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	7 million
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Western Serbo-Croatian Serbian
Dialects	Shtokavian (standard) Torlakian
Official status
Official language in	Serbia Bosnia and Herzegovina Mount Athos Recognized minority language in: Hungary Slovakia
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.

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

Serbian (Serbian Cyrillic: Српски, Gaj's Latin Alphabet: Srpski, pronounced [ˈsr̩pskiː]) is a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as an official language of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. The same subdialect of Shtokavian is also the basis for the mutually intelligible standards of Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. Indeed, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, "Croatian", "Bosnian", and "Serbian" are considered to be three names for the same official language.

Serbian is the only European language with active digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by German-Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830 and is used by the other standard forms of Serbo-Croatian.

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, then 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) / ćirilica) and Gajs Latin script (latinica / латиница).

Although Serbian language authorities recognize the official status for both scripts in contemporary standard Serbian language for more than half of a century now, due to historical reasons, Cyrillic was made the Official script of Serbia's administration by the 2006 Constitution. However, 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

Main article: Serbo-Croatian phonology

Vowels

The Serbian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The vowels are as follows:

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 phoneme pairs /tʃ///tɕ/ and /dʒ///dʑ/ (in contrast to Croatian and Bosnian vernaculars) have an independent phonetic realization in most vernaculars.

Accent

Serbian has both pitch accent and vowel length. Two tones combine with two lengths to make four "accents" in stressed syllables:

• two accents with falling tone ("old accents"), long and short
• two accents with rising tone ("new accents"), long and short

The exact pronunciation varies with dialect, so varying descriptions have been given by Daničić, Budmani, Matešić and other scholars. The "old" accents are rather similar to Italian and English stress, while the "new" ones are more similar to German, as can be seen through loanwords.

Although distinctions of pitch only occur on stressed syllables, unstressed vowel maintain a length distinction. These are considered two additional accents. In the standard language, the accents are realized as follows:

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 Užice 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) i.e. 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. In neo-shtokavian vernaculars, the unstressed long syllable (unstressed length) can occur only after the accented syllable (thus are also called post-accent lengths). Their symbol is macron (-): dèvōjka ('girl'), telèvīzija ('television'), ìnvāzija ('invasion'). They can appear not just after the stressed syllable, but later: dòstavljānje ('delivering'). There can be more than one post-accent length in a word, notably in genitive plural of nouns: kȍcka ('cube') > kȍcākā ('of cubes').

The phonetic realization of post-accent lengths varies. In vernaculars of Piva and Drobnjak they are rather very short, without any stress components. In some other 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: Serbo-Croatian grammar

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 Bosniak Abdulah Škaljić, ("Turcizmi u bosanskom jeziku" - "Svjetlost" Sarajevo), 8,742 Turkish words in the Bosnian 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 dvorišće (двориште); only 15 years ago čaršav (чаршав) was usual for tablecloth, today it is stonjak (стоњак). 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). 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".
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 is of Greek origin (parastos (парастос) 'requiem').
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 also in historical documents, local literature. Some place names in northern central Serbia as Barajevo, are probably of Hungarian origin.

• Classical international words (words mainly with Latin or Greek roots) are adapted in Serbian like in most European languages, not translated as in Croatian. For instance Serbian atmosfera, Croatian ozracje, S telegraf, C brzojav, S avion, C zrakoplov.
• 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 than 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 and Croatian dictionaries regularly include Croatian only, and Serbian only words.

Standard dictionaries

• Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika (Dictionary of Serbo-Croatian 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.
• Rečnik srpskohrvatskoga književnog jezika in 6 volumes, started as a common project of Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska, but only the first three volumes were also published in Croato-Serbian (hrvatskosrpski).

• 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

Historical dictionaries

The Rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (I-XXIII), published by the Yugoslav academy of sciencies and arts (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts) from 1880 to 1976, is the only general historical dictionary of Croatian and Serbian language. His first editor was Đuro Daničić, followed by Pero Budmani and famous Vukovian Tomislav Maretić. The sources of this are, especially in first volumes, mainly Štokavian.

Etymological dictionaries

The standard and the only completed etymological dictionary of Serbian is the "Skok", written by the Croatian linguist Petar Skok: Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika ("Etymological Dictionary of Croatian or Serbian"). I-IV. Zagreb 1971-1974.

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.

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: 1,300,000as of 1991
• Germany: around 200,000
• USA: 100,000
• Brazil: 50,000 (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 between Serbian and Croatian and Bosnian

Main article: Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

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 proverbs
• Serbo-Croatian language

External links

• Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.
• Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
• 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 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 Online Dictionary