Maybe Europe will make us respect our language

Zharko Nastoski, journalist and editor of the "Sloboden Pechat" website / photo: Dragan Mitreski / SP

The turbofolk invasion from Serbia and the unstoppable Internet dominance of English are not the only culprits - young people are overwhelmingly ignorant of their mother tongue because there is less and less anyone to teach them, less and less to find someone to instill and nurture love for it.

"Incessantly... the silkworm weaves its cocoon for three days, and then it transforms into a butterfly" - rang the striking, soft baritone of one of the veteran speakers of Radio Skopje and "Vardar Film". Documentary film from 70 years ago, when natural silk was still made in Bogdanci and Valandovo. That sentence alone will warm the heart of anyone who truly understands, sincerely loves and respects our Macedonian language. A few minutes later, I turned on the TV. Appendix for heating in schools. Ten uncomfortable seconds with the reporter's voice, then a statement from the mayor... I hastened to turn it off.

Languages ​​that are denied, whose very existence is challenged, are rare. Even rarer are the nations that, faced with such a denial, behave so irresponsibly towards their own language, as ours does. From neighbors' messages in the entrances of buildings, to official proclamations from the offices of the prime minister and the president of the country, the Macedonian language is harassed, insulted and desecrated daily in all kinds of ways by everyone - both professors and journalists, and loud lumpen patriots who "don't take the language out" by word of mouth", and lecturers who have no sense, and officials and institutions that would have to guard and protect it by law.

Last week, no one except the Union of Fighters marked the day on which the first lesson in the Macedonian language was held in the Kichevo village of Podvis. There, in the first liberated territory, the partisans organized teaching for the children from Kopačia in their native language. This happened in 1943, almost a whole year before ASNOM - the existence of that school effectively refutes the traditional nonsense of the Bulgarian propaganda that the Macedonian language is a "comintern creation", invented by the communists together with the Macedonian statehood. The school in Podvis for decades it is falling apart, overgrown with bushes, and it can only be reached by jeep. In the jungles of Peru, there are 16th century Inca ruins in better condition. The dilapidated building can be renovated with the money of only two or three "framework purchases" of octopuses and other selected seafood delicacies for the state restaurants, but no - as it is, the school is very unpleasant, but also adequately reflects how much the authorities care for the Macedonian language.

Such state, systemic and long-term carelessness, as well as many other situations in our country, originates from the general collapse of education and the constant lowering of the criteria for who can be a teacher, teacher or professor of the Macedonian language. Generations are coming whose parents did not "catch" a serious approach to language in their entire schooling. The turbofolk invasion from Serbia and the unstoppable internet dominance of English are not the only culprits - young people are overwhelmingly ignorant of their mother tongue because there is less and less anyone to teach them, less and less to find someone to instill and nurture love for it.

The fact that the system does not care certainly does not justify how much the average Macedonian does not love and respect his language, which on some level must also mean that he does not love himself, or at least that he is not very self-aware. Digged into the party trenches and awakened by the incessant struggle for bare survival, Macedonians have long since ceased to consider language as something important in their lives. Who has time to read who Ladislav Palfi is, to watch and learn what is a correct and logical sentence, what is diction... in silkworm documentaries from '51? However, many, when the opportunity presents itself, will be patriotically "baptized" in the "holy brothers" Cyril and Methodius, Misirkov and Prlichev - and it is difficult for them to learn grammar lessons from the sixth grade.

If you try to react on social networks to any of the daily language "shipwrecks" uttered by most politicians, Prime Minister Kovacevski, opposition leader Mickoski - you will soon be stuck with the zealous, on-duty fans of one side or the other. The more simple ones will spit, everyone will accuse you of being one of the "others", and the slightly more refined ones will complain that comments about the form distract from the essence (so, let's not omit the thick essence in the words of their heroes). Insist on pure Macedonian language and you will often be met with ridicule by the idiotic public.

But it's not all so dark: last week was the European Day of Languages. However, the Macedonian language entered Europe before us, and this may be the great chance to somehow start to truly respect it, as a nation. We are just waiting for the European funds to open and the bureaucrats there to "press", give us money and tell us how we should preserve and nurture our own language.

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