Short version: Montenegrin has 32 letters — the same 30 you'd meet in Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian, plus ś and ź, two letters added in 2009 that belong to Montenegrin alone. It's written in both Latin and Cyrillic, and the two match letter for letter, so once you know one you nearly know the other.
Published 8 September 2026
The best thing about the whole system is that it is honest: one letter makes one sound, every time, and there is a clean one-to-one match between the Latin and Cyrillic versions. Learn the letters and you can read any Montenegrin word aloud correctly on day one — signs, menus, place names, the lot. This page is the full alphabet, laid out in both scripts, with special attention to the two letters that make Montenegrin recognisably itself. (If you want the mouth mechanics of the trickier sounds, that lives in our Montenegrin pronunciation guide — here we're mapping the letters.)
Montenegro is unusual in giving Latin and Cyrillic equal official status. The two alphabets correspond one-to-one, and words are spelled so they convert cleanly between them, so nothing is "lost" by choosing one. In day-to-day life — media, advertising, schools and the web — the Latin script (the abeceda) is by far the more common of the two, which makes it the sensible one to learn first. Cyrillic (the azbuka) is worth adding once you're comfortable; it's just as phonetic and takes an afternoon. If you're weighing that up across the region, our Latin or Cyrillic? guide walks through which to start with.
Here are all 32 letters in Latin (abeceda) order, each with its Cyrillic partner, the sound it makes and a real word. The three digraphs — dž, lj, nj — count as single letters, even though they're written with two symbols in Latin.
| Latin | Cyrillic | Sounds like | Real word |
|---|---|---|---|
| A a | А а | a in father | auto — car |
| B b | Б б | b in boy | brat — brother |
| C c | Ц ц | ts in cats (always!) | cipele — shoes |
| Č č | Ч ч | ch in church, hard | čaj — tea |
| Ć ć | Ћ ћ | ch, but soft | kuća — house |
| D d | Д д | d in day | dan — day |
| Dž dž | Џ џ | j in jungle, hard | džem — jam |
| Đ đ | Ђ ђ | j, but soft | đak — pupil (school) |
| E e | Е е | e in bed | evo — here it is |
| F f | Ф ф | f in fun | foto — photo |
| G g | Г г | g in go (always hard) | grad — city |
| H h | Х х | h in hat, a touch raspier | hvala — thanks |
| I i | И и | ee in see | ime — name |
| J j | Ј ј | y in yes (never English j) | jutro — morning |
| K k | К к | k in kite | kafa — coffee |
| L l | Л л | l in love | lijep — beautiful |
| Lj lj | Љ љ | lli in million | ljeto — summer |
| M m | М м | m in man | more — sea |
| N n | Н н | n in no | noć — night |
| Nj nj | Њ њ | ny in canyon | njiva — field |
| O o | О о | o in more | oko — eye |
| P p | П п | p in pen | pas — dog |
| R r | Р р | a rolled r | ruka — hand, arm |
| S s | С с | s in sun | sunce — sun |
| Ś ś | С́ с́ | a soft, whispery sh (IPA ɕ) | śever — north |
| Š š | Ш ш | sh in shoe | šuma — forest |
| T t | Т т | t in top | tri — three |
| U u | У у | oo in food | ulica — street |
| V v | В в | v in very | voda — water |
| Z z | З з | z in zoo | zima — winter |
| Ź ź | З́ з́ | a soft, whispery zh (IPA ʑ) | iźelica — glutton |
| Ž ž | Ж ж | s in pleasure | žena — woman, wife |
Notice there's no q, w, x or y — those turn up only in foreign names and borrowings. And the vowels are gloriously simple: five letters, five pure sounds (a e i o u), never silent, never shifting. The town of Kotor is "KO-tor", both o's identical.
This is the part worth searching Montenegrin specifically for. When Montenegro adopted its first official orthography in 2009, it added two letters that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian don't use: ś and ź (in Cyrillic, с́ and з́). They didn't invent new sounds — Montenegrins were already saying them. They gave a single letter to a soft, melted sound that used to be written with two.
Both come from a feature called iotation: where other varieties keep sj and zj, much of Montenegro fuses them into ś and ź. So the same word ends up with two legal spellings:
| Elsewhere (sj / zj) | Montenegrin (ś / ź) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sjutra / sutra | śutra | tomorrow |
| sjever / sever | śever | north |
| sjedi | śedi | sit (down) |
| izjelica | iźelica | glutton |
| kozji | koźi | goat's (as in goat's cheese) |
Say ś like the "sh" in "sheep" but softer and quieter, the tongue relaxed just behind your top teeth; ź is its voiced twin, a hushed version of the "s" in "pleasure". Get them roughly right and you sound less like you arrived yesterday — but nobody will mind if your ś lands somewhere near a normal š.
No — and this trips people up, so it's worth saying plainly. The new letters are optional. The older sj and zj spellings stayed standard, so you can write perfect Montenegrin without ever typing ś or ź, and you'll see both versions out in the wild on the same day. What matters for a learner is recognition: when a menu offers koźi sir (goat's cheese) or a forecast promises wind from the śever, you want that to read as an ordinary word, not a typo. Learn to read them; use them if and when you like.
Cover the right-hand column and sound each word out, letter by letter — the spelling tells you everything. Answers below.
Answers: 1 — "CHE-va-pee" (soft ć, not "sev-"). 2 — "TSE-ti-nye" (c = ts, j = y). 3 — "SHOO-tra" with a soft, whispery ś. 4 — "JEZ-va" (dž = hard j). If those felt readable, the alphabet has already done its job.
How many letters are in the Montenegrin alphabet? Thirty-two. Montenegrin uses the same thirty letters as Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, plus two of its own: ś and ź. Each script has its own version, so there are 32 letters in the Latin alphabet and 32 in the Cyrillic one, matched one-to-one.
What are the letters ś and ź in Montenegrin? They're two extra letters added when Montenegro standardised its orthography in 2009. Ś is a soft, whispery "sh" sound (IPA ɕ) and ź is a soft "zh" (IPA ʑ). They were written sj and zj before, so śutra and sjutra (tomorrow) are the same word spelled two ways. In Cyrillic they're с́ and з́.
Does Montenegrin use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet? Both. Latin and Cyrillic have equal official status in Montenegro and correspond letter for letter, so any word can be written in either. In everyday life — media, advertising, education and the web — the Latin script is the more common of the two, so it's the practical one to learn first.
Do I have to learn ś and ź to speak Montenegrin? No. Their use isn't mandatory, and the older sj and zj spellings remain perfectly standard, so you can read and write Montenegrin without ever typing ś or ź. The real value is recognising them, so a word like śever (north) doesn't look foreign when you meet it.
The alphabet is the easy win — an afternoon's work that pays off every time you read a sign. From here, the next steps are the sounds in the mouth (our Montenegrin pronunciation guide), how Montenegrin sits beside its neighbours (Montenegrin vs Serbian), and a proper order to learn everything else (the beginner's guide to learning Montenegrin). That's exactly what Gora is built for: you start reading and saying real Montenegrin from day one, with a patient AI fox to practise on. It's live today — open it in your browser at app.gora.academy, or search "Gora Academy" in the App Store or on Google Play.