(in English)
Macedonian, Македонски јазик, Makedonski jazik.
Spoken natively in Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria,
Greece, Serbia, Macedonian diaspora.
Region - Balkans.
Ethnicity - Macedonians
Native speakers 1.6 – 3.0
million. (1985–1998)
Language family - Indo-European,
Balto-Slavic, Slavic, South Slavic, Eastern South Slavic, Macedonian.
Writing system Cyrillic
(Macedonian alphabet).
Macedonian (македонски јазик, makedonski jazik) spoken as a first
language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of
Macedonia and the Macedonian diaspora. It is the official language of the
Republic of Macedonia and an official minority language in parts of Albania,
Romania and Serbia.
Standard Macedonian was implemented as the official language of the
Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1945 and has since developed a thriving
literary tradition. Most of the codification was formalized during the same
period.
Macedonian dialects form a continuum with Bulgarian dialects; together in
turn they form a broader continuum with Serbo-Croatian through the transitional
Torlakian dialects.
The name of the Macedonian language is a matter of political controversy in
Greece as is its distinctiveness in Bulgaria.