Serbian is a Serbo-Croatian language within the South Slavic language group. The language has 10 million native speakers and is closely related to Croatian and Bosnian; the differences are not much greater than those between Dutch and Flemish. A remarkable difference is that Serbian is generally written in the Cyrillic alphabet, while the other two languages are not. The Latin alphabet, however, is gaining popularity in Serbia – especially among more Western-oriented people.

Church Slavic

But first, let’s go back to Cyrillic. This alphabet was invented in the 9th century by the brothers Cyrillus and Methodius; two missionaries who were asked by the Moravian king Rastislav to convert the Slavic peoples of Central Europe and the Balkans to Christianity. To this end, the brothers started translating the Bible into a language we now call Church Slavic, the holy language of the Slavs. In their design of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, the brothers from Thessaloniki (Greece) were inspired by Old Greek. After all, they were very familiar with that language. The Bible of Cyrillus and Methodius found its way throughout the entire Slavic world and initiated the conversion of the Slavs. Today, the brothers Cyrillus and Methodius are considered leading apostles by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Church in Serbia. Their status is equivalent to that of the Biblical evangelists.

Language and culture

Many words in Serbian are derived from Turkish words, an inheritance from the time in which the area was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The influence of history on a language is inevitable, just like that of the local culture; it determines how a language is composed and how people use it. This means that in addition to excellent language skills, translators need to know how to properly address the people of a country and its different target groups. That is why we like working with in-country translators, translators who live and work in their own country and have their own culture all around them on a daily basis. In this case, Serbian translators who live in Serbia and speak Serbian as their native language.

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