The Serbian Language in the European Information Society

Abstract

Standard Serbian is the standard national language of Serbs and the official language in the Republic of Serbia. It was formed on the basis of Ekavian and Ijekavian Neo-Štokavian South Slavic dialects and its form was determined by the reformer of the written language of the Serbs Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864), who at the same time reformed both the Cyrillic alphabet and orthography. In the 20th century, in the federal state of Yugoslavia, this language was officially encompassed by Serbo-Croatian, a name that implied a linguistic unity with Croats (and later with other nations whose languages were based on Neo-Štokavian dialects). In the last decade of the 20th century in Serbia the name Serbo-Croatian was replaced in general usage by the name Serbian. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia from 2006 stipulates: “The Serbian language and the Cyrillic alphabet shall be in official use in the Republic of Serbia”.