Macedonian Dialects, Cont.

Another interesting dialect I've just learned of comes from the region around Prespa Lake, the slightly-less picturesque body of water that feeds into Ohrid Lake in the southwest of the country. There are a series of really well-off villages in the region, although aside from endless apple and plum orchards, there's very little economic activity.

The wealth of the villages comes from abroad, as people from the Prespa region are known to have always travelled abroad to find work - even back to the 17th and 18th centuries. In the twentieth century, most travel to Canada, Australia, and the US to work, leading to an interesting dialect. Rather than use basic Macedonian words, English is randomly inserted. The Macedonian verb for "I am calling on the phone" is "se javuvam". . . but in Prespa, one can overhear "se call-uvam". Interesting stuff.

Another interesting bit about the region is that the names of the villages are hilarious. I'm sure that at one point, these village names had a different meaning, but in modern-day Macedonian slang, you can travel from "Adultery-town" to "People who pee in their pants" to "Toothless People Village" to a place that can be colloquially translated as "F***ed".