Phabetia

The Serbian alphabet

Serbian Cyrillic is the most regular of them all: Vuk Karadžić reformed it in the 19th century on a principle that fits in one sentence, «write as you speak and read as it is written». Every letter is one sound and every sound one letter, with no exceptions.

To get there he removed everything that had no sound of its own — Й, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю and Я — and brought in six new letters: Ђ, Ј, Љ, Њ, Ћ and Џ. Two of them, Љ and Њ, are ligatures: a Л and a Н fused with the soft sign.

Serbia also writes in two alphabets at once, Cyrillic and Latin, with an exact letter-for-letter correspondence between them. That is why the equivalent given here is not a rough transcription but the actual Serbian Latin letter: Ж is Ž, Ч is Č, Џ is Dž.

The 30 letters of the Serbian alphabet

Uppercase Lowercase Name Sounds like Looks like
А а A A
Б б Be B
В в Ve V B
Г г Ge G
Д д De D A
Ђ ђ Đe Đ
Е е E E
Ж ж Že Ž
З з Ze Z E
И и I I N
Ј ј Je J
К к Ka K
Л л Le L
Љ љ Lje LJ
М м Me M
Н н Ne N H
Њ њ Nje NJ
О о O O
П п Pe P
Р р Re R P
С с Se S C
Т т Te T
Ћ ћ Će Ć
У у U U Y
Ф ф Fe F
Х х Ha H X
Ц ц Ce C
Ч ч Če Č Y
Џ џ Dže DŽ
Ш ш Ša Š

Words to practise

How you learn it in Phabetia

Every new letter is introduced first with its name and its Latin equivalent, and you have to recognise it before you start practising it. Then come the exercises: letter to sound, sound to letter, quick memory, telling it apart from the Latin letter it resembles, spotting the intruder, completing a word and reading one.

Characters arrive two or three at a time and are never dropped: each level carries the previous ones along. What you get wrong comes back sooner and more often; what you have mastered shows up rarely, and anything you have not seen for days climbs back up on its own.

There are no lives and no punishment: getting one wrong interrupts nothing. To move on you only need 70 % right.

Frequently asked questions

How many letters does the Serbian alphabet have?

Thirty, and thirty sounds: it is the only Cyrillic where the correspondence is exact. There are no silent signs and no letters standing for two sounds.

Is Cyrillic or Latin used more in Serbia?

Both: Cyrillic is the official one and Latin is in everyday use, and any Serbian reads both fluently. Knowing the table of equivalents lets you switch between them without thinking.

Does what I learn here help with Russian?

Largely: they share two thirds of the letters, and Phabetia stores mastery per Cyrillic letter. What does not carry over are the six letters specific to Serbian, and Russian has nine more that Serbian lacks.

Other alphabets