Editing Serbo-Croatian (section)

== Orthography ==
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Serbo-Croatian orthography is almost entirely phonetic. Thus, most words should be spelled as they are pronounced. In practice, the writing system does not take into account [[allophone]]s which occur as a result of interaction between words:
* bit će{{spaced ndash}}pronounced ''biće'' (and only written separately in Bosnian and Croatian)
* od toga{{spaced ndash}}pronounced ''otoga'' (in many vernaculars)
* iz čega{{spaced ndash}}pronounced ''iščega'' (in many vernaculars)

Also, there are some exceptions, mostly applied to foreign words and compounds, that favor morphological/etymological over phonetic spelling:
* postdiplomski (postgraduate){{spaced ndash}}pronounced {{IPA|sh|pôzdiploːmskiː|}}

One systemic exception is that the consonant clusters '''ds''' and '''dš''' are not respelled as '''ts''' and '''tš''' (although ''d'' tends to be unvoiced in normal speech in such clusters):
* predstava {{IPA|sh|prětstaʋa|}} (show)
* odšteta {{IPA|sh|ôtʃteta|}} (damages)

Only a few words are intentionally "misspelled", mostly in order to resolve ambiguity:
* šeststo {{IPA|sh|ʃêːsto|}} (six hundred){{spaced ndash}}pronounced ''šesto'' (to avoid confusion with "šesto" [sixth], pronounced the same)
* prstni {{IPA|sh|př̩sniː|}} (adj., finger){{spaced ndash}}pronounced ''prsni'' (to avoid confusion with "prsni" {{IPA|sh|pr̩̂sniː|}} [adj., chest]), differentiated by tone in some areas (where the short rising tone contrasts with the short falling tone).

=== Writing systems ===
{{Main|Gaj's Latin alphabet|Serbian Cyrillic alphabet|Yugoslav Braille}}
Through history, this language has been written in a number of writing systems:
* [[Glagolitic alphabet]], chiefly in [[Croatia]].
* [[Bosančica]], [[Arebica]] (mostly in [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]]).
* [[Cyrillic script]].
* various modifications of the [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] and [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] alphabets.

The oldest texts since the 11th century are in [[Glagolitic]], and the oldest preserved text written completely in the Latin alphabet is {{lang|sh-Latn|Red i zakon sestara reda Svetog Dominika}}, from 1345. The Arabic alphabet had been used by [[Bosniaks]]; Greek writing is out of use there, and Arabic and Glagolitic persisted so far partly in religious liturgies.

The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was revised by [[Vuk Stefanović Karadžić]] in the 19th century.

The Croatian Latin alphabet ({{lang|sh|[[Gaj's Latin alphabet|Gajica]]}}) followed suit shortly afterwards, when [[Ljudevit Gaj]] defined it as standard [[Latin]] with five extra letters that had [[diacritic]]s, apparently borrowing much from [[Czech language|Czech]], but also from [[Polish language|Polish]], and inventing the unique [[digraph (orthography)|digraphs]] {{angbr|lj}}, {{angbr|nj}} and {{angbr|dž}}. These digraphs are represented as {{angbr|[[cedilla|ļ]]}}, {{angbr|[[ń]]}} and {{angbr|[[ǵ]]}} respectively in the {{lang|sh|Rječnik hrvatskog ili srpskog jezika}}, published by the former [[Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts]] in [[Zagreb]].<ref>{{in lang|sh}} Gramatika hrvatskosrpskoga jezika, Group of Authors (Ivan Brabec, Mate Hraste and Sreten Živković), Zagreb, 1968.</ref> The latter digraphs, however, are unused in the literary standard of the language. All in all, this makes Serbo-Croatian the only Slavic language to officially use both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, albeit the Latin version is more commonly used.

In both cases, spelling is phonetic and spellings in the two alphabets map to each other one-to-one:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ '''Latin to Cyrillic'''
| A || a || B || b || C || c || Č || č || Ć || ć || D || d || Dž || dž || Đ || đ || E || e || F || f || G || g || H || h || I || i || J || j || K || k
|-
| А || а || Б || б || Ц || ц || Ч || ч || Ћ || ћ || Д || д || Џ || џ || Ђ || ђ || Е || е || Ф || ф || Г || г || Х || х || И || и || Ј || ј || К || к
|-
| colspan="30" style="height: 2px;" |
|-
| L || l || Lj || lj || M || m || N || n || Nj || nj || O || o || P || p || R || r || S || s || Š || š || T || t || U || u || V || v || Z || z || Ž || ž
|-
| Л || л || Љ || љ || М || м || Н || н || Њ || њ || О || о || П || п || Р || р || С || с || Ш || ш || Т || т || У || у || В || в || З || з || Ж || ж
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ '''Cyrillic to Latin'''
| А || а || Б || б || В || в || Г || г || Д || д || Ђ || ђ || Е || е || Ж || ж || З || з || И || и || Ј || ј || К || к || Л || л || Љ || љ || М || м
|-
| A || a || B || b || V || v || G || g || D || d || Đ || đ || E || e || Ž || ž || Z || z || I || i || J || j || K || k || L || l || Lj || lj || M || m
|-
| colspan="30" style="height: 2px;" |
|-
| Н || н || Њ || њ || О || о || П || п || Р || р || С || с || Т || т || Ћ || ћ || У || у || Ф || ф || Х || х || Ц || ц || Ч || ч || Џ || џ || Ш || ш
|-
| N || n || Nj || nj || O || o || P || p || R || r || S || s || T || t || Ć || ć || U || u || F || f || H || h || C || c || Č || č || Dž || dž || Š || š
|}

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left:1em;"
|+ '''Sample collation'''
! colspan="2" | Latin collation order
! rowspan="2" | Cyrillic<br />collation<br />order
|-
! '''Latin '''
! <span style="color:#606060;">Cyrillic<br />equivalent</span>
|-
| Ina
| <span style="color:#606060;">Ина</span>
| Ина
|-
| Injekcija
| <span style="color:#606060;">И'''нј'''екција</span>
| Инјекција
|-
| Inverzija
| <span style="color:#606060;">Инверзија</span>
| Инверзија
|-
| Inje
| <span style="color:#606060;">И'''њ'''е</span>
| Иње
|}

The [[digraph (orthography)|digraphs]] ''Lj'', ''Nj'' and ''Dž'' represent distinct [[phoneme]]s and are considered to be single letters. In crosswords, they are put into a single square, and in [[sorting]], lj follows l and nj follows n, except in a few words where the individual letters are pronounced separately. For instance, {{lang|sh-Latn|nadživ(j)eti}} "to outlive" is composed of the prefix {{lang|sh-Latn|nad-}} "out, over" and the verb {{lang|sh-Latn|živ(j)eti}} "to live". The Cyrillic alphabet avoids such ambiguity by providing a single letter for each phoneme: {{lang|sh-Cyrl|наджив(ј)ети}}.

''Đ'' used to be commonly written as ''Dj'' on typewriters, but that practice led to too many ambiguities. It is also used on car [[license plate]]s. Today ''Dj'' is often used again in place of ''Đ'' on the Internet as a replacement due to the lack of installed Serbo-Croat keyboard layouts.

Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards officially use both alphabets, while Croatian uses the Latin only.

Latin script has been [[Romanization of Serbian|rising in popularity]] in Serbia with the advent of the [[digital age]] and [[Internet in Serbia]],<ref name="martinovic">{{cite news |last1=Crosby |first1=Alan |last2=Martinović |first2=Iva |title=In The Age Of The Internet, Serbia Aims To Keep Its Cyrillic Alive |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/in-the-age-of-the-internet-serbia-aims-to-keep-its-cyrillic-alive/29458055.html |access-date=5 September 2018 |publisher=[[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]] |date=August 28, 2018}}</ref> whether due to restraints (Cyrillic letters use up twice the space and therefore cost on [[SMS]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.021.rs/story/Info/Srbija/36720/SMS-poruke-na-cirilici-skuplje.html |title=SMS poruke na ćirilici skuplje |trans-title=SMS messages in Cyrillic are more expensive |language=sh |publisher=021.rs |date=29 December 2011 |access-date=6 March 2023}}</ref>), accessibility (intention to be readable internationally, as the Latin alphabet is taught in all four countries speaking the language) or ease of use. This has been perceived by Serbian government officials as a suppression and threat for existence of the national script that is Cyrillic, with the [[Ministry of Culture and Information (Serbia)|Ministry of Culture and Information]] of Serbia pushing for more tight language laws on top of those stipulated by the existing [[Constitution of Serbia|Constitution]].<ref name="martinovic"/>

[[Montenegrin alphabet]], adopted in 2009, provides replacements of {{lang|sh|sj}} and {{lang|sh|zj}} with an addition of [[acute accent]] on {{lang|sh|s}} and {{lang|sh|z}}, forming {{angbr|[[ś]]}} and {{angbr|[[ź]]}} in both Latin and Cyrillic, but they remain largely unused, even by the [[Parliament of Montenegro]] which introduced them.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/crna-gora-crnogorski-jezik/28275483.html |title=Crnogorski se govori i bez ś |trans-title=Montenegrin is also spoken without ś |quote=Slova ś i ź odnedavno ne koristi ni Skupština Crne Gore, prva i jedina državna institucija koja ih je nakon reforme crnogorskog jezika koristila u zvaničnoj komunikaciji. |trans-quote=The letters ś and ź have recently not been used even by the Parliament of Montenegro, the first and only state institution that used them in official communication after the reform of the Montenegrin language. |date=2 February 2017 |access-date=29 October 2022 |publisher=[[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]] |first=Lela |last=Šćepanović |newspaper=Radio Slobodna Evropa |language=sh}}</ref>

An experimental alphabet called '{{ill|Slavica alphabet|sh|Slavica (pismo)|lt=Slavica}}' fusing Latin and Cyrillic was devised by linguistic amateur [[Rajko Igić]] in 1986 and published in his 1987 book {{lang|sh|Nova slovarica}} in a quixotic attempt to mend the linguistic differences and ambiguities between the two alphabets, carefully avoiding [[grapheme]]s that look alike and following the principle of 'one [[Phone (phonetics)|sound]], one [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]]' already accomplished by the Cyrillic alphabet.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hansen-Löve |first=Aage Ansgar |author-link=:de:Aage A. Hansen-Löve |journal=Wiener Slawistischer Almanach |trans-journal=Vienna Slavic Almanac |title=Slavica |volume=46 |year=2000 |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |page=265 |oclc=4668662 |issn=0258-6819}}</ref><ref>{{Cite periodical |last=Igić |first=Rajko |title=Dva susreta sa Stipom Šuvarom |trans-title=Two meetings with [[Stipe Šuvar]] |url=https://pregled.unsa.ba/index.php/pregled/article/view/105 |periodical=Pregled: časopis za društvena pitanja |trans-periodical=Pregled: periodical for social issues |number=3–4 |year=2005 |page=138 |publisher=[[University of Sarajevo]] |issn=0032-7271}}</ref>

[[Unicode]] has separate characters for the digraphs lj (Ǉ, ǈ, ǉ), nj (Ǌ, ǋ, ǌ) and dž (Ǆ, ǅ, ǆ).