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The romanization of Serbian or latinization of Serbian is the representation of the Serbian language using Latin letters. Serbian is written in two alphabets, Serbian Cyrillic, a variation of the
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
, and Gaj's Latin, or ''latinica'', a variation of the Latin alphabet. The Serbian language is an example of
digraphia In sociolinguistics, digraphia refers to the use of more than one writing system for the same language. Synchronic digraphia is the coexistence of two or more writing systems for the same language, while diachronic digraphia (or sequential digra ...
.
Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Ser ...
is widely used in Serbia. The two are almost directly and completely interchangeable. Romanization can be done with no errors, but in some cases knowledge of Serbian is required to do proper transliteration from Latin back to Cyrillic. Standard Serbian uses both alphabets currently. A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors Cyrillic; the remaining 17% preferred neither.


Use of romanization

Serbo-Croatian was regarded as a single language since the 1850 Vienna Literary Agreement, to be written in two forms: one ( Serb) in the adapted Serbian Cyrillic alphabet; the other (
Croat The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, ...
) in the adapted Croatian Latin alphabet, that is to say
Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Ser ...
. The Latin alphabet was not initially taught in schools in Serbia when it became independent in the 19th century. After a series of efforts by Serbian writers
Ljubomir Stojanović Ljubomir Stojanović ( sr-cyr, Љубомир Стојановић, sometimes mentioned as ''Ljuba Stojanovic'') (6 August 1860, Užice – 16 June 1930) was a Serbian politician, philologist and academic. Biography Stojanović was a philologist ...
and
Jovan Skerlić Jovan Skerlić (, ; 20 August 1877 – 15 May 1914) was a Serbian writer and literary critic.''Jovan Skerlić u srpskoj književnosti 1877–1977: Zbornik radova''. Posebna izdanja, Institut za knjizevnost i umetnost, Belgrade. He is seen as one ...
, it became part of the school curriculum after 1914. During World War I,
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...
banned the Cyrillic alphabet in Bosnia and its use in occupied Serbia was banned in schools. Cyrillic was banned in the
Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It was established in p ...
in World War II. The government of socialist Yugoslavia made some initial effort to promote romanization, use of the Latin alphabet even in the Orthodox Serbian and Montenegrin parts of Yugoslavia, but met with resistance. The use of ''latinica'' did however become more common among Serbian speakers. In late 1980s, a number of articles had been published in Serbia about a danger of Cyrillic being fully replaced by Latin, thereby endangering what was deemed a Serbian national symbol. Following the
breakup of Yugoslavia The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
, Gaj's Latin alphabet remained in use in Bosnian and Croatian standards of Serbo-Croatian. Another standard of Serbo-Croatian, Montenegrin, uses a slightly modified version of it. In 1993, the authorities of
Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located ...
under Radovan Karadžić and
Momčilo Krajišnik Momčilo Krajišnik (; 20 January 1945 – 15 September 2020) was a Bosnian Serb political leader, who along with Radovan Karadžić co-founded the Bosnian Serb nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS). Between 1990 and 1992, he was speaker of ...
decided to proclaim Ekavian and Serbian Cyrillic to be official in
Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located ...
, which was opposed both by native
Bosnian Serb The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sr-Cyrl, Срби у Босни и Херцеговини, Srbi u Bosni i Hercegovini) are one of the three constitutive nations (state-forming nations) of the country, predominantly residing in the politi ...
writers at the time and the general public, and that decision was rescinded in 1994. Nevertheless, it was reinstated in a milder form in 1996, and today still the use of Serbian Latin is officially discouraged in Republika Srpska, in favor of Cyrillic. Article 10 of the
Constitution of Serbia The current Constitution of the Republic of Serbia ( sr, / ), also known as Mitrovdan Constitution ( sr, / ) was adopted in 2006, replacing the previous constitution dating from 1990. The adoption of new constitution became necessary in 2006 ...
adopted by a referendum in 2006 defined Cyrillic as the official script in Serbia, while Latin was given the status of "Script in official use". Today Serbian is more likely to be romanized in Montenegro than in Serbia. Exceptions to this include Serbian websites where use of Latin alphabet is often more convenient, and increasing use in tabloid and popular media such as ''
Blic ''Blic'' (Cyrillic: Блиц, ) is a daily middle-market tabloid newspaper in Serbia. Founded in 1996, ''Blic'' is owned by Ringier Axel Springer Media AG, a joint venture between Ringier media corporation from Switzerland and Axel Springer A ...
'', '' Danas'' and ''Svet''. More established media, such as the formerly state-run ''
Politika ''Politika'' ( sr-Cyrl, Политика; ''Politics'') is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans. Publishing and owners ...
,'' and Radio Television of Serbia, or foreign Google News,
Voice of Russia Voice of Russia ( rus, Голос России, r=Golos Rossii), commonly abbreviated VOR, was the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service from 1993 until 2014, when it was reorganised as Radio Sputnik. Its interval signal ...
and Facebook tend to use Cyrillic script. Some websites offer the content in both scripts, using Cyrillic as the source and auto generating Romanized version. In 2013 in Croatia there were massive protests against official Cyrillic signs on local government buildings in
Vukovar Vukovar () ( sr-Cyrl, Вуковар, hu, Vukovár, german: Wukowar) is a city in Croatia, in the eastern region of Slavonia. It contains Croatia's largest river port, located at the confluence of the Vuka and the Danube. Vukovar is the seat o ...
.


Romanization of names


Serbian place names

Serbian place names are consistently spelled in ''latinica'' using the mapping that exists between the
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, th ...
and
Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Ser ...
.


Serbian personal names

Serbian personal names are usually romanized exactly the same way as place names. This is particularly the case with consonants which are common to other Slavic Latin alphabets - Č, Ć, Š, Ž,
Dž ( titlecase form; all- capitals form DŽ, lowercase dž) is the seventh letter of the Gaj's Latin alphabet for Serbo-Croatian ( Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian), after D and before Đ. It is pronounced . Dž is a digraph that ...
and Đ. A problem is presented by the letter Đ/ đ that represents the
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
(the same sound written as in most romanizations of
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
, similar, though not identical to english as in "Jam"), which is still sometimes represented by "Dj". The letter Đ was not part of the original Gaj's alphabet, but was added by Đuro Daničić in the 19th century. A transcribed "Dj" is still sometimes encountered in rendering Serbian names into English (e.g.
Novak Djokovic Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl, Новак Ђоковић, translit=Novak Đoković, ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 for a record total 373 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. ...
), though strictly Đ should be used (as in Croatian).


Foreign names

In Serbian, foreign names are phonetically transliterated into both Latin and Cyrillic, a change that does not happen in Croatian and Bosnian (also Latin). For example, in Serbian history books
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
becomes or , Winston Churchill becomes or and
Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
or . This change also happens in some European languages that use the Latin alphabet such as Latvian. The name
Catherine Ashton Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, (born 20 March 1956), is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the Europe ...
for instance gets transliterated into or in Serbian. An exception to this are place names which are so well known as to have their own form ( exonym): just as English has '' Vienna,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous c ...
'' (and not
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
''Wien, Österreich'') so Croatian and romanization of Serbian have ( sr-Cyrl, Беч, Аустрија).


Incomplete romanization

The incomplete romanization of Serbian is written using the
English alphabet The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, '' alpha'' and '' beta''. ...
, also known as ASCII Serbian, by dropping diacritics. It is commonly used in SMS messages, comments on the Internet or e-mails, mainly because users do not have a Serbian keyboard installed. Serbian is a fully phonetic language with 30 sounds that can be represented with 30 Cyrillic letters, or with letters of 27 Gaj's Latin alphabet and three digraphs (" nj" for " њ", ” lj" for " љ", and "
Dž ( titlecase form; all- capitals form DŽ, lowercase dž) is the seventh letter of the Gaj's Latin alphabet for Serbo-Croatian ( Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian), after D and before Đ. It is pronounced . Dž is a digraph that ...
" for " џ"). In its ASCII form, the number of used letters drops down to 22, as the letters "q", "w", "x" and "y" are not used. This leads to some ambiguity due to homographs, however context is usually sufficient to clarify these issues. Using incomplete romanization does not allow for easy transliteration back to Cyrillic without significant manual work. Google tried using a machine learning approach to solving this problem and developed an interactive text input tool that enables typing Serbian in ASCII and auto-converting to Cyrillic. However, manual typing is still required with occasional disambiguation selection from the pop-up menu.


Tools for romanization

Serbian text can be converted from Cyrillic to Latin and vice versa automatically by computer. There are add-in tools available for Microsoft Word and
OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) an ...
,OOoTranslit add-on for OpenOffice
/ref> as well as command line tools for Linux, MacOS and Windows.


References

{{Romanization
Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...
Serbian language