Languages of Montenegro

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Montenegro has one official language, specified in the Constitution of 2007 as Montenegrin. In 2011, the majority of the population declared "Serbian" to be their native language, while 37% declared it to be "Montenegrin". Linguistically, they are the same language (a dialect of Serbo-Croatian), but an incipient Montenegrin standard is in the process of being formulated.

Recognized minority languages are Albanian, Bosnian, and Croatian. Albanian is an official language of the municipality of Ulcinj. Slovak speakers are scattered around the country.

Additionally, there are a hundred or so Italians in Montenegro, concentrated in the Bay of Kotor (the Venetian Cattaro) and the coast. They are the descendants of the Venetian-speaking population of the areas around Cattaro that belonged for many centuries to the Republic of Venice.

The Montenegrin language is written in Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, but there it is a growing political movement to use only the Latin alphabet officially when Montenegro enters the European Union.

See also

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References

•  This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document "2006 edition".