The Serbian Latin Alphabet

The Serbian Latin alphabet, srpska latinica, has thirty letters. Five have distinctive marks—č, ć, ž, š, đ—and three are written with two characters—dž, lj, nj. All eight are full alphabetic units. They are not decorated versions or convenient character combinations, and Serbian Latin is not an informal fallback for Cyrillic.

For English speakers, the most important shift is to stop reading familiar shapes by English rules. Serbian spelling is highly regular: j normally has the consonant sound in English yes, c represents /ts/, and š represents the sound written sh in English. A Serbian word does not acquire English pronunciation merely because it is printed in Latin script.

All thirty letters in dictionary order

This is the order used when Serbian Latin words are alphabetized. The Cyrillic partner in the third column shows the one-to-one structural equivalence. Sound hints are approximate and are only orientation; the pronunciation overview develops the sound system properly.

The order is not English order plus accents

Each marked letter has its own position immediately after its unmarked relative where applicable: c, č, ć form three consecutive letters, while z, ž end the alphabet. Dž and đ follow d before e; lj follows l before m; nj follows n before o. Š follows s.

That means a contact list or dictionary should sort these words in the following order:

Digital sorting is not always linguistically correct. Software configured for English may treat lj as two letters or place č after z. That is a limitation of the software’s locale settings, not Serbian alphabetical order.

Familiar shapes with unfamiliar values

Several Latin letters invite English-based mistakes. Serbian j maps to Cyrillic ј and sounds like English y in yes. Serbian c maps to ц, never automatically to /k/ or /s/. Serbian h maps to х, with a velar or uvular fricative, and r is normally tapped or trilled and can even carry a syllable, as in Trg “square.”

Cyrillic creates a different set of visual traps. Cyrillic В corresponds to Latin V, Н to N, Р to R, С to S, and У to U. The shapes do not inherit their English Latin values.

The eight letters English keyboards tempt you to damage

The marked letters č, ć, ž, š, đ distinguish spellings and sometimes meanings. Their marks are mandatory. The digraphs dž, lj, nj are written with two Latin characters because the Latin alphabet lacks single precomposed symbols for their Serbian sounds, but each corresponds to exactly one Cyrillic letter.

The Latin text Djordje ceka Dzhejmsa is not standard Serbian orthography. It erases đ, č, and dž, and zh imports an English transliteration convention that Serbian does not use. If Unicode is available—and it is in modern documents, browsers, and messaging apps—use the Serbian letters.

Capital forms of digraphs

At the beginning of an ordinary name or sentence, capitalize only the first character: Džakarta, Ljiljana, Njegoš. In an all-capitals heading, capitalize both: DŽAKARTA, LJILJANA, NJEGOŠ. This is how a two-character spelling behaves as one alphabetic letter.

Two standard scripts, one Serbian system

Latin and Cyrillic are structurally equivalent, but script choice has social meaning. In Serbia, Cyrillic is particularly visible in official, educational, and cultural contexts; Latin is widespread in everyday digital communication, media, advertising, and regional exchange. These tendencies are not absolute register rules, and neither alphabet makes a sentence more or less grammatical.

Full literacy therefore involves more than recognizing both sets of shapes. It includes accurate reversible conversion, correct alphabetization, correct capitalization of digraphs, and awareness of what a particular audience or institution expects.

Common Mistakes

1. Reading Serbian j like English j

2. Treating č and ć as decorative versions of c

3. Omitting digraphs from the alphabet count

4. Converting Cyrillic by visual resemblance

5. Using Russian letters for Serbian sounds

Key Takeaways

Serbian Latin has thirty letters in its own dictionary order. Č, ć, ž, š, đ keep their marks; dž, lj, nj count as single letters and capitalize as Dž/Lj/Nj or DŽ/LJ/NJ. Read every shape by Serbian rules and use Cyrillic correspondence as a reliable check.