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.
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👉 Dialects of Macedonian in the context of Standard Macedonian
Standard Macedonian or literary Macedonian (Macedonian: книжевен македонски јазик, romanized: kniževen makedonski jazik or македонски литературен јазик, makedonski literaturen jazik) is the standard variety of the Macedonian language and the official language of North Macedonia used in writing, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. Several prestige dialects have developed around the major urban centers of Skopje, Bitola, Veles and Prilep.
It was only in the 1940s, however, that the Macedonian language was able to be implemented, after being formally declared the official language of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The rapid pace at which the standardization process took place was in part owing to an already existing interdialect (see spoken Macedonian). The Yugoslav government initially set up a literary Macedonian language based on a spoken dialect of the northern of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, but it was felt that this dialect was too close to Serbian and finally the dialects spoken in Bitola and Veles were adopted. These dialects, in turn, were closer to the literary Bulgarian, but as the latter was based on the Eastern Bulgarian dialects, it allowed enough differentiation for the Yugoslavs to claim a distinct Macedonian language. Since then, Bulgaria has been contesting the existence of distinct Macedonian language. Thus, the standard variety of Macedonian is phonologically and morphologically based on the central Western Macedonian dialects (in particular, the Prilep-Bitola and Skopje-Veles dialect) with its lexicon influenced by all Macedonian dialects.
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Dialects of Macedonian in the context of Bulgarian dialects
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 (published 1835 in Kragujevac, Principality of Serbia). Other notable researchers in this field include Marin Drinov, Konstantin Josef Jireček, Lyubomir Miletich, Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, Stoyko Stoykov.
The dialects of Macedonian are classified as part of Bulgarian in the older literature. Presently, Bulgarian linguistics continue to treat it as such.Since the second half of the 20th century, foreign authors have mostly adopted the convention of treating these in terms of a separate Macedonian language, following the codification of Macedonian as the literary standard language of Yugoslav Macedonia. However, some contemporary linguists still consider Macedonian as a dialect of Bulgarian. Macedonian authors in turn tend to treat all dialects spoken in the geographical region of Macedonia as Macedonian, including those spoken in Bulgarian Macedonia. Together with their closest lexical and grammatical relative they comprise the Eastern South Slavic branch. The present article treats all these dialects together, because of their close structural similarity and the fact that many important dialect boundaries intersect both territories.
Dialects of Macedonian in the context of Prilep-Bitola dialect
The Prilep-Bitola dialect (Macedonian: Прилепско-битолски дијалект, Prilepsko-bitolski dijalekt) is a member of the central subgroup of the western group of dialects of Macedonian. This dialect is spoken in much of the Pelagonia region (more specifically, the Bitola, Prilep, Kruševo and Demir Hisar municipalities), as well as by the Slavic-speaking minority population in and around Florina (Lerin) in neighbouring Greek Macedonia. The Prilep-Bitola dialect, along with other peripheral west-central dialects, provides much of the basis for modern Standard Macedonian. Prestige dialects have developed in the cities of Bitola and Prilep.