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| Macedonian alphabet | |
|---|---|
 Makedonska azbuka "Macedonian alphabet" in Macedonian language | |
| Script type | |
Time period | 1945 – present |
| Official script |  North Macedonia |
| Languages | Macedonian |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian hieroglyphs[1]
|
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Cyrl(220), Cyrillic |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Cyrillic |
| subset ofCyrillic (U+0400...U+04FF) | |
This language reads left to right | |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
The orthography of theMacedonian language includes an alphabet consisting of 31 letters (Macedonian:Македонска азбука,romanized: Makedonska azbuka), which is an adaptation of theCyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation.
The Macedonian alphabet was standardized in 1945 by a committee formed inYugoslav Macedonia after thePartisans took power at the end ofWorld War II. The alphabet used the samephonemic principles employed byVuk Karadžić (1787–1864) andKrste Misirkov (1874–1926).
Before standardization, the language had been written in a variety of different versions of Cyrillic by different writers, influenced byEarly Cyrillic,Russian,Bulgarian andSerbian orthography.
Origins:
The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Macedonian alphabet, along with theIPA value for each letter:
| Letter IPA Name | А а /a/ а | Б б /b/ б | В в /v/ в | Г г /ɡ/ г | Д д /d/ д | Ѓ ѓ /ɟ/ ѓ | Е е /ɛ/ е | Ж ж /ʒ/ ж | З з /z/ з | Ѕ ѕ /d͡z/ ѕ | И и /i/ и |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter IPA Name | Ј ј /j/ ј | К к /k/ к | Л л /ɫ/,/l/ л | Љ љ /l/ љ | М м /m/ м | Н н /n/ н | Њ њ /ɲ/ њ | О о /ɔ/ о | П п /p/ п | Р р /r/ р | С с /s/ с |
| Letter IPA Name | Т т /t/ т | Ќ ќ /c/ ќ | У у /u/ у | Ф ф /f/ ф | Х х /x/ х | Ц ц /t͡s/ ц | Ч ч /t͡ʃ/ ч | Џ џ /d͡ʒ/ џ | Ш ш /ʃ/ ш |
In addition to the standard sounds of the lettersЃ andЌ above, in somedialects these letters represent/dʑ/ and/tɕ/, respectively.
The above table contains the printed form of the Macedonian alphabet; thecursive script is significantly different, and is illustrated below inlower andupper case (letter order and layout below corresponds to table above).
Macedonian has a number ofphonemes not found in neighbouring languages. The committees charged with drafting the Macedonian alphabet decided on phonemic principle with a one-to-one match between letters and distinctive sounds.
| South Slavic languages and dialects | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Western South Slavic
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Transitional dialects
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In "On Macedonian Matters",Misirkov used the combinationsГ' andК' to represent the phonemes/ɟ/ and/c/, which are unique to Macedonian amongSouth Slavic languages. In hismagazine "Vardar", Misirkov used the lettersЃ andЌ, as didDimitar Mirčev in his book. Eventually,Ѓ andЌ were adopted for the Macedonian alphabet.
In 1887,Temko Popov of theSecret Macedonian Committee used the digraphsгј andкј in his article "Who is guilty?". The following year, the committee published the "Macedonian primer" (written byKosta Grupče andNaum Evro) which used the Serbian lettersЂ andЋ for these phonemes.
Marko Cepenkov,Gjorgjija Pulevski andParteniy Zografski usedГЬ andКЬ.
Despite their forms, Ѓ and Ќ are ordered not afterГ andК, but afterД andТ respectively, based on phonetic similarity. This corresponds to the alphabet positions ofSerbianЂ andЋ respectively. These letters often correspond to Macedonian Ѓ and Ќ incognates (for example, Macedonian "шеќер" (šeḱer,sugar) is analogous to Serbo-Croatian "шећер/šećer"), but they are phonetically different.
TheCyrillic letter Dze (S s), representing the sound/d͡z/, is based on Dzělo, the eighth letter of theearly Cyrillic alphabet. Although ahomoglyph to theLatin letter S, the two letters are not directly related. Both theRomanian Cyrillic alphabet and theRussian alphabet also had a letter Ѕ, although Romanian Cyrillic was replaced with aLatin alphabet in the 1860s, and the letter Ѕ was abolished in Russian in the early 18th century.
Although Ѕ is generally transcribed asdz, it is a distinctphoneme and is not analogous to ДЗ, which is also used in Macedonian orthography for/d.z/. Ѕ is sometimes described assoft-dz.
Dimitar Mirčev was most likely the first writer to use this letter in print prior to the standardization of 1944.
Prior to standardization, theIPAphoneme/j/ (represented byЈ in the modern Macedonian alphabet) was represented variously as:
Eventually theЈ was selected to represent/j/.
The lettersЉ andЊ (/l/ and/ɲ/) are ultimately from the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. Historically, Macedonian writers have also used:
The letterЏ (representing the phoneme/dʒ/) was likely adopted from the Serbian alphabet and used by Gjorgjija Pulevski in four of his works, as well as by the Secret Macedonian Committee and Dimitar Mirčev. Misirkov used thedigraphДЖ. The letterЏ is used today.
The accented lettersЀ andЍ are not regarded as separate letters, nor are they accented to signify a different pronunciation (as inFrench, for example). Rather, they are the standard lettersЕ andИ topped with an accent when they stand in words that havehomographs, so as to differentiate between them (for example, "сѐ се фаќа" –sè se faḱa, "everything is touchable"; "и ѝ рече" –i ì reče, "and he/she told her").
Until the modern era, Macedonian was predominantly a spoken language, with no standardized written form of thevernaculardialects. Formal written communication was usually in theChurch Slavonic language[2][better source needed] or in Greek,[2] which were the languages ofliturgy, and were therefore considered the 'formal languages'.[3]
The decline of theOttoman Empire from the mid-19th century coincided with Slavic resistance to the use of Greek in Orthodox churches and schools,[4] and a resistance amongst Macedonian Slavs to the introduction of standard Bulgarian in Vardar Macedonia.[5] During the period ofBulgarian National Revival many Christians from Macedonia supported the struggle for creation of Bulgarian cultural, educational and religious institutions, including Bulgarian schools that used the version of Cyrillic adopted by other Bulgarians. The majority of the intellectual and political leaders of the Macedonian Bulgarians used this version of the Cyrillic script, which was also changed in the 19th and early 20th century.[citation needed] At the end of 1879Despot Badžović published the 'Alphabet Book for Serbo-Macedonian Primary Schools' (Serbian:Буквар за србо-македонске основне школе,Bukvar za srbo-makedonske osnovne škole) written on "Serbo-Macedonian dialect".[6]
The latter half of the 19th century saw increasing literacy and political activity amongst speakers of Macedonian dialects, and an increasing number of documents were written in the dialects. At the time, transcriptions of Macedonian used Cyrillic with adaptations drawing from Old Church Slavonic, Serbian and Bulgarian, depending on the preference of the writer.
Early attempts to formalize written Macedonian included Krste Misirkov's book "On Macedonian Matters" (1903). Misirkov used the Cyrillic script with several adaptations for Macedonian:
Another example is from Bulgarian folklorist from MacedoniaMarko Tsepenkov who published in two issues of the "A Collection of folklore, science and literature" (1892, 1897) folklore materials from Macedonia.[7] Cepenkov used a version of Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet with his own adaptations for some of the local Macedonian dialects. He did not useѣ, usingе instead, and did not use theъ in the final position of masculine nouns. Other adaptations included:
From theBalkan Wars of 1912/13, and the end of the Second World War, today North Macedonia was part of Serbia (later theKingdom of Yugoslavia) and occasionally of Bulgaria, and standard Serbian and Bulgarian were the official languages. The Serbian and Bulgarian authorities considered Macedonian to be adialect of Serbian or Bulgarian respectively, and according to some authors proscribed its use.[8][9][10][11] (see alsoHistory of the Macedonian language). However, some books in Macedonian dialects were published in Bulgaria,[12][13] some texts in Macedonian dialect were published in Yugoslavia in the 1920s and 1930s as well.[14][15][16]
At the end of WWII this territory was incorporated into theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as theSocialist Republic of Macedonia, the Yugoslav authorities recognized a distinct Macedonian ethnic identity and language. TheAnti-Fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM, effectively the Macedonian provisional government) formed a committee to standardize Macedonian and its alphabet.
ASNOM rejected the first committee's recommendations, and formed a second committee, whose recommendations were accepted. The (second) committees' recommendations were strongly influenced by the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (28 of the Macedonian alphabet's 31 letters are common to both Macedonian and Serbian, the letters unique to Macedonian beingЃ,Ѕ, andЌ), and by the works of Krste Misirkov.
The first committee met from November 27, 1944 to December 4, 1944, and was composed of prominent Macedonian academics and writers (see list below). The committee chose the dialects ofVeles,Prilep andBitola as the basis for the literary language (as Misirkov had in 1903), and proposed a Cyrillic alphabet. The first committee's recommendation was for the alphabet to use
ASNOM rejected the first committee's recommendations, and convened a second committee. Although no official reason was provided, several reasons are supposed for the rejection of the first committee's recommendation, including internal disagreement over the inclusion ofЪ (the BigYer, as used in Bulgarian), and the view that its inclusion made the alphabet "too close" to the Bulgarian alphabet.[citation needed]
While some Macedonian dialects contain a clearphonemicschwa and used a Bulgarian-styleЪ,[18] according to some opinions the western dialects – on which the literary language is based – do not.Blaže Koneski objected to the inclusion of the Big Yer on the basis that since there was no Big Yer in the literary language (not yet standardized), there was no need for it to be represented in the alphabet. By excluding it from the alphabet, speakers ofschwa-dialects would more rapidly adapt to the standard dialect.[19] On the other hand, opponents of Koneski indicatеd that this phoneme is distributed among the western Macedonian dialects too and a letter Ъ should be included in the standardized at that time literary language.[20]
The second language commission worked in March 1945. It includes Vojislav Ilic, Vasil Iloski, Blaze Koneski, Venko Markovski, Mirko Pavlovski and Krum Toshev. Radovan Zagovic and Milovan Djilas from Belgrade intervened in the commission's work. Previously, the activists of the YCP asked for support from the USSR and the BCP on the occasion of the new convened commission, whose task was predetermined - to adopt a new alphabet based on the Serbian alphabet. The second commission borrowed almost entirely the Serbian.[21]
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With the rejection of the first committee's draft alphabet, ASNOM convened a new committee with five members from the first committee and five new members. Vasil Iloski, Blazhe Koneski, Venko Markovski, Mirko Pavlovski and Krum Toshev remained from the old commission. The new members wereKiro Hadjivasilev,Vlado Maleski,Iliya Topalovski,Gustav Vlahov andIvan Mazov. Voting to keep or remove the letterЪ led to an equal number of votes, but it was removed. On May 3, 1945, the second committee presented its recommendations, which were accepted by theCommunist Party of Yugoslavia that same day, and published inNova Makedonija, the official newspaper.
The committee's recommendations were:
The rejection of the Ъ (Big Yer), together with the adoption of four Serbian Cyrillic letters (Ј,Џ,Љ andЊ), led to accusations that the committee was "Serbianizing" Macedonian, while those in favor of including the Big Yer (Ъ) were accused of "Bulgarianizing" Macedonian. In standard Macedonian orthography Ъ, is indicated by means of an apostrophe. Regardless of those claims, the new alphabet was officially adopted in thePeople's Republic of Macedonia on May 16, 1945, and is still used inNorth Macedonia and among Macedonian communities around the world.
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| First Committee | Second Committee | Third Committee (?) |
| m denotes military appointee c denotes civilian appointee * denotes member also served on the second committee | * denotes member also served on the first committee | |
| Epaminonda Popandonov (m) | Vasil Iljoski* | |
| Jovan Kostovski (c) | Blaže Koneski* | |
| Milka Balvanlieva (m) | Venko Markovski* | |
| Dare Džambaz (m) | Mirko Pavlovski* | |
| Vasil Iljoski* (c) | Krum Tošev* | |
| Georgi Kiselinov (c) | Kiro Hadži-Vasilev | |
| Blaže Koneski* (m) | Vlado Maleski | |
| Venko Markovski* (m) | Ilija Topalovski | |
| Mirko Pavlovski* (c) | Gustav Vlahov | |
| Mihail Petruševski (c) | Ivan Mazov | |
| Risto Prodanov (m) | ||
| Georgi Šoptrajanov (m) | ||
| Krum Tošev* (m) | ||
| Hristo Zografov (c) | ||
| Source: Victor A Friedman[22] | ||
The standard Macedoniankeyboard layout for personal computers is as follows:
Macedonian language (македонски јазик) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Features |  | |
| Dialects | ||
| Other topics | ||
| Western |
|  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern |
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| Southeastern |
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1 Also considered a dialect ofBulgarian.2 Considered to be a part of the transitionalTorlak dialect and as a subdialect of Bulgarian, Macedonian, andSerbo-Croatian. | ||||||
| Official language | |
|---|---|
| Minority languages | |
| Sign languages | |
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