Serbian language

Serbian
српски / srpski
Pronunciation [sr̩̂pskiː]
Native to Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and neighboring regions
Native speakers
 8.7 million declared Serbian speakers in the former Yugoslavia (2006)[1]
and 0.5–1.5 million abroad[2]
Cyrillic (Serbian alphabet)
Latin (Gaj's alphabet)
Yugoslav Braille
Official status
Official language in
  Serbia
 Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Kosovo[lower-alpha 1]
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1 sr
ISO 639-2 srp
ISO 639-3 srp
Glottolog serb1264[8]
Linguasphere part of 53-AAA-g

  Countries where Serbian is an official language.
  Countries where it is recognized as a minority language.

Serbian (Serbian Cyrillic: српски, Gaj's Latin: srpski, pronounced [sr̩̂pskiː]) is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language[9][10][11] used chiefly by Serbs in Serbia, Montenegro,[12] and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a recognized minority language 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[13]), which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin.[14] 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 with complete synchronic digraphia,[15] using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets; speakers read the two scripts equally well. 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.

Classification

Serbian is a standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian,[16] a Slavic language (Indo-European), of the South Slavic subgroup. Other standardized forms of Serbo-Croatian are Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin. It has lower intelligibility with the East South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Macedonian, than with Slovene (although Slovene is part of the West Slavic subgroup, it is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation to the Serbo-Croatian standard forms, and is closer to the Serbo-Croatian Kajkavian and Chakavian dialects[17]).

Geographic distribution

Serbian language as co-official minority language in municipalities in Croatia

Figures of speakers according to countries:

Status in Montenegro

Linguistic map of Montenegro by settlements, 2011. Blue is Serbian.

Serbian was the official language of Montenegro until 2007 when the new Constitution of Montenegro replaced the Constitution of 1992. Amid opposition from pro-Serbian parties,[21] the Montenegrin language was made the sole official language of the country, and Serbian was given the status of a recognised minority language along with Bosnian, Albanian, and Croatian.[22]

According to the 2003 census, 63.49% of the population declared their native language as Serbian, compared to 21.96% who declared as Montenegrin, the latter being mainly concentrated in Old Montenegro. The 2011 census show that 42.88% still declare Serbian to be their native language, while Montenegrin is declared by 36.97% of the population.

Differences between standard Serbian and standard Croatian and Bosnian

Writing system

Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic (ћирилица, ćirilica) and Latin script (latinica, латиница).

Although Serbian language authorities have recognized the official status of both scripts in contemporary Standard Serbian for more than half of a century now, due to historical reasons, the Cyrillic script was made the official script of Serbia's administration by the 2006 Constitution.[23] However, the law does not regulate scripts in standard language, or standard language itself by any means, leaving the choice of script as a matter of personal preference and to the free will in all aspects of life (publishing, media, trade and commerce, etc.), except in government paperwork production and in official written communication with state officials, which have to be in Cyrillic. Even in official government documents this constitutional requirement is rarely enforced. Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. Media and publishers typically select one alphabet or another. For example, the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, predominantly uses the Cyrillic script whereas the privately run broadcasters, like RTV Pink, predominantly use the Latin script.

A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors the Cyrillic one.[24]

Alphabetic order

The sort order of the ćirilica (ћирилица) alphabet:

The sort order of the latinica (латиница) alphabet:

Conjugation

Serbian verbs are conjugated in four past forms—perfect, aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect—of which the last two have a very limited use (imperfect is still used in some dialects, but the majority of native Serbian speakers consider it archaic), one future tense (also known as the first future tense, as opposed to the second future tense or the future exact, which is considered a tense of the conditional mood by some contemporary linguists), and one present tense. These are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the indicative mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses: the first conditional (commonly used in conditional clauses, both for possible and impossible conditional clauses) and the second conditional (without use in the spoken language—it should be used for impossible conditional clauses). Serbian has active and passive voice.

As for the non-finite verb forms, Serbian has one infinitive, two adjectival participles (the active and the passive), and two adverbial participles (the present and the past).

Vocabulary

Most of Serbian words are of native Slavic lexical stock, tracing back to the Proto-Slavic language. There are many loanwords from different languages, reflecting cultural interaction throughout the history:

The number of Turkish loanwords is also significant. Linguist Abdulah Škaljić[25] found around 7,000 Turkish words in Serbo-Croatian; however, many fell out of use. Some of these words are not Turkish in origin but Arabic or Persian; they entered Serbian via Turkish. However, these words are disappearing from the standard language at a faster rate than loanwords from any other language. In Belgrade, for instance, čakšire (чакшире) was the only word for trousers before World War II, today pantalone (панталоне; a borrowing from Italian) is current; some 30–50 years ago avlija (авлија; Turkish avlı[26]) was a common word for courtyard or backyard in Belgrade, today it is the native Slavic dvorište (двориште); only 15 years ago čaršav (чаршав) was usual for tablecloth, today it is stolnjak (столњак). The greatest number of Turkish loanwords were and are in the vernaculars of south Serbia, followed by those of Bosnia and Herzegovina and central Serbia, generally corresponding with how many Muslims live in an area. Many Turkish loanwords are usual in the vernaculars of Vojvodina as well.[25]

There are plenty of loanwords from German. The great number of them are specific for vernaculars which were situated in the Austrian monarchy (Vojvodina). Most cultural words attested before World War II, were borrowed from (or via) German, even when they are of French or English origin (šorc, boks). The accent is an excellent indicator for that, since German loanwords in Serbian have rising accents.

Italian words in standard language were often borrowed via German (makarone). If they were not taken directly from Italian, they show specific, not regular, adaptations. For instance špagète for Italian spaghetti rather than the "expected" špàgete. The most common informal Serbian greeting is "Ćao", after the Italian "Ciao".

Greek loanwords were very common in Old Serbian (Serbian-Slavonic). Some words are present and common in the modern vernaculars of central Serbia (as well as other areas) and in the standard language: hiljada (хиљада), tiganj (тигањ), patos (патос), jeftin (јефтин). Almost every word of the Serbian Orthodox ceremonies is of Greek origin (parastos (парастос) 'requiem').[27]

The number of Hungarian loanwords in the standard language is small: bitanga (битанга), alas (алас), ašov (ашов). However, they are present in some vernaculars of Vojvodina and also in historical documents, local literature. Some place names in northern central Serbia as Barajevo, are probably of Hungarian origin.[28]

Classical international words (words mainly with Latin or Greek roots) are adapted in Serbian like in most European languages, not translated as in Croatian.

Serbian literature

Main article: Serbian literature
Miroslavljevo jevanđelje (The Gospel of Miroslav), a manuscript, ca. 1186

Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevanđelje (Miroslav's Gospel) in 1192 and Dušanov zakonik (Dušan's Code) in 1349. Little secular medieval literature has been preserved, but what there is shows that it was in accord with its time; for example, Serbian Alexandride, a book about Alexander the Great, and a translation of Tristan and Iseult into Serbian. Although not belonging to the literature proper, the corpus of Serbian literacy in the 14th and 15th centuries contains numerous legal, commercial and administrative texts with marked presence of Serbian vernacular juxtaposed on the matrix of Serbian Church Slavonic.

In the mid-15th century, Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and for the next 400 years there was no opportunity for the creation of secular written literature. However, some of the greatest literary works in Serbian come from this time, in the form of oral literature, the most notable form being Serbian epic poetry. The epic poems were mainly written down in the 19th century, and preserved in oral tradition up to the 1950s, a few centuries or even a millennium longer than by most other "epic folks". Goethe and Jacob Grimm learned Serbian in order to read Serbian epic poetry in the original. By the end of the 18th century, the written literature had become estranged from the spoken language. In the second half of the 18th century, the new language appeared, called Slavonic-Serbian. This artificial idiom superseded the works of poets and historians like Gavrilo Stefanović Venclović, who wrote in essentially modern Serbian in the 1720s. These vernacular compositions have remained cloistered from the general public and received due attention only with the advent of modern literary historians and writers like Milorad Pavić. In the early 19th century, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić promoted the spoken language of the people as a literary norm.

Dictionaries

Standard dictionaries

Bilingual dictionaries

Historical dictionaries

Vuk Karadžić's Srpski rječnik, first published in 1818, is the earliest dictionary of modern literary Serbian. The Rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (I–XXIII), published by the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1880 to 1976, is the only general historical dictionary of Serbo-Croatian. Its first editor was Đuro Daničić, followed by Pero Budmani and the famous Vukovian Tomislav Maretić. The sources of this dictionary are, especially in the first volumes, mainly Štokavian. There are older, pre-standard dictionaries, such as the 1791 German–Serbian dictionary.

Etymological dictionaries

The standard and the only completed etymological dictionary of Serbian is the "Skok", written by the Croatian linguist Petar Skok: Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika ("Etymological Dictionary of Croatian or Serbian"). I-IV. Zagreb 1971–1974.

There is also a new monumental Etimološki rečnik srpskog jezika (Etymological Dictionary of Serbian). So far, two volumes have been published: I (with words on A-), and II (Ba-Bd).

There are specialized etymological dictionaries for German, Italian, Croatian, Turkish, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, English and other loanwords (cf. chapter word origin).

Dialect dictionaries

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008, but Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory. The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the Brussels Agreement. Kosovo has been recognised as an independent state by 108 out of 193 United Nations member states.
  1. ↑ Including, as of 2006, 6.62 million in Serbia sans Kosovo (88% of the population), 1.49 million in Bosnia (37.1%), 400,000 in Montenegro (60%), 133,000 in Kosovo, 45,000 in Croatia, and 36,000 in Macedonia. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed.
  2. ↑ Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  3. ↑ Ec.Europa.eu
  4. ↑ B92.net
  5. ↑ "Minority Rights Group International : Czech Republic : Czech Republic Overview". Minorityrights.org. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  6. ↑ "Národnostní menšiny v České republice a jejich jazyky" [National Minorities in Czech Republic and Their Language] (PDF) (in Czech). Government of Czech Republic. p. 2. Podle čl. 3 odst. 2 Statutu Rady je jejich počet 12 a jsou uživateli těchto menšinových jazyků: [...], srbština a ukrajinština
  7. ↑ "Minority Rights Group International : Macedonia : Macedonia Overview". Minorityrights.org. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  8. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Serbian". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  9. ↑ David Dalby, Linguasphere (1999/2000, Linguasphere Observatory), pg. 445, 53-AAA-g, "Srpski+Hrvatski, Serbo-Croatian".
  10. ↑ Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (2010, Blackwell), pg. 431, "Because of their mutual intelligibility, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are usually thought of as constituting one language called Serbo-Croatian."
  11. ↑ Václav Blažek, "On the Internal Classification of Indo-European Languages: Survey" retrieved 20 Oct 2010, pp. 15-16.
  12. ↑ Montenegro Census 2011 data, Montstat, http://www.monstat.org/userfiles/file/popis2011/saopstenje/saopstenje(1).pdf
  13. ↑ Ljiljana Subotić, Dejan Sredojević, Isidora Bjelaković (2012), Fonetika i fonologija: Ortoepska i ortografska norma standardnog srpskog jezika (in Serbo-Croatian), FILOZOFSKI FAKULTET NOVI SAD
  14. ↑ Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Or Montenegrin? Or Just 'Our Language'?, Radio Free Europe, February 21, 2009
  15. ↑ http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/de-gruyter/digraphia-in-the-territories-of-the-croats-and-serbs-9biWZDK0Vs/1
  16. ↑ Kordić, Snježana (2010). Jezik i nacionalizam [Language and Nationalism] (PDF). Rotulus Universitas (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Durieux. p. 143. ISBN 978-953-188-311-5. LCCN 2011520778. OCLC 729837512. OL 15270636W. Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2015. (COBISS-Sr).
  17. ↑ Greenberg, Marc L., A Short Reference Grammar of Slovene, (LINCOM Studies in Slavic Linguistics 30). Munich: LINCOM, 2008. ISBN 3-89586-965-1
  18. ↑ "Statistiche demografiche ISTAT" (PDF). Demo.istat.it. Retrieved 2014-10-03.
  19. ↑ "Ethno-Cultural Portrait of Canada, Table 1". www12.statcan.ca. 2001. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
  20. ↑ "Croatian Census 2011". 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  21. ↑ Pro-Serbian parties oppose Montenegro constitution
  22. ↑ Ustav Crne Gore
  23. ↑ "The Constitution". The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia. Retrieved 2010-12-06.
  24. ↑ http://www.b92.net/kultura/vesti.php?nav_category=1087&yyyy=2014&mm=12&dd=16&nav_id=936784
  25. 1 2 Škaljić, Abdulah (1966). Turcizmi u srpsko-hrvatskom jeziku. "Svjetlost" Sarajevo. p. 25.
  26. ↑ Ottoman Turkish lexeme itself was in turn borrowed from the Greek αὐλή
  27. ↑ Vasmer, Max. Griechische Lehnwörter im Serboischen. 1943.
  28. ↑ Hadrovics, László. Ungarische Elemente im Serbischen. Köln / Wien. 1985

Further reading

External links

Serbian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikibooks has more on the topic of: Serbian language
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Serbian language.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Serbian phrasebook.
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