Political views on the Macedonian language

Politics of North Macedonia
Constitution
Executive
Legislature
Elections
Administrative divisions
Foreign relations
flag North Macedonia portal

The existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language is disputed in Bulgaria and the name of the language was disputed by Greece. By signing the Prespa Agreement, Greece accepted the name "Macedonian language" in reference to the official language of North Macedonia.

Macedonian dialects form a continuum with Bulgarian dialects forming the Eastern South Slavic sub-group; they in turn form a broader continuum with Serbo-Croatian through the transitional Torlakian dialects. Throughout history Macedonian has been often referred to as a variant of Bulgarian. It was standardized in Yugoslavia in 1945 based on the central-western dialects of the region of Macedonia.[1] Macedonian was recognized as a minority language in Bulgaria from 1946 to 1948. Though, it was subsequently described in Bulgaria again as a dialect or regional norm of Bulgarian.[2]

Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991, most of its academics, as well as the general public, continue to regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian. However, after years of diplomatic impasse caused by this academic dispute, in 1999 the Bulgarian government settled the language issue by signing a Joint Declaration which used the euphemistic formulation: in Macedonian, pursuant to Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, and in Bulgarian, pursuant the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria.[3] Nevertheless, the Bulgarian government continues to deny Macedonian as a separate language.[4] This issue was one of the main reasons for which the Bulgarian government has hindered accession of North Macedonia to the European Union.

  1. ^ Matthew H. Ciscel, Multilingualism and the disputed standardizations of Macedonian and Moldovan, pp. 309–328; in Matthias Hüning, Ulrike Vogl, Olivier Moliner as ed., Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History, John Benjamins Publishing, 2012, ISBN 902727391X, p. 314.
  2. ^ Ranko Bugarski, Celia Hawkesworth as editors, Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands, Slavica Publishers, 2004, ISBN 0893572985, p. 201.
  3. ^ "1999/02/22 23:50 Bulgaria Recognizes Macedonian Language". Aimpress.ch. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  4. ^ Wayne C. Thompson, Nordic, Central, and Southeastern Europe 2018-2019, Edition 18, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, ISBN 1475841523, p. 584.