Macedonian form occurs around Kumanovo. Dialects Prizren–Timok dialect Transitional Bulgarian dialects Kumanovo dialect Gora dialect Krashovani Literature Literature written in Torlakian is rather sparse as the dialect has never been an official state language. During the Ottoman rule literacy in the region was limited to Eastern Orthodox clergy, who chiefly used Old Church Slavonic in writing. The first known literary document influenced by Torlakian dialects is the Manuscript from Temska Monastery from 1762, in which its author, the Monk Kiril Zhivkovich from Pirot, considered his language "simple Bulgarian". Ethnography According to one theory, the name Torlak derived from the South Slavic word tor ("sheepfold"), possibly referring to the fact that Torlaks in the past were mainly shepherds by occupation. Some Bulgarian scientists describe the Torlaks as a distinct ethnographic group. Another theory is that it is derived from Ottoman Turkish torlak'' ("unbearded youth"), possibly referring to some portion of the youth among them not developing dense facial hair. The Torlaks are also sometimes classified as part of the Shopi population and vice versa. In the 19th century, there was no exact border between Torlak and Shopi settlements. According to some authors, during Ottoman rule, a majority of the Torlakian population did not have national consciousness in an ethnic sense. Therefore, both Serbs and Bulgarians considered local Slavs as part of their own people and the local population was also divided between sympathy for Bulgarians and Serbs. Other authors take a different view and maintain that the inhabitants of the Torlakian area had begun to develop predominantly Bulgarian national consciousness. With Ottoman influence ever weakening, the increase of nationalist sentiment in the Balkans in late 19th and early 20th century, and the redrawing of national boundaries after the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the Balkan wars and World War I, the borders in the Torlakian-speaking region changed several times between Serbia and Bulgaria, and later the Republic of North Macedonia. See also Balkan language area Gorani Krashovani Shopi Shtokavian dialect Notes References Sources Стойков, Стойко: Българска диалектология, Акад. изд. "Проф. Марин Дринов", 2006. External links A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian (by Wayles Brown and Theresa Alt) Further reading South Slavic languages Dialects of Serbo-Croatian Serbian dialects Dialects of the Macedonian language Dialects of the Bulgarian language