Montenegrin listed as independent language in ISO classification

BELGRADE, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Montenegrin language is now considered an independent language, and will no longer be seen as a variant of the Serbian language, the country's national library confirmed Tuesday.

"ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Joint Advisory Committee based in the Library of Congress in Washington, the United States, has approved the request of Montenegro's National Library to define the code for the Montenegrin language within the ISO 639 international standard," the library's press release read.

The code for the Montenegrin language will be "CNR" instead of the original "Crnogorski jezik," and the name of the language will be "Montenegrin" in both English and French, the release said, adding that "the database of the ISO 639 will be updated in the upcoming weeks."

ISO 639 is a set of standards by the International Organization for Standardization that is concerned with the representation of names for languages and language groups.

Previously in July, the request was denied because insufficient evidence was submitted to prove that Montenegrin was not just a variant of the related Serbian language, as its previous classification implied.

Montenegro seceded from a joint state with Serbia and became independent in 2006, since which it has proclaimed its own language. It introduced new letters into the alphabet in 2008 to distinguish its language from Serbian. Enditem