The Skopje-Veles dialect (, ) is a member of the central subgroup of the Western group of

dialects A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...

of Macedonian. The dialect is spoken by a larger group of people in the cities

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

and Veles and in the surrounding villages: Volkovo,

Katlanovo Katlanovo (, ) is a village in the Municipalities of North Macedonia, municipality of Petrovec Municipality, Petrovec, North Macedonia and situated between the cities of Skopje and Veles, North Macedonia, Veles. Demographics As of the 2021 North M ...

, Petrovec and Čaška among others. This dialect is of historical importance for Macedonian because it is considered by many to be a

prestige dialect Prestige in sociolinguistics is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally c ...

. On August 2, 1945, the Skopje-Veles dialect, together with the other dialects of the central group was officially regulated as a basis of standard Macedonian. Many Macedonian writers and linguists were writing on this dialect and considered it to be standard Macedonian. One of them was Krste Petkov Misirkov and in his book ''For Macedonian affairs'' wrote that this dialect should be standard Macedonian. He has been writing on Skopje-Veles dialect and on Prilep-Bitola dialect.

Internal migration Internal migration or domestic migration is human migration within a country. Internal migration tends to be travel for education and for economic improvement or because of a natural disaster or civil disturbance, though a study based on the full ...

to the capital

in the 1950s and 1960s led to the development of a new, urban

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

where newly arrived people attempted to incorporate elements of the Skopje-Veles dialect into their own speech, often confusing local elements with those from

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

Language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

with Serbo-Croatian, then a more prestigious language in

SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

, also reached its height during this period. This variety has been described as a " creolized form of Serbian" (cf. also

Surzhyk Surzhyk ( Ukrainian and Russian: , ) is a Ukrainian– Russian pidgin used in certain regions of Ukraine and the neighboring regions of Russia and Moldova. The vocabulary mix of each of its constituent languages (Ukrainian and Russian) varies ...

in Ukraine, Trasianka in Belarus) and is distinct from the 'authentic' Skopje-Veles dialect.

Phonological characteristics

*use of instead of the archaic : () > (; 'fear'); *emphasis mostly on the antepenultimate syllable in Veles, and less in Skopje; *use of the hard (palatal) l; *use of intervocal : (; 'man'); *use of the hard sound њ (nj) (in the other dialects of the central group this sound is soft); *use of the letter ќ and ѓ (in the others dialects of the central group the cluster јќ and јѓ is found): () – (; 'house').

Morphological characteristics

*use of the preposition во (vo) or в (v); *use of the grammatical construction have + past participle: (; 'I have worked'); *use of three articles.

Examples of the Skopje-Veles dialect

The poem "A voice from Macedonia" by Kole Nedelkovski is probably one of the most famous texts written in the Skopje-Veles dialect. ;Skopje dialect ;Veles dialect

Phonological characteristics

Morphological characteristics

Examples of the Skopje-Veles dialect

References

See also