Writing and Printing

Gaj's Latin alphabet

Gaj's Latin alphabet is the form of the Latin script used for writing all four standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. It contains 30 letters: 22 letters of basic Latin alphabet (excluding Q, W, X, Y), 5 letters with diacritics (Č, Ć, Đ, Š, Ž) and 3 digraphs (Dž, Lj, Nj). Each letter (including digraphs) represents one Serbo-Croatian phoneme, yielding a highly phonemic orthography. It closely corresponds to the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. The alphabet was initially devised by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj during the Illyrian movement. The alphabet's final form was defined in the late 19th century with contributions from other linguists, and it has since been in standard use. It was also the basis for a number of other Latin alphabets and romanizations in southeastern Europe. In Serbia, where Cyrillic is more prestigious, Gaj's Latin is nevertheless very common in media and everyday life.

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See also

• ▸Erhard Reuwich
• ▸Beta Pegasi
• ▸Akzidenz-Grotesk

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