SERBIAN STANDARD LANGUAGE IN CONTEMPORARY MONTENEGRO IN LIGHT OF NEW LINGUISTIC POLICY

The article argues the premise that the Article 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of Montenegro adopted on 12 October 1992 in paragraph starting with Serbian language of (i) jekavian dialact shall be in official use in Montenegro was then formulated to best reflect cultural and linguistic realities in Montenegro of the time. This wording should have remained in the Montenegrin constitution of 25 October and the following sentence in the article 9 of the 1992 Constitution reading The Cyrillic and Latin alphabet shall be interchangeable would have better guarded the identity of Serbian language as a dominant language in past and present-day Montenegro had it read the official alphabet in Montenegro shall be Serbian Cyrillic while Serbian Cyrillic and Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet shall be in public and private use.