Serbian Cyrillic alphabet

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet Српска ћирилица, Srpska ćirilica
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Script type	Alphabet
Period	10th century – present
Direction	Left-to-right
Official script	Serbia Montenegro Bosnia and Herzegovina Greece (Mount Athos, Hilandar Monastery)
Languages	Serbian Bosnian
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs[1] Phoenician alphabet Greek alphabet Glagolitic alphabet (partly) Early Cyrillic alphabet Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Child systems	Macedonian alphabet (partly) Montenegrin Cyrillic alphabet (partly)
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Cyrl (220), ​Cyrillic
Unicode
Unicode alias	Cyrillic
Unicode range	Subset of Cyrillic (U+0400–U+04FF)
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (Serbian: Српска ћирилица, Srpska ćirilica, IPA: [sr̩̂pskaː t͡ɕirǐlitsa]), also known as the Serbian script,^[2][3][4] (Српско писмо, Srpsko pismo, Serbian pronunciation: [sr̩̂psko pǐːsmo]), is a standardized variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language. It originated in medieval Serbia and was significantly reformed in the 19th century by the Serbian philologist and linguist Vuk Karadžić.

The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is one of the two official scripts used to write modern standard Serbian, the other being Gaj's Latin alphabet.

Karadžić based his reform on the earlier 18th-century Slavonic-Serbian script. Following the principle of "write as you speak and read as it is written" (piši kao što govoriš, čitaj kao što je napisano), he removed obsolete letters, eliminated redundant representations of iotated vowels, and introduced the letter ⟨J⟩ from the Latin script. He also created new letters for sounds unique to Serbian phonology. Around the same time, Ljudevit Gaj led the standardization of the Latin script for use in western South Slavic languages, applying similar phonemic principles.

As a result of these parallel reforms, Serbian Cyrillic and Gaj’s Latin alphabet have a one-to-one correspondence. The Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž are treated as single letters, just as their Cyrillic counterparts are.

The reformed Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was officially adopted in the Principality of Serbia in 1868 and remained the sole official script into the interwar period. Both scripts were recognized in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the latter period, Gaj’s Latin alphabet gained greater prominence, especially in urban and multiethnic contexts.

Today, both scripts are in official use for Serbian. In Serbia, Cyrillic has the constitutional status of "official script", while the Latin script is designated as "script in official use" for minority and practical purposes. Cyrillic is also an official script in Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, alongside the Latin alphabet.