Montenegrin language: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Montenegrin language is the name given to a tongue of the Serbo-Croatian family spoken in Montenegro, used by the most extreme proponents of Montenegro's independence.

In the last census in 2003, 21.53% of the population of Montenegro declared that this is their native language. 59.67% of the population declare Serbian their mother tongue. Given that 30.01% of the population declared themselves as Serbs, and that it is quite unlikely that any of them would declare their language as any other than Serbian, it could be estimated that 29.66% of the population declared Serbian as their language while not declaring as Serbs.

Proponents of Montenegrin favour the Latin over the Cyrillic alphabet and even propose an amended alphabet. The prime promoter of this language and alphabet is linguist Vojislav Nikčević, who was educated in Croatia. His ideas mostly receive ridicule both in Montenegro and abroad in linguistic circles. His dictionaries and grammars are printed by Croatian publishers as the major Montenegrin publishing houses such as Obod in Cetinje prefer the nomenclature of the Serbian language.

The idea was supported on-and-off by independence-minded prime minister Milo Djukanovic and his Democratic Party of Socialists since 1999. At one point during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, official Montenegrin government communiqués were officially given in English and Montenegrin. The Government has since switched back to Serbian.

According to the constitution of Montenegro, the official language is Serbian of the Ijekavian standard. It is very similar to the Serbian dialect spoken in Bosnia.