There are many interesting facts about Serbia.
The first question that comes to foreigners’ minds is: ‘Does Serbia use two alphabets?’
One of the most popular and important facts is that people in Serbia do not use just one Serbian alphabet, but two completely different alphabets!
Common to these two scripts is that each letter corresponds to one sound.
Therefore, you will never come across spelling competitions in Serbia.
Synchronous Digraphy
If you go to Serbia, you will notice that everywhere there are signs with the names of places written both in Cyrillic and Latin.
Have you heard of synchronous digraphy?
It is the use of two different alphabets in the same language, at the same time and in the same place.
On traffic signs by the roads, you can often find both Serbian alphabets, and sometimes an inscription in some minority languages, for example, Hungarian. That’s not surprising, because Serbia is a country with many national minorities.
All literate Serbs can read and write in both Serbian alphabets.
They often do not even notice which of these two systems they are using!
If you already know how to speak, write, and read in both Serbian alphabets, try to read the following sentences:
Jelena je пошла на posao врло рано.
Тамо su je дочекале kolege са рођенданском pesmom i огромном tortom.
Nije imala појма kako su сазнали да joj je рођендан, pa se jako обрадовала.
Children in Serbian schools learn to write and read in not one alphabet, but rather two, from first grade!
Note: even though the sentences above are in both Serbian scripts, it’s not allowed to combine the Serbian Latin script and the Cyrillic script in one sentence. These sentences were written just to challenge you if you know both of them!
The History of Serbian Alphabet: Glagoljica (Glagolitic)
The Serbian language belongs to the South Slavic group of languages.
In the second half of the 9th century, some Slavic nations started using a script called Glagoljica.
Interestingly, the Glagolitic letters indicated both sounds and numbers.
Here are a couple of the most important things about Glagoljica:
- It is assumed that theologians and missionaries Cyril (Ćirilo) and Methodius (Metodije) created it.
- It is assumed that Glagoljica is based on the Greek alphabet.
- It is also assumed that some new letters were created for sounds that had no pairs in the Greek language.
- At first, it consisted of 40 letters and was later reduced to 38.
- Glagoljica got its name from an old Slavic word glagolati which means ’to speak’.
After some time, the Glagolitic script was replaced by a new Slavic script – Ćirilica.
The First Serbian Alphabet: Ćirilica (Cyrillic)
The new alphabet, Cyrillic, was quickly adopted.
Because of its letters, it was more suitable than the Glagolitic script which was complicated to read.
It is also thought to be of Greek origin, and some letters have been adopted in an identical form.
It is assumed that Naum and Clement (Kliment) of Ohrid, the disciples of Ćirilo and Metodije, made the first Cyrillic script.
The Cyrillic alphabet is called azbuka. This is not just some random name. Before the linguistic reform of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, every letter had a name. The first two letters of Cyrillic script were (and still are) A and B. The name of the letter A was Az and the name of the letter B was Buki. As you can see, the name Azbuka was derived from these letters’ names.
Why they don’t have names now?
Do you remember that in the introduction of this blog post, we mentioned that in Serbia there’s no such thing as a spelling competition?
Well, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić simplified the Cyrillic script.
Since his linguistic reform, every letter corresponds to one sound, A is A and B is B.
This applies to all 30 letters in the Serbian alphabet.
In one of our previous blog posts, you can find a step-by-step guide to learning Serbian Cyrillic!
But, you might wonder, is the Serbian alphabet the same as the Russian?
Basically, Serbs and Russians use the Cyrillic script, but Serbian and Russian Cyrillic don’t have all the same letters.
Serbian Cyrillic doesn’t have the following Russian letters:
- Ё
- Й
- Щ
- Ъ
- Ы
- Ь
- Э
- Ю
- Я
While the Russian Cyrillic doesn’t have these Serbian letters:
- Ј
- Ћ
- Ђ
- Њ
- Љ
- Џ
Besides that, the Russian alphabet has 33 letters and the pronunciation of letters differs from the letters in Serbian script.
Besides Russian and Serbian, other languages use Cyrillic too! For example: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Tajik (a dialect of Persian), Turkmen, Ukrainian, and Uzbek. These languages also have their own versions of the Cyrillic script.
Many people think that Serbian Cyrillic is the most perfect script, because each letter represents one sound. Maybe some Serbian students would disagree on this topic. 🙂
The Serbian Alphabet: Latinica (Latin)
Later on, Latin script was accepted in Serbia alongside Cyrillic.
The Serbian Latin alphabet also has 30 letters and is called the Abeceda, also by the names of the letters.
In this case, it is the first 4 letters of the Latin alphabet.
As you can see from the picture, there are certain differences between the Latin and Serbian alphabets.
Unlike the Latin alphabet, the Serbian alphabet has letters with a check mark (ć, č, š, ž), followed by the letter đ, while the Serbian language does not use the letters q, w, x, y.
It also has combined letters (letters that consist of two different letters) such as lj, nj, and dž.
The Serbian Latin alphabet was compiled by Ljudevit Gaj.
But why are two scripts used in Serbia?
The Latin script was first implemented at the beginning of the 20th century, during the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca), later called the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Kraljevina Jugoslavija). The language at that time was Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian.
When the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) was founded, Serbo-Croatian was the official language. The SFRJ consisted of six republics, so Macedonian and Slovenian were also the official languages in their respective republics.
With the emergence of the Serbo-Croatian language, it was established that Cyrillic and Latin were two equal scripts and that both should be taught in schools. However, each republic had its own laws regarding the use of language and scripts.
However, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, the teaching of the Cyrillic alphabet was removed from schools in Croatia and Slovenia, while it was still taught in Serbia and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The status of the Cyrillic script is currently questionable in Montenegro.
With the spread of modern technologies and the Internet, the use of the Serbian Latin alphabet increased, but for historical reasons and the desire to preserve Serbian national identity, the Cyrillic alphabet is still widely used across Serbia.
It may sound complicated using two alphabets simultaneously but it’s really not.
We pronounce words in the same way as we write them!
But now…
Which Serbian Alphabet to Learn First: Cyrillic or Latin?
The answer is, as it typically is: it depends.
If your language has Cyrillic script, like Bulgarian or Russian, then it makes sense to start from the Serbian Cyrillic script. However, you will for sure need the Latin script as well in Serbia.
If you are an English speaker or a speaker of another language that uses the Latin script, then starting with the Serbian Latin Alphabet is a good option. You will be familiar with most letters, and you will need to learn just a few more!
Then when you become more comfortable with the Latin script and learn some basics of the language, you can learn the Cyrillic script!
But do you really need to learn the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet?
In Serbia, you can often survive without knowing the Cyrillic alphabet, especially if you visit big cities like Belgrade, Novi Sad, or Niš. However, you will need the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet when you visit smaller towns in Serbia or go to the countryside. Also, Serbs will appreciate you and respect you even more if you know Cyrillic!
In our courses, we start with the Latin script first. When you gain a bit of confidence in the language, we will introduce you slowly to the Cyrillic alphabet.
If you want to become more comfortable with the Serbian alphabets and start learning Serbian, with a few clicks, schedule your Serbian classes online!
