Serbian Media - Language

Language

Serbs speak the Serbian language, a member of the South Slavic group of languages, specifically in the Southwestern Slavic group with the Southeastern Slavic languages including Macedonian and Bulgarian. It is mutually intelligible with the standard Croatian and Bosnian language (see Differences in standard Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) and some linguists still consider it part of the pre-war Serbo-Croatian language.

The Serbian language comprises several dialects, the standard language is based on the Stokavian dialect.

It is an official language in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. In Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, the Macedonia and Romania, it is a regionally recognized minority language.

There are several variants of the Serbian language. The older forms of Serbian are Old Serbian and Russo-Serbian, a version of the Church Slavonic language.

Serbian is the only European language with active digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles, the Cyrillic itself has its origins in Cyril and Methodius transformation from the Greek script.

Loanwords in the Serbian language are mostly from Turkish, German and Italian, words of Hungarian origin is present mostly in the north and Greek words mostly in the liturgy.

Two Serbian words that are used in many of the world's languages are vampire and paprika. Slivovitz and ćevapčići 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.