page_title: South Slavic languages
section_title: Eastern group
hierarchical_section_title: South Slavic languages / Eastern group
caption_attribution_description: English: Bulgarian dialect map in early 20th. Century acc. to Bulgarian Dialectological Atlas. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2001, ISBN: 954-90344-1-0 Source: from :bg:Файл:Bulgarian dialect map-yus.png, graphics created by :bg:User:Пакко (Plamen Tsvetkov), released on Bulgarian Wikipedia under GFDL
context_page_description: The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written was the variety spoken in Thessaloniki, now called Old Church Slavonic, in the ninth century. It is retained as a liturgical language in some South Slavic Orthodox churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions.
context_section_description: The dialects that form the eastern group of South Slavic, spoken mostly in Bulgaria and Macedonia and adjacent areas in neighbouring countries (such as the Bessarabian Bulgarians in Ukraine), share a number of characteristics that set them apart from other Slavic languages:
  the existence of a definite article (e.g. книга, book – книгата, the book, време, time – времето, the time)
  a near complete lack of noun cases
  the lack of a verb infinitive
  the formation of comparative forms of adjectives formed with the prefix по- (e.g. добър, по-добър (Bulg.)/добар, подобар (Maced.) – good, better)
  a future tense formed by the present form of the verb preceded by ще/ќе
  the existence of a renarrative mood (e.g. Той ме видял. (Bulg.)/Тој ме видел. (Maced.) – He supposedly saw me. Compare with Той ме видя./Тој ме виде. – He saw me.)
  Bulgarian and Macedonian share some of their unusual characteristics with other languages in the Balkans, notably Greek and Albanian (see Balkan sprachbund).
caption: Map of the big yus (*ǫ) isoglosses in Eastern South Slavic and eastern Torlakian according to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' atlas from 2001.[11] Pronunciation of man and tooth, derived from proto-words zǫbъ mǫžь on the map:[mɤʃ], [zɤp] (see зъб and ząb)[maʃ], [zap] (see заб)[muʃ], [zup] (see зуб and zub)/mɒʃ/, /zɒp/[mɔʃ], [zɔp] (see zob, mąż)/mæʃ/, /zæp/  (see mężczyzna)[mɤmʃ], [zɤmp][mamʃ], [zamp]/mɒmʃ/, /zɒmp/ (see ząb)
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