- This article is about the Slavic language. For the non-Slavic language spoken in the ancient world, see Ancient Macedonian language.
The Macedonian language (Македонски, Makedonski), also known as Macedonian Slavic, is a language in the Eastern group of South Slavic languages and is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia. Macedonian is also spoken in Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and in the Macedonian diasporas in Western Europe, North America and Australia. The total number of native Macedonian speakers is variously estimated, from 1.6 to around 2-3 million.
Not to be confused with the ancient Macedonian language, the modern Slavic Macedonian language is closely related to Bulgarian. Macedonian also has some similarities with standard Serbian and it is closest to Torlakian dialect spoken mostly in southern Serbia and in western Bulgaria. Bulgarian and Macedonian language share typological similarities with Romanian, Greek, and Albanian. These five languages make up the Balkan language league, even though they are all from different language families (Romanian is a Romance language, while Greek and Albanian comprise their own branches in the Indo-European family).
Macedonian is the official language in the Republic of Macedonia, and officially recognized in the District of Korçë in Albania. Native speakers are also found in Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania.
Along with Bulgarian, Macedonian is the only Slavic language not to use noun cases (except for vocative) and to have a definite article.
A modified Cyrillic script, Macedonian Cyrillic with 31 letters, is used for writing.
While the transliteration to Latin script is easy in principle, there is currently a lot of confusion about which standard to use. For example, the Cyrillic letter ж is written as ž. The use of "zh" or simply "z" has gained currency. Especially problematic is the Cyrillic letter џ, which can be found transliterated into Latin as "dž", "dzh", "dz" or even "x".
The Macedonian language is taught as a subject in several of the university centres of the world, and is currently taught in all universities of the former Yugoslavia.
History
Some of the varieties of Old Church Slavonic, the one of the Ohrid Literary School (one of the literary schools of the First Bulgarian Empire) from the 10th century on and written primarily in Glagolitic, as well as the language used by Saints Cyril and Methodius to translate the Bible from Greek in the 9th century AD (which was primarily based on the Slavic dialect of Thessaloniki/Solun) [1], are sometimes regarded as based on Macedonian local dialects due to the variety reflecting the local Slavic vernacular of the region.
There were three schools of Macedonian linguists in the recent history of Slavic Macedonia. The first one had Bulgarian consciousness and was called from some authors the "Bulgarophiles". It tried to reach the linguistical and political unity with Bulgaria. This group tried, in the 19th century, accompanied by pan-Slavic nationalism, to make the first attempt to resolve the question of linguistic norms in what they considered the Bulgarian-Macedonian diasystem. Bulgarophile writers from Macedonia (Kuzman Šapkarev, Miladinov Brothers, Grigor Prlichev) advocated a common Bulgarian language based on the Slavic dialects in Macedonia or on a compromise between the upper-Bulgarian (northeastern Bulgarian) and the western Macedonian dialects, which they considered as Bulgarian. Writers from northern Bulgaria, however, insisted on the adoption of the northeastern Bulgarian dialect only. The establishment of an autonomous Bulgarian principality north of the Stara Planina led eventually to the adoption of the Eastern literary variant; still, even after the codification of the Bulgarian language in 1899, the preservation of the letters ѣ and ѫ with dialect-dependant double reading allowed some differences between eastern Bulgarian and western Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects within the codified norm.
At the same time, the Serbian scholars and a part of intellectuals from Macedonia, called the "Serbophiles", considered the Macedonian language merely a southernmost dialect of Serbian language, thus forcing this idea that become official in Vardar Macedonia after the Balkan Wars and World War I. Between the world wars in Serbia Macedonian dialects was treated as a Serbian dialects. Literary Serbo-Croatian was the language of education, media, and public life; even so Macedonian literature was tolerated as a local dialectal folkloristic form. The "Serbophile" idea was later abandoned in favour of the formation of separate Macedonian language in 1944, when the third group of linguists, led by Blaže Koneski, codified the Macedonian literary language.
The idea of the separate Macedonian language, which is neither Bulgarian nor Serbian in essence, is called "Macedonism", and it has been official. Nowadays, Macedonian shares similar features both with Serbian (lexical fund, slang, script, present tense forms, accentuation position - through unrelated processes, stress in both languages has generally come to be placed closer to the beginning of the word than in their eastern neighbour - etc.) and Bulgarian (virtually complete lack of cases, definite article, formation of future tense, non-melodical accent etc.), but also possesses some unique features.
Summary of the history of Macedonian language according to Victor Friedman | Period | Summary |
| 1794-1840 | The period of the first published texts employing Macedonian dialects. Main figures: Hadzi Daniil of Moskopole, Joakim Krckovski, and Kiril Pejcinovic. Main event: the awakening of a Macedonian Slavic national consciousness.The opposition Turk/giaour is superceded by Greek/Slav, and Slavs struggle for a literary language of their own. |
| 1840-1870 | The period of the first textbooks. Main figures: Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov,Jordan Hadzi Konstantinov-Dzinot, Kuzman Šapkarev. Main event: the anti-Phanariot struggle. Most intellectuals favor a common Macedo-Bulgarian literary language based to a large extent on Macedonian. |
| 1870-1913 | The period of the first grammars and nationalist publications. Main figures: Gjorgi Pulevski, Krste Misirkov, Dimitrija Čupovski, Petar Pop Arsov, and other members of the VMRO. Main events: the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Ilinden rebellion, and the partition of Macedonia. Macedonian nationalism is opposed to Bulgarian and Serbian interests. |
| 1913-1944 | The recognition of Macedonian literature in Serbia and Yugoslavia leading to the crystallization and ultimate establishment of the Macedonian literary language. |
Source: Victor A. Friedman p.15: [2]
Dialects
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see discussion on the talk page.
A major bundle of isoglosses running roughly from Skopje and Crna Gora along the rivers Vardar and Crna divides Macedonian territory into Eastern and Western regions shows the main dialect regions. The vocalic inventories of the West Central dialects are characterized by a five-vowel system, /a, e, i, o, u/. With the exception of Mala Reka, Reka, Drimkol-Golobrdo, Radožda-Vevčani, Nestram, Korca and parts of Lower Prespa, all the remaining dialects also have phonemic /ə/. Phonemic /å/ is found in all of these latter schwa-less dialects except Mala Reka and Korca. Phonemic /ä/ occurs in Radožda-Vevčani, Suho and Visoka and Korca. Vocalic /l/ occurs in Mala Reka. Vocalic /r/ is absent from those dialects that decompose original r, except Radožda-Vevčani. Korca also has phonemic /ü/.
The dialects of the Western region all tend to fixed stress, antepenultimate in the Republic of Macedonia, penultimate in Greece and Albania. The Eastern region, along with the neighboring Bulgarian dialects, has various non-fixed stress systems. In Lower Vardar and Seres-Nevrokop unstressed /a, e, o/ are reduced (raised) to /ə, i, u/. It must be noted that the Seres-Nevrokop group is in fact located mostly outside of the republic of Macedonia (in Greece and Bulgaria, respectively) and hence its identification as a group of Macedonian dialects is a controversial issue. Bulgarian linguists regard both as dialects of Bulgarian. Interestingly, the reduction of unstressed vowels is characterisic of East Bulgarian as opposed to West Bulgarian dialects, so Bulgarian linguists regard these dialects are regarded as transitional between East and West Bulgarian.
Most dialects have /e/ from original ě, but the Eastern region is characterized by the development of ě to /a/ after /c/: Eastern cal, Western cel (whole). In easternmost Aegean and Pirin Macedonia ě gives /a/ or /ä/ under stress, in the Aegean dialects regardless of the environment, in the Pirin dialects /a/ if there is a back vowel in the following syllable, /e/ if there is a front vowel, as can be seen in 'white', Seres-Drama: b'ala - b'ali, Suho and Visoka: b'äla - b'äli, Nevrokop: b'ala - bell. In Korca, ě gives /iä/ under stress.
The modern reflexes of the Proto-Slavonic reduced vowels (jers), vocalic sonorants and the back nasal (o) can be used to separate the dialects into six groups: (1) North (Tetovo, Skopje Crna Gora, Kumanovo-Kriva Palanka), (2) Peripheral (Gostivar, Ohrid-Prespa, Kostur-Korca, Lower Vardar), (3) West Central (Prilep, Kicevo, Bitola, Lerin), (4) East Central (Tikves-Mariovo, Stip-Strumica, Malesevo-Pirin), (5) Debar and (6) Seres-Nevrokop.
For consonantal features, the entire Western region is distinguished from the East by loss of /x/ (except Tetovo, Gora and Korca) and the loss of /v/ in intervocalic position (except Mala Reka and parts of Kostur-Korca): glava (head) = gla, glavi (heads) = glaj. The Eastern region preserves /x/ (except Tikves-Mariovo and Kumanovo-Kriva Palanka) and intervocalic /v/. The East is also characterized by the development of prothetic /v/ before original o where the West has prothetic /j/: Eastern vaglen (coal) but Western jaglen. The diphonemic reflexes are most characteristic of the Pirin and Aegean dialects, Kostur-Korca and Ohrid-Prespa. The Seres-Nevrokop dialects have a series of phonemically palatalized consonants.
Different political views on the language
- Main article: Political views on the Macedonian language
As with the issue of Macedonian ethnicity, the politicians, linguists and common people from Macedonia and neighboring countries have opposing views about the existence and distinctivity of the Macedonian language. Macedonian dialects are indeed a part of dialectal continuum which stretches from Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian Shtokavian dialect through Torlakian on the northwest, to western and eastern Bulgarian dialects on the East. Like many other languages, Macedonian language is just a standardized form of a (group of) dialect(s).
According to the Macedonian view, now prevalent and official in the books in Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian was the first official language of the Slavs, thanks to the St. Cyril and St. Methodius's introduction of Slavic literacy language through the Glagolitic script, that was based (confirmed by Britannica) on the Southern Macedonian dialect of Thessaloniki (Solun).
Bulgarian and Serbian views state, each in its own favor, that "Macedonian" is a modern coinage which merely denotes the western Bulgarian or southern Serbian dialects of the area, and that the "Macedonian language" is merely a dialect of their respective languages. Bulgarian and some international linguists view Macedonian as another literary form of Bulgarian. [3], (Malherbe, M. (1995). Les langages de l'Humanité. Paris: Robert Laffont). Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, it has refused to recognize the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and a separate Macedonian language. Serbia gradually accepted both, although extreme nationalistic views still exist.
On the other hand, the name of the language is considered offensive by many Greeks, who assert that the ancient Macedonian language is the only "Macedonian language" and that it was a northern Greek dialect. Although Greeks do not generally participate in the language-versus-dialect dispute, they object to the use of the "Macedonian" name in reference to the modern language, calling it "Slavomacedonian" or "Skopjan".
Alphabet
The Macedonian alphabet, as any Slavic Cyrillic alphabet, is ultimately based on the Cyrillic alphabet of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius; it is an adaptation of Vuk Karadžić's phonetic alphabet, which is the official alphabet of Serbian language. It is different from Serbian Cyrillic in letters Ќ and Ѓ (which have distinct phonetic value from their Serbian counterparts Ћ and Ђ), while Dze (Ѕ, ѕ) is a unique letter preserved from Old Church Slavonic in Macedonian Cyrillic.
| Macedonian alphabet |
| Upper case | Lower case | IPA |
| А | а | [a] |
| Б | б | [b] |
| В | в | [v] |
| Г | г | [g] |
| Д | д | [d] |
| Ѓ | ѓ | [gʲ] |
| Е | е | [ɛ] |
| Ж | ж | [ʒ] |
| З | з | [z] |
| Ѕ | ѕ | [dz] |
| И | и | [i] |
| Ј | ј | [j] |
| К | к | [k] |
| Л | л | [l] |
| Љ | љ | [ʎ] |
| М | м | [m] |
| Н | н | [n] |
| Њ | њ | [ɲ] |
| О | о | [ɔ] |
| П | п | [p] |
| Р | р | [r] |
| С | с | [s] |
| Т | т | [t] |
| Ќ | ќ | [kʲ] |
| У | у | [u] |
| Ф | ф | [f] |
| Х | х | [h] |
| Ц | ц | [ts] |
| Ч | ч | [tʃ] |
| Џ | џ | [dʒ] |
| Ш | ш | [ʃ] |
Common Phrases
| Translation | Phrase | Transliteration | IPA | Remarks |
| Macedonian (language) | македонски | makedonski | /ma'kɛdɔnski/ |
|
| hello | здраво | zdravo | /'zdravɔ/ | lit. "healthy" |
| good morning | добро утро | dobro utro | /'dɔbrɔ 'utrɔ/ |
|
| good day | добар ден | dobar den | /'dɔbar dɛn/ | more common than "здраво" when greeting |
| good evening | добро вечер | dobro večer | /'dɔbrɔ 'vɛtʃɛr/ |
|
| good night | добра ноќ | dobra noć | /'dɔbra nɔkʲ/ |
|
| goodbye | пријатно | prijatno | /'prijatnɔ/ |
|
| farewell | довидување | doviduvanje | /dɔvi'duvaɲɛ/ | lit. "until seeing" |
| please, you're welcome | молам | molam | /'mɔlam/ |
|
| thank you | благодарам | blagodaram | /bla'gɔdaram/ | formal |
| thank you | фала | fala | /'fala/ | informal |
| excuse me, pardon me | простете | prostete | /'prɔstɛtɛ/ |
|
| sorry | извинете | izvinete | /iz'vinɛtɛ/ |
|
| do you manage well? | се снаоѓате добро? | se snaođate dobro? | /'sɛ sna'ɔgʲatɛ 'dɔbrɔ/ |
|
| how are you? | како сте? | kako ste? | /'kako stɛ/ | formal; plural |
| how are you? | како си? | kako si? | /'kako si/ | informal; singular |
| i'm well, thanks | добар сум, фала | dobar sum, fala | /'dɔbar sum 'fala/ |
|
Classification and related languages
The Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Bulgarian languages are related to Macedonian, but they are significantly different, except for Bulgarian which is mutually intelligible, with some difficulties, with Macedonian. They all compose the South Slavic dialect continuum for the Southern branch of the Slavic languages. The exact classification of the Macedonian language is a political issue.
With Serbia's standard language being based a good distance from Macedonia's border, the transitional dialect linking Macedonian and Bulgarian with Serbo-Croatian is Torlakian, which is spoken in Northern Macedonia and North-Western Bulgaria and all over Southern and Eastern Serbia (Republic of Serbia is, in fact, roughly diagonally divided into two equal pieces from Djerdap to Metohija, with the "upper", North-Western half speaking Shtokavian, and the "lower", South-Eastern half speaking Torlakian dialects, which Southern branch is very similar to the literary Macedonian). The Bulgarian linguists use to emphasise that a lexicological comparison between Macedonian and Bulgarian reveals that roughly 15% of the whole vocabulary of both languages is different, although most words usually exist in the other language with a different or slightly modified meaning. 65% of the words are only differently accented, and 20% are identical. Lexical differences are owing to a great extent to loanwords borrowed by Bulgarian from Russian and by Macedonian from Serbian in the middle and the end of the 20th century. According to them, compared to other languages the statistical differences between Bulgarian and Macedonian are similar to those between Afrikaans and Dutch.
On the other hand, the fact is that the people of Macedonia usually understand better the Southern Serbian dialects or literary Serbian itself, because of the cultural and historical links with Serbia (and they speak Serbian more or less fluently due to historical reasons). The modern slang of Macedonian is usually identical with the Serbian slang, thus increasing the Macedonian-Bulgarian differences.
Nowadays, after some decades of Bulgarian and also Serbian attempts to pronounce Macedonian merely a dialect of their own language, Macedonian is now officially accepted as a language on its own that stands approximately right between Bulgarian and Serbian in features.
Some specific features of the Macedonian language
The Macedonian language shows some special and in some cases unique characteristics due to its central position in the Balkans. A very peculiar feature that has no parallel in other Balkan languages is the existence of three definite articles pertaining to position of the object. Bulgarian only has the basic (unspecified) form, although three definite article forms also exist in certain Bulgarian dialects, notably the vernaculars of Tran and parts of the Rhodopes.
| The definite articles |
| Gender | Distance |
| Unspecified | Close (this) | Distant (that) |
| Masculine | -от | -ов | -он |
| Feminine | -та | -ва | -на |
| Neuter | -то | -во | -но |
| Plural | -те | -ве | -не |
Another feature that sets Macedonian apart from other Slavic languages is the possibility to form the perfect tense with the verb има "to have" and a neuter past passive participle, as is common in Germanic and Romance languages. In Slavic languages that have perfect tenses, these are almost universally built with the verb "to be" and a past active participle; that is also an option in Macedonian. The older common Slavic form with сум "to be" is predominant in the east of the country, while the form with "to have" is more widespread in the west, but has spread in the younger gernerations due to the influence of the standard language. Example: имам галено (new perfect) - сум галил/галел (old perfect) - I have caressed.
Two other interesting features, which, however, are shared with Bulgarian, are double object - much more common in Macedonian than in Bulgarian - and the mediative mood (called renarrative mood in Bulgarian linguistics, and sometimes admirative in general linguistics, see mood). The mediative is a mood that designs the transmission of thoughts and enounciations which have been pronounced by another person, but the locutor has heard them through rumors or gossip. The -l form is a mood for expression of the metaphoric category. According to the French linguist Claude Hagège[citation needed], an indigenous North American language, central Pomo, possesses this category.
A phonetic characteristic of Macedonian speech that sets it apart from the neighbouring languages is the permanent short stress falling on the syllable third from last, and gradually moving along each time the word lengthens:
ZAmina (vozot) - (The train) departed; zaMInuvaj - Go from here! (imperative); zamiNUvanje - Departure ; ZaminuVAnjeto - The departure. Even so, this tends not to be the case when the word has entered the language more recently and from a foreign source (chiefly English). Menadžment (Management) is pronounced Me-naj-MENT.
The use of the sound "dz" is also a unique characteristic of the Macedonian language as compared with its neighbours. The unique Macedonian letter written as the latin "S" is associated to that sound. Neither Bulgarian nor any other South Slavic language possesses that characteristic letter, and while the phoneme does occur in Bulgarian, it is restricted to foreign proper names and isn't considered a part of its standard phonemic inventory. This phoneme has not been present in Serbian alphabet either since the reforms of Vuk Karadžić in the 19th century, although it is present in all the areas adjascent to Macedonia (Torlakian dialects), and, as in Bulgarian, in foreign proper names. The reason of dropping the letter from both Serbian and Bulgarian alphabets is the fact that the literary languages of those two nations deliberatery avoided the influence of Torlakian or Shop dialects, where "DZ" is frequently pronounced. It is also present in Serbian dialects from Boka Kotorska. (Please compare the Wikipedia or other published alphabets of Slavic languages).
External links
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Мери Јордановска
