Serbian (српски језик; srpski jezik ) is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbs in Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora. Standard Serbian is based on Shtokavian dialect, like Croatian and Bosnian, with which it is mutually intelligible, and was previously unified with under the standard known as Serbo-Croatian. It counts among official (and minority) languages of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croatia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia and Hungary.
Two alphabets are used to write the Serbian language: a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet, devised by Vuk Karadžić, and a variation on the Latin alphabet, devised by Ljudevit Gaj.
Serbian orthography is very consistent: approximation of the principle "one letter per sound". This principle is represented by Adelung's saying, "Write as you speak and read as it is written", the principle used by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić when reforming the Cyrillic orthography of Serbian in the 19th century.
