Serbian language

Serbian
српски [srpski] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
Pronunciation	[ˈsr̩pskiː]
Native to	See below under "Official status" in Central and in immigrant communities in Western Europe, as well as Northern America
Region	Central Europe, Southeastern Europe
Native speakers	Over 12 Million
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western Serbian
Official status
Official language in	Serbia Bosnia and Herzegovina Kosovo Regional language in: North Macedonia Croatia Greece Romania Recognized minority language in: Hungary Slovakia
Regulated by	Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Countries where Serbian is an official language.   Countries where it is recognized as a minority language.

Areas where Serbian language is spoken by the majority or plurality of speakers (as of 2006)

Serbian (Serbian Cyrillic: Српски, Latin: Srpski, pronounced [ˈsr̩pskiː]) is a standardized form of the estern Shtokavian dialect of Serbian language used as an official language of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. Serbian is the only European language with active digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croat Ljudevit Gaj in 1830 ("Kratka osnova Horvatsko_Slavonskoga pravopisanja i miroljubivih razgovorov").

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 Bosnian Krajina. 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] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized script: cryl for code: sr (help)) and latin. 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

Cyrillic script	Latin script	IPA	Description	English approximation
и	i	/i/	close front unrounded	seek
е	e	/e/	(open-)mid front unrounded	net
а	a	/a/	open central unrounded	father
о	o	/o/	(open-)mid back rounded	caught (British)
у	u	/u/	closed back rounded	boom

Consonants

The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. Voicing is phonemic, but aspiration is not. The consonant phoneme table for Serbian is as follows (corresponding Cyrillic letters are below the IPA symbols; if the Latin letter is not the same as the IPA symbol, it is shown in parentheses after the Cyrillic letter.)

Consonant Phonemes of Serbian
	Bilabial		Labio- Dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal	/m/ М						/n/ Н				/ɲ/ Њ (Nj)
Plosive	/p/ П	/b/ Б			/t/ Т	/d/ Д							/k/ К	/ɡ/ Г
Affricate					/ts/ Ц (C)				/tʃ/ Ч (Č)	/dʒ/ Џ (Dž)	/tɕ/ Ћ (Ć)	/dʑ/ Ђ (Đ)
Fricative			/f/ Ф		/s/ С	/z/ З			/ʃ/ Ш (Š)	/ʒ/ Ж (Ž)			/x/ Х (H)
Approximant				/ʋ/ [a] В (V)							/j/ J
Trill					/r/ Р
Lateral					/l/ Л						/ʎ/ Љ (Lj)

^{^} В is often also described as a (lowered) fricative ([v̞]), which is phonetically closer. However, on a phonological level, it does not interact with unvoiced consonants as a fricative normally would, but as an approximant.

/r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel in certain words (it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r̩/. A similar feature exists in Czech, Slovak, Macedonian and many other languages. In some vernaculars /l/ can be syllabic as well. However, in the standard language, it appears only in loanwords as in the name for the Czech river Vltava for instance, or дебакл (debakl), монокл (monokl) and бицикл (bicikl).

In Serbian, the phonemes /tʃ/, /cç/, /dʒ/, and /ɟj/ (in contrast to Croatian and Bosnian vernaculars) have an independent phonetic realization in most vernaculars.

Phonetic interactions

While the basic sound system is fairly simple, Serbian phonology is very complicated: there are numerous interactions (sandhi rules) between sounds at morpheme boundaries which cause sound changes, with numerous exceptions. The changes include:

• Two types of iotation
  • So called older, reflected in all Slavic languages
  • So called newer: d, t, l, n + j > đ, ć, lj, nj.
• Three types of palatalization, reflected in all Slavic languages:
  • First, involving shift of velar consonants k, g and h into postalveolar č, ž and š in front of front vowels e and i,
  • Second (also known as "sibilantization"), involving shift of k, g and h into alveolar c, z and s in front of e and i
  • Less-known Third, involving shift of k, g, h into c, z, s after e, i and a. It is not active anymore.
• Voicing and devoicing assimilation
• Assimilation by place of articulation
• Elision in complex consonant clusters
• L-vocalization, where final and pre-consonant *l was changed into an /o/
• "Labile A", referring to sound a occurring only in nominative and genitive plural of nouns with several suffixes (most commonly -ak and -ac): točak ('wheel') (N) → točka (G) → točku (D) etc.

Voicing and devoicing

In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants (i.e. voiceless consonants may precede voiced approximants). In writing, (de)voicing is not reflected in spelling of foreign words ("Washington" would be transcribed as Vašington/Вашингтон), personal names and a number of compound words, where it might introduce ambiguity. Unlike many other Slavic languages, final devoicing is not present in Serbo-Croatian.

Prosody

Accents

Serbian has an extended system of accentuation. From the phonological point of view, it has four accents which are divided into two groups according to their quality:

• there are two accents with falling intonation ("old accents")- the short one and the long one
• there are two accents with rise in intonation ("new accents")- the short one and the long one

However, their realization varies according to vernacular. That is why Daničić and other scholars have given different descriptions of the four Serbian accents. The old accents are rather close to Italian and English accent types, and the new ones to German (this can easily be seen through loanwords).

Here is one phonetic realization of 4 Serbian accents:

Slavicist symbol	IPA symbol	Description
e	[e]	non-tonic short vowel
ē	[eː]	non-tonic long vowel
è	[ě]	short vowel with rising tone
é	[ěː]	long vowel with rising tone
ȅ	[ê]	short vowel with falling tone
ȇ	[êː]	long vowel with falling tone

1. Short falling (kratkosilazni; symbol `` – double grave) as in Mïlica (PNfem). Pronunciation: /ˈmilitsa/ ('i' is stressed and short, as in English thick,cut).
2. Long falling (dugosilazni; symbol ^ -- inverted breve, not a circumflex) as in pîvo ('beer'). Pronunciation: /piːvo/ ('i' is stressed, first low, then high and then again low, as in English seek, Italian Gino, Marco).
3. Short rising (kratkouzlazni; symbol ` – grave)as in màskara ('eye makeup'). Pronunciation: /ˈmaskara/ (the first 'a' is slightly stressed, the second 'a' is higher than the first one, and the third 'a' is lower, as in German Arbeiter, Matratze).
4. Long rising (dugouzlazni; symbol ´) as in čokoláda ('chocolate'). Pronunciation: /tʃɔkɔˈlaːda/ ('a' is stressed, longer than the other vowels, and the intonation is slightly rising, as in German Ballade or Schokolade).

The "finest" realization — the differences between the accents are relatively small, words are pronounced without any special effort—can be found in the most respectable vernaculars of Piva and Drobnjak and in Belgrade and partly in familiar vernaculars in Kolubara district and southwestern Banat. These two groups of vernaculars gave the base for Belgrade old speaker school. Already in surrounding Nikšić (Montenegro), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Užice (Serbia) area stress is more intensive. Modern surveys have shown, for instance, that there is a minimal difference in Piva and Drobnjak (where the family of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić had come from) between the syllables that carry short-stressed accent with fall intonation and the short-stressed with rise intonation. In the first edition of Vuk's dictionary (1818), Vuk even marked these two accents as one and the same accent. The difference between the short-stressed accent with falling accentuation and the short-stressed with rise accent is almost lost in two-syllable words (cf. the surveys of Pavle Ivić on Serbian prosody) ie. the rising one is usually replaced by the falling accent. The informal speech - slang in Belgrade has very special, neutralized accentuation (the oppositions falling/rising, short/long is only partly based on genuine word accents, far more on phonetic letter structure of the word). This can be explained by the fact that some parts of Belgrade are inhabited by the people from the eastern Serbia, where only one accent exists (like in English, for example).

Unstressed lengths

Not only the stressed syllables can be short or long. Other syllables have that feature as well. In neo-shtokavian vernaculars, the unstressed long syllable (unstressed length) can occur only after the accented syllable (these lengths are usually called post-accent lengths. Their symbol is macron (-): dèvōjka ('girl'), Jugòslāvija ('Yugoslavia'), telèvīzija ('television), ìnvāzija ('invasion'). They can also appear not just after the stressed syllable, but further: dögađāj ('event').

The phonetic realization of post-accent lengths is different. In vernaculars of Piva and Drobnjak they are rather very short, without any stress components. In some other East Herzegovinian vernaculars, they are almost stressed (of course, less intense than the really stressed syllable). In many vernaculars — for instance in Belgrade, and in many places in Vojvodina— post-accents lengths are almost lost. That's why foreign students are not expected to pay much attention to them.

Grammar

Main article: Serbian grammar

Conjugation

Main article: Serbian conjugation

Serbian verbs are conjugated in 4 past forms - perfect, aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect - of which the last two have a very limited use (imperfect is still used in some dialects, but majority of native Serbian speakers consider it archaic); 1 future tense (aka 1st future tense - as opposed to the 2nd future tense or the future exact, which is considered a tense of the conditional mood by some contemporary linguists), and 1 present tense. These are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the indicative mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses, the 1st conditional (commonly used in conditional clauses, both for possible and impossible conditional clauses), and the 2nd conditional (without use in spoken language - it should be used for impossible conditional clauses). Serbian has active and passive voice.

As for the non-finite verb forms, Serbian has 1 infinitive, 2 adjectival participles (the active and the passive), and 2 adverbial participles (the present and the past).

Vocabulary

• Most of the words in Serbian are of Slavic origin. That means that their roots continue some words reconstructed for Proto-Slavic language. For instance, srce ('heart'), plav ('blue').

• There are many loanwords from different languages:

1. The number of Turkish loanwords is also significant. There are according to Abdulah Škaljić, ("Turcizmi u srpskom jeziku" - "Svjetlost" Sarajevo), 8,742 Turkish words in the Serbian language, but far fewer than that number are in use today. Most of these words are not Turkish in origin but Arabic or Persian; they entered Serbian via Turkish. However, these words are disappearing from the standard language at a faster rate than loanwords from any other language. In Belgrade, for instance, čakšire (чакшире) was the only word for trousers before World War II, today pantalone (панталоне; a borrowing from Italian) is current; some 30–50 years ago avlija (авлија < Turkish avlı) was a common word for courtyard or backyard in Belgrade, today it is the native Slavic dvorište (двориште); only 15 years ago čaršav (чаршав) was usual for tablecloth, today it is stoljnjak (стољњак). The greatest number of Turkish loanwords were and are in the vernaculars of south Serbia, followed by those of Bosnia and Herzegovina and central Serbia, generally corresponding with how many Muslims live in an area. Many Turkish loanwords are usual in the vernaculars of Vojvodina as well.
2. There are plenty of loanwords from German. The great number of them are specific for vernaculars which were situated in the Austrian monarchy (Vojvodina and partly Bosnia). Most cultural words attested before World War II, were borrowed from (or via) German, even when they are of French or English origin (šorc, boks). The accent is an excellent indicator for that, since German loanwords in Serbian have rising accents.
3. Italian words in standard language were often borrowed via German (makarone). If they were not taken directly from Italian, they show specific, not regular, adaptations. For instance špagète for Italian spaghetti rather than the "expected" špàgete. The most common informal Serbian greeting is "Ćao", after the Italian "Ciao" which coincidently is Slavic in origin as Ciao.
   1. On the other hand, as in Croatia there are plenty of Italian loanwords in the coastal vernaculars, as well as in the vernaculars near the coаst; Serbs in Montenegro use more than those in Serbia.
4. Greek loanwords were very common in Old Serbian (Serbian-Slavonic). Some words are present and common in the modern vernaculars of central Serbia (as well as other areas) and in the standard language: hiljada (хиљада), tiganj (тигањ), patos (патос), jeftin (јефтин). Almost every word of the Serbian Orthodox ceremonies are of Greek origin (parastos (парастос)).
5. The number of Hungarian loanwords in the standard language is small: bitanga (битанга), alas (алас), ašov (ашов)). However, they are present in some vernaculars of Vojvodina and Slavonia and also in historical documents, local literature. Some place names in northern central Serbia as Barajevo, are probably of Hungarian origin..

• Two Serbian words that are used in many of the world's languages are vampire and paprika. Slivovitz and ćevapčići are Serbian words which have spread together with the Serbian food/drink they refer to. Paprika and slivovitz are borrowed via German; paprika itself entered German via Hungarian. Vampire entered most West European languages through German-language texts in the early 18th century and has since spread widely in the world.

Serbian literature

Main article: Serbian literature

Miroslavljevo jevanđelje (The Gospel of Miroslav), a manuscript, ca. 1180

Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevanđelje (Miroslav's Gospel) in 1192 and Dušanov zakonik (Dušan's Code) in 1349. Little secular medieval literature has been preserved, but what there is shows that it was in accord with its time; for example, Serbian Alexandride, a book about Alexander the Great, and a translation of Tristan and Iseult into Serbian. Although not belonging to the literature proper, the corpus of Serbian literacy in the 14th and 15th centuries contains numerous legal, commercial and administrative texts with marked presence of Serbian vernacular juxtaposed on the matrix of Serbian Church Slavonic.

In the mid-15th century, Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and, for the next 400 years there was no opportunity for the creation of secular written literature. However, some of the greatest literary works in Serbian come from this time, in the form of oral literature, the most notable form being Serbian epic poetry. The epic poems were mainly written down in the 19th century, and preserved in oral tradition up to the 1950s, a few centuries or even a millennium longer then by most other "epic folks". Goethe and Jacob Grimm learned Serbian in order to read Serbian epic poetry in original. By the end of the 18th century, the written literature had become estranged from the spoken language. In the second half of the 18th century, the new language appeared, called Slavonic-Serbian. This artificial idiom superseded the works of poets and historians like Gavrilo Stefanović Venclović, who wrote in essentially modern Serbian in the 1720s. These vernacular compositions have remained cloistered from the general public and received due attention only with the advent of modern literary historians and writers like Milorad Pavić. In the early 19th century, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, promoted the spoken language of the people as a literary norm.

Dictionaries

Serious Serbian dictionaries regularly include only, and Serbian only words.

Standard dictionaries

• Rečnik srpskog književnog i narodnog jezika (Dictionary of Serbian standard language and vernaculars) is the biggest dictionary of Serbian and still unfinished. Starting with 1959, 16 volumes were published, about 40 are expected. Works of Croatian authors are excerpted, if published before 1991.

• There are no high-standard volume dictionaries whether of Serbian nor of Croatian language. Matica srpska is preparing one. Several volume dictionaries were published in Croatia (for the Croatian language) since the 1990s (Anić, Enciklopedijski rječnik, Hrvatski rječnik).

Bilingual dictionaries

• Standard dictionaries
• Specialized dictionaries
• Phraseological dictionaries

Etymological dictionaries

There is also a new monumental Etimološki rečnik srpskog jezika (Etymological Dictionary of Serbian). So far, two volumes have been published: I (with words on A-), and II (Ba-Bd).

There are specialized etymological dictionaries for German, Italian, Croatian, Turkish, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, English and other loanwords (cf. chapter word origin).

Dialect dictionaries

• Kosovsko-resavski dialect dictionaries:

Gliša Elezović, Rečnik kosovsko-metohiskog dijalekta I-II. 1932/1935.

• Prizren-Timok (Torlakian) dialect dictionaries:

Brana Mitrović, Rečnik leskovačkog govora. Leskovac 1984.

Nikola Živković, Rečnik pirotskog govora. Pirot, 1987.

Miodrag Marković, Rečnik crnorečkog govora I-II. 1986/1993.

Jakša Dinić, Rečnik timočkog govora I-III.1988-1992.

Jakša Dinić, Timocki dijalekatski recnik ,(Institut za srpski jezik, Monografije 4;ISBN 978-86-82873-17-4) Beograd 2008 ,

Momčilo Zlatanović, Rečnik govora južne Srbije. Vranje, 1998, 1–491.

• East-Herzegowinian dialect dictionaries:

Milija Stanić, Uskočki rečnik I–II. Beograd 1990/1991.

Miloš Vujičić, Rečnik govora Prošćenja kod Mojkovca. Podgorica, 1995.

Srđan Musić, Romanizmi u severozapadnoj Boki Kotorskoj. 1972.

Mihailo Bojanić/ Rastislava Trivunac, Rječnik dubrovačkog govora. Beograd 2003.

Svetozar Gagović, Iz leksike Pive. Beograd 2004.

• Zeta-Pester dialect:

Rada Stijović, Iz leksike Vasojevića. 1990.

Drago Ćupić– Željko Ćupić, Rečnik govora Zagarača. 1997.

Vesna Lipovac-Radulović, Romanizmi u Crnoj Gori– jugoistočni dio Boke Kotorske. Cetinje– Titograd, 1981.

Vesna Lipovac-Radulović, Romanizmi u Budvi i Paštrovićima. Novi Sad 1997.

• Others:

Rečnik sprskih govora Vojvodine. Novi Sad.

Mile Tomić, Rečnik radimskog govora– dijaspora, Rumunija. 1989.

Geographic distribution

Linguistic map of the Republic of Montenegro according to the 2003 census.

Figures of speakers according to countries:

• Serbia: 6,540,699
• Montenegro: 401,382 (as of 2003)
• Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1,600,000
• Germany: around 507,000
• USA:
• Brazil: 233,818 (2001)
• Canada: 55,545 (2001 census, 40,580 of that in Ontario)
• Croatia: 44,629 (as of 2001)
• Republic of Macedonia: 33,315 (2001)
• Romania: 20,377 (2001)
• Australia: 100,000 (2001)

Status in Montenegro

Serbian was the official language of Montenegro until 2007 when the new Constitution of Montenegro replaced the Constitution of 1992. Amid opposition from pro-Serbian parties, Montenegrin language was made the sole official language of the country and Serbian was given the status of a recognised minority language along with Bosnian, Albanian, and Croatian. As per 2003 census results, 63.49% of the population declared their mother language as Serbian, compared to 21.96% who declared as Montenegrin, the latter being mainly concentrated in Old Montenegro.

Differences among similar languages

Main article: Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia

See also

• Description of standard Serbian language
• Notable non-Serbs who were speaking or learning the language
• Romano-Serbian language (mix with Romany)
• Šatrovački (slang form)
• Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
• Serbian nouns
• Serbian proverbs

External links

• Serbian Language and Culture
• Serbian Online Lexicon
• English - Serbian and Serbian - English Dictionary.
• Vokabular - Serbian dictionary
• FunkySerbian.com - Free vocab builder with audio. Also, learn Serbian romantic phrases.
• Standard language as an instrument of culture and the product of national history– an article by linguist Pavle Ivić at Project Rastko
• Dueling Scripts: The Ongoing War Between Latin and Cyrillic, Serbianna.com, 23 January 2007
• Serbian School Learn Serbian online for free.
• Serbian Language and Culture Workshop Serbian courses in Serbia.
• A short English-Croatian/Serbian-Japanese phrase list incl.sound file
• A Basic Serbian Phrasebook

Online dictionaries

• Free English-French-German-Serbian Online Dictionary and Definitions
• Serbian-English-French-German-Latin-Greek-Spanish-Russian Online Dictionary
• English-Serbian-English On-line Dictionary