The official language is Montenegrin. It is essentially the same language as Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. In some municipalities with an Albanian majority (Ulcinj, Plav, Gusinje) and the Malesia district in Podgorica municipality, Albanian is commonly spoken. Slovenian and Macedonian are also understood.
Even though their languages are virtually identical, people still distinguish between the Montenegrin, Serb, Croat and Bosniak ethnicities, Montenegrins forming a slight majority. Montenegrin, while found written in both Cyrillic and Latin forms, Latin text is found to be much more common in usage than in neighboring Serbia and the Serbian portion of Bosnia.
In Podgorica and the coastal area, many people can speak some English, but that is not always the case in the north. Older people sometimes have a working knowledge of German. Italian also comes very handy, especially along the coast. Russian, which belongs to the same family of Slavic languages, is also heard sometimes.
