Macedonian

Macedonian belongs to the east sub-group of the South Slavic group of the Slavic branch of Indo-European languages. It is so closely related to Bulgarian that some scholars consider it to be a dialect of Bulgarian -- a position that is debated by others.

Macedonian is spoken by 1.3 million people in the Republic of Macedonia. It is also spoken in the neighbouring countries of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, and Slovenia. According to Ethnologue, the total number of speakers of Macedonian worldwide is about 1.6 million.

The status of Macedonian in the countries where it is spoken is as follows:

•   Macedonia - Standard Macedonian is used in all areas of public and private life, along with Serbian. While Macedonian is used as a medium of instruction in elementary and secondary schools, there is lack of textbooks at the university level, resulting in the use of Serbian textbooks.
•   Bulgaria - In Bulgaria, Macedonian is viewed as a dialect of Bulgarian. It is officially forbidden to use Macedonian in publications.
•   Greece - Macedonian is considered to be a dialect of Greek, rather than a Slavic language. It is banned from all areas of public life, including all forms media and education.
•   Albania - Macedonian is not recognised. Dialects
Macedonian is divided into West and East dialect areas, each of which, in turn, has a Northern division. The Western dialect area includes of a large central area, and a peripheral area along the Albanian and Serbian borders. The Eastern area includes the Macedonian dialects of Bulgaria and Greece. Standard Macedonian is based on the West Central varieties with some features of the Northern variety spoken in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia.

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