Serbian Cyrillic alphabet

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet Српска ћирилица азбука Srpska ćirilica azbuka
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Script type	Alphabet
Time period	9th century – present
Status	Active In Official Use In Use Safe Present Live
Direction	Left-to-right
Official script	Serbia Montenegro B&H (including RS) Greece ( Mount Athos, Hilandar)
Languages	Serbian Serbian Slavonic
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs[1] Phoenician alphabet Greek alphabet (partly Glagolitic alphabet) Early Cyrillic alphabet Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Child systems	Macedonian alphabet (partly) Montenegrin Cyrillic (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 азбука, Srpska ćirilica azbuka, pronounced [sr̩̂pskaː tɕirǐlitsa]) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language that originated in medieval Serbia. Reformed in 19th century by the Serbian philologist and linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write modern standard Serbian, the other being Gaj's Latin alphabet.

Reformed Serbian based its alphabet on the previous 18th century Slavonic-Serbian script, following the principle of "write as you speak and read as it is written", removing obsolete letters and letters representing iotated vowels, introducing ⟨J⟩ from the Latin alphabet instead, and adding several consonant letters for sounds specific to Serbian phonology. During the same period, linguists led by Ljudevit Gaj adapted the Latin alphabet, in use in western South Slavic areas, using the same principles. As a result of this joint effort, Serbian Cyrillic and Gaj's Latin alphabets have a complete one-to-one congruence, with the Latin digraphs Lj, Nj, and Dž counting as single letters.

The updated Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was officially adopted in the Principality of Serbia in 1868, and was in exclusive use in the country up to the interwar period. Both alphabets were official in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Due to the shared cultural area, Gaj's Latin alphabet saw a gradual adoption in the Socialist Republic of Serbia since, and both scripts are used to write modern standard Serbian. In Serbia, Cyrillic is seen as being more traditional, and has the official status (designated in the constitution as the "official script", compared to Latin's status of "script in official use" designated by a lower-level act, for national minorities). It is also an official script in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, along with Gaj's Latin alphabet.