Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
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The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (Serbian: српска/Вукова ћирилица, srpska/Vukova ćirilica, literally "Serbian/Vuk's Cyrillic alphabet") is one of the two alphabets used to write the Serbian language, the other being the Latin script (Serbian: latinica, латиница). It is an adaptation of the Cyrillic alphabet for the Serbian language, and was developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. The alphabet was officially adopted in 1868[citation needed].
Karadžić based his alphabet on the Cyrillic alphabet, on the simple principle of "write as you speak and read as it is written" (Serbian: Пиши као што говориш и читај како је написано, Piši kao što govoriš i čitaj kako je napisano). The Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are almost entirely interchangeable, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž counting as single letters.
The Cyrillic alphabet is seen as being more traditional, and has official status in Serbia and the Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina). During the course of the 20th century the Latin alphabet has become more frequently used, especially in Montenegro, where it is now used almost exclusively. The Cyrillic script also has official and equal status in Bosnia and Herzegovina (at the Federal level), in the Brčko District and in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was also one of the two official scripts used to write the Serbo-Croatian language in Yugoslavia since its inception in 1918, despite attempts by King Alexander I to abolish the Cyrillic version. With the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbo-Croatian is no longer used officially.
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, together with the works of Krste Misirkov and Venko Markovski, was used as a basis for the Macedonian alphabet.
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[edit] The Alphabet
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:
| Cyrillic Alphabet Latin alphabet IPA |
А а A /a/ |
Б б B /b/ |
В в V /ʋ/ |
Г г G /g/ |
Д д D /d/ |
Ђ ђ Đ /dʑ/ |
Е е E /ɛ/ |
Ж ж Ž /ʒ/ |
З з Z /z/ |
И и I /i/ |
| Cyrillic Alphabet Latin alphabet IPA |
Ј ј J /j/ |
К к K /k/ |
Л л L /l/ |
Љ љ Lj /ʎ/ |
М м M /m/ |
Н н N /n/ |
Њ њ Nj /ɲ/ |
О о O /ɔ/ |
П п P /p/ |
Р р R /r/ |
| Cyrillic Alphabet Latin alphabet IPA |
С с S /s/ |
Т т T /t/ |
Ћ ћ Ć /tɕ/ |
У у U /u/ |
Ф ф F /f/ |
Х х H /x/ |
Ц ц C /ts/ |
Ч ч Č /tʃ/ |
Џ џ Dž /dʒ/ |
Ш ш Š /ʃ/ |
The handwritten Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is depicted below (the letter order corresponds to the table above):
[edit] Unique letters
The ligatures <Љ> and <Њ>, together with <Џ>, <Ђ> and <Ћ> were developed uniquely for the Serbian alphabet.
- Karadžić based the letters <Љ> and <Њ> on a design by Sava Mrkalj, combining the letters <Л> (L) and <Н> (N) with the soft sign (Ь).
- Karadžić based <Џ> on a letter in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet.
- <Ћ> was adopted by Karadžić to represent the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate (IPA: /tɕ/). The letter was based on and adapted from the letter Djerv, which is the 12th letter of the Glagolitic alphabet. The letter had been used in written Serbian since the 12th century, to represent /gʲ/, dʲ/ and /dʑ/.
- Karadžić adopted a design by Lukijan Mušicki for the letter <Ђ>. It was based on the letter <Ћ>, as adapted by Karadžić.
- <Ј> was adopted from the Latin alphabet.
<Љ>, <Њ> and <Џ> were later adopted for use in the Macedonian alphabet.
[edit] Differences with the Russian/East Slavic and Bulgarian versions
- the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet does not use either the Russian hard sign/Bulgarian ŭ (ъ) nor the soft sign (ь), but uses the aforementioned soft-sign ligatures instead. The Ukrainian and Belorussian apostrophe (representing the hard sign or an unpalatised consonant) is almost never used in Serbo-Croatian, except to shorten ali and ili as "al'" and "il'" respectively..
- Does not have Russian/Belorussian Э, the semi-vowels Й or ў, nor the iotated letters Я, Є (Ukrainian ye), Ї (yi), Ё (Russian yo) or Ю (yu), and are instead written as two separates letters: Ja, Je, Jи, Jo, Jy. J can also be used as a semi-vowel.
- The letter Щ is not used, transliterated instead as either ШЧ (East Slavic words) or ШT (Bulgarian words).
