Why does Macedonian have an oddly Slovenian sound to it?

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1000Zasto1000Zato@reddit

Duh, because they’re both Slavic languages. We even have Interslavic language naturally understandable 90% to all Slavs without prior learning

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Not 90% for Bulgarians. It feels like we weren't even considered when creating that language lol. It's like a combination of Serbian and Russian with a touch of Polish. I wonder where Macedonian stands, maybe they understand it slightly better because of their slightly increased similarity to Serbian.

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shogunlazo@reddit

Really? Cause I fully understand interslavic and everyone I've talked to feels the same way.

But that could be cause of how Macedonian was ratified in the late 40s to get rid of both previous bulgarian and serbian forced assimilation alot of root words were used from old Slavonic and old church Slavonic to fill in the gaps, which in a funny way makes it extremely easy for us because we're familiar with those words.

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2024-2025@reddit

All Slavs understand other Slavs except Russians they have no clue what others are saying

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shogunlazo@reddit

Not really, depends on the group, I understand Russian more then polish for example.

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Acceptable-Ratio4339@reddit

Macedonian here. Can confirm. Russian sounds much more understandable to me than Polish, at first at least.

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2024-2025@reddit

No I meant Russians act like they have no clue what the other Slavs are saying. While everyone seems to to some degree understand them.

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Lblink-9@reddit

The same goes for Serbocroatian speakers and us. They often say that they don't understand us, while I can easily understand most of what they're saying

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Fruloops@reddit

We should make interslavic great again.

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alpidzonka@reddit

I think I hear it a bit. Like the "L" sounds are softer

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Lblink-9@reddit

They don't sound similar to me, apart from the logic that they're both Slavic

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Ha55aN1337@reddit

Yeah, they only ever sound similar to people who don’t understand either.

Macedonian sounds a lot more russian to me than slovenian.

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PreWiBa@reddit

Honestly, as a Bosnian native speaker, Slovenian also does sound much more similar to Russian than BHS languages.

However, i think it's rather due to the fact that we actually aren't that "conscious" of how "slavic" our own mother languges sound. At least it's for me that way.

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NightZT@reddit

My native is german but I speak a bit serbocroatian and also russian. The pronunciation of serbocroatian is pretty easy for me, as an austrian it seems that i just have to pronounce everything with a strong eastern austrian dialect and then it sounds about right. Russian is much harder, there are quite a few sounds which I never used before. Tried to learn slovenian for a bit and while pronunciation wasn't as hard as russian, it was significantly harder than serbocroatian and for me had lots of "russian-like" aspects to it that serbocroatian doesn't have

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Ha55aN1337@reddit

I agree. I would say slovenian is like slavic with austrian dialect. Not at all russian.

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reriser@reddit (OP)

Austrian accent sounds nothing like Slovene. As a matter of fact, Germany German sounds more similar to Slovene than Austria German

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NightZT@reddit

Yeah I tend to agree. What they speak in Prekmurje sounds oddly similar though, like sometimes I thought I should be able to understand them easily based on the language melody but then I've no idea what they are saying

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Lblink-9@reddit

I'd have to disagree. We picked up some words from Austrian that stayed in our language. We use "pire" for "mashed potatoes", just like in Austria, and that originally comes from the French "purée".

Some people in Austria also call tomato "paradajz", same as us. Standard german is Tomaten.

These are just the first examples that come to mind of the similarities, there's plenty more

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NightZT@reddit

Oh yeah I think we have a lot of shared vocabulary. I've read that you also use the word šnops for Schnaps which we would also pronounce like šnops. We also use the word Kukuruz for corn instead of Mais and probably got that from you. Do you also call potatoes Krumpirn and Pancakes Palatschinken as we do? Germans would call potatoes Kartoffeln and Pancakes Pfannkuchen.

What I meant was that serbocroatian pronunciation is just easier for me than slovenian pronunciation.

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reriser@reddit (OP)

Overall, other Slavic and South Slavic languages actually have more German words than Slovene

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Lblink-9@reddit

Deka (decke) for blanket, Feurzeug. Lots of German words that just stay and you know the meaning of. We also call vinegar "jesih" which is similar to Essig, same as"ričet" and Ritschert. There's really too many to list them all. That's what happens when you live in the same country for more than 1000 years

Krompir and Palačinke. Same pronunciation, except the -n at the end is missing.

Kukuruz is serbocroatian, we call it Koruza.

Serbocroatian is also easy for me. You just learn it by going to Croatia a couple of summers. Most words are similar to ours, and you just have to learn the special odd ones. For example, they call Paradiesapfel as "rajčica" and "raj" actually translates to Paradise (raj same word, but we don't use it for tomatoes)

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Arktinus@reddit

It depends on the dialect. The Prlekija and Prekmurje dialects have the ü and å sounds which the rest don't have, for example.

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chunek@reddit

There are many similarities tho between rural Slovenian and Austrian German, for example how the o sounds is often replaced with an a sound.. lahko lohka, domov damu, deutsch (dojč) deitsch (dajč), ja jo, feuerzeug (fojrzojg) fajrcajk..

It depends probably on the region, obviously the languages are completely different, but there are many similarities when you look at some dialects.

Germany also has many different dialects, not sure what "Germany German" is supposed to mean, standard German is very stiff and rigid, but so is standard Slovene, so maybe that's why it sounds more similair to you.

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Ha55aN1337@reddit

Depends which slovene.

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reriser@reddit (OP)

Standard

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yoodudewth@reddit

I barely understand Slovenian, i dont know what this dude is on about.

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Mako2401@reddit

If Alexander was Greek, why did he have to learn greek?

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Maleficent_Carrot453@reddit

I am not sure, but if I had to guess, I would say there weren't any Northern Macedonians around to teach him the right language, so he had to learn whatever strange sounds people in the area were making. 😄

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Mako2401@reddit

I mean he literally had to learn Greek. Doesn't that sound weird to you, a Greek who doesn't speak Greek?

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Maleficent_Carrot453@reddit

Not weird at all, Lacedemonians and Thessalians didn't speak Attic Greek either.

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Mako2401@reddit

But you said that Macedonian being a Slavic language proves that we have nothing in common with Alexander. Now you say that you can be Greek and speak another language.

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Maleficent_Carrot453@reddit

You were the one who said it was strange that Alexander learned Attic Greek, implying that it somehow showed he wasn't Greek.
Ancient Macedonian wasn't a separate language. It was a dialect of Greek. The Pella tablet dates from a time even before Alexander was born, so this isn't some new discovery.
Your language, it’s completely unrelated to ancient Macedonian, not a dialect, not even a sister language. You can't compare it with the differences between the Greek dialects like Attic, Doric, Aeolian, etc, that were closely related within the broader Greek language family.
Do you personally have a connection to Alexander? Maybe yes, maybe no, who knows.

If you feel a connection to Alexander and to the ancient Macedonians, well done, welcome to the club!

But to deny that he was part of the Greek world is simply ahistorical.

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Anto11x@reddit

Bruh 🥀🥀

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Sea_Top9815@reddit

Nice! Now make Bulgarian how it sound to North Macedonians and let's see something.

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shortEverything_@reddit

There is already a comparison of MACEDONIAN (which your state has agreed not to oppose anymore) and Bulgarian

https://youtu.be/aS4xkCgR93A

They sound different enough to a Slavic speaker

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MatchAltruistic5313@reddit

It's a slavic language, and even to narrow it down further - it's a south slavic language. Most of them sound similar. Macedonian is almost the same as Bulgarian. Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian are almost the same. Slovene and kajkavian Croatian are very similar. There is an obvious linguistic continuum.

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shortEverything_@reddit

Macedonian is almost the same as Bulgarian

Huh I guess you haven’t heard the jat and common use the schwa in Bulgarian that standard Macedonian lacks - this makes the languages sound different to a Slavic speaker

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MatchAltruistic5313@reddit

Well of course there are differences, but to a person who isn't Macedonian or Bulgarian, they essentially sound the same. Including all Slavic speakers.

Not saying they're the same language, but if someone hasn't studied both, they are almost identical.

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shortEverything_@reddit

Not sure what you mean exactly but even to a non Bulgarian and non Macedonian that jats are recognisable - say I can pick up on differences with jat and non jat Slavic languages- the earlier being more associated with East Slavic languages

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determine96@reddit

I agree on this.

Some people from east Macedonia sound like Bulgarian, but the central and western dialects, on which Macedonian is based on - no.

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JufffoWup@reddit

You have the sound, you just don't write it.

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reriser@reddit (OP)

I’m talking about the sound here, not vocabulary, grammar or anything else

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MatchAltruistic5313@reddit

Me as well. All of these languages would sound the same to an outsider. Hell even Russian and Slovene would sound the same to a non Slavic speaker (and a good portion of Slavic speakers).

It's surprising for a Slovenian to not know these things.

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rintzscar@reddit

That's entirely because of the girl's voice and manner of speaking. It has nothing to do with the language.

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reriser@reddit (OP)

Nah, I’ve noticed this phenomenon several times and with different people

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Hot_Box_9402@reddit

Not even remotely similar the fuck

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ace_098@reddit

What might be messing with your ear is the stress placement (naglasak). In Serbo-Croatian and Czech, stress/accent is always on the first syllable, though in non standard dialects we do use it in different places.

In Polish, it's second to last, in Macedonian it's second or third to last. In Slovene it floats all over much like eastern Slavic languages.

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petrop36@reddit

The accent in Macedonian falls on the third. No worries you are correct. Almost.

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mssarac@reddit

In Macedonian it's second to last

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Prod_Meteor@reddit

If agent Macedonias knew who are they going to be called "Macedonians" in the 21st century, they would do harakiri.

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ZhiveBeIarus@reddit

It..doesn't

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Successful-Map-9331@reddit

Absolutely nothing to do with Slovenian.

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lokicramer@reddit

Sounds almost exactly like Serbian. Nearly identical.

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kakamgeliyor@reddit

Ama diyor. Türkçe etkisi yugoslav ülkelerinde mevcut olan

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Tiny-Credit-1613@reddit

*North Macedonian

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thegoldendoodleone@reddit

The nationality is Macedonian, the name of the country is North Macedonia. There’s no such word as north macedonian you uncultured swine.

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throwraislander@reddit

Μacedonian dialect sounds similiar as the others Greek dialect to me.
The difference is small but noticable.

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Milan_Leri@reddit

Not really. It sounds more like Bulgarian or south Serbian dialects. For some time Bulgarians actually claimed that Macedonian is just a dialect of Bulgarian.

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Fun_Selection8699@reddit

they be saying some weird shit like souvlaki and they mean kalamaki

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v1aknest@reddit

I mean, this manner of speech is typical "TV ad girl" manner of speech over here and is not how people speak irl. Maybe you have a similar way of speech running on your TV channels that makes it similar?

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flioink@reddit

Macedonian is one of the only two Slavic languages which

have for the most part ditched the case system.

I'll let you figure which is the other one.

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jankeyass@reddit

Macedonian sounds the closest to Old Serbian to me. Like bible Serbian.

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S-onceto@reddit

Closer to Old Church Slavonic?

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Unable-Stay-6478@reddit

Macedonian = Slovene written in Cyrillic.

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Hrevak@reddit

I'd say it's the narrow "e" pronunciation. The wide Serbo-Croatian "e" is much closer to "a", when compared.

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moisthotdogg@reddit

I went and searched up someone speaking in Slovenian because of this and I could barely understand aside from a few words (Probably because they were speaking fast). I guess they do sound similar but the main difference is Macedonian has a lack of cases.

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But otherwise it is not so close, Slovenian has clasic Slavic grammar with cases, in Macedonian they don’t have case.

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reriser@reddit (OP)

I’m just talking about the accent here, not words

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Same-Alfalfa-18@reddit

I don’t know, I am Slovenian, and it doesn’t sound familiar to me. At least to ljubljana accent.

Maybe some accent, sometimes… it sound more like southern Serbia…