# Macedonian: to ask - пита/праша, pitati/prašati/(vprašati)



## Teyata

Although it could be considered dialectal (my family is from the Macedonian diaspora and doesn't speak the literary standard) my family only uses 'pita' for 'to ask' and although they know what 'praša' means they don't use it.
Sometimes my grandmother says opita and she seems to use it in almost the same way as pita. I'm not quite sure, though, and I can't quite figure out the difference.
Could anyone shed light on this? I believe that I've heard "opita" in Bulgarian.


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## iobyo

Teyata said:


> Although it could be considered dialectal (my family is from the Macedonian diaspora and doesn't speak the literary standard) my family only uses 'pita' for 'to ask' and although they know what 'praša' means they don't use it.
> Sometimes my grandmother says opita and she seems to use it in almost the same way as pita. I'm not quite sure, though, and I can't quite figure out the difference.
> Could anyone shed light on this? I believe that I've heard "opita" in Bulgarian.



_(О)пита_ is indeed dialectal and nonstandard, most commonly used in Aegean Macedonian (Greek Macedonia, etc.) but in peripheral dialects as well.  The southernmost dialects in the Bitola area are a good example._

Прашува_ is the only accepted variant in the standard language. As for Bulgarian, I wouldn't know. I do know that _pitati_ is used in Serbian and Croatian.

There have been a few other threads discussing the use of _прашува_ in Macedonian and other languages.


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## iobyo

I don't know if it's worth mentioning, but I've noticed that the speech of ethnic Macedonians in the diaspora (specifically Australia) is an inconsistent mixture of dialects. 

I guess this came about after years of people from different regions living in close communities and eventual leveling of dialects. If your family is from the central region for example, this may explain why they use _(о)пита_. This is, however, just my speculation.


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## DarkChild

"Pitam" is the standard word in Bulgarian.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Are Macedonian and Slovenian the only modern Slavic languages that use *(v)prašati *(= to ask) or are there others?


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## Jana337

If you mean in a context like "he asked me for some money", we use "prosit" or "poprosit", among other options. But not for "to ask about".


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## TriglavNationalPark

Jana337 said:


> If you mean in a context like "he asked me for some money", we use "prosit" or "poprosit", among other options. But not for "to ask about".


 
Oh, I know; Slovenian also uses *prositi* in the sense of "to ask for something". I was just wondering if any other Slavic language, besides Slovenian and Macedonian, also uses *(v)prašati* in the sense of "to ask about something or someone". Most Slavic languages use *pitati* or something similar. (Curiously, *pitati* is a total false friend in Slovenian; it means "to feed a human or an animal".)


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## sokol

Old Church Slavonic has въпрашати (въпросити) = vprašati; Russian has for "to ask" спрашивать, спросить; these and Slovenian and Macedonian dialectal праша (which I only realised now, with this thread) to my knowledge are the only ones. My Polish dictionary shows pytać. (For _pitati _I haven't found the OCS cognate.)

So праша obviously goes back to OCS, it had the same meaning there.


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## Teyata

iobyo said:


> I don't know if it's worth mentioning, but I've noticed that the speech of ethnic Macedonians in the diaspora (specifically Australia) is an inconsistent mixture of dialects.
> 
> I guess this came about after years of people from different regions living in close communities and eventual leveling of dialects. If your family is from the central region for example, this may explain why they use _(о)пита_. This is, however, just my speculation.



My immediate family members are from southwest Macedonia near Resen as well as another western village so they aren't exactly from a central region. There could be other more distant relatives or friends that influenced them, though.

As you said, I've also noticed that the speech of my family and other diaspora Macedonians that grew up before the standardization of the language is a mixture of dialects. I suppose there's really no way to know exactly how the word came into their vocabulary - sometimes the same person will pronounce a single word in multiple ways. I find myself doing this too =D
It's even possible that both verbs, 'prašа' and '(o)pita', were common throughout Macedonia before the Macedonian standardization. Not to sound conspiratorial but language standardization often "removes" and leaves out previously common words for various reasons.


Darkchild, is opita also used in Bulgarian? If so, how?


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## sokol

Teyata said:


> Not to sound conspiratorial but language standardization often "removes" and leaves out previously common words for various reasons.


That is true - because they have to.  If two or more words are used then one is chosen.
Strangely in Macedonian standardisation process for quite some cases words were chosen that are different from Bulgarian (which, thus, emphasises the difference between both languages). Which of course in this case is not true as Bulgarian has, with 'pitam', the 'same' word; but probably праша was not chosen because only a minority of speakers did use it.
This of course is wrong as in Macedonian standard language *праша *was chosen; I'll leave the post like that so that the discussion still is comprehensible. Strangely I got it right in my first post. Anyway - sorry for that.


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## DarkChild

Teyata said:


> Darkchild, is opita also used in Bulgarian? If so, how?


Yes, opitam means to try.



sokol said:


> That is true - because they have to.  If two or more words are used then one is chosen.
> Strangely in Macedonian standardisation process for quite some cases words were chosen that are different from Bulgarian (which, thus, emphasises the difference between both languages).


 
Or is the other way around


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## iobyo

Teyata said:


> My immediate family members are from southwest Macedonia near Resen as well as another western village so they aren't exactly from a central region. There could be other more distant relatives or friends that influenced them, though.



That makes sense. From Resen down into Greece _(о)пита_ is what you'll hear more commonly in the spoken language.



			
				Teyata said:
			
		

> As you said, I've also noticed that the speech of my family and other diaspora Macedonians that grew up before the standardization of the language is a mixture of dialects.



This interdialect also existed before the efforts at codifying the literary language (being a standardized version of it).



			
				Teyata said:
			
		

> It's even possible that both verbs, 'prašа' and '(o)pita', were common throughout Macedonia before the Macedonian standardization.



They were and still are. Their use is just restricted to their respective dialectal regions/registers, etc.



			
				Teyata said:
			
		

> Not to sound conspiratorial but language standardization often "removes" and leaves out previously common words for various reasons.



This is true for all languages really. If this didn't occur, there would be no need for standardization. People would just write how they spoke.



sokol said:


> That is true - because they have to.  If two or more words are used then one is chosen.



This is not always the case with Macedonian. The lexis of the language is very inclusive of regional terms. For example, _одвај_/_едвај_ and _труп_/_леш_ are synonymous and interestingly this is a lot like the English Latin vs. Germanic choice of words where in Macedonian you can sometimes choose between a Slavic and Turkish word (as in the example above) giving a slightly different nuance in meaning. With _праша_/_(о)пита_ though, the *former* is prescribed in the standard.



			
				sokol said:
			
		

> Strangely in Macedonian standardisation process for quite some cases words were chosen that are different from Bulgarian (which, thus, emphasises the difference between both languages).



This is often exaggerated for political purposes. The idea was to choose a dialect that was equally distant from both the Bulgarian and Serbian languages so as to be 'comprehensible' (for lack of a better word) to all Macedonians.



			
				sokol said:
			
		

> Which of course in this case is not true as Bulgarian has, with 'pitam', the 'same' word; but probably праша was not chosen because only a minority of speakers did use it.



I think you may have misread what I wrote. It's actually _праша_ ("praša") that's standard and _(о)пита_ ("(o)pita") that's dialectal.


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## sokol

iobyo said:


> This is not always the case with Macedonian. (...) and interestingly this is a lot like the English Latin vs. Germanic choice of words where in Macedonian you can sometimes choose between a Slavic and Turkish word (as in the example above) giving a slightly different nuance in meaning.


Semantic differentiation of such doublettes happens many times when two words of different origin meaning the same exist: and yes, this sounds very much like the same distinction in English.
(I have also read that the same happened in Bosnia to give another example, but let's not discuss this here - we would need a new thread for that one.)



iobyo said:


> The idea was to choose a dialect that was equally distant from both the Bulgarian and Serbian languages so as to be 'comprehensible' (for lack of a better word) to all Macedonians.


Good point, you are right of course.



iobyo said:


> I think you may have misread what I wrote. It's actually _праша_ ("praša") that's standard and _(о)пита_ ("(o)pita") that's dialectal.


It is not only you who wrote that but Tetaya too - and I am *very *sorry for that; for the sake of this discussion still being comprehensible I will edit my posts above but let your correction stand here. 
(My only excuse is that I had a sore tooth when I wrote the above. The tooth problem is solved now, I shouldn't post at all I guess when I am in pain. ;-)


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## WannaBeMe

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Oh, I know; Slovenian also uses *prositi* in the sense of "to ask for something". I was just wondering if any other Slavic language, besides Slovenian and Macedonian, also uses *(v)prašati* in the sense of "to ask about something or someone". Most Slavic languages use *pitati* or something similar. (Curiously, *pitati* is a total false friend in Slovenian; it means "to feed a human or an animal".)



Hehe, it funy. This other _pitati_ in the meaning to feed exists also in Serbocratian but this has nothing to do with pitati-to ask. The accents of these two words are completely different. To ask has a long i and to feed a short i. But I have read somewhere that in Lithuanian it is *prausati* or similar -to ask.
And in Serbocroatian there is also prositi-ask or beg for sth.


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