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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Similarity with Romanian

Anonymous 203.109.249.136 said:

Slvo-Macedonian is NOT similar to Romanian in any way, i will leave this Balkan language league in here but I don't think its right.
Actually, there are quite a few similarities between Romanian and Bulgarian/Macedonian, although they are derived from different branches of the Indo-European tree (Italic and Slavic): look at Balkan language union for common grammatical features. There are also a few hundreds common words that do not derive from Latin nor Slavic and are probably of Thracian origin. Bogdan | Talk 13:36, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it's misleading to say there are similarities when they merely share words; using this logic, you could say there are similarities between English and Italian.
Misleading??? These four (or five) languages share similarities on a morphological, phonological and lexicological level, for more information you can take a look at Balkan language union, which though not full and exhaustíve, gives an insight into the problem. And I'll ask you (and all other people who have no linguistic preparation) to refrain from making such comments (or changes in the article) unless they do some extensive reading before that. VMORO

Bulgarian words

VMORO: Roccil, бутилка-butilka and шише-shishe баща-bashta and татко-tatko враг-vrag and непријател-nepriyatel летец-letets and пилот-pilot are synonyms in Bulgarian and have a practically interchangable meaning

That's "Poccil". Actually, I was only incorporating information from an orphaned article. Any errors in the information should be traced back to that orphaned article. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 16:07, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)
This could be said as well about построи-postro and изгради-izgradi;застраховка-zastrahovka and aосигурувањео-osiguruvanye; летище-letishte and аеродром-aerodrom. About great - велик - голем: look at this page. There are several pages referring to Alexander the Great as Alexander Veliki - and the text in the article says that "Golem" is used instead. In my opinion "golem" and "velik" is interchangeable both in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia. About bread-хляб-леб: It's not a radical change, the Macedonian Slavs just dropped the initial "х" ("h"). And there're spelling mistakes in some Bulgarian words - I am curious about who wrote them. --webkid 10:45, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Poccil, what is this orphaned article called? You never named it... --Joy [shallot] 12:26, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ah, found it. It was added as "Diferences between the bulgarian and the macedonian language" on 09:58, 25 Aug 2004 by anonymous user from 193.110.130.129 and with the explanation:
Diferences between the Bulgarian and the Macedonian language are about 15% total, about 65% the words in both languages are same but differently accented, and the other 20% are same.
It should be inspected and pruned of errors given that it's anonymously added. --Joy [shallot] 12:42, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

VMORO Could you two (Webkid and possibly Roccil) make the necessary corrections? My computer doesn't have phonetic cyrillics and I cannot work with the other one...

The problem with this paragraph is that these numbers don't mean much. I'm sure that a study of Slovenian and Croatian would probably give similar numbers, depending on how you define "same word, only with different accent" across languages/dialects with distinct phonetics, i.e. number of phonemes and such. Yet, there's no Differences from Croatian section in Slovenian language.

It would be nice if somebody knowledgable wrote a review of similarities in grammar and common vocabulary between the two. Otherwise, the article would possibly be better off without this section, as the intro already says they are closely related. Zocky 20:06, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

comparison

217.10.246.155 wrote: removed Bulgarian-Macedonia word comparissons; don't see its role in the article and was far from correct

It's useful to see just how different they are. Whatever you think was far from correct should be corrected, not used as a pretext for complete removal.
Anyway, Ogneslav? Log in? :) --Joy [shallot]
Joy, my friend, Wikipedia does not require log in to edit articles. So - I don't do it. I also use my Bulgarian account and don't feel like switching between them at each of my visits. Ogneslav
As for the list - it is indeed far from correct and I pointed this out a long time ago ~~VMORO
But it contains 31 word, and the above comments include 12 words. Are we going to censor the remaining 19 words, and why? --Joy [shallot] 12:46, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Because they serve nothing in this article!?! One part of the Bulgarian words are used incorrectly; another part were deliberately chosen to look "different" although they have synonyms absolutely identical to Macedonian - like letets and pilot are synonyms in Bulgarian, also shishe and butilka, zaplaha and zakana, etc.; third part are just loan-words - you can't compare loan-words, even in Bulgaria people from different regions use different loan-words for same things. For example in Burgas they say drelka (drilling machine) and in Plovdiv - bor-mashina.
And in general - why does the article need this list of words? It's short and incoherent. It shows nothing. Why don't we also put Macedonian-Serbian, Macedonian-Russian, Macedonian-Mongolian, etc. lists? What's the task of that paragraph - I don't get it. The only thing I see is somebody tried to scream "Mmmm, look how difffereeent!". That's irritating - tipically "Macedonistic" approach. User:Ogneslav
Ogneslav, I don't think you have read the text before the comparison itself, otherwise you wouldn't make that comment about the "Macedonian approach". Pls read before making judgements.VMORO

Arguing about whether Macedonian is a dilect of Bulgarian

Hello, we may argue as crazy. J live in Macedonia and J think that we better get to do something together rather thatn argue. Can`t you see that the Great powers of 20th century GREATLY DESIRED THAT WE FIGHT EACH OTHER AS DOGS, and dogs you are if you continue to fall in their trap. Have you read the Treaty of Njoi. Those b*st*rds split our lands in a totally incompetent (or a very competetent manner if they wanted us to fight later) manner. Indeed every border ever determined by the so called "Powers" was later a reason for a war. And while once again they are playing their cards we are in fight. And why should we be strong, the bridge between Europe and Asia, this strategic place should be week, so that it gets exploited for pennies by the western wolrd. Look at the western media for example. Once a media agency will say ".... so according to us the Bulgarian dialect spoken in FYROM..." and then the very same agency will confirm "....written in the Macedonian language...." Fools, you are behaving as "a dog that is told to sit, and in the same time is told to stand up, so it doesn`t know what to do". Care about our progress, history will show what are the languages. You get to understand each other - GREAT! Union means power. If you do not agree with me, have a nice evening listening to BBC news: "...the Macedonian language is spoken today......" 1hr later "The Bulgarian dialekt called Macedonian language...." J personally say: "get together and laugh at the miserables who are so trying to separate us"

The Macedonian language is based on a former Bulgarian dialect as indisputably as it is a separate language nowadays. VMORO
Which only confirms that it is just an argument about history at this point as the above (unfortunately unsigned but very insightful) poster said. Really there is so much that unites us in the Balkans, why should we argue about the few things that separate us?mitkouwcad
I don't know your nationality but I'll assume you're a Macedonian, so: While you continue with your crusade on inventing history and falsifying linguistic and historical evidence, we'll continue not to recognise your language. A compromise means concessions from both sides, not from one of them. Bulgaria offered as early as the 1960s a joint treatment of the works of Macedonian-born writers and publicists before 1944, as well as of the language/dialects and history of Macedonia (also before 1944) as of Macedono-Bulgarian (or vice versa). You refused and kept on with the previous attitude, the extension of which is the politic of the present Serboman government, as well. As much as it gets. You continue, we continue. VMORO
No, I happen to be Bulgarian. I just don't understand why we should be so contrary. Macedonians have it pretty hard anyway, and so do we. Please read the original post (not by me) again. It is the closest this discussion has gotten to the truth. As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Mitkouwcad
My only answer to this is that you either do not know what you are talking about, or you are completely spineless. По-ниско от водата, по-тихо от тревата, а? Типично по български, да превием врат и да се надупим. Ти в кой свят живееш? Говори ги тези на някой друг, съобщения на мен повече не ми пращай VMORO

Fyromian language is the Yugoslavian version of Bulgarian language made by TITO 1945! Vergina 09:58, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no some kind of "Fyromian language" in the world. And Tito did not create the Macedonian language, it was spoken before Tito, in Bulgaria. A proof of this are my older relatives who were talking Macedonian before Tito. As for the similarities with Bulgarian, yes they are similar, but EVERY Slavic language is similar to another Slavic language (that's why they are in the same language family). We may also say that Bulgarian is very similar to Russian, too (especially its alphabet). Bomac 10:12, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with u...there is no some kind of "Fyromian language" in the world...in the same way that there is no some kind of "Macedonian language" in the world!i guess that what 'Vergina' meant before is that Tito created the name 'Macedonian language'.afterall u are saying it by yourself:" but EVERY Slavic language is similar to another Slavic language (that's why they are in the same language family)...so what u mean by that?u may mean that ancient macedonians were slavs?or maybe that u are not slavs?:~i am so confused!!!slavic language,slavic people,and u claim the history of a non-slavic people!doesn't this seem ridiculous?i also have to say that noone should judge languages according to the alphabet they use(e.g. turks use the latin one,but they are not latins,and moldovans used the cyrillic but they are not slavs).for u,the people of fyrom it may be easier:u are slavs,use a slavic language and also the cyrillic alphabet(which apparently derived from the greek one,as well as the latin,and the greek itself derived from the phoenician)...u have nothing to do with ancient macedonians not in origins,neither in language nor in alphabet!

Pall, I think that you are talking about the Ancient Macedonian language, aren't you? Well, you are confusing yourself then. Cheers, Bomac 09:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The last editions

About the "objective objection": No one disputes the objective existence of a separate Macedonian language nowadays - in as much as they are enough people who identify themselves with it. So you are shooting quite wide of the target as the point of the Bulgarian objection is the Slavic population of FYROM did not identify itself with the Macedonian language in the past but with the Bulgarian language.

To Exstatik - the Macedonian alphabet is a Cyrillic alphabet based on the Serbian alphabet with two additional letters for the palatal "k" and "g", this scarcely can be disputed. VMORO 21:04, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)~

Similarities to Greek Language??

This is totally incorrect, the Greek language does not belong to any of the groups mentioned and is not even remotely similar to any language there, especially not "belonging to the same branch as Albanian" (!) Anybody with a basic knowledge of linguistics knows that although most of the mentioned languages are Indo-european (as are most Indian dialects) they have nothing else in common with Greek. Also Albanian has nothing in common with Slavic languages... This article is MESSY! Thanks, -=vyruss=- 13:57, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This paragraph is totally wrong, scientifically speaking. No serious linguist ever created a group of 'Balkan Languages'. I think this is a political move.
The Macedonian language is closely related to the Bulgarian language, and Bulgarian and Macedonian share similarities to 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 are part of their own branch in the Indo-European family). Macedonian also has similarities with Serbian, particularly Old Serbian. -=vyruss=- 14:09, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, this is quite correct - see sprachbund. - Mustafaa 06:30, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please read the article before quoting it (sigh). -=vyruss=- 20:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that the topic "Similarities with greek language" could very well have content of the type : "Yes the Macedonian Language and Greek language are similar in about 99%". This is because makedonia is part of Greece (as of now at least!).

FYROM is another country, and yes i believe their language is very close to the Serbian.

Pronunciation of Macedonian Ф, Ѓ, and Ќ

How are the Macedonian Ф, Ѓ, and Ќ pronuonced. It says in the article that Ф is pronounced as /v/, but not /f/ as I think it should be. Can Ѓ also be pronounced as /dʑ/ (voiced alveolo-palatal affricate) and Ќ as /tɕ/ (voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate)? Some sources also mention this pronunciation. --Hippophaë 20:11, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • The macedonan letter Ф is pronounced as /f/ and only as /f/ in all imaginable cases and situations. I speak both Macedonian and English at an expert level and have been living there (in Macedonia) for almost two decades (since I was born). I can guarantee anyone that that is so.--Bjankuloski06en 13:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow I feel sorry for you guys. God I hope Romanians and Moldovans won't end up the same way although there are signs which point out that is exactly where they will end up.

I just have a question: is Macedonian written differently then Bulgarian? As in: are words written differently? And are there words in Macedonian which sound different( by that I mean compleetly different) then in Bulgarian?

Thank you Mihaitza

Well, it's a pretty vague question, so I'd be having some trouble guessing what you're exactly talking about, but I'll try :) Macedonian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, as stated in the article. It was said that only some 15% of the vocabulary is different, and 65% of the differencies are made by the different accent and some are specifically dialect, for example, a in Macedonian they write "леб" (in Roman script "leb", pronounced "lep"), and that's exactly what we say here in Central Northern Bulgaria, which is quite far away (Bulgarian form is "хляб" ("hliab"). So yes, as a whole, it is written the same way and there are very few words that are completely different, but wouldn't otherwise sound strange in Bulgarian... which is actually the case in most Slavic languages. Also, Macedonian tends to borrow a lot of words of Latin and Greek origin just to differentiate the language from Bulgarian and, to a lot lesser degree, from Serbian (there are some words borrowed from Serbian, especially such needed in high education), and to therefore justify its existence. The very few differencies are the thing we're arguing about :) --TodorBozhinov 22:29, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, in most of Serbia it is LEB too. LJEB in Montenegro and Bosnia. I do not see the point of this argument. Literary Macedonian is almost the same language as the vernacular of Pirot, Leskovac, Nis or Vranje in Serbia. So, can Serbs call it a dialect? Enough with this useless quarrel. It is a separate language now and that's it. We cannot discuss the hypoteses from the past any longer. Zikicam 00:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Neutral Wikipedia???

Dear all

I am writting about the issue of Macedonia, Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian Slavs (like Wikipedia calls the Macedonians) and the problem between Macedonia and Greece about the term Macedonia. I am aware that this issue is largely discussed here, at Wikipedia, and Wikipedia claims that it is trying to take a neutral side. But, that is not the case. Wikipedia is everything except neutral in this question. In the following lines I will explain you why.

From the text in Wikipedia most of the people will conclude that Macedonian nation appeared during the World War 2 and Tito was the one who 'invented' us. The family of my wife (she is Mexican) read this and asked me is it truth. That was actually the first time I read what Wikipedia says about my nation, which was a direct reason for my reaction. My grandfather is born in 1911th. Yesterday I had a talk with him. He took a part in the strugle for independence since 1925th and he took a part in the 2nd world war. He is alive and personal prove that Wikipedia is full of bullshit and lies about our origin. He spent half of his life proving and fighting for that. He was shot 3 times, all 3 from the Bulgarians who wanted to ocupy Macedonia in the Balkan wars and in the WW1 and WW2. Just a 1 min with him will show you how many lies you suport in Wikipedia.

I tried to edit some of the text few days ago, but everithing I wrote was deleted. And all I wrote were facts. Fact 1. Macedonians (or Macedonian Slavs, like ONLY Wikipedia, Greece and Cyprus calls us) is the only nation of many living in the area concentrated inside the borders of the geographical region of Macedonia. This is a pure fact, something that you can even find on the CIA web page. Can you give any fact to deny my fact? If you can not, why you erased it from Wikipedia? Fact 2. Republic of Macedonia has diplomatic relations with about 150 countries in the world. Wikipedia says that "at least 20" countries recognize Macedonia under the name Macedonia. Guess what? That number is more than 100. And this is an officially confirmed by our ministery for foreighn affairs. Fact 3. Wikipedia says that my country Contraversialy calls itself Republic of Macedonia. This is a pure example of taking a side in the problem. Why you don't say that Greece contraversialy deny us the use of the name Macedonia? If you intended to be neutral, just write that we have the naming problem with Greece, but do not call my name "contraversial"!!! Fact 4. While explaining about the antient Macedonia, its kings etc. you highly support the claim for their Greek origin. I can give you 1000s of facts that that is not truth and I beleive that some Greek guy can give you 1000s facts that those claims are truth. That was 2400 years ago and there is no chanse for us to know the real situation. We can only guess. But, when you give the Greek suported version, why you ignore the version suported by the newaged Macedonians? In this moment I can give you 10 names of internationally respected scientist supporting our theory. If you are neutral, why you ignore it? Fact 5. Wikipedia says that the Turkish Empire were calling us Bulgarians. Strange, because the Turks were recognizing the uniqueness of our nation since the moment they occupied the teritory of Macedonia. Actually, the Turkish history archives are the biggest prove of our existance, history and culture. Did anyone of you ever read anything from those archives? Even on the birth certificate of Khemal Ataturk says that he is born in Bitola, Macedonia. And his autobiography is full of memories of his childhood spend with the Macedonians. Fact 6. Wikipedia ignores the egsodus of the Macedonian people from Greece and says they were running because they were supporters of the comunists. 1/3 of the Macedonians have origin from this part of Macedonia. They were runned away from there by force and you can find many historical proves for that. Again, big part of my family has origin from there. As a matter of fact, my grand-grand father was married to a Greek woman, my grand-grand mother. But, no matter of that, his house was burned and he was forced to run away for his life and the life of his family. How dare you deny this? Do you know that even today my grand father is not allowed to visit Greece, because he was a kid when his family runned away from there? Fact 7. There are about 500 000 Macedonians that live outside Macedonia, mostly in Canada, Australia, USA, Sweden etc. At least 1/3 moved there before 1930s. If we were a product of Tito, how can you explain that even they feel of Macedonian nationality? I have a family in USA which moved there in 1927th. Their ancestors (my cousins) do not even know how to talk Macedonian well. But, they still feel Macedonian. One of them is even one of the financiers of the party of the Macedonians in Bulgaria, trying to help their strugle to keep their national identity. I repeat, first time he visited Macedonia was in 1995th, far after Tito. And his family moved in USA in 1927th, far before Tito. Fact 8. Wikipedia claims that the book of Macedonian songs by Dimitar Miladinov is actually Bulgarian. Have you maybe seen a original copy of the book, printed in Croatia? IT says clearly "Macedonian". Not to mention that the same author wrote one of the most important books in the Macedonian history "For the Macedonian issues", again printed in Croatia, where it clearly talks about the Macedonian nation and non-Bulgarian origin.

All this was simply erased from the database. I didn't erase anything when editing these pages, I support the other side and I do not want to hide their facts. But why Wikipedia wants to hide our facts, which show that we are not a product of Tito's ambitions for the Aegean Sea. In Tito's time, the Yugoslav army was far superior in the region. If he wanted the Aegean Sea, he would get it very easily.

Many things in Wikipedia are very offensive for the nowdays Macedonians. Wikipedia simply ignores us, gives us a new name and supports the theories of denial of our existance, culture and history.

I will try to give you an example that includes with Mexico. I beleive that you know that the Maya civilisation was invaded by the Spanish kingdom. Spanish were ruling Mexico for centuries and millions of Spanish people moved at Mexican teritory. Later, after the liberation war, Mexicans formed its own country. Fact 1. Mayas were living in Mexico (same as Antique Macedonians). Fact 2. Spanish invaded them and great number of Spanish people moved to Mexico (The Slavs moved on the theritory of Macedonia and there was no reported fights or movements of people away from the teritory where the Slavs settled). Fact 3. Nowdays, everyone of the Mexican is aware that they are partly Spanish, but they still have Mayan origin (Wikipedia says that the people living in Republic of Macedonia are Slavs. When there was no reported resetling of the Antique Macedonians, how is possible they not to mix with the Slavs? It is a fact that the nowdays Macedonians are not same as the Antique Macedonians, but they certanly have a significant part of their genes. Same as I beleive that Greece has a part of their Genes, but they are definitly not their direct ancestors). Fact 4. Mexican speak Spanish. Reason: The Spanish culture was superior in that time. (The Antique Macedonians accepted the Helenic culture, including a variation of the Greek language. Reason: the Helenic culture was superior in that time. Everyone who knows at least little history will know that Hellenic and Greek are not synonims. Greek is nation, Hellenic is religion/culture. USA and England both speak English, both are mostly cristians, but they are SEPARATE nations. Aren't they? Same happens to Germany and Austria, or Serbia and Croatia, or Canada and France, or Brazil and Portugal, or the rest of Latin America and Spain)

And here is a comment about the claims of the Bulgarians, that the Macedonians are actually Bulgarians. If that is truth, I am going to kill myself. Bulgarians through the history made the worst for my nation. During the strugle of the Macedonian people for independence from the Turkish empire, at the end of the 19th and begginbing of the 20th century, the Bulgarians were the ones who killed the most of our revolutionaries, including 4 members of my close family which were members of the Macedonian revolutionary organization (VMRO). Whis is not something that I was told by Tito. My grandfather (the same grandfather from above) was in fact a member of the same organization. He personaly knew many of the revolutioners that Bulgarians claim are theirs, including 2 of the leaders: Goce Delcev and Gorce Petrov. They were Macedonians and they all gave their lives for free and independent Macedonia and they had nothing to do with Bulgaria. There was a part of them who were Bulgarians inserted in the organizations, who were actually the killers of the real Macedonian revolutioners, because it was in Bulgarian interest to weaken the organization, so they could take the lead in the organization and later put Macedonia in the hands of the Bulgarians. Thanks god, they did not succeed. Wikipedia claims that VMRO was pro-Bulgarian and the revolutioners were Bulgarian fighters. You suposed to see the face of my 94 year old grandfather when I told him your claims. Neurtal Wikipedia? I do not think so.

At the end I have to ask for Wikipedia NOT TO TAKE A SIDE IN THIS. I am not asking to remove the Greek and Bulgarian side of the story. But, why you ignore our claims, which are suported by many non-Greek and non-Bulgarian scientists and very largely through the web. There are just about 2-2.5 million Macedonians around the world. We do not have enought influence and strenght as Greece has, which is much more powerful and richer country than Macedonia. The Macedonian-Greek question is too hard and too complicated to solve. History can be interpreted in 1000 ways, especially on a teritory like the Balcany, where there are so many nations on so little space. Fortunately, DNA testings are getting more and more reliable and soon it will be possible to be used to acuratelly show the origin of our nations. I hope that then the denyal of me, my history, culture and existance will finaly stop. It is very disapointing that Wikipedia takes a part in all that.

With all the respect, Igor Šterbinski Skopje, Macedonia [email protected]

ALL the Macedonian history (the one that the Macedonians, the one that Wikipedia calls Macedonian Slavs) before the 6th century is given in Wikipedia as Greek history. I am talking mostly about the Antient Macedonia. I do not claim that Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs in Wikipedia) have the exclusive right to this history. But, Greece can not have that right eighter. It is a history that this region shares and both, we (Macedonians) and Greeks have a part of our origin from those people. In the same time ALL the Macedonian history after the 6th century is given in Wikipedia as Bulgarian history. I am talking about the Wikipedia claims that in the 9th century the Macedonian Slavs got Bulgarized or assimilated by Greece, that in the 10th century Macedonia become a center of Bulgaria (which is not truth, because there are 1000s of hard proves and writtings found in Ohrid denying the Bulgarian claims), the tzar Samoil kingdom (which was everything than Bulgarian, because he had several fights with them and won in all and you can find again 1000s of proves in his fortress in Ohrod), then the Macedonian Ohrid Archbishopry which was clearly Macedonian and everything else than Bulgarian, with dressings and crowns with a completely different stile than the Bulgarian ones. Later Wikipedia claims that after 1018th Byzantine Empire makes Macedonia a Bulgarian province, but it doesn't say the reason for it (the Bulgarians were fighting at his side, so this was his reward towards them, something that will happen in the WW2, when the biggest part of Macedonia will be given to Bulgaria by the Germans. 3 of 4 sons of Samoil were actually latter killed by pro-Bulgarians Another reason is the wish of Vasili II to make a revenge towars Samoil and his people, with denying them, something that Wikipedia does NOW). Then, Wikipedia claims that the Ottoman Empire was seeing us as Bulgarians, which is completely not truth. You have incredible written archives in Turkish museums for this, so you can make a search by your own. All the Macedonian uprisings were characterised as Macedonians. Even the after-capture execution of the leaders was taking place in Skopje, the biggest town in the teritory of Macedonia and not in Sofija, which was the Bulgarian biggest town. Wikipedia says that the following Macedonian history is Bulgarian: IMRO, Ilinden Uprising in Krusevo (where the only newspapers that write about it as Bulgarian uprising are the ones who didn't have their Journalists in the region and were using the Bulgarian sources, which in that time was already liberated, who wanted to show the uprising as their own. Why you don't read some Russian sources which have their journalists in Krusevo and Bitola at the time? Some of the grand sons and grand daughters of the revolutioners are still alive, so you might ask them what their grand-fathers were fighting for. The Krusevo Manifesto says that their goal is FREE and INDEPENDENT Macedonia. Why would their form their own Republic, if they wanted to be part of Bulgaria? All Wikipedia claims simply have no sence), Goce Delchev and the other revolutioners (NOTE: Goce Delchevs nephews which are still alive all spent half of their life proving Goce Delchev's belongding to the Macedonian nation. NOTE 2: Why would he fight for Macedonia's independence if he was Bulgarian? If he was Bulgarian, wouldn't he fight for unification of Macedonia and Bulgaria? Why was he betrayed by a Bulgarian, which resultet in his death in Banica 1903rd? You are corupting our biggest revolutioner, something that we keep as a saint). Wikipedia says that the "St Cyril and Methodius" high school in Solun, where Delchev studied was Bulgarian. How come, when no Bulgarians were living in Solun?... A prove for the Bulgarian, Serb and Greek ambitions to assimilate the Macedonians and take their teritory is the deals and fights they had in the both Balcan wars. They were all exterminating the Macedonians, burning their houses and grabbing their lands, but Wikipedia completely ignores all that. I (and many more) have a living family members who were witnesses of that time. Then, the WW2, when 2/3 of Macedonia was given to Bulgaria by the Germans. Why the hell 100000 Macedonians were fighting against the Bugarians? 25000 died in that war, again many members of my family. And Wikipedia says that we have Bulgarian origin. Why they didn't fight at the Bulgarian side if that was the case? Wikipedia later claims that our country (Republic of Macedonia) was given to us by Tito. What a lie!!! As I said 100000 Macedonians were fighting for freedom. If Tito made us be under the Serbs again, that wouldn't be freedom and 100000 heavily armed Macedonians would continue fighting for it. Even my 94 year old grand-father, who took a part in the WW2 fighting for the partizans, and who was looking at Tito as a saint agrees with this, that he wouldn't rest till he saw Macedonia free. Wikipedia even denies the exodus of 250 000 Macedonians from Greece, saying they were running away by their own. Who the hell will leave his house and land if he was not forced to? My other grand father's house was burned and he was shoot at in order to make him leave his hometown.

On some places Wikipedia says that this 'Bulgarian part' of the history might be Macedonian, but that is very well hidden so it even can hardly be noticed.

On the other hand, Wikipedia says that 'In 2000 several teenagers threw smoke bombs at the conference of pro-Bulgarian organisation 'Radko' in Skopje causing panic and confusion among the delegates'. Yes, that is completely truth. But in 1000s of years, you find one incident that we caused against the Bulgarians and you wrote it. What about centuries of incidents, murders, wars, assimilation made by the Bulgarians towards the Macedonians? What about the fact that Bulgaria and Greece do not allow the Macedonian parties in those countries to register and take a part in the ellections? This is something that was taken even to the European court. HOW CAN WIKIPEDIA IGNORE THIS??? BTW, Radko had just about 50 delegates and members. Most of them born in Bulgaria and moved latter in their life in Macedonia.

In this case, Wikipedia is only a tool in the Bulgarian and Greek propaganda of denying and stealing the Macedonian history, culture and existance. Just search the internet and you will see that this kind of 'history' can ONLY be found on pro-Bulgarian and pro-Greek web sites. I am a living prove of the existance of the Macedonian nation. And that is not because I was told so by Tito. Macedonians were Macedonians far far before Tito. That is a fact that NOONE can change. How dare you deny everything what I am? How dare you to deny 1000s of killed people, who gave their lives for FREE and INDEPENDENT Macedonia?

Senceirly, Igor Šterbinski Skopje, Macedonia

Free? Independent? You and your people are still slaves to the cold-war tyranny perpetrated on your ancestors. The "Macedonian language" (as a language distinct from Bulgarian) was (and still is) one of the most successful implementations of newspeak: By Tito's decree history was erased and a "language" and "nation" were born. Does this lie really satisfy you? Don't you have the least bit of curiosity as to your roots and history before 1945? You will never be free while living in this cocoon created by a tyrant. Sysin 22:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
"Slaves of a Cold war tyrant's decree" is your default answer - but what about everything before 1945? Do YOU have the curiosity and more important the will to question the cocoon created by your "tyrants"? It's very easy to see things in black and white. But since you are here debating with us, you feel a need to prove yourself - which in fact, is a sign of doubt... Makedon 10:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Please stop reverting, see below

I have changed the introductory italicized sentence to take out references to Slav and unrelated. These facts are made perfectly clear in the sidebar and in the text of the article and are inappropriate when placed in the introductory sentence. By placing these words in the introductory sentence, you are referencing the Macedonian naming disupte in the most prominent place possible and doing so in a loaded manner. While the naming dispute is relevant, it belongs in the text of the article, not as the very first thing encountered by the reader. The intro sentence should state that there is another Macedonian language, point the reader that direction, and let the reader draw his/her own conclusions. Otherwise, why not change Slav in the first sentence to Cyrillic alphabet? That is another distinguishing factor. Or Slav to ISO 639-1 code MK? Also, true and useful in distinguishing this language from ancient Macedonian. Instead, the ethnic angle has been inappropriately heightened, highlighted, and raised to prominence -- this is pushing a POV. – Friejose 16:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Slavic may be removed since it is clarified in the info box, but unrelated is not explicitly stated. ---Decius 16:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I think this is a fair compromise, and I will not revert my version. Thanks for your help Decius. – Friejose 16:43, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Forgot about one thing though: what specific content is disputed? I will remove the NPOV dispute until it is specified. Decius 17:12, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Sorry Decius for not specifying, the inclusion of the naming dispute note template is a POV problem, as has been described at length by neutral observers at the Talk:Macedonian denar page.[1] Thus, I have removed the template from this article. Anyone seeking information on the naming dispute (which is amply described in this article as well) is plainly pointed to the discussion at the Republic of Macedonia article. – Friejose 17:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Similarities with other slavic languages

There seems to be some confusion here about how similar Macedonian is to other slavic languages. First, Macedonian is not significantly different from Bulgarian, the differences between these two languages are very minor, about the same as American English vs British English. As for Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, the differences between these languages and Macedonian is significant. A Serb/Croat/Bosnian definitely cannot understand Macedonian, at least not well enough to carry on a meaningful conversation, although he would probably understand a few words. In fact, S/C/B is more similar to Slovenian than it is to Macedonian. In conclusion, Macedonian and Bulgarian are mutually intelligible, while Macedonian and S/C/B are not. I have edited the article with the appropriate info. Edrigu 17:57, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

As a Macedonian, I'll tell you, Macedonian and Bulgarian are mutually intellegible with Bulgarian, but that also applies to S/C/B. I find it harder to communicate with a Bulgarian, than with Serbian, even if, formally, Macedonian and Bulgarian are more similar (no cases etc.). The difference between between Macedonian and Bulgarian are more significant than American English and British English. --FlavrSavr 19:51, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I speak Serbo-Croatian fluently and I cannot understand spoken Macedonian any better than any other Slavic language (which is not very well at all), so I am changing it back. I think I know where the confusion comes from. In Macedonia, "Yugoslavian" was mandatorily taught in school before Yugoslavia broke up, since it was the official language of SFRJ, so as a result every Macedonian born before about 1980 or so can speak S/C/B. However, a younger Macedonian who was not taught S/C/B cannot understand it. Edrigu 22:05, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Not true, I am born in 1984, and I have never received a formal education in it, yet I fully comprehend Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian, and I am quite good at speaking too. On the other hand, I can (not fully) understand written Bulgarian, and I am quite weak at spoken (speaking and understanding). However, I will not revert your changes, since we are both bringing rather personal arguments, but I am expecting that you would tell me how is this possible? Kako je ovo moguce? --FlavrSavr 00:38, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

The problem lies in considering "Macedonian" a unified language in the first place. It isn't. The Skopjan dialect has been heavily Serbianised, which would explain their mutual intelligibility. But my friend from Ohrid says he can understand and speak Bulgarian almost perfectly well, apart from listening to Bulgarian music and watching Planeta TV which he says are far superior to the local fare. He also claims not to understand much Serbian at all, and sometimes even has difficulty understanding Skopjani, whom he pejoratively identifies with the Serbs. This is returned in kind by the northerners who call the southerners grkomani. I guess it depends on who you ask.--Theathenae 04:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I think that your friend from Ohrid would disagree that considering "Macedonian" a unified language is a problem. This is the first time I have heard of someone calling the people of Ohrid grkomani (Why would they?) --FlavrSavr 11:41, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me who can't understand Macedonian and everyone else who speaks S/C/B can? Or maybe speakers of Macedonian can understand S/C/B but not vice versa? I don't know, all I know is that I honestly can't understand Macedonian very well, at least not when it's spoken, reading it I can understand a little better, but still not well enough to consider it mutually intelligible. I would like to hear comments by other people who speak Serbo-Croatian fluently on whether or not they can understand Macedonian. Some mp3's of Macedonian can be found here: [2] Edrigu 15:23, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

The several native Serbian speakers I know say it is as unintelligible to them as Bulgarian. It seems that claims of mutual intelligibility with Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin-Bunjevački-etc. emanate mainly from the north of the country (Skopje, Kumanovo) where the Serbian influence has been the strongest. On the other hand, the border separating the east of the country from Bulgaria is political rather than linguistic.--Theathenae 16:00, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

September 2005 Hi people, i am a Slav Macedonian lived in Ohrid for half of my life and had to learn serbian which i refused to learn.Which I understand bulgarian more than serbian, Skojani on the other hand are to serb to me. When talking to a skojance its like talking to a serbian, skopjani have words which ive never hear before. Mybe because we are in the south, dont know mybe because im from a selo? but for a fact i understand bulgarian more than serbian, bulgarian is more closer to macedonian not serbian. I have also noticed that ohridjanci have Greek and Turkish words. But i also know southern's look different to the skopjani and norther's... Ohridjanec/ 21:39, 02 September 2005

Which is the princilal differences between Macedonian and Bulgarian languages? Are they exists?I meen the important grammar rules - the articles, casus etc. Please, compare not only literary language in wich was acepted one of more variants. And not one or other word. The linguistic rules. Igor Shicov

My neighboor is studing in Bulgaria for 2 years. She is 1st year at the American University in Bulgaria. Before she started her university studies, she spent whole year in learning the Bulgarian language so she can follow her classes.
Personaly, I have serious problems understanding the Bulgarians. That is completely enought for me to know that there is A LOT OF difference between the two.
Similarities exist, that is truth. But, isn't the Spanish similar to the Portugese? Or to the Italian?
This discussion is so senceless. We are talking about 2 Slavic languages. Just compare the Slavic languages spoken in ex Russian Federation. Same thing there. The only difference is that the Russians are not assimilators that claim that Ukranians or Belorussians are Russians just because their languages are very similar to the Russian.
Macedonian 23:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that as far as standard languages go, Macedonian and Bulgarian differ more than Croatian and Serbian, and certainly much more than Croatian and Bosnian. Yet, we treat those as separate literary languages, because that's what they are.

The other question: are certain dialects spoken in RoM and Bulgaria fully interintelligable? Of course they are: across the whole of Balkans (and much of Eastern Europe) there are countless Slavic dialects which blend continuously into those around them, more-or-less without regard to national borders. Through history and politics, some have risen to become national languages. Zocky 20:03, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

YOU are talking about two languages. My grandmother is speeking one of Macedonian dialects, but she state that this ia a part of Bulgarian language a s a whole.Please don't mix up the terms - "Bulgarian language" and "Bulgarian literary language". It is clear that there are differences between literary languages, but my question was about linguistic rules. If you compare impartially language in Bulgaria and Macedonia you will see that assertion that the Bulgarian and Macedonian are two different forms of one language is resonable. (If you want you can call Bulgarian language Macedonian, but it be alike to call English language - American). I am not talking about separate words - Serbian (in MK), Russian (in BG) etc.

And Macedonian, is it truth that Macedonian students in Bulgarian state universities start their studies without "spent whole year in learning the Bulgarian language"? Igor Shicov

I speak Macedonian and I can understand 90% of the text on Bulgarian, albeit with difficulties. The basis of literary Macedonians comes from West Macedonia, whereas the basis of literary Bulgarian comes from nort-east Bulgaria – opposite directions, so those differences are emphasized. I would guess though that people from Strumica can understand people from Blagoevgrad with much less problem. As for dialect / language debate, Serbian and Croatian are more closer than Bulgarian and Macedonian, and yet they are considered as separate languages. If anybody dared to say that Croatian is dialect from Serbian or vice versa, would cause national outrage.--Cigor 16:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that you know that there are people considering Serbian and Croation as one language. this is not a new. Before only 15 years the official name was Serbo-Croation (see: http://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glavna_stranica_/_%D0%93%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0 etc).

However, thank you for admonition about the main geographical origin of the literary forms of the Macedonian and Bulgarian language. That gives us a part of the explanation for differencies (together with Serbian influence/assimilation in MK etc). The BG literary language is based on dialects more distant from present Republic of Macedonia and the same is valid for standart Macedonian. Igor Shikov

Of course there are people considering Serbian and Croatian as one language. It’s practically the same language ! But today Serbian and Croatian politicians don’t make problems if they have to sign documents with a Serbian and Croatian version even though they might be the same. Let me quote part from Croatian_language#A_brief_notice_on_Serbo-Croatian : Serbo-Croatian is a political construct — as is Croatian or, for that matter, any language in the world. A similar analogy could be drawn between the Croatian kajkavian dialect and Slovene language — had politics drawn those two sets of dialects closer together, they might have been considered a single language, too.--Cigor 17:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

IS WIKIPEDIA NEUTRAL? Hi all, I saw in the discussion the question 'Is Wikipedia neutral?' I think it is neutral, since it allows a variety of opinions. It is however very possible that many people would disagree with certain articles. Especially when the subject is such a sensitive and compliated issue as Macedonia, the Republic of Macedonia/FYROM, the ethnic origins of the people who feel 'Macedonians' and the claims towards this, today independent, country by its neighbours. Unfortunately, this issue will take a long time until it is resolved, I hope peacefully. For it is no longer worth the death or even the injuring of a single person. Those among among Macedonians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians who want to find a compromise and solution to this grave problem, which ignited several wars on the peninsula, should be guided by the respect for truth, which includes readiness to recognise all facts - historical and contemporary, as well as the priority of facts to pre-determined concepts and interpretations. I personally am Bulgarian, my opinion is that the Bulgarian view over Macedonian history is the correct one but not because I am Bulgarian, but because I find that it is based on facts and their right interpretation. However, I am always ready to listen to the other part and to opinions that differ from mine, and to recognise all that is right in them. I also think that Bulgaria's policies towards Macedonia were quite controversial in the past, especial during the fascist-nationalist regime in Bulgaria (1923-1944). It is these policies that created disappointment among Macedonians and distrust towards Bulgaria, which was cleverly and efficiently used by the Titoist Yugoslav state and propaganda in the period following 1944. A lot of time has passed since then and more and more people who lived there are passing away. That's a pity, 'cause only they could say what really happened. We, the younger generations, may never be able to resolve these disputes...

Suggestion for resolution of the dispute

Hello, I am Bulgarian, I've been taught in school the Bulgarian edition of the history, my opinion is shifted, etc. You've been warned!

The Bulgarian history, the Macedonian history, quantity and quality of both languages are subject to many debates which cannot be settled so easy. But it is worth to try, and to re-try, and once more. I fully agree with Igor Šterbinski that current article is far from neutral. I also agree that Wikipedia in general is neutral save some articles.

So can we make this article to meet the general Wiki policy. To do so we need to change the approach. My suggestion is to have several articles related to the problem:

All controversial facts can go in the separate articles where they can be kept together with other facts proving or refuting them. When given fact is stabilized within given society and all myths are dispeled, it can be moved to to internaltional consensus article. If (and only if) other nations also agree with the fact it may go in the main article. A disambiguiation page can link all those articles explaining different levels of credibility to an unfamiliar reader.

With these sensitive matters we have to adhere more to the Wiki source-pointing policy. Putting a description is an opinion to a "well-known" but debatable fact. Backing it with a link to a source would allow that source to be evaluated, and to be checked for credibility and authority. Repeating someone else's false statements is an attempt to make a truth from a lie by repeating it hundred times. With Balkan history one has to consider that history of Sparta was rewritten by Athens, history of both was rewritten by Macedon rulers Philip and Alexander, the Byzantine Empire tweaked the history its own way, both the First Bulgarian Empire and the Second Bulgarian Empire have contributed to interpretation of the facts in own favor, Ottoman Empire cannot be forced out of the equation, etc.

Sorry for the harsh words but IM(ns)HO pointing to a source which cannot be tracked is a childish excuse. The blind incorporation of an anonymous article cannot be considered a good practice. When one re-prints or copy/pastes someone else's words that means general agreement or endorsement. When it is done by a linguist (which probably considers himself a scientist), it is even worse - neither the source was verified, nor the statistics presented were proven.

To resolve this dispute peacefully too, we again may add an article (or more than one for each language pair) with word comparision tables. People believing that Macedonian is a Bulgarian dialect can put there similar word pairs, and people stating that Macedonian is distinct language can contribute to the section with differences. After the article grows considerably we may have argumented statistics. I would expect in linguists world such tables already do exist, and external link(s) on such Wiki-articles can serve well.

-- Bggoldie 06:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that the idea for comparision tables is good. But why we have to stop only with words? What about the other linguistic rules? And what about Bulgarian(Macedonian) language as a whole - its diversity and different dialects? Shikov

I did not had any intention to limit ourselves. The initial argument in the discussion was about words, and from there came my suggestion. I fully agree that broader comparison would be even better. -- Bggoldie 00:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Some other user wrote:

I really can't see why you think it's such an unsolvable issue...

HERE's WHAT I MEAN:

- (almost) all Slavic nations have roots of the names of their nations in some other (mostly western) name for some region/nation/tribe/province/...etc (when Slavs came to settle new lands, they accepted those existing names and have began calling themselves according to it). Even Russians have the root of their nation's name in a name for some Viking tribe which concured and exploited them so long ago.

- 'Macadonia' is a province of the ancient Greece - I really do not see why today's Macadonians stick to it - because they are basicaly Slavs - not Greeks (mind you - the ancient Greek province of Macedonia is very known for the achivements of Alexander the Great; it's not some province on the margines of history - it's tipicaly Greek; and - that's not (in any way) the Macedonia we know today), but then again Bulgarians don't have an original name either (it was a name of some Turkic tribe/nation) - so, (as they speak basicaly the same language) it seems that it's just one large nation without a name(!...), so - why bother arguing who is who, and what is what - I can't see any (not even remotely) reasonable point in it, bearing in mind these facts...

- Bulgarian and Macedonian people are one if the language is comparable enough. The basic principle is that people with the same language (only different dialects - which is enevetable everywhere) should stick together if they are not so large (e.g. English speaking countries are numerous, thus their culture (culture of the English nation) is preety much secured; on the other hand smaller groups of nations such as Macadonian-Bulgarian and Serbian-Croatian-MonteNegrian-Bosnian are much more vulnereble (regarding their culture (primarily language and some major distinctions in comparison to other cultures))).

- We saw the devastation of Yugoslavia as basicaly THE SAME people decided not to live in the same country any more. (...) Those nations (Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, MonteNegrians) speak EXACT the same language (make no mistake!) - consider this an official information. (explanation: e.g. even in both Croatia and Bosnia there were Serbs as fully constitutive nations (untill early '90s of the XX century) - they speak dialects of countries they live in (Croatia, Bosnia) - so, there are people which all define themselves Serbs, yet they speak completely different dialects (also dialect is the only difference between all those nations (both inside each of them and among them) besides prefering alternate synonims for a small number of terms in language)).

The permanent solution: finding an ancient (Slavic) name for (Macadonians-Bulgarians) and separately (Serbs-Croats-Bosnians-Montenegrians) - names acceptible and natural for all sub-nations.

The temporary solution: ...excuse me for being sincere and blunt... but a perfect temporary solution however imposible and possibly laughable is to: 1.) Unite "Croatia-Serbia-Bosnia-MonteNegro" into (this is a comic version:) "Bosnia" (as Bosnia is a central teritory, all of the nations have their branches in today's Bosnia, yet muslim Slavs don't prefere term Bosnian so it's perfectly neutral) or, on the other hand (serious version):

Slavia

(which seems more acceptible as this name is not yet taken, and is completely neutral, yet simple and logical); 2.) Unite Bulgaria and Macedonia because they speak basicaly the same language so it's basicaly the same people and call it

Balkania

(as the Balkan mountain stretches thorough Bulgaria (so it's utherly logical!) and has nothing to do with the rest of "Balkan Peninsula" (as someone silly proclaimed it...); Balkania is also a neutral name both Macedonians and Bulgarians could accept).

New states would consist of autonomous provinces (ex-states).

Today's term "Balkan Peninsula" should be overwriten (prohibited) as: 1.) It isn't actually a peninsula, but a mainland 2.) That region has nothing to do with Balkan mountains.

It is a part of Europian mainland and doesn't need a separate name. (if term 'Europe' originates in Greek, why shouldn't Greece be a part of it's mainland (that's the only just solution) instead of how it's being proposed all these centuries...)

All of that (creation of Slavia and Balkania as Europian states) means a definite and once-and-for-all end of all "Balkan Crisi". IT IS(!) that easy, polititians could do it in a matter of weeks, and all the problems would go away PERMANENTLY.

So the situation would be quite simple, understandable and meaningful there in "South-eastern Europe"(!); there would be a definite (and small) number of nations with single corresponding languages (listed from north, downward):

1.) Romania (Romanian language)

2.) Slovenia (Slovenian language)

3.) Slavia (Slavian language)

4.) Balkania (Balkanian language)

5.) Albania (Albanian language)

6.) Greece (Greek language)

7.) Turkey (Turkish language)

and THAT'S IT! (end of list - simple and definite)

However it is not possible because people (individuals - individual human beings (you, I, he, she - because at the botom-line everithing that's to be done is started by individual persons - whom else?!?)) are inert, lazy, small-souled - uncapable of taking matter into theirown hands and get things started and done; instead we let others decide it for us.

A good solution would be to create a "South-Eastern Europe (e.i. "Balkan") sub-council" based on democratic principles (one country - one vote); then out-vote Albanians which create problems all-around and are obviously supported by America's "national" interest (e.i. producing and sustaining the neverending "Balkan Crisis" for their own purposes). (not that America has a wrong over-all goal! after all they are the ones who keep the good things happening in the world too (at the bottom line)). After that it's all simple (providing that governments in these states are clensed of anti-that-nation's-real-interest element (basicaly every nation's interest is neverending peace and prosperity for the people), and 'regular' people accept the principle that the only important thing is how to make themselves as individuals (and families) prosperous, and forget about nationalism (principle: he who implements nationalism is either an enemy of the nation of which he potentiates nationalism or affected by him, (or he simply mistakes) so he must be completely ignored by masses ('regular' people) - because he means no good (for them))).

There you go.

Believe me, it is not that simple and cannot happen overnight. There are no simple solutions, and a lot of time and patience would be needed.

  • Did I wrote it is unsolvable? I personally think we can work it out, and was suggesting one possible course of action. Many more do exist and at least one of them can succeed.
  • Cannot agree that Slavic tribes were not capable to name and were only adopting names from the others. There was no Whitetown or Weisstadt before Beograd was created, right? Russian history admits the contribution of the Viking's (Варяги, Рюрик) but it might be also just conquering the city. We hardly know something for certain to take informed decisions. Also how much or how little Russian history is crucial for Macedonian history indeed?
  • The ancient state of Macedon is different from the state of Ancient Athens, and in the war between them Athens was the one who lost. Its further role was just to be part of the bigger Macedon empire as Egypt and Syria were. Egypt does not pretend to have the Macedon trademark, why should Greece have it beyond the fact south parts of Ancient Macedon are in today Greece. I doubt Greek city-states being conquered earlier than the Tracian tribes possess some exclusive rights over the trademark Macedonia. Orpheus was a Tracian but Ancient Greece preferred to consider him as part of their culture. Or I can put it other way - both me and my brother are sons of the same person, thus we are equally entitled to bear same family name. More than that, our cousins having common grandfather with us also are entitled to bear that same family name. So where is the difference when it comes to nations? Unfortunately I am afraid that this my opinion may re-ignite the dispute by involving the Greeks.
  • Sorry, but I cannot agree with you about Bulgarian origin from some "Turkish name/tribe". At least, the earliest information I posses about turks is related to them being conquered by Genghis Khan in 13th century. On the other hand Bulgarian state on Balkan peninsula was established in 7th century, Russian history admits that Bulgarian state did exist on Volga river as early as 10th century (see for example Олег), and there was even earlier Bulgarian state in 2nd century between Caspian and Black Seas (Caucasus region). You can find tons of information for your neighbours history at the article named History of Bulgaria.
  • People of Macedonia do have the right of self-determination. It is really so simple. Even if they were speaking same language word-by-word equal to Bulgarian. The language is one of the characteristics of the nation-state, and by defining their own language (or even inventing it, as some refer to the act) citizens of Macedonia define their own state. OTOH I agree with you that the history of Balkan states during the 19th & 20th centuries is driven by the divide et impera political experiments performed on them.
  • The idea with creation of two new states will have to be postponed for at least a century. The name Slavia is already overloaded with (bad) memories, as it is the same but without the "Yugo-" part. Also me personally will be reluctant to have one more Alexander Karageorgevic to create the same mess. First all the nations will need to heal the wounds, then to learn how to live in peace with their neighbours, probably start with a loose confederation (even if it is the EU), and then our grandsons may work out something. In theory the idea is good and I do agree with you but it was just the same with the comunism idea. The culprit was the blueprint and the implementation. You have to take into consideration also that Wikipedia is not the best place for such an idea.
  • Please accept my condolescences for the war in 1999 and my apologies for the role of Bulgarian corrupt politicians who joined into it. However I think that the group of idealists who created Yugoslavia were succeeded by a monarch and a dictator, thus spoiling the good idea. It was Alexander Karageorgevic I and Josip Tito who drove the Croatians, Slovenians and Bosnians away. Maybe Slobodan Milošević was able to do something given enough time but he did not had it (yes, I well know he is a controversial figure).
  • If it comes to ideas to change other people's lives - I would not mind to start speaking Macedonian in order to prove Bulgarian and Macedonian people are very close. Are you in turn ready to start speaking Croatian and to accept it as language in this fictious Slavia?
  • And finally about Albanians - there are many good people among them. Do not blame them all just because there are few Albanian terrorists supported by USA-led warmongers.

Again I have to remind you that this page is about Macedonian language and is not meant to cover Yugoslavia and Kosovo. Yes, they are related to Macedonia's political past & future but not so much to the language itself. I would be glad to discuss further with you on my Talk page, or on your page if you decide to register with Wikipedia. -- Bggoldie 00:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

A simpler point of view

Ok, so this is turning into a debate that has more to do with nationalities than languages! That's ok, I just want to add my two cents in this whole issue.

First off I am letting everyone know that I am of greek origin. Having said that, I don't want to get into much detail. There are some things on this page I agree with and some things I don't. I just feel the urge to adress certain points.

I would like to stress out that the way national history is taught at the schools of each particular nation (I am refering to national history in general, not only in the balcans) is hardly ever objective. It usually serves political purposes (especially, but not exclusively, when the events in question are relatively recent). So people, don't take things you've been taught or even told by your relatives as 100% objective truth, often times they are not. Unfortunately, there may often be misconceptions that have been "cultivated" for a number of generations and embedded into national beliefs.

It would be nice if every time one claims a fact to be true, that he/she would give specific links/books-articles-authors references. I am not accusing anyone of deliberately distorting the truth, I am sure that he/she believes what he says to be the absolute truth. Nevertheless, just saying: "this is definately a true historical fact and you can make a search of your own" is simply not enough to back it up.

Speaking of nationalities over a span of thousands of years is quite abstract. There is no such thing as a "clear race" in places of the world that are not compeletely isolated and the balcan peninsula is definately not! Obviously an issue like the macedonian origin is not a conclusive one. There are records from ancient greek thinkers that considered macedonians as members of the greek nation and others who did not. There is a debate about whether the language spoken in ancient macedonia was a greek dialect or not, and that debate is inconclusive too (and there may never be a universally accepted answer, simply due to the lack of evidence). Modern greeks are descendants of the ancient greeks but only partly. They cannot take credit for something people living in the same geographical place did 2,500 years ago, that is plain silly! I do feel proud to be a modern greek, but only because there was some kind of a continuity of the ancient greek culture through the ages (at least the modern greek language is a direct descendant of the ancient greek and that is a definite cultural trait of continuity), not because I am a direct descendant of ancient greeks and I have the same "blood" as they.

This entire issue would be much simpler if viewed from a different point of view. Macedonia is first of all a geographical location. In modern times, a part of Macedonia belongs to the Republic of Macedonia, a part of it belongs to Bulgaria and a part of it belongs to Greece. Citizens of the Republic of Macedonia feel "macedonian" and citizens of Greece who live in the part of Macedonia that belongs to Greece feel "macedonian". That is simply because they BOTH are macedonians. The first ones are macedonians from North Macedonia and the latter are macedonians from South Macedonia (people living by the bulgarian borders who should feel macedonian are apparently from the north-eastern part of macedonia). Things are as simple as that and everything would be much easier if people would just make use of the terms "north" and "south" when speaking of modern macedonia and its inhabitants instead of trying to find out who is the "true" macedonian and who is not.



This is such a volatile situation for the FYROM and Greece. The people of FYROM have been so brainwashed by their government (and the former yugoslovian government)s policy of Macedonism. Macedonism attempts to provide all of these fragmented Slavs living in the Balkans with a common heritage. The problem with this is that the heritage of the true Macedonians is not slavic in the least bit. I am an American. If I conquer a country (let's use Mongolia, for example). Then I move there, and start calling myself a Mongolian rather than an American, and then I start saying that I am a descendant of Genghis Khan, and THEN I start saying that my Germanic language is actually Mongolian, simply because I live in Mongolia... Then I have done exactly what the Slavs have done in the region of Ancient Macedonia which they control. The whole situation is a fraud, and I am tired of the Skopians trying to make everyone feel sorry for them. The UN, US, EU, and NATO have all sided with Skopje on this matter, and the sanctions placed against Greece in this scenario are criminal. The Greeks have been punished for trying to preserve their heritage. Alexander the Great was not a slav, and slavs are not Macedonians. Alexander did not speak some provincial slavic tongue, he spoke Greek, and this is proven by the fact that his tomb is enscribed with Greek letters. The fact is that no slavic language has the right to call itself Macedonian. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Skopje. You are winning this battle, and you are doing so at the expense of one of Greek History's greatest chapters.

Phonemes O and E

I'm suspicious about IPA definitions on phonemes /o/ and /e/ in Macedonian. I'm not a native speaker (and I haven't cared to listen ones carefully enough), but I'm pretty sure that E should be [ɛ] (Open-mid front unrounded vowel) rather than [e] (Close-mid front unrounded vowel). For an illustration, [e] leans towards [i], like French (é) or Slovenian (e). I'm not so sure about [o], but I also think it should be [ɔ] (Open-mid back rounded vowel) rather than [o] (Close-mid back rounded vowel). For an illustration, [o] leans towards [u], while [ɔ] is more open (and more frequent accross languages). Duja 11:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Cyrillic in Wikipedia

Please see the new page at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), aimed at

  1. Documenting the use of Cyrillic and its transliteration in Wikipedia
  2. Discussing potential revision of current practices

—Michael Z. 2005-12-9 20:40 Z


Characteristics

This new section needs some source research and substantiation. Somebody knowledgeable in linguistics should have a look at it. It needs some more work on style. It appears that this is quite new research that has been published only in French. What is -I? what is mediaphoric? (Metaphoric?) Andreas 22:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

is the mediative mood not identical to the renarrative mood described in the Bulgarian language article? Andreas 16:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is an example in Bulgarian: Ti si štjala da dojdeš - you would come (reportedly)

quoted from Avgustinova, T. and H. Uszkoreit (2003). Towards a typology of agreement phenomena. The Role of Agreement in Natural Language: TLS 5 Proceedings. W. E. Griffin (Ed.), Texas Linguistics Forum 53. Austin, TX 2003. Pages 167-180 [3]]

Would Macedonian use an analogous construction? Andreas 18:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Lawngreen languages?!?

Excuse me, but what is actually lawngreen languages? It is in the language-box. Bomac 22:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is one of the many silly things that happened over the last few minutes because someone who doesn't know what they're doing edited template:language. It's back to normal now. --Gareth Hughes 22:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Allright :)

  1. Шо/Што прејш? - How are you doing? (Sho pre-ish) (Southern Dialect)
  2. Орајт сум - I'm doing fine (o-rayt sum) (Southern Dialect)

I'd like to point out some interesting phrases from the text, that are supposedly from the "Southern Dialect" -

  • Шо/Што прејш? - could be a Southern Dialect, however, this is an article about the Macedonian literary language, so IMO, it is better to add the phrase that is used in the literature - Што правиш?
  • Орајт сум - I must say I had a good laugh when I saw this. This is no "Southern Dialect", as far as I know, it is only a Macedonian - English hybrid phrase ("orayt" is only an english pronunciation of "allright"). :D The correct phrase would be "Добро сум". --FlavrSavr 15:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Macedonia, I don't intend to be arrogant or something, but "Орајит" is simply not a Macedonian word, as far as I know. It is definitely not a literary word, and it is, almost fo sure not a part of a "Southern dialect". It is probably in wide use in the bilingual Macedonian and English speaking communities, but the word "Orayt" is a pronounciation of "Allright". If I'm wrong please excuse my mistake. --FlavrSavr 19:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I kind of agree with FlavrSavr. This article is about the literary language, but I think that the dialects should be represented. However, this Southern dialect isn't a dialect at all; rather it represents the way many Macedonians speak who have immigrated to places such as Canada and Australia.

--Daniel Tanevski talk 14:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I finally dropped it from the article. It is obviously some Australian-Macedonian mixture, and it is as Macedonian as for instance, the expression „Јас сум кул!„ (I'm cool!). --Жикица 14:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey flavrSavr, I just noticed your discussion on the Macedonian language talk page from Jan 4 (sorry for the wait) about my edit on the phrase Sho praysh, orait sum. Well, sorry to cause confusion but thats what we (from Aegean Macedonia) say. Its rare to see someone say kako si, dobro in Lerin for the reason that many Macedonians in Aegean Macedonian feel that its too close to what the former Yugoslavs said (not to be mean or anything, but this was the point of view of the majority of Macedonians from Greece, besides, dobro is the same in serbian and croation). Therefore they strongly used their (Southern, Aegean, Greek, what ever you want to call it) Macedonian dialect as a way to be "unrelated" to Yugoslavia or "unnoticed" by Greek nationalists (someone speaking in the Skopje dialect would have got attention like a foriegner rather then someone speaking the local dialect). What I mean by dialect is that we in Aegean Macedonia say Sho, rather then Shto, and it seems we have lost the "v" sound, ex. glavi = glaj, glava = gla, or in this case: pravish = praysh. So over the years we have adopted many words different then the ones you speak. Really Sho praysh means "what are you doing" but we use it as "how are you", and we say "orait" (fine), "orait sum" (Im fine), "ne si orait" (Im not fine/not doing well), etc. I know orait sounds like english all right, but its not from english, its one of the few unique Macedonian words that we have still preserved in the Macedonian language for centuries, and I will apreciate you not laughing at our vocabulary (I notice that dictionaries from the republic of macedonia are 100% matchable to the "official" language of the republic of Macedonia, the language spoken in Skopje) thinking that the Skopje dialect is the "dominating" language for all Macedonians. - user: Macedonia

This is the most common way that Macedonians in Australia and Canada speak, this is also a common slang form in Macedonia ... generally in places like Skopje it's frowned upon for being sort of hillbilly-like :P ... has anyone noticed how ови becomes ој in slang? Well, this form is almost always used by Aegean Macedonians. I've also noticed a few differences in the dialects ... which include using боп for beans (Skopje - грав) and бише, a colloquial for piglet (Skopje - прасе). Another interesting discovery is how Aegean Macedonians say 'Кај ојш?' when asking how somebody is (as in How are you?). But, at the end of the day - they’re ultimately the same language. I always thought орајт was a bastardization of all right. --Daniel Tanevski talk 15:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Macedonia, ајде врати ако сакаш обликот Шо прејш и Орајит сум. Ни објасни многу убаво и мислам дека е добро да се наогја и дијалектот на јужната Македонија на овој сајт. Zikicam 12:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

beautiful, ugly-sounding

[...] the vast majority of Macedonians consider their language "beautiful", while Bulgarian is considered "ugly-sounding". Is there any source for such a statement, it appears not to represent a NPOV. Andreas 20:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a source can be provided at all, although it might be a true position, it's one of those "people say" statements. Generally, Macedonians don't like anything Bulgarian, and I've heard this being said about the Bulgarian language by Macedonians before, but I'll remove it as irrelevant and quite beyond proof. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 22:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
That's a pretty accurate statement. Speakers of Macedonian, Serbian and Croatian generally view the Bulgarian language as sounding 'stiff' and unharmonious. Whereas, when a person is speaking conversational Macedonian (and Serbian-Croatian) ... it sounds melodic and tuneful. It's not that Macedonians hate everything Bulgarian; rather it's the 'sound' of the way it is spoken. Take these words for example; Как which means "how", the Macedonian and Serbian equivalent is Како, the vowel at the end of the word helps it to fuse and synthesize into the following word, making the sentence flow; with Bulgarian there's a 'break' or pause. Another example would be Там (over there) with its equivalent being Таму and Тамо in Macedonian and Serbian, respectively. Another example would be how the Slavonic "yat" is rendered я (ya) in Bulgarian ... as in the word for milk, Мляко which sounds very odd to a Macedonian speaker (as though spoken with a speech impediment), as opposed to sounding exotic as do other languages, such as Polish and Czech. Daniel Tanevski talk 14:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Serbian view?

The section is a total mess and represents some kind of early-to-middle 20th century Serbian view on Macedonia and Macedonians more than a contemporary position on the language itself. It should be removed or replaced with something that makes more sense than writing about Branislav Nušić, his origin and life. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 22:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I kind of fixed it, but it requires still more work. I was reluctant to erase some valuable (albeit PoV-ed) info, and, strangely enough, it seems that this is/was the only Wikipedia article mentioning the migration in 1690s. Obviously, this is not the place to talk about that. Sorry, but I'm not overly acknowledged with the facts, so I just tried to NPOV it a bit. Duja 09:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, Todor, I was the one who wrote the articles about the Serbian and Macedonian view and fixed the other parts. My parents are from South Serbia (Pirot), Macedonia (Skopje) and Sofia so I know what I'm talking about, being partly Macedonian, partly Bulgarian, partly Serbian. It should not be permitted that the Macedonian language page consists of predominantly Bulgarian points of view. Now we have 4 points of view, the dominant is the Macedonian one, I left the Bulgarian view to be second in order, but I re-write the Serbian point of view once again. The Greeks have secondary role in it, so let them be the last. all of the families in Novi Sad that I know are from Skopska Crna Gora, Ohrid or somewhere in the neighbourhood, but they came to Vojvodina in 1690. The St George Church in Novi Sad can prove how many Macedonians came there. You should be satisfied with the fact that I was the only one that ever mentioned the Bulgarian traces in Vojvodina and the Bulgarian name of Novi Sad, Mlada Loza. You don't have it on your Novi Sad page, so put it there. See Wikipedia in Serbian, Novi Sad article. There were lots of Tzintzars, Greeks and Armenians too in Vojvodina. Жикица Милошевић-Žikica Milošević

All right, that's your point of view, I'm cool with it. But there's a separate article about the history of Macedonia and retelling everything here, on the article about the language, isn't necessary. Points of view about the language is what we need, not all this. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 12:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
As much as I like these 4 PoVs summarized in one place, It doesn't feel right to me that they occupy more than half of the article. I don't have brilliant ideas what to do with it though – move it to Political views on Macedonian language and leave only a 1-paragraph summary here? Duja 12:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you, it really doesn't look good this way. Shortening the paragraphs to embrace just views on the language and not on Macedonians as a nation, on their origin and history would be nice, but still, splitting might be necessary. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 13:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
OK. Let me think it over if anything is redundant. But I put the Vojvodina Great Migration facts just because the Bulgarian view emphasized the Macedonian lineage in Sofia, which is undoubtful fact. Moreover, the whole of Black Sea region, as I was told, was repopulated by the Aegean Macedonians, and last summer I stayed in a hotel whose owner was a Macedonian, so we chit-chatted a lot in our local dialects, which was refreshing. He told me about the Macedonian settlement of Pont Greeks and vice versa. I just wanted to be equal with the Bulgarian PoV, obviously posted by you, Todor. This article should be equidistant to the Serbs and Bulgarians, with the accent on the local Macedonian PoV, isn't it true? I had a gradfather in Sofia, an uncle and two bratucheda - but although I love Bulgaria and Bulgarians so much, there should be some equality with the story of my second grandfather, who was a Macedonian with the Serbian PoV. But, my relatives from Macedonia today shift between Serbophilia and fierce Macedonism, so I think that every possibility should be investigated and every PoV documented. Finally, the small articles are called "Bulgarian/Serbian/Greek/Macedonian POINT OF VIEW", so they do not necesarily reflect the truth, which is "out there", as Fox Mulder said :) Leave all 3 versions (the Greek one I do not count relevant, they are only offended because of "misuse" of the name Macedonia) there. If we agree to shorten all 3 versions of it, it could be cool. But also I found it very interesting reading the Bulgarian PoV and the Sofia inhabitants etc. although it is not stricly linguistic matter. I think that the readers, after all, can find a lot of interesting data now. Let's leave the erasing for couple of days or weeks and see the comments, and decide what to do later, OK? Жикица
Исто така, Тодоре, имам слики што можат да илустрираат лингвистичките претензии на Србите и Бугарите пред Првата Светска Војна. Ако ги сакаш, можам да ти ги пратам по интернет, па ги ти накачи на сајтот. Слики се, навистина, карти во боја из 1914. Јави се ако сакаш. Ако не, јас ке ги накачам, по една за бугарите и србите. А имам и една официална мапа на македонски од уџбеници од Македонија, се сетив.
I also shortened the Serbian view by catting the totally irrelevant political argument of "good will" recognition of Macedonia in 1992, and even my counter-argument is purely political and treats the essence of Macedonian nation and not language issue. Жикица
Това за Черноморския край и преселението на егейски македонци там не ми беше известно, но това не значи, че не е донякъде вярно (не и напълно, не мога да се съглася, че са чак толкова голяма част от населението преселниците от Македония по Черноморието, доста пъти съм бил там) — във всеки случай тези хора се определят като българи, защото според официални данни в България само 0,05% от населението се е записало като етнически македонци. Не съм аз авторът на секцията за българската гледна точка (позиция) в тази статия, но съм напълно съгласен да оставим така нещата за няколко дни/седмици и да видим каква ще бъде реакцията. Иначе нямам нищо против да съкратим и частта за българското мнение по въпроса, така че да останат само езиковедските (лингвистките) данни. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 15:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

If someone has the wish to express an opinion on whether we should shorten or split the section where the different national views on the Macedonian language are mentioned and whether the non-linguistic data should stay, they are encouraged to post their comment. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 15:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with it (shorten), but not on the price of losing the current contents entirely; since much of them are related with opposing views regarding Macedonian ethnicity, they should be merged with the article which talks about that. Is there currently one? Duja 15:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Macedonians (ethnic group), Demographic history of Macedonia. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → Talk 20:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


Конечно еспев да документирам доселување на Македонците во Војводина. Се надевам дека ке успеш да сториш исто со доселување во Софија. Тогаш е најдобро да не го елиминираме дел на етничките преселувања. Zikicam 23:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Geographical arrangement?

Bomac, you cant just make up a classification like that. Look at all the other languages, it is based primarily on number of people that speak them, and then at best alphabetically among countries with significant numbers. You want to argue that Bulgarian should be explicitly included in the list of countries where english is spoken as well? FunkyFly 15:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Features

Noun Case

"The only case used is vocative ..."

This statement isn't entirely true. The vocative case is the only case to be used to a fuller extent compared to the other cases.

The noun casing system has almost disappeared, therefore Macedonian relies primarily on analytic declination.

A few examples of common usage;

  • Dative - кому (to whom)
It's correctly said that noun case system disappeared. As in English, French etc, personal pronouns are still inflected.Duja
  • Genitive - мечкин камен (bear's rock) and Самоилово царство (Samoil’s kingdom)
That is not considered a genitive, but a possesive adjective. One can compare it with Possesive case, but it functions as an adjective and not as a noun, and it's not considered a noun in neither Slavic grammar.Duja 11:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Vocative - мајка (mother) would become мајко!; the example "Како си, синко?" is an exception where 'сине' is expected. But, both are acceptable.
синко is indeed a peculiar thing, but it's really an exception. Often, it functions as an interjection, especially when elder people address younger.Duja 11:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: The Vocative case is only used with masculine and feminine nouns, and not with neuter ones.

It's not correctly said. It is grammatically a vocative, it only has the same form as the nominative. "Како си, дете?" is clearly a vocative. In Serbian, the stress can be different than in nominative (for дете, it's long rising in nominative but long falling in vocative) -- I doubt it's so in Macedonian, because it has a different accent system. Duja 11:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Other Characteristics

  • Postpositive Use - use of the definite article when a noun has no adjective.
  • Double Object Constructions - explanation
  • Constructions with "да", "ќе" and "има / нема"
  • Constructions with "сум" plus a deverbative noun.
  • Grammatical Moods: (BESIDE THOSE SHARED BY MOST EUROPEAN LANGUAGES)
    • Mediative Mood
    • Admirative Mood
    • Generic Mood (?)
  • A flexible word order similar to that of Polish, relying heavily on emphasis in pronunciation and context.
  • A suffixed definite article pertaining to the position of an object. (As already stated in the article)
I have collected a lot of the above information from other websites and personal research ... so, it may not all be 100% correct. I thought that this may be able to 'kick start' an expansion of this article. --Daniel Tanevski talk 13:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to imply anything, but the article on Bulgarian language has some of that stuff, especially on verb moods, fairly well explained. So, not all of these features are unique (as the current version says). Duja 11:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's true. However I'm pretty sure the renarrative mood is unique to Bulgarian in the Slavic language family. Macedonian does not posses the renarrative mood, unless the renarrative mood is the same as the mediative mood as mentioned on this talk page. Macedonian has the mediative mood and admirative mood which I don't think Bulgarian has. Thanks for clarifying my post on the noun cases. I'm not a linguist or anything, so please forgive me if I've come to some weird conclusions - the reason I came to those conclusions was because of a similarity to the Serbian noun cases. For example, Олгин супруг and Мечкин камен. Душанов законик and Самоилово царство. --Daniel Tanevski talk 06:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
As for the moods, I really don't know. Shouldn't be too difficult to compare various meanings of constructs in Bulgarian and Macedonian, but I'm not a speaker, and these nuances can be fine. I've just marked renarrative mood for merging with grammatical mood; the contrast (if it exists) should be investigated there (as well as here).
Grammatical mood#admirative mood part of the article looks like a good candidate for inclusion to Balkansprachbund article, doesn't it?Duja 15:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Endless reverts

I mean, this [4] is Bulgarian nationalism on steroids... I am looking at Bulgarians#Population. It says there is Bulgarian minority in RoM. True, according to the latest census there are 1500-2000 Bulgarians. Let's compare that to the 5000+ Macedonians in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian article is like that for a long time. And yet, this article is being reverted several times a day on the ground not significant numbers. What is the threshold for significance? There are many Bulgarians here looking for denial of anything Macedonian - past, present and if possible (how much would they like!) future.--Cigor 03:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

And now FunkyFly tries to "excuse himself" with the statement: There is a small macedonian minority in Bulgaria, so it cannot be mentioned in the laguage box (in the section: Spoken in). That's irrelevant here. Bulgaria is a neighbouring country of Macedonia, so it should be mentioned. Bomac 08:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
If Ethnologue, UCLA, Helsinki Watch, Britannica, and BBC believe that the number of Macedonian speakers in Bulgaria is relevant, then it could only mean that it is really relevant to mention that Macedonian is spoken in Bulgaria. Also, as evidenced in the numerous international human rights organisations' reports, it is suspicious whether the official number of persons who regard themselves as Macedonians in Bulgaria is accurate - there are reasons to believe that the Bulgarian government, or the population in general, create a direct or an indirect pressure on Macedonians to state a "Bulgarian" ethnicity. My personal POV on this matter is that the Macedonians there a subject to pressure, I've experienced that pressure myself - it is simply not a smart thing to openly speak about your Macedonian ethnicity in Bulgaria - people immediately get hostile to you. --FlavrSavr 13:44, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The most relevant figures are from the census. Bulgaria is a democratic country (like RoM) and everybody has right in the censuses to declare his languge. So, in the last census about 5000 citizens declare them like Macedonians in ethnic sense and only about 3000 (NB!) considered their language like Macedonian. Is the practice in other articles about languages is to note so insignificant numbers of speakers? Please, answer me "sine ira et studio" (whithout anger and emotions). If we specify the principle, we have a chance to stop endless reverts (and everybody will stay on his own asserts).:) Regards, --AKeckarov 11:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, in Bulgarians#Population there is mentioning of Bulgarians in RoM. Percentage wise (divided by number of all Bulgarians) they are smaller than the same number for Macedonians. Also in Bulgarian language we see Hungary. I found this link [5]. Quote from there: "There are only 7-8 thousands people who consider themselves Bulgarians, most of them consider themselves of dual identity, Bulgarian and Hungarian at the same time. Most Bulgarians in Hungary speak better Hungarian, than Bulgarian language.". So if this is significant, the number of 3000 (which as the lowest possible number, as the official policy is very hostile to Macedonians branding them as Serbian agents and alcoholics) is also. Remeber there are 4-5 more Bulgarians then Macedonians, so all numbers should be normalized by this factor. If anybody is being very emotional it's the Bulgarian users here, because let call the spade spade, it's not about the significance of numbers it is about denial of Macedonian language as a separate one, and Macedonians nation as different than Bulgarians. --Cigor 14:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You are right that the problem is in about denial of Macedonian language as a separate one by Bulgarian science and Bulgarians (including the majority of Macedonians in Bulgaria). We can say this and otherwise - the ptoblem is in the understanding in RoM that the "Macedonian language" is the language of Pirin Macedonia. However, I understood that you are suggesting not to conformity whith the igsignificant numbers? OK! Then I suppose that I have your support with one correction in the article "Bulgarian language" - to add RoM. Regards,--AKeckarov 15:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I have no problem with that. There are 1500-2000 Bulgarians (according census) and I guess they speak Bulgarian as their home language.--Cigor 16:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I aM from Canada. I grew up learning s/c/b and i spent a summer in skoplje. I can tell you that about 90% of macedonian is the same as s/c/b or it is simular (as in bulgarian). Still i consider s/c/b and macedonian intelligible. A serb could have a conversation with a macedonian if he wanted to without many problems.

Preceding is an unsigned comment by 70.51.60.88 - 21:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You're correct in saying that Macedonian and Serbian are intelligible, but not quite to that degree. They share (as do all Slavic languages) a huge word stock inherited from their predecessor. The languages are very close linguistically, but the main reason why most Macedonians understand Serbian is because of our long history together. Many younger Macedonians never learned Serbian, but nowadays Serbian singers such as Ceca, Aca Lukas and Dragana Mirković have become extremely popular ... just as Toše and Karolina have become popular in Serbia, as well as in Croatia (and to a lesser extent, Bulgaria and Slovenia). Hence, the Macedonian youth is becoming familiarized with Serbian, just as young Serbs are with Macedonian. --Daniel Tanevski talk 14:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. Another factor to take into account about how intelligable serbian and macedonian are is where in serbia and where in macedonia you live. I have family from leskovac in serbia and sremska mitrovica in voyvodina. The basic language is the same but the slang is different. A typical example of this is the word sat in s/b/c. However in eastern and central serbia it is more common to use the word cas. Which is the same as bulgarian and macedonian. Therefore i have to conclude that serbian slang is really a cross between croatian and bulgarian. Also my cousin from leskovac lived in skoplje and told us that he understood 99% of macedonian. --Lazar Stevanović (70.51.60.88) 19:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Reorganization

I moved the (overlong and constantly growing) section into Political views on the Macedonian language article, leaving only a short intro here. I hope I summarized them well; if not, feel free to correct but please don't be too extensive; the new article is supposed to be the place to elaborate. Duja 16:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Great idea. I hope this limits the fighting in the main article, at least partly.

Preceding is an unsigned comment by 85.187.203.123 - 14:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Melody and accentuation

Deleted the sentence that Macedonian had the same melody and accentuation as Serbian. Serbian has distinctive tonal accent (and length), and its stress can fall on most syllables. Macedonian has no distinctive tonal accent, no length that I know of, and stress is fixed on the third syllable from the end.

I might argue with you, as a born Macedonian speaker - OK, melodical accent is what the Macedonian does not have, neither that nor the length, but it is NOT relevant. What is relevant is the rule that almost all the words in Macedonian have the accent on the 3rd syllable from the back, just like in Serbian (where the percent is a bit less)> In Macedonian, some words do have the accent on the 2nd syllable from the back, and this percent is a considerably bigger in Serbian. Both language have a very small number of words with the accend on the last syllable. It is officially "prohibited" in Serbian, but it happens all the time. For example, take the word DIZAJN. It is a striking difference in comparison with Bulgarian, that's why I'm putting back the accentuation sentence, slightly corrected although. Zikicam 13:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone Macedonian around here?

The article contains a contradiction that needs to be resolved by a native speaker. It says that Macedonian has fixed stress on the third syllable from the last, and I've met this claim in literature; however, in the examples, words like "MAkedonski", "BLAgodarya", "DOviduvanje" and "IZvinete" have stress on the first syllable, counted from the beginning of the word (and I do believe I've heard this pronunciation, at least in "MAkedonski"). How is that possible? Shouldn't it be "maKEdonski", "blaGOdarya", "doviDUvanje" and "izVInete"?

It should. Thanks for pointing it out – the examples at the end of the article appear to be correct, but not the IPA pronunciations in "Common phrases" section. Duja 12:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no such word as "Blagodarya" in Macedonian. It's "BlaGOdaram". Bomac 14:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Never heard of these examples. It is MaKEdonski, sometimes in some areas MakeDONski, but never MAkedonski. BlagodarJA is a Bulgarian word for the Macedonian BlaGOdaram. It is DoviDUvanje and IzVInete. Zikicam 13:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Abecedar

File:Abecedar2.jpg

I noticed that the Abecedar issued by the Greek government in 1925 uses the Latin alphabet. Does anybody have a copy of it? Since the Macedonian language was standardized in 1945, I am wondering what variant of the language was used in the Abecedar. Are there differences with todays standard Macedonian? Andreas 19:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I can answer my question myself: it was based on the Lerin/Bitola dialect [6]. Andreas 19:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, what's happened with the ABECEDAR pic in the text? It is precious! Zikicam 00:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Melody and accentuation 2

Zikicam, I must admit that there is a superficial similarity between Serbian and Macedonian, which lies in the fact that in both languages, stress doesn't fall on the last syllable with a few exceptions, mostly loanwords. However, the origin and nature of these rules are totally different; it's not just a matter of percentages (the output), but of principles (the rules that generate it). In Serbian, as in Bulgarian and Russian, stress placement is unpredictable, mostly a legacy from old Slavic - except that at some point Serbian stress moved one syllable towards the beginning of the word: that caused the absence of final stress, and the Serbian tonal accent distinction. Macedonian is essentially different BOTH from Serbian AND from Bulgarian, because its stress is determined not by old Slavic accentuation, but by the sheer number of syllables in the modern-day language (and the absence of final stress is the by-product of this rule).

From your wording in the article, people would get the impression that Macedonian is just a mechanical middle-of-the-way compromise between Serbian and Bulgarian. As far as stress is concerned, that's just not true. Macedonian is pretty special here, and I don't want this to be blurred. That's why stress placement should be mentioned as its unique feature and not as a feature that makes it similar to Serbian.

Besides that, in the section we're talking about, the similarities between the 3 languages are mentioned not as coincidences, but to illustrate genetic proximity. That is true as regards the definite article, the script, the slang and everything else, but NOT stress placement. Macedonian stress placement has nothing to do with Serbian influence.

I know. I am a Macedonian, speaking the language with my mother at home. Outside I speak Serbian. I know the rules, and you are right about the origins, it's like in Polish, Rusyn, Czech or Slovak - these languages have thier accents based not on the Old Slavic accents too. But my point was not that. It was merely the sound - it sounds that way, OK? Zikicam 23:55, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but "sounding" is one thing, and the linguistic facts are something else. "How it sounds" is one thing, and the objective grammatical similarities with Bulgarian are something else. The first is non-scientific and non-linguistic, and the second isn't, so you shouldn't mention them together. You can say that Finnish sounds to you a bit like Swedish, but you shouldn't say or imply that Finnish is "in-between" Swedish and Russian, because it isn't.

Well, I happen to visit Finland and Sweden and to learn Finnish a bit, and I also speak Russian fluently, so I surely know that there's no link between the Russian, Finnish and Swedish, except in loanwords. The more accurate would be to compare Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, or perhaps, Rusyn, Polish, Ukrainian, or Czech, both Sorbian dialects and Polish etc. We should discuss about the similarities between the same family rather. I just wanted to say this; Macedonian has a rule, 3rd syllable from the back, but it often accentuates on the 2nd or even 1st syllable, especially in the foreign words. In Serbian, there's no such rule, but the frequency of positions is not much different: it is usually on the 3rd syllable from the back, and sometimes on the 2nd, very rarely on 4th or 1st. So, I am talking about the statistical features - life usually beats the rules. I don't mind this sentence of mine was removed if you think it that way Zikicam 23:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I disagree about the accentuation (I am the one who wrote the passage on SC accents quoted by 85). In Serbian (Shtokavian), accent position is pretty unpredictable; "leans towards the first syllable" was meant to say: when in doubt, stress the first one (but there's no guarantee that you would be right). Now, since most words are 2- or 3- syllabic, the accents in Macedonian and Serbian will often coincide – but only coincide (there are also a plenty Serbian 3-syllabic words stressed on 2nd). I maintain that there is no systemic relationship between two accent systems, however weakly you define it.Duja 07:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Vazi, Jugoslave! Nema problema! :) Of course the processes are not related. I just wanted to say that there are rules in Macedonian, which seem strict, and they are in fact not that strict, and there's very loose rule in Serbian (not on the last syllable!), which is fact turn to be rather strict in fact - with the majority of accent being placed on the 3rd or 2nd syllable from the back. I agree with the current definition, and I hope we'll collaborate further on this! Pozdrav! Zikicam 16:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

DZ

I think that somebody forcibly tries to establish the custom of comparing Macedonian only to Bulgarian and not to Serbian. Well, it won't work. I added the fact that the DZ phoneme is very frequent in some Serbian dialects adjascent to Macedonia, which was forgotten. Macedonian is clearly IN BETWEEN the two languages, and not only "on the same isolated island as Bulgarian". Zikicam 00:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's a conspiracy. It's just that standard Macedonian IS much closer to standard Bulgarian than to standard Serbian in its basic structure (analytic grammar). Which has absolutely no political implications.

I agree with you, I suppose it's Daniel Tanevski speaking. I mean, I can agree with you only if we take into account the literary languages. But please do not forget the fact that half of Serbia and some 30% of Serbs do not speak the literary language, but the Torlakian dialects, which are much closer to literary Macedonian than to literary Serbian. Vuk Karadzic was the person repsonsible for forming the gap between the literary Serbian and future 1945 literary Macedonian languages, as much as the linguists from 19th century from Bulgaria were to blame for the gap between today's literary Bulgarian and Macedonian. We should not speak about the literary languages that much, but about the CONTINUUM of Serbo-Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects that merge into each other. In my family, for instance, I speak all the time Shop dialect of Serbian (Torlakian) and Macedonian, apart from Serbian, with my family. They originated from South Serbia and Macedonia. Those 2 vernaculars are very similar, so when I hear for the name Vuk Karadzic, it usually pisses me off, because he's to blame for the gap between us now. I mean, Serbia is diagonally divided from Pozarevac to Metohija. West and North of it - it is literary Shtokavian. South and East,it is much closer to Macedonian. Who does not belive it, should see the films "Zona Zamfirova" and "Ivkova slava"

to see how the vernacular of Nis sounded like and sounds like still, when the atmosphere is a bit informal, or when you go to the suburbs and villages of Serbia. The point is: the 3 languages form the continuum of dialects, so we should respect both neighbouring blocks - both Bulgarian and spoken Serbian. We should not forget how intelligible to us sounds the Bulgarian spoken in Sofia, compared to the same language from Varna... That's the point - we're much closer to each other than what the literary languages show, and the national feeling is a matter of choice, education or historical pressure, whatever, but is individually and territorially based now. Zikicam 01:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean, although I'm not Daniel Tanevski. :) I understand that you're making a point, and there certainly should be a word or two about Torlak, but what really disturbs me is the sheer number of all these "but"-s and "although"-s, pursuing different political agendas, making the whole article one big discussion archive, disguised as a single text by means of "but"-s and although"-s. Reading it hurts. And your motivation sounded alarmingly militant. Are you going to add "and in Torlak" each time something occurs in Torlak (like: "Macedonian, along with Bulgarian, is the only Slavic lang without cases - although some SE Serbian dialects.. etc.")? It's so painful. Of course there's a dialect continuum, there always is, do we need to emphasize that each time we say something?
And, by the way, you shouldn't be mad at Karadzic. He had to choose SOME dialect for a standard language, didn't he? If he had chosen Torlak, then the westerners would be unhappy about it. Such are the rules of the game. Somebody wins, somebody loses, and the only way to achieve equality is to make Esperanto the official language. :)

(Subsequently signed:--85.187.203.123 15:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Amen to that.
I understand your desire to remain even more anonymous, but please bear with us; you made some nice contributions to this and related articles but it's not so easy to talk with you and identify you beneath that IP number. At least, please sign your posts with ~~~~ so that we know that you're 85.187.203.123. Duja 14:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, actually, I do plan to do it. :) There's a fact: it is wrong to say that Bulgarian and Serbian are so different, or that Macedonian and Serbian are so different. You can get the wrong impression if you are a complete foreigner. Pirot Serbian dialects are much closer to the literary Bulgarian than to standard Serbian etc. It has to be emphasised, otherwise the people trying to get to know something from Mexico or Mozambique will get totally wrong impression. When I am writing for Wikipedia, I do not try to be concise, but accurate. It is not meant to be the encyclopaedia for the experts or the Balkan Slavs. It is aimed to be the accurate source of information for all those who do not know anything about this part of the world, as much as I do not know anuthing about the relations between Zulu and Xhosa in South Africa, or Scottish and Irish Gaelic. :) Zikicam 23:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

IPA

The IPA in the common phrases section isn't displaying nicely in Internet Explorer (for me), but works fine in Firefox. Is anybody else having this problem? --Daniel Tanevski talk 06:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

fixed Andreas 14:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
It still isn't displaying with my IE ... anyone else want to comment? --Daniel Tanevski talk 15:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Post your comment at Template_talk:IPA Andreas 15:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed variants with affriates, like 'dɔbra nɔʨ. AFAIK this pronunciation is not standard, and not widespread either. Duja 12:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

to Bomac

I've tried to do a version as close as possible to yours, however you took the opportunity to change the disamb. header as well... Try to understand that the BBC article refers to Slavonic and make something useful out of it. talk to +MATIA 18:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Matia, as you can notice, that BBC source relates to Macedonian language (it's heading is "Macedonian language"). So, it clearly states that distinguish Macedonian texts etc. And about the disamb. - change it if you want, I really think it doesn't makes any important difference, and that's the main reason I didn't react about it's erasing. Regards, Bomac 19:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
It's ridiculous to think "texts that distinguish themselves as Macedonian, rather than some other Slavonic language, are 10th century religious codices, written in Glagolitic script", as the only such documents in the period I know of are the works of the Ohrid Literary School grounded by the Bulgarian state together with the Preslav Literary School, both serving the Bulgarian Empire. Just check these works to see how doubtlessly Bulgarian they are, if this can't convince you. Yes, BBC is a neutral source, but relying on a single ambiguous sentence from a single source is not the policy. Face it — the Macedonian language exists as a separate one since recent times and has as much to do with Old Church Slavonic as most other Slavic languages. It is not its direct successor or anything of this kind. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 13:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Ofcourse that Macedonian has as much to do with Old Church Slavonic as most other Slavic languages. And, I was not trying to proove anything related to "direct successoring" or similar. All I want to state is that Church Slavonic, undoubtedly had a Macedonian version (or version from Macedonia, as you like), just as every other Slavic regions had (Serbian, Bulgarian etc.). And of course Ohrid literary school will be "Bulgarian", caus a Bulgarian wrote that article. What else could I expect? :-)

I still think that you are a lot influenced by politics and that is the main reason you don't want to understand the meaning of the sentence. Bomac 14:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh of course. TodorBozhinov is influenced by politics, whereas you are the voice of NPOV (your interpretation of that source is not influenced by politics in any way) ;-) --Latinus (talk (el:)) 14:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying that I'm the "magical voice of NPOV". I'm not the one who reacts "blitz-krieg" wherever "Macedonia" is mentioned. I state facts. ;-) Cheers, Bomac 14:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The phrase "it's Macedonian variation and characteristics" for Old Slavonic is... I'm unable to describe it. And I couldn't find it at BBC of course, please avoid anachronisms and stick to NPOV. talk to +MATIA 14:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Bomac, well, then what's to see in the Old Church Slavonic article about Macedonian? The Macedonian version as you call it is ambiguous, as it might mislead the reader to think it is about the modern language and not a variety of Old Church Slavonic, the language of and developed in the Bulgarian Empire for the use of the Bulgarians, a version that has only a couple of differences from the northern codification of Preslav (check for yourself). It's not the point whether I understand the sentence, but whether every single reader would, which is obviously not how matters stand. I believe politics have nothing to do with this, as I'm prone to accepting the sentence as long as you provide other (and more detailed) sources that actually prove it. But I'm not even sure what's meant by "distinguish themselves as Macedonian", as phonetically OCS has the reflexes of the *tj and *dj that modern Bulgarian has — ʒd (жд) and ʃt (щ, or шт in your orthography) — and not the ones of Macedonia (ɟ and c), and I'm unable to think of anything that can actually hint those texts and this codification of OCS belong to modern Macedonian as its first written texts, and not Bulgarian as universally accepted. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 14:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Please now, Todor, you said it for yourself that Macedonian language is a successor of Old Church Slavonic, just as every other Slavic language. And there is nothing to be misleaded here with the modern language, caus, simply, it is a historical fact and sentence. Please, try to avoid double standards. And tj, dj, ʒd (жд), ʃt etc. are Old Church Slavonic letters which modern Bulgarian succeded from that language. Are you going backwards with your claims - from future to past - to claim that they are purely Bulgarian letters? I think that's not the way it goes. And what about all other Cyrillic letters? They can be met in all other Slavic languages, and in Macedonian. Bomac 15:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I haven't said Macedonian is a successor of OCS just as every other language, I said it has as much to do with it as every other Slavic language, which is namely influenced. I do firmly believe the sentence you are so fond of is misleading, especially when used in the context of the Macedonian language article.
Then, you're probably not quite interested in linguistics. What I meant is sounds, phonology, not letters. The reflex of proto-Slavic sounds that no longer exist is the way they were specifically changed to other sounds in the different Slavic languages. It has nothing to do with the Cyrillic alphabet, which belongs to all Slavic languages (but was developed somewhat in the same period we're discussing, again for the purposes of the Bulgarian Empire). → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 15:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

As I "read" you, you are trying to say that Macedonian is a yesterday-language and doesn't have it's own history? Yes - it was codificated much later than Bulgarian and has similarities with it, but your claims are ridiculous. I know the Bulgarian POV, but I think it's not quite like that, caus many things are over-turned cause of the misunderstanding of the meaning of the word "Bulgarian" in that time. Bomac 15:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I am also aware of the Macedonian POV about the term "Bulgarian" and find it ridiculous. And yes, I do believe Macedonian and Bulgarian were one language (whatever you call it) until very recently, and I still regard them as one language codified differently. But this is my own, personal point of view that you shouldn't exaggerate, and I stick to what science universally accepts when discussing the topic — besides, if Macedonians say they're Macedonians and they speak Macedonian, then this is the way matters stand. I support self-determination. Just don't play with history. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 16:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't play with history. Macedonian existed as a separate language, but of someone's game with history... How do you explain the "Abecedar" book published in Greece, which was later confiscated by your country and Serbia caus of the Macedonian speech in it? Serbians surely didn't "mixed fingers" here.

The Bulgarian history is not the shiniest one in the world, if a lil' bit you see it from other perspective, you'll discover many myths. And if you support the Macedonian self-determination, you surely support the history of this land (as you would say - the Macedonian POV), caus many of the descendents of the historical persons (Miladinov, Delchev etc.) are now declaring as "Macedonians". Bomac 16:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

How ridiculous my friend. It reminds me of the mormons who appropriate their dead ancestors in the mormon religion. FunkyFly 20:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but reality bites. Better Macedonian than anything else :-D Regards, dear Bulgarian friend. Bomac 22:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In other words (Bomac's approach), the ancestors of Halldór Ásgrímsson (who presumably were living in Norway or Denmark at the time) were identifying as Icelanders long before Iceland was even discovered! --Latinus (talk (el:)) 22:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, my grandfather told me that Macedonian and Serbian were one language that were differently codified by Vuk Karadzic in the 19th century and Blaze Koneski in 1945. I mean, every Bulgarian PoV can have one POV in Serbia, as in the mirror. The majority of Serbs, I CAN tell you that, believe that historically, Macedonian split from the Serbian language gradually through history, together with the Torlakian dialects (from 11st century!), and the final codification was done in 1945. So what? It existed as a SPEECH, not as a codified language, as much as Serbian Torlakian or Bulgarian Shopian, but the historical circumstances have done the rest. The fact is, we can trace the separate development of Macedonian SPEECH, if not language, for the last 1000 years. Now it's been codified under the name Macedonian, which really bothers the Greeks, but it's the other topic. Whenever somebody from Bulgaria says something, the Serbians can say something similar, and Macedonians something in between. What's the point of all this? We are all brothers and closest neighbours and friends. Stop doing this. You think it's true, I can prove something else etc. It's boring now. Zikicam 15:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
And one more thing. How anybody through history became Serb, Croat, Bulgarian, Macedonian? Quite simply:
1. When the Slavs came to the Balkans, Serbs and Croats were merely tribes, that conquered the other tribes. The tribes under their rule gradually accepted their name, starting calling themselves Serbs, Croats etc. The other tribes either accepted the common Slavic name, like Slovenes or Slovaks in the north. Some of Southern Slavs did not accept any name accept their tribal name: Brsjaci, Strumjani etc. ON The other hand, with Bulgarians or Russians the things were different: when the Proto-Bulgarians (or Varyags in Kiev) came, they ruled the Slavs. You could become Bulgarian by accepting their name, since they accepted the Slavic Thracian dialaect, and dropped their native Turkic language. So, the Slavs gradually became Bulgarians, and not vice versa. It is not that Bulgarians became something else. Macedonians sometimes accepted Bulgarian or Serbian ethnicity, but during the Ottoman rule, the Bulgarian or Serbian identities fell into oblivion. Finally, the Slavs from Macedonia accepted the regional name - Macedonians. This name is identical to the Ancient Hellenic nation, and it bothers the Greeks, but it's completely other topic. So, we are talking identity, not ethnicity. The "Bulgarians" is just the name the Slavs ACCEPTED gradually, or dropped gradually. But we are all Slavs or Slavicized Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Ancient Macedonians, Romans etc. The Bulgarian/Macedonian misunderstanding is not like Russian/Ukrainian. The Ukrainians were indeed first Russian (Malorussian), and they dropped their Russian name, that all the Easter Slavs accepted from the Varyags. They did not shift their identities during ages. Zikicam 15:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the KIEV SLAVS were the first to accept RUSSIAN name. And I personally prefer the names: SLAVOMACEDONIA, SLAVOMACEDONIAN LANGUAGE, to differ ourselves from the Ancient Hellenic Macedonians. We are proud of being Slavs. I don't want to be mixed with Greek or Alexander the Great. Also, for the church conflict, I would stick to the Nis Agreement, and ask for the name ARHIEPISKOPIJA ORHIDSKA I NA CELATA VARDARSKA MAKEDONIJA. Archbishop of Ohrid and all of Vardar Macedonia. So everyone would be happy. But of course, until the full autocephaly from Serbian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Patriarch should accept the name SERBIAN PATRIARCH AND OF ALL THE VARDAR MACEDONIA. I guess it would cut the disputes - the language and church names would contain the word MACEDONIAN, but strictly bordered to the Slavic and Vardar Macedonians and Macedonia. It would shut up the Greeks, satisfy the Macedonian nationalists and Serbian church. But it's just a dream at the time!!!! Zikicam 15:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course, if today's Republic of Macedonia changes its name, also the Greek province Makedhonia-Thrakia should change its name not to be confused with the Slavomakedonija. The proper name for the northern Greek province could be Aegean Macedonia-Southern Thrace, just to differ it from the Pirin and Vardar Macedonia, and to differ it from Bulgarian and Turkish Thrace. It's just the matter of accuracy, and I think that the Balkan folks ae not egough accurate. Let me compare: Galicia is divided between Poland and Ukraine, Banat between Serbia and Romania, Bessarabia betweem Romania and Ukraine, Srem between Serbia and Croatia, Sandzak between Serbia and Montenegro etc. if we use the proper "restrictions" on the names, there'll be no dispute any longer. The example: Northern Ossetia (Russia) and Southern Ossetia (Georgia). Zikicam 12:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You can't just throw out sourced information?

LOL, LOL, LOL. So everything that has some link next to it to prove it's a fact is to find a place in any article? So if I write Pinocchio is a real boy [7] in the Wood article, would that be enough to keep it there? It was thoroughly explained to you how matters actually stand and what you're so settled to include in the article is close to complete nonsense, not to mention that see Old Church Slavonic thing. What you actually intend is attempt on implying that Macedonian has a longer history than in fact and make a form of OCS look like some medieval Macedonian, when it's actually OCS and nothing else, but you're not going to succeed in doing this. Macedonian has roots in OCS as part of Bulgarian, whereas the History section of this article here should give information about the language's separate history. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 12:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Gorani

Look Macedonia. The short news, coming from Macedonian national radio, that Kosovo minister of Education has allowed education of Gorani on Macedonian language, was spread by you into headings of three articles (Gorani (Kosovo), Torlakian dialect and this one). This is the only source that exists for such news. Now, you're treating it as a revelation – why don't you put it into headlines of Main Page as well? It is not clear what is the Gorani's attitude about it, and whether it was their request or some sort of deal between Macedonian and Kosovo government, or whether it's 100% true. Even if it were 100% true, and Gorani have agreed with it, why is it so important to have information on educational language of 20,000 people (diaspora notwithstanding) in the very introduction of this article? Even so, don't you consider it fairly normal that those people need to have some textbooks to learn from, even if they're on a language which is not quite their native dialect (which they still usually refer to as našinski rather than Macedonian).

I think I was fair enough moving that info below, within "official language of" paragraph, but I see Todor's point in removing it altogether. All we have is this short news, and no reaction whatsoever. I think that Torlakian dialect and Gorani (Kosovo) articles discuss about their tongue and ethnic affiliation (and ethnic claims) pretty fairly. Duja 14:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't actually see why it should stay, when it was first intended as propaganda, while the actual news has little to do with the Macedonian language article — This single statement has little value to the article, as to mention that the Gorani are to be taught Macedonian according to some Macedonian official. That's what I think. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 15:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I can't help but think that the reason User:Macedonia is promoting this stuff is, correct me if I'm wrong, that he's trying to present the Gorani as part of the Macedonian Slav irredenta. You know, land claims in Bulgaria and Greece. Why not in Serbia as well :-) It's propaganda (or at least POV) and should be removed ASAP. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 15:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with both (correction to Todor: it's the Kosovo minister of education). Macedonia's POV is pretty obvious. Yet, he sourced the statement (not that it's overly thorough and 100% trustable). It is highly questionable, though, that that sole statement makes Macedonian an "official language of Kosovo" (in which case, it would OK to keep it in here). I retained the info in the article for the sake of peace, but I won't overly object on removing it. Duja 16:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction. The source User:Macedonia provided was discussing something pretty different from what he wrote in the article, and doesn't mention anything close to "official language of Kosovo". I completely understand you in retaining the information for the sake of peace, but I still believe it has no place in the article, and am considering its removal. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 18:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It's OK about "official language in Kosovo", but I think that Gorani should be mentioned as a Macedonian speaking group, moretheless 'caus of recent Macedonian's from diaspora gathering in Prilep, where the president of the Gorani organisation in Kosovo was present there and where he declared himself as a Macedonian and Gorani as Macedonians. Bomac 22:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should increase the number of Macedonians in Serbia by one then. FunkyFly 00:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Look, just about every neighboring nation claimed Gorani as part of their national corpus, and they found at least one Goranac to back up their claims. I think it's fairly described in Gorani (Kosovo)#Politics (mostly written by myself, ehm.) There's a Gorani president of Society of Bulgarians of Kosovo, a strong Bosniak group in Dragaš and Germany diaspora (can' find the web site at the moment, but see bs:Bošnjaci Kosova), some pro-Serb politicians, some pro-Macedonian groups etc. I tend to distrust all these claims and legitimacy of various "Societies of Gorani Martians". So please, let's stick to mentioning all these claims and not making judgements. Duja 07:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not making any judgements, I tell you what the man has said. Bomac 21:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, I prepared a book for printing in QuarkXPress in 1997 in Serbian literary language and Gorani dialect. In the preface was written that Gorani is a Serbian dialect, called Old Serbian. When I ask the author what it means, he explained that it has nothing to do with Mediaeval Serbian, but it's connected to the region Old Serbia, in which Prizren, Tetovo, Skopje etc. were before 1945. But it's pretty close to the Macedonian literary language, as well as the Leskovac or Vranje dialects. I must repeat: the borders between Slavs in the Balkans were arbitrary and usually made by force. The national affiliation is almost always connected to the state where you live. In the uncertain and insecure times, the affiliation shifts. So, no wonder that Gorani, after the end of Serbian rule, that was really forcing the Gorani culture and identity, including their own dialect, feel insecure and try to find shelter against the Albanian vendetta. Zikicam 09:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


About Macedonia's edits

First of all you cannot simply delete the fact that the Ohrid literary school was part of the Bulgarian Empire from the 10th century. I think it should be included in order to AVOID confusion. You are in no position to censor historical facts, so get over it. Second, your claim that the Saints wrote in "Macedonian variation" is unsupported, not to mention that they had already passed away in the 10th century (when the "Macedonian variation" according to the BBC had first been seen). FunkyFly 05:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Here is what Britannica says :
Old Church Slavic Slavic language based primarily on the Macedonian (South Slavic) dialects around Thessalonica (Thessaloníki).
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9056967?query=Old%20Church%20Slavonic%20language&ct=

Similarity with Bulgarian

Hello, my name is Lazar Stevanovic. I want to make a lightharted point about this issue about macedonian. I live in Canada. My friend Victor Boev is from Bulgaria. I have a another friend here named Nenad and he is macedonian. When one of us talks to our families in our native tong, the other one laughs. This is because the differences are so small in the words that it makes the languages seem funny to one another. Even curses are the same. All 3 of us know the word govno. -Lazar Stevanovic

Thanks Lazar. Likewise, there was an interview with Greek historian Kofos in the Skopje-based newspaper,Devnik. I asked a Bulgarian friend to give me a gist translation. She found the language funny, there were one or two blanks and a couple of problems with the tenses. She said that there can be communication disparities between the two peoples but that she also has problems understanding some other Bulgarian dialects. She also pointed out that Macedonian has more Greek words. Anyhow, the translation was there and she did not need a dictionary. Now compare Greek with Greek Cypriot; I speak Greek but I cannot understand 'heavy' Greek Cypriot; it might as well be Italian. But Greek and Greek Cypriot are Hellenic languages; likewise for Pontic or south Italian Greek. Based on the findings of Greek linguist Andriotis, could we argue that Macedonian Slav is a mixture of Hellenic and South Slavonic tongues? Politis 10:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
There are very few mixed languages, in most cases, one language is the origin with loans from others. See also diasystem. Andreas 14:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I would be tempted to classify 'English' as a mixed language. Its origins are German, but it expanded with French, Latin and Greek vocabulary. So we have one range of people using a purely Germanic vocabulary (found in the popular press and soap operas), and another who make abundant reference to the existing Greek/Latin rooted words. Persumably it would more correct to say that English is a Germanic / Teutonic language. Regarding Slav languages; they were syntactically formated through Greek translations. Before that they had no structural cohesion. So can we say that Slav languages (as well as Latin, Armenian, early German) were born by gaining a Greek backbone, a Greek structure? Politis 16:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"Before that, they had no structural cohesion"?!

No, we certainly can't say that these languages were BORN thanks to Greek, they simply adopted Greek models and patterns for the more literary, bookish part of the language. If anything deserves to be called the backbone of a language, it's its phonology, grammar and basic vocabulary. And these existed prior to the formation of literary languages with Greek-Latin help. Even the most isolated aboriginal tongues have a "structure" and are languages in their own right.

Is this really the place for this kind of discussions?--85.187.203.123 16:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Slavic languages form a distinct group within the family of Indo-European languages. However, the South Slavic languages and Greek have influenced each other and are part of the Balkan linguistic union.Andreas 17:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Certainly. But I think that what Politis was referring to was the more ancient and more widespread influence occurring through loan translations from Greek: things like Greek hyp-opteuo: > Latin su-specto, Russian podo-zrevat' "to suspect" (German and English happen not to have *untersehen, *to undersee, but in many other cases they have been influenced, too). There was obviously some influence in sentence structure, subordinate clauses and the like, too. --85.187.203.123 17:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

No time to dip into my limited archives and clarify my question. Anyway. Yes, there are mutual influence between neighbouring languages: words and expression. But the 'backbone' is the grammar. I mean that with the translation of the Greek 'koine' bible and other Greek texts into the early Slavonic idiom (same happened with early German), we witness (I am told) the usage of an early Slavonic vocabulary. But since this was a basic, limited rural tongue, a vast number of more complex Greek words were transliterated into the Slavonic language; they became part of it. But more than that, the syntax, the word order of those Slavonic translations followed that of the Greek source texts which were determined by the precepts of Greek grammar. That is what I mean by backbone: the framwork that stabilised the early Slavonic language (as well as Latin etc) and allowed it to evolve (not just word loans). Thanks for the info. : - ). Politis 18:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

In short - yes, New Testament Greek did provide models for the medieval Slavonic and Germanic literary languages. And no, it didn't exercize any influence on their basic grammatical structure. Thus, expressions like "born by gaining a Greek backbone/structure", "stabilise and allow to evolve" might just sound a triffle exaggerated and nationalistic. As for the other question, I don't think Macedonian is much closer to Greek than Bulgarian (my mother tongue) is, either in its word stock or in its grammar. Otherwise, the Bulgarian-Macedonian mutual understanding would be much more diffucult. Perhaps Macedonian has kept some more Greek words, but the difference is so slight that it can hardly justify labelling it as a mixture of Greek and Slavonic. --85.187.203.123 00:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I am glad you are a native Bulgarian speaker, the best conversations come from neighbours. Here, I do not use the term 'Greek' meaning the nation, but as a central factor and cultural reference point, shared equally by much of the world. That common heritage exists irrespective of the Greek nation. But I appreciate that, since the late 19th century, the usage of a term synonymous with an ethnic group can sound invasive; such invasiveness would go against my principles and my sense of cultural curiosity. We can all, irrespective of ethnic affiliation, ask someone to 'love our Greek heritage'; it certainly does not mean, 'love the Greeks people, today'. Meanwhile, I will try and find my sources regarding the impact of Greek grammar.Politis 13:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you and excuse me if I have misunderstood you. Of course, no serious person today could deny or underestimate the fundamental role of Greek civilisation for the development of humanity. --85.187.203.123 14:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ethnologue

Britanica is a different matter. But Ethnologue clearly doesnt list the diaspora. And if you make the calculation the diaspora numbers are clearly out. So it would make sence to include the note. I agree that the note doesn't look too good. One solution would be to put it under - but then it would be misleading in a way (that it concerns the Britanica number also). I think the best solution is for the note to be below, but to be speciffic - "Ethnologue number excludes the diaspora". This looks much better I think. Anyway, wikipedia should be informative and accurate, not necessaily looking good. --Realek 20:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Can it be that those people can't speak the language apart from a few words? Did you try to discuss in your language with User:Macedonia who claims being diaspora in Canada? What would you think about his offsprings? No article about a language includes this information, for the precise reason that it is not verifiable. (check it out)  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 21:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
But surely you don't claim that no one from the diaspora speaks the language??? There are those who do and those who don't. I guess the situation is no different with Greeks abroad. --Realek 21:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Sadly it is not.  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 21:28, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Macedonian vs Bulgarian, Serbian vs Croatian

I'm a Serb, and I like Wikipedia cause it's trying to present things objectivly. I agree with (I guess it was a moderator...?) who said that it's not a goal of this website to emphasise some differences or go into details about questions such as this one...it's more important to present things in a way that ANYONE could understand, (you got it right, this is not some Great Balkan Encyclopedia but a basic and useful info-gainer);) It's important for a, let's say, Chinese who reads this article to understand its components in the simplest way....and that is what wikipedia is trying to do (doesn't always manage but in this case I think it's ok)

1)Macedonian is closely related to Bulgarian, scientificly- those are 2 languages from South-East-Slavic group of Indo-European family, while the rest of the languages of former Yugoslavia form the West-South-Slavic group. This is the ground for everything else-the closeness between the two languages. But they are still 2 different languages, not 1! 2)Now that we've established this, it's important to mention also the Torlakian dialect...It's the dialect which is spoken in East and South Serbia, West Bulgaria and Macedonia. That's the bridge between Serbian and Macedonian languages. It's considered by scientists to be among the 4 main dialects of the so called "Serbo-Croatian" language (kajkavian, chokavian, shtokavian and torlakian), which means that Serbia is split between 2 main dialects (shtokavian and torlakian). Torlakian dialect is unfortunatelly very neglected due to centralism of Belgrade and its former policy... The movies books that were written by Serbs living in those areas a century ago sound to the northern and western Serbs almost like a foreign language, but is very well understood by Macedonians. So there's a linguistic union in that way between the two languages (at least literary!, but the spoken variant also). 3)Macedonians feel less resentment towards Serbs than to Bulgarians, historically speaking of course. They were both conquerers, but they simply had a better experience with the Serbs, who were ready to ackgnowledge their nationality while Bulgarians considered them part of their national corpus until just a while ago. So even though it's linguistically closer to Bulgarian than to Serbian, many Macedonians had no problems in reading Serbian books and studying in Belgrade or elsewhere in Serbia- it was simply a political question that Tito had advantaged. Even today most citizens of Macedonia, especially older generations understand or speak Serbian with no major difficulties, but it's true that Serbs have more trouble understanding Macedonians than Bulgarians do...which I guess proves that politics in the Balkans is the main governing passion rather than logics or common sense... You cannot call Macedonian a Bulgarian, or Montenegrin a Serb unless that's how they really feel...unless they speak up their minds you cannot force someone to be something else if he feels differently...there are countless proofs that Croats and Serbs are in fact one nation- but most Croats and Serbs reject it. If someone wants to take a separate way, you cannot stop him, it never works. You can only try to be friends with him. So Macedonian is indeed a separate language, close to Bulgarian, less closer with Serbian but sometimes intelgible and lagrely influenced by it (slang f.e.)

MACEDONIAN vs BULGARIAN CANNOT be compared to SERBIAN vs CROATIAN, because SERBIAN and CROATIAN are just 2 dialects of a SAME language. MACEDONIAN and BULGARIAN are more distant and can be compared to SWEDISH vs NORVEGAN language;

Oh yeah? Then 1.How was it created in 5 days? 2.How come there are so many studies that prove the contrary? 3.How come everybody I know who speaks Bulgarian understands Slavomacedonian and vice versa? When exactly are you going to admit the truth? YOUR LANGUAGE WAS FABRICATED AND INVENTED IN ORDER TO SUPPORT YOUR NEW NATIONAL IDENTITY. Cyprus has a much more different dialect to standard Greek, and yet, it is a separate nation from Greece without mentioning the "different language" BS. NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 21:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Answers: 1. Does it make any difference? BTW, what about the attempts of Macedonians of Voden (Aegean Macedonia) to establish a short Macedonian grammar in the period of Turkish rule, or the attempts of Gjorgi Pulevski? 2. Actually, the scientific codification of the Macedonian language is a proof that there are more studies which confirm the opposite. 3. Everybody who speaks Bulgarian can understand any other South Slavic language, too. Even a non-Bulgarian person who speaks Bulgarian can understand Serbian or Macedonian - pure source of this is your friend Latinus, who speaks Bulgarian with a Serb (User:HolyRomanEmperor) and understands the Serbian language.

Conclusion: Learn already that all Slavic languages are similar - that's why they are classified in the same language group. Bomac 22:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Bomac, why don't you go troll the Macedonians (ethnic group) article? Your answers are moot. 1.No other language in the world has been invented that fast. 2.There is no independent study though. 3.The closeness of Bulgarian to Slavomacedonian is 95%. Serbian is at 30%-40%. That is why, the South Slavic languages are divided to eastern and western. I have Skopian friends, I travel a lot in your country, in Bulgaria and in Serbia for work and I speak with people. They all tell me the same: Bulgarian and Slavomacedonian are the same language with few artificially added modifications. Only your country's editors of Wikipedia support such propaganda. Get real: It is a language because we DEFINE it is a language (and I have no objection in that). Ask a linguist. It has much less modifications from Bulgarian than ANY dialect of ANY other language. NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 23:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You know well that this statement of yours doesn't holds ground. And - do you know Macedonian so you made this conclusions? I mean why would anybody bother about the similarity of Bulgarian and Macedonian, if not about the denying of the Macedonian nation.

Get real - Macedonian language and Macedonians do exist and stop with your propaganda. Bomac 09:58, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The only thing about my statement that may not hold ground, is that I said that Slavomacedonian is a language. You are soooooooo blind from extreme nationalism, that whatever I write, you JUST DON'T READ it. NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 11:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

LOL... :-))) Look who's talking... Bomac 11:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I can tell you that Macedonian (Slavic) and Bulgarian are not that similar and certainly cannot be compared to Serbian and Croatian, or Dutch and Afrikaans, or Romanian and Moldovan etc. The differences between both languages are not negligible and IMO it is immaterial whether they were artificially induced or not. The point is that the languge-dialect distinction is a very gray area and it almost wholly depends on politics. I think that the most appropriate distinciton is the one drawn time and time again. That Between Norwegian (Bokmal) and Danish. In the case of North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages, their status as independent languages is only due to the separate self-identification of the speakers and the willingness of the government in question to recogniose their existance as separate language. The problem in this case however, is that there is evidence of separate Norwegian and Danish languages in the past (go back 500 years or more). Originally, Norwegian, differed even more with Danish and that is still the case with the (artificially constructed Nynorsk - I think of it as the Norwegian equivalent of Katharevusa even though it is not exactly the same thing). Their similarities are due to prolonged contact (I think it was as part of the same state). On the other hand, I see no evidence to support the existance of Macedonian (Slavic) as a separate language from Bulgarian prior to the creation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia and the promotion of the Macedonian ethnicity (whether it was a national awakening or blatant brainwashing). In my opinion, Macedonian (Slavic) is probably an Ausbausprache. --Latinus 11:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Latinus, thanks for the intervention, I just added wiki-brackets in your text for the rest of us illiterate and uneducated people to be able to read what Ausbausprache is. (So much difference from what I was trying to explain with plain English above...) :-) NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 12:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Greatest proof that Tito did not create Macedonian language - Za Makedonckite Raboti - it's last chapter is "Nekolku zboroi za makedonckiot literaturen jazik" (Few words on the Macedonian literary language). He also states that Serbia and Bulgaria spread propaganda in Macedonia. Did you red it? :-)

Latinus, have on mind that Skagerrak and Kattegat separate Denmark from Norway. Macedonia is in the Balkans, where it borders Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia etc.

Read about Gjorgi Pulevski for example - he was certainly not brainwashed. And do you forget the "ABECEDAR" which was confiscated by Bulgaria and Serbia caus of the Macedonian dialects in it? Bomac 12:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Bomac, I think you should know that the alleged (like the Rainbow party's minority) Bulgarian minority in Greece claims that ABECEDAR was originally for them (they also claim that a seperate Macedonian nation does not exist) [8] and that the Serbia objected to it because they didn't want similar obligations and Bulgaria objected because the Greek authorities were trying to seperate the Bulgarian minority and to transform (brainwash) them into a seperate nation. Why should I believe your propaganda and not theirs? --Latinus 12:12, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sensing double standards here. Did I heard: Greek authorities were trying to separate the Bulgarian minority and to transform (brainwash) them into a separate nation? LOL... Why would Greeks do such thing as creating a separate nation in Macedonia? Isn't that the worst Greek nightmare? Bomac 12:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Greece was trying to create a Slavic minority in order to sever the minorities relations with Bulgaria. They do it all the time: eg declare Aromanian a seperate language and not a Romanian dialect and delcare Pomak a seperate language and not a Bulgarian dialect etc. This way a Bulgarian, Romanian minorty ceases to exist and an independent minority exist which does not give the corresponding country (Bulgaria, Romania etc) a right to interfere in Greek internal policies. It probably is double standards - but note the Greek authorities never encouraged the existance of a Macedonian ethinc group. It was merely a device to seperate them from the Bulgarians so thet they would be easier to assimilate. Devious tactics I know, but look at the article Pomaks, where the Greek authorities published a Greek-Pomak dictionary for that purpose. --Latinus 12:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Still, this simply makes me LOL. Latinus, the critics were given to Greece about the mistreatment of (I quote): Slavomacedonians. There weren't any Bulgarians mentioned. The ABECEDAR is a result of this. And BTW, see the image on the left. LOL... :-)) Bomac 12:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that this website may give a few answers to that question. They seem to have a different interpretation of the word "Macedonian" :-) --Latinus 12:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
-)) This is funny... The "Macedonian scientific institute" in Sofia has it's mission to deny everything that's Macedonian. What else could you expect? LOL. Bomac 13:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
So you think it's impossible that they are right. --Latinus 13:08, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I didn't said that, but I think is not right NOT to accept even the obvious prooves which clearly state that there was Macedonian conscience before Tito and Yugoslavia. Bomac 13:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

In other words, what I wanted to say about this institution is this Census 1946-1950 Bomac 14:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Just so we don't leave any open subjects here, kindly give a look at these: The term Bulgaromacedonian exists even in the most hardcore defenders of the "completely different Bulgarian-Macedonian (Slav) language". Even the creator of the language itself - Blazhe Koneski, talked about it. I will cite it with pleasure:

"Macedonian and the Bulgarian languages. The Macedonian text-books are closely integrated with this move. We have already had the opportunity to see how K. Sapkarev, one of the most prominent text-book writers, had come close to the Macedonists position, though he had not decided to make the decisive transfer. The question of writing a Macedonian grammar did not mean for the Macedonists uncovering such characteristics of the "Macedonian dialects" as could be used for the construction of a "common language" but the laying a foundation for the new Macedonian literary language. It is clear how important effecting this purpose was for our further national development.", taken from here

"For example, Macedonian (i.e. Slavomacedonian) writer Partenij was striving for common language of the Bulgarians and the Macedonians that would have incorporated features of both languages." taken from here

"In the sixties of the last century two answers were proposed to the question what was to be the medium of instruction in Macedonian schools and what, accordingly, were to be the text-books used.

  1. The introduction of a language common to the Macedonians and Bulgars, a common language but such as would represent a compromise, a mean of Macedonian and Bulgarian dialects.
  2. The introduction of a purely Macedonian language because the Macedonians are not Bulgars, but separate people." from the Father of Slavoakedonski himself.

As you can see even the creator admits "some writers from the Renaissance" wanted a common language. I think it is the perfect beginning of a new article Bulgaromacedonian or Macedobulgarian (I don't mind the order). Can you tell us Bomac what exactly the Father of the language had in mind when he wrote the above? NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 12:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I can say that north of Greece, the Macedonian language is spoken :-) Bomac 13:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, keep repeating that - it might (just might) become true :-) --Latinus 13:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Every single literary language is artificial, it's partly an arbitrarily chosen minority dialect that was artificially imposed on everybody in a country, partly constructed as compromise between different dialects, and partly a result of literary fashion or inertia. This whole argument is as if somebody who thinks he was brought by the stork ridicules somebody who has quite obviously been begotten by way of sexual intercourse and accuses the other guy's mother of not being a virgin. --85.187.44.128 13:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Impressive position I must admit. I agree. The discussion is totally unimportant, because a "language" is what you define as a "language". ...Mine, however, is still a virgin (common Greek's delusion)!! :-) NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 16:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Greatest proof that Tito did not create "Macedonian language" - Za Makedonckite Raboti (written in Bulgarian by Kriste Misirkov, who has declared himself Bulgarian on many occasions) - it's last chapter is "Nekolku zboroi za makedonckiot literaturen jazik" (Few words on the local dialects of Bulgarian spoken in Macedonia, which Misirkov refers to as Macedonian)
After all said I'll just add that pretty much everyone I know, who comes from Macedonia and now lives in Bulgaria considers himself Macedonian for sure, but with the difference that he or she also considers himself/herself Bulgarian. Gee wiz, even some hothead extremists with territorial apsirations toward Macedonia in Bulgaria were born in Macedonia. FunkyFly 16:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, if I were a Macedonian living in Bulgaria, I wouldn't really feel like declaring I wasn't Bulgarian. If I did it, I'd meet a lot of hostility. I study at the university together with Macedonians coming from Macedonia, and I remember two occasions when they had to endure professors saying the usual stuff to the effect that "your nation doesn't exist, Tito f.ked your mothers and that's how you arose, your language isn't a real language" (of course, not with such rough words). Personally, this attitude makes me angry and ashamed of being Bulgarian. And yes, as they haven't permanently settled in Bulgaria, they do feel Macedonian and they speak their own language with each other - and I must say that I don't understand much, although I have almost no problems reading it.

As for Misirkov, it's an impressive reading. Basically he says "OK, it's true that we've called ourselves Bulgarians for at least five hundred years now, but all nations arise at different times in history by splitting off from other populations, and since the Great Powers won't allow us to unite with Bulgaria, I reckon now is the right time for our nation to arise." I think it's a very reasonable position. Of course, inventing another language and ethnicity isn't always a must (compare Switzerland, USA vs Canada etc.) but on the Balkans, ethnic nationalism is too powerful, so I guess there was no other option.

Wow, I guess this was the right post to REALLY irritate BOTH sides in the conflict!

--85.187.44.128 17:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


References for the "specific feautres" section

"A fellow editor requested that someone provide references or sources for the information in this section."

Some of the info there can be found in any Macedonian grammar, such as the one by Victor Friedman listed in the main References. Other parts of it are present in any book on Bulgarian and Serbian. However, if somebody did add these ones, that would give the appearance that every single statement in the section is found in the sources in question, and that would be false. I've got no idea about the Torlak thing, for example. It's impossible to provide a separate reference for every single statement. Why doesn't the fellow-editor just specify which piece of information he/she wants a reference for and add a "citation needed" tag there? --85.187.203.123 11:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

My main concern here is the work of Claude Hagège: only his name is given, and no citation is given. Is Hegège's work mainstream and generally accepted among linguist? Also, if the mediative mood is equivalent (morphologically and semanitically) with the Bulgarian renarrative, it is not a specific feature. See also my post above about this. This is why I gave the Bulgarian example above. Ye Macedonian speakers, can't you tell us if there is a similar wording in Bulgarian? I have no doubt that most of the features described in the specific featured can be found in any grammar. However, if they are to be labeled as specific, they must differ from other Slavic languages, in particular from Bulgarian. This seems to be the case for some of these features, see also above. Andreas 15:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the change you've made. I don't know anything about Hagege and the "metaphoric" category, I'm not the one who wrote that bit. But I'd be surprised if a vast number of "exotic" languages in Asia, Africa and America don't possess something like a renarrartive, although the exact linguistic description seems to be a subject of debate. Actually the Swedish "han ska ha gjort det" (lit. "He shall have done it" - "He is said to have done it") can have a very similar dubitative meaning (despite its very different stylistic value), although I have never heard of a Swedish "renarrative". I believe the rise of the renarrative on the Balkans was ascribed to Turkish influence, but I don't feel like looking after references for that right now.:) And yes, the Macedonian mediative is the same as the Bulgarian renarrative (Friedman, 2.5.2.10): Friedman gives the example - Macedonian (and Bulgarian) "Ti si bil Rom" -"so you are a Rom (I didn't know that)".

As for your objection to the "specific" label: it's true that some of the features are shared with Bulgarian, but that's why I changed the title from "unique features" to "specific features", when I discovered that. The idea is that the features are "characteristic" or "of cross-linguistic interest". "Miscellaneous linguistic information" would be the best label, I suppose. :) --85.187.203.123 19:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

German: Er soll das getan haben (lit. "He shall have done it" - "He is said to have done it") Andreas 14:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


Latinus's step

Can I hear the reasons why you, Latinus, insert smt. like Slov-Macedonian in the article? Bomac 20:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you denying that Славомакедонски is ever used - I suspect your deleting it is backed by POV reasons (i.e. to censor information). --Latinus 20:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure? Ethnologue clearly states that this name is only used in Greece (I would say - for the obvious reasons - nationalism). I think that you're the one that POV-pushes the dot in a pile of boulders. Bomac 21:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with using all the names used for the language? Chinese and Aromanian do. Anyway, Славомакедонски fits in with Kiro Gligorov's approach ;-) --Latinus 21:08, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Certainly doesn't fits with the Greek leftists ;-) And leave the old man alone, he was young in politics then :-) Bomac 21:17, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I see...u mean he was young and naive,but now he is old and wise?!in any case,just a few greek leftists u presented.and since your language is by no doubt a slavic one,and since the term 'slavomacedonian' is used,and since it also contains the work ('macedonia') that u insist so much to be used in other articles,why are u so strongly opposed in its usage here?--Hectorian 21:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

"Young in politics"? I thought he was the oldest president on Earth (when in office). --Latinus 21:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
1 - I don't know, maybe Kiro "matured" and he is wise... (not "young", but "young" in experience of leading a country)
2 - I insist "Macedonia" to be used caus that's my country's constitutional name
3 - Read the statement of the Greek leftists - it represents the pure truth
4 - If we go from the principle few Greek leftists presented, Kiro was much "below" those few
5 - Irish language, too contains the word Ireland, and noone uprises
6 - That's all for now. Bomac 21:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Ah so he was not mature then when he was in ASNOM? Maybe ASNOM was bunch of immature people inventing history?? Makes sense my friend. FunkyFly 21:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

"Leading a country", FunkyFly. Bomac 21:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Bomac,in your 4th sentence u 'forgot' to say that these few greek leftists are just greeks,but Kiro Gligorov was the president of your country(not to mention that he was the first,whatever this may mean;-)...)--Hectorian 21:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Greek leftists means nothing - what you need are some Greek "rightists" ;-) --Latinus 21:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I should have known. Gosh! Bomac 21:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Common,Bomac,u can handle a joke,i guess;-)--Hectorian 21:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'm thinking that since a substantial minority of "Macedonians" decided they were Bulgarians and that the "Macedonian" they spoke is in fact Bulgarian (and adopted Bulgarian citizenship), would you object if I added Бугарски to the names list? --Latinus 21:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I would object... if they declared a Bulgarian nationality, then we'd have to add them to the total number of speakers in the Bulgarian language article, since they wouldn't state they spoke Macedonian any more. Now here's my point about the issue of Slavomacedonian — the name's not used in Macedonian and is practically unknown in English (406 Google hits, many discussing the Greek policy of calling the language this way itself), so I would strongly suggest not to include it in the intro with the clear POV-pushing intention to make it look almost as important as the actual name. I wouldn't be against mentioning it somewhere, but you certainly have to label it as a name that Greece favours and is otherwise not common. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 16:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Now, Macedonian Slavic is a different matter. I've seen it quite frequently and, although a bit cranky as a formulation, is common usage. Including it in the intro'd be OK, but I don't find sense in also adding the form in Macedonian, it implies that it's also common in this language, when it's not... at all. It'd be better if we removed the part in brackets, that's what I think. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 16:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
It's a good idea, but the part that follows: it's a south Slavic language... and after a while Slavic language... How many times does it have to be mentioned that the language is Slavic? I think this is not really crucial. Bomac 16:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I added it mainly for historical interest and because it appears in .mk websites. We could say rarely, if it really was the case - in English, it is often called "Slavic Macedonian" or "Macedonian Slavic" (see Britannica and Ethnologue). We could say "often in English, rarely in Macedonian" or something like that. --Latinus 16:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeap, sure. Hey, BTW, I'm still not blocked. :-) Bomac 16:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, the admins sure have slowed down. Tell you what, are you agreeing? I'll remove the report (so that we're sure what happens). --Latinus 16:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
No comment. Hey, shall we ask the admins do they usually use "Mac. Slavic" and write it in the article? ;-) Bomac 16:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Everyone has the right to declare him/herself whatever he/she likes. And what list? Bomac 21:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Compromise?

Look, can't we compromise. For example, leave the "Slavomakedonski" out of the infobox and have it only in the first para? It's silly for you to say that only Greeks use it, as it appears in .mk domains both in English and in (Slavo) Macedonian. It's POV to leave it out altogether! --Latinus 16:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course we can! I'm always pro compromises and I'm happy when people prefer discussion to edit warring. I've expressed my opinion a couple of rows above and I believe the current article version is quite balanced. My only concern was mentioning the name in Macedonian, so as the whole thing to look like Macedonian Slavic (Славомакедонски, Slavomakedonski). I just don't find it necessary to include the part in brackets because this very name is not common usage in Macedonian. Yes, it does appear in Macedonian sites, but only in a limited number of cases, many connected to the Greek policy of using it. Otherwise, as I said already, I like the current revision. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 16:50, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
This is absolutely WP:POV. The term is not in use by the ethnic group in question, and therefore we do not need a self-identifying term. And what .mk sites are you reffering to Latinus? Type "Славомакедонски" [9] in the Google search bar, and you'll see that not only this is not used as a self-identifying term, but ethnic Macedonians also consider it a stereotype, a chauvinist label, etc. Or should I mention that Council of Europe "Macedonian (Slav) language" fiasco, which not only caused immediate reaction from the Macedonian government, but also resulted in sending thousands of "Call me by my name" postcards in CoE's mailbox? --FlavrSavr 22:20, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I think that it's exactly what Todor said:
(Славомакедонски, Slavomakedonski). I just don't find it necessary to include the part in brackets because this very name is not common usage in Macedonian.
and I agree with both of you -- I'm OK with mentioning "Slavic Macedonian" in the text, but I find "Славомакедонски" offensive, and its constant re-inclusion in the article borders with vandalism. Duja 22:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
That’s totally beside the point. Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. According to your beloved Wikipedia:Naming conflict the self-identifying name is used to refer to the language and for article titles. Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive - we say these are the names; this name is used more than this one by native speakers and Kiro Gligorov uses that one :-) We list all the names used currently or in the past, but refer to the language using its most popular name (in this case Makedonski). The test for excluding it is not whether it is the majority self-identifying name, but whether it is or has been used to refer to the language, therefore the only reasonable threshold for excluding it is if I had fabricated the name - clearly not the case. BTW as the self identifying name is the only name used, why does your Wikipedia have an article at mk:Егејска Македонија. That is not the self-identifying name for that region. That is your name for the region, the self-identifying name being "Macedonia" plain. I suspect (within reasonable limits of course) that you are POV pushing. --Latinus 22:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, what if it wasn't SELFidentifying but just identifying. Shouldn't it be included then? Why is it OK to call Hellenes (self identifying term) as Greek (English identifying term) and it is not OK to EVEN INCLUDE THE NAME IN THE ARTICLE? What is this? Globalisation of local beliefs and terms? ALL terms should be included in the article. Vandalism is to remove them based on some subjective and unverifiable excuse like "it is offensive(?)". NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 22:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
And what about the Greek Wikipedia refering the Republic of Macedonia as el:Πρώην Γιουγκοσλαβική Δημοκρατία της Μακεδονίας? That is not the self-identifying name for that country. However, you're right - Wikipedia is descriptive: maybe we shoud stick to your version and add that that is not the common self-identifying term, and it is widely considered as insulting by the native speakers? --FlavrSavr 23:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
If that is the case yes - if you can find a source for the Council of Europe incident, we can mention that as well, so as to give the reader the full picture. As for the article at :el, don't get me started. I think the country name is fine (and is the least of the problems there), as your country calls itself that in the EU and UN (selective self-identification) and will probably be known more that way if they join the EU under that name. Not to mention that the Greek government have hinted at objecting to the recognition of your language as Macedonian when/if you join the EU. If that does happen then alternative names will be sought - it may bring Slavomakedonski back on the cards. Of course, I don't know if the government meant this - they have also hinted lowering taxes. This has yet to happen ;-) --Latinus 23:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah right. Should we also add:
African Americans (also Niggers, Negroids... )
Italians (also Ginzoes, Frogeaters, Wops... )
Yes, I know that "Slavomacedonian" is not that offensive, but it is offensive to a point. And I don't see the point of including "slavomakedonski" as self-reference. There is already Political views on the Macedonian language where that certainly should be mentioned, but Greek views are not universal. Duja 23:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Who said Greek views, is Kiro Gligorov a Greek? Also, we need evidence that this name is offensive like "Nigger" and not offensive like "FYROM", there’s a difference. Perhaps we should omit "FYROM" and the Cyrillic transliteration because some people find it offensive. --Latinus 23:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Here are some links about the CoE incident - [10], [11] - is this enough to convince you that it is considered offensive? And how's Frogeaters in Italian? I think of adding it in the Italian people article. --FlavrSavr 23:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Look, anything can be offensive. Turkey has proved that they view discussing the Armenian genocide as something very offensive (the Orhan Pamuk incident). Oddly enough, we still have an encyclopaedia article on the topic and don't forget that the CoE did officially use that name and that name has been used by your people. You can add Frogeaters to the Italian people article when the CoE (or some other body) has referred to it that way and when the Italian president referrers to his countrymen and himself as such. Come on! We're not prescribing its use, we're describing the current circumstances. This name exists, it is rarely used. There was a mass protest when the CoE used it etc. State the facts, don't pretend that that name doesn't exist (or hasn't existed). --Latinus 23:50, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Wait.. where did Kiro Gligorov refer to the Macedonian language as Slavic Macedonian language? --FlavrSavr 23:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
All right, my source may not be a reliable one, but do Greek POV websites count? --Latinus 00:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Uhm... :-) Bring them on, we'll see if they are reliable. --FlavrSavr 00:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
UN, IMF [12], EU [13], EBRD, [14] and NATO [15] ...Those insulting bastards! I have an idea: We include "Славомакедонски" in the article and you send us a postcard!!! NikoSilver (T) @ (C)
Nice try, but we are not talking about the FYROM/ROM issue - please refer to [16]: we would like to suggest that as BBC we should seek to avoid wherever possible referring to ethnic Macedonians in Macedonia as "Slav Macedonians" or "Macedonian Slavs" or e.g. "the majority Slav population of Macedonia." Not to mention that they don't use "Macedonian Slavic language", either.--FlavrSavr 00:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I know. But you must admit it was funny! NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 00:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
OK...But I'm still willing to send you a postcard if you like them...:-) --FlavrSavr 01:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news agency. Wikipedia follows the example of Britannica [17] who has no problem in using the term "Macedonian Slavs" nor does Ethnologue have a problem about mentioning "Slavic Macedonian" as an alternative name. We don't censor information to make people happy - Slavic Macedonian was used by the CoE, I think that alone merits mentioning it. I am not proposing referring to the language as Slavic Macedonian but to describe the alternative names and the status of each. About the Gligorov source, you'll have to wait. Miskin (I think) mentionied it in the archives of the Macednians ethnic group talk pages. I'll have to go through them... --Latinus 00:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
If we follow Britannica's example, can you explain to me how come they don't use Macedonian Slavic in the Macedonian language article? Also, Britannica has no problem in calling our country plain Macedonia, so if we're following its example... --FlavrSavr 01:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
All sources (about Gligorov) mention: Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992, p. 35 NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 00:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
The text they quote is:
"We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians no longer exist, they had disappeared from history long time ago. Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century (AD)." NikoSilver (T) @ (C) 00:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
All right, Niko, let's not get excited. --Latinus 00:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Look, what Gligorov said is beside the point. He might have said the above, but that doesn't change things. The native speakers of this language do not call it "Славомакедонски", and if you noticed - I didn't remove the info that the language is also called Macedonian Slavic, although it would require additional info that Macedonians, in general, find the term derogatory. So what's the problem, really? --FlavrSavr 01:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the page is alright now (though the "offensive" aspect should be mentioned), but I'd just like to point out for the record that, judging from this citation, Gligorov didn't advocate this as a name, he simply described the historical facts by a noun phrase (or maybe a compound word). An English head of state might say, on some occasion, "we are British, but we are Anglo-Saxon British, and we have nothing to do with the Celtic Britons". That wouldn't amount to advocating a new name and wouldn't have anything to do with a hypothetical bunch of enlightened, liberal-minded Bretons yelling "You stole our name, call yourselves Anglosaxowelshscottishandnorthernirelandbritish from now on!". --85.187.203.123 23:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You speak Macedonian Slav? You speak at least Bulgarian 4

Sorry my friends, but I cannot believe users who indicate 'Macedonian' as their native tongue and then claim to have a level 1 or 2 in Bulgarian, or even fail to include Bulgarian on their list! Bulgarian friends have very little problem in understanding 'Macedonian'. Imagine a French Canadia speaker from Montreal, claiming to only have a level 2 command of Franco-French!

Dont you know that it is not whether you can, but whether you WANT to speak the language :) FunkyFly 14:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
The official language in Quebec (taught in schools, used in newspapaers etc) is identical to that in France apart from very few regionalisms. Notably, spelling anad grammar are identical. No such differences as лев - хляв. The spoken language has more differences depending on the level of speech. A better comparison would be Afrikaans vs Dutch. Of 24 users with User Category:User af-N boxes, only 7 have also User-nl-1 or User-nl-2, one has User nl-0. Andreas 15:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I base my querry on the fact that Bulgarian friends find no real difficulty in translating into English 'Makedonski' texts and vice versa. Therefore the Afrikaans/Dutch example is weak, especially due to the distance factor. Bulgaria (including the Pirin region) and ROM/FYROM consist of distinct but neighbouring geographic units. As for лев - хляв, what about the London pronounciation of 'House' and the Scotting 'Husse' or the London 'Thank you' and the Buckinghamshire (England) 'Thenk you'. Different pronounciations, but easily understood variations of the same language. Politis 15:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

French and Quebeckers use the 'same' literary language, so do Englishmen and Scots. A Scot is perfectly capable of writing a Wikipedia article in standard English. So, if you wish to find an analogy, look for two related standard languages, as listed in the diasystem article, and see how many of the users list both languages. In my opinion, this whole discussion is completely useless. Andreas 15:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The botom line is that the lingistic skills of Makedonski speakers equip them with a level 4 in Bulgarian. Makedonski students, as far as I understand, face far fewer linguistic challenges than a Serb, a Pole or a Russian speaker, when entering a Bulgarian university. Therefore, to indicate a level 2 in Bulgarian seems to me (with my limited knowledge and without wishing in any way to offend the undoubed knowledge of User Andreas) - as indicative of a certain state of mind in some of our Makedonski friends (whose contribution I find so valuable and am usually greatful to read). Politis 16:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

So what? Isn't it good to know more languages nowadays? ;-)
Other thing - there are Macedonians which really don't know the Bulgarian sentence construction. It's simply unnetural for them.
P.S. That's even Serbian 4, Croatioan 4, Bosnian 4, and even Slovenian 4. ;-) (We know more languages than you, tra, la, la... just kidding ;-)) Bomac 19:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Look at this site to see how Afrikaans and Dutch speakers try to cooperate. Andreas 19:55, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Afrikaans became an official language in 1925, so it is not that much older than Makedonski. Andreas 20:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Torlakian dialect

I have some mistrust about the definition in the article about Torlakian dialect as old Serbian (?!). If you see the article Torlakian dialect you'll see that the oppinion that this dialect are old Serbian is one of the oppinions among scientists. Even the Serbian linguists have deifferences - is this dialect old Serbian or it is most develoреd Serbian dialect (lack the cases etc). Not to mention the linguists from the other countries (including some from Republic of Macedonia), who did not agrre that the people in Kratovo (for example) Belogradchik etc. speak (was spoken) old Serbian. We can not present one theory as a scientific fact. --GrigorG 20:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I admit that my knowledge in this field is not that good. So I dont object to that change. But the other change you made is just false. Nowhere else than in Bulgaria, the Macedonian language is considered a dialect. So please leave that as it is. --Realek 20:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Those are dialects of the Macedonian language, not of the Bulgarian. Nor is the Macedonian Language a dialect of the Bulgarian. And this is an article about the Macedonian language anyway. --Realek 20:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Just a small correction: this language is considered a bulgarian language in Greece too.and i guess it is right,since they are mutually inteligible... --Hectorian 20:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
There are a lot of wierd things in greece. I'm so used to greek negating my nationality, that it doesn't bother me a bit. I just want to tell you Hectorian, that your attempts to plant the seeds of hate between Macedonians and Bulgarians are transparent. Fortunately a lot of people in Macedonia and Bulgaria can see right trough such attempts. --Realek 21:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes,there are many weird things in Greece,but in the good way:).and i am not trying to create hate between u and the bulgarians...as a matter of fact,it is like trying to create hate between greeks and greek cypriots...it's never gonna succeed. Regards --Hectorian 21:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
No. Mostly bad. But to be honest there are some good things too. Like when a group of prominent greeks bash their country about its attitude towards Macedonia. And you wont succed in creating hate between Macedonians and Bulgarians not because of the ridiculous reason you give but because you're so transparent! Anyway, your comparison of the macedonians with the greeks from Cyprus is just a clear irational nationalistic statemant. --Realek 17:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
As described in Torlakian dialect, many Serbo-Croatian linguists of 19th and 20th century categorized it into "old-štokavian" group rather than accepting it as a dialect of its own. Later opinions shifted into accepting it as a dialect of its own. As for "olderness", I can't comment but, judging from that distinction, it's older than "neo-štokavian" dialects that were the basis for modern Serbian and Croatian standard languages (and dialects which are still categorized as "old štokavian" neighbor the Torlakian area).
OTOH, if you're offended by "Serbian" qualification for Torlakian, I don't see the real reason. It's not said that Torlakian is exclusively Serbian, but the majority of speakers are in Serbia, while the rest are western Bulgarians, northern Macedonians, Gorani and Krashovani. However, the "old Serbian" qualifier was given in the context of presenting the linguistic continuum in the neighborhood; do we have to be politically correct in every damn sentence? By deleting it altogether, you also removed the context necessary for further explanation in the article. Duja 21:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Who consider that Bulgarian dialects in Nevrokop are not Bulgarian? According to division of BG language they are Eastern Bulgarian, not Western. The so cold Macedonian language is created on the basis of the Western dialects. If you state that these dialects are not Bulgarian what is Bulgarian? In this case the Macedonian dialects are exented to Black sea. :)--AleksandarH 21:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, Realek! One of the source is the Bulgarian linguist Stefan Mladenov bg:Стефан Младенов. In his Geshichte der Bulgarische Schprache (Berlin, 1929) he defined the dialects from Nevrokop, Seres etc. as Easrern Bulgarian. The same is valid about the texbook on the Dialektology of the famous BG linguist Stoyko Stoykov. If you want, in the next day I can point the other sources from other scientists or specify this. Regards, --AleksandarH 21:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This article changes so quickly that I cannot cope up. Again, re Torlakian, I'm not satisfied with your version:

There are many similarities between Macedonian and Torlakian dialect which some Serbian linguists consider as old Serbian, but some Bulgarian scientists - as old Bulgarian dialect.

which you substituted for:

Macedonian also has some similarities with Serbian, particularly old Serbian (Torlakian dialect).

So, you erased all linguistic links to Serbian and placed Torlakian as a language of its own. The damn sentence is meant to place Macedonian in a geographic and linguistic context. It has already been said that it is closest to Bulgarian. I don't insist that Torlakian has to be defined as old Serbian but do you have to put Bulgaria in every sentence? OK, I'll rephrase this, but please stop removing the context in the article's intro. Duja 22:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

As I understand the problem in this case is not the relation Bulgarian-Macedonian, but Torlakian-Serbian; you were correct in the article Torlakian dialect, why you are trying here to present these dialects only as Serbian. I am sure that you know that there are more scientific theories about Torlakian. So, my proposal is:
Macedonian also has some similarities with Serbian.--217.30.215.25 22:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry! I did not met the last change of Duja. Actually, I am agree with it. Regards, --217.30.215.25 22:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

However the Torlakian dialect still is presented only as Serbian. I'll remind that these dialects are spoken not only in Serbia. Therefore my suggestion is: Macedonian also has some similarities with dialects from Serbia, particularly Torlakian dialect spoken mostly in southern Serbia.--AleksandarH 22:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you're looking for POV where there's none, and remove the info for the sake of political overcorrectness. The aim of the sentence was to tell:
  • Macedonian has some similarities with (standard) Serbian language
  • however, it has far more similarities with Torlakian dialect (which is not standard though)
  • The Torlakian dialect is spoken mostly in southern Serbia and it presents a transition between Bulgarian/Macedonian and modern Serbian, based on neo-štokavian.
Now, I tried to phrase it in a single sentence (which is called for) but you keep on removing the link to Serbian. If you can phrase it better than me, go ahead, but don't remove the link. Duja 22:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

As for the fact that Nevrokop is close to East Bulgarian, that doesn't mean that it's a Bulgarian dialect any more than the fact that Skopje is close to West Bulgarian means it's a Bulgarian dialect. In Scandinavia, you have identical phenomena (vowel balance, apocope, so-called thick "l") in both Swedish and Norwegian dialects that form coherent regions together, as opposed to both the Swedish and the Norwegian standard languages. The thing that determines which language a dialect belongs to is political, not linguistic. --85.187.44.131 13:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The dialect of Nevrokop is transitional between western and eastern Bulgarian dialects. It is more closet to literary Bulgarian than many other dialects which some Macedonian scientists do not claim "Macedonian". The macedonian characteristic (in language sence) in this dialect is ... the only fact that this dialect is spoken in Pirin Macedonia, i.e. in Bularian part of the region Macedonia.
As for Torlakian, maybe it is better to express in two sentences:

I have to apologize, as I had misunderstood the Nevrokop issue. Originally, you had labeled the whole Eastern group as "Bulgarian", and I reverted that. But as the dialect of Nevrokop (Gotse Delchev) is located in Bulgaria, its identification as Macedonian is completely arbitrary (I'd say imperialistic :)) and the other position should at least be mentioned. I have tried to express that in my edit. --85.187.44.131 19:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Use of latin alphabet in yugoslavian times

I removed the part of a paragraph that said that macedonian was written in the latin alphabet in yugoslavian times. That is just plain nonsence. Macedonian was NEVER written in any alphabet other than macedonian cyrillic apart from e-mails, SMS messages and some shop signs. In my two decades there I have never seen a book or anything else written in that alphabet. The only possible exception is one serbian magazine that has its macedonian version which, for some inexplicable reason, is written in the latin alphabet. All the people I know found it very, very strange.

I think that whoever wrote it meant that the Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet was used for Latin translitteration of the Macedonian language, not for standard writing. That's the way I've always understood that sentence. Yes, it did say "was typically written", but I never figured it could be misleading. --85.187.44.131 13:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Here we go again...

User:LionKing, would you please cite prominent non-Bulgarian linguists who consider Macedonian a dialect of Bulgarian? I consider inserting "some linguists consider it..." a Weasel word. The entire stuff is already explained in detail in Political views on the Macedonian language.
As for Bitola's subsequent edits, let's be honest, not muddy things up, and admit that Macedonian is far more similar with Bulgarian than with Serbian; all Slavic languages in the area include, erm, two. This intro has been here for a long time, and I think it's fairly NPOV. Duja 18:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

But what is wrong with the mentioning that the Macedonian language is closely related to all languages in the group of south slavic languages? After that sentence, I left the part where the Bulgarian and Serbian are mentioned separately. And also I removed the mentioning of ancient Macedonian language because that is already mentioned in the disambiguation link at the very beggining of the article. Bitola 18:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Nothing wrong, just not specific enough; the same can be said for any language in any selected group. In general, I prefer a status quo for any article, especially introduction paragraphs, unless compelling reasons for a change are presented... I've seen to much edit war on Macedonia-related articles that I'm inclined to stick to the current (fragile) balance maybe even too strongly. As for removal of ancient Macedonian from the intro, I'm not opposed. Duja 19:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
No, that would be confusing since the constitutional name of the modern country (and language?), which has been adopted in WP, is same with the irrelevant ancient. You can't expect uninformed readers to understand that "Tom" and "old Tom" are not the same person in different age...  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 20:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
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