The book became the subject of controversy with Bulgaria and Serbia when cited by Greece as proof it had fulfilled its international obligations towards its Slavic-speaking minority, because it had been printed in the Latin alphabet rather than the Cyrillic used by the Slavic languages of the southern Balkans.

Following the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913, the southern part of the so-called historic region of Macedonia was annexed to the Kingdom of Greece, with Bulgarians making up a debated portion of the overall population at the time, with estimates ranging from 10%[2] to a 30% plurality.

[4] In January 1926, the region of Florina saw extensive protests by Greek and pro-Greek Slavic speakers campaigning against the primer's publication, demanding the government change their policies on minority education.

[7] Anthropologist Loring Danforth has argued the Abecedar was printed in the Latin alphabet "precisely to ensure [sic] that it would be rejected by all parties concerned" so "it would not contribute to the development of ties between the Slavic-speaking people of northern Greece and either Serbia or Bulgaria."

Two of the letters are unique in that they correspond to phonemes not represented in the modern Macedonian alphabet: Îî (for the schwa - Bulgarian ъ) and Üü (indicating palatalization of the preceding consonant).

The alphabet uses the digraphs gj, kj, nj, lj and dz to represent the sounds /ɟ/, /c/, /ɲ/, an /lj/ cluster, and /d͡z/, respectively, corresponding to the Macedonian letters Ѓ, Ќ, Њ, Љ and Ѕ.