Macedonia is a multinational (dominated by a population composed of Macedonians and Albanians), multiethnic, multilingual (dominated by the Macedonian and Albanian languages) and multi-religious (dominated by Orthodox Christianity and Islam) country. Macedonians and Albanians, Turks, Roma, Aromanians and other national and ethnic groups live in this country with a population of two million. Macedonian is the official language used by the majority of the population in the state (70%). Albanian (25.17% of the population), along with the Turkish, Serbian and Croatian languages (during the reign of J. Broz Tito – Serbo-Croatian language) as well as other languages are also in use. Orthodox Christianity is the dominant religion (67% of the population); however, there is also a significant number of Muslims, who represent less than one third of the society. The Macedonian language belongs to the group of South-Slavic languages together with Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian. It is estimated that the Macedonian language in Macedonia, is spoken by 2 million out of 2.5 million people, together with the Macedonian emigration.

In the postwar history of the Macedonian language, the need of legal and grammatical status regulation and the destiny of the literary standard, greatly dependent on political motives, were expressed by the highest legislative bodies that strived towards its establishment. State committees that determined the Macedonian alphabet, and the basis for language development, were created. After World War II, when the Macedonian standard was established under the influence of the not so great, but highly influential elites, non-linguistic factors involved in the codification processes were obviously right. This was not so difficult when it came to that small South Slavic republic, subordinate to Belgrade until 1991.

The creation of the modern Macedonian state was related to three historical events, namely, the Balkan Wars (1912/1913), and the establishment (1943) and the breakup (1991) of the Yugoslav federation. As a result of the Balkan wars, the historical and geographical territory of Macedonia, heretofore belonging to the Turkish state, was divided between three states: Pirin Macedonia was attributed to Bulgaria, Aegean Macedonia to Greece and Vardar Macedonia to Serbia.