The materials from the wiretapped conversations i.e. the “bombs” that were revealed last year by SDSM were subject to linguistic research conducted by one of the most highly regarded linguists, Viktor Friedman.
“The research had a linguistic character, regardless whether the materials I was researching were true or false. This was a rare opportunity to gather appropriate material that will provide important data about informal language in Macedonia”, said Friedman.
The researcher went through 130.000 words that were selected from the wiretapped materials.
According to today’s presentation of Friedman’s research at the Institute of Macedonian Language “Krste Petkov Misirkov,” an analysis and comparison were made of the vocabulary that were used in the “bombs” with Krste Misirkov’s book “On Macedonian Matters.”
Friedman especially paid attention to the use of words of Turkish origin as Macedonian speakers were using the phrases in informal communication i.e. as the professor put it, they were part of “street slang”.
