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Distribution of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet in Serbian books
(by Daniel Bunčić, University of Cologne)

The internet is full of complaints about the decline of the Cyrillic alphabet in Serbian publications (see e.g. Association for the Defence of the Cyrillic alphabet, Serbian Association “Ćirilica”, etc.). However, statistical data to base this on are scarce. At the 21st Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature, and Folklore in Billings, Montana, in 2018, I heard a presentation in which the following diagram from the internet was shown:

Figure 1: Zastupljenost ćirilice u fondu Narodne biblioteke Srbije
Fig. 1: Representation of the Cyrillic alphabet among the holdings of the National Library of Serbia
(originally from vesti-online.com, retrieved on 27 May 2018 but not accessible anymore as of March 2020)

However, it is not clear what the numbers mean: Were 43% of all the books held by the National Library of Serbia in 2012 in Cyrillic, or are 43% of the books published (or acquired?) in 2012 in Cyrillic? Additionally, does this refer to all the books (then the decline would be due to the growing number of books in foreign languages, especially English), or only to the ones written in Serbian? And does this refer to books, journals, newspapers, or all written materials?

Therefore, I decided to investigate this myself. The online catalogue of the National Library of Serbia permits to search without a title or author for media of a certain kind (books, journals, etc.), published in a certain language, in a certain country, and in a certain year. In 2018 one could also search for media printed in a certain alphabet. (As of 2020, this information is unfortunately not included in the catalogue data anymore.)

Between May and November 2018, together with student assistant Caroline Ludwicki, I gathered the necessary data for each year from 1800 to 2018, for all books (no other media) written in Serbian (“srp”), both irrespective of country of publication and separately for Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Figure 2: Alphabet of the books in Serbian at the National Library of Serbia (absolute numbers, by year of publication)
Fig. 2: Alphabet of Serbian books in absolute numbers

Figure 2 shows the absolute numbers of the books published in Cyrillic and in Latin. One can see how Serbian book publication has increased over time, with the two world wars as the major setbacks. (The slight decrease in the last couple of years is an artefact of the method: Some of the books published in 2016 and 2017 had not yet been acquired by the National Library at the time of our data collection, and some of the books of 2018 had not even been published.)

Figure 2 makes it obvious that right now more Serbian Cyrillic books are being published than ever before in history. The same is true, of course, of the number of Serbian books in the Latin alphabet.

Figure 3: Percentage of Serbian books in Cyrillic at the National Library of Serbia (by year and country of publication)
Fig. 3: Percentage of Cyrillic books

In Figure 3, the thick red line shows the same data as Figure 2, but as percentages of the Cyrillic books. The other lines show the Cyrillic percentages for the three main countries where Serbian books are published: Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One can see that, according to the catalogue data of the National Library of Serbia, Serbian books in the Latin alphabet existed throughout the 19th century, but the vast majority of Serbian books was in Cyrillic. (The lines for the individual countries begin after the last year with a total Serbian book production of zero in the respective country; even thus, the numerical basis at the beginning is small, which explains the high oscillation during the first decades.) The fact that the percentage of Cyrillic books in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Montenegro dropped to (almost) zero during the two world wars is due to anti-Serbian Cyrillic bans declared by Austria-Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia, respectively. However, during the interwar period a clear majority of the Serbian books continued to be printed in Cyrillic letters. It is obvious from Figure 2 that the main drop from numbers around 80–90% to less than 50% of Cyrillic came during Socialist Yugoslavia. During this time, Montenegro was markedly ‘more Cyrillic’ than Serbia, whereas in Bosnia and Herzegovina even of the books marked as ‘Serbian’ by the librarians in Belgrade 80–90% were printed in the Latin alphabet. (This tendency can already be observed in the interwar period.) The breakup of Yugoslavia brings a steep increase for Cyrillic books, and the numbers continue to be considerably higher than before the 1990s, and consistently above 50%. Now the Serbian books printed in Bosnia and Herzegovina have a slightly higher percentage of Cyrillic, whereas in Montenegro the percentage of Cyrillic books has markedly decreased to between 30% and 40%.

All these data of course depend on the librarians’ categorization of the books, especially with respect to language. The database does not seem to have a label ‘Montenegrin’, so that all ‘Montenegrin’ books had to be classified as ‘Serbian’. However, it is not so clear what the decisions about books from Bosnia and Herzegovina were based on. It is quite possible that a Bosnian Serb book written in the Latin alphabet would have a greater chance to be classified as ‘Bosnian’ (“bosanski”!) or ‘Croatian’ than a book written in the Cyrillic alphabet, so that the relatively high percentage of Cyrillic for Serbian books from Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 1990s might also be an artefact.

The following Table 1 indicates the basis of Figures 2 and 3 in numbers. Note that the numbers for the three countries do not always add up to the number for all countries. This is in part due to the fact that some books in the Serbian language are also printed in other countries (Croatia, USA, Germany, etc.). For some years, the sum of the numbers for the three countries is even lower than the number for all countries, which is probably due to the fact that some publishing companies are based in more than one country, and some books are jointly published by two or more publishers, so that the same book can be counted for several countries.

Table 1: Cyrillic and Latin alphabet in Serbian books
Year “srb” books “mne” books “bih” books all books
Cyrillic Latin %Cyr Cyrillic Latin %Cyr Cyrillic Latin %Cyr Cyrillic Latin %Cyr
1800 1 1 50% 0 0 0 0 14 1 93%
1801 2 0 100% 0 0 0 0 14 1 93%
1802 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 100%
1803 0 0 0 0 0 0 12 0 100%
1804 1 0 100% 0 0 0 0 13 0 100%
1805 1 1 50% 0 0 0 0 16 1 94%
1806 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 3 77%
1807 0 0 0 0 0 0 18 0 100%
1808 1 0 100% 0 0 0 0 26 0 100%
1809 0 0 0 0 0 0 21 0 100%
1810 4 0 100% 0 0 0 0 17 0 100%
1811 3 0 100% 0 0 0 0 14 0 100%
1812 2 0 100% 0 0 0 0 12 0 100%
1813 0 0 0 0 0 0 12 1 92%
1814 6 0 100% 0 0 0 0 35 1 97%
1815 2 0 100% 0 0 0 0 20 1 95%
1816 2 1 67% 0 0 0 0 13 1 93%
1817 3 0 100% 0 0 0 0 20 0 100%
1818 2 0 100% 0 0 0 0 23 1 96%
1819 0 1 0% 0 0 0 0 13 1 93%
1820 1 0 100% 0 0 0 0 16 1 94%
1821 0 0 0 0 0 0 49 0 100%
1822 0 0 0 0 0 0 12 2 86%
1823 1 0 100% 0 0 0 0 22 1 96%
1824 2 0 100% 0 0 1 0 100% 18 2 90%
1825 2 0 100% 0 0 0 0 10 0 100%
1826 2 0 100% 0 0 0 0 23 3 88%
1827 3 0 100% 0 0 1 0 100% 32 0 100%
1828 4 2 67% 0 0 0 0 35 3 92%
1829 4 2 67% 0 0 0 0 37 5 88%
1830 1 2 33% 0 0 0 0 30 5 86%
1831 5 0 100% 0 0 0 0 26 1 96%
1832 9 0 100% 0 0 0 0 31 0 100%
1833 15 0 100% 0 0 1 0 100% 46 3 94%
1834 14 0 100% 3 0 100% 0 0 39 1 98%
1835 24 1 96% 3 0 100% 0 0 42 2 95%
1836 21 1 95% 3 0 100% 0 0 40 3 93%
1837 38 1 97% 1 0 100% 0 0 63 3 95%
1838 25 1 96% 2 0 100% 0 0 45 4 92%
1839 54 0 100% 0 0 0 0 72 5 94%
1840 52 0 100% 0 0 0 0 73 2 97%
1841 58 0 100% 0 0 0 0 52 0 100%
1842 34 1 97% 1 0 100% 1 0 100% 53 1 98%
1843 45 0 100% 0 0 0 0 61 1 98%
1844 62 1 98% 0 0 0 0 75 9 89%
1845 58 0 100% 0 0 0 0 76 2 97%
1846 43 0 100% 0 0 0 0 61 3 95%
1847 61 0 100% 1 0 100% 0 0 83 3 97%
1848 70 1 99% 0 0 0 0 100 9 92%
1849 63 0 100% 0 0 0 0 85 7 92%
1850 70 0 100% 0 0 0 0 97 10 91%
1851 56 1 98% 0 0 0 0 78 12 87%
1852 51 2 96% 0 0 0 0 76 11 87%
1853 62 3 95% 0 0 0 0 83 10 89%
1854 56 2 97% 0 0 0 0 74 6 93%
1855 59 0 100% 0 0 0 0 86 2 98%
1856 41 0 100% 0 0 0 0 65 3 96%
1857 53 3 95% 0 0 0 0 80 5 94%
1858 81 0 100% 1 0 100% 0 0 94 12 89%
1859 76 2 97% 0 0 0 0 94 12 89%
1860 102 4 96% 0 0 0 0 127 25 84%
1861 133 1 99% 0 0 0 0 160 20 89%
1862 108 1 99% 0 0 1 0 100% 128 14 90%
1863 119 0 100% 0 0 0 1 0% 141 12 92%
1864 158 2 99% 3 0 100% 0 0 177 17 91%
1865 143 2 99% 3 0 100% 0 0 163 12 93%
1866 153 1 99% 3 0 100% 1 0 100% 175 18 91%
1867 169 4 98% 1 0 100% 4 0 100% 202 17 92%
1868 124 2 98% 0 0 2 0 100% 145 9 94%
1869 134 3 98% 2 0 100% 0 0 155 4 97%
1870 148 2 99% 3 0 100% 1 0 100% 161 2 99%
1871 188 1 99% 0 0 0 0 209 5 98%
1872 171 0 100% 0 0 0 0 193 6 97%
1873 126 2 98% 0 0 0 0 139 5 97%
1874 143 1 99% 0 0 0 0 154 5 97%
1875 112 3 97% 0 0 0 0 120 6 95%
1876 153 0 100% 1 0 100% 0 0 159 5 97%
1877 114 3 97% 0 0 1 0 100% 129 10 93%
1878 154 3 98% 2 0 100% 0 1 0% 183 8 96%
1879 243 4 98% 0 0 0 1 0% 275 11 96%
1880 229 3 99% 0 0 0 0 254 10 96%
1881 234 1 100% 0 0 1 1 50% 251 8 97%
1882 241 6 98% 1 0 100% 0 0 260 13 95%
1883 263 9 97% 1 0 100% 4 2 67% 286 27 91%
1884 236 11 96% 2 0 100% 4 1 80% 267 22 92%
1885 238 4 98% 2 0 100% 1 3 25% 265 15 95%
1886 257 8 97% 4 0 100% 4 2 67% 279 20 93%
1887 225 9 96% 5 0 100% 3 2 60% 249 22 92%
1888 248 2 99% 2 0 100% 6 4 60% 276 22 93%
1889 269 3 99% 5 0 100% 5 1 83% 299 15 95%
1890 301 4 99% 8 0 100% 3 1 75% 328 17 95%
1891 377 3 99% 1 0 100% 9 3 75% 408 9 98%
1892 396 2 99% 9 0 100% 13 2 87% 444 12 97%
1893 342 3 99% 6 0 100% 8 2 80% 372 17 96%
1894 342 11 97% 9 0 100% 16 1 94% 391 25 94%
1895 366 3 99% 10 0 100% 13 0 100% 422 12 97%
1896 380 10 97% 0 0 11 2 85% 421 16 96%
1897 394 7 98% 0 0 26 5 84% 454 23 95%
1898 435 14 97% 0 0 20 3 87% 501 25 95%
1899 434 7 98% 0 0 23 2 92% 500 23 96%
1900 425 6 99% 6 0 100% 18 12 60% 481 25 95%
1901 471 6 99% 7 0 100% 12 6 67% 519 21 96%
1902 494 6 99% 12 0 100% 33 6 85% 555 25 96%
1903 472 5 99% 12 1 92% 38 4 90% 560 24 96%
1904 505 10 98% 12 0 100% 32 6 84% 576 31 96%
1905 464 14 97% 17 0 100% 32 7 82% 546 36 96%
1906 499 9 98% 21 0 100% 43 12 78% 593 35 96%
1907 492 10 98% 19 0 100% 35 6 85% 581 35 96%
1908 514 6 99% 18 0 100% 40 8 83% 602 34 96%
1909 614 8 99% 29 1 97% 32 13 71% 707 43 96%
1910 670 13 98% 53 1 98% 49 16 75% 831 49 96%
1911 650 13 98% 36 0 100% 37 12 76% 773 47 96%
1912 624 5 99% 24 0 100% 44 16 73% 728 49 96%
1913 511 8 98% 24 0 100% 38 19 67% 598 54 96%
1914 433 6 99% 32 0 100% 25 20 56% 520 49 96%
1915 146 2 99% 6 0 100% 1 11 8% 163 19 96%
1916 18 10 64% 0 1 0% 2 14 13% 73 46 61%
1917 28 9 76% 0 1 0% 2 13 13% 153 49 76%
1918 73 9 89% 3 0 100% 24 10 71% 226 84 73%
1919 330 18 95% 5 0 100% 44 15 75% 420 79 84%
1920 697 45 94% 7 0 100% 53 17 76% 805 110 88%
1921 1005 30 97% 4 0 100% 61 10 86% 1108 90 92%
1922 1092 52 95% 4 1 80% 52 14 79% 1195 120 91%
1923 1013 36 97% 4 2 67% 67 9 88% 1112 104 91%
1924 1021 54 95% 4 0 100% 46 8 85% 1116 103 92%
1925 1070 72 94% 11 1 92% 57 18 76% 1200 136 90%
1926 1156 76 94% 5 1 83% 61 57 52% 1289 181 88%
1927 1113 102 92% 13 1 93% 57 18 76% 1260 157 89%
1928 1211 119 91% 20 0 100% 53 25 68% 1347 198 87%
1929 1143 111 91% 23 2 92% 43 24 64% 1247 188 87%
1930 1300 183 88% 21 0 100% 50 17 75% 1448 226 86%
1931 1254 175 88% 17 1 94% 34 26 57% 1382 257 84%
1932 1266 168 88% 26 0 100% 60 14 81% 1424 229 86%
1933 1291 233 85% 11 1 92% 50 25 67% 1443 310 82%
1934 1361 195 87% 11 1 92% 58 12 83% 1527 293 84%
1935 1317 227 85% 16 1 94% 63 18 78% 1503 300 83%
1936 1279 272 82% 13 0 100% 50 18 74% 1455 360 80%
1937 1370 233 85% 15 0 100% 74 19 80% 1567 320 83%
1938 1671 279 86% 15 0 100% 41 38 52% 1842 374 83%
1939 1564 248 86% 16 1 94% 47 19 71% 1741 338 84%
1940 1478 236 86% 7 0 100% 30 11 73% 1640 302 84%
1941 545 57 91% 2 1 67% 4 27 13% 586 103 85%
1942 343 20 94% 2 0 100% 2 7 0,22 362 52 87%
1943 355 10 97% 0 0 5 6 45% 369 38 91%
1944 260 26 91% 1 0 100% 3 10 23% 291 69 81%
1945 487 95 84% 7 1 88% 18 12 60% 536 142 79%
1946 819 216 79% 4 0 100% 25 13 66% 874 272 76%
1947 825 274 75% 8 1 89% 30 26 54% 900 381 70%
1948 854 488 64% 17 0 100% 31 28 53% 919 613 60%
1949 885 550 62% 11 0 100% 46 50 48% 967 673 59%
1950 765 363 68% 16 0 100% 46 66 41% 846 539 61%
1951 800 342 70% 26 2 93% 54 78 41% 910 494 65%
1952 1091 411 73% 18 1 95% 63 140 31% 1212 677 64%
1953 1137 473 71% 31 1 97% 52 144 27% 1260 701 64%
1954 950 597 61% 50 2 96% 46 184 20% 1097 843 57%
1955 835 506 62% 47 1 98% 25 126 17% 940 677 58%
1956 971 691 58% 43 3 93% 41 138 23% 1087 858 56%
1957 861 1000 46% 34 3 92% 37 157 19% 974 1245 44%
1958 1031 1007 51% 46 5 90% 45 180 20% 1161 1270 48%
1959 998 1200 45% 44 7 86% 44 161 21% 1138 1461 44%
1960 997 1197 45% 38 17 69% 46 197 19% 1120 1471 43%
1961 948 1151 45% 52 23 69% 44 208 17% 1114 1460 43%
1962 970 1159 46% 53 30 64% 44 163 21% 1121 1510 43%
1963 1099 1381 44% 61 24 72% 39 195 17% 1234 1727 42%
1964 1318 1677 44% 50 34 60% 92 287 24% 1519 2193 41%
1965 1167 1541 43% 38 44 46% 92 322 22% 1369 2001 41%
1966 1205 1247 49% 47 24 66% 77 264 23% 1336 1626 45%
1967 783 1246 39% 33 23 59% 32 214 13% 876 1544 36%
1968 1424 1641 46% 47 13 78% 18 275 6% 1593 2135 43%
1969 1489 1589 48% 64 27 70% 71 306 19% 1640 2096 44%
1970 1458 1686 46% 90 36 71% 79 296 21% 1694 2307 42%
1971 1583 1501 51% 105 22 83% 74 375 16% 1765 2112 46%
1972 1348 1311 51% 98 20 83% 75 365 17% 1492 1675 47%
1973 969 1122 46% 84 22 79% 49 428 10% 1080 1480 42%
1974 948 988 49% 101 23 81% 36 429 8% 1050 1337 44%
1975 1043 1234 46% 99 26 79% 74 325 19% 1206 1540 44%
1976 1223 1665 42% 125 27 82% 65 309 17% 1480 2220 40%
1977 1965 2754 42% 105 35 75% 103 562 15% 2255 3725 38%
1978 2021 2804 42% 126 57 69% 94 542 15% 2327 3735 38%
1979 1960 3113 39% 198 39 84% 124 581 18% 2389 4098 37%
1980 1854 3018 38% 186 66 74% 126 677 16% 2274 4170 35%
1981 1876 3151 37% 199 107 65% 151 718 17% 2211 4334 34%
1982 2046 2995 41% 170 72 70% 133 770 15% 2420 4149 37%
1983 1788 2907 38% 154 81 66% 94 602 14% 2135 3924 35%
1984 1765 2834 38% 176 101 64% 91 624 13% 2120 3829 36%
1985 1813 3108 37% 161 111 59% 130 650 17% 2174 4176 34%
1986 1983 3151 39% 161 115 58% 95 680 12% 2328 4233 35%
1987 1835 2966 38% 168 129 57% 121 666 15% 2227 4076 35%
1988 1639 2995 35% 158 148 52% 78 572 12% 1909 4000 32%
1989 1842 3069 38% 215 174 55% 160 797 17% 2195 4148 35%
1990 1999 3235 38% 230 131 64% 145 859 14% 2325 4247 35%
1991 2044 2417 46% 207 80 72% 101 408 20% 2272 2868 44%
1992 1914 1409 58% 211 69 75% 3 29 9% 2027 1472 58%
1993 1739 1035 63% 168 45 79% 10 6 63% 1882 1077 64%
1994 3035 1786 63% 187 36 84% 40 11 78% 3247 1834 64%
1995 3846 2330 62% 209 52 80% 70 15 82% 4077 2418 63%
1996 4633 2498 65% 332 116 74% 119 25 83% 4940 2672 65%
1997 4863 2930 62% 368 128 74% 123 26 83% 5194 2688 66%
1998 4871 2716 64% 383 170 69% 125 50 71% 5240 2921 64%
1999 3839 2275 63% 236 180 57% 123 52 70% 4135 2500 62%
2000 4547 2822 62% 290 157 65% 225 86 72% 4932 3047 62%
2001 4267 3244 57% 274 224 55% 268 102 72% 4693 3512 57%
2002 4867 3794 56% 255 243 51% 336 124 73% 5340 4137 56%
2003 5274 4104 56% 238 224 52% 391 153 72% 5858 4450 57%
2004 5843 4752 55% 208 220 49% 327 205 61% 6332 5181 55%
2005 5709 5091 53% 197 221 47% 359 209 63% 6255 5513 53%
2006 6286 5154 55% 228 297 43% 440 262 63% 6939 5711 55%
2007 6569 5354 55% 222 312 42% 474 307 61% 7228 5954 55%
2008 6837 5888 54% 190 364 34% 478 340 58% 7461 6588 53%
2009 6579 5700 54% 193 364 35% 417 349 54% 7168 6405 53%
2010 6804 5716 54% 178 368 33% 402 329 55% 7387 6447 53%
2011 6816 5383 56% 196 365 35% 472 343 58% 7457 6542 53%
2012 6623 5655 54% 242 400 38% 506 322 61% 7251 6385 53%
2013 6784 5383 56% 124 264 32% 509 312 62% 7375 5944 55%
2014 6689 5336 56% 132 231 36% 516 312 62% 7310 5830 56%
2015 7154 5262 58% 97 268 27% 596 328 65% 7797 5801 57%
2016 7244 5249 58% 113 297 28% 477 353 57% 7791 5707 58%
2017 6887 4882 59% 107 163 40% 169 113 60% 7093 5054 58%
2018 5856 4085 59% 29 65 31% 127 63 67% 5971 4151 59%
Year Cyrillic Latin %Cyr Cyrillic Latin %Cyr Cyrillic Latin %Cyr Cyrillic Latin %Cyr
“srb” books “mne” books “bih” books all books

Brühl, 27 March 2020