Serbian

About Serbian

Serbian is the official language of Serbia and one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, with about 9 million speakers. It is a standard form of Serbo-Croatian, so Serbian speakers understand Croatian and Bosnian with little difficulty.

Serbian is written in two alphabets, Cyrillic and Latin, and both are in everyday use. The spelling is phonetic, with one letter for each sound. č and ć are two kinds of ch, š is sh, ž is the s in "measure", đ is close to the j in "jam" and j is the y in "yes". Use vi as the polite "you" and ti with friends.

FamilyIndo-European, South Slavic
Speakersabout 9 million (2015)
Official inSerbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo
ScriptCyrillic and Latin alphabets
Codessr (ISO 639-1), srp (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Ethnologue, 18th edition (2015), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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