Macedonian language facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Macedonian |
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|---|---|
| Македонски јазик Makedonski jazik |
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| Pronunciation | [maˈkɛdɔnski] |
| Native to | Republic of North Macedonia, Greece, Australia, Serbia, Albania, Germany, France, Italy, United States, Canada Turkey |
| Region | The Balkans |
| Native speakers | 1.6 - 3 million (date missing) |
| Language family |
Indo-European
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| Writing system | Cyrillic (Macedonian variant) |
| Official status | |
| Official language in | North Macedonia recognised as minority language in parts of:  Albania |
| Regulated by | Macedonian Language Institute "Krste Misirkov" at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje |
Countries with significant Macedonian-speaking populations
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Macedonian (македонски јазик, makedonski jazik) is a language spoken mainly in North Macedonia. It belongs to the Slavic group of Indo-European languages. This means it's related to languages like Russian, Polish, and Serbian.
Macedonian is also part of something called the Balkan linguistic union. This is a group of languages that share some features because they have been spoken near each other for a long time. Other languages in this group include Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Albanian. Macedonian is quite similar to Bulgarian.
The Macedonian Alphabet
The Macedonian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet. This is the same type of alphabet used for languages like Russian and Serbian. However, the Macedonian version has some special letters.
The table below shows the letters of the Macedonian alphabet. It includes both the capital and small letters. It also shows how each letter sounds using the IPA. The IPA is a special system that shows the exact sound of a letter.
| CyrillicIPA | А а/a/ | Б б/b/ | В в/v/ | Г г/ɡ/ | Д д/d/ | Ѓ ѓ
/ɟ/ |
Е е/ɛ/ | Ж ж/ʒ/ | З з/z/ | Ѕ ѕ
/dz/ |
И и/i/ |
| CyrillicIPA | Ј ј/j/ | К к/k/ | Л л/l/ | Љ љ/lj/ | М м/m/ | Н н/n/ | Њ њ/ɲ/ | О о/ɔ/ | П п/p/ | Р р/r/ | С с/s/ |
| CyrillicIPA | Т т/t/ | Ќ ќ
/c/ |
У у/u/ | Ф ф/f/ | Х х
/x/ |
Ц ц/ts/ | Ч ч/tʃ/ | Џ џ/dʒ/ | Ш ш/ʃ/ |
Learn More About Macedonian
If you want to learn more about the Macedonian language, here are some helpful resources:
- Websters Online, Macedonian — English Dictionary
- BBC Education, Languages: Macedonian, Makedonski
- University of North Carolina, Reading and Pronouncing Macedonian: An Interactive Tutorial
- Victor Friedman, A grammar of Macedonian
- Mladen Srbinovski, Nature of Standard Macedonian language
Images for kids
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Krste Petkov Misirkov (pictured) was the first to outline the distinctiveness of the Macedonian language in his book Za makedonckite raboti (On the Macedonian Matters), published in 1903.
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Macedonian police car, with the Macedonian word Полиција (Policija), for "police".
See also
In Spanish: Idioma macedonio para niños
