The history of the Serbian language traces its origins through successive stages of differentiation within theSouth Slavic subgroup ofSlavic languages. This process intensified after theSlavic migrations of the 6th and 7th centuries, leading to the emergence of Serbian alongside other South Slavic languages. As the ancestor of all Slavic languages, theProto-Slavic language emerged between approximately 1500 and 1000 BC in the southern portion of theProto-Balto-Slavic linguistic area.[citation needed] Linguistic evidence, such as the consistent preservation of vocabulary related to local hydrology, flora, and fauna across modern Slavic languages, supports this location, roughly corresponding to areas of easternPoland, southernBelarus, and northwesternUkraine during classical antiquity (encompassing theVistula,Bug,Dnieper, andPripyat river basins).[citation needed] The language reached its peak in the 5th and 6th centuries, expanding rapidly westward, southward, eastward, and northward during Slavic migrations.[citation needed]
Dialectal differentiation began during this period, though mutual intelligibility persisted; by the 8th century, a largely uniform Proto-Slavic was spoken fromThessaloniki in the south toVeliky Novgorod in the north.[citation needed] The final pan-dialectal changes occurred in the 9th century, after which individual Slavic languages gradually emerged. A degree of general Slavic mutual intelligibility continued for several centuries, as evidenced by the missionary work ofCyril and Methodius, who used a South Slavic dialect from the Thessaloniki region to evangelize Slavs inGreat Moravia. The loss of weakjers (reduced vowels ъ and ь), occurring regionally between the 10th and 12th centuries, marks the conventional end of Proto-Slavic, coinciding with the appearance of written records showing significant divergences and the development of distinct recensions.[citation needed]
The language used in works of Cyril and Methodius, and their later followers, became known as theOld Church Slavonic (alsoOld Slavonic, orOld Slavic).[13] As the earliest attested Slavic literary language, it was codified in the 9th century based on the South Slavic dialects spoken around Thessaloniki, using the Glagolitic and later Cyrillic scripts for translating biblical and liturgical texts.[14] During the Middle Ages, it served as the primary literary and liturgical language for most Slavic peoples, influencing the development of subsequent vernacular literary traditions.
During themedieval andearly modern periods, the use ofOld Slavic literary language among Serbs was marked by various influences from the Serbian old vernacular language, thus creating a distinctive Serbian redaction of the Old Slavic. That redaction or recension is referred to as the oldSerbian Church-Slavic literary language (alsoSerbian-Slavonic /Serbo-Slavonic, orSerbian-Slavic /Serbo-Slavic), and in that language works of theMedieval Serbian literature were created.[15][16] In the same time, Old Serbian vernacular language was used in private letters and various documents, particularly during the late medieval and later (early modern) periods.[17][18][19]
Serbian redaction of Church Slavonic played a key role in medieval Serbian written culture before the later rise of vernacular-based standards. The oldest surviving manuscripts in this recension originate from regions such asZeta andZachlumia (Hum), though linguistic features suggest its development may have occurred farther east, nearer the early centres of Slavic literacy,Ohrid andPreslav. The area around the present-day border of Serbia and North Macedonia, north of the Kratovo-Skopje-Tetovo line, is considered to be the area of its origin. The oldest preserved written monuments, from the end of the 12th century, testify to the fact that the process of forming the Serbian Slavonic was already complete. It had three established orthographies:
Zeta-Hum, which was the oldest and used in Serbia until the beginning of the 13th century
Raška, which succeeded Zeta-Hum in Serbia and was in use until the first decades of the 15th century
During the 16th and 17th centuries,Serbian Church Slavic language continued to be used as the liturgical and literary language within theSerbian Patriarchate of Peć, and those traditions continued up to the beginning of the 18th century. In works of the early modernSerbian printing, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century, liturgical contents were printed in Serbian Church Slavic, whilecolophons with introductions were composed under the influence of Serbian vernacular language, that was commonly used both in official and private epistolography.[20][17][21]
During the 18th century, among Eastern OrthodoxSerbs in theHabsburg Monarchy, various influences from the earlier Russian ecclesiastical and literary reforms (known as theNikon's reforms) were accepted within the Serbian OrthodoxMetropolitanate of Karlovci, thus leading to several major changes: Serbian redaction of the Church Slavic was gradually replaced in liturgical use by the official (synodical, or neo-Moscowian) Russian Church Slavonic redaction, and those changes also influenced the Serbian literary language, making it more distinctive from the common Serbian vernacular language.[22][23] The use of Russian-Slavonic language among Serbs consequently led to the creation of a specificSlavonic-Serbian language (also known asSlavo-Serbian, ahybrid language that was used during the second half of the 18th century and the frst half of the 19th century by Serbian educated elites.[24][25][26]
In the early 19th century,Vuk Karadžić reformed the Serbian literary language by basing it on the vernacular folk speech, adopting the principle 'Write as you speak.' He also standardized theSerbian Cyrillic alphabet by following strictphonemic principles on theJohann Christoph Adelung's model andJan Hus'sCzech alphabet. Karadžić's reforms of the Serbian literary language modernized it and distanced it from the Slavonic-Serbian and Church Slavonic, bringing it closer to common folk speech. For example, Karadžić discarded earlier letters and signs that had no match in common Serbian speech and introduced six new Cyrillic letters to make writing the Serbian language simpler.[27]
Because the Slavonic-Serbian written language of the early 19th century contained many words connected to the Orthodox church and a large number of loanwords from Church Slavonic, Karadžić proposed to abandon this written language and to create a new one, based on theEastern Herzegovinian dialect which he spoke. Some Serbian clergy and other linguists opposed him, for example, the high clergy based in the Serbian Orthodox Church seat inSremski Karlovci (nearNovi Sad), who viewed the grammar and vocabulary of the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect as almost a foreign tongue, unacceptable as a basis for a modern language.[28] But Karadžić successfully insisted that his linguistic standard was closer to popular speech and could be understood and written by more people. He called his dialect Herzegovinian because, as he wrote, "Serbian is spoken most purely and correctly in Herzegovina and in Bosnia." Karadžić never visited those lands, but his family roots and speech came from Herzegovina.[29] Ultimately, Vuk Karadžić's ideas and linguistic standard won against his clerical and scientific opponents. Karadžić was, together withĐuro Daničić, the main Serbian signatory to theVienna Literary Agreement of 1850, which, encouraged by Austrian authorities, laid the foundation for the Serbo-Croatian language; Karadžić himself only ever referred to the language as "Serbian".
The Vukovian effort of language standardization lasted the remainder of the century. Before then the Serbs had achieved an independent state (1878), and a flourishing national culture based inBelgrade and Novi Sad. Despite the Vienna Literary Agreement, the Serbs had by this time developed anEkavian pronunciation, which was the native speech of their two cultural capitals as well as the great majority of the Serb population. Vuk Karadžić greatly influenced South Slavic linguists across Southeast Europe: in Croatia, the linguistTomislav Maretić acknowledged Karadžić's work as foundational to his codification of Croatian grammar.[30]
The Serbian language holds status of official or recognized minority language in ten countries, where over 7 million people have declared it as their mother tongue. It serves as the official language of Serbia, where it is the native tongue of 84% of the population.[41] Serbian is a co-official language inBosnia-Herzegovina andKosovo, where it is spoken almost exclusively by the ethnic Serb population, representing roughly one-third and 5% of the total population in each entity, respectively.[42][34] InMontenegro, Serbian remains the most widely spoken language, with 43% of the population declaring it as their mother tongue despite its status as a recognized minority language;[b] it is used not only by those identifying as ethnic Serbs but also by approximately one-quarter of those declaring Montenegrin ethnicity.[33] Furthermore, Serbian enjoys recognized minority language status inCroatia,North Macedonia,Romania,Hungary, theCzech Republic, andSlovakia.[45]
Serbian is a standard variety ofSerbo-Croatian with other standard varieties beingBosnian,Croatian, andMontenegrin. These varieties are based on the same Shtokavian supradialect and are fullymutually intelligible - speakers can understand each other without difficulty, with intelligibility often exceeding that of variants in other pluricentric languages like English, German, or Spanish. The differences are minor and comparable to regional variants of English (e.g., British vs. American English) rather than separate languages like Spanish and Italian. Grammar, syntax, and core vocabulary are nearly identical.[46]
Street sign inBelgrade, using Cyrillic and Latin scripts
Serbian language uses bothCyrillic (ћирилица,ćirilica) andLatin script (латиница,latinica). Serbian is a rare language with activedigraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them.
Serbian Cyrillic, widely regarded as a key symbol of Serb cultural identity, was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguistVuk Karadžić, who designed it according to strict phonemic principles (one letter per sound).[47] The Latin alphabet used for Serbian was designed by the Croatian linguistLjudevit Gaj in the 1830s based on the Czech system with a one-to-one grapheme-phoneme correlation between the Cyrillic and Latin orthographies, resulting in a parallel orthographic system.[48]
In Serbia, theConstitution designates Serbian Cyrillic as the official script, mandating its application in the legal and administrative domains.[49] 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 the legal and government sphere, where Cyrillic is required.[49] In general, the alphabets are used interchangeably; media and publishers typically select one alphabet or the other. In the public sphere, with logos, outdoor signage and retail packaging, the Latin script predominates, although both scripts are commonly seen. Traffic signs and directional signs, as well as place names on roads are written with both Cyrillic and Latin script.[50] To most Serbs, the Latin script tends to imply a cosmopolitan or neutral attitude, while Cyrillic appeals to a more traditional or vintage sensibility.[51] A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors the Cyrillic one.[52]
Serbian Cyrillic is also script in official use in both Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, alongside the Latin alphabet.
Serbian is a highlyinflected language, with grammatical morphology for nouns, pronouns and adjectives as well as verbs.[53]
Nouns
Serbian nouns are classified into threedeclensional types, denoted largely by theirnominative case endings as "-a" type, "-i" and "-e" type. Into each of these declensional types may fall nouns of any of threegenders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Each noun may be inflected to represent the noun'sgrammatical case, of which Serbian has seven:
Nouns are further inflected to represent the noun'snumber, singular or plural.
Pronouns
Pronouns, when used, are inflected along the same case and number morphology as nouns. Serbian is apro-drop language, meaning that pronouns may be omitted from a sentence when their meaning is easily inferred from the text. In cases where pronouns may be dropped, they may also be used to add emphasis. For example:
Serbian
English equivalent
Kako si?
How are you?
A kako si ti?
And how areyou?
Adjectives
Adjectives in Serbian may be placed before or after the noun they modify, but must agree in number, gender and case with the modified noun.
Verbs
Serbian verbs are conjugated in four past forms—perfect,aorist,imperfect, andpluperfect—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), onefuture 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 theconditional mood by some contemporary linguists), and onepresent tense. These are the tenses of theindicative mood. Apart from the indicative mood, there is also theimperative 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 passivevoice.
Serbian is based onShtokavian, theprestigesupradialect of Serbo-Croatian. The primary subdivisions of Shtokavian are based on two principles: one is the way the old Slavic phonemeyat has changed (in the case of Serbian, Ekavian or Ijekavian), second in different accents (whether the subdialect is Old-Shtokavian or Neo-Shtokavian).
inEkavian pronunciation (ekavski[ěːkaʋskiː]),yat has conflated into the vowele. Ekavian is dominant among speakers of Serbian in Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, and Hungary.
inIjekavian pronunciation (ijekavski[ijěːkaʋskiː]),yat has come to be pronouncedije. Ijekavian is dominant among speakers of Serbian in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Croatia.
The dialects of Shtokavian, regarded traditionally as Serbian, include:
Šumadija–Vojvodina (Ekavian, Neo-Shtokavian): central and northern Serbia
Eastern Herzegovinian (Ijekavian/Ekavian, Neo-Shtokavian): southwestern Serbia, western half of Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia
Kosovo–Resava (Ekavian, Old-Shtokavian): eastern-central Serbia, northern Kosovo
Smederevo–Vršac (Ekavian, Old-Shtokavian): northern-central Serbia
Prizren–Timok (Ekavian, Old-Shtokavian): southeastern Serbia, eastern Kosovo
Zeta–Raška (Ijekavian, Old-Shtokavian): eastern half of Montenegro, southwestern Serbia
Most Serbian words are of nativeSlavic lexical stock, tracing back to theProto-Slavic language. The classical languagesLatin andGreek are the source of many words, used mostly in international terminology. Many Latin terms entered Serbian during the time when present-day territories populated by Serbs were part of theRoman Empire and also in the later centuries throughRomanian andAromanian. The loanwords of Greek origin in Serbian are a product of the influence of the liturgical language of the Orthodox Church. Many of the numerous loanwords from another Turkic language,Ottoman Turkish and, via Ottoman Turkish, fromArabic were adopted into Serbian during the long period of Ottoman rule.[54]
"Dictionary of Serbo-Croatian Literary and Vernacular Language" (Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika), published by theSerbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most comprehensive dictionary of Serbian (and Serbo-Croatian as a whole). It remains unfinished, with publication ongoing since 1959. As of 2025, 22 volumes were published, containing around 250,000 entries, while the complete dictionary is expected to comprise 40 volumes with around 500,000 entries, making it one of the most comprehensive in the world, surpassing the "Oxford English Dictionary" (around 300,000 entries), the German "Deutsches Wörterbuch" (around 350,000), and the Dutch "Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal" (about 430,000).[55][56]
"Dictionary of Serbo-Croatian Literary Language" (Rečnik srpskohrvatskoga književnog jezika), published in six volumes from 1967 to 1976, began as a joint project betweenMatica srpska (which issued it in Cyrillic script) andMatica hrvatska (which issued it in Latin script), but only the first three volumes were published by Matica hrvatska due to negative feedback from Croatian linguists.
"Dictionary of the Serbian language" (Rečnik srpskog jezika) in one volume, published in 2007 by Matica srpska, containing more than 85,000 entries.
The only completed etymological dictionary of Serbian is "Etymological Dictionary of Croatian or Serbian language" (Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika), published in four volumes from 1971 to 1974. There is also a new monumental "Etymological Dictionary of Serbian language" (Etimološki rečnik srpskog jezika), which is currently work in progress, with two volumes published.
Сва људска бића рађају се слободна и једнака у достојанству и правима. Она су обдарена разумом и свешћу и треба једни према другима да поступају у духу братства.
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in Serbian, written in theLatin script:[58]
Sva ljudska bića rađaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima. Ona su obdarena razumom i svešću i treba jedni prema drugima da postupaju u duhu bratstva.
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in English:[59]
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^Serbian was the official language of Montenegro until 2007 and adoption of the newConstitution of Montenegro. Amid opposition from pro-Serbian political parties,[43][34]Montenegrin was made the sole official language of the country, while Serbian was given the status of a "language in official use" (linguistic construct denoting recognized minority language, other beingBosnian,Albanian, andCroatian).[44]
^"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.Archived(PDF) from the original on 2016-03-15.Podle čl. 3 odst. 2 Statutu Rady je jejich počet 12 a jsou uživateli těchto menšinových jazyků: ..., srbština a ukrajinština
David Dalby,Linguasphere (1999/2000, Linguasphere Observatory), pg. 445, 53-AAA-g, "Srpski+Hrvatski, Serbo-Croatian".
Benjamin W. Fortson IV,Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (2010, Blackwell), p. 431, "Because of their mutual intelligibility, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are usually thought of as constituting one language called Serbo-Croatian."
Mader Skender, Mia (2022). "Schlussbemerkung" [Summary].Die kroatische Standardsprache auf dem Weg zur Ausbausprache [The Croatian standard language on the way to ausbau language](PDF) (Dissertation). UZH Dissertations (in German). Zurich: University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts, Institute of Slavonic Studies. pp. 196–197.doi:10.5167/uzh-215815. Retrieved8 June 2022.Obwohl das Kroatische sich in den letzten Jahren in einigen Gebieten, vor allem jedoch auf lexikalischer Ebene, verändert hat, sind diese Änderungen noch nicht bedeutend genug, dass der Terminus Ausbausprache gerechtfertigt wäre. Ausserdem können sich Serben, Kroaten, Bosnier und Montenegriner immer noch auf ihren jeweiligen Nationalsprachen unterhalten und problemlos verständigen. Nur schon diese Tatsache zeigt, dass es sich immer noch um eine polyzentrische Sprache mit verschiedenen Varietäten handelt.
^Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville G. (1 September 2003).The Slavonic Languages. Taylor & Francis. p. 45.ISBN978-0-203-21320-9. Retrieved23 December 2013.Following Vuk's reform of Cyrillic (see above) in the early nineteenth century, Ljudevit Gaj in the 1830s performed the same operation on Latinica, using the Czech system and producing a one-to-one symbol correlation between Cyrillic and Latinica as applied to the Serbian and Croatian parallel system.
Grickat-Radulović, Irena (1993)."Serbian Medieval Literary Language".Serbs in European Civilization. Belgrade: Nova, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute for Balkan Studies. pp. 146–150.
Radovanović, Milorad; Bugarski, Nataša (2002)."Serbian Language at the End of the Century".Lexical Norm and National Language: Lexicography and Language Policy in South-Slavic Languages After 1989. München: Verlag Otto Sagner. pp. 164–172.
Okuka, M. (2009). "Srpski jezik danas: sociolingvistički status".Jezični varijeteti i nacionalni identiteti:215–233.
Petrović, T. (2001). "Speaking a different Serbian language: Refugees in Serbia between conflict and integration".Journal of Liberal Arts.6 (1):97–108.
