Serbe survival kit

About this kit

Serbian is spoken by around 9 million people in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. A South Slavic language with the rare particularity of officially using two alphabets, Cyrillic and Latin, fully equivalent. From Belgrade to Novi Sad, this kit gives you the bare minimum to find your way in the Balkans.

Serbian (srpski) is the official language of the Republic of Serbia and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are around 9 million native speakers, distributed between Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and the diaspora. Linguistically, Serbian belongs to the Western South Slavic group, alongside Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. These four languages share an almost identical core grammar and vocabulary and remain perfectly mutually intelligible. Serbian stands out mainly through its unique writing system in the world: it officially has two fully equivalent alphabets, Cyrillic (vukovica, reformed by Vuk Karadzic in the 19th century) and Latin (gajica). On the same street in Belgrade, you will read signs in both scripts, sometimes on the same sign. The Serbian constitution favors Cyrillic, but Latin remains very present in daily life, especially in commerce and among youth. Serbian grammar uses seven cases and three genders, which requires learning. But for travellers, the essentials come down to a few formulas, some culinary vocabulary and mastering the pair 'Dobar dan' (formal hello) and 'Dovidjenja' (formal goodbye). Serbian culture combines Byzantine and Orthodox influences, continental Slavic traditions, Ottoman heritage and Balkan modernity. Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis and the Studenica monastery attract a growing number of travellers. This kit gathers the bare essentials to handle an arrival in Belgrade, a bus ride, an order in a kafana, a medical emergency and a smooth departure. Memorize these expressions before leaving and you will gain confidence from the very first hours on site.