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Serbian language
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The Serbian language (Serbian Cyrillic: ?????? ?????, Serbian Latin: srpski jezik) is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora. It is the only entirely phonetic language in the world.
Standard Serbian is based on the Shtokavian dialect, like the modern Croatian and Bosnian, with which it is mutually intelligible, and was previously unified with under the standard known as Serbo-Croatian. It counts among the official (and minority) languages of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia and Hungary.
The alphabet used to write Serbian is a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet, was devised by Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic.
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Encyclopedia
The Serbian language (Serbian Cyrillic: ?????? ?????, Serbian Latin: srpski jezik) is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora. It is the only entirely phonetic language in the world.
Standard Serbian is based on the Shtokavian dialect, like the modern Croatian and Bosnian, with which it is mutually intelligible, and was previously unified with under the standard known as Serbo-Croatian. It counts among the official (and minority) languages of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia and Hungary.
The alphabet used to write Serbian is a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet, was devised by Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic. The Serbian Latin alphabet is based on Ljudevit Gaj's reform.
Serbian orthography is very consistent: it is an approximation of the principle "one letter per sound". This principle is represented by Adelung's saying, "Write as you speak and read as it is written", the principle used by Vuk Karadžic when reforming the Cyrillic orthography of Serbian in the 19th century.
Most of the European linguists from outside the Balkans regard still scientifically the Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin languages as just one language — the Serbo-Croatian.
Writing system
Standard Serbian language uses both Serbian Cyrillic script and Serbian Latin script (latinica). Although Serbian language authorities recognize the official status for both scripts in contemporary standard Serbian language, due to historical reasons Cyrillic was made the Official script of Serbia's administration by the 2006 Constitution. But 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, except in government paperwork production and in official written communication with state officials.
Alphabetic order
The sort order of the cirilica (????????) alphabet:
- Cyrillic order (called Azbuka: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
The sort order of the latinica (????????) alphabet:
- Latin order (called Abeceda (???????): A B C C C D Dž Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S Š T U V Z Ž
The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, along with the Serbian Latin equivalent and the IPA value for each letter, in Cyrillic sort order:
Phonology
Vowels
The Serbian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels. All vowels are monophthongs. The vowels are as follows:
Consonants
The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. Voicing is phonemic, but aspiration is not. The consonant phoneme table for Serbian is as follows (corresponding Latin letters are below the IPA symbols)
can be syllabic, playing the role of a vowel in certain words (it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister na vrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic . A similar feature exists in Czech, Slovak, Macedonian and many other languages. In some vernaculars can be syllabic as well. However, in the standard language, it appears only in loanwords as in the name for the Czech river Vltava for instance, or ?????? (debakl), ?????? (monokl) and ?????? (bicikl).
In Serbian, the phonemes , , , and (in contrast to Croatian and Bosnian vernaculars) have an independent phonetic realization in most vernaculars.
Phonetic interactions
While the basic sound system is fairly simple, Serbian phonology is very complicated: there are numerous interactions (sandhi rules) between sounds at morpheme boundaries which cause sound changes, with numerous exceptions. The changes include:
- Two types of iotation
- So called older, reflected in all Slavic languages
- So called newer: d, t, l, n + j > d, c, lj, nj.
- Three types of palatalization, reflected in all Slavic languages:
- First, involving shift of velar consonants k, g and h into postalveolar c, ž and š in front of front vowels e and i,
- Second (also known as "sibilarization"), involving shift of k, g and h into alveolar c, z and s in front of e and i
- Little-known third, involving shift of k, g, h into c, z, s after e, i and a.
- Voicing and Devoicing assimilation
- Assimilation by place of articulation
- Elision in complex consonant clusters
- L?O shift, where final and pre-consonant *l was changed into an /o/
- "Labile A", referring to sound a occurring only in nominative and genitive plural of nouns with several suffixes (most commonly -ak and -ac): tocak ('wheel') (N) ? tocka (G) ? tocku (D) etc.
Voicing and devoicing
In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words ("Washington" would be transcribed as VašinGton/?????????), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable.
Prosody
Accents
Serbian has an extended system of accentuation. From the phonological point of view it has four accents which are divided into two groups according to their quality:
- there are two accents with falling intonation ("old accents")- the short one and the long one
- there are two accents with rise in intonation ("new accents")- the short one and the long one
However, their realization varies according to vernacular. That is why Danicic, Budmani, Matešic and other scholars have given different descriptions of the four Serbian accents. The old accents are rather close to Italian and English accent types, and the new ones to German (this can easily be seen through loanwords).
Here is one phonetic realization of 4 Serbian accents:
- Short falling (kratkosilazni; symbol `` – double grave) as in Mďlica (PNfem). Pronunciation: ('i' is stressed and short, as in English thick,cut).
- Long falling (dugosilazni; symbol ^) as in pîvo ('beer'). Pronunciation: ('i' is stressed, first low, then high and then again low, as in English seek, Italian Gino, Marco).
- Short rising (kratkouzlazni; symbol ` – grave)as in mŕskara ('eye makeup'). Pronunciation: (the first 'a' is slightly stressed, the second 'a' is higher than the first one, and the third 'a' is even higher than the second one, as in German Arbeiter, Matratze).
- Long rising (dugouzlazni; symbol ´) as in cokoláda ('chocolate'). Pronunciation: ('a' is stressed, longer than the other vowels, and the intonation is slightly rising, as in German Balade or Schokolade).
The "finest" realization—the differences between the accents are relatively small, words are pronounced without any special effort—can be found in the most respectable vernaculars of Piva and Drobnjak and in Belgrade and partly in familiar vernaculars in Kolubara district and southwestern Banat. These two groups of vernaculars gave the base for Belgrade old speaker school. Already in surrounding Nikšic (Montenegro), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Užice (Serbia) area stress is more intensive.
Modern surveys have shown for instance, that there is a minimal difference in Piva and Drobnjak (where the family of Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic had come from) between the syllables that carry short-stressed accent with fall intonation and the short-stressed with rise intonation. In the first edition of Vuk's dictionary (1818), Vuk even marked these two accents as one and the same accent. The difference between the short-stressed accent with falling acentuation and the short-stressed with rise accent is almost lost in two-syllable words (cf. the surveys of Pavle Ivic on Serbian prosody). The informal speech- slang in Belgrade has very special, neutralized accentuation (the oppositions falling/rising, short/long is only partly based on genuine word accents, far more on phonetic letter structure of the word).
Unstressed lengths
Not only the stressed syllables can be short or long. Other syllables have that feature as well. In neo-shtokavian vernaculars, the unstressed long syllable (unstressed length) can occur only after the accented syllable (these lengths are usually called postaccent lengths. Their symbol is macron (-): dčvojka ('girl'), Jugňslavija ('Yugoslavia').
The phonetic realization of postaccent lengths is different. In vernaculars of Piva and Drobnjak they are rather very short, without any stress components. In some other East Herzegovinian vernaculars, they are almost stressed (of course, less intense than the really stressed syllable). In many vernaculars—for instance in Belgrade, and in many places in Vojvodina—postaccents lengths are almost lost. That's why foreign students are not expected to pay much attention to them.
History
Before 1400, most Serbian vernaculars had two accents, both with fall intonation—the short one and the long one. That is why they are called "old accents". By 1500, the old accents moved by one syllable towards the beginning of the word, changing their quality to rising accents. For instance junâk (hero) became jůnak. The old accents logically remained only when they were on first syllable. Not all dialects had this evolution; those who had it are called neo-shtokavian. The irradiation point was in east Herzegovina, between Prokletije mountains and town of Trebinje. Since the 16th century people had been emigrating from this area. The biggest migrations were to the north, then toward Military Krajina and to the seaside (Dalmatia, Istria, Dubrovnik area, including the islands of Mljet and Šipan). In the 1920s and 1930s the royal government tried to settle people from this poor mountainous area to the Kosovo basin. Vojvodina was settled with inhabitants from this area after WWII.
When all old accents had moved to the beginning of the word for one syllable, this was the result:
- In words with two or more syllables the last syllable cannot be stressed
- One-syllable words can have only falling accents
- In polysyllabic words, if an inner syllable is stressed, then it can have only a rising accent (there are exceptions- in standard and in many vernaculars, for instance when there is a ` - - combination)
- In a word with two or more syllables, if the first syllable is stressed, than it can have any of the four accents.
Grammar
Conjugation
Serbian verbs are conjugated in 4 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 majority of native Serbian speakers consider it archaic); 1 future tense (aka 1st future tense - as opposed to the 2nd future tense or the future exact, which is considered a tense of the conditional mood by some contemporary linguists), and 1 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 1st conditional (commonly used in conditional clauses, both for possible and impossible conditional clauses), and the 2nd conditional (without use in 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 1 infinitive, 2 adjectival participles (the active and the passive), and 2 adverbial participles (the present and the past).
Vocabulary
- Most of the words in Serbian are of Slavic origin. That means that their roots continue some words reconstructed for Proto-Slavic language. For instance, srce ('heart'), plav ('blue').
- There are many loanwords from different languages:
- There are plenty of loanwords from German. The great number of them are specific for vernaculars which were situated in the Austrian monarchy (Vojvodina, Slavonija, Lika and partly Bosnia). 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 taken directly from Italian, they show specific, not regular, adaptations. For instance špagčte for Italian spaghetti rather than the "expected" špŕgete. The most common Serbian greeting is "Cao", after the Italian "Ciao"
- On the other hand, as in Croatian, there are plenty of Italian loanwords in the coastal vernaculars (in Spic, Paštrovici, Boka Kotorska, Dubrovnik area and at Kvarner coast), as well as in the vernaculars near the co?st. In some Croatian vernaculars, Italian loanwords made up to 40-50% of the vernacular vocabulary in the 1930s. Most common are words borrowed from Venetian (brancin, altroke, ardura, karonja ('lazy man'), pršut(a)). Some toponyms such as Budva and Boka Kotorska ('bay of Kotor') are borrowed from Venetian.
- In the coastal area, many words were borrowed from the Dalmatian language (murina, imbut), a Romance language, that was extinct by 1900. Many toponyms were also borrowed from Dalmatian (Kakrc, Luštica, Lovcen, Sutomore< Sancta Maria).
- The number of Turkish loanwords is also significant. There are according to Abdulah Skaljic, ("Turcizmi u srpskohrvatskom jeziku" - "Svjetlost" Sarajevo), 8,742 Turkish words, but far fewer than that number are in use today. Most of these words are not Turkish in origin but 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, cakšire (???????) was the only word for trousers before World War II, today pantalone (?????????) is current; some 30-50 years ago avlija (?????? < Turkish avli) was a common word for courtyard or backyard in Belgrade, today it is dvorište (????????); only 15 years ago caršav was usual for tablecloth, today it is stoljnjak (???????). 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. Many Turkish loanwords are usual in the vernaculars of Vojvodina, Slavonija, Montenegro and Lika as well.
- 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, tiganj, patos. Almost every word of the Serbian Orthodox ceremonies are of Greek origin (parastos (????????)).
- The number of Hungarian loanwords in the standard language is small: bitanga (???????), alas, ašov). However, they are present in some vernaculars of Vojvodina and Slavonia and also in historical documents, local literature. Some place names in northern central Serbia as Barajevo, are probably of Hungarian origin.
- Classical international words (words mainly with Latin or Greek roots) are adapted in Serbian like in most European languages, not translated as in Croatian. For instance Serbian atmosfera, Croatian ozracje, S telegraf, C brzojav, S avion, C zrakoplov.
- Two Serbian words that are used in many of the world's languages are vampire and paprika. Slivovitz and cevapcici are Serbian words which have spread together with the Serbian food/drink they refer to. Paprika and slivovitz are borrowed via German; paprika itself entered German via Hungarian. Vampire entered most West European languages through German-language texts in the early 18th century and has since spread widely in the world.
Serbian literature
Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevandelje (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 then by most other "epic folks". Goethe and Jacob Grimm learned Serbian in order to read Serbian epic poetry in 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 Stefanovic Venclovic, 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 Pavic. In the early 19th century, Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic, promoted the spoken language of the people as a literary norm.
Dictionaries
Serious Serbian and Croatian dictionaries regularly include Croatian only, and Serbian only words. Three Serbian words that are used in many of the world's languages are vampire, paprika (borrowed via Hungarian), and slivovitz. The English word nightmare is also most probably of Serbian origin. It originated from the name of a demon in Serbian folklore - Mora, which denotes a female demon that comes at night and sits upon its sleeping victims, giving them bad dreams.
Standard dictionaries
- Recnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika (Dictionary of Serbo-Croatian standard language and vernaculars) is the biggest dictionary of Serbian and still unfinished. Starting with 1959, 16 volumes were published, about 40 are expected. Works of Croatian authors are excerpted, if published before 1991.
- Recnik srpskohrvatskoga književnog jezika in 6 volumes, started as a common project of Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska, but only the first three volumes were also published in Croato-Serbian (hrvatskosrpski).
- There are no high-standard volume dictionaries whether of Serbian nor of Croatian language. Matica srpska is preparing one. Several volume dictionaries were published in Croatia (for the Croatian language) since the 1990s (Anic, Enciklopedijski rjecnik, Hrvatski rjecnik).
Bilingual dictionaries
- Standard dictionaries
- Specialized dictionaries
- Phraseological dictionaries
Historical dictionaries
The Rjecnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (I-XXIII), published by the Yugoslav academy of sciencies and arts (JAZU) from 1880 to 1976, is the only general historical dictionary of Serbo-Croatian language. His first editor was Đuro Danicic, followed by Pero Budmani and famous Vukovian Tomislav Maretic. The sources of this are, especially in first volumes, mainly Štokavian.
Etymological dictionaries
The standard and the only completed etymological dictionary of Serbian is the "Skok", written by the Croatian linguist Petar Skok: Etimologijski rjecnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika ("Etymological Dictionary of Croatian or Serbian"). I-IV. Zagreb 1971-1974.
There is also a new monumental Etimološki recnik 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, Dalmatian, Turkish, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, English and other loanwords (cf. chapter word origin).
Dialect dictionaries
- Kosovsko-resavski dialect dictionaries:
- Gliša Elezovic, Recnik kosovsko-metohiskog dijalekta I-II. 1932/1935.
- Prizren-Timok (Torlakian) dialect dictionaries:
- Brana Mitrovic, Recnik leskovackog govora. Leskovac 1984.
- Nikola Živkovic, Recnik pirotskog govora. Pirot, 1987.
- Miodrag Markovic, Recnik crnoreckog govora I-II. 1986/1993.
- Jakša Dinic, Recnik timockog govora I-III.1988-1992.
- Jakša Dinic, Timocki dijalekatski recnik ,(Institut za srpski jezik, Monografije 4;ISBN 978-86-82873-17-4) Beograd 2008 ,
- Momcilo Zlatanovic, Recnik govora južne Srbije. Vranje, 1998, 1–491.
- East-Herzegowinian dialect dictionaries:
- Milija Stanic, Uskocki recnik I–II. Beograd 1990/1991.
- Miloš Vujicic, Recnik govora Prošcenja kod Mojkovca. Podgorica, 1995.
- Srdan Music, Romanizmi u severozapadnoj Boki Kotorskoj. 1972.
- Mihailo Bojanic/ Rastislava Trivunac, Rjecnik dubrovackog govora. Beograd 2003.
- Svetozar Gagovic, Iz leksike Pive. Beograd 2004.
- Rada Stijovic, Iz leksike Vasojevica. 1990.
- Drago Cupic Željko Cupic, Recnik govora Zagaraca. 1997.
- Vesna Lipovac-Radulovic, Romanizmi u Crnoj Gori jugoistocni dio Boke Kotorske. Cetinje Titograd, 1981.
- Vesna Lipovac-Radulovic, Romanizmi u Budvi i Paštrovicima. Novi Sad 1997.
- Recnik sprskih govora Vojvodine. Novi Sad.
- Mile Tomic, Recnik radimskog govora dijaspora, Rumunija. 1989.
Geographic distribution
Figures of speakers according to countries:
- Serbia: 6,540,699
- Montenegro: 401,382
- Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1,600,000
- Germany: around 507,000
- USA: around 500,000
- Brazil: 233,818 (2001)
- Canada: 55,545 (, 40,580 of that in Ontario)
- Croatia: 44,629
- Republic of Macedonia: 33,315 (2001)
- Romania: 20,377 (2001)
- Australia: 100,000 (2001)
Differences among similar languages
See also
External links
- and Serbian - English Dictionary.
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- an article by linguist Pavle Ivic at Project Rastko
- , Serbianna.com, 23 January 2007
- Learn Serbian online for free.
- incl.sound file
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Online dictionaries
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