SERBIA
Language

Cities in SERBIA

Belgrade

Language

The official language in Serbia is Standard Serbian (formerly Serbo-Croatian), one of the eastern variants of the Central South Slavic language; Croatian is a western variant. Serbian is an Indo-European language that is closely related to Slavic languages such as Russian, Czech and Polish. Due to the long Ottoman (Turkish) rule, modern Serbian contains many words of Turkish origin. Serbian is spoken in Serbia and in the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Furthermore, there are large Serb communities in Chicago, Melbourne and Toronto.

Written Serbian uses both an ordinary Latin alphabet and a Cyrillic alphabet of 25 consonants and five vowels. Whatever alphabet is used, Serbian is written entirely phonetically, even foreign names like Džon Mejdžor (John Major) and Ðordž W. Buš (George Bush). The Cyrillic alphabet is still widely used in Serbia and has even undergone a revival since the break-up of Yugoslavia and the rise of Serbian nationalism. They wanted to distinguish themselves so clearly from Croatian and Bosnian, which only use the Latin alphabet.

The northern Albanian Gheg dialect is the first language of the Kosovar Albanians, while the Hungarian and Romanian minorities in Vojvodina also learn to speak, write and read their mother tongue in addition to Serbian.

Most Roma in Serbia speak their own Roma language among themselves, although many different dialects are spoken in different regions of Serbia. Although Roma has a written form, few Roma are able to read and write in this language, while they can read and write Serbian.

Some Serbian words:

• Yes – da
• No – ne
• Hello – zdravo of cao
• Good morning – dobro jutro
• Good afternoon – dobar dan
• One – jedan
• Two – dva
• Three – tri
• Ten – deset
• Monday – ponedeljak
• Wednesday – sreda
• Sunday – nedelja
• January – januar
• May – maj
• December – decembar
• Bread – hleb
• Butter – maslac
• Salt – sol
• Breakfast – dorucak
• Dinner – vecera
• Lunch - rucak

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Sources

Detrez, R. / Servië-Montenegro : mensen, politiek, economie, cultuur, milieu
Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen ; Novib

Milivojevic, J. / Serbia
Children’s Press

Mitchell, L. / Serbia
Bradt Travel Guides

Schuman, M.A. / Serbia and Montenegro
Facts On File

CIA - World Factbook

BBC - Country Profiles

Last updated March 2024
Copyright: Team The World of Info