SERBIAN ALPHABETS

Serbian language belongs to the Slavonic group of languages. That's why it's so similar to these languages:
Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, ... Many years ago we had more than 40 letters.
That's why we knew how to speak in our native language but we couldn't write. Our letters seemed very difficult to
us. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić decided to reform our language, because he wanted to make it simpler to us. . That's
why we have 30 letters only. He threw out some unnecessary letters and he invented some new letters. For example
"J" - he threw out the letter "й".

At that moment, our famous Vuk Stefanović Karadžić invented a golden rule: " You read in the same way you write
and the opposite. " In Serbian you're going to say: Piši kao što govoriš - Write just like you speak , a čitaj kako je
napisano - and read just like it is written.

WHAT IS THIS ARTICLE ABOUT?

In this article you're going to learn the next things:
1. How do the Serbian alphabets look like?
2. You're find out is the Serbian alphabets equal to the Russian alphabets or not?
3. How to write and pronounce the Serbian alphabets

Why should we learn how to write?

I agree it's very important to learn how to speak. But, how are we going to write any business letter? How are we
going to write love letters? or how are we going to do anything if we don't know how to write? There's no way to do
it. That's why we have to learn how to write.

Why should we learn how to read?

There are many reasons:

1. Everybody is going to be able to cheat us if we don't know how to read.
2. We won't be able to read any love letter.
3. We won't be able to enjoy in reading good books after an exhausted day.
4. We won't be able to learn anything from books.
etc
Trust me, it's not difficult at all.
Some facts about the alphabets

1. The difference between azbuka, ćirilica (Cyrillic) and abeceda, latinica (Latin)
The Cyrillic is the first letter that we had. After some time later we created Latin letter because foreign people didn't
get to understand what were we writing. The first thing that we learn in elementary schools is logically: how to write
in Cyrillic? because it is our traditional letter. Then, we learn how to write in Latin. I suppose the reason is (apart of
the fact that we use Latin letter more often) to make our learning foreign languages that use only the Latin letters
much easier (English, Spanish, Italian, ...).

2. There's something that surprises me so much, Croatian people don't use Cyrillic at all. Simply they put it out of
use and they created they own language, "the Croatian" language. They just invented some new words (everybody in
ex Yugoslavia spoke in Serbian-Croatian language). Other countries of ex Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Montenegro, ....) didn't throw out the Cyrillic letters at all but they formed "their own languages" (Bosnian,
Montenegrin) in the same way like Croatian people did it. That's why practically every citizen of some country of the
ex Yugoslavia is born like a polyglot because it's logical he/she speaks all of these languages.

3. In nowadays, we use the Latin letters more often, but the Cyrillic is not lost 100%. If you're going to ask me
"What do you prefer?" I'm going to answer you "I prefer Cyrillic" because it's so typical from us and because I think
it is more elegant.

4. Whenever I show the Serbian Cyrillic letters to any foreign person, people usually think they are exactly just like
the Russian letters. It's true that there is a great part of the letters that are so similar to the Serbian letters, but
that's it.

Let's take a look at the Serbian alphabets first and then I'm going to put you the Russian alphabets. You are going to
be able to see it.

Ćirilična pisana slova Ćirilična štampana slova

Cyrillic letters handwriting Cyrillic digital letters
Abeceda, pisana slova Abeceda štampana slova
Latin letters handwriting Latin letters digital

RUSSIAN ALPHABETS

Let's compare now the Russian and the Serbian Cyrillic letters to see what letters are mutual and
what are totally different:
 CYRILIC LETTERS
LETTERS HOW TO PRONOUNCE THEM?
A А
Б B
В V
Г G
Д D
Ђ DJ (just like in Italian: "Giorgio", "Giallo", …)
E E
Ж ZH
З Z (3 IS NOT number 3, do not mix it)
И I (it reads like "ee")
Ј J
К K
Л L
Љ LJ
М M
Н N
Њ NJ
О O
П P
Р R
С S
Т T
Ћ TCH
У U
Ф F
Х H
Ц C
Ч Č
Џ DŽ
Ш SH
 LATIN LETTERS
LETTERS HOW TO PRONOUNCE THEM?
A А
B B
V V
G G
D D
Đ DJ (just like in Italian: "Giorgio", "Giallo", …)
E E
Ž ZH
Z Z (3 IS NOT number 3, do not mix it)
I I (it reads like "ee")
J J
K K
L L
LJ LJ
М M
N N
NJ NJ
O O
P P
R R
S S
T T
Ć TCH
U U
F F
H H
C C
Č Č
DŽ DŽ
Š SH
Each letter represents ONLY one voice
For example, if I say "šolja - a cup" it is going to be š - o - lj - a. If I put the English rule, for example, for the name
"Bojana" it's going to be Bioudžejejenej and it is incorrect. Correctly it is "B- o - j - a - n -a" as it's the female
personal name.
 RUSSIAN ALPHABETS
ALPHABETS HOW TO PRONOUNCE THEM?
A А
Б BЕ
В ВЕ
Г GЕ
Д DЕ
E YE
Ё YO
Ж ZH
З ZЕ (3 IS NOT number 3, do not mix it)
И I (it reads like "ee")
Й Short I (it reads like "J")
К KA
Л EL
М EM
Н EN
О O
П PE
Р ЕR
С S
Т T
У U
Ф F
Х H
Ц C
Ч Č
Ш Š
Щ SHCH
Ь SILENT SIGN
Ы STRONG SIGN (it reads like strong I)
Э E
Ю YU
Я YA

What are the conclusions that can be made at this moment after we saw the tables
beyond?
1. The letters that Russian and Serbian language have are: А, Б, В, Г, Д , Е (but it's pronounced completely
different) , Ж, З, И , К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р , С, Т , У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш
2. The letters that don't exist in Serbian language are: Я, Ё, Ю, ь, , ы э, й, Щ
3. The letters that don't exist in Russian language are: Ј, Љ, Њ, Ћ, Ђ, Џ

However, Russian people can pronounce these letters: Ј like Й, Љ like ль, ля, лю, лё ; Њ like не, нё, ню, ...

And now I'm going to give a great exercise to all English speakers.
Let's write some English words in the same way like they're written in English and then let's write them in Cyrillic.
pencil, chair, shoulder, hi, bye, hair, John, Shannon, ...
пенсл, чер, шолдр, хај, бај, хер, Џон, Шенон
What's going on if we don't follow this rule?
пенцил, цхаир, схоулдер, хи, буе, хаир, Јохн, Сханнон, ....

Now you can see that some letters are completely changed: ch - č, sh - š, y is not ipsilon like it is going to be in
English (y is u U in Cyrillic, but we do not have that... ipsilon) and we wrote each voice that you told here: hi (haj),
bye (baj).

3. If you go out on the streets, you can find the names of: streets, markets, ... that are written in Cyrillic or Latin.
That's why it's so important to be able to write and read in both letters.
4. You're going to develop your brain because you're going to receive very useful information.

IT'S THE EXCERCISE TIME

EXCERCISE

Try to write these words with Latin letters :

Музика, филм, позориште, љубав, пријатељство (Music, movie, theater, love, friendship)
Some advices before the end of this article

1. Don't be afraid of the Cyrilic letters. You just need some practice with native speakers. After some time
you're going to get to use on them, especially because I've just showed you how to pronounce them.
2. Try to find some movies with subtitles or even the lyrics of the Serbian songs that you like.
3. Try to read newspapers or books in Serbian so you can practice your reading. I can recommend your these
newspapers: Blic, večernje novosti and Kurir .

I wish you good luck with your studies of the Serbian language and thank you so much because you took your
time to read my first article. Feel free to contact me if there's anything you can't understand. I'm going to
explain you with pleasure.

Greetings,

Suzana

Answers:

Muzika, film, pozorište, ljubav, prijateljstvo