Eastern South Slavic | |
---|---|
Geographic distribution | Central and Eastern Balkans |
Linguistic classification | Indo-European
|
Subdivisions | |
Glottolog | east2269 |
The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which encompasses the southeastern part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic.
Eastern South Slavic dialects share a number of characteristics that set them apart from the other branch of the South Slavic languages, the Western South Slavic languages. The Eastern South Slavic group consists of Bulgarian and Macedonian, and according to some authors encompasses the southeastern dialect of Serbian, the so-called Prizren-Timok dialect. [7] The last is part of the broader transitional Torlakian dialectal area. The Balkan Slavic area is also part of the Balkan Sprachbund. The external boundaries of the Balkan Slavic/Eastern South Slavic area can be defined with the help of some linguistic structural features. The most important of them include: the loss of the infinitive and case declension, and the use of enclitic definite articles. [8] In the Balkan Slavic languages, clitic doubling also occurs, which is a characteristic feature of all the languages of the Balkan Sprachbund. [9] The grammar of Balkan Slavic looks like a hybrid of "Slavic" and "Romance" grammars with some Albanian additions. [10] The Serbo-Croatian vocabulary in both Macedonian and Serbian-Torlakian is very similar, stemming from the border changes of 1878, 1913, and 1918, when these areas came under direct Serbian linguistic influence.
The external and internal boundaries of the linguistic sub-group between the transitional Torlakian dialect and Serbian and between Macedonian and Bulgarian languages are not clearly defined. For example, standard Serbian, which is based on its Western (Eastern Herzegovinian dialect), is very different from its Eastern (Prizren-Timok dialect), especially in its position in the Balkan Sprachbund. [11] During the 19th century, the Balkan Slavic dialects were often described as forming the Bulgarian language . [12] At the time, the areas east of Niš were considered under direct Bulgarian ethnolinguistic influence and in the middle of the 19th century, that motivated the Serb linguistic reformer Vuk Karadžić to use the Eastern Herzegovina dialects for his standardisation of Serbian. [13] Older Serbian scholars believed that the Yat border divides the Serbian and Bulgarian languages. [14] However, modern Serbian linguists such as Pavle Ivić have accepted that the main isoglosses bundle dividing Eastern and Western South Slavic runs from the mouth of the Timok river alongside Osogovo mountain and Sar Mountain. [15] In Bulgaria this isogloss is considered the eastern most border of the broader set of transitional Torlakian dialects.
In turn, Bulgarian linguists prior to World War II classified the Torlakian dialects or, in other words, all of Balkan Slavic as Bulgarian on the basis of their structural features, e.g., lack of case inflection, existence of a postpositive definite article and renarrative mood, use of clitics, preservation of final l, etc. [16] [17] [18] Individual researchers, such as Krste Misirkov, in one of his Bulgarian nationalist periods, and Benyo Tsonev have pushed the linguistic border even further west to include the Kosovo-Resava dialects or, in other words, all Serbian dialects having anlytical features. [19] [20] Both countries currently accept the state border prior to 1919 to also be the boundary between the two languages. [21]
Defining the boundary between Bulgarian and Macedonian is even trickier. During much of its history, the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum was simply referred to as "Bulgarian", [22] and Slavic speakers in Macedonia referred to their own language as balgàrtzki, bùgarski or bugàrski; i.e. Bulgarian. [23] However, Bulgarian was standardized at the end of the 19th century on the basis of its eastern Central Balkan dialect, while Macedonian was standardized in the middle of the 20th century using its west-central Prilep-Bitola dialect. Although some researchers still describe the standard Macedonian and Bulgarian languages as varieties of a pluricentric language, they have very different and remote dialectal bases. [24] [17]
According to Chambers and Trudgill, 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. [25] As for the Slavic dialects of Greece, Trudgill classifies the dialects in the east Greek Macedonia as part of the Bulgarian language area and the rest as Macedonian dialects. [26] Jouko Lindstedt opines that the dividing line between Macedonian and Bulgarian is defined by the linguistic identity of the speakers, i.e., the state border; [27] but has suggested the reflex of the back yer as a potential boundary if the application of purely linguistic criteria were possible. [28] [29] According to Riki van Boeschoten, the dialects in eastern Greek Macedonia (around Serres and Drama) are closest to Bulgarian, those in western Greek Macedonia (around Florina and Kastoria) are closest to Macedonian, while those in the centre (Edessa and Salonica) are intermediate between the two. [30] [31]
Some of the phenomena that distinguish western and eastern subgroups of the South Slavic people and languages can be explained by two separate migratory waves of different Slavic tribal groups of the future South Slavs via two routes: the west and east of the Carpathian Mountains. [32] The western Balkans was settled with Sclaveni , the eastern with Antes . [33] The early habitat of the Slavic tribes, that are said to have moved to Bulgaria, was described as being in present Ukraine and Belarus. The mythical homeland of the Serbs and Croats lies in the area of present day Bohemia, in the present-day Czech Republic and in Lesser Poland. In this way, the Balkans were settled by different groups of Slavs from different dialect areas. This is evidenced by some isoglosses of ancient origin, dividing the western and eastern parts of the South Slavic range.
The extinct Old Church Slavonic, which survives in a relatively small body of manuscripts, most of them written in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century, is also classified as Eastern South Slavic. The language has an Eastern South Slavic basis with small admixture of Western Slavic features, inherited during the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia during the 9th century. [34] New Church Slavonic represents a later stage of the Old Church Slavonic, and is its continuation through the liturgical tradition introduced by its precursor. Ivo Banac maintains that during the Middle Ages, Torlakian and Eastern Herzegovinian dialects were Eastern South Slavic, but since the 12th century, the Shtokavian dialects, including Eastern Herzegovinian, began to separate themselves from the other neighboring Eastern dialects, among them Torlakian. [35]
The specific contact mechanism in the Balkan Sprachbund, based on the high number of second Balkan language speakers there, is among the key factors that reduced the number of Slavic morphological categories in that linguistic area. [36] The Primary Chronicle, written ca. 1100, claims that then the Vlachs attacked the Slavs on the Danube and settled among them. Nearly at the same time are dated the first historical records about the emerging Albanians, as living in the area to the west of the Lake Ohrid. There are references in some Byzantine documents from that period to "Bulgaro-Albano-Vlachs" and even to "Serbo-Albano-Bulgaro-Vlachs". [37] As a consequence, case inflection, and some other characteristics of Slavic languages, were lost in Eastern South Slavic area, approximately between the 11th–16th centuries. Migratory waves were particularly strong in the 16th–19th century, bringing about large-scale linguistic and ethnic changes on the Central and Eastern Balkan South Slavic area. They reduced the number of Slavic-speakers and led to the additional settlement of Albanian and Vlach-speakers there.
The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire began to degrade its specific social system, and especially the so-called Rum millet, through constant identification of the religious creed with ethnicity. [38] The national awakening of each ethnic group was complex and most of the groups interacted with each other.
During the Bulgarian national revival, which occurred in the 19th century, the Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs under the supremacy of the Greek Orthodox clergy wanted to create their own Church and schools which would use a common modern "Macedono-Bulgarian" literary standard, called simply Bulgarian. [39] The national elites active in this movement used mainly ethnolinguistic principles to differentiation between "Slavic-Bulgarian" and "Greek" groups. [40] At that time, every ethnographic subgroup in the Macedonian-Bulgarian linguistic area wrote in their own local dialect and choosing a "base dialect" for the new standard was not an issue. Subsequently, during the 1850s and 1860s a long discussion was held in the Bulgarian periodicals about the need for a dialectal group (eastern, western or compromise) upon which to base the new standard and which dialect that should be. [41] During the 1870s this issue became contentious, and sparked fierce debates. [42] The general opposition arose between Western and Eastern dialects in the Eastern South Slavic linguistic area. The fundamental issue then was in which part of the Bulgarian lands the Bulgarian tongue was preserved in a most true manner and every dialectal community insisted on that. The Eastern dialect was proposed then as a basis by the majority of the Bulgarian elite. It was claiming that around the last medieval capital of Bulgaria Tarnovo, the Bulgarian language was preserved in its purest form. It was not a surprise, because the most significant part of the new Bulgarian intelligentsia came from the towns of the Eastern Sub-Balkan valley in Central Bulgaria. This proposal alienated a considerable part of the then Bulgarian population and stimulated regionalist linguistic tendencies in Macedonia. [43] In 1870 Marin Drinov, who played a decisive role in the standardization of the Bulgarian language, practically rejected the proposal of Parteniy Zografski and Kuzman Shapkarev for a mixed eastern and western Bulgarian/Macedonian foundation of the standard Bulgarian language, stating in his article in the newspaper Makedoniya : "Such an artificial assembly of written language is something impossible, unattainable and never heard of." and instead suggested that authors themselves use dialectal features in their work, thus becoming role models and allowing the natural development of a literary language. [44] [45] [46] In turn, this position was heavily criticised by Eastern Bulgarian scholars and authors such as Ivan Bogorov and Ivan Vazov, the latter of whom noting that "Without the beautiful words found in the Macedonia dialects, we will be unable to make our language either richer or purer." [47]
In this connection, it must be noted that the "Macedonian dialects" at the time generally referred to the Western Macedonian dialects rather than to all Slavic dialects in the geographic region of Macedonia. For example, scholar Yosif Kovachev from Štip in Eastern Macedonia proposed in 1875 that the "Middle Bulgarian" or "Shop dialect" of Kyustendil (in southwestern Bulgaria) and Pijanec (in eastern North Macedonia) be used as a basis for the Bulgarian literary language as a compromise and middle ground between what he himself referred to as the "Northern Bulgarian" or Balkan dialect and the "Southern Bulgarian" or "Macedonian" dialect. [48] [45] Moreover, Southeastern Macedonia east of the ridges of the Pirin and then of a line stretching from Sandanski to Thessaloniki, which is located east of the Bulgarian Yat boundary and speaks Eastern Bulgarian dialects that are much more closely related to the Bulgarian dialects in the Rhodopes and Thrace than to the neighbouring Slavic dialects in Macedonia, largely did not participate at all in the debate as it was mostly Hellenophile at the time. [49] [26] [50]
In 1878, a distinct Bulgarian state was established. The new state did not include the region of Macedonia which remained outside its borders in the frame of the Ottoman Empire. As a consequence, the idea of a common compromise standard was finally rejected by the Bulgarian codifiers during the 1880s and the eastern Central Balkan dialect was chosen as a basis for standard Bulgarian. [51] Macedono-Bulgarian writers and organizations who continued to seek greater representation of Macedonian dialects in the Bulgarian standard were deemed separatists. [lower-alpha 1] One example is the Young Macedonian Literary Association, which the Bulgarian government outlawed in 1892. Though standard Bulgarian was taught in the local schools in Macedonia till 1913, [57] the fact of political separation became crucial for the development of a separate Macedonian language. [58]
With the advent of Macedonian nationalism, the idea of linguistic separatism emerged in the late 19th century, [59] and the need for a separate Macedonian standard language subsequently appeared in the early 20th century. [60] In the Interwar period, the territory of today's North Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bulgarian was banned for use and the local vernacular fell under heavy influence from the official Serbo-Croatian language. [61] However, the political and paramilitary organizations of the Macedonian Slavs in Europe and the Americas, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO), and even their left-wing offsets, the IMRO (United) and the Macedonian-American People's League continued to use literary Bulgarian in their writings and propaganda in the interbellum. During the World wars Bulgaria's short annexations over Macedonia saw two attempts to bring the Macedonian dialects back towards Bulgarian. This political situation stimulated the necessity of a separate Macedonian language and led gradually to its codification after the Second World War. It followed the establishment of SR Macedonia, as part of Communist Yugoslavia and finalized the progressive split in the common Macedonian–Bulgarian language. [62]
During the first half of the 20th century the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs shifted from predominantly Bulgarian to ethnic Macedonian and their regional identity had become their national one. [63] [64] [65] Although, there was no clear separating line between these two languages on level of dialect then, the Macedonian standard was based on its westernmost dialects. Afterwards, Macedonian became the official language in the new republic, Serbo-Croatian was adopted as a second official language, and Bulgarian was proscribed. Moreover, in 1946–1948 the newly standardized Macedonian language was introduced as a second language even in Southwestern Bulgaria. [66] Subsequently, the sharp and continuous deterioration of the political relationships between the two countries, the influence of both standard languages during the time, but also the strong Serbo-Croatian linguistic influence in Yugoslav era, led to a horizontal cross-border dialectal divergence. [67] Although some researchers have described the standard Macedonian and Bulgarian languages as varieties of a pluricentric language, [68] they in fact have separate dialectal bases; the Prilep-Bitola dialect and Central Balkan dialect, respectively. The prevailing academic consensus (outside of Bulgaria and Greece) is that Macedonian and Bulgarian are two autonomous languages within the eastern subbranch of the South Slavic languages. [69] Macedonian is thus an ausbau language ; i.e. it is delimited from Bulgarian as these two standard languages have separate dialectal bases. [70] [71] [72] The uniqueness of Macedonian in comparison to Bulgarian is a matter of political controversy in Bulgaria. [73] [74] [75]
Macedonian | Bulgarian | English |
---|---|---|
грáд | грáд | city |
грáдот | градъ́т | the city |
грáдови | градовé | cities |
градóвите | градовéте | the cities |
Bulgarian | Macedonian | English |
---|---|---|
пращам [praʃtam] | праќам [pracam] | send |
нощ [noʃt] | ноќ [noc] | night |
раждам [raʒdam] | раѓам [raɟam] | give birth |
Bulgarian | Macedonian | English |
---|---|---|
път [pɤt] | пат [pat] | road |
сън [sɤn] | сон [sɔn] | dream |
България [bəɫˈɡarijə] | Бугарија [buˈɡaɾi(j)a] | Bulgaria |
Macedonian | Bulgarian | English |
---|---|---|
убава [ubava] | хубава [hubava] | beautiful |
снаа [snaa] | снаха [snaha] | daughter-in-law |
бев [bev] | бях [byah] | I was |
Bulgarian | Macedonian | English |
---|---|---|
бял [bʲa̟ɫ] or [bja̟ɫ] | бел [bɛɫ] | white |
дядо [ˈdʲa̟do] or [ˈdja̟do] | дедо [ˈdɛdɔ] | grandfather |
кестен [kɛstɛn] | костен [ˈkɔstɛn] | chestnut |
Macedonian | Bulgarian | English |
---|---|---|
цреша [ˈt͡srɛʃa] | череша [t͡ʃeˈrɛʃə] | cherry |
црн [t͡sr̩n] | черен [ˈt͡ʃerɛn] | black |
црта [ˈt͡sr̩ta] | черта [t͡ʃerˈta] | line |
Position | Macedonian | Bulgarian | English |
---|---|---|---|
unspecified | собата | стаята | the room |
proximate | собава | - | this room |
distal | собана | - | that room |
unspecified | собите | стаите | the rooms |
proximate | собиве | - | this rooms |
distal | собине | - | that rooms |
Speaker | close distance | without spatial and temporal determination | farther away | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Macedonian | Го гледам | ова дете | тоа дете | она дете |
Bulgarian | Виждам | това дете | това дете | онова дете |
English | I see | this child | the child | that child |
Macedonian | Bulgarian | English |
---|---|---|
море [more] мориња [morinja] | море [more] морета [moreta] | sea seas |
име [ime] имиња [iminja] | име [ime] имена [imena] | name names |
Bulgarian | Macedonian |
---|---|
отвори → отваря | отвори → отвора |
скочи → скача | скокне → скока |
изгори → изгаря | изгори → изгорува |
person | gender and number | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
m.sg. | f.sg. | n.sg. | pl. | |
1st | бѝх чѐл | бѝх чѐла | (бѝх чѐло) | бѝхме чѐли |
2nd | бѝ чѐл | бѝ чѐла | (бѝ чѐло) | бѝхте чѐли |
3rd | бѝ чѐл | бѝ чѐла | бѝ чѐло | бѝха чѐли |
person | gender and number | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
m.sg. | f.sg. | n.sg. | pl. | |
1st | би читал | би читала | би читало | би читале |
2nd | би читал | би читала | би читало | би читале |
3rd | би читал | би читала | би читало | би читале |
In Bulgarian it is made up of the past imperfect of the verb ща (will, want) + the particle да (to) + the present tense of the main verb.
In Macedonian it is formed with the clitic ќе + imperfect of the verb.
Example (чета/чита, to read):
person | number | |
---|---|---|
sg. | pl. | |
1st | щях да чета | щяхме да четем |
2nd | щеше да четеш | щяхте да четете |
3rd | щеше да чете | щяха да четат |
person | number | |
---|---|---|
sg. | pl. | |
1st | ќе читав | ќе читавме |
2nd | ќе читаше | ќе читавте |
3rd | ќе читаше | ќе читаа |
A primary objective of Bulgarian men of letters in the 1800s was to restore the Old Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian vocabulary that had been lost or replaced with Turkish or Greek words during Ottoman rule through the mediation of Church Slavonic. Thus, originally Old Bulgarian higher-style lexis such as безплътен (incorporeal), въздържание (temperance), изобретател (inventor), изтребление (annihilation), кръвопролитие (bloodshed), пространство (space), развращавам (debauch), създание (creature), съгражданин (fellow citizen), тщеславие (vainglory), художник (painter), was re-borrowed in the 1800s from Church Slavonic and Russian, where it had been adopted in the Early Middle Ages. [93] [94] [95]
There are 12 phono-morpohological that point at the Old Bulgarian origin of a word in Church Slavonic or Russian: [96]
Nevertheless, none of this went without a problem. In the end, a number of Russified Old Bulgarisms replaced preserved native Old Bulgarisms, e.g., the Russified невежа and госпожа ("ignoramus" & "Madam") replaced the native невежда and госпожда, a number of other words were adopted with Russified phonology, e.g., утроба (O.B. ѫтроба, "uterus") rather than ътроба or вътроба, свидетел (O.B. съвѣдѣтель, "withness") rather than сведетел, началник (O.B. начѧльникъ, "superior") rather than начелник—which is what would have been expected given the phonetic development of the Bulgarian language, others had changed their meaning completely, e.g., опасно (O.B. опасьно) readopted in the meaning of "dangerously" rather than "meticulously", урок (O.B. ѹрокъ) readopted in the meaning of "lesson" rather than "condition"/"proviso", yet many, many others that ended up being Russian or Church Slavonic new developments on the basis of Old Bulgarian roots, suffixes, prefixes, etc.
Unlike Bulgarian which borrowed part of its linguistics from Russian, Macedonian has borrowed it mostly from Serbian.
Bulgarian is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeast Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians.
Macedonian is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken as a first language by around 1.6 million people, it serves as the official language of 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 also a recognized minority language in parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia and it is spoken by emigrant communities predominantly in Australia, Canada and the United States.
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are a group of languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Initially spoken by the Slavic peoples of Eurasia during the Early Middle Ages, they are thought to descend from a common proto-language called Proto-Slavic, itself descended from the hypothetical Proto-Balto-Slavic language.
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic is the first Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and remains the liturgical language of many Christian Orthodox churches. Until the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666, Church Slavonic was the mandatory language of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Yat or jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. It is usually romanized as E with a haček: Ě ě.
The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers.
The Balkan sprachbund or Balkan language area is an ensemble of areal features—similarities in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among the languages of the Balkans. Several features are found across these languages though not all apply to every single language. The Balkan sprachbund is a prominent example of the sprachbund concept.
The history of the Bulgarian language can be divided into three major periods:
Torlakian, or Torlak, is a group of transitional South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which is part of the broader Balkan sprachbund. According to UNESCO's list of endangered languages, Torlakian is vulnerable.
The existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language is disputed in Bulgaria and the name of the language was disputed by Greece. By signing the Prespa Agreement, Greece accepted the name "Macedonian language" in reference to the official language of North Macedonia.
The history of the Macedonian language refers to the developmental periods of current-day Macedonian, an Eastern South Slavic language spoken on the territory of North Macedonia. The Macedonian language developed during the Middle Ages from the Old Church Slavonic, the common language spoken by Slavic people.
Shopi or Šopi is a regional term, used by a group of people in the Balkans. The areas traditionally inhabited by the Shopi or Šopi is called Shopluk or Šopluk (Шоплук), a mesoregion. Most of the region is located in Western Bulgaria, with smaller parts in Eastern Serbia and Eastern North Macedonia, where the borders of the three countries meet.
The Slavic dialects of Greece are the Eastern South Slavic dialects of Macedonian and Bulgarian spoken by minority groups in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece. Usually, dialects in Thrace are classified as Bulgarian, while the dialects in Macedonia are classified as Macedonian, with the exception of some eastern dialects which can also be classified as Bulgarian. Before World War II, most linguists considered all of these dialects to be Bulgarian dialects. However, other linguists opposed this view and considered Macedonian dialects as comprising an independent language distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.
Bulgarian dialects are the regional varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, Bolgarska gramatika. Other notable researchers in this field include Marin Drinov, Konstantin Josef Jireček, Lyubomir Miletich, Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, Stoyko Stoykov.
The Gorani or Goranski, also Našinski language, is a regiolectal variety of South Slavic spoken by the Gorani people in the border area between Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Albania. It is part of the Torlakian dialect group, which is transitional between Eastern and Western South Slavic languages.
The dialects of Macedonian comprise the Slavic dialects spoken in the Republic of North Macedonia as well as some varieties spoken in the wider geographic region of Macedonia. They are part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages that joins Macedonian with Bulgarian to the east and Torlakian to the north into the group of the Eastern South Slavic languages. The precise delimitation between these languages is fleeting and controversial.
Slavic speakers are a minority population in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, who are mostly concentrated in certain parts of the peripheries of West and Central Macedonia, adjacent to the territory of the state of North Macedonia. Their dialects are called today "Slavic" in Greece, while generally they are considered Macedonian. Some members have formed their own emigrant communities in neighbouring countries, as well as further abroad.
The term Maleševo-Pirin or Maleshevo-Pirin or Pirin-Maleshevo dialect is used in South Slavic linguistics to refer to a group of related varieties that are spoken on both sides of the border of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia. Some linguists treat them as dialects of the Bulgarian language, while Victor Friedman views them as part of Macedonian. According to some authors, they are linguistically transitional between the two national languages, Bulgarian and Macedonian and form part of the larger dialect continuum between them. The dialect group is named after the mountain ranges of Pirin in Bulgaria and Maleševo in Macedonia. When referring specifically to the dialects on the Bulgarian side, the term Petrich-Blagoevgrad dialect, after the two major towns in the area, is also used.
The Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect is a dialect currently treated both in the contexts of the southeastern group of Bulgarian dialects and the southeastern subgroup of dialects of the Macedonian. Prior to the codification of standard Macedonian in 1945, the dialects of Macedonia were classified as Bulgarian. The dialect is dynamic and is well known for the shortening of the words, and also characterised by the excessive use of for the Proto-Slavic yat even in cases where standard Bulgarian has, a feature which is typical for a number of dialects spoken in southern and southwestern Bulgaria . The Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect is closely related to the neighbouring dialects. It is closer to all Eastern Bulgarian dialects than to all Western. Macedonian shares much less features with the dialect than it does with the Maleševo-Pirin dialect of Macedonian and Bulgarian. Some Bulgarian dialects are more similar to Macedonian than the Ser-Nevrokop dialect, the Samokov dialect shares more features with Macedonian than both the Ser-Nevrokop and the Pirin-Malasevo dialects do, even though it is not considered a Macedonian dialect, most of the western Bulgarian dialects and the Smolyan dialect share more similarities with Macedonian than the Ser dialect does. The Samokov dialect, most remarkably, shares with Macedonian and the Maleševo-Pirin dialect—the "to be" verb for future tense—"ke", which in contrast is "shte" in the Ser-Nevrokop dialect and in the Bulgarian language. The Yat border passes through the Maleševo-Pirin dialect and divides it on such a way that in the northern area of the dialect the yat is pronounced "e" and in the south—"ya". In the Ser-Nevrokop dialect the yat is pronounced in most places "ya", therefore the city of Serres, after which the dialect is named, is called "Syar" by the locals, as opposed to "Ser" in Macedonian. The first person singular is as in Bulgarian, ending with "a" or "am" as opposed to the constant "am" in Macedonian and the Bulgarian Smolyan dialect. The words for man -"m'zh" and for a dream "s'n" are as in Bulgarian, unlike the Macedonian "mazh" and "son". The words for night and tear—"nosht" and "s'lza" are as the Bulgarian, unlike the Macedonian "nok" and "solza".
Parteniy Zografski or Parteniy Nishavski was a 19th-century Bulgarian cleric, philologist, and folklorist from Galičnik in today's North Macedonia, one of the early figures of the Bulgarian National Revival. In his works he referred to his language as Bulgarian and demonstrated a Bulgarian spirit, though besides contributing to the development of the Bulgarian language, in North Macedonia he is also thought to have contributed to the codification of present-day Macedonian.
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
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Similarly, Bulgarian politicians often argue that Macedonian is simply a dialect of Bulgarian – which is really a way of saying, of course, that they feel Macedonia ought to be part of Bulgaria. From a purely linguistic point of view, however, such arguments are not resolvable, since dialect continua admit of more-or-less but not either-or judgements.
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.
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