Macedonian language facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Macedonian |
|
|---|---|
| Македонски јазик Makedonski jazik |
|
| Pronunciation | [maˈkɛdɔnski] |
| Native to | Republic of North Macedonia, Greece, Australia, Serbia, Albania, Germany, France, Italy, United States, Canada Turkey |
| Region | The Balkans |
| Native speakers | 1.6 - 3 million (date missing) |
| Language family |
Indo-European
|
| Writing system | Cyrillic (Macedonian variant) |
| Official status | |
| Official language in | North Macedonia recognised as minority language in parts of:  Albania |
| Regulated by | Macedonian Language Institute "Krste Misirkov" at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje |
Countries with significant Macedonian-speaking populations
|
|
Macedonian (македонски јазик, makedonski jazik) is a Slavic Indo-European language spoken mainly in North Macedonia. Macedonian is a part of the Balkan linguistic union, which also includes Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian and Torlakian dialect of the Serbian language. Macedonian is very similar to Bulgarian and some linguists say it is a dialect of Bulgarian.
Contents
Phonology
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | и | у | |
| Mid | е | о | |
| Open | а |
Consonantsof Macedonian
| Bilabial | Labio- Dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plosive | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affricate | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fricative | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Approximant | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trill | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lateral | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alphabet
The Macedonian language uses a Cyrillic alphabet. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Macedonian alphabet, along with the IPA value for each letter:
| CyrillicIPA | А а/a/ | Б б/b/ | В в/v/ | Г г/ɡ/ | Д д/d/ | Ѓ ѓ
/ɟ/ |
Е е/ɛ/ | Ж ж/ʒ/ | З з/z/ | Ѕ ѕ
/dz/ |
И и/i/ |
| CyrillicIPA | Ј ј/j/ | К к/k/ | Л л/l/ | Љ љ/lj/ | М м/m/ | Н н/n/ | Њ њ/ɲ/ | О о/ɔ/ | П п/p/ | Р р/r/ | С с/s/ |
| CyrillicIPA | Т т/t/ | Ќ ќ
/c/ |
У у/u/ | Ф ф/f/ | Х х
/x/ |
Ц ц/ts/ | Ч ч/tʃ/ | Џ џ/dʒ/ | Ш ш/ʃ/ |
- Websters Online, Macedonian — English Dictionary
- BBC Education, Languages: Macedonian, Makedonski
- University of North Carolina, Reading and Pronouncing Macedonian: An Interactive Tutorial
- Victor Friedman, A grammar of Macedonian
- Mladen Srbinovski, Nature of Standard Macedonian language
Images for kids
-
Krste Petkov Misirkov (pictured) was the first to outline the distinctiveness of the Macedonian language in his book Za makedonckite raboti (On the Macedonian Matters), published in 1903.
-
Macedonian police car, with the Macedonian word Полиција (Policija), for "police".
See also
In Spanish: Idioma macedonio para niños
