Standard Macedonian or literary Macedonian ( or македонски литературен јазик, ''makedonski literaturen jazik'') is the standard variety of the

Macedonian language Macedonian ( ; , , ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch. Sp ...

and the

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

used in

writing Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...

, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. Several prestige dialects have developed around the major urban centers of

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 ...

, Bitola, Veles and

Prilep Prilep ( ) is the List of cities in North Macedonia, fourth-largest city in North Macedonia. According to 2021 census, it had a population of 63,308. Name The name of Prilep appeared first as ''Πρίλαπος'' in Greek (''Prilapos'') in 1 ...

. It was only in the 1940s, however, that the Macedonian language was able to be implemented, after being formally declared the official language of the

Socialist Republic of Macedonia The Socialist Republic of Macedonia (), or SR Macedonia, commonly referred to as Socialist Macedonia, Yugoslav Macedonia or simply Macedonia, was one of the six constituent republics of the post-World War II Socialist Federal Republic of Y ...

. The rapid pace at which the standardization process took place was in part owing to an already existing interdialect (see spoken Macedonian). The Yugoslav government initially set up a literary Macedonian language based on a spoken dialect of the northern of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, but it was felt that this dialect was too close to Serbian and finally the dialects spoken in Bitola and Veles were adopted. These dialects, in turn, were closer to the literary Bulgarian, but as the latter was based on the Eastern Bulgarian dialects, it allowed enough differentiation for the Yugoslavs to claim a distinct Macedonian language. Since then, Bulgaria has been contesting the existence of distinct Macedonian language. Thus, the standard variety of Macedonian is phonologically and morphologically based on the central Western Macedonian dialects (in particular, the Prilep-Bitola and Skopje-Veles dialect) with its

lexicon A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...

influenced by all Macedonian dialects. Educated speakers will usually use, or aim to use, the sanctioned standard in public settings and in most forms of

written language A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is ...

. Probably the best exemplars of this type of speech, though not always the case, are

actors An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

teachers A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

and writers. A high degree of social prestige and

respect Respect, also called esteem, is a positive feeling or deferential action shown towards someone or something considered important or held in high esteem or regard. It conveys a sense of admiration for good or valuable qualities. It is also th ...

is assigned to those who can use the standard language in the appropriate situations. In extremely rare examples, some speakers will use the standardized code exclusively in everyday conversational speech. While acquisition of the formal code constitutes a significant part of elementary education, during which children are taught the relationship between their local dialect and the target code, the formal

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

. Most educated speakers

switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type o ...

to the colloquial register of the standard language, spoken Macedonian, when communicating in less formal circumstances, but tend to aim for more formal usage in circumstances where educated speakers are present or as a sort of " interdialect" in the case where the company is not exclusively local.

References

Macedonian language Macedonian 1944 establishments in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia Dialect levelling {{Slavic-lang-stub