International Mother Language Day

Day 4,112, 15:32 • Published in Netherlands Serbia • by Krivi Kurjak


Inspired by the Thedillpickl's article and article published by the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands, I decided to present Serbian in shortest possible way, with almost two days of delay.

Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the official language of Serbia and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbian is a mother tongue of more than 9,000,000 of people.


Fun fact

Serbian is a recognized minority language in Montenegro where it is spoken by the relative majority of the population.



Countries where Serbian is recognized as a minority language (light blue)


The original alphabet used by both the Serbs and Croats was Glagolitic. It was created by the monks Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century for Old Church Slavonic, the liturgical language of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Orthodox areas of Serbia and Bosnia, Glagolitic was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in the 12th century.

Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin script. Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830.


Literature

The history of Serbian literature begins with the independent theological works from the Nemanjić era (12th century). With the fall of Serbia and neighbouring countries in the 15th century, there is a gap in the literary history in the occupied land, however, Serbian literature continued uninterrupted in lands under European rule and saw a revival in the 18th century in Vojvodina, then under Habsburg rule. Serbia gained independence following the Serbian Revolution (1804–1815) and Serbian literature has since prospered.


Digression, silly and irrelevant scene from the Serbian movie which includes the Netherlands



"You will return the money until Saturday and I don't want to hear words as I won't (neću), I can't (ne mogu), a purse (neseser), or Nederland"


Loanwords

It is estimated that there are 900–1,200 Greek, 100-200 German and an uncertain high number of Turkish loanwords in modern Serbian.

The South Slavic languages were greatly influenced by Greek beginning in the Early Middle Ages, through translation of Byzantine works. The Ottoman conquest began a linguistical contact between Turkish and South Slavic. Turkish influence grew stronger after the 15th century. Besides Turkish loanwords, also many Arabic (such as alat - "tool", sat - "clock") and Persian (čarape - "socks", šećer - "sugar") words entered via Turkish, called "Orientalisms".


Thankful on reading,
Banglades