The term Maleševo-Pirin or Maleshevo-Pirin or Pirin-Maleshevo dialect is used in
South Slavic linguistics to refer to a group of related varieties that are spoken on both sides of the border of
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
and the
Republic of North Macedonia
North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...
. Some linguists treat them as dialects of the
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians.
Along with the closely related Macedonian la ...
, while Victor Friedman views them as part of
Macedonian. According to some authors, they are linguistically transitional between the two national languages,
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
and
Macedonian and form part of the larger
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
between them. The dialect group is named after the mountain ranges of
Pirin
, photo=Pirin-mountains-Bansko.jpg
, photo_caption=Pirin scenery in winter
, country= Bulgaria,
, parent=
, geology= granite, gneiss, marble, limestone
, area_km2=2585
, range_coordinates =
, length_km=80 , length_orientation= north-s ...
in Bulgaria and
Maleševo in Macedonia. When referring specifically to the dialects on the Bulgarian side, the term Petrich-Blagoevgrad dialect, after the two major towns in the area, is also used.
Classification
Macedonian linguists tend to treat the whole group as part of Macedonian, classifying it as part of a southeastern group of
Macedonian dialects
The dialects of Macedonian comprise the Slavic languages, Slavic dialects spoken in the Republic of North Macedonia as well as some variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in the wider geographic region of Macedonia (region), Macedonia. They are pa ...
, whereas from the perspective of Bulgarian linguistics, the varieties in Bulgaria and North Macedonia are classified as parts of the eastern subgroup of the
Southwestern Bulgarian dialects
The Southwestern Bulgarian dialects are a group of Bulgarian dialects which are located west of the yat boundary and are part of the Western Bulgarian dialects. The range of the Southwestern dialects on the territory of Bulgaria includes most of ...
.
Indeed, during much of its history, the Eastern South Slavic dialect continuum, including the Maleshevo-Blagoevgrad-Petrich region, was simply referred to as "Bulgarian", and Slavic speakers in Macedonia referred to their own language as ''balgàrtzki'', ''bùgarski'' or ''bugàrski''; i.e. Bulgarian.
According to
Dennis P. Hupchick:
''Until a modern Macedonian literary language was mandated by the communist-led partisan movement from Macedonia in 1944, most outside observers and linguists agreed with the Bulgarians in considering the vernacular spoken by the Macedonian Slavs as a western dialect of Bulgarian.''
However, according to modern Western sociolinguists, the dispute is entirely irrelevant from a modern perspective, as it fails to take into consideration the ethnic and linguistic identity of the speakers. According to
Trudgill, the question whether Bulgarian and Macedonian are distinct languages or dialects of a single language cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, but should rather take into account sociolinguistic criteria, i.e., ethnic and linguistic identity.
Jouko Lindstedt
Jouko Lindstedt (born in 1955) is a Finnish linguist and a professor at the University of Helsinki. Lindstedt is a member of the Academy of Esperanto and was nominated as the Esperantist of the Year in 2000 (with Hans Bakker and Mauro La Torre ) by ...
also opines that the dividing line between Macedonian and Bulgarian should be defined by the linguistic identity of the speakers, i.e., by the state border:
[Tomasz Kamusella, Motoki Nomachi, Catherine Gibson as ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders, Springer, 2016; , p. 436.]''Macedonian dialectology... considers the dialects of south-western Bulgaria to be Macedonian, despite the lack of any widespread Macedonian national consciousness in that area. The standard map is provided by Vidoeski.(1998: 32) It would be futile to tell an ordinary citizen of the Macedonian capital, Skopje, that they do not realise that they are actually speaking Bulgarian. It would be equally pointless to tell citizens of the southwestern Bulgarian town of Blagoevgrad that they (or at least their compatriots in the surrounding countryside) do not ‘really’ speak Bulgarian, but Macedonian. In other words, regardless of the structural and linguistic arguments put forth by a majority of Bulgarian dialectologists, as well as by their Macedonian counterparts, they are ignoring one, essential fact – that the present linguistic identities of the speakers themselves in various regions do not always correspond to the prevailing nationalist discourses.''
The dialect is spoken in the towns of
Delčevo
Delčevo ( mk, Делчево ) is a small town in the eastern mountainous part of North Macedonia. It is the municipal seat of the eponymous municipality. A festival in celebration of revolutionary leader Goce Delčev) is held every year on Au ...
,
Pehčevo
Pehčevo ( mk, Пехчево, is a small town in the eastern part of North Macedonia. It is the seat of Pehčevo Municipality. Pehčevo is known for its winter tourism.
History
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Pehčevo was part of the ...
,
Berovo
Berovo ( mk, Берово, ) is a small town near the Maleševo Mountains, from Skopje, from Strumica and from Kočani, in North Macedonia. It is the seat of Berovo Municipality.
Demographics
According to the 2002 census, the town had a tot ...
and the surrounding villages in the east of the Republic of Macedonia, and in the regions of
Blagoevgrad
Blagoevgrad ( bg, Благоевград ) is а town in Southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Municipality and of Blagoevgrad Province. With a population of almost inhabitants, it is the economic and cultural centre ...
,
Petrich
Petrich ( bg, Петрич ) is a town in Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria, located in Sandanski–Petrich Valley at the foot of the Belasica Mountains in the Strumeshnitsa Valley. According to the 2021 census, the town has 26,778 ...
and
Sandanski
Sandanski ( bg, Сандански ; el, Σαντάνσκι, formerly known as Sveti Vrach, bg, Свети Врач, until 1947) is a town and a recreation centre in south-western Bulgaria, part of Blagoevgrad Province. Named after the Bulga ...
in Bulgaria.
The Blagoevgrad-Petric dialect is also closely related to the neighbouring
Kyustendil
Kyustendil ( bg, Кюстендил ) is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of the Kyustendil Province, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see.
The town is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, ...
and
Samokov dialect
The Samokov dialect is a Bulgarian dialect, member of the Southwestern Bulgarian dialects, which is spoken in the region of Samokov in central western Bulgaria. Its immediate neighbours are the Sofia dialect and Elin Pelin dialect to the north, the ...
s, and especially to the
Dupnitsa dialect
The Dupnitsa dialect is a Bulgarian dialect, member of the Southwestern Bulgarian dialects, which is spoken in the region of Dupnitsa in central western Bulgaria. It is transitional between the Samokov dialect to the east and the Blagoevgrad-Petri ...
,
whereas the Maleshevo dialect is closely related especially with the
Strumica dialect
The Strumica ( mk, Струмички дијалект, ''Strumicki dijalekt'') is a dialect of Macedonian. It is member of the center subgroup of the eastern group of the Macedonian dialects. This dialect is mainly spoken in the southeastern p ...
.
[The sociolinguistics of literary Macedonian, VICTOR A. FRIEDMAN, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARY]
Linguistic properties
The following is a table of distinctive phonological and grammatical features, comparing the values found in the Maleshevo and Blagoevgrad-Petrich dialects with Standard Bulgarian, Standard Macedonian and two neighbouring Western Bulgarian dialect areas. Some features in this table are also present in English.
As shown by the table, the Maleshevo and the Blagoevgrad-Petrich dialect show mixed Bulgarian and Macedonian phonological traits and mostly Bulgarian grammatical traits (several instead of one conjugation, single definite article, formation of past perfect tense with бeх, etc.), with the Maleshevo dialect ranging mostly towards Macedonian and the Blagoevgrad-Petrich dialect ranging mostly towards Bulgarian (cf. table). The transitional nature of the dialect is further demonstrated by the reflexes of the Proto-Slavic /: from the typically Bulgarian щ/жд (/) in the Blagoevgrad-Petrich dialect and the far East of the Maleshevo dialect, along the border with Bulgaria, through the transitional шч/жџ (/) in the central parts, and to the typically Macedonian ќ/ѓ (/) in the western parts of the Maleshevo dialect
Other phonological characteristics
* shortening of words
* use of the old consonant group ''caf-'' instead of the consonant group ''cv-'': цев- цаф (''cev'', 'pipe')
* use of at the beginning of the word as in Bulgarian instead of as in Macedonian: важе ('rope')
Morphological characteristics
* use of the preposition ''sos'': – сос рака ('with the hand');
* the clitic possessive forms follow the verb: му рече – рече му ('He told him');
* use of the dative form with ''na'': на нас ни рече ( ''na nas ni reche'', 'He told us')
* the form of the verb ''to be'' for third person plural is ''sa'' as in Bulgarian, instead of ''se'' as in Macedonian: тие се – тие/тия са ('those are'), они са ('they are')
* use of the pronouns ''on, ona, ono, oni'' (он, она, оно, они) instead of ''toj, tja, to, te''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malesevo-Pirin dialect
Dialects of the Bulgarian language
Dialects of the Macedonian language
Blagoevgrad Province
Pehčevo Municipality
Delčevo Municipality
Berovo Municipality