Macedonian Alphabet - Development of The Macedonian Alphabet

Development of The Macedonian Alphabet

Until the modern era, Macedonian was predominantly a spoken language, with no standardized written form of the vernacular dialects. Formal written communication was usually in the Church Slavonic language (in Pirin and Vardar Macedonia) or in Greek (in Greek Macedonia), which were the languages of liturgy, and were therefore considered the 'formal languages'.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th century coincided with Slavic resistance to the use of Greek in Orthodox churches and schools, and a resistance amongst some Macedonians to the introduction of standard Bulgarian in Vardar Macedonia. However during the period of Bulgarian National Revival many Bulgarians from Macedonia supported the struggle for creation of Bulgarian cultural, educational and religious institutions, including Bulgarian schools that used the version of Cyrillic adopted by other Bulgarians. The majority of the intellectual and political leaders of the Macedonian Bulgarians used this version of the Cyrillic script, which was also changed in the 19th and early 20th century.

The latter half of the 19th century saw increasing literacy and political activity amongst speakers of Macedonian dialects, and an increasing number of documents were written in the dialects. At the time, transcriptions of Macedonian used Cyrillic with adaptations drawing from Old Church Slavonic, Serbian and Bulgarian, depending on the preference of the writer.

Early attempts to formalize written Macedonian included Krste Misirkov's book "On Macedonian Matters" (1903). Misirkov used the Cyrillic script with several adaptations for Macedonian:

• i (where Ј is used today);
• л' (where Љ is used today);
• н' (where Њ is used today);
• г' (where Ѓ is used today);
• к' (where Ќ is used today); and
• ѕ (as used today).

Another example is from Bulgarian folklorist from Macedonia Marko Cepenkov who published in two issues of the "A Collection of folklore, science and literature" (1892, 1897) folklore materials from Macedonia. Cepenkov used a version of Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet with his own adaptations for some of the local Macedonian dialects. He did not use ѣ, using е instead, and did not use the ъ in the final position of masculine nouns. Other adaptations included:

• і (where Ј is used today);
• щ (where Шт is used today);
• ль (where Љ is used today);
• нь (where Њ is used today);
• гь (where Ѓ is used today);
• кь (where Ќ is used today);
• дж (where Џ is used today);
• ѫ (sometimes for А).

Between the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire from Macedonia in the Balkan Wars of 1912/13, and the liberation of Vardar Macedonia from the Nazis in 1944, Northern Macedonia was divided between Serbia (within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and Bulgaria, and standard Serbian and Bulgarian were the official languages. The Serbian and Bulgarian authorities considered Macedonian to be a dialect of Serbian or Bulgarian respectively, and according to some authors proscribed its use (see also History of the Macedonian language). However, in Bulgaria have issued books in Macedonian dialects and in 1920s and 1930s in Yugoslavia were published some texts in Macedonian dialects, too. Greek was used in areas under Greek control.