The Western Macedonian dialects are one of three groups of Macedonian. The group is located in the western and southwestern areas of North Macedonia and smaller parts in Mala Prespa and Golo Brdo, in Albania, and the Florina regional unit, in Greece. The group of Western Macedonian dialects is divided into two subgroups: the central group and the western and northwestern group.
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👉 Western Macedonian dialects in the context of Krste Misirkov
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".
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Western Macedonian dialects 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.