Serbian Latin to Serbian Cyrillic: recognize digraphs before converting them
Two adjacent Latin letters are not always one Serbian letter
Latin lj, nj, and dž can represent single Serbian letters љ, њ, and џ. But some words contain adjacent letters that belong to separate components or sounds. “Injekcija” becomes “Инјекција,” with н followed by ј, not њ. A blind replacement of every nj sequence would create an incorrectly spelled word.
This makes Latin-to-Cyrillic conversion less mechanical than it first appears. Read unfamiliar words, names, abbreviations, and borrowed terms in context before merging characters. A conversion that looks visually plausible can still change the word. For a medical term, product name, or official identifier, verify the intended spelling rather than trusting an unqualified digraph replacement.
Capitalization must follow the letter as a unit
“Ljiljana” becomes “Љиљана.” The Latin title-case digraph corresponds to one capital Cyrillic letter. In an all-capital word, the pair still represents one letter: “LJUBAV” becomes “ЉУБАВ.” Do not leave a stray Latin J or create a mixed-case Cyrillic word because the source used two characters for the initial sound.
The same care applies to nj and dž. Distinguish a genuine digraph from two separate initials, an acronym, or adjacent letters inside a foreign identifier. Capitalization alone cannot resolve every ambiguous sequence; knowledge of the word or its official form may be necessary.
Restore letters, not guesses about missing accents
Serbian Latin đ corresponds to ђ, while ć and č correspond to different Cyrillic letters. Plain ASCII text can erase these distinctions. If a user writes an unmarked c or dj, the original intended Serbian spelling may be uncertain. Do not claim that every such sequence can be converted correctly without lexical interpretation.
For a known name, use the person’s official spelling where available. Preserve uncertainty rather than inventing a different name. A script change should also retain the existing Serbian vocabulary and pronunciation standard. Cyrillic output is not an instruction to replace Ijekavian with Ekavian or to substitute terminology from another national standard.
Protect the strings the reader needs to copy
URLs, email addresses, file names, model numbers, and booking codes may need their original Latin characters. Transliteration of a whole paragraph should not break a website link or turn an exact identifier into a visually similar unusable string. Keep such material intact while converting ordinary Serbian prose around it.
After conversion, inspect words for accidental mixtures of Latin and Cyrillic lookalikes. Characters that appear identical can behave differently in searching and exact comparison. Also compare punctuation, figures, dates, and negation with the source. The useful result is the same Serbian message in the requested script, with its facts and practical copyable details preserved.
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