Standard Macedonian in the context of "Spoken Macedonian"

Macedonian (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniən/ MASS-ih-DOH-nee-ən; македонски јазик, translit. makedonski jazik, pronounced [maˈkɛdɔnski ˈjazik] ) 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 1.7 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 expatriate communities predominantly in Australia, Canada, and the United States.

Macedonian developed out of the western dialects of the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum, whose earliest recorded form is Old Church Slavonic. During much of its history, this dialect continuum was called "Bulgarian", although in the late 19th century, its western dialects came to be known separately as "Macedonian". Standard Macedonian was codified in 1945 and has developed modern literature since. As it is part of a dialect continuum with other South Slavic languages, Macedonian has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Bulgarian and varieties of Serbo-Croatian.

The orthography of the Macedonian language includes an alphabet consisting of 31 letters (Macedonian: Македонска азбука, romanized: Makedonska azbuka), which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation.

The Macedonian alphabet was standardized in 1945 by a commission formed in Yugoslav Macedonia after the Partisans took power at the end of World War II. The alphabet used the same phonemic principles employed by Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864) and Krste Misirkov (1874–1926).

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.

Krste Petkov Misirkov (Macedonian: Крсте Петков Мисирков, pronounced [kr̩'stɛ pɛ'tkɔf mi'sirkɔf]; Bulgarian: Кръсте Петков Мисирков; Serbian Cyrillic: Крста Петковић Мисирков; 18 November 1874 – 26 July 1926) was a philologist, journalist, historian and ethnographer from the region of Macedonia.

In the period between 1903 and 1905, he published a book and a scientific magazine in which he affirmed the existence of a Macedonian national identity separate from other Balkan nations, and attempted to codify a standard Macedonian language based on the central Western Macedonian dialects. Misirkov is regarded as the forefather of the Macedonian nation and for his efforts to codify a standard Macedonian language, he is often considered "the founder of the modern Macedonian literary language". A survey conducted in the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) found Misirkov to be "the most significant Macedonian of the 20th century".

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 /ʲa/ for the Proto-Slavic yat even in cases where standard Bulgarian has /ɛ/, a feature which is typical for a number of dialects spoken in southern and southwestern Bulgaria (e.g. the Thracian dialect).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" (as in all the Western Bulgarian dialects and Macedonian) and in the south—"ya" (as in the Eastern Bulgarian dialects and standard Bulgarian). 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".

The Serres-Nevrokop dialect is treated both in the contexts of Bulgarian and Macedonian dialectology. As described in the section about its range, the vast majority of its speakers identify as Bulgarians. In the context of Bulgarian dialectology, the dialect is situated East of the Yat boundary and thus is considered to belong to the Eastern Bulgarian dialects, more exactly to the Rup subgroup