The Macedonian language is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia. It’s an Indo-European language, being classified within the Slavic languages as a South-East Slavic language. The issue of the autonomous nationality and language of Macedonia are still quite disputable. Still, one indisputable fact is that the closest relative of Macedonian is Bulgarian, and both are mutually intelligible. Macedonian is spoken by two million people in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia and emigrant communities around the world.
Origins
The Macedonian language belongs to the Indo-European linguistic family. It’s part of the South-East Slavic languages. Macedonian forms the Balkan linguistic group together with Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Albanian, though only Serbian and Bulgarian are Slavic. Macedonian shares the same dialect continuum with Bulgarian. They are the only Slavic languages with no case system, for example. Macedonian has suffered the impact of Serbian and Greek, though it remains historically derived from Bulgarian.
Official Language
Macedonian is the official language of Macedonia. It’s spoken by about 2 million people in Macedonia and in ethnic Macedonian groups in neighbouring countries and various emigrant communities.
Varieties
Macedonian dialects can be grouped into the following units: Ohrid, Debar, Prolog, Kostur and Eastern. They have slight differences between them, and share features of influence either from Serbian, Bulgarian or Greek, but remain mutually intelligible.
Brief History
The Macedonian language traces its origins to Old Church Slavic, like all Slavic languages. It has for long centuries existed within the same dialect continuum with Bulgarian, and therefore shares the same historical traces.
In the formation of both Bulgarian and Macedonian, the strong influence of Proto-Bulgarian, Thracian and Greek has to be taken into consideration. As Bulgaria was the first country to adopt the Cyrillic alphabet, the region of Macedonia was first in the process as well – at that time, it was still inside the national borders of the Kingdom of Bulgaria.
The establishment of the Ottoman Empire on the Balkan Peninsula played a key role in the development of nationalities and languages. Macedonia, which was before the times of the Ottoman Empire mainly part of Bulgaria, tried to preserve its origins.
The liberation of Bulgaria and the Treaty of Berlin at the end of the 19th Century separated Macedonia from Bulgaria. It stayed that way for several years, with failed rebellions outside its national borders until there was finally a split between Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
After the split from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria was again the first to recognise the state of Macedonia, though Bulgarians cannot agree that Macedonian is a separate language, and Macedonia has a separate history.
Did you know?
Macedonian derived from Bulgarian under the influence of Serbian and Greek, due to historical factors.
Despite the ambitions of the Bulgarian populations to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian nationality and language, Bulgaria was the first state to officially recognise the newly established Macedonian state after the collapse of Federal Yugoslavia.