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<h2 class="blog-post-title"><a href="/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/">Beautiful Ligatures in Macedonian Cyrillic</a></h2>
<p class="blog-post-meta"><time datetime="2016-02-08T09:14:15Z">Mon Feb 08, 2016</time>
in
<a href="/categories/language/" rel="category tag">Language</a>, <a href="/categories/travel/" rel="category tag">Travel</a>
<a href="/tags/bulgarian/" rel="tag">Bulgarian</a>, <a href="/tags/cyrillic/" rel="tag">Cyrillic</a>, <a href="/tags/macedonia/" rel="tag">Macedonia</a>
</p>
<p>Macedonian is a Slavic language closely related to Bulgarian. My untrained ear can&rsquo;t tell the difference between the two, but my eyes spot differences immediately. In addition to minor variations in spelling and grammar, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_alphabet">Macedonian&rsquo;s Cyrillic alphabet</a> uses a handful of characters not present in Bulgarian&rsquo;s, for example the beautiful ligatures for &ldquo;ль&rdquo; and &ldquo;нь&rdquo;: љ and њ, respectively.</p>
<figure>
<img
sizes="(min-width: 35em) 1200px, 100vw"
srcset='
'
src="/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/macedonian-ligatures_hu0e4397e87b34a5a00372b36345cb0b06_9925_800x0_resize_box_2.png"
alt="Ligatures for upper and lowercase &amp;ldquo;Lje&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;Nje&amp;rdquo; characters (rendered in PT Sans)"/> <figcaption>
<p>Ligatures for upper and lowercase &ldquo;Lje&rdquo; and &ldquo;Nje&rdquo; characters (rendered in PT Sans)</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature">Ligatures</a> are interesting because they were originally invented to solve a practical typesetting problem during the days of the printing press. When using metal fonts, certain characters had features that collided with other characters, so troublesome letters were combined into a single piece of type. In Latin script this is most obvious in combinations involving the lowercase f, for example &ldquo;fi&rdquo; and &ldquo;fl&rdquo;.</p>
<p>Macedonian Cyrillic&rsquo;s use of ligatures fascinates me because in modern, digital typesetting they are generally only stylistic, but also because they involve the <a href="https://englishbulgaria.net/2016/01/finding-er-maluk/">beautifully subtle and rare <em>er maluk</em></a> (ь) character.</p>
<h2 id="sightings">Sightings</h2>
<p>On a recent trip to Skopje I was fascinated to see these characters in use on signs and billboards. This advertisement for <a href="http://www.lasko.eu/en">Laško</a>, a Slovenian beer brewery, features the ligature for &ldquo;ль&rdquo;:</p>
<figure>
<img
sizes="(min-width: 35em) 1200px, 100vw"
srcset='
/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/DSC_0135_hu0b8db3f8b42fc9816735d5e6d1759f12_1350477_480x0_resize_q75_box.jpg 480w,
/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/DSC_0135_hu0b8db3f8b42fc9816735d5e6d1759f12_1350477_800x0_resize_q75_box.jpg 800w,
/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/DSC_0135_hu0b8db3f8b42fc9816735d5e6d1759f12_1350477_1200x0_resize_q75_box.jpg 1200w,
/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/DSC_0135_hu0b8db3f8b42fc9816735d5e6d1759f12_1350477_1500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg 1500w,
'
src="/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/DSC_0135_hu0b8db3f8b42fc9816735d5e6d1759f12_1350477_800x0_resize_q75_box.jpg"
alt="Advertisement for Laško beer in Skopje, Macedonia"/> <figcaption>
<p>Advertisement for Laško beer in Skopje, Macedonia</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For comparison, here&rsquo;s how the sign&rsquo;s text (&ldquo;with love since 1825&rdquo;) would be written in Macedonian and Bulgarian:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Macedonian:</strong> Со љубов од 1825</li>
<li><strong>Bulgarian:</strong> С любов от 1825</li>
</ul>
<p>First, notice the striking similarity between the two. Aside from the minor differences in Со/С (&ldquo;with&rdquo;) and од/от (&ldquo;since/from&rdquo;), the љ character in the Macedonian version has the same function as the лю sequence in the Bulgarian version — both are responsible for the &ldquo;lyu&rdquo; sound in &ldquo;<em>lyubov</em>&rdquo; (love).</p>
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