Symbols
75Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Bosnian alphabet: A to Lj
Č and Ć follow C, Dž and Đ follow D, Lj follows L: each is a letter of its own. Dž, Lj and Nj are normally typed as two letters (D+ž, L+j, N+j); the single-character forms shown are Unicode's compatibility letters, with a separate title-case form for words like Džamija.
Bosnian alphabet: M to Ž
Nj follows N, Š follows S and Ž closes the alphabet. Q, W, X and Y are not Bosnian letters; they appear only in foreign names.
Bosnian punctuation
The standard pair opens low and closes high: „ like this“. Books often use » « pointing inwards.
Currency
The convertible mark of Bosnia and Herzegovina has no Unicode sign: it is written KM (code BAM), as in 20 KM.
Where Bosnian is spoken
Largest first. Bosnian is an official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is also in official use in Montenegro, in Sandžak towns in Serbia and in some municipalities of Kosovo.
On the map
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The 30 letters of the Bosnian alphabet
The Bosnian alphabet runs A B C Č Ć D Dž Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S Š T U V Z Ž. It is Gaj's Latin alphabet, sharing its 30 letters with Croatian and Serbian (in its Latin form); Montenegrin's alphabet adds Ś and Ź. Each letter stands for one sound, so a Bosnian word is read exactly as it is spelled: Sarajevo, Bihać, Brčko, Višegrad, Goražde.
Č, Ć, Đ, Š and Ž are letters in their own right, not decorated versions of C, D, S and Z. They have their own places in the alphabet and in the dictionary, Č and Ć right after C, Đ after Dž, Š after S and Ž at the very end, and leaving the marks off changes words: šuma is a forest but suma a sum, and kuća (house) written as kuca reads as "knocks".
Q, W, X and Y are not part of the alphabet. They turn up only in foreign names and a few international words; Bosnian spells borrowed words its own way, so a taxi is taksi and a weekend is vikend.
What Č, Ć, Đ, Dž, Š and Ž sound like
Š š is the sh of "ship" (šta, what) and Ž ž the s of "measure" (žena, woman). Č č is a hard ch, said with the tongue pulled back, as in čaj (tea) and čovjek (man), while Ć ć is a softer ch, said with the tongue forward, close to the t in "tune" in British English: kuća (house), ćevapi, the name Bihać.
Dž dž and Đ đ are the voiced partners of that pair, both close to the j of "jam": Dž is the harder one, as in džamija (mosque) and džezva (the long-handled pot Bosnian coffee is made in), and Đ the softer one, as in đak (pupil) and rođendan (birthday). In much of Bosnia the two pairs sound very close in everyday speech, but the spelling always keeps them apart.
Lj lj and Nj nj are the soft l and n heard in Italian figlio and Spanish año: ljubav (love), konj (horse), Njemačka (Germany). C c is always ts (cvijet, flower), J j is the y of "yes" (jabuka, apple), and H h is a breathy kh that Bosnian keeps in words its neighbours dropped: Bosnian kahva and lahko against Croatian kava and lako.
Dž, Lj and Nj: one letter written with two
Dž, Lj and Nj each count as one letter in the alphabet and in dictionaries, but in everyday text they are typed as two ordinary letters. A word that starts with one is capitalised on the first letter only, Džamija, Ljubljana, Njemačka, and both letters go up in all capitals: DŽAMIJA, LJUBAV.
Not every dž, lj or nj is one of these letters. Where the two meet across the parts of a word, they stay two letters and are said separately: nadživjeti (to outlive) is nad živjeti, and injekcija (injection) has n and j as two sounds.
Unicode has single characters for all three, each in three forms: DŽ dž Dž, LJ lj Lj and NJ nj Nj, the last of each being the title-case form for a capitalised word. They were encoded so that Serbian Cyrillic Џ, Љ and Њ could be converted letter for letter into Latin. They are in the grid for completeness, but do not use them in normal writing: search engines, spell checkers and keyboards expect the two separate letters, which is what Bosnians type.
How to type Bosnian letters on Windows, Mac and phones
The easiest way is a Bosnian or Croatian keyboard layout: Windows offers Bosnian (Latin) and Croatian, and macOS has Croatian. On these QWERTZ keyboards Š and Đ sit to the right of P, Č and Ć to the right of L, and Ž next to them. On iPhone and Android, add the Croatian keyboard, which has keys for all five, or long-press c for č and ć, s for š and z for ž. To paste a letter now, click it above.
Without that layout, Windows Alt codes on the number pad give only four of them: Š Alt0138, š Alt0154, Ž Alt0142, ž Alt0158. In Microsoft Word, type a code and press AltX right after it: 010C/010D for Č č, 0106/0107 for Ć ć, 0110/0111 for Đ đ, 0160/0161 for Š š and 017D/017E for Ž ž.
In HTML, write Č č, Ć ć, Đ đ, Š š and Ž ž, or the numbers Č, č, Ć, ć, Đ, đ, Š, š, Ž and ž. Watch one look-alike: the capital Đ looks exactly like the Icelandic eth Ð , but the small forms differ, đ against ð, so copy Đ from this page, not from an Icelandic list.
When no keyboard helps, people fall back on plain letters, c for č and ć, s for š, z for ž and dj for đ, which is why Đoković appears abroad as Djokovic. Bosnians call this ošišana latinica, "shaved Latin": readable in a chat, but wrong in names, documents and anything printed.
Where Bosnian is spoken, and its neighbours
Bosnian is an official language of Bosnia and Herzegovina, alongside Croatian and Serbian, and by CLDR estimates about 3.8 million people there use it. It is also in official use in Montenegro, in Sandžak towns of Serbia such as Novi Pazar and Tutin, and in some municipalities of Kosovo, and it is spoken by a large diaspora in Germany, Austria, Sweden and the United States.
Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin are close enough that their speakers understand one another without effort. Standard Bosnian uses the ijekavian forms also used in Croatian (mlijeko, milk; rijeka, river; dijete, child), keeps the h of kahva, and carries many words from Turkish, Arabic and Persian that came in Ottoman times: sevdah, avlija (courtyard), ćuprija (bridge), džezva.
Latin is the everyday script, but Bosnian is officially written in Cyrillic too (see Bosnian (Cyrillic), with Ђ, Ј, Љ, Њ, Ћ and Џ), and it has a longer history of scripts: the medieval Bosnian Cyrillic called bosančica, and arebica, the Arabic-based script of the Ottoman period. The same Latin letters are on the Croatian, Serbian (Latin) and Bosnia and Herzegovina pages, and Slovenian shares č, š and ž.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyBosnian Alphabet & Letters combos
14Worth knowing
- Đ was introduced in 1878 by the linguist Đuro Daničić, whose own first name is spelled with it; before that the sound was written dj or gj, the spelling that still survives abroad in Djokovic.
- The caron on Č, Š and Ž was borrowed from Czech when Ljudevit Gaj shaped this alphabet in the 1830s; Ć took the acute accent from Polish.
- The Unicode letters Dž, Lj and Nj are among the very few characters with a separate title-case form, half capital and half small, made for words like Džamija, Ljubav and Njemačka written as single code points.
- Writing Bosnian without its diacritics has its own name, ošišana latinica, "shaved Latin".
Questions people ask
8How many letters are in the Bosnian alphabet?
30: A B C Č Ć D Dž Đ E F G H I J K L Lj M N Nj O P R S Š T U V Z Ž. Dž, Lj and Nj are written with two characters but count as one letter each; Q, W, X and Y are not in the alphabet.
How do you type ć on Windows?
Add the Bosnian (Latin) or Croatian keyboard in Settings > Time & language > Language & region; ć is then right of L, next to č. Without it, copy ć from this page, or in Word type 0107 (small) or 0106 (capital) and press AltX.
How do I type đ?
On a Bosnian or Croatian keyboard, đ is the key right of Š, two keys to the right of P. On a phone, add the Croatian keyboard, which has a đ key. In Word, type 0111 (small) or 0110 (capital) and press AltX, or simply copy Đ đ from the grid.
Is there a Bosnian keyboard for iPhone?
You can add the Croatian keyboard in Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard; it has č, ć, đ, š and ž, which are the same letters Bosnian uses. On other iPhone keyboards you can also long-press c, s or z for č, ć, š and ž.
What is the difference between č and ć?
Č is a hard ch said with the tongue drawn back (čaj, tea); Ć is a softer ch said with the tongue forward (kuća, house). They are separate letters; the common surname ending -ić, as in Hadžić, is always written with Ć.
Is the Bosnian alphabet Latin or Cyrillic?
Both are official, but Latin is the one used day to day. In Cyrillic, Bosnian uses the same alphabet as Serbian, with Ђ Ј Љ Њ Ћ Џ; historically it was also written in bosančica and in the Arabic-based arebica.
Is Bosnian the same as Croatian?
They are separate standard languages but very close: speakers understand one another, and both use the same 30-letter Latin alphabet and ijekavian forms. They differ in some vocabulary and spelling, such as Bosnian kahva against Croatian kava.
What is the Bosnian currency symbol?
The convertible mark has no Unicode symbol; it is written KM (code BAM), as in 20 KM. It is pegged to the euro , at 1 1.95583 KM.
