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The Macedonian language, also known as Macedonian Slavic, is a language in the Eastern group of South Slavic languages and is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia. Macedonian is also spoken in Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and in the Macedonian diasporas in Western Europe, North America and Australia. The total number of native Macedonian speakers is variously estimated, from 1.6 to around 2-3 million.

Not to be confused with the ancient Macedonian language, the modern Slavic Macedonian language is closely related to Bulgarian. Macedonian also has some similarities with standard Serbian and it is closest to Torlakian dialect spoken mostly in southern Serbia and in western Bulgaria. Bulgarian and Macedonian language share typological similarities with Romanian, Greek, and Albanian. These five languages make up the Balkan language league, even though they are all from different language families (Romanian is a Romance language, while Greek and Albanian comprise their own branches in the Indo-European family).

Macedonian is the official language in the Republic of Macedonia, and officially recognized in the District of Korçë in Albania. Native speakers are also found in Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania.

Along with Bulgarian, Macedonian is the only Slavic language not to use noun cases (except for vocative) and to have a definite article.

A modified Cyrillic script, Macedonian Cyrillic with 31 letters, is used for writing.

While the transliteration to Latin script is easy in principle, there is currently a lot of confusion about which standard to use. For example, the Cyrillic letter ж is written as ž. The use of "zh" or simply "z" has gained currency. Especially problematic is the Cyrillic letter џ, which can be found transliterated into Latin as "dž", "dzh", "dz" or even "x".

The Macedonian language is taught as a subject in several of the university centres of the world, and is currently taught in all universities of the former Yugoslavia.