The alphabet was officially adopted in 1868[citation needed]. A corresponding Serbian Latin script (Serbian: латиница, latinica) is also used to write the language, although it lacks certain phonetic properties, namely the one sound, one letter system.
Karadžić based his alphabet on the Cyrillic alphabet, on the simple principle of “write as you speak and read as it is written” (Serbian: Пиши као што говориш и читај како је написано, Piši kao što govoriš i čitaj kako je napisano). The Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are almost entirely interchangeable, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž counting as single letters.
The Cyrillic alphabet is seen as being more traditional, and has official status in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. During the course of the 20th century the Latin alphabet has become more frequently used, especially in Montenegro, where it is now used almost exclusively. The Cyrillic script also has official and equal status in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was also one of the two official scripts used to write the Serbo-Croatian language in Yugoslavia since its inception in 1918, despite attempts by King Alexander I to abolish the Cyrillic version[citation needed]. With the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbo-Croatian is no longer used officially.
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, together with the works of Krste Misirkov and Venko Markovski, was used as a basis for the Macedonian alphabet.

The alphabet

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

Unique letters

Serbian Dictionary by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, printed in 1818.
The ligatures <Љ> and <Њ>, together with <Џ>, <Ђ> and <Ћ> were developed uniquely for the Serbian alphabet.
Karadžić based the letters <Љ> and <Њ> on a design by Sava Mrkalj, combining the letters <Л> (L) and <Н> (N) with the soft sign (Ь).
Karadžić based <Џ> on a letter in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet.
<Ћ> was adopted by Karadžić to represent the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate (IPA: /tɕ/). The letter was based on and adapted from the letter Djerv, which is the 12th letter of the Glagolitic alphabet. The letter had been used in written Serbian since the 12th century, to represent /gʲ/, dʲ/ and /dʑ/.
Karadžić adopted a design by Lukijan Mušicki for the letter <Ђ>. It was based on the letter <Ћ>, as adapted by Karadžić.
<Ј> was adopted from the Latin alphabet.
<Љ>, <Њ> and <Џ> were later adopted for use in the Macedonian alphabet.
[edit]Differences with the Russian/East Slavic and Bulgarian versions

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet does not use either the Russian hard sign/Bulgarian ŭ (ъ) nor the soft sign (ь), but uses the aforementioned soft-sign ligatures instead.
Does not have Russian/Belorussian Э, the semi-vowels Й or ў, nor the iotated letters Я (Russian ya), Є (Ukrainian ye), Ї (yi), Ё (Russian yo) or Ю (yu), and are instead written as two separate letters: Ja, Je, Jи, Jo, Jy. J can also be used as a semi-vowel.
The letter Щ is not used. When necessary, it is transliterated as either ШЧ (East Slavic words) or ШT (Bulgarian words).
Serbian and Macedonian italic and cursive forms of lowercase letters б, п, г, д, and т differ from those used in other Cyrillic alphabets. That presents an obstacle in UNICODE modeling, as the glyphs differ only in italic versions, and historically non-italic letters have been used in the same code positions. Serbian professional typography uses fonts specially crafted for the language to overcome the problem, but texts printed from common computers (containing East Slavic rather than Serbian italic glyphs) pose a problem