The Macedonian Language

By Paul Markovski
The Macedonian Language.....................................................................................................1
The Purpose........................................................................................................................2
The History of The Language .............................................................................................2
The Cyrillic Alphabet .....................................................................................................2
An Enriched Language .......................................................................................................3
In a Linguistic Context .......................................................................................................3
Macedonian grammar .........................................................................................................4
Historical review.............................................................................................................4
Nouns .................................................................................................................................5
Masculine nouns .............................................................................................................5
Feminine nouns ..............................................................................................................6
Neutral nouns .................................................................................................................6
The form of nouns depend on gender ..............................................................................7
Plural form of nouns .......................................................................................................7
Definite articles ............................................................................................................10
Verbs................................................................................................................................11
Negation of verbs..........................................................................................................11
Adjectives.........................................................................................................................13
Conjunctions ....................................................................................................................13
Numerals ..........................................................................................................................14
Pronouns ..........................................................................................................................14
Syntax ..............................................................................................................................16
Definite direct objects ...................................................................................................16
Possesion ......................................................................................................................16
Pronounciation .................................................................................................................17
Accent ..........................................................................................................................17
Concluding remarks..........................................................................................................17
Bibliography.....................................................................................................................18

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

The Purpose
The purpose of this PM is to introduce the fundamental grammar in the Macedonian language,
with the focus on nouns. This purpose has lead to a selection of parts of the grammar. Theory
and comparisons with the Swedish language are intertwined throughout the text.
The open word classes nouns, verbs and adjectives are the focii of the essay, where examples
are given with presentation of grammatic rules.
The presentation of nouns has been limited to the forms number and gender. The Macedonian
verbs' three stems are presented, as well as how to negate verbs. The third and last word group
is adjectives, with a number of examples that visualize how the adjectives are declined
depending on gender, numerus, indefinite and definite article. I also describe the difference
between declining adjectives when used with nouns in singular or plural.
Basic information about other word groups has also been included, namely for conjunctions,
pronouns and numerals. These have been chosen since the beginner language student will
touch upon them quickly during the education. Other word classes have not been included due
to the limits of this pro memoria, and its purpose as a simple introduction to the Macedonian
language.
At the end of the text I have woven the above knowledge together with syntax and some
important pronounciation rules for Macedonian letters and words.
Due to the lack of literature and an average dictionary (English-Macedonian MacedonianEnglish dictionary), I have enjoyed help with words and their meaning from several friends
living in Skopje, Macedonia.

The History of The Language

The Macedonian language belongs to the south slavic language group, which is a part of the
branch "Slavic languages" in the Indoeuropean language family. Except Macedonian there is
also Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian in the south slavic language group ("Slavonic
languages", The Hutchinson Encyclopedia). The Macedonian language is spoken as mother
tongue by 1.7 million people in Macedonia. Earlier there were more than 300,000 people
speaking dialects of the language in Greece, but due to the policy of minorities in Greece, this
number has decreased considerably (one approximate number is 40,000 speakers of
Macedonian in Greece). The language is also spoken in the neighbouring country Albania,
where the number totals approximately 10,000 people.
Both Macedonian and Bulgarian share the same grammatical structure and are also lexical
similar. Some of the similarities are definite articles, the lack of case-declension, comparison
with prefix, doubling of the object, the lack of an infinite form and a developed temporal and
modal system. The latter contains the narrative mode, that signifies that the speaker has not
witnessed the events that are told. (Nationalencyklopedin, "Makedonska", Roger Gyllin)

The Cyrillic Alphabet

Macedonian and Bulgarian also share history with regards to the cyrillic alphabet, which both
use as the primiary alphabet. The cyrillic alphabet can be traced back to around year 860 A.C,
when the church slavic sign language was developed. That in its turn was built on dialects
spoken around Thessaloniki (then part of the Byzantine empire). Modern Macedonian
formally acquired the status as an independent language in 1878, the year of the Berlin
congress. The purpose of that congress was actually to modify the treaty of San Stefano,
especially to decrease the territory of Bulgaria. At the time Bulgaria had a great deal of
political support from Russia (World History Encyclopedia, 2001).

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

During the same year as the Berlin congress, 1878, Bulgaria was split into three parts, where
Macedonia was one and ended up under Ottoman rule. (Nationalencyklopedin,
"Makedonska", Roger Gyllin)
It would take additional 25 years after the congress, until 1903, before the foundation was laid
for the Macedonian language, as it is known today. That was the year when Krste Misirkov
published a book describing the foundation of the language. But Macedonian did not enjoy
status as a sign language until 1944, in the federation of Yugoslavia.
During the postwar time the language was developed into a standard language, built on
western central dialects. The choice of western dialects was due to the wish of creating some
distance between Macedonian and Bulgarian.
(Nationalencyklopedin, "Makedonska", Roger Gyllin)

An Enriched Language
Due to the tumultous history of the Balkan peninsula, the Macedonian vocabulary has been
enriched from several languages. There are several words with Bulgarian, French, Serbian,
Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Persian origin. They were all assimilated into the language via the
Turkish language during the Ottoman period. Here below I give examples of a few loan words
from French, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish.
Examples
(French)

ofer

driver

(Serbo-Croatian)

hrabar

hrana

brave
food

(Turkish)

hour, clock
document

saat
tapija

Comment
Today it remains common that Macedonian is influenced by English. Here follow two
examples of more recent loan words:

kompjuter
computer

komunikacija
communication

In a Linguistic Context
The following broad observations have been made in comparison with the Swedish language.
It should be noticed that since the writer of this document is not a trained linguist, these
observations could be developed. But it is meant to be interesting for non-linguists.
Macedonian is a so called SVO language, meaning that words are in the order subject, verb
and object. Because it is a synthetic language, word-declination is more important than in
Swedish (which is an analytical language). (Grammatiskt ABC, s. 50 och s. 57).

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

Macedonian grammar
The cyrillic alphabet has 31 letters, of which there are 5 vowels and 26 consonants. It should
be added that the consonat p also can be used as a vowel, in the sense that the graphemes can
be placed as V in CVC sequences.
Examples, one and two syllable words (usage of the Cyrillic alphabet)

prv
first

tra
(to) run

mrmori
(to) mumble

krstonosec
crusader

crkva
church
The alphabet has been deduced from the Serbian (Cyrillic) alphabet, with the difference that
Macedonian has the extra letter s (dz) and two letters are replaced in Macedonian, namely
(g') and (k').
The language has three grammatical genders, masculine (, maki), feminine (,
enski) and neuter (, sreden). The gender is often obvious by looking at the last letter
in words. One new development is that loan words from the western countries (especially
English) tend to be categorized in the language under the grammatical gender neuter.

Historical review
It has already been mentioned that the Macedonian vocabulary has been enriched from several
languages during the course of history, for example from Turkish, Arabic and Persian. The
loan words have been assimilated via Turkish during the Ottoman period, from the middle
14th century to the Balkan wars 1912-13 (World History Encyclopedia, 2001).
Over time, Macedonian has come to differ alot from the Serbian standard language,
concerning the grammatical structure. During the existence of Yugoslavia, the language was
largely influenced by Serbo-Croatian. This can be understood with reference to the loan
words that are used in colloquial Macedonian today. (see An Enriched Language, above).

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

Nouns
Gender can often be determined by the last letter in words. It is interesting to note that
masculine nouns generally end with a consonant, whilst some nouns with the ending -a also
are masculine. Most feminine nouns have the ending -a, but some end with a consonant. This
leads to the demand of attention when classifying nouns as either masculine or feminine.
The neutral nouns almost explicitly end with -o and -e. This group of nouns is currently
growing fast, thanks to the vast amount of foreign loan words.(seet Neutral nouns below).
Nouns in the Swedish language
Swedish uses grammatical and neuter gender. The grammatical genders are categorized into
n-gender (words with the ending -n) and "neutrum" (words with the ending -t). This has no
connection with the meaning of words, and is merely a way of classifying words using their
last letters.
Instead it is the neuter gender that reflect the meaning of nouns, that is, if they are persons or
not. In the case of persons there are the subclasses masculine and feminine. (Grammatiskt
ABC)

Masculine nouns
The masculine nouns in Macedonian are grouped together in six categories, where the three
first contain most of the words.
1. Masculine nouns that end with a consonant, the largest category.
2. Masculine nouns that end with the vowel -a. These always refer to human subjects and
can be occupations or personal names.
3. Masculine kinship terms, personal names and invectives with a negative meaning.
4. Masculine nouns that end with -e. Diminutive terms, person names and foreign loan
words.
5. The names of the month.
6. A smaller set of nouns that end with other vowels than those mentioned above. These
are foreign loan words.
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students)
Examples (group 1)

stolr

mudrost

chair
wisdom

Examples (group 2)
zanaetija

budala

craftsman
fool, simpleton

Examples (group 3)

Petar

Angel

Stojan

dedo

brat

glupava
mrzlivec

(personal name)
(personal name)
(personal name)
grandfather
brother
idiot
lazy bones

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

Examples (grupp 4)

Mile

bate

tate

Mile
(from the personal name Milan)
bro (brother)
dad

Group 5, (months of the year)

januari
January
fevruari
February

mart
Mars

april
April

maj
May

juni
June

juli
July

avgust
August
septemvri
September
oktomvri
October

noemvri
November
dekemvri
December
Examples (group 6)

plako

drdorko

whimperer
chatter-box

Feminine nouns
Most of the feminine nouns end with -a, but there is also a smaller set with feminine nouns
ending with a consonant.
Examples

karta
sudija
radost
sovrenost

card, ticket
judge
happiness
perfection

Neutral nouns
The neutral nouns almost explicitly use the endings -o or -e. Foreign nouns with vowels as the
last grapheme and that are not related to humans, are often categorized as neutrual nouns.

stapalo
ime

foot
name

penkalo
bide

pen
bid

Loan words:

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

The form of nouns depend on gender

Several nouns for occupations and nationality have different forms depending on gender
(masculine or feminine). Most often the suffix - (ka) is used to symbolize the feminine form
of a masculine noun.
Eamples

student
studentka

student (masculine)
student (feminine)

In this contextit should also be mentioned that if the noun in masculine form end with - (k),
then it will transform to - () before the suffix is added to the noun.

Plural form of nouns

Macedonian nouns can be declined in a multitude of forms according to the plural form. The
largest number of plural forms (four) exist among the masculine nouns, that are followed by
three methods of declining neutral nouns and only one method of declining feminine nouns.
Due to the rule with intonation on the antepenultima2, the intonation of words also change
with the forming of plural. The intonation is then simply moved to reflect the rule. However,
this rule need not apply for more recent loan words, which tend to keep their fixed intonation.
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students)
Swedish nouns in plural form
The Swedish nouns are declined according to number. Most frequently, plural is denoted with
an ending added to the singular form of words. There are five different declinations, where the
last do not use any ending to denote plural. The first four declinations are -or, -ar, -er and -n.
Below are examples of Swedish nouns with each declination.
(Grammatiskt ABC)
Declination 1 (-or)
flicka (girl) flickor (girls)
gata (street) gator (streets)
Declination 2 (-ar)
karl (man) karlar (men)
stol (chair) stolar (chairs)
Declination 3 (-er)
tant (lady) tanter (ladies)
bild (image) bilder (images)
Declination 4 (-n)
fr (seed)
frn (seeds)
pple (apple) pplen (apples)
Declination 5 (plural without ending)
barn (child)
barn (children)
arbetare (worker)
arbetare (workers)
2

Nst sista stavelsen.

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

Plural of masculine nouns, group #1

This group contains the nouns that end with a consonant and that have more than one syllable.
To form plural the noun adds the ending - (i).
Examples

mudrost
mudrosti
letok
letoki
sklad
skladi

wisdom
wisdoms
pamphlet
pamphlets
harmony
harmonies

In this group one has to note certain consonant changes. If the singular form of a Macedonian
noun ends with a velar consonant: - (k), - (g), eller - (h), then these are switched with their
respective letters - (c), - (z), och - (s).
Examples

merak
krug
uspeh

need
circle
success

meraci
kruzi
uspesi

needs
circles
successes

Plural of masculine nouns, group #2

Here are the nouns with the ending -a (a). The suffix -a (a) changes to - (i), the velar
consonants do not change.
Examples

aramija
saatdija

thief

watchmaker

aramii
saatdii

thiefs
watchmakers

Plural of masculine nouns, group #3

This group contains nouns with only one syllable. The rule is that they add one of the endings
- eller -.
Examples

pat
kraj

road
end

patovi
kraevi

roads
endings (plural)

There are however exceptions to this rule. Here follow two.

Examples

konj
zab

horse
tooth

konji
zabi

horses
teeth

The nouns that end with - (), - () and - () can either use the ending - (-ovi) or -
(-evi). The nouns that end with - (j) only use - (-evi) (replaces the suffix).
Examples

me
no
ko

sword
knife
basket

meovi
noevi
koevi

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

swords (plural)
knives
baskets

tea

aj

aevi

teas

Plural of masculine nouns, group #4

The nouns that end with - (o), mainly male kinship terms, use the ending - (-ovci).
Examples

dedo
plako

grandfather
whimperer

plako

dedovci
grandfathers
plakovci whimperers

Plural of feminine nouns

All feminine nouns use the ending - (i) to denote plural form. Nouns ending with -a (-a)
switch the suffix with - (-i).
Examples

kritika
dozvola

critique
allowance

kritika
dozvola

critique
allowances

Within the category feminine nouns, consonants can change in two exceptional ways.
Examples
race
hands

raka
hand

noga
foot, leg

noze
feet, legs
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students, s. 30)
Plural of neutral nouns, group #1
Nouns with the ending -o (-o), switch the suffix with - (-a).
Examples

drvo
zrno

tree
corn

drva
zrna

trees
corn (plural)

Plural of neutral nouns, group #2

Nouns with the ending -e (-e), switch the suffix with - (-inja).
Examples

pole
magare

field
donkey

polinja
magarinja

fields
donkeys

Plural of neutral nouns, group #3

Neutral nouns with the ending -e (-e) found after (c), (t) or (nj), switch the suffix
with -a (a). If the ending is (i), then it will switch with -ja.
Examples
3

pilenca
zdolnite
praanje
reenie

small bird
skirt
question
solution

pilenca
zdolnita
praanja
reenija

small birds
skirts
questions
solutions

Diminutive term of pile (bird).

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

Definite articles
As with Swedish, Macedonian uses definite articles attached to the end of nouns. Four
different definite articles exist, that also denote gender and number.
- (-ot)
- (-ta)
- (-to)
- (-te)
They are used as follows:

Masculine nouns that end with a consonant use the definite article - (-ot).
All nouns that end with -a (-a), disregarding gender and number, use the definite
article - (-ta).
Feminine nouns that end with a consonant use the definite article - (-ta).
All remaining neutral nouns, foreign loan words and collective terms (as (lug'e) folk) use the definite article - (-to).
In the plural form all nouns use the definite article - (-te).
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students)
Definite articles in the Swedish language
As in Macedonian, the Swedish language also uses definite articles attached to the end of
nouns. Swedish has the variants -en or -n and -et.
Examples
stol
lampa
bord

chair
lamp
table

stolen
lampan
bordet

the chair
the lamp
the table

These definite articles are related to the indefinite articles en and ett, which in their turn are
related to the two grammatical genders n-gender and neuter.
(Grammatiskt ABC)

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10

Verbs
There is no infinite form of verbs in the Macedonian language. The verbs are divided into
three stems, where the grouping is based upon the last vowel in the third person stem (all
verbs in third person singular end with a vowel). In Macedonian dictionaries, verbs are
printed in third person singular.
a-stem (a), -stem(i) and e-istem (e)
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students)
Conjugation of Macedonian verbs
Singular
Plural
First person
- (am)
- (me)
Second person
- ()
- (te)
(stem unchanged)
- (at)
Third person
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students)
When a verb is used for a certain person and number, the suffix is added to the fundamental
form of the verb concatenated with the verb (normally found in third person singular). Here
below are two exceptions, namely for first person singular and third person plural:

First person singualr requires that the last vowel in the stem is removed, before the
suffix - is concatenated. Example: - . (tra - tram)
Third person plural requires that the last vowel in the stem is removed if it is - (-i) or
-e (-e), before the suffix - (-at) is concatenated. Example: - (odi - odat)

Verbs in the Swedish language

Swedish verbs are not conjugated according to person and number, as with Macedonian verbs.
Disregarding person they use the same form, for example I walk, you walk, he walk(s), we
walk, they walk.

Negation of verbs
When Macedonian verbs are to be negated, they mostly use the particle (ne). It is placed
before the verb. To answer negatively to questions (first person), the form is:
, + verb in first person singular
Examples
I do not drive.
, . ( - to drive)
The only exception is the verb (ima) ("to have"), which has the negative corresponding
verb (nema) ("to lack, to not have"). To conclude with examples, the sentences "I have a
house" and "I do not have a house", are translated as follows:

I have a house
I do not have a house
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11

Note: In colloquial speech the person is normally excluded, so the sentences above would lose
"j". This is due to how verbs are conjugated taking into respect person and thus giving away
the subject. More information in "In a Linguistic Context".

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12

Adjectives
When adjectives are used together with nouns, they have to be declined according to gender
and number, as well as indefinite and definite form.
Examples
(
vesel

(
star

jolly)
taa e vesela
old)
ova e stariot grad

She is jolly.
This is the old city.

When adjectives are used with nouns in plural form, gender is disregarded. This means that
the same form of adjectives is used for masculine, feminine and neutral nouns when they are
found in plural. One must however show that the noun is in plural form, which is shown with
the suffix - (i).
(
vesel

(
umoren

jolly)
nie sme veseli
tired)
tie se umoreni

We are jolly.
They are tired.

Comments:

If the adjective has a fleeting wovel, it is removed before the suffix is concatenated
with the adjective.
Adjectives ending with - (-ski) have the same form regardless of if the noun is in
singular or plural form.

Adjectives in the Swedish language

In the Swedish language, singular form is formed by adding -a or -e and in plural by adding a.
Examples
den lill-a flickan
the little girl
den lill-e pojken
the little boy
de stor-a frndringarna. the large changes

Conjunctions
There are two conjunctions in the Macedonian language corresponding to "and". Depending
on the situation, one uses either "" (i), or "", a (the translation is then "and" or "but"). The
first variant is used when two items are considered equivalent.
Examples
.
I have a bicycle and you have a bicycle.

jac imam velosiped i ti ima velosiped.

The other variant is used when a contrast between two items should be emphasized. A comma
sign is printed before "a".

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13

Examples
, .
I work but you do not work.

jac rabotam, a ti ne raboti.

There are also two words that correspond to the Swedish "men" (but). These are (ama)
and (no), and they are used in different situations. The former word is loan word from
Turkisk and is used in colloquial speech. The latter word is used in formal contexts, in written
text as well as formal speech. The meaning is the same.
?
Ama zoto nemate kola?
, .
Nie morame da planirame, no posle april.

But why do you not have car?

We must plan, but after April.

Numerals
The Macedonian word for zero is (nula). The next integer, "one", is used both as a noun
and as an adjective. Thus it takes on the form relevant for the gender of a noun.
(eden) (, maki, masculine)
(edno) (, sreden, neutral)
(edna) (, enski, feminine)
There is also a plural form, (edni), meaning "several". The next integer, "two", has two
forms.
Ytterligare ett steg upp i den naturliga talen, br nmnas att ordet fr "tv" har tv former:
(dva), the masculine form..
(dve), the feminine and neutral form.
There are no special forms for any other integers.

Pronouns
Here follow examples of various types of pronouns, the first being used to signify
interrogative pronouns, as well as demonstrative pronouns.
?

koj?
ovoj
onoj
toj

who?
this (close to the speaker)
that (far from the speaker and the listener)
- (far away from the speaker but close to the listener)

(toj) is the most neutral of the last three forms, and is mostly used as narrative form to
illustrate the subject at hand, insteand of relations between objects.
The forms are declined according to gender and number, as follows:
(latin)

koj
?
a?

ovoj

aa

onoj

aa

toj

aa

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

(masculine)
(neuter)
14


e?
a
a
a
(feminine)

e
e
e
(plural)
(Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students)
When something is to be defined the neutral forms are used, as in the following example:
" " (ova e mojot prijatel, this is my friend). In this particular context the
neutral form does not correspond with the gender and number. This since the demonstrative
pronoun is the subject in the sentence.

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15

Syntax
Definite direct objects
An important distinction is made in Macedonian between definite and undefinite objects. If
the direct object is not definite, then the sentence can simply be concatenated.
Examples

jas zemam klu

I take a bicycle.

If the direct object is in definite form, then a special marker must be introduced. These words
do not have an accent, and are found at a fixed position in the sentence. In Macedonian the
marker is placed before the verb.
Markers for third person definite objects:
/

maki/sreden
enski

Singular
(go)
(ja)

Plural
(gi)
(gi)

(The choice of marker thus depends on the gender of the noun)

Example

jac go zemam kluot

I take the bicycle.

Possesion
Possesive constructions in Macedonian are of the model "the letter belonging to the man".
The object is placed first and followed by the preposition (na) or (od), whereupon the
subject is placed last. Both prepositions are typical for western dialects in Macedonia and
have been accepted in the literary standard.
Examples

konjot od enata e na gradina.
The horse belonging to the woman, is in the yard.
?
dali gi znaesh konjiti na enata?
Do you know the horses belonging to the woman?
In colloquial speech the phrase usually start with the preposition and the owner, followed by
the object.
Example

konjot na enata

The woman's horse.

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Pronounciation
Pronounciation rules in Macedonian
When voiced consonants occur in the end of words, they become voiceless, as follows:
(b)
(v)
(g)
(d)
()
(z)

(p)
(f)
(k)
(t)
()
(s)

The rule to determine which pronounciation to use, depends on observation of the last
consonant.

Accent
The Macedonian words that have three or more syllables, use fixed intonation on the
antepaenultima. Shorter words have the intonation on the first syllable. This intonation rule is
so central in the language, that when suffixes are added to words, the accent in the word is
moved so that it is on antepaenultima.
Examples
Two syllable words

kniga
knigata
knigava
knigana

Three syllable words

book

manastir
the book

manastirot
the book here
manastirov
the book there
manastiron

monastery
the monastery
the monastery here
the monastery there

Concluding remarks
During the autumn and winter I have studied the Macedonian language part time, and during
this period I have noticed that the following has required extra attention:

Decling and conjugating word depend on words in the open word classes (nouns,
verbs and adjectives) depending on gender and number.
A large number of variants of pronouns, since these are declined differently depending
on gender and number.

The bullet points above touch upon the fact that Macedonian is a synthetic language, as
opposed to Swedish which is an analytical language.
As mentioned before I am not a linguist, but my interest in languages has increased much
thanks to having parents with different linguistic backgrounds. With this in mind it has
become natural to discuss languages with relatives. Having friends from various parts of the
world, discussions about languages is natural, as trying to deduce words to and from the
mother tongues of friends.

2004-2006 Paul Markovski

17

Bibliography
Nationalencyklopedin, "Makedonska"
Roger Gyllin, oktober 1999
The Hutchinson Encyclopedia, 12:e utgvan, 2001
World History Encyclopedia, Philip's, 2001 utgva
Text book, "Macedonian: A course for Beginning and Intermediate students"
Christina E. Kramer, april 2003
Grammatiskt ABC, andra upplagan (2001)
Gunilla Florby och Erik Flt
English-Macedonian Macedonian-English dictionary (1995)
Zoze Murgoski

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