Macedonian language

This article is about the modern Slavic language. For the ancient non-Slavic language, see Ancient Macedonian language.

Macedonian
Македонски јазик Makedonski jazik
Pronunciation	[maˈkɛdɔnski]
Native to	Republic of Macedonia, Australia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and others
Region	The Balkans
Native speakers	2 - 3 million
Language family	Indo-European Slavic South Slavic Eastern South Slavic Macedonian
Writing system	Cyrillic (Macedonian variant)
Official status
Official language in	Republic of Macedonia recognised as minority language in parts of: Albania Serbia
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
Countries with significant Macedonian-speaking populations. (Click on image for the legend)

Macedonian (, makedonski jazik, IPA: [maˈkɛdɔnski ˈjazik]) is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia and is a part of the Eastern group of South Slavic languages. It is also referred to by several alternative names, many formed with the word Slavic. Macedonian is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Standard Bulgarian. It also has some similarities with standard Serbian and the intermediate Torlakian and Shop dialects spoken mostly in southern Serbia and western Bulgaria (and by speakers in the north and east of Macedonia).

Both Macedonian and the Bulgarian Standard language share typological similarities with Romanian, Greek, and Albanian. These languages belong to the Balkan sprachbund, even though the last three are from different 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 the only Slavic languages that don't use noun cases (except for the vocative, and apart from some traces of once living inflections still found scattered throughout the languages). They are also the only Slavic languages with any definite articles (there are three: unspecified, proximate and distal). This last feature is shared with Romanian, Greek, and Albanian.

Classification and related languages

The modern Macedonian language belongs to the eastern sub-branch of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest relative of Macedonian is Bulgarian (spoken in Bulgaria, and parts of the Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Turkey). Bulgarian and Macedonian properly form a dialect continuum and share a set of grammatical features which set them apart from other Slavic languages, with the Bulgarian standard being based on the more eastern dialects, and the Macedonian standard being based on the more western dialects. Macedonian is mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and the Torlakian dialect of the Serbian language, which are spoken as well in parts of Bulgaria and Macedonia. Following that, the next closest languages are Bosnian and Croatian. Macedonian is also a constituent language of the Balkan Sprachbund, a group of languages which share grammatical and lexical features based on geographical, rather than genetic proximity.

Geographical distribution

Further information: Geographical distribution of the Macedonian Language

The population of the Republic of Macedonia was 2,022,547 in 2002, with 1,644,815 speaking Macedonian as the native language. 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 and in Greece. According to the official Albanian census of 1989, 4,697 ethnic Macedonians reside in Albania. In the most recent Bulgarian census, 5,071 Bulgarian residents professed proficiency in the Macedonian language. In Greece, although groups may be considered to be speaking dialects heteronomous with standard Macedonian, they do not all identify their language with their national identity. The Slavic speaking minority in Greece varies on how it describes its language - most speakers describe it as Slavic and proclaim a Greek national identity; some smaller groups describe their speech as "Macedonian" and espouse an ethnic Macedonian identity; others describe it as "Bulgarian" and espouse a Bulgarian ethnic identity; and some prefer to identify as dopii and their dialect as dopia which mean "local" or "indigenous" in Greek.

A large number of Macedonians live outside the traditional Balkan Macedonian region, with Australia, Canada and the USA having the largest emigrant communities. According to a 1964 estimate, approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside of the Republic of Macedonia, nearly 30% of the total population. The Macedonian spoken by communities outside the republic dates back to before the standardisation of the language and retains many dialectic though, overall, mutually intelligible variations.

The Macedonian language has the status of official language only within the Republic of Macedonia, and is a recognised minority language in parts of Albania. The language is taught in some universities in Australia, Canada, Croatia, Russia, Serbia, the United States and the United Kingdom among other countries.

Usage

The total number of Macedonian speakers is a highly disputed topic. Of Macedonia's neighbors, Serbia and Albania recognize the Macedonian language whereas Greece and Bulgaria do not. According to the latest censuses and figures, the number of Macedonian-speakers is:

Distribution of the Macedonian language according to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups

State	Number
	Native	Total
Republic of Macedonia	1,700,000	2,000,000
Albania	15,000	250,000
Bulgaria	5,071	5,071
Greece	180,180 (Bilingual speakers)
Serbia	30,000
Rest of the Balkans	20,000
Canada	32,000
Australia	72,000 - 100,000
Germany	62,000
Italy	74,000
United States of America	45,000
Switzerland	60,000
Rest of World	20,000
Total	2,265,000 - 3,300,000

Dialects

Main article: Dialects of Macedonian language

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:

Western Dialects:

• Ohrid-Prespa Group
  • Ohrid dialect
  • Struga dialect
  • Vevčani-Radοža dialect
  • Upper Prespa dialect
  • Lower Prespa dialect.
• Debar Group
  • Debar dialect
  • Reka Dialect
  • Drimkol-Golo Brdo dialect
  • Galičnik dialect
  • Skopska Crna 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-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 often considered to be Bulgarian dialects by many linguists or they are considered transitional dialects between Macedonian and Bulgarian.

Phonology

Main article: Macedonian phonology

The phoneme inventory of standard literary Macedonian contains 31 phonemes. These consist of five vowels, one semivowel, three liquid consonants (which are also called "semivowels" by Lunt (1952)) three nasal consonants, 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

	Front	Central	Back
Close	и /i/		у /u/
Mid	е /ɛ/		о /ɔ/
Open		а /a/

In addition, the schwa [ə] may appear in certain dialects or loanwords.

Consonants

	Bilabial		Labio- Dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal	m				n						ɲ
Plosive	p	b			t	d					c	ɟ	k	g
Affricate					ts	dz			tʃ	dʒ
Fricative			f	v	s	z			ʃ	ʒ			x
Approximant											j
Trill							r
Lateral					ɫ		l

At the end of a word, the voicing opposition is neutralized and all consonants are pronounced as voiceless. In cases when /r/ is syllabic, an apostrophe is used before the letter Р. Examples include 'рж /r̩ʒ/ ('rye'), за'ржи /zar̩ʒi/ ('to rust') and 'рбет /r̩bɛt/) ('backbone'), among others.

Neither Lunt (1952) nor Friedman (2001) recognize the existence of a palatalised (/lʲ/) or palatal (/ʎ/) lateral in standard Macedonian. This is in contrast with the surrounding related languages (Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian languages). Instead, a /lj/ sequence is supposed to occur, except in rapid speech.

Both of these scholars also assert that there is a phonemic contrast between the velarised lateral /ɫ/ and the nonvelarised /l/. While they admit that /ɫ/ and /l/ (as Л) occur mainly before front and non-front vowels, respectively, they state that, at least in the prescribed norm<refFriedman (2001:?) or in some words,Lunt (1952:?) /l/ (as Љ) may also occur before non-front vowels. Hence minimal pairs like бела /bɛɫa/ ('white'), fem.) versus беља /bɛla/ ('trouble') express this contrast.

Stress

The 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. This rule is sometimes disregarded when the word has entered the language more recently or from a foreign source. The following rules apply:

• Disyllabic words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable.

For example, де́те [ˈdɛtɛ] ('child'), ма́jкa [majka] ('mother') and та́тко [ˈtatkɔ] ('father').

• Trisyllabic and polysyllabic words are stressed on the third-to-last syllable.

For example, та́ткото [ˈtatkɔtɔ] ('the father'), та́тковци ([ˈtatkɔvʦi], 'fathers'), and татко́вците [tatˈkɔvʦitɛ] ('the fathers').

Exceptions include:

• Verbal adverbs: e.g. вика́јќи [viˈkajci] ('shouting'), оде́јќи [ɔˈdɛjci] ('walking').
• Foreign loanwords: e.g. клише́ [kliˈʃɛ] ('cliché'), гене́за [gɛˈnɛza] ('genesis'), литерату́ра [litɛraˈtura] ('literature').

By comparison, in standard Bulgarian, the stress can fall anywhere within a word.

Grammar

Main article: Macedonian grammar

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 past tense formed by means of an auxiliary verb "to have", followed by a past passive participle in the neuter.

Both double object and mediative (sometimes referred to as renarrative or admirative) mood are also found in the Bulgarian language, although the use of double object is much more restricted in the Bulgarian standard (see also Bulgarian syntax).

Vocabulary

As a result of the close relatedness with Bulgarian and Serbian, 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 being 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 [ˈsɔbitiɛ]. 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".

Writing system

Alphabet

Main article: Macedonian alphabet

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 late 19th century. The Macedonian language had previously been written using the Early Cyrillic alphabet, or later using the Cyrillic alphabet 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/	Љ љ /lj/	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

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“). Though as with most, if not all, living languages it has its share of inconsistencies and exceptions.

Examples

Lord's Prayer Template:MultiCol

Оче наш

Оче наш којшто си на небото,

да се свети името Твое,

да биде кралството Твое,

да биде волјата Твоја,

како на небото, така и на Земјата!

Лебот наш насушен дај ни го денес

и прости ни ги долговите наши

како што им проштеваме и ние

на нашите должници.

И не воведи нè во искушение'

но избави нè од лукавиот.

Амин!

| class="col-break " |

Oče naš

Oče naš, kojšto si na neboto

da se sveti imeto Tvoe,

da bide kralstvoto Tvoe,

da bide voljata Tvoja,

kako na neboto, taka i na Zemjata!

Lebot naš nasušen daj ni go denes

i prosti ni gi dolgovite naši

kako što im proštevame i nie

na našite dolžnici.

I ne vovedi nè vo iskušenie,

no izbavi nè od lukaviot.

Amin!

History

Main article: History of the Macedonian language

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 Greek Byzantine monks 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 Thessaloniki.

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. Only very slight traces of written Macedonian survive from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

During the increase of national consciousness in the Balkans, standards for the languages of Slovenian, 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 a Bulgarian population. (see Demographic History of Macedonia)

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 separate Bulgarian dialects: Eastern and Western. According to his findings, the Western Bulgarian variety, spoken in Macedonia, was characterized by traces of Old Slavic nasal vowels. It wasn't until the works of Krste Misirkov that parts of what had been regarded as West Bulgarian dialects were defined as a separate 'Macedonian' language. 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 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia 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 Macedonia, the local dialects were described as dialects of Bulgarian.

During the second World War, Yugoslav Macedonia was occupied by the Bulgarians, who were allied with the Axis. The 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; the Bulgarians were quickly seen as conquerors.

There were a number of groups fighting the Bulgarian occupying force, some advocating independence and others union with Bulgaria. 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.

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 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 Bulgarian and Macedonian and the official modern Macedonian view, prevalent in books printed in the Republic of Macedonia, is that Macedonian was the first official language of Slavs.

Bulgaria recognized the Macedonian language from 1944 until 1948, the date of the Tito-Stalin split. This date also coincided with the first referenced efforts of Bulgarian linguists to the Serbianisation of the Macedonian language. Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, it has since refused to recognise the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and a separate Macedonian language. Unlike Bulgaria, Serbia has acknowledged a separate Macedonian and language since the end of the Second World War.

Bulgarian linguists and scientists regard Macedonian as a dialect of the Bulgarian language. Although described as being dialects of Bulgarian prior to the establishment of the standard, the current academic consensus outside Bulgaria is that Macedonian is an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum.

Alternative names

Main article: Macedonian language naming dispute

Bulgarian

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 were referred to as Bulgarian dialects. After WWII, the question about the Macedonian language was forgotten in the name of the Bulgaro-Yugoslavian friendship under the pressure of the Soviet Union

Greece

According to the linguistic publication Ethnologue, alternative names include "Macedonian Slavic" and (in Greece) "Slavic". The use of the name Macedonian for the language is considered offensive by Greeks, who assert that the northern Greek ancient Macedonian language is the only "Macedonian language." Greeks object to the use of the "Macedonian" name in reference to the modern Slavic language, calling it "Slavomacedonian" (Macedonian: славомакедонски јазик, Greek: σλαβομακεδονική γλώσσα), a term introduced and accepted by the Slavic-speaking community of northern Greece itself, or "Skopian", which, since the 1990s, are considered pejorative terms by ethnic Macedonians (i.e. people with that national identity). Terms such as Slav Macedonian have also been used. The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages is of the opinion that the language spoken by the Slavophone Greeks in Greek Macedonia should in fact be called "Macedonian" and it appropriate recognises it as such.

See also

• Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache
• Balkan linguistic union
• Bulgarian language
• Macedonian alphabet
• Macedonian language naming dispute
• Political views on the Macedonian language
• Romanisation of Macedonian
• Slavic language (Greece)
• Sociolinguistics
• Torlakian dialect

Bibliography

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Further reading

• Kramer, Christina (2003). Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students (2nd ed.). University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299188047.

External links

• A grammar of Macedonian by Victor Friedman
• Macedonian - English, Greek, Albanian, German, French, Italian translator
• Ethnologue: Languages of the World (unknown ed.). SIL International.
• BBC Education - Languages: Macedonian, Makedonski
• The Macedonian Language
• Macedonian - English Dictionary
• Reading and Pronouncing Macedonian: An Interactive Tutorial
• Otto Kronsteiner. The Collapse of Yugoslavia and the Future Prospects of the Macedonian Literary Language
• UCLA Language materials project: Macedonian profile
• Krste Misirkov - Za Makedonckite Raboti (Complete text of the book)
• Nature of Standard Macedonian lanuage by Mladen Srbinovski
• The Macedonian nationality
• 1920 US Census, Instructions to Enumerators, where Macedonian is listed as a principal foreign language