James Baquet

Montenegro is another of the now six countries resulting from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, along with Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, with which it was united immediately after the breakup. That entity was initially called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992 (Yugoslavia’s dissolution) until it was officially renamed the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. This ended in 2006, when the two went their separate ways.

Montenegro means “Black Mountain,” a reference to the southwestern prominence named Mount Lovcen in local terminology, which appeared dark in the days when it was covered in dense forests of evergreens. The name was given to the mountain by Venetians when the area was controlled by the Republic of Venice; the Montenegrins’ own name for the country is Crna Gora, which also translates as “Black Mountain.”

Bosnia and Herzegovina sits on the country’s western and northern border; Serbia and Kosovo lie to the east; and Albania is to the south. The Adriatic Sea is on the western side, and a tiny sliver of the southern portion of Croatia’s Dubrovnik-Neretva County, an exclave (a detached part of the country), rests in the northwest, between the Adriatic Sea and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Montenegrin is the official language of Montenegro; it is a variety of Serbo-Croatian. Both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are used. (The former is the script commonly associated with Russian and other Slavic languages, and the latter with those of western Europe, including English.)

Fewer than half of the people of Montenegro — just 44.5 percent — are ethnically Montenegrin; nearly 30 percent are Serbs. The remainder are Bosniaks, Albanians, Croats, and others. Fully three-quarters are Christian, most of them Eastern (Serbian) Orthodox; and nearly 20 percent are Muslim.

Montenegro is a constitutional republic with a president, a prime minister, and a parliament. Services account for nearly three-quarters of Montenegro’s economy; industry adds another approximately 18 percent, and agriculture 10 percent more. The country is well on its way to transitioning into a market economy.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. heavy, thick

2. originally “the domain of a count”

3. high point

4. writing system

5. breakup

6. changing

7. joined, connected

8. system of describing things

9. thin piece

10. trees that do not shed their leaves