The Macedonian Dialect Atlas (MASA, 2024) comprises 50 maps covering thematically diverse vocabulary, including animal names, family names, and culinary lexis. Analysis of the linguistic material reveals that Macedonian linguists incorporated settlements from Bulgaria into their network; however, among the cited maps, only one comprises three filled-in settlements, several maps show two, and some show none. Consequently, the data from settlements in Southwestern Bulgaria is sparse. While some of the mapped names coincide with those in the network of today’s Republic of North Macedonia, they also correspond to names from the Bulgarian network, as documented in the volumes of OLA, BDA, and related sources. The so-called ‘Macedonian’ lexemes thus attest to the natural continuity of isolexes and areals extending west of the Bulgarian state border within the Bulgarian linguistic territory.
Кirilov et al. (Tue,) studied this question.