Romanization of Serbian

The romanization (or romanisation) or latinization (or latinisation) of Serbian is the representation of the Serbian language using Latin letters. Serbian is written in two alphabets, the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic and the Serbian Latin alphabet, a variation the Latin alphabet. The Serbian language is an example of Digraphia.

However, Gaj's Latin alphabet is also very widely used in Serbia as the second alphabet. The two are almost directly and completely interchangeable. Romanization can be done with no errors, but in some cases knowledge of Serbian is required to do proper transliteration from Latin back to Cyrillic. Standard Serbian uses both alphabets currently.

Moreover, a survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favor the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favor the Cyrillic one.

The Latin variation of the Serbian alphabet is identical to those used in Bosnian and Croatian language.

Serbo-Croatian was regarded as a single language since the 1850 Vienna Literary Agreement, to be written in two forms: one (Serb) in the adapted Serbian Cyrillic alphabet; the other (Croat) in the adapted Croatian Latin alphabet, that is to say Gaj's Latin alphabet.

The Latin alphabet, latinica, was not initially taught in schools in Serbia when it became independent in the 19th century. After a series of efforts by Serbian writers Ljubomir Stojanović and Jovan Skerlić, it became part of school curriculum after 1914.

During World War I, Austria-Hungary banned the Cyrillic alphabet in Bosnia and its use in occupied Serbia was banned in schools. Cyrillic was banned in the Independent State of Croatia in World War II. The government of socialist Yugoslavia made some initial effort to promote romanization, use of the Latin alphabet even in the Orthodox Serbian and Montenegrin parts of Yugoslavia, but met with resistance. The use of latinica did however become more common among Serbian speakers.

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