Macedonian, is the official tongue of the Republic of Macedonia (formerly the Yugoslavian Socialist Republic of Macedonia). Macedonian has in excess of 2 million speakers around the world including 1.5 million speakers living in Macedonia and an estimated 200,000 in Greece. It is a member of the Slavic languages along with Bulgarian, Serbian/Croatian, and Slovene. The formation of the modern Macedonian language began towards the end of the 18th century. At first, Macedonians and Bulgarians cooperated in creating a modern literary standard, but the issue of a base dialect soon divided the two groups. The Bulgarians took their own direction when they rejected the importance of the Macedonian dialects. During the World War II period, Bulgarian fascists occupied Macedonia and set up Bulgarian schools, however, under the dictator Tito's rules of cultural autonomy, Macedonian was still allowed to continue functioning as the country's principal language for both literary and official purposes.