The Macedonian Alphabet
The orthography of the Macedonian language includes an alphabet consisting of 31 letters (Macedonian: Македонска азбука, romanized: Makedonska azbuka), which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation.
Until the modern era, Macedonian was predominantly a spoken language, with no standardized written form of the vernacular dialects. Formal written communication was usually in the Church Slavonic language or in Greek, which were the languages of liturgy, and were therefore considered the 'formal languages'.
Before standardization, the language had been written in a variety of different versions of Cyrillic by different writers, influenced by Early Cyrillic, Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian orthography.
The Macedonian alphabet was standardized in 1945 by a committee formed in Yugoslav Macedonia after the Partisans took power at the end of World War II. The alphabet used the same phonemic principles employed by Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864) and Krste Misirkov (1874–1926).
Upper Macedonian Alphabet
| A a | [a] | like "a" in "arc" |
| Б б | [b] | like "b" in "brother" |
| В в | [v] | like "v" in "vest" |
| Г г | [g] | like "g" in "go" |
| Д д | [d] | like "d" in "day" |
| Ѓ ѓ | [gy] | like "gy" in "gear" |
| E e | [e] | like "e" in "bed", or like "ea" in "head" |
| Ж ж | [zh] | like "s" in "pleasure", or "zh" in foreign names (Russian, Chinese, etc.) such as "Zhivago" |
| З з | [z] | like "z" in "zeal", or like "s" in "reason" |
| Ѕ ѕ | [dz] | like "ds" in "kids" |
| И и | [i] | like "e" in "he", or like "y" in "lorry", "factory" |
| J j | [y] | like "y" in yes" |
| К к | [k] | like "k" in "key", or like "c" in "cat" |
| Л л | [l] | like "l" in "love" |
| Љ љ | [ly] | like "ll" in "million", "brilliant", |
| М м | [m] | like "m" In "mother", "milk" |
| Н н | [n] | like "n" in "no", or "kn" in "knob" |
| Њ њ | [ny] | like "n" in "news", "onion" |
| О о | [o] | like "o" in "not", "hot", "spot" |
| П п | [p] | like "p" in "pot" |
| Р р | [r] | roiled, rhotic "r", like "r" in Scottish, Irish and some rural English dialects |
| С с | [s] | like "s" in "stop", or "ss" in "bless", or like "c" in "cell" |
| Т т | [t] | like "t" in "top", |
| Ќ ќ | [ky] | like "q" in "queue" |
| У у | [oo] | like "oo" in "food" |
| Ф ф | [f] | like "f" in "fast", or like "ph" in "photo" |
| Х х | [h] | like "h" in "huge", or like "ch" in "loch" |
| Ц ц | [ts] | like 'ts" in "cats" |
| Ч ч | [ch] | like "ch" in "church" |
| Џ џ | [j] | like "j" in "John", "jungle" |
| Ш ш | [sh] | like "sh" in "shy", or like "s" in "sure" |
