Macedonian language

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Macedonian
Македонски јазик Makedonski jazik
Pronunciation	[maˈkɛdɔnski jazik]
Native to	Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria,[1][2] Greece, Serbia, Macedonian diaspora
Region	Balkans
Ethnicity	Macedonians
Native speakers	2–2.5 million  (1986–1998)[3]
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Eastern South Slavic Macedonian
Writing system	Cyrillic (Macedonian alphabet) Macedonian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Republic of Macedonia
Recognised minority language in	Albania  Romania[4]  Serbia[5][6]
Regulated by	Macedonian Language Institute "Krste Misirkov" at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje
Language codes
ISO 639-1	mk
ISO 639-2	mac (B) mkd (T)
ISO 639-3	mkd
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ha (part of 53-AAA-h)
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Macedonian (македонски јазик, makedonski jazik, pronounced [maˈkɛdɔnski ˈjazik] ( listen)) is a South Slavic language, spoken as a first language by some two million people, principally in the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian diaspora, with a smaller number of speakers throughout the transnational region of Macedonia. It is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia and an official minority language in parts of Albania, Romania and Serbia.

Standard Macedonian was implemented as the official language of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1945^[7] and has since developed a thriving literary tradition. Most of the codification was formalized during the same period.^[8][9][9]

Macedonian dialects form a continuum with Bulgarian dialects; they in turn form a broader continuum with Serbo-Croatian through the transitional Torlakian dialects.

The name of the Macedonian language is a matter of political controversy in Greece^[10] as is its distinctiveness compared to Bulgarian in Bulgaria.^[11][12]

Contents 1 Classification and related languages 2 Geographical distribution 2.1 Macedonian language in Greece 2.2 Relationship to Bulgarian 2.3 Usage 3 Dialects 4 Phonology 5 Grammar 5.1 Nouns 5.2 Verbs 5.3 Prepositions 6 Vocabulary 7 Writing system 7.1 Alphabet 7.2 Orthography 7.3 Examples 8 History 9 Common expressions 10 Political views on the language 10.1 Bulgarian view 10.2 Greek view 11 See also 12 References 13 Bibliography 14 Further reading 15 External links 15.1 Documents 15.2 Macedonian language

Classification and related languages [edit]

The Macedonian language belongs to the eastern group of the South Slavic branch of Slavic languages in the Indo-European language family, together with Bulgarian. The modern Macedonian language is unrelated to the Ancient Macedonian language. Macedonian's closest relative is Bulgarian,^[13] with which it has a high degree of mutual intelligibility.^[12] Macedonian is also regarded by some linguists as a variety or a dialect of Bulgarian.^[14][15] The next closest relative is Serbo-Croatian (and its standard variants Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian). Language contact between Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian reached its height during Yugoslav times, when most Macedonians learned Serbo-Croatian as a compulsory language of education.^[16]

All South Slavic languages, including Macedonian, form a dialect continuum.^[12] Macedonian, along with Bulgarian and the transitional southern Serbian varieties (Torlakian) also forms a part of the Balkan Sprachbund, a group of languages which share typological, grammatical and lexical features based on geographical convergence, rather than genetic proximity. Its other principal members are Romanian, Greek and Albanian, all of which belong to different genetic branches of the Indo-European family of languages (Romanian is a Romance language, while Greek and Albanian each comprise their own separate branches). Macedonian and Bulgarian are sharply divergent from the remaining South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene,^[17] and indeed all other Slavic languages, in that they don't use noun cases (except for the vocative, and apart from some traces of once productive inflections still found scattered throughout the languages). They are also the only Slavic languages with any definite articles, but only Macedonian has got three: unspecified, proximate and distal article.

Prior to the codification of the standard language (Standard Macedonian), Macedonian dialects were described by linguists as being either dialects of Bulgarian^[18][19][20] or Serbian.^[21][22] Similarly, Torlakian was also widely regarded as Bulgarian.^[23] The boundaries between the South Slavic languages had yet to be "conceptualized in modern terms",^[24] and codifiers of Serbian even found it necessary to argue that Bulgarian was not a Serbian dialect as late as 1822.^[24]

On the other hand, many Macedonian intellectuals maintained that their language "was neither a dialect of Serbian nor of Bulgarian, but a language in its own right".^[25] Some other linguists, such as Antoine Meillet, also considered Macedonian dialects as comprising an independent language group distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbian.^[26] Some linguists still consider Macedonian and Bulgarian to be dialects of a single language,^[27] but this view is politically controversial.^[12][28][29]

While it is often claimed that Standard Macedonian was codified on the base of those dialects (i.e. the Prilep-Bitola dialect) which were most unlike Bulgarian,^[30] this interpretation stems from the works of Krste Misirkov who suggested that Standard Macedonian should abstract on those dialects "most distinct from the standards of the other Slavonic languages".^[31] Likewise, this view does not take into account the fact that a Macedonian koiné language was already in existence.^[32] The codifiers ultimately chose the same dialects, but did so because they were "most widespread and most likely to be adopted by speakers of other dialects".^[33]

Language contact between Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian reached its height during Yugoslav times, so much so that the colloquial speech of the city of Skopje has been described as a "creolized form of Serbian"^[34] (cf. also Surzhyk in Ukraine, Trasianka in Belarus).

Essentially, modern questions of classification are largely shaped by political and social factors, whilst structurally, Macedonian, Bulgarian and southeastern forms of Serbian (Torlakian) form a dialectical continuum,^[35] which developed as a legacy of the linguistic developments during the apogee of the Preslav and Ohrid literary schools.^[36]

Geographical distribution [edit]

Macedonian language
Slognica rečovska by Gjorgjija Pulevski.
Macedonian language Macedonistics Sign language Macedonian Braille Standard Macedonian Spoken Macedonian Naming dispute Political views Geographical distribution In Greece Regulatory body History Literature Macedonian writers Dialects Northern Southeastern Western Grammar Pronouns Numerals Phonology Macedonian lexicon Onomastics Month names Orthography Transliteration
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The population of the Republic of Macedonia was 2,022,547 in 2002, with 1,644,815 speaking Macedonian as the native language.^[43] Outside of the Republic, there are Macedonians living in other parts of the geographical area of Macedonia. There are ethnic Macedonian minorities in neighbouring Albania, in Bulgaria, in Greece, and in Serbia. According to the official Albanian census of 1989, 4,697 ethnic Macedonians reside in Albania.^[44]

A large number of Macedonians live outside the traditional Balkan Macedonian region, with Australia, Canada and the United States having the largest emigrant communities. According to a 1964 estimate, approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside of the Macedonian Republic,^[45] nearly 30% of the total population. The Macedonian language has the status of official language only in the Republic of Macedonia, and is a recognised minority and official language in parts of Albania (Municipality of Pustec), Romania, and Serbia (Municipalities of Jabuka and Plandište). There are provisions for learning the Macedonian language in Romania as Macedonians are an officially recognised minority group. The language is taught in some universities in Australia, Canada, Croatia, Italy, Russia, Serbia, the United States, and the United Kingdom among other countries.

Macedonian language in Greece [edit]

The varieties spoken by the Slavophone minority in parts of northern Greece, especially those in the Greek provinces of West and Central Macedonia, are today usually classified as part of the Macedonian language, with those in East Macedonia being transitional towards Bulgarian.^[46] Bulgarian linguistics traditionally regards them all as part of the Bulgarian diasystem together with the rest of Macedonian.^[47][48] However, the codification of standard Macedonian has been in effect only in the Republic of Macedonia, and the Slavonic dialects spoken in Greece are thus practically "roofless",^[49] with their speakers having little access to standard or written Macedonian.

Most of the language speakers in Greece do not identify ethnically as "Macedonians", but as ethnic Greeks (Slavophone Greeks) or dopii (locals). Therefore, the simple term "Macedonian" as a name for the Slavic language is often avoided in the Greek context, and vehemently rejected by most Greeks, for whom Macedonian has very different connotations. Instead, the language is often called simply "Slavic" or "Slavomacedonian", with "Macedonian Slavic" often being used in English. Speakers themselves variously refer to their language as makedonski, makedoniski ("Macedonian"),^[50] slaviká (Greek: σλαβικά, "Slavic"), dópia or entópia (Greek: εντόπια, "local/indigenous [language]"),^[51] balgàrtzki in some parts of the region of Kostur, bògartski ("Bulgarian") in some parts of Dolna Prespa ^[52] along with naši ("our own") and stariski ("old").^[53] In Kostur, however, the name "Macedonian" is used as well by the local people.^[54]

The exact number of speakers in Greece is difficult to ascertain, with estimates ranging between 20,000 and 250,000.^[2][55][56] Jacques Bacid estimates in his 1983 book that "over 200,000 Macedonian speakers remained in Greece".^[57] Other sources put the numbers of speakers at 180,000^{[58][unreliable source?]},^[59] 220,000^[60] and 250,000, while Yugoslav sources vary, some putting the estimated number of "Macedonians in Greek Macedonia" at 150,000–200,000 and others at 300,000.^[61] The Encyclopædia Britannica^{[62][dead link]} and the Reader's Digest World Guide both put the figure of ethnic Macedonians in Greece at 1.8% or c.200,000 people, with the native language roughly corresponding with the figures. The UCLA also states that there are 200,000 Macedonian speakers in Greece.^[63][64] A 2008 article in the Greek newspaper Eleftherotipia put the estimate at 20,000.^[65]

The largest group of speakers are concentrated in the Florina, Kastoria, Edessa, Giannitsa, Ptolemaida and Naousa regions. During the Greek Civil War, the codified Macedonian language was taught in 87 schools with 10,000 students in areas of northern Greece under the control of Communist-led forces, until their defeat by the National Army in 1949.^[66] In recent years, there have been attempts to have the language recognised as a minority language.^[67]

Relationship to Bulgarian [edit]

Between Macedonian and Bulgarian languages exist special and complicated historical and linguistic relationships. Macedonian researchers claim Macedonian is spoken in southwestern Bulgaria, while Bulgarian argue Macedonian is variety of Bulgarian.

With the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman empire its specific social system, and especially the so called Rum millet, began to degrade with the continuous identification of the religious creed with ethnicity.^[68] The national awakening of each ethnic group inside it was too complex and most of the groups interacted with each other. With the emergence of the Bulgarian national revival during the first half of the 19th. century, the Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs, who were under the supremacy of the Greek Orthodox clergy, wanted to create their own Church and schools in a common modern "Macedono-Bulgarian" literary standard, called simply Bulgarian.^[69] Their originating national elites used mainly ethno-linguistic principles to differentiation between "Slavic-Bulgarian" and "Greek" groups.^[70] At that time, every ethnographic subgroup in the Macedonian-Bulgarian linguistic area, wrote in his own local dialect and the issue of a "base dialect" for the new standard was not an issue. However, during the 1870s this issue began to sharpen and it sparked fierce debate in the Bulgarian periodicals.^[71] After the establishment of a distinct Bulgarian state in 1878, Macedonia remained outside its borders, in the frame of the Ottoman Empire. As a consequence, the idea of a common compromise standard was rejected by the Bulgarian codificators during 1880-s, when eastern Bulgarian dialects were chosen as a basis for the standard Bulgarian.^[72] Despite standard Bulgarian was thought in the local schools in Macedonia till 1913,^[73] the fact of political separation became crucial for the development of a separate Macedonian language.^[74] With the following rise of the Macedonian nationalism, the need for separate Macedonian standard language appeared firstly in the early 20th. century.^[75] In the Interwar period, the territory of today's Republic of Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bulgarian was banned for use and the local vernicular fell under a heavy influence by the official Serbo-Croatian language.^[76] During the world wars Bulgaria's short annexations over Macedonia saw two attempts to bring the Macedonian dialects back towards Bulgarian. This political situation stimulated the necessity of a separate Macedonian language and led gradually to its codification after the Second World War. It followed the establishment of SR Macedonia, as part of Communist Yugoslavia and finalized the progressive split in the common Macedonian-Bulgarian diasystem.^[77] Although, there was no clear separating line between these two languages on level of dialect then, the Macedonian standard was based on its western most dialects. Afterwards, Macedonian became the official language in the new republic, Serbo-Croatian was adopted as a second official language and Bulgarian was proscribed. More, in 1946-1948 the newly standardized Macedonian language was introduced as a second language even in Southwestern Bulgaria.^[78] Subsequently, the sharp and continuous deterioration of the political relationships between the two countries, the influence of both standard languages during the time, but also the strong Serbo-Croatian linguistic influence in Yugoslav era, led to a horizontal cross-border dialectal divergence.^[79] Although, some researchers describe yet Macedonian-Bulgarian dialect continuum as pluricentric area,^[80] the prevailing academic consensus is that Macedonian and Bulgarian are two autonomous languages within the eastern subbranch of the South Slavic linguistic area.^[81] Today, Macedonian language is still an ausbau-language, that is intentionally diverged, particularly from Bulgarian.^[82]

Usage [edit]

The total number of Macedonian speakers is highly disputed. Although the precise number of speakers is unknown, figures of between 1.6 million (from Ethnologue) and 2–2.5 million have been cited; see Topolinjska (1998) and Friedman (1985). The general academic consensus^{[citation needed]} is that there are approximately 2 million speakers of the Macedonian language, accepting that "it is difficult to determine the total number of speakers of Macedonian due to the official policies of the neighbouring Balkan states and the fluid nature of emigration" Friedman (1985:?). According to the 2002 censuses and figures, the number of speakers of Macedonian is:

State	Number
	Census Data	Lower Range	Higher Range
Macedonia	1,344,815[83]	1,344,815[83]	2,022,547[84]
Albania		4,697[85]	30,000[86] - 150,000[2]
Bulgaria	1,404[87]	1,404[88]	150,000[2]
Greece		35,000 [55]	250,000 [2]
Serbia	14,355[89]	14,355[89]	30,000[citation needed]
Rest of the Balkans		15,807[90][91][92][93][94]	25,000
Canada	18,440 [95]	18,440 [95]	150,000[96]
Australia	72,000[97]	72,000[97]	200,000[96]
Germany		62,295[98]	85,000[96]
Italy		50,000[99]	74,162[100]
United States of America		45,000[101]	200,000[96]
Switzerland		6,415[102]	60,116[103]
Rest of World		101,600[96]	110,000[91][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][111][92][93][112][113][114]
Total		2,289,904	4,100,000

Dialects [edit]

Dialect divisions of Macedonian[115]
Northern   Lower Polog   Crna Gora   Kumanovo / Kratovo Western   Central   Upper Polog   Reka   Mala Reka / Galičnik   Debar   Drimkol / Golo Brdo   Vevčani / Radοžda   Upper Prespa / Ohrid   Lower Prespa	Eastern   Mariovo / Tikveš   Štip / Strumica   Maleševo / Pirin Southern   Korča   Kostur   Nestram   Solun / Voden   Ser / Drama

Based on a large group of features, Macedonian dialects can be divided into Eastern and Western groups (the boundary runs approximately from Skopje and Skopska Crna Gora along the rivers Vardar and Crna). In addition, a more detailed classification can be based on the modern reflexes of the Proto-Slavic reduced vowels (yers), vocalic sonorants, and the back nasal *ǫ. That classification distinguishes between the following 5 groups:^[116]

Western Dialects:

• Ohrid-Prespa Group
  • Ohrid dialect
  • Struga dialect
  • Vevčani-Radοžda dialect
  • Upper Prespa dialect
  • Lower Prespa dialect.
• Debar Group
  • Debar dialect
  • Reka dialect
  • Drimkol-Golo Brdo dialect
  • Galičnik dialect
  • Skopska Crna Gora dialect
  • Gora dialect
• Polog Group
  • Upper Polog dialect
  • Lower Polog dialect
  • Prilep-Bitola dialect
  • Kičevo-Poreče dialect
  • Skopje-Veles dialect
• Kostur-Korča Group
  • Korča dialect
  • Kostur dialect
  • Nestram-Kostenar dialect

Eastern Dialects:

• Northern Group
  • Kumanovo dialect
  • Kratovo dialect
  • Kriva Palanka dialect
  • Ovče Pole dialect
• Eastern Group
  • Štip - Kočani dialect
  • Strumica dialect
  • Tikveš-Mariovo dialect
  • Maleševo-Pirin dialect
  • Solun-Voden dialect
  • Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect.

The Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect and Maleševo-Pirin dialect are also considered to be Bulgarian dialects.^[117]

Phonology [edit]

Macedonian possesses five vowels, one semivowel, three liquid consonants, three nasal stops, three pairs of fricatives, two pairs of affricates, a non-paired voiceless fricative, nine pairs of voiced and unvoiced consonants and four pairs of stops.

Vowels of Macedonian^[118]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	/i/		/u/
Mid	/ɛ/		/ɔ/
Open		/a/

In addition, the schwa [ə] appears in certain literary words in which it is always stressed. In orthography it is expressed by an apostrophe, like in к'на ['kəna] (henna). A more common usage of the schwa, however, is found in certain dialects or loanwords.

Consonants of Macedonian^[118]

	Bilabial		Labio- Dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal	m				n						ɲ
Plosive	p	b			t	d					c	ɟ	k	ɡ
Affricate					t͡s	d͡z			t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative			f	v	s	z			ʃ	ʒ			x
Approximant											j
Trill							r
Lateral					ɫ		l

Macedonian exhibits final obstruent devoicing and syllabic /r/

Other than recent loanwords, word stress in Macedonian is antepenultimate, meaning it falls on the third from last syllable in words with three or more syllables, and on the first or only syllable in other words. By comparison, in standard Bulgarian, the stress can fall anywhere within a word.

Grammar [edit]

Macedonian grammar is markedly analytic in comparison with other Slavic languages, having lost the common Slavic case system. The Macedonian language shows some special and, in some cases, unique characteristics due to its central position in the Balkans. Literary Macedonian is the only South Slavic literary language that has three forms of the definite article, based on the degree of proximity to the speaker, and a perfect tense formed by means of an auxiliary verb "to have", followed by a past participle in the neuter, also known as verbal adjective.

Nouns [edit]

Macedonian nouns (именки, imenki) belong to one of three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and are inflected for number (singular and plural), and marginally for case. The gender opposition is not distinctively marked in the plural.^[119] The Macedonian nominal system distinguishes two numbers (singular and plural), three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), case and definiteness. Definiteness is expressed by three definite articles pertaining to the position of the object (unspecified, proximate and distal) which are suffixed to the noun.

The definite articles
	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Unspecified	−ot (−от)	−ta (−та)	−to (−то)	−te (−те)	−te (−те)	−ta (−та)
Proximate	−ov (−ов)	−va (−ва)	−vo (−во)	−ve (−ве)	−ve (−ве)	−va (−ва)
Distal	−on (−он)	−na (−на)	−no (−но)	−ne (−не)	−ne (−не)	−na (−на)

Verbs [edit]

Macedonian has a complex system of verbs. Generally speaking Macedonian verbs have the following characteristics, or categories as they are called in the Macedonistics: tense, mood, person, type, transitiveness, voice, gender and number.

According to the categorization, all Macedonian verbs are divided into three major groups: a-group, e-group and i-group. Furthermore, the e-subgroup is divided into three more subgroups: a-, e- and i-subgroups. This division is done according to the ending (or the last vowel) of the verb in the simple present, singular, third person.^[120] Regarding the form, the verb forms can be either simple or complex.

The Macedonian simple verb forms are: Present tense (сегашно време) Imperfect (минато определено несвршено времe, 'past definite incomplete tense') Aorist (минато определено свршено време, 'past definite complete tense') Imperative (заповеден начин) Verbal l-form (глаголска л-форма) Verbal adjective (глаголска придавка) Verbal noun (глаголска именка) Verbal adverb (глаголски прилог)

The Macedonian complex verb forms are: Perfect of imperfective verbs (минато неопределено несвршено време, 'past indefinite incomplete tense') Perfect of perfective verbs ( минато неопределено свршено време, 'past indefinite complete tense') Past perfect tense (предминато време) Future tense (идно време) Future-in-the-past (минато-идно време) Future perfect tense (идно прекажано) Potential mood (можен начин) Have-construction (има-конструкција) Be-construction (сум-конструкција) To-construction (да-конструкција)

Prepositions [edit]

Prepositions (предлози, predlozi) are part of the closed word class that are used to express the relationship between the words in a sentence. Since Macedonian lost the case system, the prepositions are very important for creation and expression of various grammatical categories. The most important Macedonian preposition is 'na' ('of', 'on', 'to'). Regarding the form, the prepositions can either be simple or complex. Based on the meaning the preposition express, they can be divided into prepositions of time, place, manner and quantity.^[120][121]

Vocabulary [edit]

As a result of the close relatedness with Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian shares a considerable amount of its lexicon with these languages. Other languages which have been in positions of power, such as Ottoman Turkish and increasingly English also provide a significant proportion of the loan words. Prestige languages, such as Old Church Slavonic, which occupies a relationship to modern Macedonian comparable to the relationship of medieval Latin to modern Romance languages, and Russian also provided a source for lexical borrowings.

During the standardization process, there was deliberate care taken to try and purify the lexicon of the language. Serbisms and Bulgarisms, which had become common due to the influence of these languages in the region were rejected in favor of words from native dialects and archaisms. One example was the word for "event", настан [ˈnastan], which was found in certain examples of folk poetry collected by the Miladinov Brothers in the 19th century, while the Macedonian writer Krste Misirkov had previously used the word собитие [sɔˈbitiɛ].^[122] This is not to say that there are no Serbisms, Bulgarisms or even Russianisms in the language, but rather that they were discouraged on a principle of "seeking native material first".^[123]

The language of the writers at the turn of 19th century abounded with Russian and, more specifically, Old Church Slavonic lexical and morphological elements which in the contemporary norm are substituted with more current models.^[124] Thus, the now slightly archaized forms with suffixes –ние and –тел, adjectives with the suffixes –телен and others, are now constructed following patterns more typical of Macedonian morphology. For example, дејствие corresponds to дејство, лицемерие → лицемерство, развитие → развиток, определение → определба, движение → движење, продолжител → продолжувач, победител → победник, убедителен → убедлив, etc.^[124] Many of these words are now synonymous or have taken on a slightly different nuance in meaning.

New words were coined according to internal logic and others calqued from related languages (especially Serbo-Croatian) to replace those taken from Russian, which include известие → извештај, количество → количина, согласие → слога, etc.^[124] This change was aimed at bringing written Macedonian closer to spoken language, effectively distancing it from the Bulgarian language which has kept its numerous Russian loans, and represents a successful puristic attempt at abolishing a lexicogenic tradition once common in written literature.^[124]

Writing system [edit]

Alphabet [edit]

The modern Macedonian alphabet was developed by linguists in the period after the Second World War, who based their alphabet on the phonetic alphabet of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, though a similar writing system was used by Krste Misirkov in the early 20th century. The Macedonian language had previously been written using the Early Cyrillic alphabet, or later using the Cyrillic script with local adaptations from either the Serbian or Bulgarian alphabets.

The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Macedonian alphabet, along with the IPA value for each letter:

Cyrillic IPA	А а /a/	Б б /b/	В в /v/	Г г /ɡ/	Д д /d/	Ѓ ѓ /ɟ/	Е е /ɛ/	Ж ж /ʒ/	З з /z/	Ѕ ѕ /dz/	И и /i/
Cyrillic IPA	Ј ј /j/	К к /k/	Л л /l/, /ɫ/	Љ љ /lj/, /l/	М м /m/	Н н /n/	Њ њ /ɲ/	О о /ɔ/	П п /p/	Р р /r/	С с /s/
Cyrillic IPA	Т т /t/	Ќ ќ /c/	У у /u/	Ф ф /f/	Х х /x/	Ц ц /ts/	Ч ч /tʃ/	Џ џ /dʒ/	Ш ш /ʃ/

Orthography [edit]

Macedonian orthography is consistent and phonemic in practice, an approximation of the principle of one grapheme per phoneme. A principle represented by Adelung's saying, "write as you speak and read as it is written" („пишувај како што зборуваш и читај како што е напишано“). However, as is common to language, there are occasional inconsistencies or exceptions.

Examples [edit]

The Lord's Prayer

History [edit]

South Slavic languages and dialects
Western South Slavic
Slovene Dialects (Prekmurje Slovene Resian)
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian standard languages Bosnian Croatian Montenegrin Serbian (Slavoserbian)
Serbo-Croatian dialects Shtokavian (Bunjevac Dubrovnik Eastern Herzegovinian Smederevo–Vršac Šumadija–Vojvodina Užican) Chakavian (Burgenland Molise) Kajkavian Torlakian
Serbo-Croatian accents Ekavian Ijekavian Ikavian
Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
Eastern South Slavic
Church Slavonic (Old)
Bulgarian Dialects Banat Torlakian Meshterski
Macedonian Dialects (Western Southeastern Northern Torlakian) Spoken Macedonian Standard Macedonian
Transitional dialects
Serbian–Bulgarian–Macedonian Transitional Bulgarian dialects Torlakian Gora dialect
Croatian–Slovenian Kajkavian
Alphabets
Modern Gaj's Latina Serbian Cyrillic Bulgarian Cyrillic Macedonian Cyrillic Montenegrin Slavica Slovene
Historical Bohoričica Dajnčica Metelčica Arebica Bosnian Cyrillic Glagolitic Early Cyrillic
a Includes Banat Bulgarian alphabet.
v t e

The region of Macedonia and the Republic of Macedonia are located on the Balkan peninsula. The Slavs first came to the Balkan Peninsula in the sixth and seventh centuries AD. In the ninth century, the Byzantine Greek monks^{[125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132]} Saints Cyril and Methodius developed the first writing system for the Slavonic languages. At this time, the Slavic dialects were so close as to make it practical to develop the written language on the dialect of a single region. There is dispute as to the precise region, but it is likely that they were developed in the region around Thessalonika. The Ohrid Literary School was established in Ohrid in 886 by Saint Clement of Ohrid on orders of Boris I of Bulgaria. In the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Turks invaded and conquered most of the Balkans, incorporating Macedonia into the Ottoman Empire. While the written language, now called Old Church Slavonic, remained static as a result of Turkish domination, the spoken dialects moved further apart.

The earliest lexicographic evidence of the Macedonian dialects, described as Bulgarian,^[133] can be found in a lexicon from the 16th century written in the Greek alphabet.^[134] The concept of the various Macedonian dialects as a part of the Bulgarian language^[135] can be seen also from early vernacular texts from Macedonia such as the four-language dictionary of Daniel Mоscopolites, the works of Kiril Peichinovich and Yoakim Karchovski, and some vernacular gospels written in the Greek alphabet. These written works influenced by or completely written in the local Slavic vernacular appeared in Macedonia in the 18th and beginning of the 19th century and their authors referred to their language as Bulgarian.^[136]

In 1845 the Russian scholar Viktor Grigorovich travelled in the Balkans in order to study the south Slavic dialects of Macedonia. His work articulated for the first time a distinct pair of two groups of Bulgarian dialects: Eastern and Western (spoken in today Western Bulgaria and Republic of Macedonia). According to his findings, a part of the Western Bulgarian variety, spoken in Macedonia, was characterized by traces of Old Slavic nasal vowels.^[137] During the increase of national consciousness in the Balkans, standards for the languages of Slovene, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian were created. As Turkish influence in Macedonia waned, schools were opened up that taught the Bulgarian standard language in areas with significant Bulgarian population.

However, the Russian linguist of Bulgarian origin, Petar Draganov (1857 - 1928), after his visit of Macedonia, strongly opposed this 'Bulgarian origin of the Macedonian dialects', and he claimed that Macedonia is a separate ethno-geographic unit of the Balkans and the Macedonian dialects form separate language.^[138] Similar ideas were proposed in Krste Misirkov's works. Misirkov was born in a village near Pella in Greek Macedonia. Although literature had been written in the Slavic dialects of Macedonia before, arguably the most important book published in relation to the Macedonian language was Misirkov's On Macedonian Matters, published in 1903. In that book, he argued for the creation of a standard literary Macedonian language from the central dialects of Macedonia which would use a phonemic orthography.

After the first two Balkan wars, the region of Macedonia was split among Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia (later Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia). Serbia occupied the area that is currently the Republic of Macedonia incorporating it into the Kingdom as "Southern Serbia". During this time, Yugoslav Macedonia became known as Vardar Banovina (Vardar province) and the language of public life, education and the church was Serbo-Croatian. In the other two parts of Macedonia, the respective national languages, Greek and Bulgarian, were made official. In Bulgarian (Pirin) Macedonia, the local dialects continued to be described as dialects of Bulgarian.

During the second World War, most of Yugoslav Macedonia was occupied by the Bulgarian army, who was allied with the Axis. The standard Bulgarian language was reintroduced in schools and liturgies. The Bulgarians were initially welcomed as liberators from Serbian domination until connections were made between the imposition of the Bulgarian language and unpopular Serbian assimilation policies.^[139] Even the Macedonian communist were then pro-Bulgarian oriented, but later the Bulgarians were seen as conquerors by communist movement.^[140] However, there were pro-Bulgarian groups, which advocated independence as second Bulgarian state,^[141] and others, who supported the union with Bulgaria.^[142]

The eventual outcome was that almost all of Vardar Banovina (i.e. the areas which geographically became known as Vardar Macedonia) was incorporated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a constituent Socialist Republic with the Macedonian language holding official status within both the Federation and Republic. The Macedonian language was proclaimed the official language of the Republic of Macedonia at the First Session of the Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia, held on August 2, 1944. The first official Macedonian grammar was developed by Krume Kepeski. One of the most important contributors in the standardisation of the Macedonian literary language was Blaže Koneski. The first document written in the literary standard Macedonian language is the first issue of the Nova Makedonija newspaper in 1944. Makedonska Iskra (Macedonian Spark) was the first Macedonian newspaper to be published in Australia, from 1946 to 1957. A monthly with national distribution, it commenced in Perth and later moved to Melbourne and Sydney.

Common expressions [edit]

• Здраво (Zdravo) — 'Hello'
• Добро утро (Dobro utro) — 'Good morning'
• Добар ден (Dobar den) — 'Good afternoon'
• Добровечер (Dobrovečer) — 'Good evening'
• Добра ноќ (Dobra nokj) — 'Good night'
• До видување (Do viduvanje) — 'Good bye'
• Кој сте Вие? (Koj ste Vie?) [formal, see T–V distinction] — 'Who are you?'
• Какo сте? (Kako ste?) — 'How are you?'
• Да (Da) — 'Yes'
• Не (Ne) — 'No'
• Можеби (Možebi) — 'Maybe'
• Што правите? (Što pravite?) — 'What are you doing?'
• Добро сум (Dobro sum) — 'I'm fine'
• Сè најдобро (Sè najdobro) — 'All the best'
• Поздрав (Pozdrav) — 'Regards'
• Благодарам (Blagodaram) — 'Thank you'
• Молам (Molam) — 'Please' or 'You're welcome'
• Извинете (Izvinete) — 'Sorry'
• Те сакам (Te sakam) — 'I love you'
• Колку е часот? (Kolku e časot) — 'What's the time?'
• Колку чини ова? (Kolku čini ova?) — 'How much does this cost?'
• Дали зборувате…? (Dali zboruvate…?) — 'Do you speak…?'

…англиски (angliski) — 'English'

…македонски (makedonski) — 'Macedonian'

…германски (germanski) — 'German'

…руски (ruski) — 'Russian'

…грчки (grčki) — 'Greek'

…турски (turski) — 'Turkish'

…бугарски (bugarski) — 'Bulgarian'

…италијански (italijanski) — 'Italian'

…француски (francuski) — 'French'

…шпански (španski) — 'Spanish'

…кинески (kineski) — 'Chinese'

…арапски (arapski) — 'Arabic'

• Ќе се видиме наскоро (Kjе se vidime naskoro) — 'We'll see each other soon'
• Ќе се видиме утре (Kjе se vidime utre) — 'We'll see each other tomorrow'

Political views on the language [edit]

As with the issue of Macedonian ethnicity, the politicians, linguists and common people from Macedonia and neighbouring countries have opposing views about the existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language.

In the ninth century AD, saints Cyril and Methodius introduced Old Church Slavonic, the first Slavic language of literacy. Written with their newly invented Glagolitic script, this language was based largely on the dialect of Slavs spoken in Thessaloniki; this dialect is closest to present-day Macedonian and Bulgarian.^[143]

Although described as being dialects of Bulgarian^[47][117] or Serbian^[21][144] prior to the establishment of the standard , the current academic consensus (outside of Bulgaria) is that Macedonian is an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum.^[145]

Bulgarian view [edit]

In most sources in and out of Bulgaria before the Second World War, the southern Slavonic dialect continuum covering the area of today's Republic of Macedonia and Northern Greece was referred to as a group of Bulgarian dialects. The local variants of the name of the language were also balgàrtzki, bùgarski or bugàrski; i.e. Bulgarian.^[146] Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian.^[3] However, after years of diplomatic impasse caused by an academic dispute, in 1999 the government in Sofia solved the problem of the Macedonian language by using the euphemistic formula: "the official language of the country (Republic of Macedonia) in accordance with its constitution".^[147]

Greek view [edit]

Greeks object to the use of the "Macedonian" name in reference to the modern Slavic language, calling it "Slavomacedonian" (Greek: σλαβομακεδονική γλώσσα), a term coined by some members of the Slavic-speaking community of northern Greece itself.^[148]

See also [edit]

• Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache
• Balkan language area
• Macedonian alphabet
• Macedonian Sign Language
• Macedonian language naming dispute
• Political views on the Macedonian language
• Romanisation of Macedonian
• Slavic dialects of Greece

References [edit]

Bibliography [edit]

• Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville (2002), "The Macedonian language", The Slavonic Languages, New York: Routledge Publications 
• Dostál, Antonín (1965), "The Origins of the Slavonic Liturgy", Dumbarton Oaks Papers (Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University) 19: 67–87, doi:10.2307/1291226, JSTOR 1291226 
• Hill, P. (1999), "Macedonians in Greece and Albania: A comparative study of recent developments", Nationalities Papers 27 (1): 17, doi:10.1080/009059999109163 
• Friedman, Victor (2001), "Macedonian", in Garry, Jane; Rubino, Carl, Facts about the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the Worlds Major Languages, Past and Present, New York: Holt, pp. 435–439 
• Friedman, Victor (1998), "The implementation of standard Macedonian: problems and results", International Journal of the Sociology of Language (131): 31–57 
• Hoxha, Artan; Gurraj, Alma (2001), "Local self-government and decentralization: case of Albania. History, reformes [[[sic]]] and challenges." (PDF), Local Self Government and Decentralization in South-East Europe:Proceedings of the Workshop held in Zagreb, 6th April 2001, pp. 194–224  Wikilink embedded in URL title (help)
• Levinson, David; O'Leary, Timothy (1992), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, G.K. Hall, p. 239, ISBN 0-8161-1808-6 
• Lunt, Horace G. (1952), Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, Skopje 
• Mahon, Milena (1998), "The Macedonian question in Bulgaria", Nations and Nationalism 4 (3): 389–407, doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.1998.00389.x 
• Poulton, Hugh (2000), Who Are the Macedonians?, United Kingdom: C. Hurst & Co. Ltd., ISBN 0-253-34598-7 
• Seriot, Patrick (1997), "Faut-il que les langues aient un nom? Le cas du macédonien", in Tabouret-Keller, Andrée, Le nom des langues. L'enjeu de la nomination des langues 1, Louvain: Peeters, pp. 167–190 
• Topolinjska, Z. (1998), "In place of a foreword: facts about the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian language", International Journal of the Sociology of Language (131): 1–11 
• Trudgill, Peter (1992), "Ausbau sociolinguistics and the perception of language status in contemporary Europe", International Journal of Applied Linguistics 2 (2): 167–177, doi:10.1111/j.1473-4192.1992.tb00031.x 

Further reading [edit]

• Kramer, Christina (2003), Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students. (2nd ed.), University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 978-0-299-18804-7 
• Documents, Contes et Chansons Slaves de l'Albanie du Sud, Andre Mazon - 1936.
• L'Evangeliaire de Kulakia Un parler Slave du Bas-Vardar, Andre Mazon et Andre Vaillant - 1938.
• Dwie gwary macedońskie(Suhe i Wysoka w Soluńskiem) – Teksty, Mieczysław Małecki - in Polish, 1936.

External links [edit]

Macedonian language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Macedonian

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Macedonian language

Documents [edit]

• Dictionary of three languages - Gjorgija Pulevski, 1875.
• Zur Sprachlichen Beurtellung der Macedonischen slaven,Leonhard Masing - in German, 1890.
• Zur Laut- und Akzentlehre der Macedonischen dialekte,Leonhard Masing - in German, 1891.
• MACEDONISCHEN STUDIEN, Vatroslav Oblak - in German, 1896.
• Un Lexique Macedonien du XVI siecle (French)
• Dwie gwary macedońskie(Suhe i Wysoka w Soluńskiem) – Teksty , Mieczysław Małecki - in Polish, 1934.
• Macedonian grammar, Krume Kepeski – 1946, in Macedonian
• Macedonian orthography and dictionary, Blaže Koneski and Krum Tošev – 1950, in Macedonian
• Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, Horace Lunt – 1952
• The first phonological conference for Macedonian with short history, Victor Friedman.

Macedonian language [edit]

• Macedonian Grammar
• A grammar of Macedonian by Victor Friedman
• Macedonian - English Dictionary
• Macedonian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
• Macedonian Language E-Learning Center - learn Macedonian language online
• Digital Database of the Macedonian Words
• Macedonian - English, Greek, Albanian, German, French, Italian translator

v t e Dialects of Macedonian Western Central Prilep-Bitola Kičevo-Poreče Skopje-Veles Western and northwestern Upper Polog Debar Drimkol-Golo Brdo Galičnik Reka Vevčani-Radožda Struga Ohrid Upper Prespa Lower Prespa Northern Eastern Kumanovo2 Kratovo Kriva Palanka Ovče Pole Western Skopska crna Gora Lower Polog Gora2 Southeastern Eastern Štip - Kočani Strumica Tikveš-Mariovo Maleševo-Pirin1 Southeastern Solun-Voden1 Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop1 Nestram-Kostenar Kostur Korča 1 Also considered a dialect of Bulgarian. 2 Considered to be a part of the transitional Torlak dialect and as a subdialect of Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbo-Croatian.

v t e Republic of Macedonia topics History Ancient Paeonia Pelagonia Kingdom of Macedon Upper Macedonia Roman Province Macedonia Salutaris Roman Diocese Medieval Bulgarian Empire Byzantine Empire Serbian Empire Kingdom of Prilep Ottoman Ottoman Empire Karpos Uprising Macedonian awakening Ilinden Uprising Kruševo Republic Kruševo Manifesto Balkan Wars Division of Macedonia Yugoslavia World War I Vardar Banovina World War II National Liberation War Anti-Fascist Assembly (ASNOM) National Liberation Front Exodus from Greek Macedonia Socialist Republic 1963 Skopje earthquake Republic 2001 insurgency / Ohrid Agreement 2012 inter-ethnic violence Geography Cities Balkan Peninsula Lakes Mountains Rivers Governance Administrative divisions Constitution Parliament Elections Foreign relations Human rights LGBT Naming dispute Politics Political parties President Prime Minister Military Economy Central bank Currency Energy Stock exchange Telecommunications Tourism Transport Society Demographics Education Ethnic groups Languages Macedonians Religion Culture Architecture Cinema Cuisine Literature Music Public holidays Radio Television Salute Symbols Anthem Flag Coat of arms Golden Lion Outline Book Category Portal WikiProject

v t e Slavic languages History Proto-Balto-Slavic Proto-Slavic Old Church Slavonic Cyril and Methodius Cyrillic script West Slavic Czech Kashubian Knaanic Polabian Polish Pomeranian Slovak Silesian Slovincian Sorbian Lower Upper East Slavic Belarusian Iazychie Old East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect Russian Ruthenian Ukrainian South Slavic Bulgarian Church Slavonic Macedonian Old Church Slavonic Serbo-Croatian Bosnian Croatian Montenegrin Serbian Slovene Constructed languages Pan-Slavic language Slovianski Slovio Separate dialects and Slavic microlanguages Banat Bulgarian Burgenland Croatian Carpathian Rusyn Chakavian Cieszyn Silesian Eastern Slovak Kajkavian Lach Moravian Molise Croatian Pannonian Rusyn Prekmurian Resian Slavic dialects of Greece Shtokavian West Polesian Torlakian Linguistics Slavic first palatalization Slavic second palatalization Slavic liquid metathesis and pleophony Dybo's law Havlík's law Hirt's law Illič-Svityč's law Ivšić's law Meillet's law Pedersen's law Ruki sound law Winter's law Italics indicate extinct languages.