Macedonian

Language group

Indo-European / Slavic

Area

During the first two decades of the century and during the years of the civil war (ended in 1949), a substantial proportion of Slav speakers left their homes to settle down in what is today Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Most of the areas which were then populated by Slav speakers kept Slav speaking groups, namely from the prefecture of Drama to the prefecture of Kastoria. The language is more dynamic in the prefectures of Florina and Pella.

This is the language of the Slavic tribes which settled during the Vith and VIIth century AD on the territories known as Macedonia. After the Balkan war against Ottoman domination, Macedonia was split between Greece, Bulgaria and former Yugoslavia (Clauses of the Bucharest Treaty of 1913). These new borders led to massive migrations: some 100 000 Slavic people left the part of Macedonia that was given to Greece for the North. In the meantime, Greek people from Bulgaria and other countries moved in Greece. Nevertheless, a relevant number of Slavic people decided to stay, and there is nowadays a Slavic minority in Greece. Macedonian was standardized in Yugoslavia since 1944. Linguistically, Macedonian comes from the antique liturgics Slavonic language (existing since at least the Xth century). This make it a close relative to Bulgarian, but with more archaic traits.