TURKISH DIALECTS IN MACEDONIA: THE PAST AND THE PRESENT STATUS

Although the Turkish dialects of Rumelia are considered as part of the Anatolian dialects, they are now completely independent. According to the classification of the Turkish dialects of Rumilia by Gyula Németh, the Turkish dialects of Macedonia are considered a part of the Western Rumelian dialects. In this paper, the characteristics of the Turkish dialects of Macedonia are discussed starting from the 16th century work “Opera Nova de M. Pietro Lvpis Valentiano La qual insegna a parlare Turchesco” by Pietro Lupis Valentiano and estimated publishing date of 1520, then with the PhD thesis of Alpay İğci entitled as “The Characteristics of Western Rumelian Turkish in the 17th Century”, 19th century dictionaries of Gorgji Pulevski entitled as “Dictionary of Four Languages” and “Dictonary of Three Languages” published in 1873 and 1875 respectively, up to the modern day status. It has been concluded that from 16th century to the present, there are very few changes in the characteristics of the Macedonian Turkish dialects.