Script guide › Cyrillic
How to recognize Serbian
Serbian is one of 8 languages in Grafle's Cyrillic group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- 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.
What Serbian looks like
Сва људска бића рађају се слободна и једнака у достојанству.
Београд је главни град Србије.
Није злато све што сија, кажу људи.
Cyrillic scripts: Look for reversed-looking letters like я and и, plus shapes like ж, д, б, ч.
Where you'll see it on signs
- Republic of Serbia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Montenegro
Easy to confuse with
- Bulgarian — Serbian mixes in the Latin-looking ј (је, сија); Bulgarian's tell is the vowel ъ mid-word.
- Russian — Serbian mixes in the Latin-looking ј (је, Србије, сија); Russian has ы and э instead.
- Macedonian — Twins — both write the Latin-looking ј. Watch for Macedonian's own ѓ, ќ, ѕ versus Serbian's ђ, ћ, џ.