Talk:Macedonian language/Archive 10

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Too much weight given to political views on the language

Good afternoon fellow users. Don't users think this article focuses too heavily on political views on the language while completely neglecting the language's characteristics (the grammar section is insanely short)? By that I mean that there are currently six SUPER LENGTHY subheadings, namely Classification and related languages, Relationship to Bulgarian, History, Political views on the language that HEAVILY and SOLELY discuss political views on the language. There is a separate article where they are much more needed - political views on the Macedonian language for instance? I still think part of the information can be retained but needs to be significantly reduced as it currently represents almost a fifth of the article. Also, is it really necessary to include such lengthy passages in the references to support claims made in the body? I personally find it super distracting to read and cluttering for the article. For instance, references 89 and 203 have excerpts that are longer than the entire grammar section of the article and surprise, surprise - they focus ONLY on political views. DD1997DD (talk) 12:17, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Completely agree, feel free to weed out radically. Those overlong footnote quotes are an odious bad habit with some notorious agenda editors who have been active on this and other related pages. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:22, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Go for it. Edit away. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist: @Future Perfect at Sunrise: Okay, I removed what I thought was heavily politicized content that does not primarily belong to this article. Please feel free to add back any information you feel might have been essential or please discuss the changes here if I did something wrong. DD1997DD (talk) 20:06, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Most of the removed passages were without the scope of the section Political views, i.e. the deletion was de facto non discussed. Can somebody explain what is gong here, please Jingiby (talk) 11:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The whole section History of the Macedonian language was deleted too. Is this any kind of cleansing of inconvenient or disliked sections of the article for political or other reasons? Jingiby (talk) 11:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The whole section focuses on the history of the country instead of the language itself? A small example is "However, there were pro-Bulgarian groups which advocated independence as a second Bulgarian state,[131] and others, who supported the union with Bulgaria". None of this refers to the language itself and all of it refers to the history of the country. Also, please stop trying to sneak in highly politicized content into every single article you touch by including extremely long passages, citing 6 sources to claim something not primarily stated in the sources provided and so forth. Thank you in advance. DD1997DD (talk) 11:31, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Useful information has now been removed from the article. A "history" section exists in most language articles. There should be a discussion about specific parts that are deemed irrelevant, instead of speedily and indiscriminately removing most of the content of the section. --Antondimak (talk) 11:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree with you that a history section should be included in the article, however as per how it was previously, the history section did not comply with the rules of history sections in language articles and focused solely on North Macedonia's history. I also asked fellow users to discuss information they deemed important and that I might have removed. So please, if you feel that any of the sections removed discussed the language itself, paste them here and they will be added to the article. DD1997DD (talk) 12:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

From the article history we can see that you've deleted whole sections, on which the editors of Wikipedia worked for years. If you think that they should not be part of this article, we need to find a place form them, not to remove them. Two editors consensus can't revert a long-term work of dozens of editors. So, please revert the changes, as there's obviously not a strong consensus and start discussing them section by section. --StanProg (talk) 12:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussed section Political views was partially reduced, while whole other sections and significant passages from the text were deleted without any consensus. Jingiby (talk) 12:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jingiby: In fact two editors agreed that changes should be done (one of them thinks content should be weeded out radically), but I don't see a consensus on the result. --StanProg (talk) 12:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@DD1997DD: Two editors has supported you in your attempt to make the changes you want, three editors think that not all of the changes that are done are an improvement, so please revert your changes and start a discussion. You think the grammer section is insanely short, so you decide to remove other sections, so the grammer section doesn't look so short? Maybe it's a better idea just to extend the grammer and other related sections? The Macedonian language is more or less a political construct and it's absolutely normal to have sections for that. --StanProg (talk) 12:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Wow, tell us how you really feel StanProg. Tell us all of your nationalistic feels and ideas! We would love to hear them. Btw, I also support DD alongside Taivo and Future in the decision. There should be a historical and neutral section, not full of Bulgarian propaganda and directed towards the country rather than the language itself. — Tom^(T2ME) 13:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not against the decision. Articles should be improved and that's absolutely normal. I'm against what he did - deleting exactly half of the article, including the whole section "History". He added "Along with Bulgarian, Macedonian is a descendant of Old Church Slavonic." and that's the whole history of the language between 9th & 20th century. Do you agree with that as well? --StanProg (talk) 13:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

There's more to it now. It can be used as a basis for future contributors willing to expand it using reliable, relevant, non-propaganda and non-original material. Cheers. DD1997DD (talk) 14:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I want a neutrally written section that will focus on the history of the language, rather than politically charged propaganda (from all sides) related to the country, and not to the language per se. — Tom^(T2ME) 14:23, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@DD1997DD: I don't see more. I see half of the article destroyed and an original research instead of a well-sourced content that we worked on for years deleted. There's no strong consensus, so you should return the article to the previous state and start discussing before doing drastical changes. That's how Wikipedia works. You can't just like that force you POV and original researches. --StanProg (talk) 14:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tomica: If you want that, work on it. Removing something that you don't like is not the way we do things here, and I'm sure you know it. I agree that there's too much political content in the article and it can be reduced by moving part of the section at Political views on the Macedonian language. Furthermore, if there something that is not NPOV in the History section, it can be improved. I also agree that the grammer section is not good/big enough, but removing other section will not make it better. What I mean is we should work toward improvement and adding new content, not toward removing what we don't like. --StanProg (talk) 14:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not about what we like or don't like it's about what belongs/doesn't belong here. You are free to discuss parts of the removed content here that are relevant and we can try to get to a consensus. Until then, you are free to edit Political views on the Macedonian language. DD1997DD (talk) 14:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Deleting half of the article content that have been improved for years and then asking for a discussion on what to be undeleted is not the way things work. Nobody agreed on that specific content, just two editors agreed that there should be changes. As I said, I also agree that the article can be improved in that direction, but the end result is far from acceptable. --StanProg (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The changes must be reverted to the stable version. There are good changes, on which I'm sure we can agree, there is content that could be reduced and the rest moved to other articles, as for the rest - there should be a discussion how to improve the article without removing valuable conent and without forcing an original research, like the current state of the "History" section. --StanProg (talk) 14:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not interested in the content dispute but any change should have prior consensus on the talk page. Ktrimi991 (talk) 13:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• While surely there are those who have in the past sought to slant this page and others so as to question the "legitimacy" of Macedonian as a separate language, we must not forgive that there is also a danger on the other side, whereby Macedonian views are portrayed as the only "legitimate" views in what is in fact a controversial, a slippery slide to ultimately erasing things that are relevant to the history of the development of the Macedonian standard (choosing the western dialects as base which were maximally different than Bulgarian -- this is notable far beyond the "language dispute" as it also explains why the dialect surrounding Skopje was not chosen, for example), and even seeing claims that Pirin Bulgarians, Gollobordas and people in Vernik and Gorans in Albania, and the Slavophones in Greece "actually" speak Macedonian (among other things). I have not yet finished looking at the edits here in depth (I have done some) but there is a Scylla here, not just Charybdis, guys... --Calthinus (talk) 16:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Diff in aggregate [[3]] --Calthinus (talk) 16:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Some comments on specific points will follow. --Calthinus (talk) 16:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Changes in the presentation of "Serbianization

DD's changes involved a mass purging of almost all the info on the effect of Serbian on the formation of Macedonian. It would be one thing if the things being purged were purely political propaganda from Bulgaria. But they are not. Here is some of the text loss:

“ [Language contact]] between Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian reached its height during Yugoslav times when most Macedonians learned Serbo-Croatian as a compulsory language of education and knew and used a mixture of Serbian and Macedonian Serbian, or "pseudo-Serbian." There are claims that Macedonian was intentionally Serbianized first during the process of its standardization. At that time the Bulgarian language was prohibited there. .... ”

While I don't dispute that some deletions may be justified, I do not think this is. The authors here are clearly RS, and not Bulgarian propagandists by any stretch, including notable linguists such as Bernd Kortmann, and the role of Serbian in the formation of Standard Macedonian is notable. --Calthinus (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Not everything should be deleted, at least not without consensus. I see several editors not accepting recent changes. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I would also point to the "History" section of "Bosnian language" article which also includes a significant amount of information regarding influences from other languages, as this information is interesting from a comparative linguistic view, and is not simply political. --Antondimak (talk) 10:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Mac/Bulg: discussion of academic situation prior to codification of standard

I do agree that the political discussion had gone on too long. I am going to present here the text here on the matter. Some of it was important though, because Standard Macedonian was intentionally designed under Yugoslavia to be distant from Standard Bulgarian (while still reasonably close to most Macedonian dialects -- i.e. I may have said "maximally" distant before but that isn't true). I will comment on each of these blurbs. --Calthinus (talk) 17:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

“ Prior to the codification of the standard language (Standard Macedonian), Macedonian dialects were described by linguists as being dialects of Bulgarian or Serbian, or forming an entirely distinct language. [Calthinus note: a source used here is James Minahan, which is very UNDUE, however.]. 'Similarly, Torlakian was also widely regarded as Bulgarian. The boundaries between the South Slavic languages had yet to be "conceptualized in modern terms," and codifiers of Serbian even found it necessary to argue that Bulgarian was not a Serbian dialect as late as 1822. Many Macedonian intellectuals maintained that their language "was neither a dialect of Serbian nor of Bulgarian, but a language in its own right".' ”

I think all of this blurb should have stayed. Much of the synth is done by Brian Joseph, who is a leading scholar on Balkan linguistics. Furthermore, this text is useful, informative, and essential for explaining the context in which Standard Macedonian arose. Moving on.

That type of info is so much more relevant on the codification page or a separate history page or a separate political views page. It just unnecessarily burdens this article! DD1997DD (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Well making a separate codification page could be a solution here. Presently, it appears one does not exist. --Calthinus (talk) 15:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

This information is interesting linguistically and not just politically. There is such information in the "History" section of other language articles, one of the clearest examples being the article on the Bosnian language. --Antondimak (talk) 10:07, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The Bosnian language example is a super bad one as it is probably not even C level; there is 0 coverage of linguistic characteristics. It can comfortably be renamed to Political views on the Bosnian language. Refer to other GAs I mentioned - Danish language and Czech language to see good examples of what language articles should look like. Until then, please engage in constructive discussions like only User:Calthinus did on this page. Also, please note that an entire paragraph on the similarities between Macedonian and Bulgarian was kept in the version of the article I proposed with enough room for it to get expanded with facts like the degree of mutual intelligibility, mutual or distinguishing features. DD1997DD (talk) 10:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Mac/Blg: dialect choice for standardization of Macedonian

“ Prior to the standardization of Macedonian, a number of linguists, among them Antoine Meillet, André Vaillant, Mieczysław Małecki, and Samuil Bernstein, also considered Macedonian dialects as comprising an independent language distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbian. Some linguists, including Otto Kronsteiner and Michael Clyne, especially in Bulgaria, still consider Macedonian a variety or dialect of Bulgarian, but this view is politically controversial. ”

This blurb I am more ambivalent on, but this should stay too on balance. Presenting the present Bulgarian views is just one sentence -- it is really hard to call that UNDUE. On the other hand, outright exclusion is almost WP:FALSEBALANCE as this is a significant minority view (Asher, Clyne, etc are not Bulgarian propagandists, geez). I agree we should not go into large amounts of text on the matter, but one sentence is surely due. Then, if we have info on people saying it is Bulgarian, well for balance we do have to list the other, majority, view, that it is at least now an independent language. Moving on ... --Calthinus (talk) 17:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point as to why those parts were removed. While they are relevant works by top-notch scholars, all of these texts are of the following structure: Historian X said it was a dialect. Linguist Y said it was not. Politician Z said "Macedonian was Serbianized". Please refer to a single other language article on this Wikipedia that uses historian's quotes to discuss anything in the main language article? I'm really curious about how many readers are interested in reading Linguists A, B, C, D, E, F, G said x,y,z instead of just reading "past and ongoing political disputes between linguists and historians" and clicking on the relevant pages to read the nitty gritty. DD1997DD (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Well you can remove politicians when they are here. And in this case, yes, there is such demand, including from linguists not from the Balkans, because whether we like it or not, the controversy is relevant to the language's development.--Calthinus (talk) 15:20, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Mac/Blg: dialect continuum

“ Modern questions of classification are largely shaped by political and social factors. Structurally, Macedonian, Bulgarian and southeastern forms of Serbo-Croatian (Torlakian) form a dialectical continuum that is a legacy of the linguistic developments during the height of the Preslav and Ohrid literary schools. ”

Absolutely this should not have been deleted. Now the Preslav/Ohrid is totally missing from the page. And Florin Curta is not UNDUE. --Calthinus (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Oh no, even though it is now mentioned 4 times in the article that Macedonian and Bulgarian form a language continuum? Maybe we should make the whole article say Macedonian and Bulgarian form a language continuum instead of saying anything else? And I mentioned that I know that many important information were removed (such as the Preslav and Ohrid School) but I also left room for users to expand on. DD1997DD (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Dialect continuum is notable (1) for the synchronic situation, where that remains the case, (2) for explaining the emergence of the Macedonian standard language. So two mentions should stay. This one is necessary. --Calthinus (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Mac/Blg: Prilep-Bitola base dialect choice

“ Although it has been claimed that Standard Macedonian was codified on the base of those dialects (i.e. the Prilep-Bitola dialect) most unlike Bulgarian, this interpretation stems from the works of Krste Misirkov, who suggested that Standard Macedonian should abstract on those dialects "most distinct from the standards of the other Slavonic languages". Likewise, this view does not take into account the fact that a Macedonian koiné language was already in existence. The codifiers ultimately chose the same dialects, but did so because they were "most widespread and most likely to be adopted by speakers of other dialects." ”

Actually this passage is if anything Macedonian POV. But it should also stay as it is relevant. --Calthinus (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure, only 4 words are relevant "most unlike Bulgarian" and they could have been easily added to the dialect section sentence I included where I specifically noted which cities were used as the basis. DD1997DD (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Works by John Shea were excluded from Macedonian articles since he is a psychologist. DD1997DD (talk) 02:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree per Shea. More than just four words are notable, because those alone do not explain the matter. But as I said, this is if anything the Macedonian POV so removing this will likely see the least resistance. --Calthinus (talk) 15:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Mac/Blg: Greece

“ Bulgarian linguistics traditionally regards them [Calthinus: note, this is speaking about the Slavic dialects of Greek] all as part of the Bulgarian language together with the rest of Macedonian. ”

This too, is relevant. Actually, something that could be added is that many of them share many features with Standard Bulgarian and not with Standard Macedonian...--Calthinus (talk) 17:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

This too is mentioned in the history, relation to Bulgarian, political views, lede. We could also name the entire article Macedonian language (which btw is Bulgarian) so that it rings in readers' heads even when they go to sleep. DD1997DD (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I misunderstood the first time I read this. Just FYI, the entire section about the number of speakers of Macedonian in Greece should be reedited since many of the sources are now dead and they focused primarily on the Macedonian population instead of the number of speakers. The fact that some of them are also regarded as Bulgarian can maybe be included as a footnote. DD1997DD (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think that would be good. --Calthinus (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

“ Most of the language speakers in Greece do not identify ethnically as "Macedonians", but as ethnic Greeks (Slavophone Greeks) or dopii (locals). Therefore, the simple term "Macedonian" as a name for the Slavic language is often avoided in the Greek context, and vehemently rejected by most Greeks, for whom Macedonian has very different connotations. Instead, the language is often called simply "Slavic" or "Slavomacedonian", with "Macedonian Slavic" often being used in English. Speakers themselves variously refer to their language as makedonski, makedoniski ("Macedonian"), slaviká (Greek: σλαβικά, "Slavic"), dópia or entópia (Greek: εντόπια, "local/indigenous [language]"), balgàrtzki in some parts of the region of Kastoria, bògartski ("Bulgarian") in some parts of Dolna Prespa along with naši ("our own") and stariski ("old"). In Kastoria, however, the name "Macedonian" is used as well by the local people. ”

Okay, this one went on far too long. But it is stilli notable. It should be instead one or two sentences, something like : "Most of the relevant communities in Greece do not identify as "Macedonians", nor are they identified as such by the Greek majority, while different communities variously refer to their own speech as "Slavic", "local", "Bulgarian" or "Macedonian". Didn't need to go into the naming controversy issue, but this was notable too if we are going to have the page "claim" Greece's Slavic dialects as Macedonian. --Calthinus (talk) 17:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Still notable for the article Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia as it talks about the people and how they nationally ID themselves? Indeed. Relevant to a language article? Not so sure about it. (P.S. also this part was kept in the political views section) DD1997DD (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

This is fair enough actually, this is not relevant here. --Calthinus (talk) 20:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The national identity of Slavic speakers in Greece may indeed not be notable for this article, however at least the names used for the language are. The history of the Slavic dialects in Greece forms a significant part of the history of the langauge, and I don't think we can ignore it entirely. --Antondimak (talk) 10:15, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Mac/Blg: history discussion that was outside of history section

...now for the toughest section.

Expand to view, because it's too big.--Calthinus (talk) 17:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

{{cquote|The historical and linguistic relationships between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages are special and complicated. Macedonian researchers claim Macedonian is spoken in southwestern Bulgaria, whereas Bulgarian and Greek linguists argue Macedonian is a variety of Bulgarian. The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire began to degrade its specific social system, and< especially the so-called Rum millet, through constant identification of the religious creed with ethnicity. The national awakening of each ethnic group was complex and most of the groups interacted with each other. During the Bulgarian national revival, which occurred in the first half of the 19th century, the Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs under the supremacy of the Greek Orthodox clergy wanted to create their own Church and schools which would use a common modern "Macedono-Bulgarian" literary standard, called simply Bulgarian. The national elites active in this movement used mainly ethnolinguistic principles to differentiation between "Slavic-Bulgarian" and "Greek" groups. At that time, every ethnographic subgroup in the Macedonian-Bulgarian linguistic area wrote in their own local dialect and choosing a "base dialect" for the new standard was not an issue. Subsequently, during the 1850s and 1860s a long discussion was held in the Bulgarian periodicals about the need for a dialectal group (eastern, western or compromise) upon which to base the new standard and which dialect that should be. During the 1870s this issue became contentious, and sparked fierce debates. In 1878, a distinct Bulgarian state was established. The new state did not include the region of Macedonia which remained outside its borders in the frame of the Ottoman Empire. As a consequence, the idea of a common compromise standard was rejected by the Bulgarian codifiers during the 1880s and the eastern Bulgarian dialects were chosen as a basis for standard Bulgarian. Macedono-Bulgarian writers and organizations who continued to seek greater representation of Macedonian dialects in the Bulgarian standard were deemed separatists. One example is the Young Macedonian Literary Association, which the Bulgarian government outlawed in 1892. Though standard Bulgarian was taught in the local schools in Macedonia till 1913, the fact of political separation became crucial for the development of a separate Macedonian language. With the advent of Macedonian nationalism, the idea of linguistic separatism emerged in the late 19th century, and the need for a separate Macedonian standard language subsequently appeared in the early 20th century. In the Interwar period, the territory of today's Republic of Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bulgarian was banned for use and the local vernacular fell under heavy influence from the official Serbo-Croatian language. However, the political and paramilitary organizations of the Macedonian Slavs in Europe and the Americas, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO), and even their left-wing offsets, the IMRO (United) and the Macedonian-American People's League continued to use literary Bulgarian in their writings and propaganda in the interbellum. During the World wars Bulgaria's short annexations over Macedonia saw two attempts to bring the Macedonian dialects back towards Bulgarian. This political situation stimulated the necessity of a separate Macedonian language and led gradually to its codification after the Second World War. It followed the establishment of SR Macedonia, as part of Communist Yugoslavia and finalized the progressive split in the common Macedonian–Bulgarian language. During the first half of the 20th century the national identity of the Macedonian Slavs shifted from predominantly Bulgarian to ethnic Macedonian and their regional identity had become their national one. Although, there was no clear separating line between these two languages on level of dialect then, the Macedonian standard was based on its westernmost dialects. Afterwards, Macedonian became the official language in the new republic, Serbo-Croatian was adopted as a second official language, and Bulgarian was proscribed. Moreover, in 1946–1948 the newly standardized Macedonian language was introduced as a second language even in Southwestern Bulgaria. Subsequently, the sharp and continuous deterioration of the political relationships between the two countries, the influence of both standard languages during the time, but also the strong Serbo-Croatian linguistic influence in Yugoslav era, led to a horizontal cross-border dialectal divergence. Although some researchers have described the standard Macedonian and Bulgarian languages as varieties of a pluricentric language, they in fact have separate dialectal bases; the Prilep-Bitola dialect and Central Balkan dialect, respectively. The prevailing academic consensus (outside of Bulgaria and Greece) is that Macedonian and Bulgarian are two autonomous languages within the eastern subbranch of the South Slavic languages. Macedonian is thus an ausbau language; i.e. it is delimited from Bulgarian as these two standard languages have separate dialectal bases. The uniqueness of the Macedonian language in comparison to Bulgarian is a matter of political controversy in Bulgaria. References

Overall, yes, this was way, way, way wayyyyyyy too long. But much of it was also relevant. It should have been about one to three paragraphs. I would suggest a version, but frankly this is just too huge for me to deal with in a timely matter. At the same time, simply deleting all of it is flying off the handle to the other side, and I oppose this, as this is very relevant information for the history of the language, yes, the language, not just politics.--Calthinus (talk) 17:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: I am sorry that it seemed like I was deleting your comments but there was an edit war so I just copied all my comments and pasted them not knowing I had deleted your comments too. It was not on purpose. The current version does not have my points addressing your comments so maybe check the page's history for that? DD1997DD (talk) 18:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah I see, all good --Calthinus (talk) 18:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@DD, this comment of yours I can restore since you signed it. The rest I cannot, otherwise they will be signed to me.

Exactly, good luck with even reading through that mate. It's an entire novel on its own. Overall, I've replied to all of your points and seeing that all users currently participating in this discussion are either Bulgarian, Greek or Albanian I demand other people's opinions on this issue. DD1997DD (talk) 18:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

DD1997DD em, you shouldn't comment on peoples' ethnicities, but for the record, there are no Greeks here (I'm not Greek, neither is Fut Perf), there is only one Albanian (Ktrimi -- I'm not Albanian either), and the only two Bulgarians are StanProg and Jingiby (I think, well I know I'm not Bulgarian :) ). --Calthinus (talk) 18:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe I shouldn't, but I think it's super important to have a third opinion on topics like this that is as further away from the Balkans as possible because otherwise, there is so much bias involved. DD1997DD (talk) 18:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Welll I am not "from" the Balkans in any sense whatsoever (Mid East/Caucasus/Poland/USA each in different ways, if you need to know, Balkans is a matter of intellectual interest), but really, you should judge people by their actions. Believe it or not every now and then there is someone from the Balkans who doesn't edit to defend their national interests... crazy, right? :) --Calthinus (talk) 18:31, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Also, I think just reverting my edits and now withdrawing from the discussion @Calthinus: is not very fair given that you are the only one presenting actual arguments about why the parts should be kept. Other users are just slowing down the process and have not named a single argument as to why the current version of the article should be as it is. I am 100% positive that my version of the article was 10x more balanced than the current one. Given this whole mess that users are creating and judging every single one of my steps detracts me from making actual improvements to this article that's been stuck in the current state for years. DD1997DD (talk) 19:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not withdrawing. Just not gonna reply to each one as I have said a lot already -- giving others a chance to weigh in. --Calthinus (talk) 19:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Do you think anyone would take the time to read this messily lengthy discussion? DD1997DD (talk) 19:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Point taken. Organized. --Calthinus (talk) 19:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, for you @Calthinus: and all other users following this thread, I have included all the points I agree with in my sandbox version of the article here and I have brought back to life the History of the Macedonian language article. Please take a look at them and let me know what you think now. Note again that the History section can and will be expanded with both new sources and ones that were found in the current version of this article. DD1997DD (talk) 02:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

History

This well sourced section, on which dozen of editors worked for years is being completely removed and replaced with periodisation by a Macedonian author, published in a University proceedings article in the beginning of which the author writes: "In this article, we present one proposed periodisation of the history of the Macedonian written language, starting from the earliest times up to the present time.". That's closer to original research, than to a reliable information. The second source is unrelated to the content of the section. This should be removed and replaced with the original section, so we can discuss the improvement of the section. --StanProg (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Feel free to revert back to the stable version. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Reverting it myself is not something that will be very productive. It's better if DD1997DD realizes that this was not a good idea and to revert it himself. --StanProg (talk) 17:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree. This should have been done by incrementally discussing points, not such huge deletions. --Calthinus (talk) 17:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Some of the section did go on too long, to be fair, like the last block I noted above. There was a kernel of relevance, that got lost in the weeds. Currently History of the Macedonian language redirects here. But maybe it should be created, where we can talk about these things at more length. --Calthinus (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Last input from me before I shut my trap on this for a bit -- we could split off History of to a separate page, and leave a "kernel" here, that resembles Nynorsk#History (a standard that was constructed to bring Norwegian back to its West Nordic "roots" and maximally distance it from Danish, with which it had a degree of intelligibility in part due to long ties to Denmark and Sweden). Interested to hear the input of TU-nor especially on that comparison. --Calthinus (talk) 17:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I do not think this has much in common with the Norwegian situation. In Norway the whole issue of "Bokmål" vs. "Nynorsk" (and earlier "Riksmål" vs. "Landsmål") has been rooted in a conflict between two fundamentally different ways of creating written standards for one language very rich in dialects. It has always been a language-political question, and the history of the two language forms are therefore mainly a history of language politics, not so much about language development. I do not know much about the historical situation regarding Macedonian (except what I have learnt from Wikipedia), so I have not much to contribute with here, but as a general observation I think it would be a good idea to lift out most of the political history stuff to a separate article. Just my intuitive feeling. --T*U (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree with that and this is why I think it should be reverted and then discussed. Some of the text that were deleted could be moved to other more detailed articles (redirects or existing), and some could be rewritten/removed/NPOV-ed, etc, but the first step is to have the article reverted to the stable state and then we can discuss further changes. --StanProg (talk) 17:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

(unindent) I find it highly ironic that a couple of users that are ok with gutting the entire History section, a few months ago wanted to convert Greek language into History of the Greek language, i.e. remove everything except the History section. The lack of consistency is just staggering. Khirurg (talk) 18:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts about the removed/rewritten content by DD1997DD

• Lead secion - This part of the article is an introduction and summary of the most important content, so having in mind that the article is controversial, there should be a consensus before changes are being done there.

The lead section will be properly written in the end and it will briefly mention the most important parts covered in the article.

• Alphabet - Here I see some "history" related text added, most probably because the history section was removed. My opinion is that the history should be kept in the History section and in this to be introduced the official alphabet from the moment when it was put to use.

Agreed, those sections will be moved to the history article.

• Bibliography - I see added a source "Usikova" which is a 10 pages article from a book, with cited page 105, while the article is on pages 221–231. DD1997DD can help us solve this mystery. I also did not saw how the text of the article (I reviewed it) supports the claims.

I will recheck that one and provide the correct source. Apologies for the mistake, the references are still a mess in the entire article and I have tried to fix them in my sandbox.

• Classification and related languages - The changes there should be discussed. I see also that the text after quote= is removed - while it's always a good idea to quote exactly the text that supports the claims, as some editors may not have access to it.

I disagree on the quote. I think there should be more focus put on the actual body of the article instead of stuffing the references with long passages that make them look "unkempt".

• Relationship to Bulgarian - this section could be shorter, the excessive content to be moved to another existing or new article.

That section was removed from this article and relevant content put in the political views section. Additionally, a paragraph dedicated to the linguistic similarities between the languages was kept in the background section. Any content that refers to grammatical similarities, word comparison, degree of mutual intelligibility, false friends and so forth can be added to the section, or a completely different article titled Comparison of Bulgariand and Macedonian (similar to Comparison of Portuguese and Spanish) can be created. However, I have not managed to find much content about those things online yet.

• Usage - No comment on that. It was ok before, it's ok after the change as well.
• Vowels - A valuable content was added. That's a good contribution.
• History - Changes to this must be discussed as it was just deleted. It could be short, but should summarize all the content. Some content may be moved to the History of the Macedonian language.

I wrote a very short history section that I think succinctly summarizes the most important periods as seen by Macedonists/writers from the international community. That section can also be expanded a bit but I think it's okay for the moment.

• Political views on the language - This could be made at least twice smaller, and the rest of the content moved to Political views on the Macedonian language. It must stress only on the important information.

That's exactly what I did with it.

• Further reading - Good cleanup, but I think at least "Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language" should stay. It's in English and it gives more detailed information on the grammar.

Agreed, it is currently included in my sandbox.

• Authority control - Must be returned.
• In general - It's not a problem that some sections are bigger than the others, even that the smaller ones are more important. After all we are all volunteers and we edit the topics that we are competent/interested in. We should not remove content from bigger sections, just because none was interested in extending the smaller ones. If you think that the article should have more content in some section - work on it. It will be better if we start discussing the changes one by one and then apply them after the protection ends, else the article could be blocked again. And last, this article is not only a linguistic one, as a language has also history & political aspects. --StanProg (talk) 23:17, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the size of the sections does not matter as long as their content is relevant to the article. When I saw this article, I immediately noticed that that has not been the case and that is why these radical changes were undertaken. DD1997DD (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I completely disagree with the "political aspects" for this article. That is for articles that focus on politics. There are other articles on the political and ethnic identity disputes between Macedonia and both of its contentious neighbors so the history of those disputes should not be here since language is only a small subset of broader issues. We do not need to replicate any of the details of those disputes here since there are other articles that include them. I daresay that every single political word that was deleted by DD1997DD was in another article where it actually belonged. The only political statement that belongs here is something along the lines of "Language identity has been a part of broader political disputes between North Macedonia and both Bulgaria and Greece" along with links to the relevant articles. The "history" here must be just the linguistic history, not a political history. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 05:16, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Deletion of the History section and Relationships to Bulgarian section

Explaining that the section on шге political views on the Macedonian language would be reduced, half of the article was deleted and even sections that were not proposed for reduction were completely deleted. Now I see that it is also not allowed to re-add the information for the serbianization during its codification. But this is not a political or a fringe view, but a view of linguists, including Westerners, and also supported by a lot of scholars in North Macedonia itself. How is that possible? Jingiby (talk) 11:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

That type of information belongs primarily to the Political views on the Macedonian language as it discusses information that is a political view instead of focusing on linguistic characteristics. DD1997DD (talk) 11:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I do not agree at all. What is happening now was not discussed and has not been debated. Of course, every passage, section or text is potential subject to revision and improvement over time, but deleting it all as wrong only because you don't like it, and maybe for political reasons, it is as if the thief is yelling to keep the thief. Jingiby (talk) 11:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The reason for removal was irrelevance to this article and none of the other reasons you're mentioning. DD1997DD (talk) 12:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Politics of the country have nothing whatsoever to do with a language history section unless they are specifically focused on the history of the language. 99% of the material that DD1997DD has deleted is nothing more than propaganda (perhaps "history" to some) directed against North Macedonia. That's not language history. No one comes to this article looking for how Bulgarians hate Macedonians. They come here looking for information about the language--grammar, phonology, history of the language in terms of phonological and grammatical changes that distinguish Macedonian from Bulgarian and other South Slavic and Slavic languages, orthography, and references to reliable dictionaries and grammars. DD1997DD was right to delete all the political nonsense from this article without relying on defeating the anti-Macedonian political cabal in order to do so. If the cabal wants this material in Wikipedia, then create a new article on the history of Macedonian-Bulgarian relations and put it there. I'm not sure, but there are probably half a dozen articles where that very topic is relevant, and, indeed, all of this "carefully written" material is probably reproduced there already word-for-word because that's the nature of the anti-Macedonian content in Wikipedia--it's like a cancer, spreading and copying itself throughout the body. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 14:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Compare the old state of this article with that of Bulgarian language, for example. There you will find no such political discussion. Look at the history section of Bosnian language. The historical section is longer than that of Bulgarian, but it's very tightly focused on the language and its recognition. Look at Slovak language where there is also virtually no history. There is a link to History of the Slovak language where details are more appropriate. DD1997DD's deletions here are completely in line with the content of other nearby Slavic language articles. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist: I think that we can agree that there's no consensus on the DD1997DD radical changes. A solution is the changes to be reverted to a stable version and then discussed. The subject of this article is controversial, so we better discuss before we do radical changes, like removing half of the content. That's the most reasonable solution. --StanProg (talk) 16:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: Can you give us your opinion in my proposal? --StanProg (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the material from both sections above may be merged. Jingiby (talk) 18:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Jingiby and StanProg here. I am afraid the changes were way too drastic and without consulting the others. The article needs to be restored to its last stable version and the matter be discussed in the talk page first. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 23:03, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - The text of this article including references section mentions words starting with Bulgar for 186 times. More than the article on Bulgarian language (172 times). --Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I personally find that insane and as propagandist as propagandist can be. DD1997DD (talk) 02:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

There you go, there isn't better evidence that this article is full of Bulgarian POV! — Tom^(T2ME) 09:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The desire to restore the anti-Macedonian POV in order "to discuss" is tantamount to declaring that the POV section will remain in the article forever in distinction to every other language article in Wikipedia. If you have a condensed version that brings this article into line with other language articles, then please present it. Otherwise I do not support the needless political anti-Macedonian material that has nothing to do with the language or its linguistic history or description. If the material were actually relevant to the linguistic history of the language, then leaving it in the article to discuss here on the Talk Page would be appropriate. But since it is irrelevant to the subject matter of this article, then removing it and discussing it here to possibly reinsert all or part of it is more appropriate. The proof that the material is irrelevant to a language article is found in the fact that your only defense of including it is "there's a lot of it and someone worked real hard on it", not its inherent value to the article. It's irrelevant and not appropriate for a language article. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 09:59, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

All I need to present to you about the Bulgarian bias is the following section here on the Talk Page that someone added about a Bulgarian-Greek dictionary. What does that have to do with Macedonian other than to promote a "Macedonian is Bulgarian" agenda. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 10:04, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

In fact, before 1875 no one in the area had the idea that Macedonian may be a separate language. The very name Macedonia was almost unknown until 1850. Moreover until 1940s its existence was doubtful and it was mostly described as a dialect. One way of dealing is to change the written records. There the description of that language is mostly as Bulgarian if something about its ethnic charackter is ever mentioned. That are most of the cases from 10th till the 20th century. We may simply replace in the original records every mentioning of Bulgarian language with Macedonian language or where it has a meaning of dialect to deny that fact and to insist it means a language. So was done in Communist Yugoslavia for 45 years and continues to be done now in North Macedonia in the next 30 years. The other way is to present the originals and to explain the issue of the development of a group of Eastern South Slavic dialects. They are called after 1850 Macedonian, but continued to be regarded as part of Bulgarian dialectal system until the early 20th century. Afterwards they arose as a separate language that was named Macedonian, especially during the period between 1920-1944. The language itself was finally codified in 1945-1950. Jingiby (talk) 10:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I really don't have anything to reply to comments like this. They are by a user who thinks he/she knows more than linguists and historians themselves and just has a version of objectivity they keep repeating and repeating and repeating on every single page they touch. I really don't know how to handle {{ping|User:Jingiby)) and his undying will to maximally Bulgarize every Macedonian article when he arguments like this. DD1997DD (talk) 11:13, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

DD1997DD, the scholarship is often divided in some dubious issues as is the Macedonian one. Many scientists support that view espoused by me above, but there are some researchers who deny even the history of Macedonian before 1940s. And they are definitely not Bulgarians. You perfectly know that. Jingiby (talk) 11:32, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Jingiby and also there are some, who say that Macedonian (although not codified) existed even before that, but, you don't want to leave your POV and keep on adding propaganda to the article (huge sections of it!). Also, thank you for the comment Taivo, Bosnian language is a perfect example. — Tom^(T2ME) 11:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The key, User:Jingiby is to develop a brief comment or couple of sentences that describe the issue and then leave it. The Bosnian language article is probably similar and its description is much briefer. Summarize, summarize, summarize. The amount of verbiage that existed in the article previously was three paragraphs (at least) too much. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 11:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Taivo Bosnian is not really the best comparison here, imo. In the case of Bosnian, a large number of people do regard it as one of four standard varieties (each based on the E Shtokavian dialect) of a language varyingly called BCSM, Serbo-Croatian, CSS (Central South Slavic) et cetera. The Macedonian/Bulgarian case is a dialect continuum with standards based on two different dialects, i.e. similar to other situations which are varyingly called different languages (Scandinavian languages) or dialects of one language (Kurdish, see also English/French/Spanish). --Calthinus (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus, All the South Slavic dialects starting from Slovenia to Bulgaria form a continuum if you go by that logic. As a matter of fact, no one outside Bulgaria has a problem with Macedonian being a separate language (even Greeks, who were only concerned about the name of the language, which is now over with the Prespa agreement)! So if Serbo-Croatian can have 4 different forms (which are pretty much the same language and people are fine with it), Macedonian being distinct from Bulgarian shouldn't (and frankly doesn't) affect the outside world, except Bulgaria and its fellow POV editors on Wikipedia apparently. And again, even if there's some political ambivalency towards the language, that belongs in that separate article, not in the main language one. — Tom^(T2ME) 15:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tomica: This isn't, and shouldn't be turned into, a political issue. It's not Bulgarians who claim the language is a Bulgarian dialect, it's various linguists with different ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, linguistics has failed until now to produce a mathematical criterion of whether two languages are actually related languages or are dialects of a larger "united" language. So, unfortunately, politics moves in to fill that void in linguistics, but we only need to take into account the politics indirectly (displaying the disagreements between linguists who are influenced by politics), not to go into them ourselves. --Antondimak (talk) 10:29, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Antondimak: Are you freaking kidding me!? Just look at the section and you will see that it's a Bulgarian POV, filled with quotes and cites of mostly Bulgarian authors (who obv deny the language). And again, that's not the whole issue here. The thing is, that whole section should be cut and reduced for the Macedonian language article and maybe be part of the Political views/eventually History of the language. And I agree with your last sentence, however, if you look neutrally, that's not the case here. Nor with the editors, nor with how that section is written right now. — Tom^(T2ME) 10:50, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Antondimak also, I am not arguing that we should completely remove the view that there are linguists (both Bulgarian and international) who consider Macedonian a Bulgarian dialect etc. The argument is that that can be succinctly summarized only in the political views section at the end (not in 4 separate enormous sections as is the case rn), with a paragraph or two (you can see how I tried to handle it in my sandbox here) and include all the nitty gritty of linguists/historians/politicians who say one thing or the other. DD1997DD (talk) 11:01, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@DD1997DD That however would mean implying that this is a fringe view, which it isn't (basically undue weight). We might as well present the language as a Bulgarian dialect in the article while having a footnote that Macedonian nationalists consider it to be a difference language. Both approaches would mean taking a side in the dispute. --Antondimak (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Antondimak Do I need to remind you that we are talking about a globally recognized and registered language with its own ISO code? I am sure we can't do what you are proposing. Also, I invite you to recheck the current references to see if they are balanced. IMO and of several other editors, it's far from balanced. Obviously, Greek and Bulgarians are fine with it. — Tom^(T2ME) 15:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tomica Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian all have different language codes, but there is linguistic consesnsus that they are the same language. There isn't such a thing as "language recognition". Languages aren't states. --Antondimak (talk) 09:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

@Antondimak Well, guess what. If you go by that logic, there isn't a linguistic consensus that Macedonian and Bulgarian are the same language, nor that Macedonian is a Bulgarian dialect. And even if there's such, it shouldn't be part of the Macedonian language article (there should be a sentence, two, maybe a paragraph mention), however it can be part of another sister-article of the language Wiki article. — Tom^(T2ME) 09:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I do go by that logic and that's why I don't propose for the article to be renamed into "Macedonian Bulgarian" and to be presented as a Bulgarian dialect. --Antondimak (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I am done discussing this with you. Obviously, you have a very own nationalistic view about this issue. And obviously, it's not fruitful. — Tom^(T2ME) 17:06, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tomica: Yes, they form a dialect continuum (there is also a dialect continuum Czech-Slovak-Rusyn-Ukrainian even though Czech and Slovak are West, not East, Slavic), but everyone acknowledges that (mutually intelligible) Macedonian and Bulgarian have a much more intimate relationship. This is far from the only language article with political-historical factors included in it -- see Moldovan language, Romanian language, Ingrian language, Arvanitika, see especially Belarusian language#History... et cetera. --Calthinus (talk) 15:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus But all the articles you are citing as examples (except maaaaaybe for Romanian language) are of extremely poor quality. They completely miss the point of the language and go on and on about historical/political topics that can easily be placed in a different article. There is almost no coverage of language characteristics. As a comparison, check Danish language and Czech language (both of which are GA) and how succinctly historical and political sections are handled. The latter language does not even mention politics although there is much room for that with the Slovak language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DD1997DD (talk • contribs) 16:06, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

That might be a bit harsh. Belarusian language doesn't seem so bad, though I do think the history section there may be better shortened yes. A well-balanced article that does discuss the history/politics behind the formation of the standard can also be found in Italian language.--Calthinus (talk) 16:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe consider reading the articles I listed above which are selected as good articles and compare their content to the politically charged article of Belarussian (I mean there is a discrimination subheading in a language article!! Why does Spanish language not have one in light of all the things happening in the US? Why does Catalan language not have one even though it was banned under Franco? Why does the Catalan language not even go into the relationship between Spanish and Italian even though they're spoken in the same country?). And the Italian language article is also by no means a well-balanced article for that matter (consult Wikipedia:Article size). Plus, I don't see the Italian language article going into how similar Italian is to its closest Romance languages e.g. Spanish/French with entire long-ass sections? And mind you that Spanish and Italian are related in the exact same way as Macedonian and Bulgarian when it comes to origins/similarities/dialects merging from one to the other language. DD1997DD (talk) 17:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus With all due respect, please do not compare Macedonian and Bulgarian to Romanian and Moldovan. Those are two separate and different cases. As a native Macedonian speaker, I can sometimes hardly understand Bulgarian (a lot of the vocabulary is different, with sometimes the same words having different meanings). Romanian & Moldovan are a totally different case, where the same language has 2 different names. — Tom^(T2ME) 15:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tomica: of course not, nor is it like the other examples. These are instead examples of languages with lengthy political historical discussions on their pages. --Calthinus (talk) 16:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It should look like this and not much more, if at all (with appropriate references):

"Macedonian and Bulgarian are closely related. According to linguistic tests they are X% mutually intelligible. Macedonian has been recognized as a separate language since X. It is recognized as a separate language by the European Union and by most linguists. Some linguists still recognize Bulgarian and Macedonian as a single language."

That's all that is necessary. The politics are completely immaterial to a language article and shouldn't occupy more than a single sentence, if even that much. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 11:48, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Tom in MANU are researchers, backed by the Macedonian state, that insist Macedonian was spoken by the Ancient Macedonians in Egypt. Jingiby (talk) 11:54, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I wish their Bulgarian equivalent was better... unfortunately it's not. Full with nationalism too. — Tom^(T2ME) 12:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted a strange POV-pushing made by DD1997DD. Very interesting is the attempt to elevate the number of Macedonian speakers from 1,5 up to 3,5 Million. Jingiby (talk) 14:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It was found in Victor Friedman's article that was provided as a reference? DD1997DD (talk) 14:09, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It wold be better to present here a link to your proposal an firstly to give a possibility to other editors to read and to aprove it. Jingiby (talk) 14:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Why would I/he/she/them or whoever seek approval from Bulgarian editors to add data in the Macedonian language Wikipedia article? Especially from a source from a credible worldwide famous professor, who I am sure did his research before presenting the evidence. Unlike, that professor at the Bulgarian University of Sofia... — Tom^(T2ME) 14:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Apcbg: Please discuss why you're reverting my edits? Why are you doing this to every single article I edit, just popping out of nowhere to delete content that I spend hours editing? And it always magically happens after I revert @Jingiby:. Is it just a sock puppet account? I really don't get this stubborn behavior by users who 1. don't discuss 2. are always there to revert. DD1997DD (talk) 14:33, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Diferences between political, fringe and scientific views about the Macedonian language?

Can somebody from the Macedonian editors explain me the difference and how to classify the 3 views below, please? Which kind they belong to and where they must pe placed?

• "The obviously plagiarized historical argument of the Macedonian nationalists for a separate Macedonian ethnicity could be supported only by linguistic reality, and that worked against them until the 1940s. Until a modern Macedonian literary language was mandated by the communist-led partisan movement from Macedonia in 1944, most outside observers and linguists agreed with the Bulgarians in considering the vernacular spoken by the Macedonian Slavs as a western dialect of Bulgarian". For more see: Dennis P. Hupchick, Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995, ISBN 0312121164, p. 143.

• In one respect, however, Macedonian nationalism threw up a problem which the Communist Party could not ignore: the question of the status of the Macedonian language. If, as Dr Johnson remarked, languages are the pedigrees of nations, then the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia were by any reasonable linguistic criteria part of the Bulgarian nation... The construction and dissemination of a distinctive Macedonian language was the medium through which a sense of Macedonian identity was to be fixed... The past was systematically falsified to conceal the fact that many prominent ‘Macedonians’ had supposed themselves to be Bulgarians, and generations of students were taught the pseudo-history of the Macedonian nation. The mass media and education were the key to this process of national acculturation, speaking to people in a language that they came to regard as their Macedonian mother tongue, even if it was perfectly understood in Sofia. For more see: Michael L. Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History, Edition 2, Springer, 2003, ISBN 1403997209, p. 89.

• The Macedonian (anti-Bulgarian) interpretation of their linguistic development is not considerd by Communist party leaders to be an ivory tower matter; the campaign is carried on through the mass media. Numerous articles on the alleged historical differences, some dating back to the middle ages, are carried by newspapers. In an early pamphlet (1950) on this subject, the party expressed concern over the popular failure to acknowledge the separate existence of a distinct Macedonian language in the past...The Macedonian Communists do not deny that the language of Goce Delcev and most other national heroes was Bulgarian, or that Bulgarian was the written Macedonian language generally until the Second World War...A reason for recognizing the Macedonian nationality was to eliminate the Bulgarian consciousness of the vast majority of Vardar Macedonians. Thus, the party has not only recognized the nationality, but also has taken and still undertakes vigorous steps to encourage its culture to differentiate Macedonian from Bulgarian. For more see: Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, Chapter 9: The encouragement of Macedonian culture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jingiby (talk • contribs) 19:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I am not a Macedonian editor, but the answer is easy. That is all historical politics and not relevant for this article. It's not part of the linguistic overview of the Macedonian language or even a linguistic history of the language. Even the quotes tell you that they have nothing to do with linguistics by citing culture and ethnicity. This is part of the cultural history of Macedonian identity and ethnicity, not the Macedonian language. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 21:36, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

On this one I do agree with Taivo. This goes on the "Political aspects of" page or whatever its name is now. --Calthinus (talk) 17:22, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts on grammar

Hello fellow users! Any thoughts so far on this version? I think some help expanding the consonants, verbs and syntax sections would be really nice. And I think after that, we can start a discussion about which version is better. Sidenote: I beg all users to refrain from commenting on the current history section included in the sandbox article. Let's please focus on the language's linguistic features for once. I am sure the RfC will be filled with comments on the history section, so please, please, please, don't engage in this discussion if you're not willing to comment on the linguistic features (for the time being). Thank you very much in advance for your cooperation! DD1997DD (talk) 11:43, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

The Phonology section is pretty typical and of average length. It doesn't really need as much morphophonology as most people try to slip in. The Noun section is about right except a table with sample case declensions for the most common noun classes (aka genders) would be helpful. The verb section needs work and the syntax section is subheadings only. The syntax section, however, is typically the least useful since syntax is more complex a topic than can really be covered in a Wikipedia article. If you want syntax in depth then a separate article is necessary. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

So do you think I should leave out the syntax section? DD1997DD (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, for now. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 16:56, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Ultimately a syntax section will be good to have. Macedonian is more analytic than the typical Slavic language. This is non controversial and notable material to describe. The only reason to leave it out is working on one thing at a time. --Calthinus (talk) 17:21, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it's highly inadvisable to make huge changes to the article at once, because we may end up at the position we got into at March 18. Changes should be done section by section. --StanProg (talk) 10:20, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

No huge changes will be made anymore without a voting consensus. DD1997DD (talk) 10:30, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

So I can make a chart of noun declensions. Should I post them to the sandbox? --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 00:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, of course. DD1997DD (talk) 06:26, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I think I am more or less done with adding content to the grammar part of the article. Any thoughts again? DD1997DD (talk) 13:54, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I will try to give it a look in the next couple of days.--Calthinus (talk) 05:47, 28 March 2020 (UTC)