Macedonian language

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Macedonian
македонски
makedonski
Pronunciation[maˈkɛdɔnski]
Native toNorth Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia
RegionBalkans
EthnicityMacedonians
Native speakers
(1.4–3.5 million cited 1999–2011)[1][2]
Indo-European
  • Eastern South Slavic
    • Macedonian
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
 North Macedonia
Recognised minority
language in
Macedonian Language Institute "Krste Misirkov" at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje
Language codes
ISO 639-1mk
ISO 639-2mac (B)
mkd (T)
ISO 639-3mkd
Glottologmace1250
Linguasphere53-AAA-ha (part of 53-AAA-h)
The Macedonian-speaking world:[image reference needed]
  regions where Macedonian is the language of the majority
  regions where Macedonian is the language of a minority
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Macedonian (/ˌmæsɪˈdniən/ MASS-ih-DOH-nee-ən; македонски јазик, translit. makedonski jazik, pronounced [maˈkɛdɔnski ˈjazik] ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken as a first language by around two million people, it serves as the official language of North Macedonia. Most speakers can be found in the country and its diaspora, with a smaller number of speakers throughout the transnational region of Macedonia. Macedonian is also a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia and it is spoken by emigrant communities predominantly in Australia, Canada and the United States.

Macedonian developed out of the western

South Slavic languages, Macedonian has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Bulgarian and varieties of Serbo-Croatian
.

Linguists distinguish 29

subject-verb-object (SVO) type and has flexible word order
.

Macedonian vocabulary has been historically influenced by

autonomous language within the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum, although since Macedonian and Bulgarian are mutually intelligible and are socio-historically related, a small minority of linguists are divided in their views of the two as separate languages or as a single pluricentric language.[8][9][10]

The fifth of May, the day when the government of

Yugoslav Macedonia adopted the Macedonian alphabet as the official script of the republic, is marked as Macedonian Language Day.[11] This is a working holiday, declared as such by the government of North Macedonia in 2019.[12]

Classification and related languages

Language-tree graph
Classification of Macedonian within the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family

Macedonian belongs to the

eastern group of the South Slavic branch of Slavic languages in the Indo-European language family, together with Bulgarian and the extinct Old Church Slavonic. Some authors also classify the Torlakian dialects in this group. Macedonian's closest relative is Bulgarian followed by Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, although the last is more distantly related.[2][13] Together, South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum.[14][15]

Macedonian, like the other Eastern South Slavic idioms has characteristics that make it part of the Balkan sprachbund, a group of languages that share typological, grammatical and lexical features based on areal convergence, rather than genetic proximity.[16] In that sense, Macedonian has experienced convergent evolution with other languages that belong to this group such as Greek, Aromanian, Albanian and Romani due to cultural and linguistic exchanges that occurred primarily through oral communication.[16]

Macedonian and Bulgarian are divergent from the remaining South Slavic languages in that they do not use

vocative, and apart from some traces of once productive inflections still found scattered throughout these two) and have lost the infinitive.[17] They are also the only Slavic languages with any definite articles (unlike standard Bulgarian, which uses only one article, standard Macedonian as well as some south-eastern Bulgarian dialects[18] have a set of three deictic articles: unspecified, proximal and distal definite article). Macedonian and Bulgarian are the only Indo-European languages that make use of the narrative mood.[19]

According to Chambers and Trudgill, the question whether Bulgarian and Macedonian are distinct languages or dialects of a single language cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, but should rather take into account sociolinguistic criteria, i.e., ethnic and linguistic identity.[20] This view is supported by Jouko Lindstedt, who has suggested the reflex of the back yer as a potential boundary if the application of purely linguistic criteria were possible.[21][22]

As for the

Salonica) are intermediate between the two.[24][25]

History

Za makedonckite raboti
(On the Macedonian Matters), published in 1903.

The

Ottoman rule, from the 15th to the 20th century, the vernacular spoken in the territory of current-day North Macedonia witnessed grammatical and linguistic changes that came to characterize Macedonian as a member of the Balkan sprachbund.[32][33] This period saw the introduction of many Turkish loanwords into the language.[34]

The latter half of the 18th century saw the rise of modern literary Macedonian through the written use of

Macedonian dialects referred to as "Bulgarian" by writers.[32] The first half of the 19th century saw the rise of nationalism among the South Slavic people in the Ottoman Empire.[35] This period saw proponents of creating a common church for Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs which would use a common modern Macedo-Bulgarian literary standard.[36][37]

The period between 1840 and 1870, saw a struggle to define the dialectal base of the common language called simply "Bulgarian", with two opposing views emerging.[34][36] One ideology was to create a Bulgarian literary language based on Macedonian dialects, but such proposals were rejected by the Bulgarian codifiers.[32][36] That period saw poetry written in the Struga dialect with elements from Russian.[38] Textbooks also used either spoken dialectal forms of the language or a mixed Macedo-Bulgarian language.[39] Subsequently, proponents of the idea of using a separate Macedonian language emerged.[40]

Za makedonckite raboti (On Macedonian Matters) published in 1903, was the first attempt to formalize a separate literary language.[41] With the book, the author proposed a Macedonian grammar and expressed the goal of codifying the language and using it in schools. The author postulated the principle that the Prilep-Bitola dialect be used as a dialectal basis for the formation of the Macedonian standard language; his idea however was not adopted until the 1940s.[32][38] On 2 August 1944 at the first Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) meeting, Macedonian was declared an official language.[32][42] With this, it became the last of the major Slavic languages to achieve a standard literary form.[29] As such, Macedonian served as one of the three official languages of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1991.[43]

Geographical distribution

Although the precise number of

native and second language speakers of Macedonian is unknown due to the policies of neighboring countries and emigration of the population, estimates ranging between 1.4 million and 3.5 million have been reported.[1][2] According to the 2002 census, the total population of North Macedonia was 2,022,547, with 1,344,815 citizens declaring Macedonian their native language.[44] Macedonian is also studied and spoken to various degrees as a second language by all ethnic minorities in the country.[2][45]

Outside North Macedonia, there are small ethnic Macedonian minorities that speak Macedonian in neighboring countries including 4.697 in Albania (1989 census),[46] 1,609 in Bulgaria (2011 census)[47] and 12,706 in Serbia (2011 census).[48] The exact number of speakers of Macedonian in Greece is difficult to ascertain due to the country's policies. Estimates of Slavophones ranging anywhere between 50,000 and 300,000 in the last decade of the 20th century have been reported.[49][50] Approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside North Macedonia per 1964 estimates with Australia, Canada, and the United States being home to the largest emigrant communities. Consequently, the number of speakers of Macedonian in these countries include 66,020 (2016 census),[51] 15,605 (2016 census)[52] and 22,885 (2010 census), respectively.[53] Macedonian also has more than 50,000 native speakers in countries of Western Europe, predominantly in Germany, Switzerland and Italy.[54]

The Macedonian language has the status of an official language only in North Macedonia, and is a recognized minority and official language in parts of Albania (Pustec),[55][56] Romania, Serbia (Jabuka and Plandište)[5] and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[3] There are provisions to learn Macedonian in Romania as Macedonians are an officially recognized minority group.[4] Macedonian is studied and taught at various universities across the world and research centers focusing on the language are found at universities across Europe (France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia) as well as Australia, Canada and the United States (Chicago and North Carolina).[57]

Dialects

During the standardization process of the Macedonian language, the dialectal base selected was primarily based on the West-Central dialects, which spans the triangle of the communities Makedonski Brod, Kičevo, Demir Hisar, Bitola, Prilep, and Veles. These were considered the most widespread and most likely to be adopted by speakers from other regions.[58] The initial idea to select this region as a base was first proposed in Krste Petkov Misirkov's works as he believed the Macedonian language should abstract on those dialects that are distinct from neighboring Slavic languages, such as Bulgarian and Serbian.[59]

Dialect divisions of Macedonian per Macedonian dialectology.[22][60]
Northern
  Lower Polog / Tetovo
  Crna Gora
  Kumanovo / Kratovo (Torlakian dialects)
Western/Northwestern
  Central
  Drimkol / Golo Brdo
  Reka
  Debar
  Small Reka / Galičnik
  Upper Polog / Gostivar
  Vevčani / Radοžda
  Upper Prespa / Ohrid
Eastern
  Mariovo / Tikveš
  Štip / Strumica
  Maleševo / Pirin
Southeastern
  Solun / Voden
  Ser / Drama
Southwestern
  Lower Prespa
  Korča
  Kostur
  Nestram

Based on a large group of features, Macedonian dialects can be divided into Eastern, Western and Northern groups. The boundary between them geographically runs approximately from Skopje and Skopska Crna Gora along the rivers Vardar and Crna.[26] There are numerous isoglosses between these dialectal variations, with structural differences in phonetics, prosody (accentuation), morphology and syntax.[26] The Western group of dialects can be subdivided into smaller dialectal territories, the largest group of which includes the central dialects.[61] The linguistic territory where Macedonian dialects were spoken also span outside the country and within the region of Macedonia, including Pirin Macedonia into Bulgaria and Aegean Macedonia into Greece.[16]

Variations in consonant pronunciation occur between the two groups, with most Western regions losing the /x/ and the /v/ in intervocalic position (глава (head): /ɡlava/ = /ɡla/: глави (heads): /ɡlavi/ = /ɡlaj/) while Eastern dialects preserve it. Stress in the Western dialects is generally fixed and falls on the antepenultimate syllable while Eastern dialects have non-fixed stress systems that can fall on any syllable of the word,[62] that is also reminiscent of Bulgarian dialects. Additionally, Eastern dialects are distinguishable by their fast tonality, elision of sounds and the suffixes for definiteness. The Northern dialectal group is close to South Serbian and Torlakian dialects and is characterized by 46–47 phonetic and grammatical isoglosses.[63]

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 6 groups:[64]

Phonology

The

stops. Out of all the Slavic languages, Macedonian has the most frequent occurrence of vowels relative to consonants with a typical Macedonian sentence having on average 1.18 consonants for every one vowel.[65]

Vowels

The Macedonian language contains 5 vowels which are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/. For the pronunciation of the middle vowels /е/ and /о/ by native Macedonian speakers, various vowel sounds can be produced ranging from [ɛ] to [ẹ] and from [o] to [ọ]. Unstressed vowels are not reduced, although they are pronounced more weakly and shortly than stressed ones, especially if they are found in a stressed syllable.[66][67] The five vowels and the letter р (/r/) which acts as a vowel when found between two consonants (e.g. црква, "church"), can be syllable-forming.[62]

The

Veles'. The sequence /aa/ is often realized phonetically as [aː]; e.g. ⟨саат⟩ /saat/ [saːt] 'colloq. hour', ⟨змии⟩ - snakes. In other words, two vowels appearing next to each other can also be pronounced twice separately (e.g. пооди - to walk).[62]

Vowels[68][69]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid ɛ (ə) ɔ
Open a

Consonants

A 1962 map of the use of the intervocalic phonemes kj and gj in Macedonian.

The consonant inventory of the Macedonian language consists of 26 letters and distinguishes three groups of consonants (согласки):

voiced (звучни), voiceless (безвучни) and sonorant consonants (сонорни).[67] Typical features and rules that apply to consonants in the Macedonian language include assimilation of voiced and voiceless consonants when next to each other, devoicing of vocal consonants when at the end of a word, double consonants and elision.[67][70] At morpheme boundaries (represented in spelling) and at the end of a word (not represented in spelling), voicing opposition is neutralized.[67]

Consonants[71][72]
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m
1
ɲ
Plosive
voiceless p
c3 k
voiced b
ɟ3 ɡ
Affricate
voiceless
t̪͡s̪
t͡ʃ
voiced
d̪͡z̪
d͡ʒ
Fricative
voiceless f
ʃ x2
voiced v
ʒ
Approximant
ɫ̪1
l
j
Trill
r1


velar nasal [ŋ] similarly occurs as an allophone of /n/ before /k/ and /ɡ/ (e.g. ⟨англиски⟩ [ˈaŋɡliski] 'English').[71] The latter realization is avoided by some speakers who strive for a clear, formal pronunciation.[citation needed
]

toponyms (Пехчево, Pehčevo), words originating from Old Church Slavonic (дух, ghost), newly formed words (доход, income) and as a means to disambiguate between two words (храна, food vs. рана, wound).[71]

^3 They exhibit different pronunciations depending on dialect. They are dorso-palatal stops in the standard language and are pronounced as such by some native speakers.[71]

Stress

The

polysyllabic words are stressed on the third-to-last syllable: плáнина ([ˈpɫanina]: mountain) планѝната ([pɫaˈninata]: the mountain) планинáрите ([pɫaniˈnaritɛ]: the mountaineers).[73] There are several exceptions to the rule and they include: verbal adverbs (i.e. words suffixed with -ќи): e.g. викáјќи ([viˈkajci]: shouting), одéјќи ([ɔˈdɛjci]: walking); adverbs of time: годинáва ([godiˈnava]: this year), летóво ([leˈtovo]: this summer); foreign loanwords: e.g. клишé ([kliˈʃɛ:] cliché), генéза ([ɡɛˈnɛza] genesis), литератýра ([litɛraˈtura]: literature), Алексáндар ([alɛkˈsandar], Alexander).[74]

Linking occurs when two or more words are pronounced with the same stress. Linking is a common feature of the Macedonian language. This linguistic phenomenon is called акцентска целост and is denoted with a

imperative form accompanied by short pronoun forms (дáј‿ми: give me), the expression of possessives (мáјка‿ми), prepositions followed by a noun (зáд‿врата), question words followed by verbs (когá‿дојде) and some compound nouns (сувó‿грозје - raisins, киселó‿млеко - yoghurt) among others.[75]

Grammar

Macedonian grammar is markedly

modal words.[70]

Nouns

Macedonian nouns (именки) 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.[77] Masculine nouns usually end in a consonant or a vowel (-a, -o or -e) and neuter nouns end in a vowel (-o or -e). Virtually all feminine nouns end in the same vowel, -a.[75]

The vocative of nouns is the only remaining case in the Macedonian language and is used to address a person directly. The vocative case always ends with a vowel, which can be either an -у (јунаку: hero vocative) or an -e (човече: man vocative) to the root of masculine nouns. For feminine nouns, the most common final vowel ending in the vocative is -o (душо, sweetheart vocative; жено, wife vocative). The final suffix -e can be used in the following cases: three or polysyllabic words with the ending -ица (мајчице, mother vocative), female given names that end with -ка: Ратка becomes Ратке and -ја: Марија becomes Марије or Маријо. There is no vocative case in neuter nouns. The role of the vocative is only facultative and there is a general tendency of vocative loss in the language since its use is considered impolite and dialectal.[78] The vocative can also be expressed by changing the tone.[75][79]

There are three different types of plural: regular, counted and

quantifier precedes the noun; suffixes to express this type of plurality do not correspond with the regular plurality suffixes: два молива (two pencils), три листа (three leaves), неколку часа (several hours). The collective plural is used for nouns that can be viewed as a single unit: лисје (a pile of leaves), ридје (a unit of hills). Irregular plural forms also exist in the language: дете - деца (child - children).[75]

Definiteness

The definite articles
Singular Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter Masculine Feminine Neuter
Unspecified мажот жената детето мажите/жените децата
Proximate мажов женава детевo маживе/жениве децава
Distal мажон женана детенo мажине/женине децана

A characteristic feature of the nominal system is the indication of

definite article
in Macedonian is postpositive, i.e. it is added as a suffix to nouns. An individual feature of the Macedonian language is the use of three definite articles, inflected for gender and related to the position of the object, which can be unspecified, proximate or distal.

endearment
to a person.

Adjectives

Adjectives accompany nouns and serve to provide additional information about their referents. Macedonian adjectives agree in form with the noun they modify and are thus inflected for gender, number and definiteness and убав changes to убава (убава жена, a beautiful woman) when used to describe a feminine noun, убаво when used to describe a neuter noun (убаво дете, a beautiful child) and убави when used to form the plural (убави мажи, убави жени, убави деца).[75]

Adjectives can be analytically inflected for degree of

superlative. Both prefixes cannot be written separately from the adjective: Марија е паметна девојка (Marija is a smart girl), Марија е попаметна од Сара (Marija is smarter than Sara), Марија е најпаметната девојка во нејзиниот клас (Marija is the smartest girl in her class). The only adjective with an irregular comparative and superlative form is многу which becomes повеќе in the comparative and најмногу in the superlative form.[80] Another modification of adjectives is the use of the prefixes при- and пре- which can also be used as a form of comparison: престар човек (a very old man) or пристар човек (a somewhat old man).[70]

Pronouns

Three types of pronouns can be distinguished in Macedonian:

clitic pronoun will refer to the object with the verb: Јас не му ја дадов книгата на момчето ("I did not give the book to the boy").[81]
The direct object is a remnant of the accusative case and the indirect of the dative. Reflexive pronouns also have forms for both direct and indirect objects: себе се, себе си. Examples of personal pronouns are shown below:

  • Personal pronoun: Јас читам книга. ("I am reading a book")
  • Direct object pronoun: Таа мене ме виде во киното. ("She saw me at the cinema")
  • Indirect object pronoun: Тој мене ми рече да дојдам. ("He told me to come")

Relative pronouns can refer to a person (кој, која, кое - who), objects (што - which) or serve as indicators of possession (чиј, чија, чие - whose) in the function of a question or a relative word. These pronouns are inflected for gender and number and other word forms can be derived from them (никој - nobody, нешто - something, сечиј - everybody's). There are three groups of demonstrative pronouns that can indicate proximate (овој - this one (mas.)), distal (онаа - the one there (fem.)) and unspecific (тоа - that one (neut.)) objects. These pronouns have served as a basis for the definite article.[70][75]

Macedonian personal pronouns
Person Singular Direct object Indirect object Plural Direct object Indirect object
1. јас мене ме мене ми ние нас нѐ нам ни
2. ти
вие (formal)
тебе те
вас ве (formal)
тебе ти
вас ви (formal)
вие вас ве вас ви
3. тој (masculine)
таа (feminine)
тоа (neuter)
него го (masc./neut.)
неа ја (fem.)
нему му (masc./neut.)
нејзе ѝ (fem.)
тие нив ги ним им

Verbs

Macedonian verbs agree with the subject in person (first, second or third) and number (singular or plural). Some dependent verb constructions (нелични глаголски форми) such as verbal adjectives (глаголска придавка: плетен/плетена), verbal l-form (глаголска л-форма: играл/играла) and verbal noun (глаголска именка: плетење) also demonstrate gender. There are several other grammatical categories typical of Macedonian verbs, namely type, transitiveness, mood, superordinate aspect (imperfective/perfective aspect).[82] Verb forms can also be classified as simple, with eight possible verb constructions or complex with ten possible constructions.[75]

Macedonian has developed a grammatical category which specifies the opposition of witnessed and reported actions (also known as renarration). Per this grammatical category, one can distinguish between минато определено i.e. definite past, denoting events that the speaker witnessed at a given definite time point, and минато неопределено i.e. indefinite past denoting events that did not occur at a definite time point or events reported to the speaker, excluding the time component in the latter case. Examples: Но, потоа се случија работи за кои не знаев ("But then things happened that I did not know about") vs. Ми кажаа дека потоа се случиле работи за кои не знаев ("They told me that after, things happened that I did not know about").[83]

Tense

Conjugation of сум in present, aorist, present perfect and future tense
Person Singular Plural
1. сум, бев, сум бил, ќе бидам сме, бевме, сме биле, ќе бидеме
2. си, беше, си бил, ќе бидеш сте, бевте, сте биле, ќе бидете
3. е, беше, бил, ќе биде се, беа, биле, ќе бидат

The present tense in Macedonian is formed by adding a suffix to the verb stem which is inflected per person, form and number of the subject. Macedonian verbs are conventionally divided into three main conjugations according to the

citation form (i.e. 3p-pres-sg).[70]
These groups are: a-group, e-group and и-group. Furthermore, the и-subgroup is divided into three more subgroups: а-, е- and и-subgroups. The verb сум (to be) is the only exception to the rule as it ends with a consonant and is conjugated as an irregular verb.

The perfect tense can be formed using both to be (сум) and to have (има) as

auxiliary verbs. The first form inflects the verb for person and uses a past active participle: сум видел многу работи ("I have seen a lot of things"). The latter form makes use of a clitic that agrees in number and gender with the object of the sentence and the passive participle of the verb in its uninflected form (го имам гледано филмот, "I have seen that movie").[38][82] Another past form, the aorist is used to describe actions that have finished at a given moment in the past: одев ("I walked"), скокаа ("they jumped").[75]

Future forms of verbs are conjugated using the particle ќе followed by the verb conjugated in present tense, ќе одам (I will go). The construction used to express negation in the future can be formed by either adding the negation particle at the beginning не ќе одам (I will not go) or using the construction нема да (нема да одам). There is no difference in meaning, although the latter form is more commonly used in spoken language. Another future tense is future in the past which is formed using the clitic ќе and the past tense of the verb inflected for person, таа ќе заминеше ("she would have left").[75]

Aspect, voice and mood

Similar to other Slavic languages, Macedonian verbs have a grammatical aspect (глаголски вид) that is a typical feature of Slavic languages. Verbs can be divided into imperfective (несвршени) and perfective (свршени) indicating actions whose time duration is unknown or occur repetitively or those that show an action that is finished in one moment. The former group of verbs can be subdivided into verbs which take place without interruption (e.g. Тој спие цел ден, "He sleeps all day long) or those that signify repeated actions (e.g. Ја бараше книгата но не можеше да ја најде, "He was looking for the book but he could not find it"). Perfective verbs are usually formed by adding prefixes to the stem of the verb, depending on which, they can express actions that took place in one moment (чукна, "knocked"), actions that have just begun (запеа, "start to sing"), actions that have ended (прочита, "read") or partial actions that last for short periods of time (поработи, "worked").[75]

The contrast between transitive and intransitive verbs can be expressed analytically or syntactically and virtually all verbs denoting actions performed by living beings can become transitive if a short personal pronoun is added: Тоj легна ("He laid down") vs. Тоj го легна детето ("He laid the child down"). Additionally, verbs which are expressed with the reflexive pronoun се can become transitive by using any of the contracted pronoun forms for the direct object: Тој се смее - He is laughing, vs. Тој ме смее - "He is making me laugh"). Some verbs such as sleep or die do not traditionally have the property of being transitive.[84]

Macedonian verbs have three

indicative, imperative and conditional. The imperative mood can express both a wish or an order to finish a certain action. The imperative only has forms for the second person and is formed using the suffixes (пеј; sing) or (оди, walk) for singular and -јте (пејте, sing) or -ете for plural (одете, walk). The first and third subject forms in singular and plural express indirect orders and are conjugated using да or нека and the verb in present tense (да живееме долго, may we live long). In addition to its primary functions, the imperative is used to indicate actions in the past, eternal truths as is the case in sayings and a condition. The Macedonian conditional is conjugated in the same way for all three persons using the particle би and the verbal l-form, би читал (I/you/he would read).[75]

Syntax

Macedonian syntax has a

object–verb–subject (OVS) form as well, Иван го сака Марија.[85]
Topicalization can also be achieved using a combination of word order and intonation; as an example all of the following sentences give a different point of emphasis:

Macedonian is a null-subject language which means that the subject pronoun can be omitted, for instance Што сакаш (ти)? (what do you want?), (јас) читам книга (I am reading a book), (ние) го видовме (we saw him).[85] Macedonian passive construction is formed using the short reflexive pronoun се (девојчето се уплаши, the girl got scared) or a combination of the verb "to be" with verbal adjectives (Тој е миен, he is washed). In the former case, the active-passive distinction is not very clear.[84] Subordinate clauses in Macedonian are introduced using relativizers, which can be wh-question words or relative pronouns.[87] A glossed example of this is:

човек-от

person-DEF

со

with

кого(што)

whom(that)

се

ITR

шета-ше

stroll-3SG.IM

вчера

yesterday

човек-от со кого(што) се шета-ше вчера

person-DEF with whom(that) ITR stroll-3SG.IM yesterday

the person with whom he walked yesterday[87]

Due to the absence of a case system, Macedonian makes wide use of

prepositions (предлози) to express relationships between words in a sentence. The most important Macedonian preposition is на which can have local ('on') or motional meanings ('to').[88] As a replacement for the dative case, the preposition на is used in combination with a short indirect object form to denote an action that is related to the indirect object of a sentence, Му давам книга на Иван (I am giving a book to Ivan), Им велам нешто на децата (I am saying something to the children).[85] Additionally, на can serve to replace the genitive case and express possession, таткото на другар ми (my friend's father).[88]

Vocabulary

Macedonian police car, with the Macedonian word Полиција (Policija), for "police".

Macedonian exhibits lexical similarities with all other Slavic languages, and numerous nouns are cognates, including those related to familial relations and numbers.

Ottoman Turkish and, increasingly, English have also provided a significant proportion of the loanwords. 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 items. Other loanwords and vocabulary also came from Greek and Albanian as well as prestige languages such as French and German.[89][90]

During the standardization process, there was deliberate care taken to try to purify the lexicon of the language. Words that were associated with the Serbian or Bulgarian standard languages, 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. This is not to say that there are no words associated with the Serbian, Bulgarian, or even Russian standard languages in the language, but rather that they were discouraged on a principle of "seeking native material first".[91]

The language of the writers at the turn of the 19th century abounded with Russian and, more specifically, Old Church Slavonic lexical and morphological elements that in the contemporary norm have been replaced by native words or calqued using productive morphemes.[92] 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 (Russ. известие) → извештај 'report', количество (Russ. количество) → количина 'amount, quantity', согласие (Russ. согласие) → слога 'concord, agreement', etc.[92] This change was aimed at bringing written Macedonian closer to the spoken language, effectively distancing it from the more Russified Bulgarian language, representing a successful puristic attempt to abolish a lexicogenic tradition once common in written literature.[92] The use of Ottoman Turkish loanwords is discouraged in the formal register when a native equivalent exists (e.g. комшија (← Turk. komşu) vs. сосед (← PSl. *sǫsědъ) 'neighbor'), and these words are typically restricted to the archaic, colloquial, and ironic registers.[93]

Lexical comparison of 5 words among 11 Slavic languages[94]
English Macedonian Bulgarian Serbian Croatian Slovenian Russian Belarusian Ukrainian Polish Czech Slovak
dream сон сън сан san sen сон сон сон sen sen sen
day ден ден дан dan dan день дзень день dzień den den
arm рака ръка рука ruka roka рука рука рука ręka ruka ruka
flower цвет цвят цвет cvijet cvet цветок кветка квітка kwiat květ/květina kvet/kvetina
night ноќ нощ ноћ noć noč ночь ноч нiч noc noc noc

Writing system

Alphabet

The official Macedonian alphabet was codified on 5 May 1945 by the Presidium of the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (abbreviated as ASNOM in Macedonian) headed by

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, while the grapheme ѕ has an equivalent in the Church Slavonic alphabet.[96] Letters љ and њ were previously used by Macedonian writer Krste Petkov Misirkov written as л' and н'.[95] The Macedonian alphabet also uses the apostrophe sign (') as a sound. It is used to mark the syllable forming /р˳/ , at the beginning of the word ('рж - rye, 'рбет - spine) and to represent the phoneme schwa in some literary words or Turkish loanwords ('к'смет - fortune). А grave accent (`) diacritic is used over three vowels in orthography: ѝ - her, different from и - and, нè - us, different from не - no and сѐ - everything different from сe - short reflexive pronoun accompanying reflexive verbs.[57] The standard Macedonian alphabet contains 31 letters. 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
/d͡z/
И и
/i/
Cyrillic
IPA
Ј ј
/j/
К к
/k/
Л л
/ɫ, l/[97]
Љ љ
/l/[97]
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
/t͡s/
Ч ч
/t͡ʃ/
Џ џ
/d͡ʒ/
Ш ш
/ʃ/

Orthography

Similar to the Macedonian alphabet, Macedonian orthography was officially codified on 7 June 1945 at an ASNOM meeting.

velar /ł/ elsewhere (e.g. бела (white) pronounced as [beła]). Another sound that is not represented in the written form but is pronounced in words is the schwa.[67]

Political views on the language

Politicians and scholars from North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece have opposing views about the existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language. Through history Macedonian has been referred mainly to as a variant of Bulgarian,

Serbianized with regards to its orthography[105][106][107][108][109] and vocabulary.[110]

The government of Bulgaria, Bulgarian academics, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the general public have and continue to widely consider Macedonian part of the Bulgarian dialect area.[1][111][112] During the Communist era, Macedonian was recognized as a minority language in Bulgaria and utilized in education from 1946 to 1948. Subsequently, it was described as a dialect of Bulgarian.[113] In 1956 the Bulgarian government signed an agreement on mutual legal defense with Yugoslavia, where the Macedonian language is named as one of the languages to be used for legal purposes, together with Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian.[114] The same year Bulgaria revoked its recognition of Macedonian nationhood and language and implicitly resumed its prewar position of their non-existence.[115] In 1999 the government in Sofia signed a Joint Declaration in the official languages of the two countries, marking the first time it agreed to sign a bilateral agreement written in Macedonian.[116] Dialect experts of the Bulgarian language refer to the Macedonian language as македонска езикова норма (Macedonian linguistic norm) of the Bulgarian language.[8] As of 2019, disputes regarding the language and its origins are ongoing in academic and political circles in the two countries.

The Greek scientific and local community opposed using the denomination Macedonian to refer to the language in light of the

Greek Parliament on 25 January 2019, Greece officially recognized the name "Macedonian" for the language.[121] Additionally, on 27 July 2022,[122] in a landmark ruling, the Centre for the Macedonian Language in Greece was officially registered as a non-governmental organization. This is the first time that a cultural organization promoting the Macedonian language has been legally approved in Greece and the first legal recognition of the Macedonian language in Greece since at least 1928.[123][124][125][126]

Sample text

The following is the Lord's Prayer in standard Macedonian.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Ethnologue report for Macedonian". Ethnologue. 19 February 1999. Archived from the original on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d Friedman, Garry & Rubino 2001, p. 435.
  3. ^ a b "Reservations and Declarations for Treaty No.148 – European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages". Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  4. ^ a b "European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages". Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 18 October 2015. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  5. ^ a b Nikolovski, Valentin (30 October 2016). "Македонците во Србија ги уживаат сите малцински права, како и србите во Македонија" [Macedonians in Serbia have all the minority rights just as Serbians in Macedonia] (in Macedonian). Sitel. Archived from the original on 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  6. . The obviously plagiarized historical argument of the Macedonian nationalists for a separate Macedonian ethnicity could be supported only by linguistic reality, and that worked against them until the 1940s. Until a modern Macedonian literary language was mandated by the communist-led partisan movement from Macedonia in 1944, most outside observers and linguists agreed with the Bulgarians in considering the vernacular spoken by the Macedonian Slavs as a western dialect of Bulgarian
  7. ^ Thornburg & Fuller 2006, p. 213.
  8. ^ a b Reimann 2014, p. 41.
  9. ^ Trudgill 1992.
  10. , pp.227-244; Peter Lang, with Carla Amoros Negre et al. as eds.
  11. ^ "5 мај – Ден на македонскиот јазик". Филолошки факултет "Блаже Конески" – Скопје (in Macedonian). Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  12. ^ "Од 130-тата седница на Владата на РСМ: 5 Мај прогласен за Ден на македонскиот јазик". Влада на Република Северна Македонија (in Macedonian). 16 April 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
  13. ^ Levinson & O'Leary 1992, p. 239.
  14. ^ Dedaić & Mišković-Luković 2010, p. [page needed].
  15. ^ Kortmann & van der Auwera 2011, p. 420.
  16. ^ a b c Topolinjska 1998, p. 6.
  17. ^ Fortson 2009, p. 431.
  18. ^ Comrie & Corbett 2002, p. 245.
  19. ^ Campbell 2000, pp. 274, 1031.
  20. , p. 436.
  21. ^ . Macedonian dialectology... considers the dialects of south-western Bulgaria to be Macedonian, despite the lack of any widespread Macedonian national consciousness in that area. The standard map is provided by Vidoeski.(1998: 32) It would be futile to tell an ordinary citizen of the Macedonian capital, Skopje, that they do not realise that they are actually speaking Bulgarian. It would be equally pointless to tell citizens of the southwestern Bulgarian town of Blagoevgrad that they (or at least their compatriots in the surrounding countryside) do not 'really' speak Bulgarian, but Macedonian. In other words, regardless of the structural and linguistic arguments put forth by a majority of Bulgarian dialectologists, as well as by their Macedonian counterparts, they are ignoring one, essential fact – that the present linguistic identities of the speakers themselves in various regions do not always correspond to the prevailing nationalist discourses.
  22. ^ Trudgill P., 2000, "Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity". In: Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael (eds.), Language and Nationalism in Europe, Oxford : Oxford University Press, p.259.
  23. ^ Boeschoten, Riki van (1993): Minority Languages in Northern Greece. Study Visit to Florina, Aridea, (Report to the European Commission, Brussels) "The Western dialect is used in Florina and Kastoria and is closest to the language used north of the border, the Eastern dialect is used in the areas of Serres and Drama and is closest to Bulgarian, the Central dialect is used in the area between Edessa and Salonica and forms an intermediate dialect"
  24. ISBN 9783631350652. In September 1993 ... the European Commission financed and published an interesting report by Riki van Boeschoten on the "Minority Languages in Northern Greece", in which the existence of a "Macedonian language" in Greece is mentioned. The description of this language is simplistic and by no means reflective of any kind of linguistic reality; instead it reflects the wish to divide up the dialects comprehensibly into geographical (i.e. political) areas. According to this report, Greek Slavophones speak the "Macedonian" language, which belongs to the "Bulgaro-Macedonian" group and is divided into three main dialects (Western, Central and Eastern) - a theory which lacks a factual basis. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help
    )
  25. ^ a b c Usikova 2005, p. 103.
  26. ISSN 1857-6060
    .
  27. ^ Koneski, Blazhe (1967). Историја на македонскиот јазик [History of the Macedonian Language] (in Macedonian). Skopje: Kultura.
  28. ^
    Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Archived
    from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  29. ^ Lunt 2001, p. 4.
  30. ^ Vidoeski 1999, p. 12.
  31. ^ a b c d e f Friedman, Garry & Rubino 2001, p. 436.
  32. ^ Usikova 2005, pp. 103, 106.
  33. ^ a b Friedman, Garry & Rubino 2001, p. 438.
  34. ^ Kramer 1999, p. 234.
  35. ^ a b c Kramer 1999, p. 235.
  36. ^ Bechev 2009, p. 134.
  37. ^ a b c Usikova 2005, p. 106.
  38. ^ Nihtinen 1999, p. 51.
  39. ^ Nihtinen 1999, p. 47.
  40. ^ Kramer 1999, p. 236.
  41. ^ Pejoska-Bouchereau 2008, p. 146.
  42. ^ "Повелба за македонскиот јазик" [Charter for the Macedonian language] (PDF) (in Macedonian). Skopje: Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. 3 December 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  43. ^ "Попис на населението, домаќинствата и становите во Република Македонија, 2002" [Census of the population, households and dwellings in the Republic of Macedonia, 2002] (PDF). Book X (in Macedonian and English). Skopje: Republic of Macedonia State Statistical Office. May 2005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 May 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  44. ^ Crvenkovska, Emilija; Petroska, Elena. "Македонскиот јазик како втор и странски: терминолошки прашања" [Macedonian as a foreign and second language: terminological questions] (PDF) (in Macedonian). Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 June 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  45. ^ Artan Hoxha; Alma Gurraj (2001). "Local Self-Government and Decentralization: Case of Albania. History, Reforms and Challenges". Local Self Government and Decentralization in South - East Europe (PDF). Proceedings of the workshop held in Zagreb, Croatia. 6 April 2001. Zagreb: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. p. 219. Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  46. ^ "Население по етническа група и майчин език" [Population per ethnic group and mother tongue] (in Bulgarian). Bulgarian Census Bureau. 2011. Archived from the original on 19 December 2015. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  47. ^ "2011 Census – Mother tongue". Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. Archived from the original on 23 October 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  48. ^ Hill 1999, p. 19.
  49. ^ Poulton 2000, p. 167.
  50. ^ "Language spoken at home - Ranked by size". Profile ID. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  51. ^ "Data tables, 2016 Census". Statistics Canada. 2 August 2017. Archived from the original on 20 February 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  52. ^ "Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2009-2013". United States Census. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  53. ^ "Броj на македонски иселеници во светот" [Number of Macedonian immigrants in the world] (in Macedonian). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (North Macedonia). Archived from the original on 30 May 2008. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  54. ^ Naumovski, Jaklina (25 January 2014). "Minorités en Albanie : les Macédoniens craignent la réorganisation territoriale du pays" (in French). Balkan Courriers. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  55. Helsinki Committee. 2000. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  56. ^ a b c Usikova 2005, p. 105–106.
  57. ^ Friedman 1998, p. 33.
  58. ^ Dedaić & Mišković-Luković 2010, p. 13.
  59. ^ After Z. Topolińska and B. Vidoeski (1984), Polski-macedonski gramatyka konfrontatiwna, z.1, PAN.
  60. ^ Topolinjska 1998, p. 7.
  61. ^ a b c Usikova 2005, p. 111.
  62. ^ Usikova 2005, p. 104.
  63. ^ Comrie & Corbett 2002, p. 247.
  64. ^ Kolomiec, V.T.; Linik, T.G.; Lukinova, T.V.; Meljnichuk, А.S.; Pivtorak, G.P.; Sklyarenko, V.G.; Tkachenko, V.A.; Tkachenko, O.B (1986). Историческая типология славянских языков. Фонетика, слообразование, лексика и фразеология [Historical typology of Slavic languages] (in Ukrainian). Kiev: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
  65. ^ Friedman 1998, p. 252.
  66. ^ a b c d e f g Friedman 2001.
  67. ^ a b Friedman 2001, p. 10.
  68. ^ Lunt 1952, pp. 10–11.
  69. ^ a b c d e f Bojkovska et al. 2008, p. [page needed].
  70. ^ a b c d Friedman 2001, p. 11.
  71. ^ Lunt 1952, pp. 11–12.
  72. ^ a b Usikova 2005, p. 109–110.
  73. ^ Friedman 2001, p. 13.
  74. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Bogdanoska 2008.
  75. ^ a b c Bojkovska et al. 2008, p. 43.
  76. ^ Friedman 2001, p. 40.
  77. ^ Friedman 2001, p. 23.
  78. ^ Minova Gjurkova, Liljana (1994). Синтакса на македонскиот стандарден јазик [Syntax of the standard Macedonian language] (in Macedonian).
  79. ^ Friedman 2001, p. 27.
  80. ^ Friedman, Garry & Rubino 2001, p. 437.
  81. ^ a b Friedman 2001, p. 33.
  82. ^ Friedman 2001, p. 43.
  83. ^ a b Usikova 2005, p. 117.
  84. ^ a b c Usikova 2005, p. 116.
  85. ^ Friedman 2001, p. 50.
  86. ^ a b Friedman 2001, p. 58.
  87. ^ a b Friedman 2001, p. 49.
  88. ^ Friedman 1998, p. 36.
  89. ^ Usikova 2005, p. 136.
  90. ^ Friedman 1998, p. [page needed].
  91. ^ a b c Т. Димитровски. Литературната лексика на македонскиот писмен јазик во XIX в. и нашиот однос кон неа: Реферати на македонските слависти за VI Меѓународен славистички конгрес во Прага, Скопје, 1968 (T. Dimitrovski. The literary vocabulary of the Macedonian written language in the 19th century and our attitude to it. Abstracts of Macedonian Slavists for the 6th International Slavic Studies Congress in Prague. Skopje, 1968)
  92. ^ Friedman 1998, p. 8.
  93. ^ Bojkovska et al. 2008, p. 44.
  94. ^ a b c "Со решение на АСНОМ: 72 години од усвојувањето на македонската азбука" [With the declaration of ASNOM: 72 years of the adoption of the Macedonian alphabet]. Javno (in Macedonian). 5 May 2017. Archived from the original on 20 March 2020. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  95. ^ Friedman 1993, p. 251.
  96. ^ a b ⟨л⟩ is pronounced /l/ before /e, i, j/, and /ɫ/ otherwise. ⟨љ⟩ is always pronounced /l/ but is not used before /e, i, j/. Cf. how the final љ in биљбиљ /ˈbilbil/ "nightingale" is changed to a л in the plural form биљбили /ˈbilbili/.
  97. ^ "Правописот на македонски јазик од денес бесплатно на интернет" [The orthography of the Macedonian language for free on the Internet from today]. sdk.mk. 7 December 2017. Archived from the original on 18 March 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  98. OCLC 6430481
    .
  99. ^ Comrie & Corbett 2002, p. 251.
  100. ^ Adler 1980, p. 215.
  101. ^ Seriot 1997, pp. 270–271.
  102. ^ Kramer 1999, pp. 237–245.
  103. ^ Fishman 1993, p. 161–162.
  104. ^ Friedman 1998, p. 38.
  105. S2CID 174770777. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  106. , p. 126.
  107. .
  108. , chapter 109.
  109. ^ Voß 2018, p. 9.
  110. ^ "Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is firm that "Macedonian language" is Bulgarian dialect". Bulgarian National Radio. 12 November 2019. Archived from the original on 4 April 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  111. ^ Jakov Marusic, Sinisa (10 October 2019). "Bulgaria Sets Tough Terms for North Macedonia's EU Progress". Balkan Insight. Archived from the original on 11 December 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  112. , p. 201.
  113. ^ "Agreement between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia for mutual legal defense". Държавен вестник No 16. 22 February 1957. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  114. .
  115. ^ Kramer 1999.
  116. ^ a b Whitman 1994, p. 37.
  117. ^ "Report about Compliance with the Principles of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities". Greek Helsinki Monitor. Archived from the original on 23 May 2003. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
  118. ^ Danforth 1995, p. 62.
  119. ^ Shklifov, Blagoy; Shklifova, Ekaterina (2003). Български деалектни текстове от Егейска Македония [Bulgarian dialect texts from Aegean Macedonia] (in Bulgarian). Sofia. pp. 28–36.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  120. ^ "Republic of North Macedonia with Macedonian language and identity, says Greek media". Meta.mk. Meta. 12 June 2018. Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  121. ^ "Judicial victory for the Macedonian language in Greece: The court in Lerin rejected the lawsuits to ban the Macedonian Language Center in Greece". Sloboden Pečat. 19 March 2023.
  122. ^ "Грција го регистрираше центарот за македонски јазик" [Greece Registered the Macedonian-language Center] (in Macedonian). Deutsche Welle. 29 November 2022.
  123. ^ ""Центарот на македонскиот јазик во Грција" официјално регистриран од судските власти" ["The Center of Macedonian language in Greece" officially registered by court laws] (in Macedonian). Sloboden Pecat. 29 November 2022.
  124. ^ "Εγκρίθηκε «Κέντρο Μακεδονικής Γλώσσας» στην Φλώρινα: Ευχαριστίες Ζάεφ σε Τσίπρα - Μητσοτάκη" ["Centre for Macedonian Language" was approved in Florina: Zaev thanks Tsipras - Mitsotakis] (in Greek). Ethnos. 29 November 2022. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
  125. , p. 227, 247

References

Books
Journal articles

External links