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Violeta Tanceva – Zlateva
My attitude towards the language
“People who are of the same origin and who speak the same words and who live and make friends of each other, who have the same customs and songs and entertainment are what we call a nation, and the place where that people lives is called the people's country. Thus the Macedonians also are a nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia.”
Georgi Pulevski, “A Dictionary of Three Languages”, Belgrade, 1875, page 49.
Twenty-eight years after the publication of “Dictionary of Three Languages”, Krste Petkov Misirkov published his paper “On Macedonian Matters” (Sofia, 1903), where he points out the distinction of Macedonian people and the Macedonian language and strives for forming a Macedonian literary language.
Why do I start with history?
In order to remind that the Macedonian literary language is not something that has always existed, something that has been given to us as such and towards which we have no obligation. According to the Law on the Use of Macedonian Language (“Official Gazette” of the Republic of Macedonia, No. 5/1998), Macedonian language is a spiritual heritage of special cultural and historical relevance for the Republic. The use of Macedonian language, as an official language, is the right and duty of the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia.
The struggle for a distinct Macedonian language is related to the struggle for national independence of the Macedonian people. That struggle is not completed even nowadays. It might be a bit different, but it is not less hard at all. Its main objective is to maintain the purity of our literary language, its integrity. Especially in the last decade we have been facing an influx of different foreign words, mostly from the field of technology and particularly computer technology: hardware, software, laptop, mouse, memory stick, folder, file, driver, printer, media player, know-how…and so on. All these pompous and abstruse words sometimes look like some monsters that destroy our language. And if we try just a little bit, we can replace at least some of them with our words, to make them closer to our language, to our man. Why not use 'papka' for folder, 'dokument' for file, 'pecatar' for printer? Of course we can. In that context, the biggest responsibility is within the institutions from the field of culture that would prepare some annual programs for acceptance and/or replacement of foreign words with appropriate words from the Macedonian language. It is primarily the job of the Macedonian Language Council, as an expert body formed by the Government of the Republic of Macedonia. Just to remind – according to the Law on the Use of Macedonian Language from 1998, the Council performs the following tasks:
- It gives opinions, proposals, instructions and recommendations regarding the use, that is, protection, advancement and enrichment of the Macedonian language, including the terminology from all scientific fields;
- It takes actions in direction of finding forms and solutions for protection, advancement and enrichment of the Macedonian language;
- It proposes programs for protection, advancement, promotion and enrichment of the Macedonian language in all fields of the official communication that it submits to the Government of the Republic of Macedonia” etc.
However, all of us, that use the language every day, as the only means for communication, should get involved in that process. Mostly the proof readers and the media people, especially the journalists, as their influence on people is the biggest. Unfortunately, they make a mistake, a big one. You will often come across: 'osveta' (revenge), 'ozbilno' (seriously), 'zvanicno' (officially), 'bubasvaba' (cockroach), 'poklon' (present)…And the problem with our poor SINO (blue) is so big that it deserves a special article. A few times I have made sure that some (younger) people do not even know that there is another, Macedonian word for their 'plavo'. Its use is so spread that it is understood as normal (!) even in many names (the flower shop in the city center 'Tri boi plavo', the taxi company 'Plava laguna'), in songs ('Plavo oko') and in translations of foreign films ('sinusa', 'so sina kosa', instead of using the appropriate Macedonian word 'rusokosa', 'so rusa kosa').
For some other of the bunch of language problems, in some other occasion. And until then – let’s speak Macedonian!
(the author is a proof reader and editor-in-chief of “Gjurgja”)
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