Vocative plural

When you call out to ONE person, Serbian gives the noun a special ending: prijatelju!, momče!, devojko!. You learned this as the vocative singular. Now the good news: when you call out to a group, there is nothing new to learn. You simply use the ordinary plural — the same form you use for the subject of a sentence (the nominative plural).

So the whole rule is: take the plural you already know and say it out loud to the group. Prijatelji su ovde (The friends are here) and Prijatelji, dođite ovamo! (Friends, come here!) use exactly the same word.

Watch the singular and the plural pull apart

Nouns ending in -k, -g or -h change differently in the two numbers. Calling one person, the k becomes č (momak → Momče!, đak → Đače!). Calling a group, you use the plural, where k becomes c (momci → Momci!, đaci → Đaci!). Do not mix them: Momče is for one boy, Momci for several.

Adjectives and possessives

Words in front of the noun also stay in their ordinary plural form: Dragi prijatelji! (Dear friends!), Drage devojke!, Poštovani putnici! (Dear passengers!), Moji dragi gosti!. Compare the singular Dragi prijatelju! — the adjective is the same, only the noun changes.

The one exception: deca

The plural of dete is deca, and it behaves like a feminine singular word ending in -a. So when you call children, it takes the -o ending, like devojko: Deco! (Children!) — and an adjective goes with it in the feminine singular: Draga deco! The same happens with two other group words of this kind: braća (brothers) gives Braćo! and gospoda (gentlemen) gives Gospodo!, as in Dame i gospodo! (Ladies and gentlemen!).

To call a group, say the plural. Only three group words ending in -a — deca, braća, gospoda — switch to -o: Deco! Braćo! Gospodo!

As in the singular, the call is set off with a comma in writing: Ljudi, slušajte!, Kolege, sastanak počinje.