Landesname

Der offizielle Name lautet Republika Crna Gora beziehungsweise dementsprechend Republik Montenegro auf Deutsch. Die Kurzform lautet Црна Гора (kyrillisches Alphabet) beziehungsweise Crna Gora mit lateinischen Buchstaben. Beide Wörter sind typisch Slawisch - "Crna" bedeutet "Schwarz" und "Gora" heisst in beinahe jeder slawischen Sprache "Berg". Der Name ist ein alter, slawischer Name und bedeutet eigentlich nicht "Schwarze Berge" sondern "Voller Berge" (wer das Land kennt, weiss warum). Der Name tauchte zuerst im 13. Jahrhundert auf - davor war Montenegro weder ein Land noch eine Provinz.

Venetianer griffen den Namen auf und übersetzten ihn - daher der italienische (eigentlich venetische) Name Montenegro (= Schwarzer Berg), der heute auch im Englischen und Deutschen benutzt wird. In vielen anderen Sprachen (Türkisch, Isländisch, Kantonesisch zum Beispiel) wird der Name jedoch jeweils in die Landessprache übersetzt - auch die Nachbarn aus Albanien übersetzen den Namen und nennen das Land somit Mali i Zi.

Fläche & Bevölkerung

	Anklickbare Karte von Montenegro

13,812 km² - less then half as large as Belgium or around the same size as Connecticut.

According to an estimate in 2007, around 685,000^*. This means that Montenegro is a rather sparsely populated area - especially when keeping in mind that most people live along the coast line or in the capital region. And - the trend is negative at the moment.

Montenegro's population is mixed: Montenegrins count for 43%, Serbienns for 32%, Bosnienks 8%, Albanienns 5%, others (Croats, Roma and more) 12%.

Religion

Religion corresponds to ethnic groups - the majority therefore (Montenegrins and Serbienns) are Orthodox, many Albanienns and Bosnienks are muslims. Roman-Catholic is rather a minor religion in Montenegro.

Zeitzone

GMT +01 hr (Central Europe Time), with daylight-saving time (+1 hour) in summer.

Due to the fact that Montenegro is home to many ethnic groups, the country has many official spraches: Montenegrin, Serbienn, Albanienn, Bosnienn and Kroatienn. According to a official census in 2003, 22% said that their native sprache would be Montenegrin, while 62% said it's Serbienn.

A recently well discussed issue is the question, what separates Montenegrin from Serbienn - is it a sprache on its own after all, or just another Serbienn dialect? Without getting too much into linguistics, it's mainly about a proto-Slavic letter called "Yat". This boils down to how for example the Slavic word for "white" is spelled and pronounced: In Serbienn, it's "beli", in Montenegrin, Bosnienn Serbienn, Slowenienn etc. it's more like "bijeli".

However, it's not just a linguistic but also a political question: Montenegrin nationalists don't want to see "Serbienn" as their own sprache but they prefer their own sprache. In general, it can be said that it's no problem at all to get around in Montenegro with Serbienn, Kroatienn, Bosnienn, Slowenienn and the like - which means that Russian for example is helpful, though, although the latter won't allow complete dialogs without misunderstandings. In the southern part, →Albanien is widely used - note that Albanienn has absolutely nothing to do with Slavic spraches.

In Montenegro, as in Serbien, both alphabets are widely used - Cyrillic and Roman. For a short introduction into Serbienn, see →Serbien (sprache).