Serbian 101

Serbian language can be written in two different alphabets: Serbian Cyrillic script (ћирилица) and the Serbian Latin ( latinica ). Both were promoted in Yugoslavia. The Cyrillic script is official under the 2006 constitution of Serbia, but the Latin script is gaining ground due to globalization.

Alphabetic Order

The sort order of the two alphabets is different.

• Cyrillic order (called Azbuka (азбука): А Б В Г Д Ђ Е Ж З И Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О П Р С Т Ћ У Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш
• Latin order (called abeceda ): A B C Č Ć D Dž Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S Š T U V Z Ž

Equivalence of Scripts

The Cyrillic letters <Љ>, <Њ> and <Џ> are represented by digraphs in the Latin alphabet. In digraphs, letters are always written together - even in top-down text - and are also sorted as one letter (e.g. ljubav , 'love', comes after lopta , 'ball'). The present Cyrillic script, having been devised for the language itself, is precise because there is no ambiguity involved in reading Lj, Nj and Dž: for example, both Cyrillic инјекција (mathematical injection or medical injection) and његов ('his') are written with <nj> in Latin form. Thus, automatic transliteration of Cyrillic text to Latin is straightforward, but automatic transliteration of Latin text to Cyrillic requires additional heuristic rules.