The Ohrid dialect ( mk, Охридски дијалект, ''Ohridski dijalekt'') is a member of the western and north western subgroup of the western group of
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
of the
Macedonian language. The dialect is spoken in the region around the city
Ohrid
Ohrid ( mk, Охрид ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inh ...
,
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 Socialist Feder ...
up to the southern point of the
Ohrid Lake
Lake Ohrid ( mk, Охридско Езеро , al, Liqeni i Ohrit , also referred as ''Liqeni i Pogradecit'';) is a lake which straddles the mountainous border between the southwestern part of North Macedonia and eastern Albania. It is one o ...
. Except in the city of
Ohrid
Ohrid ( mk, Охрид ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inh ...
, the dialect is spoken in the villages
Trpejca,
Peštani,
Elešec,
Velgoshti and many others smaller villages in that area. This dialect is known among the Macedonians as a dialect of extensive use of the suffix ''-t'' and to some extent shortening of the words. The Ohrid dialect is also part of the Macedonian literature, especially with the works of
Grigor Prličev with his ''Biography'', ''Skenderbeg'' and ''Serdarot''. The Ohrid dialect is closely related with the nearby city
Struga
Struga ( mk, Струга , sq, Strugë) is a town and popular tourist destination situated in the south-western region of North Macedonia, lying on the shore of Lake Ohrid. The town of Struga is the seat of Struga Municipality.
Name
The n ...
and
Upper Prespa dialects.
Phonological characteristics
*shortening of words: братучед / ''bratučed'' → брачед / ''bračed'' ('cousin');
*absence of intervocalic ;
*use of the consonant groups št and žd;
*use of the ''cu-'' instead of the consonant group ''cv-'': цвет / ''cvet'' → цут / ''cut'' ('flower').
Morphological characteristics
*use of the suffix ''-t'' for third-person singular;
*use of the preposition vo, v;
*loss of the suffix ''-m'' in first-person singular;
*use of dative forms;
*the
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language.
Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other ...
is replaced by .
Examples of the dialect
"...Da vi kaža i drugo: Opisanata vo ''Armatolos'' Neda ne e druga ocvan majka, i nejzinoto snovidenie - majčino mi snovidenie. Tolku e verno oti majčinata ljubov pomaga i vo spisanijata..." - ''Autobiography by Grigor Prličev''
[стр.73 За македонската литература, Блаже Конески, Култура- Скопје 1967]
References
{{Macedonian dialects
Dialects of the Macedonian language
Ohrid
Ohrid Municipality