Ijekavian Spelling

Foundations

Bosnian spells the old jat vowel as ije or je.

How It Works

Long ago, one Slavic vowel (called jat) became different sounds in different places. Bosnian follows the ijekavian way: the vowel is written ije or je.

  • Long jat is usually ije: mlijeko, lijep, dijete, rijeka.
  • Short jat is usually je: djevojka, pjesma, sjedim, gdje.

The spelling follows the word, so learn it as part of the word. A few words change inside one family, and the entry on long and short jat shows how. Words such as vrijeme and uvijek have ije in the standard.

You will see mleko, lep and devojka in books and signs from other places. Those are the ekavian spellings. They are not typos, but they are not Bosnian standard spelling, so Poppy teaches the ijekavian words for you to read and write.

The sound is easy to hear: ije sounds a bit like ee-eh said quickly, and je sounds like ye in yes.

Examples (4)

  1. Dijete pije mlijeko.

    The child drinks milk.

    Dijete and mlijeko both have ije.

  2. Rijeka je lijepa.

    The river is beautiful.

    Rijeka and lijepa show long jat as ije.

  3. Djevojka sjedi kod prozora.

    The girl sits by the window.

    Djevojka and sjedi show short jat as je.

  4. Gdje je pjesma?

    Where is the song?

    Gdje and pjesma both use je.

Common Mistakes

  • Writing the e-only spelling.

    Dete pije mleko.
    Dijete pije mlijeko.

    In Bosnian the jat is written ije or je, so dete and mleko are not the standard spelling.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

Ijekavian SpellingFoundations

Learn This First

The je and ije spellings are the course variety's main sound pattern.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.

Words in This Pattern

ijekavicaijekavski