Macedonian Language Guide

Official language in
North Macedonia
Script
Cyrillic

Where it's spoken

According to Amendment V of the constitution as published on Constitute, which replaces Article 7, the Macedonian language, written using its Cyrillic alphabet, is the official language throughout the Republic of Macedonia, the state name used in that text. The same amendment says that any other language spoken by at least 20 percent of the population is also an official language, written using its alphabet. In units of local self-government where at least 20 percent of the population speaks a particular language, that language and its alphabet are used as an official language in addition to Macedonian and the Cyrillic alphabet.

Sources

Script & pronunciation

Macedonian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. A page on the language maintained by Dusko Koncaliev says there are 31 letters in the Macedonian alphabet.

This app romanizes ѓ as gj, ќ as kj, љ as lj and џ as dzh. The card Ми се допаѓа ("I like it") is romanized mi se DO-pa-gja, the card Добра ноќ ("Good night") is romanized DO-bra nokj, the card Многу сте љубезни ("You are very kind") is romanized MNO-gu ste LJU-be-zni, and the card Пинџур ("Pindjur (roasted vegetable relish)") is romanized PIN-dzhur.

Sources

Grammar essentials

A paper on Macedonian in the Balkan context describes a tendency of loss of morphological case markers, replaced by prepositions. The same paper lists three forms of the definite article among the features of modern Macedonian, and a study of the Macedonian article describes this system as proximal, neutral and distal, and says that in Balkan Slavic definite articles are enclitics.

This app's card Покажете го пасошот, Ве молам ("Please show your passport") notes that пасош is masculine with the article -от, and the card Можам ли прво да ја видам собата? ("Can I see the room first?") notes that собата carries the article -та.

A paper on Slovene teaching to Macedonian speakers says that Macedonian lost the infinitive and later replaced it by the so-called да-construction. This app's card Да ("Yes") notes that Macedonian has no infinitive, so да + present takes its place, as in the card Сакам да подигнам пари ("I'd like to withdraw money."), romanized SA-kam da PO-dig-nam PA-ri.

The card Не разбирам ("I don't understand"), romanized ne RAZ-bi-ram, notes that не goes before the verb. The card Зборувате ли англиски? ("Do you speak English?"), romanized zbo-RU-va-te li AN-gli-ski?, notes that the question particle ли follows the verb directly and that polite Вие takes the 2nd person plural зборувате.

Sources

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