A2 — elementaryVariation: dialect, standard and substandard

Ekavian & ijekavian

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Ekavian and Ijekavian: the map of who says what, and where

In the lesson “Spelling je and ije” we took apart the mechanics: why mleko “milk” on one side of the border becomes mlijeko on the other, and how to fold an Ijekavian je/ije back into an Ekavian e. This lesson is not about letters but about people and borders: who speaks Ekavian, who speaks Ijekavian, where you will hear each one, and why none of this is about “right” and “wrong”, only about where a person comes from. That lesson taught you to read; this one gives you an ear and a map.

Definition

A quick reminder first, so that from here on we can talk geography, not phonetics. Ekavian (ekavica) is the pronunciation with a plain e (mleko, lepo, reka); Ijekavian (ijekavica) has je/ije in the same place (mlijeko, lijepo, rijeka). These are two outcomes of one ancient vowel, yat: where it became e, the speech is Ekavian; where it became je/ije, Ijekavian. Both are fully standard Serbian, and neither is “better”, much as British colour and American color are both correct. This course keeps to Ekavian, the speech of Belgrade, Novi Sad and most of Serbia. But Ijekavian is not a foreign language and not a mistake: it is the same Serbian with a different pronunciation, and millions of Serbs speak it. The job of this lesson is to put those millions on the map.

The Serbian word for “pronunciation” here is izgovor. So Serbs talk about ekavski izgovor and ijekavski izgovor, and say of a person govori ekavski “speaks Ekavian” or govori ijekavski “speaks Ijekavian”.

The map at a glance: who pronounces it how

The dividing line runs between territories, not between languages. This is how the two pronunciations are spread:

Examples

Where	Pronunciation	What the language is called
Serbia (Belgrade, Novi Sad, most of the country)	Ekavian	Serbian (Ekavian standard)
Republika Srpska (in Bosnia and Herzegovina)	Ijekavian	Serbian (Ijekavian)
Montenegro	Ijekavian	Montenegrin / Serbian
Croatia; the Bosniaks and Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina	Ijekavian	Croatian, Bosnian
Western Serbia (along the borders with Bosnia and Herzegovina and with Montenegro)	partly Ijekavian	Serbian

The main point of the table: Ijekavian does not mean “Croatian”. A great many Serbs speak Ijekavian: in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Montenegro, in the west of Serbia. They speak Serbian, only Ijekavian Serbian. So hearing dijete “child” and lijepo “nice, beautiful” from someone who considers themselves a Serb and a speaker of Serbian is perfectly normal.

Deeper sociolinguistics

Republika Srpska: Serbian, but mlijeko

The clearest case is Republika Srpska, one of the two parts (“entities”) that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina; most people there are Serbs, and its largest city is Banja Luka. Its first constitution (1992) named the official language outright as Serbian “of Ijekavian and Ekavian pronunciation”, with Cyrillic as the script; since the amendments of 2002 the official languages are those of the Serb, Bosniak and Croat peoples, and both Cyrillic and Latin are official scripts. In practice people there speak and write mostly Ijekavian: mlijeko, dijete, vrijeme “time; weather”. This is the key to the whole topic: “Ijekavian” and “Serbian” are not opposites. A Serb from Banja Luka is a native speaker of Serbian, simply with an Ijekavian pronunciation.

For you as a learner this removes a common fright: a familiar word in its “stretched” form is not another language and not an error. It is the same Serbian you are learning, with the Ijekavian outcome of the old vowel yat that you met in the lesson “Spelling je and ije”.

Ijekavian you can hear in Belgrade itself

You might think Belgrade is purely Ekavian. It isn't. After the wars of the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Croatia resettled in Serbia, and above all in Belgrade. They brought the Ijekavian speech of their home regions with them, and many have kept it. So in a Belgrade street, in a queue or on a bus you may well hear Gdje si? instead of the Belgrade Gde si? (“Where are you?”, also a casual “How's it going?”), or ovdje instead of ovde “here”.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Ekavian and Ijekavian: the map of pronunciations

Ekavian has a plain e: mleko, lepo, reka. Ijekavian has je/ije in the same place: mlijeko, lijepo, rijeka. Both are fully standard Serbian; neither is “better”. This course uses Ekavian, the speech of Belgrade, Novi Sad and most of Serbia. They divide territories, not languages.

The map

Examples

Where	Pronunciation	Name of the language
Serbia (Belgrade, Novi Sad, most of it)	Ekavian	Serbian
Republika Srpska (in Bosnia and Herzegovina)	Ijekavian	Serbian
Montenegro	Ijekavian	Montenegrin / Serbian
Croatia; Croats and Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina	Ijekavian	Croatian, Bosnian
Western Serbia (by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro)	partly Ijekavian	Serbian

Takeaway: Ijekavian ≠ Croatian. Millions of Ijekavian speakers are Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and western Serbia: they speak Serbian, just Ijekavian Serbian. Hearing dijete from a Serb is normal.

Words that give the pronunciation away

Examples

Ekavian (you say)	Ijekavian (you hear)	Meaning
gde	gdje	where
ovde	ovdje	here
dete	dijete	child
nedelja	nedjelja	Sunday; week
uvek	uvijek	always
ceo	cio	whole, entire

Sometimes yat gives i: deo → dio, video → vidio, smejati se → smijati se. Where je is not yat, both agree: je, nije, pije. Dijete pije mlijeko → Dete pije mleko; never mix the two in a sentence.

Belgrade and the airwaves: mixing is normal

In Belgrade you hear Ijekavian from Serbs who resettled there in the 1990s: Gdje si? for Gde si?, ovdje for ovde. To a local ear it marks origin, like an accent; not a mistake.
Serbian TV and radio are Ekavian, but guests and performers often speak Ijekavian. Bosnian, Montenegrin and Croatian media, films and songs are Ijekavian.

Montenegro: same pronunciation, a dispute over the name

Ijekavian; only the name of the language is disputed.
The 2007 constitution names the official language crnogorski (Montenegrin).
In the censuses opinions divide: many call their language Montenegrin, many Serbian.
Serbian is the only one of the four standards that recognises both pronunciations; Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin recognise only Ijekavian.