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Macedonian Macedonian Citations Macedonian Links Select a New Language Number of Speakers: 2 millionKey Dialects: Eastern, Western, NorthernGeographical Center: Republic of MacedoniaGENERAL INTRODUCTION Macedonian is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia, formerly the Yugoslavian Socialist Republic of Macedonia; it has a total of 2 million speakers including 1.4 million in Macedonia and about 200,000 in Greece. There are also speakers in Yugoslavia ( Republic of Serbia), Albania, and Bulgaria. Outside of Europe there are speakers in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Numbers of speakers are not available for Bulgaria or Albania because of those countries' language policies. Total speakers may number 2.5 million (Friedman 1985).LINGUISTIC AFFILIATION Macedonian is a Slavic language belonging to a group of South Slavic languages that includes Old Church Slavonic (a liturgical language), Slovene, Serbian/Croatian, and Bulgarian. The modern South Slavic languages form a continuum of a series of mutually intelligible dialects. The two end points, Slovene and Bulgarian, are not mutually intelligible, but the transition between Serbian/Croatian and Macedonian, and Bulgarian and Macedonian is gradual and mutual intelligibility is high. It is most closely related to Bulgarian. Some consider Macedonian a dialect of Bulgarian, but this is a highly charged issue hotly disputed by others. For example, Henniger (1992) discusses the matter from a Bulgarian point of view; Friedman (1987) from a Macedonian perspective.LANGUAGE VARIATION Although Macedonian is fairly homogeneous, several dialect areas can be distinguished (Friedman 1987): a major division of East and West, then a subsidiary division into Northern which cuts across the major east-west distinction. The dialect of the capital, Skopje, is located within the Northern area. The Western area consists of a large Central area, and a Peripheral one, the latter located in Macedonia along the Albanian and southwestern Serbian borders. The East comprises a relatively undifferentiated area which includes the Macedonian dialects of Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonian) and those of northern Greece (Aegean Macedonian). The dialects of the West Central area, largest in size and population and most distinct from both Serbian/Croatian and Bulgarian, with elements from the dialect of Skopje, the Macedonian capital, are the basis of the literary standard.ORTHOGRAPHY A modified Cyrillic alphabet, more similar to that used for Serbian than for Russian or Bulgarian, is the official orthography; it was codified in the late 1940s and adopted in final form in the early 1950s.LINGUISTIC SKETCH Macedonian, like other Slavic languages, is a highly inflected language with an rich morphological system that distinguishes various grammatical functions and relationships. Nouns are marked for three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. However, unlike other Slavic languages, the case system has been almost entirely lost; traces exist in nouns referring to male kin. Instead of case markers, syntactic distinctions are indicated by prepositions. The numbers, singular and plural, are distinguished for most nouns. Definite nouns are indicated by a set of three suffixal articles, a proximate, distal, and neuter. Adjectives indicate gender only in the singular but share a common plural. Adjectives are compared by using separate prefixes for the comparative and superlative. Like nouns, neither adjectives nor numerals are declined for case. Pronouns preserve some aspects of the system of inflection and distinguish nominative, direct, and indirect objective cases.ROLE IN SOCIETY The standard dialect of Macedonian was recognized in 1944. It is the official language. While it is the norm in all areas of public life, Serbian/Croatian (often a second language for many Macedonians) and local dialect forms continue to exert an influence on the language, especially those in the Western dialect area, which is the basis for the standard. Texts are a problem for university classes and texts in Serbian/Croatian are often used in many subjects.HISTORY In the sixth and seventh centuries, the Slavs settled the following areas of Macedonia: Vardar Macedonia, or the Republic of Macedonia; Pirin Macedonia in the southwestern corner of Bulgaria; and Makedonia Province in northern Greece, also known as Aegean Macedonia. Cyril and Methodius, ninth century Greek missionaries to the Slavs, based their translations of Christian writings on the Macedonian dialect of the Thessalonika area. These formed the basis of the literary standard known as Old Church Slavonic which is still used as a liturgical language in some Slavic Orthodox Christian services. A rich literature developed early, but when Macedonia came under Turkish control at the end of the fourteenth century, literacy declined until the nineteenth century when revival efforts were undertaken. Today Macedonian is used at the University of Skopje. Numerous translations of international authors are made and the language is used in broadcasts.REFERENCES Bright, W., ed. 1992. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Return to the list of language portals
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