Serbian | |
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српски / 'srpski' | |
Pronunciation | [sr̩̂pskiː] |
Native to | Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and neighboring regions |
Native speakers
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8.7 million declared Serbian speakers in the former Yugoslavia (2006) and 0.5–1.5 million abroad |
Indo-European
|
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Cyrillic (Serbian alphabet) Latin (Gaj's alphabet) Yugoslav Braille |
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Official status | |
Official language in
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Serbia Bosnia and Herzegovina Kosovo |
Recognised minority
language in |
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Regulated by | Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | sr |
ISO 639-2 | srp |
ISO 639-3 |
|
Glottolog | serb1264 |
Linguasphere | part of 53-AAA-g |
Countries where Serbian is an official language.
Countries where it is recognized as a minority language.
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Serbian (српски / srpski, pronounced [sr̩̂pskiː]) is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the official language of Serbia, the territory of Kosovo, and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a recognized minority language in Montenegro where it is spoken by the relative majority of the population, as well as in Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.
Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian (more specifically on Šumadija-Vojvodina and Eastern Herzegovinian dialects), which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. The other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian.
Serbian is practically the only European standard language whose speakers are fully functionally digraphic, 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 Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830.