The Montenegrin alphabet is the collective name given to "" ( Montenegrin Latin alphabet; in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

) and "" ( Montenegrin Cyrillic alphabet; in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

), the

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

s used to

write Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...

the

Montenegrin language , pronunciation = , states = Montenegro , ethnicity = Montenegrins , speakers = 232,600 ( see text) , date = , ref = , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Balto- ...

. It was adopted on 9 June 2009 by the Montenegrin Minister of Education, Sreten Škuletić and replaced the

Serbian Cyrillic The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (, ), also known as the Serbian script, (, ), is a standardized variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language. It originated in medieval Serbia and was significantly reformed in the 19th cen ...

and Gaj's Latin alphabets in use at the time. Although the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets enjoy equal status under the Constitution of Montenegro, the government and proponents of the Montenegrin language prefer to use the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

exclusively; 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.

History

Efforts to create a Latin character-based Montenegrin alphabet go back to at least

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, when a newspaper was published in

Cetinje Cetinje ( cnr-Cyrl, Цетиње, ) is a List of cities and towns in Montenegro, town in Montenegro. It is the former royal capital ( cnr-Latn-Cyrl, prijestonica, приjестоница, separator=" / ") of Montenegro and is the location of sev ...

using both

and

characters.

Latin alphabet

The Montenegrin Latin alphabet ( Montenegrin: ''crnogorska latinica'' / црногорска латиница, ''crnogorska abeceda'' / црногорска абецеда or ''crnogorski alfabet'' / црногорски алфабет) is used for writing the Montenegrin language in

. * Abeceda: A B C Č Ć D

Dž 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 or , like "j" in Engl ...

Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S Š Ś T U V Z Ž Ź It uses most letters of the

ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...

, with the exception of ''Q'', ''W'', ''X'' and ''Y'', only used for writing common words or proper names directly borrowed from foreign languages. Montenegrin Latin is based on

Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sr-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sr-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing all ...

, with the addition of the two letters Ś and Ź, to replace the pairs SJ and ZJ (so anachronistically considered as digraphs). С́ and З́, and could also be represented in the original alphabets as ''sj'' and ''zj'', and сj and зj, respectively. Because these two glyphs already exist in the

Polish alphabet The Polish alphabet ( Polish: , ) is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters (9) with diacritics: the stroke (acute accent or bar) ...

, 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 (the

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...

caron A caron or háček ( ), is a diacritic mark () placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation. Typographers tend to use the term ''caron'', while linguists prefer ...

, over C, S, and Z), and a supplementary base consonant Đ: they are needed to note additional phonetic distinctions (notably to preserve the distinctions that are present in the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...

with which the Montenegrin language has also long been written, when it was still unified in the former

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

within the written

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

language).

Digraphs

The alphabet also includes some digraphs built from the previous characters (that are considered as single letters for collation purpose): Dž, Nj, and Lj.

Cyrillic alphabet

The Montenegrin Cyrillic alphabet ( / or / ) is the official

of the

Montenegrin language , pronunciation = , states = Montenegro , ethnicity = Montenegrins , speakers = 232,600 ( see text) , date = , ref = , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Balto- ...

. It is used in parallel with the Latin script. * Azbuka: А Б В Г Д Ђ Е Ж З З́ И Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О П Р С С́ Т Ћ У Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш Its first version was developed by

Vojislav Nikčević Vojislav Nikčević ( cyrl, Војислав Никчевић; 18 January 1935 – 2 July 2007) was a Montenegro, Montenegrin linguist. Life Nikčević was born in village near Nikšić, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and was educated at the Univer ...

in the 1970s who was a dissident of the

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

and considered Montenegrin speech to be unique and deserving of consideration as a separate language from Serbo-Croatian. The modern version was brought into official use in early 2009 by the Ministry of Education under Sreten Škuletić. It was called the First Montenegrin Orthography, included a new Orthographic Dictionary, and replaced the

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 the

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

of Montenegro.

References

{{Language orthographies

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

Latin alphabets Cyrillic alphabets 2009 introductions 2009 establishments in Montenegro

History

Latin alphabet

Digraphs

Cyrillic alphabet

See also

References