Macedonian vocabulary has been historically influenced byTurkish andRussian. Somewhat less prominent vocabulary influences also came from neighboring andprestige languages. The international consensus outside ofBulgaria is that Macedonian is anautonomous 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 aredivided in their views of the two as separate languages or as a singlepluricentric language.[9][10][11]
Macedonian, like the other Eastern South Slavic idioms has characteristics that make it part of theBalkan sprachbund, a group of languages that sharetypological, grammatical and lexical features based on areal convergence, rather than genetic proximity.[18] In that sense, Macedonian has experienced convergent evolution with other languages that belong to this group such as Greek,Aromanian,Albanian andRomani due to cultural and linguistic exchanges that occurred primarily through oral communication.[18]
Macedonian and Bulgarian are divergent from the remaining South Slavic languages in that they do not usenoun cases (except for thevocative, and apart from some traces of once productive inflections still found scattered throughout these two) and have lost theinfinitive.[19] 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[20] have a set of threedeictic articles: unspecified, proximal and distal definite article). Macedonian, Bulgarian and Albanian are the only Indo-European languages that make use of thenarrative mood.[21]
According to Chambers andTrudgill, 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.[22] This view is supported byJouko Lindstedt, who has suggested the reflex of the backyer as a potential boundary if the application of purely linguistic criteria were possible.[23][24]
Denasalization ofyuses in the Macedonian recension ofOCS
TheSlavic people who settled in the Balkans during the 6th century CE, spoke their own dialects and used different dialects or languages to communicate with other people.[29] The "canonical" Old Church Slavonic period of the development of Macedonian started during the 9th century and lasted until the first half of the 11th century. It saw translation ofGreek religious texts.[30][31][32] TheMacedonian recension of Old Church Slavonic also appeared around that period in theBulgarian Empire and was referred to as such due to works of theOhrid Literary School.[33] Towards the end of the 13th century, the influence of Serbian increased as Serbia expanded its borders southward.[34] During the five centuries ofOttoman 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.[35][36] This period saw the introduction of manyTurkish loanwords into the language.[37]
Krste Petkov Misirkov (pictured) was one of the first to outline the distinctiveness of the Macedonian language in his bookZa makedonckite raboti (On the Macedonian Matters), published in 1903.
The latter half of the 18th century saw the rise of modern literary Macedonian through the written use ofMacedonian dialects referred to as "Bulgarian" by writers.[35] The first half of the 19th century saw the rise of nationalism among the South Slavic people in the Ottoman Empire.[38] This period saw proponents of creating acommon church for Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs which would use a common modern Macedo-Bulgarian literary standard.[39][40]
Grammar of the language of the Slavic Macedonian population written byGeorgi Pulevski in 1880 marks the first attempt at standardisation for the Macedonian language in theGaličnik dialect.
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.[37][39] One ideology was to create a Bulgarian literary language based on Macedonian dialects, but such proposals were rejected by the Bulgarian codifiers.[35][39] That period saw poetry written in theStruga dialect with elements fromRussian.[41] Textbooks also used either spoken dialectal forms of the language or a mixed Macedo-Bulgarian language.[42] Subsequently, proponents of the idea of using a separate Macedonian language emerged.[43]
Krste Petkov Misirkov's bookZa makedonckite raboti (On Macedonian Matters) published in 1903, was the first attempt to formalize a separate literary language.[44] 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 thePrilep-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.[35][41] On 2 August 1944 at the firstAnti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) meeting, Macedonian was declared an official language.[35][45] With this, it became the last of the major Slavic languages to achieve a standard literary form.[32] As such, Macedonian served as one of the three official languages of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1991.[46]
Although the precise number ofnative andsecond 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.[47][14] According to the 2002 census, the total population ofNorth Macedonia was 2,022,547, with 1,344,815 citizens declaring Macedonian theirnative language.[48] Macedonian is also studied and spoken to various degrees as a second language by allethnic minorities in the country.[14][49]
Outside North Macedonia, there are smallethnic Macedonian minorities that speak Macedonian in neighboring countries including 8,375 inSerbia (2022 census),[50] 4,697 inAlbania (1989 census),[51] and 1,609 inBulgaria (2011 census).[52] 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.[53][54] Approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside North Macedonia per 1964 estimates withAustralia,Canada, and theUnited States being home to the largest emigrant communities. Consequently, the number of speakers of Macedonian in these countries include 66,020 (2016 census),[55] 15,605 (2016 census)[56] and 22,885 (2010 census), respectively.[57] Macedonian also has more than 50,000 native speakers in countries ofWestern Europe, predominantly inGermany,Switzerland andItaly.[58]
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),[59][60]Romania, Serbia (Jabuka andPlandište)[4] andBosnia and Herzegovina.[2] There are provisions to learn Macedonian in Romania as Macedonians are an officially recognized minority group.[3] 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 andNorth Carolina).[61]
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 communitiesMakedonski Brod,Kičevo,Demir Hisar,Bitola,Prilep, andVeles. These were considered the most widespread and most likely to be adopted by speakers from other regions.[62] 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.[63]
Dialect divisions of Macedonian per Macedonian dialectology[24][64]
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 fromSkopje andSkopska Crna Gora along the riversVardar andCrna.[29] There are numerousisoglosses between these dialectal variations, with structural differences in phonetics, prosody (accentuation), morphology and syntax.[29] The Western group of dialects can be subdivided into smaller dialectal territories, the largest group of which includes the central dialects.[65] The linguistic territory where Macedonian dialects were spoken also span outside the country and within theregion of Macedonia, includingPirin Macedonia into Bulgaria andAegean Macedonia into Greece.[18]
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,[66] 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.[67]
In addition, a more detailed classification can be based on the modern reflexes of theProto-Slavic reduced vowels (yers), vocalic sonorants, and the back nasal *ǫ. That classification distinguishes between the following 6 groups:[68]
Thephonological system of Standard Macedonian is based on the Prilep-Bitola dialect. Macedonian possesses fivevowels, onesemivowel, threeliquid consonants, threenasal stops, three pairs offricatives, two pairs ofaffricates, a non-paired voiceless fricative, nine pairs of voiced and unvoiced consonants and four pairs ofstops. 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.[69]
Vowels
The Macedonian language contains 5vowels 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 notreduced, although they are pronounced more weakly and shortly than stressed ones, especially if they are found in a stressed syllable.[70][71] The five vowels and the letterр (/r/) which acts as a vowel when found between two consonants (e.g.црква, "church"), can be syllable-forming.[66]
Theschwa is phonemic in many dialects (varying in closeness to[ʌ] or[ɨ]) but its use in the standard language is marginal.[72] When writing a dialectal word and keeping the schwa for aesthetic effect, anapostrophe is used; for example,⟨к'смет⟩,⟨с'нце⟩, etc. When spelling words letter-by-letters, each consonant is followed by the schwa sound. The individual letters ofacronyms are pronounced with the schwa in the same way:⟨МПЦ⟩ ([mə.pə.t͡sə]). The lexicalized acronyms⟨СССР⟩ ([ɛs.ɛs.ɛs.ɛr]) and⟨МТ⟩ ([ɛm.tɛ]) (a brand of cigarettes), are among the few exceptions.Vowel length is not phonemic. Vowels in stressed open syllables in disyllabic words with stress on the penultimate can be realized as long, e.g.⟨Велес⟩[ˈvɛːlɛs]ⓘ '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).[66]
A 1962 map of the use of the intervocalic phonemeskj andgj in Macedonian
The consonant inventory of the Macedonian language consists of 26 letters and distinguishes three groups of consonants (согласки):voiced (звучни),voiceless (безвучни) andsonorant consonants (сонорни).[71] Typical features and rules that apply to consonants in the Macedonian language includeassimilation 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.[71][74] At morpheme boundaries (represented in spelling) and at the end of a word (not represented in spelling), voicing opposition isneutralized.[71]
^1 The alveolar trill (/r/) issyllabic between two consonants; for example,⟨прст⟩[ˈpr̩st] 'finger'. The dental nasal (/n/) and dental lateral (/ɫ/) are also syllabic in certain foreign words; e.g.⟨њутн⟩[ˈɲutn̩] 'newton',⟨Попокатепетл⟩[pɔpɔkaˈtɛpɛtɫ̩] 'Popocatépetl', etc. Thelabiodental nasal[ɱ] occurs as an allophone of/m/ before/f/ and/v/ (e.g.⟨трамвај⟩[ˈtraɱvaj] 'tram').[citation needed] Thevelar nasal[ŋ] similarly occurs as an allophone of/n/ before/k/ and/ɡ/ (e.g.⟨англиски⟩[ˈaŋɡliski] 'English').[75] The latter realization is avoided by some speakers who strive for a clear, formal pronunciation.[citation needed]
^2 Inherited Slavic/x/ was lost in the Western dialects of Macedonian on which the standard is based, having become zero initially and mostly/v/ otherwise./x/ became part of the standard language through the introduction of new foreign words (e.g.хотел, hotel),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). This explains the rarity of Х in the Macedonian language.[75]
^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.[75]
Stress
Theword stress in Macedonian isantepenultimate and dynamic (expiratory). This means that it falls on the third from lastsyllable in words with three or more syllables, and on the first or only syllable in other words. This is sometimes disregarded when the word has entered the language more recently or from a foreign source.[77] To note which syllable of the word should be accented, Macedonian uses an apostrophe over its vowels.Disyllabic words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable:дéте ([ˈdɛtɛ]: child),мáјка ([ˈmajka]: mother) andтáтко ([ˈtatkɔ]: father).Trisyllabic andpolysyllabic words are stressed on the third-to-last syllable:плáнина ([ˈpɫanina]: mountain)планѝната ([pɫaˈninata]: the mountain)планинáрите ([pɫaniˈnaritɛ]: the mountaineers).[77] 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); foreignloanwords: e.g.клишé ([kliˈʃɛ:] cliché),генéза ([ɡɛˈnɛza] genesis),литератýра ([litɛraˈtura]: literature),Алексáндар ([alɛkˈsandar],Alexander).[78]
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 calledакцентска целост and is denoted with aspacing tie (‿) sign. Several words are taken as a single unit and thus follow the rules of the stress falling on the antepenultimate syllable. The rule applies when usingclitics (either enclitics or proclitics) such as the negating particleне with verbs (тој нé‿дојде, he did not come) and with short pronoun forms. The future particleќе can also be used in-between and falls under the same rules (не‿му‿јá‿даде, did not give it to him;не‿ќé‿дојде, he will not come).[79] Other uses include theimperative 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.[79]
Macedonian grammar is markedlyanalytic in comparison with other Slavic languages, having lost the common Slaviccase 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 perfect tense formed by means of anauxiliary verb "to have", followed by apast participle in theneuter, also known as theverbal adjective. Other features that are only found in Macedonian and not in other Slavic languages include the antepenultimate accent and the use of the same vocal ending for all verbs in first person, present simple (глед-a-м,јад-а-м,скок-а-м).[80] Macedonian distinguishes at least 12 majorword classes, five of which are modifiable and include nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numbers and verbs and seven of which are invariant and includeadverbs, prepositions,conjunctions,interjections,particles andmodal words.[74]
Nouns
Macedoniannouns (именки) belong to one of threegenders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and areinflected fornumber (singular and plural), and marginally forcase. The gender opposition is not distinctively marked in the plural.[81] 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.[79]
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 becomesРатке and-ја:Марија becomesМарије orМаријо. 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.[82] The vocative can also be expressed by changing the tone.[79][83]
There are three different types of plural: regular, counted andcollective. The first plural type is most common and used to indicate regular plurality of nouns:маж - мажи (a man - men),маса - маси (a table - table),село - села (a village - villages). There are various suffixes that are used and they differ per gender; a linguistic feature not found in other Slavic languages is the use of the suffix-иња to form plural of neuter nouns ending in-е:пиле - пилиња (a chick - chicks).[80] Counted plural is used when a number or aquantifier 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).[79]
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 ofdefiniteness. As with other Slavic languages, there is noindefinite article in Macedonian. Thedefinite 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.
Definite articles-ов, -ва, -во, -ве are used for objects located close to the speaker (човеков: - this person here)
Definite articles-он, -на, -но, -не are used for objects located further away from the speaker that can still be perceived (женана: - that woman there)
Definite articles-от, -та, -то, -те are most commonly used as general indicators of definiteness regardless of the referred object's position (детето: the child). Additionally, these suffixes can be used to indicate objects referred to by the speaker that are in the proximity of the listener, e.g.дај ми ја книгата што е до тебе - give me the book next to you.[74]
Proper nouns are per definition definite and are not usually used together with an article, although exceptions exist in the spoken and literary language such asСовчето,Марето,Надето to demonstrate feelings ofendearment to a person.
Adjectives
Adjectives accompany nouns and serve to provide additional information about their referents. Macedonian adjectivesagree in form with the noun they modify and are thus inflected for gender, number and definiteness andубав changes toубава (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) andубави when used to form the plural (убави мажи, убави жени, убави деца).[79]
Adjectives can be analytically inflected for degree ofcomparison with the prefixпо- marking thecomparative and the prefixнај- marking thesuperlative. 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 isмногу which becomesповеќе in the comparative andнајмногу in the superlative form.[84] Another modification of adjectives is the use of the prefixesпри- andпре- which can also be used as a form of comparison:престар човек (a very old man) orпристар човек (a somewhat old man).[74]
Pronouns
Three types of pronouns can be distinguished in Macedonian:personal (лични),relative (лично-предметни) anddemonstrative (показни). Case relations are marked in pronouns. Personal pronouns in Macedonian appear in three genders and both in singular and plural. They can also appear either asdirect orindirect object in long or short forms. Depending on whether a definite direct or indirect object is used, aclitic 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").[85] 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:Таамене ме виде во киното. ("She saw me at the cinema")
Indirect object pronoun:Тојмене 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.[74][79]
Macedonian verbs agree with the subject inperson (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) andverbal noun (глаголска именка:плетење) also demonstrate gender. There are several other grammatical categories typical of Macedonian verbs, namely type, transitiveness, mood, superordinate aspect (imperfective/perfectiveaspect).[86] Verb forms can also be classified as simple, with eight possible verb constructions or complex with ten possible constructions.[79]
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 betweenминато определено i.e. definite past, denoting events that the speaker witnessed at a given definite time point, andминато 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").[87]
Tense
Conjugation ofсум 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 thethematic vowel used in thecitation form (i.e.3p-pres-sg).[74] These groups are:a-group,e-group andи-group. Furthermore, theи-subgroup is divided into three more subgroups:а-,е- andи-subgroups. The verbсум (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) asauxiliary 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").[41][86] 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").[79]
Future forms of verbs are conjugated using the particleќе 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 beginningне ќе одам (I will not go) or using the constructionнема 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 cliticќе and the past tense of the verb inflected for person,таа ќе заминеше ("she would have left").[79]
Aspect, voice and mood
Similar to other Slavic languages, Macedonian verbs have a grammatical aspect (глаголски вид) that is atypical feature of Slavic languages. Verbs can be divided intoimperfective (несвршени) andperfective (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").[79]
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 pronounсе can become transitive by using any of the contracted pronoun forms for the direct object:Тојсе смее - He is laughing, vs.Тојме смее - "He is making me laugh"). Some verbs such as sleep or die do not traditionally have the property of being transitive.[88]
Macedonian verbs have threegrammatical moods (глаголски начин):indicative,imperative andconditional. 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-ј (пеј; sing) or-и (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 usingда orнека 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 particleби and the verbal l-form,би читал (I/you/he would read).[79]
Syntax
Macedonian syntax has asubject-verb-object (SVO)word order which is nevertheless flexible and can betopicalized.[71] For instance, the sentenceМарија го сака Иван (Marija loves Ivan) can become of theobject–verb–subject (OVS) form as well,Иван го сака Марија.[89] 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:
Мачката ја каса кучето. – The dog bites the cat (the focus is on the object)
Кучето мачката ја каса. – The dog bites the cat (the focus is on the object)
Мачката кучето ја каса. – The dog bites the cat (the focus is on the subject)
Ја каса кучето мачката. – The dog bites the cat (the focus is on both the subject and the verb)
Ја каса мачката кучето. – The dog bites the cat (the focus is on the verb and the object)[90]
Macedonian is anull-subject language which means that the subject pronoun can be omitted, for instanceШто сакаш (ти)? (what do you want?),(јас) читам книга (I am reading a book),(ние) го видовме (we saw him).[89] Macedonianpassive construction is formed using the short reflexive pronounсе (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.[88] Subordinate clauses in Macedonian are introduced usingrelativizers, which can be wh-question words or relative pronouns.[91] Aglossed example of this is:
Due to the absence of a case system, Macedonian makes wide use ofprepositions (предлози) to express relationships between words in a sentence. The most important Macedonian preposition isна which can have local ('on') or motional meanings ('to').[92] As a replacement for thedative case, the prepositionна 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).[89] Additionally,на can serve to replace thegenitive case and express possession,таткото на другар ми (my friend's father).[92]
Macedonian police car, with the Macedonian wordПолиција (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.[80] Additionally, as a result of the close relationship with Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian shares a considerable amount of itslexicon with these languages. Other languages that have been in positions of power, such asOttoman 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 ofmedieval Latin to modernRomance languages—and Russian also provided a source for lexical items. Other loanwords and vocabulary also came from Greek and Albanian as well asprestige languages such asFrench andGerman.[93][94]
During thestandardization process, there was deliberate care taken to try topurify 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 andarchaisms. 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".[95]
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 orcalqued usingproductivemorphemes.[96] New words werecoined according to internal logic and others calqued from related languages (especially Serbo-Croatian) to replace those taken from Russian, which includeизвестие (Russ.известие) →извештај 'report',количество (Russ.количество) →количина 'amount, quantity',согласие (Russ.согласие) →слога 'concord, agreement', etc.[96] 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 writtenliterature.[96] The use of Ottoman Turkish loanwords is discouraged in theformal 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.[97]
Lexical comparison of words and phrases among 11 Slavic languages[98]
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 byBlaže Koneski.[99] There are several letters that are specific for the Macedonian Cyrillic script, namelyѓ,ќ,ѕ,џ,љ andњ,[61] with the last three letters being borrowed from the Serbo-Croatian phonetic alphabet adapted by Serbian linguistVuk Stefanović Karadžić, while the grapheme ѕ has an equivalent in the Church Slavonic alphabet.[100] Letters љ and њ were previously used by Macedonian writer Krste Petkov Misirkov written as л' and н'.[99] The Macedonian alphabet also uses the apostrophe sign (') as a sound. It is used to mark the syllabic /r̩/, 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). Аgrave accent (`)diacritic is used over three vowels in orthography:ѝ - her, different fromи - and,нè - us, different fromне - no andсѐ - everything different fromсe - short reflexive pronoun accompanying reflexive verbs.[61] The standard Macedonian alphabet contains 31 letters. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Macedonian alphabet, along with theIPA value for each letter:
Similar to the Macedonian alphabet, Macedonian orthography was officially codified on 7 June 1945 at an ASNOM meeting.[99] Rules about the orthography andorthoepy (correct pronunciation of words) were first collected and outlined in the bookПравопис на македонскиот литературен јазик (Orthography of the Macedonian standard language) published in 1945. Updated versions have subsequently appeared with the most recent one published in 2016.[102] Macedonian orthography is consistent and phonemic in practice, an approximation of the principle of onegrapheme perphoneme. This one-to-one correspondence is often simply described by the principle, "write as you speak and read as it is written".[71] There is only one exception to this rule with the letter л which is pronounced as /l/ before front vowels (e.g.лист (leaf); pronounced as [list]) and /j/ (e.g.полјанка (meadow); pronounced as [poljanka]) butvelar /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 theschwa.[71]
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,[103] but especially during the first half of the 20th century also as Serbian,[104] and as a distinct language of its own.[105][106] Historically, after its codification, the use of the language has been a subject of different views and internal policies in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece.[35][107] Some international scholars also maintain Macedo-Bulgarian was a single pluricentric language until the 20th century and argue that the idea of linguistic separatism emerged in the late 19th century with the advent ofMacedonian nationalism and the need for a separate Macedonian standard language subsequently appeared in the early 20th century.[108] Different linguists have argued that during its codification, the Macedonian standard language wasSerbianized with regards to its orthography[109][110][111][112][113] and vocabulary.[114]
The government of Bulgaria, Bulgarian academics, theBulgarian Academy of Sciences and the general public have and continue to widely consider Macedonian part of theBulgarian dialect area.[1][115][116] 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.[117] 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.[118] The same year Bulgaria revoked its recognition of Macedonian nationhood and language and implicitly resumed its prewar position of their non-existence.[119] In 1999 the government inSofia signed aJoint Declaration in the official languages of the two countries, marking the first time it agreed to sign a bilateral agreement written in Macedonian.[120] Dialect experts of the Bulgarian language refer to the Macedonian language asмакедонска езикова норма (Macedonian linguistic norm) of the Bulgarian language.[9] 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 theGreek-Macedonian naming dispute. Instead, the language is often called "Slavic", "Slavomacedonian" (translated to "Macedonian Slavic" in English),makedonski,makedoniski ("Macedonian"),[121]slaviká (Greek: "Slavic"),dópia orentópia (Greek: "local/indigenous [language]"),[122]balgàrtzki (Bulgarian) or "Macedonian" in some parts of the region ofKastoria,[123]bògartski ("Bulgarian") in some parts of Dolna Prespa[124] along withnaši ("our own") andstariski ("old").[121] However, with thePrespa agreement signed in June 2018 and ratified by theGreek Parliament on 25 January 2019, Greece officially recognized the name "Macedonian" for the language.[125] Additionally, on 27 July 2022,[126] in a landmark ruling, theCentre 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.[127][128][129][130]
^Hupchick, Dennis P. (1995).Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 143.ISBN0312121164.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
^Siewierska, Anna, and Ludmila Uhlirova. "An overview of word order in Slavic languages." Empirical approaches to language typology 20 (1998): 105-150.
^Raúl Sánchez Prieto, Politics shaping linguistic standards: the case of Dutch in Flanders and Bulgaro-Macedonian in the Republic of Macedonia, in: Exploring linguistic standards in non-dominant varieties of pluricentric languages,ISBN3631625839, pp.227-244; Peter Lang, with Carla Amoros Negre et al. as eds.
^Chambers, J.K.; Trudgill, Peter (1998),Dialectology (2nd ed., Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–170,doi:10.1017/CBO9780511805103,ISBN9780521593786
^Tomasz Kamusella, Motoki Nomachi, Catherine Gibson as ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders, Springer, 2016;ISBN1137348399, p. 436.
^abLindstedt, Jouko (2016)."Conflicting Nationalist Discourses in the Balkan Slavic Language Area".The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders. pp. 429–447.doi:10.1007/978-1-137-34839-5_21.ISBN978-1-349-57703-3.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.
^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.
^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"
^Ioannidou, Alexandra (1999).Questions on the Slavic Dialects of Greek Macedonia. Athens: Peterlang. pp. 59, 63.ISBN9783631350652.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)
^Spasov, Ljudmil (2007). "Периодизација на историјата на македонскиот писмен јазик и неговата стандардизација во дваесеттиот век" [Periodization of the history of the Macedonian literary language and its standardization in the twentieth century].Filološki Studii (in Macedonian).5 (1). Skopje:St. Cyril and Methodius University:229–235.ISSN1857-6060.
^Koneski, Blazhe (1967).Историја на македонскиот јазик [History of the Macedonian Language] (in Macedonian). Skopje: Kultura.
^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. Retrieved7 August 2021.
^abcТ. 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)
^ab⟨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/.
^Institute of Bulgarian Language (1978).Единството на българския език в миналото и днес [The unity of the Bulgarian language in the past and today] (in Bulgarian).Sofia:Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. p. 4.OCLC6430481.
^Voss C., The Macedonian Standard Language: Tito—Yugoslav Experiment or Symbol of 'Great Macedonian' Ethnic Inclusion? in C. Mar-Molinero, P. Stevenson as ed. Language Ideologies, Policies and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe, Springer, 2016,ISBN0230523889, p. 126.
^De Gruyter as contributor. The Slavic Languages. Volume 32 of Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK), Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2014, p. 1472.ISBN3110215470.
^Lerner W. Goetingen, Formation of the standard language - Macedonian in the Slavic languages, Volume 32, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 2014,ISBN3110393689, chapter 109.
^Mavrogordatos, George.Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922–1936. University of California Press, 1983.ISBN9780520043589, p. 227, 247
References
Books
Adler, Max K. (1980),Marxist Linguistic Theory and Communist Practice: A Sociolinguistic Study, Buske Verlag,ISBN3871184195
Bogdanoska, Biljana (2008),За матуранти македонски јазик и литература [Macedonian language and literature for matura students] (in Macedonian),Skopje: Bomat Grafiks
Bojkovska, Stojka; Minova-Gjurkova, Liljana; Pandev, Dimitar; Cvetanovski, Živko (2008),Општа граматика на македонскиот јазик [Grammar of the Macedonian language] (in Macedonian), Skopje: Prosvetno Delo,ISBN9789989006623
Campbell, George L. (2000),Compendium of the World's Languages, London: Routledge,ISBN0415202965
Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville (2002), "The Macedonian language",The Slavonic Languages, New York: Routledge Publications
Friedman, Victor (1993), "Macedonian", in Comrie B.; Corbett G. (eds.),The Slavonic Languages, London, New York: Routledge, pp. 249–305,ISBN0-415-04755-2
Friedman, Victor (2001),Macedonian, Slavic and Eurasian Language Resource Center (SEELRC),Duke University,archived from the original on 28 July 2014, retrieved3 February 2006
Usikova, Rina Pavlovna (1994),О языковой ситуации в Республике Македонии [About the language situation in the Republic of Macedonia] (in Russian), Moscow:Nauka, pp. 221–231,ISBN5-02-011187-2
Usikova, Rina Pavlovna (2005),Языки мира. Славянские языки: Македонский язык [Languages of the world. Slavic languages: Macedonian language] (in Russian), Moscow:Academia, pp. 102–139,ISBN5-87444-216-2
Vidoeski, Bozhidar (1999),Дијалектите на македонскиот јазик: том 1 [The dialects of the Macedonian language: Book 1] (in Macedonian), MANU,ISBN9989649634
Whitman, Lois (1994),Denying ethnic identity: The Macedonians of Greece, New York: Helsinki Human Rights Watch,ISBN1564321320
Journal articles
Hill, P. (1999), "Macedonians in Greece and Albania: A comparative study of recent developments",Nationalities Papers,27 (1): 17,doi:10.1080/009059999109163,S2CID154201780
Nihtinen, Atina (1999), "Language, Cultural Identity and Politics in the Cases of Macedonian and Scots",Slavonica,5 (1):46–58,doi:10.1179/sla.1999.5.1.46
Pejoska-Bouchereau, Frosa (2008), "Histoire de la langue macédonienne" [History of the Macedonian language],Revue des études slaves (in French), pp. 145–161
Seriot, Patrick (1997),"Faut-il que les langues aient un nom? Le cas du macédonien" [Do languages have to have a name? The case of Macedonian], in Tabouret-Keller, Andrée (ed.),Le nom des langues. L'enjeu de la nomination des langues (in French), vol. 1, Louvain: Peeters, pp. 167–190, archived fromthe original on 5 September 2001
Topolinjska, Z. (1998), "In place of a foreword: facts about the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian language",International Journal of the Sociology of Language (131):1–11,doi:10.1515/ijsl.1998.131.1,S2CID143257269
Voß, C (2018), "Linguistic emancipation within the Serbian mental map: The implementation of the Montenegrin and Macedonian standard languages",Aegean Working Papers in Ethnographic Linguistics,2 (1):1–16,doi:10.12681/awpel.20021
Institute for Macedonian language "Krste Misirkov" (2017),Правопис на македонскиот јазик [Orthography of the Macedonian language](PDF) (2 ed.), Skopje: Kultura AD
Kramer, Christina; Mitkovska, Liljana (2003),Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students. (2nd ed.), University of Wisconsin Press,ISBN978-0-299-18804-7
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.
