TheMontenegrin alphabet is the collective name given to "Abeceda" (Montenegrin Latin alphabet;Абецеда inCyrillic) and "Азбука" (Montenegrin Cyrillic alphabet;Azbuka inLatin), thewriting systems used towrite theMontenegrin language. It was adopted on 9 June 2009 by theMontenegrin Minister of Education,Sreten Škuletić[1] and replaced theSerbian Cyrillic andGaj's Latin alphabets in use at the time.
Although the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets enjoy equal status under theConstitution of Montenegro, the government and proponents of the Montenegrin language prefer to use theLatin script exclusively;[2] it is also much more widely used in all aspects of the day-to-day written communication in the country, in education, advertising and media.
Efforts to create a Latin character-based Montenegrin alphabet go back to at leastWorld War I, when a newspaper was published inCetinje using bothLatin andCyrillic characters.[3]
| Montenegrin Latin alphabet | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Time period | since 2009 |
| Languages | Montenegrin |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Latn(215), Latin |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Latin |
| Subset ofLatin (Basic Latin andLatin Extended-A) | |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
TheMontenegrin Latin alphabet (Montenegrin:crnogorska latinica / црногорска латиница,crnogorska abeceda / црногорска абецеда orcrnogorski alfabet / црногорски алфабет) is used for writing the Montenegrin language inLatin script.
It uses most letters of theISO basic Latin alphabet, with the exception ofQ,W,X andY, only used for writing common words or proper names directly borrowed from foreign languages.
Montenegrin Latin is based onGaj's Latin alphabet, with the addition of the two letters Ś and Ź, to replace the pairs SJ and ZJ (so anachronistically considered as digraphs).[4] С́ and З́, and could also be represented in the original alphabets assj andzj,[5] and сj and зj, respectively. Because these two glyphs already exist in thePolish alphabet, but must be created in Cyrillic by using combining characters, it provides an additional incentive to prefer Latin over Cyrillic.
It also uses some Latin extended letters, composed with a basic Latin letter and one of two combining accents (theacute accent orcaron, overC,S, andZ), and a supplementary base consonantĐ: they are needed to note additional phonetic distinctions (notably to preserve the distinctions that are present in theCyrillic script with which the Montenegrin language has also long been written, when it was still unified in the formerYugoslavia within the writtenSerbo-Croatian language).
The alphabet also includes some digraphs built from the previous characters (that are considered as single letters for collation purpose):Dž,Nj, andLj.
 | This sectionis missing information about chart of correspondence with both Latin and older Serbian Cyrillic. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on thetalk page.(July 2021) |
| Montenegrin Cyrillic alphabet | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Time period | since 2009 |
| Languages | Montenegrin |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian hieroglyphs[6]
|
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Cyrl(220), Cyrillic |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Cyrillic |
| subset ofCyrillic (U+0400...U+04FF) | |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
TheMontenegrin Cyrillic alphabet (Montenegrin:црногорска ћирилица /crnogorska ćirilica orцрногорска азбука /crnogorska azbuka) is the officialCyrillic script of theMontenegrin language. It is used in parallel with the Latin script.
Its first version was developed byVojislav Nikčević in the 1970s who was a dissident of theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and considered Montenegrin speech to be unique and deserving of consideration as a separate language from Serbo-Croatian.[citation needed]
The modern version was brought into official use in early 2009 by the Ministry of Education underSreten Škuletić. It was called the First Montenegrin Orthography, included a new Orthographic Dictionary, and replaced theSerbian Cyrillic script which was official until then. The act is a component part of the process of standardisation of the Montenegrin language, starting in mid-2008 after the adoption of Montenegrin as theofficial language of Montenegro.