Script guide › Cyrillic
Bulgarian vs Serbian
Bulgarian and Serbian sit in the same corner of the writing-system map — Grafle's Cyrillic group — and players mix them up constantly. Here's the fastest way to tell them apart.
The tell
Serbian mixes in the Latin-looking ј (је, сија); Bulgarian's tell is the vowel ъ mid-word.
Side by side
Bulgarian
Всички човешки същества се раждат свободни и равни по достойнство.
Добър ден! Как сте? Благодаря, добре съм.
България е красива страна.
Bulgarian's own tells
- Uses ъ as an everyday vowel (България, съм) — mid-word ъ everywhere is Bulgarian.
- No і, ї or ј.
On signs in:
- Bulgaria
Serbian
Сва људска бића рађају се слободна и једнака у достојанству.
Београд је главни град Србије.
Није злато све што сија, кажу људи.
Serbian's own tells
- The Latin-looking ј inside Cyrillic (је, јединство) plus љ, њ, ђ, џ.
- Serbia uses both alphabets — the same signs often appear in Latin too.
On signs in:
- Republic of Serbia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Montenegro