12 Facts About Montenegrin language

Montenegrin is a normative variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Montenegrins and is the official language of Montenegro.

Montenegro's language has historically and traditionally been called either Serbian or Montenegrin.

Mijat Sukovic, a prominent Montenegrin language lawyer, wrote a draft version of the constitution which passed the parliament's constitutional committee.

The new constitution ratified on 19 October 2007 declared Montenegrin to be the official language of Montenegro, but gave some recognition to Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian.

Proponents of the separate Montenegrin language prefer using the Gaj's Latin alphabet over the Serbian Cyrillic.

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In both scripts, the Montenegrin language alphabets have two additional letters, which are easier to render in digital typography in the Latin alphabet due to their existence in Polish, but which must be created ad hoc using combining characters when typesetting Cyrillic.

Petar Petrovic Njegos, one of the most respectable Montenegrin authors, changed many characteristics of the Zeta–South Raska dialect from the manuscript of his Gorski vijenac to those proposed by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic as a standard for the Serbian language.

Therefore, in 2017, numerous prominent writers, scientists, journalists, activists and other public figures from Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia signed the Declaration on the Common Language, which states that in Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina a common polycentric standard Montenegrin language is used, consisting of several standard varieties, such as German, English or Spanish.

Introduction of the Montenegrin language has been supported by other important academic institutions such as the Matica crnogorska, although meeting opposition from the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The chief proponent of Montenegrin was Zagreb-educated Dr Vojislav Nikcevic, professor at the Department of Language and Literature at the University of Montenegro and the head of the Institute for Montenegrin Language in the capital Podgorica.

Prime minister Milo Ðukanovic declared his open support for the formalization of the Montenegrin language by declaring himself as a speaker of Montenegrin in an October 2004 interview with Belgrade daily Politika.

In 2004, the government of Montenegro changed the school curriculum so that the name of the mandatory classes teaching the language was changed from "Serbian language" to "Mother tongue ".