THC Science

	Dialect divisions of Macedonian
Northern Lower Polog Crna Gora Kumanovo / Kratovo Western Central Upper Polog Reka Mala Reka / Galičnik Debar Drimkol / Golo Brdo Vevčani / Radožda Upper Prespa / Ohrid Lower Prespa	Eastern Mariovo / Tikveš Štip / Strumica Maleševo / Pirin Southern Korča Kostur Nestram Solun / Voden Ser / Drama

Macedonian
Macedonian
македонски; makedonski
Pronunciation	[maˈkɛdɔnski]
Native to	North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia
Region	Balkans
Ethnicity	Macedonians
Native speakers	(1.4–2.5 million cited 1986–2011)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic South Slavic Eastern South Slavic Macedonian; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Macedonian dialects;
Writing system	Cyrillic (Macedonian alphabet); Macedonian Braille
Official status
Official language in	North Macedonia
Recognised minority; language in	Albania; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Romania; Serbia
Regulated by	Macedonian Language Institute "Krste Misirkov" at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje
Language codes
ISO 639-1	mk
ISO 639-2	mac (B) ; mkd (T)
ISO 639-3	mkd
Glottolog	mace1250
Linguasphere	53-AAA-ha (part of 53-AAA-h)
	The Macedonian-speaking world: regions where Macedonian is the language of the majority[citation needed] regions where Macedonian is the language of a significant minority[citation needed]
	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 (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniən/; македонски јазик, translit. makedonski jazik, pronounced [maˈkɛdɔnski ˈjazik] ^ⓘ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. Spoken as a first language by around two million people, it serves as the official language in 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 the official language of North Macedonia, a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia and spoken by a significant number of speakers in Australia, Germany and the United States among others.

Along with other Slavic languages, Macedonian is a descendant of Old Church Slavonic. Standard Macedonian was implemented as the official language of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1945^[8] and has since developed a modern literature. Most of the codification was formalized during the same period.^[9] All South Slavic languages, including Macedonian, form a dialect continuum. The naming, classification and acknowledgement of the language as a separate entity are a source of dispute between Macedonian, Greek and Bulgarian linguists, scholars and historians.

Classification and related languages

The modern Macedonian language 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 classify to this group also the Torlakian dialects. Macedonian's closest relative is Bulgarian^[10] followed by Serbo-Croatian. It has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with these languages.

Language contact between Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian reached its height during Yugoslav times when most Macedonians learned Serbo-Croatian as a compulsory language of education and knew and used a mixture of Serbian and Macedonian Serbian, or "pseudo-Serbian."^[11] All South Slavic languages, including Macedonian, form a dialect continuum.^[12]^[13] Macedonian, along with Bulgarian and Torlakian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund, a group of languages that share typological, grammatical and lexical features based on geographical convergence, rather than genetic proximity. Other principal languages in this continuum are Romanian, Greek and Albanian, all of which belong to different genetic branches of the Indo-European family.

Macedonian and Bulgarian are sharply divergent from the remaining South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene,^[14] and indeed all other Slavic languages, in that they do not use noun cases (except for the vocative, and apart from some traces of once productive inflections still found scattered throughout the languages) and have lost the infinitive. 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^[15] have a set of three based on an external frame of reference: unspecified, proximal and distal definite article). Bulgarian and Macedonian are the only Indo-European languages that make use of the narrative mood.^[16]

Geographical distribution

The population of the Republic of Macedonia was 2,022,547 in 2002, with 1,644,815 speaking Macedonian as their native language.^[17] Outside the Republic, there are Macedonians living in other parts of the geographical area of Macedonia. There are ethnic Macedonian minorities in neighbouring Albania, in Bulgaria, in Greece, and in Serbia. According to the official Albanian census of 1989, 4,697 ethnic Macedonians reside in Albania.^[18]

A large number of Macedonians live outside the traditional Balkan Macedonian region, with Australia, Canada, and the United States having the largest emigrant communities. According to a 1964 estimate, approximately 580,000 Macedonians live outside the Macedonian Republic,^[19] nearly 30% of the total population. The Macedonian language has the status of official language only in the Republic of Macedonia, and is a recognized minority and official language in parts of Albania (Pustec),^[20]^[21]^[22] Romania, and Serbia (Jabuka and Plandište). There are provisions for learning the Macedonian language in Romania as Macedonians are an officially recognized minority group. Macedonian is taught in some universities in Australia, Canada, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

Greece

The varieties spoken by the Slavophone minority in parts of northern Greece, especially those in the Greek provinces of Western and Central Macedonia, are today usually classified as part of the Macedonian language, with those in Eastern Macedonia being transitional towards Bulgarian.^[23] However, the codification of standard Macedonian has been in effect only in the Republic of Macedonia, and the Slavonic dialects spoken in Greece are thus practically "roofless",^[24] with their speakers having little access to standard or written Macedonian.

The exact number of speakers in Greece is difficult to ascertain, with estimates ranging between 20,000 and 250,000.^[25]^[26] Jacques Bacid estimates in his 1983 book that "over 200,000 Macedonian speakers remained in Greece".^[27] Other sources put the numbers of speakers at 180,000^[28]^[29] 220,000^[30] and 250,000, whereas Yugoslav sources vary, some putting the estimated number of "Macedonians in Greek Macedonia" at 150,000–200,000 and others at 300,000.^[31] The Encyclopædia Britannica^[32] and the Reader's Digest World Guide both put the figure of ethnic Macedonians in Greece at 1.8% or c.200,000 people, with the native language roughly corresponding with the figures.^{[citation needed]} The UCLA also states that there are 200,000 Macedonian speakers in Greece.^[33]^[34] A 2008 article in the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia put the estimate at 20,000.^[35]

The largest group of speakers are concentrated in the Florina, Kastoria, Edessa, Giannitsa, Ptolemaida and Naousa regions. During the Greek Civil War, the codified Macedonian language was taught in 87 schools with 10,000 students in areas of northern Greece under the control of Communist-led forces, until their defeat by the National Army in 1949.^[36] In recent years, there have been attempts to have the language recognized as a minority language.^[37]

Usage

The total number of Macedonian speakers is highly disputed. Although the precise number of speakers is unknown, figures of between 1.6 million (from Ethnologue) and 2–2.5 million have been cited; see Topolinjska (1998) and Friedman (1985). The general academic consensus^{[citation needed]} is that there are approximately 2 million speakers of the Macedonian language, accepting that "it is difficult to determine the total number of speakers of Macedonian due to the official policies of the neighbouring Balkan states and the fluid nature of emigration" Friedman (1985:?). According to the censuses and figures, the number of speakers of Macedonian is:

State	Number
State	Census data	Lower range	Higher range
North Macedonia	1,344,815^[38]	1,344,815^[38]	2,022,547^[39]
Albania	4,443^[40]	4,443^[40]	30,000^[41]
Bulgaria	1,404^[42]	1,404^[43]
Greece		35,000^[25]
Serbia	12,706^[44]	12,706^[44]
Rest of the Balkans		15,807^[45]^[46]^[47]^[48]	25,000
Canada	18,440^[49]	18,440^[49]
Australia	72,000^[50]	72,000^[50]
Germany		62,295^[51]
Italy		50,000^[52]
United States		45,000^[53]
Switzerland		6,415^[54]	60,116
Rest of world		101,600^[55]
Total		1,710,670^[2]

Dialects

Based on a large group of features, Macedonian dialects can be divided into Eastern and Western groups (the boundary runs approximately from Skopje and Skopska Crna Gora along the rivers Vardar and Crna). In addition, a more detailed classification can be based on the modern reflexes of the Proto-Slavic reduced vowels (yers), vocalic sonorants, and the back nasal *ǫ. That classification distinguishes between the following 5 groups:^[57]

Western Dialects:

Eastern Dialects:

Northern Group
Eastern Group

Phonology

This discusses the phonological system of Standard Macedonian (unless otherwise noted) based on the Prilep-Bitola dialect. For discussion of other dialects, see Macedonian dialects. Macedonian possesses five vowels, one semivowel, three liquid consonants, three nasal stops, three pairs of fricatives, two pairs of affricates, a non-paired voiceless fricative, nine pairs of voiced and unvoiced consonants and four pairs of stops. 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.^[58]

Vowels

The Macedonian language contains 5 vowels. For the pronunciation of 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 in a slightly weaker and shorter manner than stressed ones, especially if they are found in a stressed syllable.^[59]^[60] The five vowels as well as the letter r when found between two consonants, can be syllable-forming.^[61]

The schwa is phonemic in many dialects (varying in closeness to [ʌ] or [ɨ]) but its use in the standard language is marginal.^[62] When writing a dialectal word and keeping the schwa for aesthetic effect, an apostrophe is used; for example, ⟨к’смет⟩, ⟨с’нце⟩, etc. When spelling aloud, each consonant is followed by the schwa. The individual letters of acronyms 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 disyllablic words with stress on the penult 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).^[61] Vowels in Macedonian can be classified as follows:

Vowels^[62]^[63]
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	ɛ	(ə)	ɔ
Open		a

Consonants

Map of the use of the intervocalic phoneme kj in the Macedonian language (1962)

Map of the use of the intervocalic phoneme gj in the Macedonian language (1962)

Consonants^[64]^[65]
		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n̪^¹		ɲ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪		c	k
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪		ɟ	ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		t̪͡s̪		t͡ʃ
Affricate	voiced		d̪͡z̪		d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s̪		ʃ	x
Fricative	voiced	v	z̪		ʒ
Approximant			ɫ̪^¹	lʲ	j
Trill				r^¹

^1 The alveolar trill (/r/) is syllabic 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.

The labiodental nasal [ɱ] occurs as an allophone of /m/ before /f/ and /v/ (e.g. ⟨трамвај⟩ [ˈtraɱvaj] 'tram'). The velar nasal [ŋ] similarly occur as an allophone of /n/ before /k/ and /ɡ/ (e.g. ⟨англиски⟩ [ˈaŋɡliski] 'English'). The latter realization is avoided by some speakers who strive for a clear, formal pronunciation.

Phonological processes

At morpheme boundaries (represented in spelling) and at the end of a word (not represented in spelling), voicing opposition is neutralized.

Stress

The word stress in Macedonian is antepenultimate, meaning it falls on the third from last syllable in words with three or more syllables, and on the first or only syllable in other words. This is sometimes disregarded when the word has entered the language more recently or from a foreign source. The following rules apply:

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

For example, ⟨дете⟩ [ˈdɛtɛ] 'child', ⟨мајка⟩ [ˈmajka] 'mother' and ⟨татко⟩ [ˈtatkɔ] 'father'.

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

For example, ⟨планина⟩ [ˈpɫanina] 'mountain', ⟨планината⟩ [pɫaˈninata] 'the mountain' and ⟨планинарите⟩ [pɫaniˈnaritɛ] 'the mountaineers'.

Exceptions include:

Verbal adverbs (i.e. words suffixed with ⟨-ќи⟩): e.g. ⟨викајќи⟩ [viˈkajci] 'shouting', ⟨одејќи⟩ [ɔˈdɛjci] 'walking'.
Foreign loanwords: e.g. ⟨клише⟩ [kliˈʃɛ] 'cliché', ⟨генеза⟩ [ɡɛˈnɛza] 'genesis', ⟨литература⟩ [litɛraˈtura] 'literature', ⟨Александар⟩ [alɛkˈsandar], 'Alexander' (Possibly based on hellenised variations of indigenous Bryges and/or Enchele naming conventions), etc.

Grammar

Macedonian grammar is markedly analytic in comparison with other Slavic languages, having lost the common Slavic case system. The Macedonian language shows some special and, in some cases, unique characteristics due to its central position in the Balkans. Literary Macedonian is the only South Slavic literary language that has three forms of the definite article, based on the degree of proximity to the speaker, and a perfect tense formed by means of an auxiliary verb "to have", followed by a past participle in the neuter, also known as the verbal adjective.

Nouns

Macedonian nouns (именки, imenki) 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.^[66] The Macedonian nominal system distinguishes two numbers (singular and plural), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), case and definiteness. Definiteness is expressed by three definite articles pertaining to the position of the object (unspecified, proximate, and distal), which are suffixed to the noun.

The definite articles
	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Unspecified	−ot (−от)	−ta (−та)	−to (−то)	−te (−те)		−ta (−та)
Proximate	−ov (−ов)	−va (−ва)	−vo (−во)	−ve (−ве)		−va (−ва)
Distal	−on (−он)	−na (−на)	−no (−но)	−ne (−не)		−na (−на)

Verbs

Macedonian has a complex system of verbs. Generally speaking Macedonian verbs have the following characteristics, or categories as they are called in Macedonistics: tense, mood, person, type, transitiveness, voice, gender and number.

According to the categorization, all Macedonian verbs are divided into three major groups: a-group, e-group and i-group. Furthermore, the i-subgroup is divided into three more subgroups: a-, e- and i-subgroups. This division is done according to the ending (or the last vowel) of the verb in the simple present, singular, third person.^[67]^{[full citation needed]} Regarding the form, the verb forms can be either simple or complex.

The Macedonian simple verb forms are:

Present tense (сегашно време)
Imperfect (минато определено несвршено време, 'past definite incomplete tense')
Aorist (минато определено свршено време, 'past definite complete tense')
Imperative (заповеден начин)
Verbal l-form (глаголска л-форма)
Verbal adjective (глаголска придавка)
Verbal noun (глаголска именка)
Verbal adverb (глаголски прилог)

The Macedonian complex verb forms are:

Perfect of imperfective verbs (минато неопределено несвршено време, 'past indefinite incomplete tense')
Perfect of perfective verbs ( минато неопределено свршено време, 'past indefinite complete tense')
Past perfect tense (предминато време)
Future tense (идно време)
Future-in-the-past (минато-идно време)
Future perfect tense (идно прекажано)
Potential mood (можен начин)
Have-construction (има-конструкција)
Be-construction (сум-конструкција)
To-construction (да-конструкција)

Prepositions

Prepositions (предлози, predlozi) are part of the closed word class that are used to express the relationship between the words in a sentence. Because Macedonian lost its case system, the prepositions are very important for creation and expression of various grammatical categories. The most important Macedonian preposition is 'na' ('of', 'on', 'to'). Regarding the form, the prepositions can either be simple or complex. Based on the meaning the preposition express, they can be divided into prepositions of time, place, manner and quantity.^[67]^[68]

Vocabulary

As a result of the close relationship with Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian shares a considerable amount of its lexicon with these languages. Other languages that have been in positions of power, such as 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.

During the standardization process, there was deliberate care taken to try to purify the lexicon of the language. Serbianisms and Bulgarianisms, which had become common due to the influence of these languages in the region were rejected in favor of words from native dialects and archaisms. One example was the word for "event", настан [ˈnastan], which was found in certain examples of folk poetry collected by the Miladinov Brothers in the 19th century, whereas the Macedonian writer Krste Misirkov had previously used the word собитие [sɔˈbitiɛ], a Russian loanword (событие).^[69] This is not to say that there are no Serbianisms, Bulgarianisms or even Russianisms in the language, but rather that they were discouraged on a principle of "seeking native material first".^[70]

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 are substituted with native words or calqued using productive morphemes.^[71] Thus, the now slightly archaicized forms with suffixes –ние and –тел, adjectives with the suffixes –телен and others, are now constructed following patterns more typical of Macedonian morphology. For example, дејствие (Russ. действие) corresponds to дејство 'action', лицемерие (Russ. лицемерие) → лицемерство 'hypocrisy', развитие (Russ. развитие) → развиток 'development', определение (Russ. определение) → определба 'determination, orientation', движение (Russ. движение) → движење 'movement', продолжител (Russ. продолжитель) → продолжувач 'extender, continuator', победител (Russ. победитель) → победник 'winner, victor', убедителен (Russ. убедительный) → убедлив 'convincing, persuasive', etc.^[71] Many of these words are now obsolete or archaic (as with развитие), synonymous (лицемерие and лицемерство) or have taken on a slightly different nuance in meaning (дејствие 'military act' vs. дејство 'act, action' in a general sense).

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.^[72]

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.^[71] 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.^[71]

Writing system

Alphabet

During the Middle Ages, on the territory of current-day North Macedonia, Old Slavonic and Old Church Slavonic alphabets Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts were used (X—XIII century). Afterwards, only Church Slavonic was used, and its different variants were widespread through the Macedonian Slavic people until the XIX century. In the XIX and first half of XX century, Macedonian writers started writing texts in their own Macedonian dialects using Bulgarian and Serbian Cyrillic scripts. In South Macedonia, the Greek alphabet was also widespread and used by Macedonian writers who finished their education at Greek schools.^[73] The period between the two World Wars saw the usage of the alphabets of the surrounding countries depending on where the writers came from. During that period, the typewriter available to writers was also a determining factor for which alphabet would be used.^[74]

The official Macedonian alphabet was codified on 5 May 1945 by the Presidium of the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia headed by Blaže Koneski.^[75] There are several letters that are specific for the Macedonian Cyrillic script, namely ѓ, ќ, ѕ, џ, љ and њ,^[76] with the last three letters being borrowed from the Serbo-Croatian phonetic alphabet adapted by Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, while the grapheme ѕ has an equivalent in the Church Slavonic alphabet.^[77] Letters љ and њ were previously used by Macedonian writer Krste Petkov Misirkov written as л' and н'.^[75] The Macedonian alphabet also uses the apostrophe sign (') as a sound. It is used to describe the syllable forming /р˳/ , at the beginning of the word ('рж - rye, 'рбет - spine) and to show the phoneme ə. А diacritical sign (`) is used only over three vowels in orthography: ѝ - her, different from и - and, нè - us, different from не - no and сè - everything different from сe - reflexive form of reflexive verbs ^[78]. 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/	Љ љ /l/	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

Macedonian orthography is consistent and phonemic in practice, an approximation of the principle of one grapheme per phoneme. A principle represented by Adelung's saying, "write as you speak and read as it is written" ("пишувај како што зборуваш и читај како што е напишано"). However, there are occasional inconsistencies or exceptions.

Examples

The Lord's Prayer

Оче наш (Cyrillic alphabet)

Оче наш, кој си на небесата,

да се свети името Твое,

да дојде царството Твое,

да биде волјата Твоја,

како на небото, така и на земјата;

лебот наш насушен дај ни го денес

и прости ни ги долговите наши

како и ние што им ги проштеваме на нашите должници;

и не нѐ воведувај во искушение,

но избави нѐ од лукавиот.

Зашто Твое е Царството и Силата и Славата, во вечни векови.

Амин!

Oče naš (Latinic version)

Oče naš, koj si na nebesata

da se sveti imeto Tvoe,

da dojde carstvoto Tvoe,

da bide voljata Tvoja,

kako na neboto, taka i na zemjata;

lebot naš nasušen daj ni go denes

i prosti ni gi dolgovite naši

kako i nie što im gi proštevame na našite dolžnici

I ne nè voveduvaj vo iskušenie,

no izbavi nè od lukaviot.

Zašto Tvoe e Carstvoto i Silata i Slavata, vo večni vekovi.

Amin!

Political views on the language

Politicians, linguists and common people from North Macedonia and neighbouring countries have opposing views about the existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language. Through history, linguists and historians have referred to it as a variant of Bulgarian^[79] and Serbian^[80] depending on the socio-political and historical context. The current academic consensus outside of Bulgaria is that Macedonian is an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum.^[81]

In many Bulgarian and international sources before the Second World War, the southern Slavonic dialect continuum covering the area of today's North Macedonia and Northern Greece was referred to as a group of Bulgarian dialects. The local variants of the name of the language were also balgàrtzki, bùgarski or bugàrski; i.e. Bulgarian.^[82] Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian.^[3] However, after years of diplomatic impasse caused by an academic dispute, in 1999 the government in Sofia solved the problem of the Macedonian language by signing a Joint Declaration in the official languages of the two countries.^[83] Disputes regarding the language and its origins are ongoing in academic and political circles in the countries.

The term "Macedonian" as a name for the Slavic language is often avoided in the Greek context, and vehemently rejected by most Greeks, for whom Macedonian has very different connotations. Instead, the language is often called simply "Slavic" or "Slavomacedonian", with "Macedonian Slavic" often being used in English. Speakers themselves variously refer to their language as makedonski, makedoniski ("Macedonian"),^[84] slaviká (Greek: σλαβικά, "Slavic"), dópia or entópia (Greek: εντόπια, "local/indigenous [language]"),^[85] balgàrtzki in some parts of the region of Kastoria, bògartski ("Bulgarian") in some parts of Dolna Prespa^[86] along with naši ("our own") and stariski ("old").^[87] In Kastoria, however, the name "Macedonian" is used as well by the local people.^[88]

References

^ "Macedonian language". Britannica.com. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ ^a ^b "Ethnologue report for Macedonian". Ethnologue.com. 19 February 1999. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ Although the precise number of speakers is unknown, figures of between 1.4 million in 2011 (Ethnologue mkd) and 2.5 million (Topolinjska (1998)) have been cited. The general academic consensus is that there are approximately 2 million speakers of the Macedonian language, accepting that "it is difficult to determine the total number of speakers of Macedonian due to the official policies of the neighbouring Balkan states and the fluid nature of emigration." Friedman (1985:?).
^ "Reservations and Declarations for Treaty No.148 – European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages". Council of Europe. Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
^ "European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages". Conventions.coe.int. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ "Македонскиот јазик службен во војводинска општина". 16 October 2009. Archived from the original on 16 October 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ "Geopolitical Intelligence, Strategic Intelligence, Diplomacy News, World Affairs & Geopolitics". Retrieved 1 June 2016.^{[dead link]}
^ "МИА – Македонска Информативна Агенција – НА ДЕНЕШЕН ДЕН" (PDF). Mia.com.mk. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
^ Gilbert, G.; Gilbert, Glenn G.; Fuller, Janet M.; Thornburg, Linda L.; Lang, Peter (2006). Studies in contact linguistics. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-8204-7934-7. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ Levinson & O'Leary (1992:239)
^ Kortmann, Bernd; van der Auwera, Johan (27 July 2011). Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide. p. 420. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ N. Dedaić, Mirjana; Mišković-Luković, Mirjana (2010). South Slavic Discourse Particles. Pragmatics & Beyond New Series. doi:10.1075/pbns.197.
^ The Languages and Linguistics of Europe: A Comprehensive Guide. 27 July 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ Fortson, Benjamin W. (31 August 2009). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction Blackwell textbooks in linguistics. John Wiley and Sons. p. 431. ISBN 1-4051-8896-0. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ Scatton, Ernest A. (1993). Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville G. (eds.). The Slavonic Languages. London: Routledge. p. 245.
^ Campbell, George L. (2000). Compendium of the World's Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 274, 1031.
^ Popis na Naselenie, Domaćinstva i Stanovi vo Republika Makedonija, 2002 – Vkupno naselenie na Republika Makedonija spored majčin jazik.
^ Artan & Gurraj (2001:219)
^ Topolinjska (1998:?)
^ Naumovski, Jaklina (25 January 2014). "Minorités en Albanie : les Macédoniens craignent la réorganisation territoriale du pays". Balkan Courriers. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
^ “ON THE STATUS OF THE MINORITIES IN THE REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA”, Albanian Helsinki Committee with support of the Finnish Foundation ‘KIOS’ and “Finnish NGO Foundation for Human Rights”. Hosted at SEE developed by the Applied Research and Communications Fund in Sofia (www.arc.online.bg) under a two-year project sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development USAID.
^ Minority Rights in Albania Archived 2007-11-17 at the Wayback Machine, page 3 - Albanian Helsinki Committee, September 1999
^ Schmieger, R. 1998. "The situation of the Macedonian language in Greece: sociolinguistic analysis", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131, 125–55.; Friedman (2001).
^ Trudgill, P. (2000). "Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity". In Barbour, Stephen; Carmichael, Cathie (eds.). Language and Nationalism in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 259. ISBN 0-19-823671-9.
^ ^a ^b Michel Candelier, ed. ; Ana-Isabel Andrade ... (2004), Janua Linguarum — The Gateway to Language, Council of Europe, ISBN 92-871-5312-4{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link), See Page 90,"Full Document" (PDF). Archived from the original on 25 June 2010. Retrieved 8 September 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ Poulton, Hugh (1997), Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation, McFarland, p. 193, ISBN 0-7864-0228-8
^ Jacques Bacid, Ph.D. Macedonia Through the Ages. Columbia University, 1983.
^ "GeoNative – Macedonia". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 7 August 2014.^{[unreliable source?]}
^ Danforth, L. M. (1995). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press.
^ Hill, P. (1999). "Macedonians in Greece and Albania: A Comparative study of recent developments". Nationalities Papers. 27 (1): 17–30. doi:10.1080/009059999109163.
^ Poulton, H. (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. p. 167.
^ "Greece" (PDF). britannica.com.
^ Project, UCLA Language Materials (31 December 1600). "Profile of". Archived from the original on 9 February 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2006.
^ "UCLA Language Materials Project: Language Profile". Lmp.ucla.edu. 23 June 2014. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ Eleftherotypia article Archived 2012-01-14 at the Wayback Machine
^ Simpson, Neil (1994), Macedonia Its Disputed History, Victoria: Aristoc Press, pp. 101, 102 & 91, ISBN 0-646-20462-9
^ "Report of the independent expert on minority issues, Gay McDougall Mission to Greece 8–16 September 2008" (PDF). Greek Helsinki Monitor. United Nations Human Rights Council. 18 February 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 June 2011.
^ ^a ^b "2002 Census – Mother tongue (p. 197)" (PDF). Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ "2002 Census – Total population (p. 22)" (PDF). Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ ^a ^b "2011 Census – 1.1.15 Resident population by mother tongue". Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
^ "4.2.5 Language issues and policies" (PDF). Culturalpolicies.net. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
^ "2011 Census – Mother tongue". Censusresults.nsi.bg. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ "Bulgarian 2011 census". www.nsi.bg. Archived from the original on 8 December 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
^ ^a ^b "2011 Census – Mother tongue". Archived from the original on 23 October 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
^ "Population by Ethnicity, by Towns/Municipalities, 2011 Census". Census of Population, Households and Dwellings 2011. Zagreb: Croatian Bureau of Statistics. December 2012.
^ "2005 census" (PDF) (in German). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ 2003 Census^{[dead link]}
^ "Statistični urad RS – Popis 2002". Stat.si. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ ^a ^b "2006 Census – Language spoken most often at home". 2.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ ^a ^b "2001 Census – People who spoke a language other than English at home". Abs.gov.au. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ "Estimate from the Macedonian MFA". Archived from the original on 30 May 2008. Retrieved 27 October 2005.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ "American FactFinder". Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ "2000 Swiss government statistics – Population by National Languages" (PDF). Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ "Estimate from the MFA". Archived from the original on 30 May 2008. Retrieved 27 October 2005.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ After Z. Topolińska and B. Vidoeski (1984), Polski-macedonski gramatyka konfrontatiwna, z.1, PAN.
^ Comrie & Corbett (2002:247)
^ Istoričeskaja tipologija slavjanskih jazykov (Kiev, 1986)
^ Friedman 1993, p. 252.
^ Friedman V. A.) (2001). "Macedonian. Phonology. Phonemic Inventory and Phonotactics. Vowels". Duke University. Slavic and Eurasian Language Resource Center. pp. P. 10. {{cite web}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |description= (help)
^ ^a ^b Usikova 2005, p. 111.
^ ^a ^b Friedman (2001:10) harvcoltxt error: multiple targets (4×): CITEREFFriedman2001 (help)
^ Lunt (1952:10–11) harvcoltxt error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLunt1952 (help)
^ Friedman (2001:11) harvcoltxt error: multiple targets (4×): CITEREFFriedman2001 (help)
^ Lunt (1952:11–12) harvcoltxt error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLunt1952 (help)
^ Friedman, Victor (2001). "Macedonian". Slavic and Eurasian Language Resource Center (SEELRC), Duke University. p. 40. Archived from the original on 28 July 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
^ ^a ^b Бојковска, Стојка; Лилјана Минова; Ѓуркова, Димитар Пандев; Живко Цветковски (December 2008). Саветка Димитрова (ed.). Општа граматика на македонскиот јазик [General Grammar of the Macedonian language]. Скопје: АД Просветно Дело. ISBN 9789989006623.
^ Кепески, К. (1946), Македонска граматика, Скопје, Државно книгоиздавателство на Македонија.
^ In his most famous work "On the Macedonian Matters" (available online Archived 2014-12-20 at the Wayback Machine), Misirkov uses the word собитие (a Russian loan taken from Bulgarian) where настан is used today.
^ Friedman (1998:?)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d 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)
^ Friedman, V. (1998) "The implementation of standard Macedonian: problems and results" in International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Vol. 131, pp. 31–57, p. 8
^ Usikova 2005, p. 105.
^ E. Kramer, Christina (January 2015). "Macedonian orthographic controversies". Written Language & Literacy. 18 (2): 287–308. doi:10.1075/wll.18.2.07kra.
^ ^a ^b "Со решение на АСНОМ: 72 години од усвојувањето на македонската азбука". Javno (in Macedonian). 5 May 2017. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
^ Usikova 2005, p. 105—106.
^ Friedman 1993, p. 251.
^ Usikova 2005, p. 106.
^ Institute of Bulgarian Language (1978), Единството на българския език в миналото и днес (in Bulgarian), Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, p. 4, OCLC 6430481
^ Bernard Comrie. The Slavonic Languages, p.251 (Routledge, 1993)
^ Trudgill (1992:?)
^ Шклифов, Благой and Екатерина Шклифова, Български деалектни текстове от Егейска Македония, София 2003, с. 28–33 (Shklifov, Blagoy and Ekaterina Shklifova. Bulgarian dialect texts from Aegean Macedonia Sofia 2003, p. 28–36)
^ "1999/02/22 23:50 Bulgaria Recognises Macedonian Language". Aimpress.ch. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
^ Lois Whitman (1994): Denying ethnic identity: The Macedonians of Greece Helsinki Human Rights Watch. p.39 [1] at Google Books
^ "Greek Helsinki Monitor – Report about Compliance with the Principles of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities". Archived from the original on 23 May 2003. Retrieved 12 January 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ Шклифов, Благой and Екатерина Шклифова, Български диалектни текстове от Егейска Македония, София 2003, с. 28–36, 172 – Shkifov, Blagoy and Ekaterina Shklifova. Bulgarian dialect texts from Aegean Macedonia, Sofia 2003, p. 28-36, 172
^ Lois Whitman (1994): Denying ethnic identity: The Macedonians of Greece Helsinki Human Rights Watch. p.37 [2] at Google Books
^ Danforth, Loring M. The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. p. 62. Retrieved 7 August 2014.

Bibliography

Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville (2002), "The Macedonian language", The Slavonic Languages, New York: Routledge Publications
Dostál, Antonín (1965), "The Origins of the Slavonic Liturgy", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 19, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University: 67–87, doi:10.2307/1291226, JSTOR 1291226
Hill, P. (1999), "Macedonians in Greece and Albania: A comparative study of recent developments", Nationalities Papers, 27 (1): 17, doi:10.1080/009059999109163
Friedman, Victor (2001), "Macedonian", in Garry, Jane; Rubino, Carl (eds.), Facts about the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the Worlds Major Languages, Past and Present, New York: Holt, pp. 435–439
Friedman, Victor (1998), "The implementation of standard Macedonian: problems and results", International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 131: 31–57, doi:10.1515/ijsl.1998.131.31
Hoxha, Artan; Gurraj, Alma (2001), "Local self-government and decentralization: case of Albania. History, reforms and challenges.", Local Self Government and Decentralization in South-East Europe:Proceedings of the Workshop held in Zagreb, 6th April 2001 (PDF), pp. 194–224, archived from the original (PDF) on 25 October 2012
Levinson, David; O'Leary, Timothy (1992), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, G.K. Hall, p. 239, ISBN 0-8161-1808-6
Lunt, Horace G. (1952), Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, Skopje{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Mahon, Milena (1998), "The Macedonian question in Bulgaria", Nations and Nationalism, 4 (3): 389–407, doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.1998.00389.x
Poulton, Hugh (2000), Who Are the Macedonians?, United Kingdom: C. Hurst & Co. Ltd., ISBN 0-253-34598-7
Seriot, Patrick (1997), "Faut-il que les langues aient un nom? Le cas du macédonien", in Tabouret-Keller, Andrée (ed.), Le nom des langues. L'enjeu de la nomination des langues, vol. 1, Louvain: Peeters, pp. 167–190, archived from the 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
Trudgill, Peter (1992), "Ausbau sociolinguistics and the perception of language status in contemporary Europe", International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2 (2): 167–177, doi:10.1111/j.1473-4192.1992.tb00031.x
Usikova, Rina Pavlovna (1994), О языковой ситуации в Республике Македонии (in Russian), Moscow: Nauka, pp. 221–231, ISBN 5-02-011187-2
Bojkovska, Stojka (2008), Grammar of the Macedonian language, Skopje: Prosvetno Delo
Friedman, Victor (2001), "Macedonian", in Garry, Jane; Rubino, Carl (eds.), Facts about the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the Worlds Major Languages, Past and Present, New York: Holt, pp. 435–439
Friedman, Victor (2001), Macedonian, SEELRC
Lunt, Horace G. (1952), Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, Skopje{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Macedonian language (македонски јазик)
Features	Grammar Conjugation Pronouns Numerals Phonology Lexicon Onomastics Month names Orthography Braille Romanization History Literature Macedonian writers Standard and Spoken Macedonian
Dialects	Geographical distribution in Greece Northern Southeastern Western
Other topics	Macedonian studies Bible translations Macedonian Sign Language Macedonian kinship Naming dispute Political views Regulatory body

Languages of North Macedonia
Official language	Macedonian Albanian
Minority languages	Aromanian Bosnian Megleno-Romanian Romani Serbian Turkish
Sign languages	Macedonian Sign Language

Languages of Albania
Official language	Albanian (Tosk - Gheg)
Minority languages	Aromanian Bulgarian Greek Himariote Macedonian Vlax Romani Serbo-Croatian
Sign languages	Albanian Sign Language