Montenegrin is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian.

[14] The beginnings of Montenegrin literacy date back to 9th century, during the Duklja period, with the establishment of numerous monasteries in the coastal region.

During this period there was a development of the Zetan (Montenegrin) redaction of Old Church Slavonic, exemplified by the Miroslavljevo Gospel from the 12th century, written in Kotor.

Yet, in the coastal region, the influence of the Montenegrin type of Old Church Slavonic had little impact on the literature of the period, where Latin and Italian language prevailed.

Even before the birth of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Ivan-Antun Nenadić from Perast advocated for the phonetic orthographic principle, emphasizing that writing should reflect how people speak and pronounce.

This rule was applied early in Montenegrin literature, making it unsurprising that Vuk Karadžić's linguistic reforms were later accepted without significant issues.

[15] In lengthy debates, Jovan Pavlović (a consistent follower of Vuk) and Lazar Tomanović stood out, with Tomanović advocating for the introduction of graphemes ś and ź. Đuro Špadijer, in his Serbian Grammar (intended for 3rd and 4th grades in Montenegrin elementary schools), introduced some characteristics considered by Vuk's model as dialectal and provincial.

This reform would ultimately achieve a definitive victory in Montenegro by the end of the 19th century, primarily in administrative, journalistic, and scientific styles.

The preservation of typical Montenegrin language features in the literary style is evident in the works of three representative figures from that period: Petar II Petrović Njegoš, Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša, and Marko Miljanov Popović.

[15] The most significant changes in the Montenegrin literary language occurred during the phase marked by the influence of Serbian linguist Aleksandar Belić, between the two World Wars.

Although Belić's Orthography from 1923 formally allowed the use of ijekavian, he emphasized in that edition and subsequent ones that jekavian jotization is a dialectal phenomenon.

Consequently, Montenegrins were obligated to use atypical non-jotized forms such as "djed" (grandfather), "cjedilo" (strainer), "tjerati" (to drive), "sjesti" (to sit), and so on.

Despite the formal acknowledgment of ijekavian in literary language, the interwar period in Montenegro was marked by an increasing use of ekavian.

[19] The Ministry of Education has accepted neither of the two drafts of the Council for the Standardization of the Montenegrin language, but instead adopted an alternate third one which was not a part of their work.

The first written request for the assignment of an international code was submitted by the Montenegrin authorities to the technical committee ISO 639 in July 2008, with complete paperwork forwarded to Washington in September 2015.

Organizations promoting Montenegrin as a distinct language have appeared since 2004 when the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro regime introduced usage of the term.

The Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, had a generally positive attitude towards the draft of the constitution but did not address the language and church issues, calling them symbolic.

The new constitution ratified on 19 October 2007 declared Montenegrin to be the official language of Montenegro, but also gave some recognition to Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian.

Most openly, Matica Muslimanska called on Muslims living in Montenegro to name their native language as Montenegrin.

They include the folk literature collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and other authors, as well as the books of writers from Montenegro such as Petar Petrović Njegoš's The Mountain Wreath (Gorski vijenac), Marko Miljanov's The Examples of Humanity and Bravery (Primjeri čojstva i junaštva), etc.

Petar Petrović Njegoš, one of the most respectable Montenegrin authors, changed many characteristics of the Zeta–South Raška dialect from the manuscript of his Gorski vijenac to those proposed by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić as a standard for the Serbian language.

Thus the stanzas "U dobro je lako dobar biti, / na muku se poznaju junaci" from the manuscript were changed to "U dobru je lako dobar biti, / na muci se poznaju junaci" in the printed version.

Other works of later Montenegrin authors were also often modified to the East Herzegovinian forms in order to follow the Serbian language literary norm.

[37] Opponents acknowledge that these sounds can be heard by many Montenegrin speakers, however, they do not form a language system and thus are allophones rather than phonemes.

[citation needed] Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Montenegrin, written in the Latin alphabet:[42] "Sva ljudska bića rađaju se slobodna i jednaka u dostojanstvu i pravima.

Ona su obdarena razumom i savješću i jedni prema drugima treba da postupaju u duhu bratstva.