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Dialects of Macedonian

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Thedialects of Macedoniancomprise theSlavicdialects spoken in theRepublic of North Macedoniaas well as somevarietiesspoken in the wider geographic region ofMacedonia.[1]They are part of thedialect continuumofSouth Slavic languagesthat joinsMacedonianwithBulgarianto the east andTorlakianto the north into the group of theEastern South Slaviclanguages. The precise delimitation between these languages is fleeting and controversial.

Classification

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Macedonian authors tend to treat all dialects spoken in the geographical region of Macedonia as Macedonian, including those spoken in the westernmost part of Bulgaria (so-calledPirin Macedonia), whereasBulgarianauthors treat all Macedonian dialects as part of the Bulgarian language.[2][3]Prior to thecodificationofstandard Macedonianin 1945, the dialects of Macedonia were for the most part classified as Bulgarian.[4][5][6]InGreece,the identification ofthe dialects spokenby the localSlavophoneminority with either Bulgarian or Macedonian is often avoided, and these dialects are instead described simply as "Slavic",[7]Dopia('Local'), Stariski (old) or Našinski (ours).[citation needed]

Most Western linguists classify the dialects in thePirin(Blagoevgrad) region ofBulgariaand in the far east ofGreek MacedoniaasBulgarianand the dialects in the rest ofGreeceand inRepublic of North Macedoniaas Macedonian.[8][9]According to Chambers andTrudgill,the question whether Bulgarian and Macedonian are distinct languages or dialects of a single language as well as where the exact boundary between the two languages is cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, but should rather take into account sociolinguistic criteria, i.e., ethnic and linguistic identity.[10]As for theSlavic dialects of Greece,Trudgill classifies the dialects in the east Greek Macedonia as part of theBulgarian languagearea and the rest asMacedonian dialects.[8]

According to Riki van Boeschoten, the dialects in eastern Greek Macedonia (aroundSerresandDrama) are closest to Bulgarian, those in western Greek Macedonia (aroundFlorinaandKastoria) are closest to Macedonian, while those in the centre (EdessaandSalonica) are intermediate between the two.[11][12]Jouko Lindstedtalso opines that the dividing line between Macedonian and Bulgarian should be defined by the linguistic identity of the speakers, i.e., by the state border:

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. 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.[13][14]

Linguistically, the dialects of Macedonia in the wider sense can be divided into Eastern and Western groups (the boundary runs approximately fromSkopjeandSkopska Crna Goraalong the riversVardarandCrna) based on a large group of features. In addition, a more detailed classification can be based on the modern reflexes of theProto-Slavicreduced vowels ( "yers"), vocalic sonorants and the back nasal (o). That classification distinguishes between the following 3 major groups:[15][16]

Dialects

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1TheSer-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialectand the Bulgarian part of theMaleševo-Pirin dialectare classified as Bulgarian by modern Western linguists.[8][24]The classification of the dialects of central Greek Macedonia is more unclear, with some linguists classifying them as Macedonian and others as transitional between Macedonian and Bulgarian.[11][8]

Variation in consonants

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Map of the phonemekjin the wider Macedonian region
Map of the phonemegjin the wider Macedonian region

As far as consonantal features are concerned, the entire Western region is distinguished from the East by loss of/x/(exceptTetovo,GoraandKorča) and the loss of/v/in the intervocalic position (except Mala Reka and parts ofKostur-Korča):/ɡlava/(head) =/ɡla/,/ɡlavi/(heads) =/ɡlaj/.The Eastern region preserves/x/(exceptTikveš-MariovoandKumanovo-Kriva Palanka) and intervocalic/v/.The East is also characterised by the development of epenthetic/v/before original/o/where the West has epenthetic/j/:Eastern/vaɡlɛn/(coal) but Western/jaɡlɛn/.The diphonemic reflexes are most characteristic of the dialects ofGreek MacedoniaandBlagoevgrad Province,Kostur-Korča andOhrid-Prespa.TheSerres – Nevrokop dialectshave a series of phonemically palatalised consonants.

Variation in word stress and its effects on vowels

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The Western dialects generally have fixed stress, antepenultimate in theRepublic of North Macedonia,and penultimate inGreeceandAlbania.The Eastern region, along with the neighbouringBulgarian dialects,has various non-fixed stress systems. In LowerVardarandSerres-Nevrokopunstressed/a,ɛ,ɔ/are reduced (raised) to[ə,i,u].The reduction of unstressed vowels (as well as the aforementioned allophonic palatalisation of consonants) is characteristic of East Bulgarian as opposed to West Bulgarian dialects, so these dialects are regarded by Bulgarian linguists as transitional between East and West Bulgarian.

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References

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  1. ^isp. Большaя Советская Энциклопедия, tom. 37, Moscow 1938, р 743–744
  2. ^Institute of Bulgarian Language (1978).Единството на българския език в миналото и днес(in Bulgarian).Sofia:Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.p. 4.OCLC6430481.
  3. ^Стойков (Stoykov), Стойко(2002) [1962].Българска диалектология (Bulgarian dialectology)(in Bulgarian). София: Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов".ISBN954-430-846-6.OCLC53429452.
  4. ^Mazon, Andre.Contes Slaves de la Macédoine Sud-Occidentale: Etude linguistique; textes et traduction;Notes de Folklore, Paris 1923, p. 4.
  5. ^Селищев, Афанасий. Избранные труды, Москва 1968.
  6. ^K. Sandfeld,Balkanfilologien(Copenhagen, 1926, MCMXXVI).
  7. ^MacedonianatEthnologue(25th ed., 2022)Closed access icon
  8. ^abcdTrudgill 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.
  9. ^Schmieger, R. 1998. "The Situation of the Macedonian Language in Greece: Sociolinguistic Analysis", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131, 125–55.
  10. ^Chambers, Jack; Trudgill, Peter (1998).Dialectology(2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp.7.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.
  11. ^abBoeschoten, 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
  12. ^Ioannidou, Alexandra (1999).Questions on the Slavic Dialects of Greek Macedonia.Athens: Peterlang. pp. 59, 63.ISBN9783631350652.{{cite book}}:|journal=ignored (help)
  13. ^Lindstedt, 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.
  14. ^Tomasz Kamusella, Motoki Nomachi, Catherine Gibson as ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders, Springer, 2016;ISBN1137348399,p. 436.
  15. ^стр. 244 Македонски јазик за средното образование- Стојка Бојковска, Димитар Пандев, Лилјана Минова-Ѓуркова, Живко Цветковски- Просветно дело- Скопје 2001
  16. ^Z. Topolińska – B. Vidoeski, Polski~macedonski- gramatyka konfrontatiwna, z.1, PAN, 1984
  17. ^стр.68 Граматика на македонскиот литературен јазик, Блаже Конески, Култура- Скопје 1967
  18. ^Академик Божидар видоески, Кичевскиот говор. МЈ, 1957, VIII, 1, стр. 31–90.
  19. ^Belić 1935: A. Belić, Galički dijalekat, Srpski dijalektološki zbornik, VII, Srpska kraljevska akademija, Belgrade – Sr. Karlovci, 1-352+IV
  20. ^The Radožda-Vevčani Dialect of Macedonian: Structure, Texts, Lexicon by P. Hendriks. The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring, 1978), pp. 111–112
  21. ^A Comparative Historical Analysis of Nominal Accentuation in Archaic (Maleševo) and Transitional (Nivičino) Eastern Macedonian Dialects, "in Proceedings of the Third North American-Macedonian Conference on Macedonian Studies. Indiana Slavic Studies 10:135–151. 1999
  22. ^Македонските дијалекти во Егејска Македонија: (Обид за класификација). Македонските дијалекти во Егејска Македонија: научен собир, Скопје 23–24 декември 1991. Скопје: МАНУ, 1994, стр. 23–60.
  23. ^abstr. 249- 252 Makedonski jazik za srednoto obrazovanie- S. Bojkovska, D. Pandev, L. Minova-Ǵurkova, Ž.Cvetkovski- Prosvetno delo AD- Skopje 2001
  24. ^Schmieger, R. 1998. "The Situation of the Macedonian Language in Greece: Sociolinguistic Analysis", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131, 125–55.
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