Montenegrin language
Montenegrin language is the name given to an Ijekavian-Štokavian tongue of the Serbo-Croatian family spoken in Montenegro.
In the last census in 2003, 21.53% of the population of Montenegro declared that this is their native language.
Montenegrin speakers favour the Latin over the Cyrillic alphabet and even propose amending of the alphabet with soft s, soft z and dz. While these phones could be heard in some Montenegrin, Herzegovinian and Krajišnik speakers, they are not phonemes and do not form minimal pairs. In addition, there are speakers in Montenegro who don't utter them and speakers of Serbian outside of Montenegro who do.
The chief proponent of this language and alphabet is Zagreb-educated Vojislav Nikčević. His ideas mostly receive support both in Montenegro and abroad in linguistic circles.
According to the constitution of Montenegro, the official language is Serbian of the Ijekavian standard. It is very similar to the Serbian dialect spoken in Bosnia.
In 2004, government of Montenegro changed school curriculum in such a way that name of the class which was teaching Serbian language was changed from "Serbian language" to "Mother tongue (Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian)". This resulted in some teachers declaring strike and parents refusing to send their children to schools. The cities affected by the strikes include Niksic, Podgorica, Berane, Pljevlja and Herceg-Novi.