MACEDONIAN  REVIEW
volume XIV, 1991, № 1
 

THE SERBIANIZATION OF THE MACEDONIAN OFFICIAL “LITERARY LANGUAGE” (Part I)

Kosta Tsurnoushanov
 

This part, above all, indicates the ideology ol the Serbianization of Macedonia, expressed in Serbia's propaganda shortly after the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. Seeing their failure in the direct persuasion and bribing of the Bulgarian population in Macedonia that allegedly it was by nationality old Serbian, the propaganda authorities concocted the idea of a separate Macedonian nationality to oppose to the Bulgarian. The chief ideologist to emerge was the Serbian politician, Stojan Novakovic, who defined the role of Macedonianism as an ally which would stand up firm against the Bulgarian national spirit and would ensure the breaking away of the Macedonian Slavs from it. In this way its Serbinization would be facilitated in accordance with a special plan, introducing ever more elements from the Serbian language in the Macedonian vernacular and eliminating the Bulgarians ones. It turned out, however, that the attempts of the Serbian agents in this direction suffered complete failure owing to the insusceptibility of the Bulgarians in Macedonia to the idea imposed on them. It was only after the end of the First World War that the Serbian socialists, now turned into communists, again resorted to this idea of a separate Macedonian nation in compliance with their party objectives. In the early 30s of this century they succeeded with the help of the Comintern in imposing it as an official stand of the communist movement. After its victory in Yugoslavia at the end of the Second World War, Titoism applied it in practice in Vardar Macedonia by the force of arms, persecuting all Bulgarian resistance. The principal means after that was the Serbianization of the officially introduced vernacular as literary. It proceeded in accordance with the plan drawn up by Novakovic as follows:

I. In the sphere of the alphabet and phonetics: The Serbian alphabet was imposed with the change of two letters only: instead of Ћ and Ђ were introduced Ќ and Ѓ. At the same time the Bulgarian letter Ъ - most necessary for all Macedonian dialects - was abolished and replaced by the Serbian P (sonant r) or by an apostrophe (): дрво, грк instead of дърво, гърк; с’лза instead of сълза.

II. In the sphere of the morphology and vocabulary: (1) introduction of a large number of Serbian words, for instance: мора instead of треба; пегла instead of утия; (2) formation of Serbianisms by either adding a Bulgarian ending to a Serbian word: правац — правец, почетак - почеток or by changing the basic vowel: коначно - конечно; (3) avoidance of the Bulgarian old suffixes -АЩ, -ЕЩ for the present active participle and its replacement by the Serbian ЧКИ: решаващ - решавачки, or of -ИМ, -УЕМ for the present passive


82

participle: неугасим — неугасив, неописуем — неопислив; (4) avoidance of the suffix -ТЕЛ in agentive nouns and its replacement by the Serbian -АЧ: завоевател - завоювач (5) use of foreign words in a Serbian variant: станция - станица, огромно – енормно; (6) Serbian forms of the names of lands: Швеция - Шведска, Швейцария - Швейцарска, Англия — Енгелеска; Виктор Юго - Виктор Иго, Анри Барбюс - Анри Барбис; (7) avoidance of popular words and their replacement by Serbian ones: раганье - порогяй, паметник - споменик, статуя - кип, бояджия - молер.

III. In the sphere of the Syntax: (1) avoidance of the conjunction БЕЗ ДА and its replacement by the Serbian А ДА: Никога не работи, без да поиска награда - Никога не работи, а да не посака награда; (2) in the use of verbs like управувам , дирижирам, командувам etc. which in the Serbian language require an indirect object in the instrumental case, the Macedonian authors use the preposition СО by which the instrumental case is translated without this being necessary: „командува со дивизия” instead of “командува дивизия”; „дирижира со оркестър” instead of „дирижира оркестър”; use of the preposition СО instead of НА (the Serbian way): “Во Египет мажите се женат со 18 години, а жените - со 16” respectively на 18, на 16, etc.
 

[Previous] [Next]
[Back]