Toska, my personal experience with this topic is on just one occasion. My teacher in literature, himself from a village near Pirdop, once told us in class when speaking about dialects how he was enchanted by an elderly patient with whom he shared a room in a Plovdiv State Hospital. The man was from a village in the Zlatograd region. Unfortunately, from the many wonderful phrases we were told, currently I remember just one: Много больно бе даскальче, много больно.
Now I remember the story of Eliza Dolittle from My Fair Lady, who although living in a city was initially totally uncomprehensible. Plus remember the ability of her professor only through the dialect to be able to pinpoint the origin of the speaker to a very small region.
Also, since you've raised the question of the Macedonian language, in the seventies I was listening to Radio Scopie, mainly the show Трите Гонга на Гьоко Георгиев. There I understood 100% of the stuff. In 1987 for the first time I met a person from there, a businessman, and I understood only about 70% of what he was saying. The feeling was that he was speaking some Bulgarian and you relax, then out of a sudden a totally unknown word or an exression will be used and the meaning is lost. Now, from the current Macedonian language I understand very little, maybe 10, 15%.
