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Macedonian alphabet

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Macedonian alphabet
"Macedonian alphabet" in Macedonian
Script type
Time period
1945 – present
StatusOfficial script in  North Macedonia
LanguagesMacedonian language
Related scripts
Parent systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Cyrl (220), ​Cyrillic
Unicode
Unicode alias
Cyrillic
subset of Cyrillic (U+0400...U+04FF)
This language reads left to right
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Macedonian alphabet (Macedonian: Македонска азбука) is the official alphabet of North Macedonia, it is a variation of the Cyrillic script, consisting of 31 letters. It was officially codified in 1945 and began being used in May 5, 1945.[2] The modern Macedonian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic alphabet proposed by Krste Petkov Misirkov, and some letters were also taken from the alphabet reforms of Vuk Karadžić.[3]

Although Krste Petkov Misirkov used signs for the same sounds. From Vuk Karadžić's alphabet, the graphs for the letters lj, nj and j are accepted, and all other specificities are according to Misirkov's recommendations. The same letters are also present in the alphabet of Krste Petkov Misirkov, but with graphic symbols l' and n'. It is important to note that from Vuk Karadzic's alphabet, only the graphs for the letters are accepted, but not the sounds that correspond to these graphs in the same alphabet.

The cover page of the book "Dictionary of three languages" published by Georgi Pulevski in 1875. The left is in Macedonian, the center is Turkish and the right is Albanian.

Attempts of creating a Macedonian alphabet have existed as far back as the 19th century, many local lingistics made several proposes on how the alphabet would work and which letters would be in it. One of the first notable people to attempt to create a proper alphabet was Macedonian lingistic Georgi Pulevski. In 1875 he published the book "dictionary of three languages"[4] which was a dictionary of Albanian, Turkish[5] and a proposed Macedonian language. The author also tried to create a alphabet for the Macedonian language, he was inspired from his native dialect.[4] Most of the attempts of Georgi Pulevski for the creation of a alphabet werent succesful and he would eventually die in Sofia.

Another notable attempt of codification was with the monthly magazine "Loza" (literally translating into "The Vine") which published magazines roughly between 1892 – 1894, there attempts were quite limited and were quickly dropped.

  1. Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.
  2. Through the Language of Koneski and Miladinovci to the World of Macedonian Folk Poetry (2023) by CENL news
  3. Bechev, Dimitar (2019). Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 187. ISBN 1538119625.
  4. 4.0 4.1 The Dictionary Of Three Languages From Georgi Pulevski (2023) by Coronatodays
  5. Note: He used the cyrillic alphabet when it came to romanizing the words in his dictionary, instead of using latin.