Macedonian language
South Slavic language
Macedonian (македонски јазик, makedonski jazik) is a Slavic language spoken mainly in North Macedonia. Macedonian is a part of the Balkan linguistic union, which also includes Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian and Torlakian dialect of the Serbian language. Macedonian is very similar to Bulgarian and some linguists say it is a dialect of Bulgarian.
| Macedonian | |
|---|---|
| Македонски јазик Makedonski jazik | |
| Pronunciation | [maˈkɛdɔnski] |
| Native to | Republic of North Macedonia, Greece, Australia, Serbia, Albania, Germany, France, Italy, United States, Canada Turkey |
| Region | The Balkans |
Native speakers | 1.6[1] - 3 million[2] |
Indo-European
| |
| Cyrillic (Macedonian variant) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | North Macedonia recognised as minority language in parts of:  Albania[3] |
| 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 |
 Countries with significant Macedonian-speaking populations | |
PhonologyEdit
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | и /i/ | у /u/ | |
| Mid | е /ɛ/ | о /ɔ/ | |
| Open | а /a/ |
| Bilabial | Labio- Dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | c | ɟ | k | g | ||||||
| Affricate | ts | dz | tʃ | dʒ | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | x | |||||||
| Approximant | j | |||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||
| Lateral | ɫ | l | ||||||||||||
AlphabetEdit
The Macedonian language uses a Cyrillic alphabet. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Macedonian alphabet, along with the IPA value for each letter:
| CyrillicIPA | 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
/dz/ |
И и/i/ |
| CyrillicIPA | Ј ј/j/ | К к/k/ | Л л/l/ | Љ љ/lj/ | М м/m/ | Н н/n/ | Њ њ/ɲ/ | О о/ɔ/ | П п/p/ | Р р/r/ | С с/s/ |
| CyrillicIPA | Т т/t/ | Ќ ќ
/c/ |
У у/u/ | Ф ф/f/ | Х х
/x/ |
Ц ц/ts/ | Ч ч/tʃ/ | Џ џ/dʒ/ | Ш ш/ʃ/ |
ReferencesEdit
- ↑ 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 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:?).
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Hill (1999:?)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lunt (1952:1)
Other websitesEdit
- Ethnologue report for Macedonian
- Digital Dictionary of the Macedonian Language
- The Macedonian Language
- Macedonian e-learning Courses
- Websters Online, Macedonian — English Dictionary Archived 2009-11-18 at the Wayback Machine
- BBC Education, Languages: Macedonian, Makedonski
- University of North Carolina, Reading and Pronouncing Macedonian: An Interactive Tutorial
- Victor Friedman, A grammar of Macedonian
- Mladen Srbinovski, Nature of Standard Macedonian language
