Intro
1.1 Latin and Cyrillic
While most languages use only one script, Serbian and Montenegrin standard ways of writing use two scripts: Latin and Cyrillic. In the real life, Latin dominates, but many books and some newspapers (especially more ‘serious’ ones) are published in Cyrillic.
Both scripts are modified, i.e. they are not the same as English Latin or Russian Cyrillic.
bla bla, phoneme inventory
| letter | pronounciation |
|---|---|
| C c | like ts in cats |
| Č č | ... |
| Ć ć | similar to ch in cheap |
| Dž dž | ... |
| Đ đ | similar to j in jeans |
| J j | always like y in yes |
| Lj lj | ... |
| Nj nj | ... |
| Š š | sh in ship |
| Ž ž | ... |
In Bosnian, č and ć are often pronounced the same (both like English cheap); the same holds for dž and đ (both like English jeep), so if you want to concentrate on Bosnian, don’t worry about these sounds too much.
However, in Serbia and Montenegro they are pronounced quite differently.
....
1.2 Short and long vowels
There are 5 vowels, and they are pronounced roughly like in Spanish. Additionally, there’s vowel r, which is pronounced like a r sound.
Vowels can be either short or long (most are short), including r, but this is unfortunately not marked in writing. Therefore, I will use a special notation for long vowels, which will be explained below.
1.3 Pitch accent
One of the most interesting characteristics of Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin is that stress also carries one of two tones: falling or rising. (This feature generally is called ‘pitch accent’).
Stress means pronouncing one syllable louder or with a different tone that others. For example, in the English word together there are three syllables (to-ge-ther) and the second one is stressed.
The falling tone means the stressed syllable is pronounced with a higher tone. If the syllable is short, it’s pronounced quite quickly and loud (therefore, it’s sometimes called ‘fast’). If it’s long, there’s audible change of tone (from high to low) while the syllable is pronounced.
The rising tone is quite different: the stressed syllable is not pronounced with a high tone, and actually the syllable after the stressed one is pronounced with the same tone, or even a bit higher. Also, the rising short stressed syllable is not that short as a falling short one (so it’s sometimes called ‘slow’). The stressed syllable is not that much louder than the syllable following it.
The rising vs falling tone applies only to the stressed syllables.
From my description, you might noticed that the rising stressed syllable is defined in relation to the syllable following it. Therefore, the rising stressed syllable demands the word has at least 2 syllables, and cannot appear on the last syllable.
And an immediate consequence is: if the word has only one syllable, its only syllable is stressed, and must get the falling tone. And that’s exactly the classic rule of Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standard stress #1.
Now the bad part (so far it was only the good stuff). Stress marks are normally never written. You’re simply supposed to know how the word is pronounced, which is of, course, simple if you’re a native speaker – but a bit harder if you are not. There are standard stress marks – but they are hard to read on some mobile devices; they are often rendered badly in combination with Cyrillic letters. So I will use something else.
This table sums this up, together with the standard stress marks, and the stress marks I’ve decided to use (i.e. invented them) for this work:
| ‘accent’ | standard | this work | melody |
|---|---|---|---|
| short falling |
brȁća | bra·ća |
 |
| long falling |
mȇso | me·so |
 |
| short rising |
nòga | no·ga· |
 |
| long rising |
gláva | gla·va· |
 |
Textbooks often use special marks; here is a comparison of my marks with ones from two textbooks: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar by Ronelle Alexander (R. A.) and Bosnian for Foreigners by Midhat Riđanović (M.R.):
| ‘accent’ | R. A. | M. R. | this work |
|---|---|---|---|
| short falling | braća | braća | bra·ća |
| long falling | meso | me:so | me·so |
| short rising | nòga | nóga | no·ga· |
| long rising | glàva | glá:va | gla·va· |
I find the standard marks quite counter-intuitive. The problem with marks from these two textbooks is that unstressed words aren’t distinguished from words with the falling stress. Therefore, I invented special marks. Besides, all special marks I use will be displayed in pale blue color, and the basic text, as normally spelled, will be in bold black letters.
I hope these marks are more intuitive: the two dots on the rising tone should remind you of the definition of the rising tone. And you cannot have two dots on an one-syllable word!
There will be another special mark: some words with the falling tone will have it on the 1st syllable. There’s no difference in pronunciation, but the stress changes in a special way in some circumstances, so I had to mark them somehow. Examples are:
|
bro`d ship gra`d city |
no`s nose zi`d wall |
(If you are curious why, the falling tone actually has a complex history: two earlier tones have merged into one, and they still behave differently in some circumstances.)
Since there was the classic rule #1, what is the rule #2? This is the rule: falling tones can appear only on the first syllable. This rule is not obvious, and it’s not actually respected in real life.
In this work, I will use the stress which is mostly used in real life and heard in public, i.e. on TV, radio and most pop songs. There are words where the stress normally used is not what is written in dictionaries. One such example is the word for TV. Dictionaries would have it stressed on the 2nd syllable, but an overwhelming majority stresses it on the 3rd syllable, with a falling tone, immediately violating the rule #2:
| in most dictionaries | tele·vi·zija |
| in reality | televi·zija |
Such words, mostly originally foreign, are the main exceptions to the rule #2. This rule is still enforced on the Public TV, since it’s... a rule. For decades, people in Serbia have been discussing why anchors on TV use such pronunciations for words like TV, when everyone they know pronounces it differently.
1.4 Are pitch accent and vowel length essential?
Not all people living in Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia use the same stress, especially not in more eastern parts of Serbia and Montenegro.
The stress and length system explained in this 'course’ is quite complex. If your intention is just to communicate, you can learn just the place of stress. However, if you want to sound roughly like someone from Bosnia or Serbia, you should pay attention to the pitch, i.e. rising or falling stress, and whether the stressed vowel is short or long.
In most of Serbia, unstressed vowels are usually pronounced short. However, in Bosnia people maintain the length distinction in all vowels, so it’s important if your focus is Bosnian (or Ijekavian Serbian, which is spoken in Bosnia too).
1.5 Spell as you speak
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