Serbo-Croat Written Language

Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin and all are grouped under the term Serbo-Croat. Its speakers can easily understand each other, having been derived from the same language ancestry.

The map of the former Yugoslav countries shows Bosnian (dark blue), Serbian (blue) and Croat (light blue) speaking areas:

Bosnian and Croatian predominantly uses the

• Latin script (Croat-Hrvatski) (Bosnian-Bosanski)

Serbian uses the

• Cyrillic script (Serbian-српски)

Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian

All three are very similar and are easily understood by eachothers speakers. Bosnian and Croat can be written in the Cyrillic script although unusual. Serbian is written in the Cyrillic script.

The reason for the difference in scripts is due to Religion. Serbia is predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian where as the Croats are Roman Catholic Christian and the Bosnians, Muslim (from the Ottoman Empire).

Latin and Cyrillic script

The Belarussian language and use of the Latin script has become more popular since the 1990 fall of the Soviet Union and Independance although Russian still seems a major language and on a par with Belarusian with its use.

Serbo-Croat Latin and Cyrillic Text Samples

Serbo-Croat Latin Alphabet

The Serbo-Croat Latin script does not use Q or W.

It does use accents and digraphs (two letters used together), see below:

Additions to Latin Alphabet (Digraphs)

To type accents with ALT codes, hold down the ALT key, then on the numeric keypad type the three or four digits listed here. However not with laptops, ALT codes only work with the numeric keypad, NOT the row of numbers across the top of your keyboard, as on laptops.

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