Talk:Macedonian language/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions about Macedonian language. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 5

Discussion page is here

Administrators should assume good faith before making POV comments about the edits of their fellow editors, especially when they forget to read how editors justify their edits. That comment should be withdrawn in good faith as a bit hasty :-). The removal of those 2 maps were made on the grounds that "name of countries are missing" and also because the map itself in [1] tags Greek Macedonia as Aegean Macedonia. Administrator FutPer commented that the edit was "both maps are linguistically correct, removal motivated by purely non-linguistic POV agenda". No one mentioned its linguistic correcteness. Therefore, I am sure we agree that the phonetic maps must include the country names and that the reference to Aegean Macedonia must be replaced with Greek Macedonia. Politis (talk) 23:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. Why would it need to include the country names? If you think they are necessary: WP:SOFIXIT. If you can fit in the country names without obliterating the contents, go and edit the files. But the lack of country names is, at most, such a marginal shortcoming that it cannot justify removal of the highly relevant linguistic information they convey. As for "Aegean Macedonia", what have you been smoking? It doesn't even say that anywhere. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:41, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

To Future Perfect at Sunrise, Wikipedia:assume good faith This Talk:Ethnic_flag#Vergina is the example to follow. Once more, I demand that the POV remark be removed and the disrespectful comments above removed. This discussion can make steady progress and achieve results without such imputs.

You failed to follow the link provided re:Aegean Macedonia and continued making hasty personal remarks * Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Politis (talk) 07:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I followed the link. It goes to the image description page. Neither the image itself, nor the description page, nor the caption to the image in the article even mention the term "Aegean" (except in the citation of the title of one of the sources. By saying that the name must be "replaced", are you seriously suggesting we should falsify the citation?). I will treat you with more respect as soon as you begin to show some effort at making some sense. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, point taken about the citation, we are making progress, but only when discussion in engaged and respect is expressed at all times, especially by administators(!) The new maps are direct adaptations of File:Macedonian Slavic dialects.png but... the country names have been removed and new place names have been added such as: Lower Vardar and Bogdanska Planina in Greece, and Bobostica in Albania; this is in contravention to an agreed convention that saw some editors admins blocked for a while, but in the end all agreed to follow. Those additions needs cleaning up by those who created the maps. And I request once more to remove the 'POV' remark since it is made in haste. Politis (talk) 08:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I find your tagging of a whole section, just becaues the maps contain a few barely visible toponyms that you don't like, utterly distasteful, and in a violation of WP:POINT. You can always change the map yourself. If you can not find a better justification for the tag than such odious politization, I'm removing it. No such user (talk) 09:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. And those geographical names are names of dialect regions, named after natural geographic features such as mountain ranges and river valleys, used according to the conventions of the relevant field of linguistics, that of Slavic dialectology. If those works call the dialects of those parts after the Slavic version of the name of the local mountain range, then that's how we are going to treat them. What "agreed convention" Politis is thinking of is unfathomable to me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello 'No such user', I could not open your user page, you are always welcome with your comments on my talk page.

@FutPer: neither in the map Macedonian Dialects nor, to the best of my knowledge is thereanywhere a reliable souce marking out Slavic dialects of 'Lower Vardar, Bogdanska Planina, Bobostica', therefore they seem to me as place names and should be revomed from the maps. I do not have the knowhow to do it.Politis (talk) 09:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Btw, Fut, since you're discussing the maps and hmm, ok, you're not actually discussing sources, but whatever. I see the map has a reference to this book. Does this mean we're allowed once again to add info from books that are published on that particular site? --Laveol ^T 10:38, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The book as such is a reliable source and of course can be cited. Its (presumably illegal) online mirror is, of course, very convenient for easy lookup, but should strictly speaking not be linked to. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Laveol, in wikipedia no one can 'give permission', even if they take it upon themselves to do so LOL; it is a question of discussion and agreement. Use what sources you think are the most appropriate. Politis (talk) 10:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Personally, the decision not to publish from websites such as promacedonia.org was the right decision. Any link has to be removed. It is also on the record that the provenance is from a (presumably) copyright violation.

Removing the phonetic maps: the place names 'Lower Vardar, Bogdanska Planina, Bobostica' are included. There is nowhere to indicate that they are bonafide, that they are "named after natural geographic features such as mountain ranges and river valleys, used according to the conventions of the relevant field of linguistics, that of Slavic dialectology". Those who have the skill to remove those names and replace them by the names in current use should do so, as suggested by 'No such User' and by myself (Politis). Politis (talk) 12:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

We don't have an "approved list" of toponyms, and especially not within maps. Do we have maps in languages other than English? Certainly yes: apart from English, there are maps in German, French, and a variety of languages. It is all natural that a map depicting isoglosses of Macedonian language was drawn by a Macedonian and uses Macedonian placenames. Reading it as a "non-neutral point of view" is perverse, to put it mildly. Laveol's issue whether the map comes from a reliable source is legitimate indeed, but issues that you have with it your are a politization pure and simple. No such user (talk) 12:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The maps are in the English language, we cannot have a map of England, in the English language but with 'Londres' as its capital just because it was modifed by a Frenchman :-). There was a lengthy and successful aribration process addressing these Macedonian issues, consult it and get back to us. In any case the issue you present is different to that of FutPerf wich suggested they were the names of dialects; I have addressed that issue and await an answer. Thanks for your input.Politis (talk) 13:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The outcome of the arb case (at WP:NCMAC) only covers the naming of the various entities named "Macedonia", not every detail of how to refer to individual features within them. Yes, consult it and get back to us. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:05, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I take your word for it, even though you had your admin rights blocked at the time. Which still leaves us with the place names and the suggestion to change them on the grounds that they are not of linguistic value. How do we modify maps? Politis (talk) 13:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

biscriptal?

Macedonian is included in the Latin digraphs article with the argument that it is biscriptal like Serbian. However, the article lists only the Cyrillic alphabet. I realize that all official matter is printed in Cyrillic, but the Latin script is commonly used unofficially, correct? Should the standard Macedonian Latin alphabet be included? — kwami (talk) 04:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think it's biscriptal, officially or unofficially. Latin script is used only as last resort, when Cyrillic is not available for some reason (think SMS or Internet). Is there such thing as "standard Macedonian Latin alphabet"? I don't think that they even had standard transcription rules for Ќ and Ѓ, at least until recently. No such user (talk) 06:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll advise at Latin digraphs that we shouldn't use Macedonian as an example, at least unless it's ironed out here first. — kwami (talk) 07:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, there's some old talk relating to this at Talk:Macedonian Latin alphabet, which used to be a separate article but was then merged to Romanization of Macedonian. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:42, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Macedonian's only official script is Cyrillic. The Latin script is used in unofficial talks or when the Cyrillic is not available. Example is the Macedonian Wikipedia that is only written in Cyrillic the official one. Greetings 1111tomica (talk) 09:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)1111tomica1111tomica (talk) 09:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd heard that it was used for more populist things, like pop magazines, store signs, advertisements, and the like, though not to the extent that it's used for Serbian. — kwami (talk) 10:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. All the magazines in Macedonia (Macedonian language ones) are written in Cyrillic script, the advertisements, well not so much, but you can see it sometimes, but together with the Cyrillic. However definetelly is unofficial. :) 1111tomica (talk) 11:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)1111tomica1111tomica (talk) 11:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

At the discussion I linked to above, somebody brought an example of Latin spelling being used in a journal targetted at an emigre community (in Germany, apparently). Admins can still see the image here (it got deleted as non-free). Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, the government fully promoted the Cyrillic alphabet as the only one and legislated to fine shops that did not use the Macedonian language in its Cyrillic alphabet. Serb biscriptalism originates from the need to accomodate the Serbo-Croatian language of Yugoslavia, a link Skopje has no particular inclination to be associated with. Politis (talk) 13:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Politis is right. Some shops broke the law for using the Macedonian language, because they had their name written just in Latin, and it should be first in Cyrillic and than it's optional if u want to write it in Latin, but however the Cyrillic is a historical script of the Macedonian language and the only official. Tomica1111 (talk)

I understand that only Cyrillic is official. My question is whether Latin is used, not whether it's legal. If it's just the occasional irregular romanization, either because it's chic or to target non-Macedonians, as you'd see with Russian or Arabic or Thai, that's one thing. If there's a popular tradition of using the Latin alphabet, even if not recognized, that's another. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Well I can say as a citizen of Macedonia, yeah it's used, not so much as Serbian Latin, but it's used unofficialy .... Tomica1111 (talk) 18:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)1111tomica

Okay, follow-up question then: the M. romanization article describes several variants. Is that what's going on here, just informal transliteration according to the whim of the writer (as you might see for Russian or Arabic), or is there a standard Macedonian Latin alphabet that's recognized by Macedonians, even though not by the govt, the way there is for Belorusian? — kwami (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Well if you read the discussion that Future Perfect at Sunrise posted at second grade in primary school we have a book that is called Читам и пишувам латиница - Čitam i pišuvam latinica (I am reading and writing in Latin alphabet) and there is a Macedonian Latin alphabet that is a transliteration from the Macedonian Cyrillic. The biggest reason for studying the Latin alphabet by Macedonians in my opinion is so we can easily understand the Latin alphabets that dominate in most world languages. Greetings Tomica1111 (talk) 22:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)1111tomica

So you have Macedonian written in Latin as a way of teaching the Latin script? Neat! (I don't think that would work for English. Our spelling's too messy.) — kwami (talk) 23:56, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

No actually for English, but with studying of the Latin Macedonian alphabet, studying English in some ways will be more easy for us ... The Cyrillic scripters :) ! Tomica1111 (talk) 12:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)1111tomica

Edit request from 212.54.199.208, 15 August 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} This page reference does not exist.

Never in history existed such a language. If you read all the historical books from all the writers there is not such report. There is report only for a region called macedonia , ruled by greeks.

Please delete this page or we will proceed further by means of law.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable

212.54.199.208 (talk) 14:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Please do not make legal threats; if you would like the page to be changed in some way, please go through one of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Email Campaign

Please be aware that there's an email campaign to get this article deleted. OTRS are aware of this and are directing people to involve themselves in discussions. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 14:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No such language

The information you distribute to people through this site is wrong.There is no such language.In Skopje the language that is used is Slavic.There is no Macedonia or Macedonian language.The only known Macedonia is part of Greece.The country you are wrongfully referring to as "Republic of Macedonia" was also known as Vardaska up to 1945.At which time they "decided" to claim a name that belonged to a completely different from theirs country.Usually people would be flattered that they chose a greek name but in addition to trying to steal the culture of Greece people are becoming disgust.An encyclopedia must be objective and display true facts. Thank you.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.242.145.210 (talk • contribs)

Ignorance is a bleesing..isn't it..

It's almost 2011 and people still think like this?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.79.79 (talk) 17:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry you think differently but the historical facts say otherwise. Since you haven't done any research why post a comment like this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamantia.primpas (talk • contribs) 23:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Ethnologue

There are no references for Albania and Bulgaria. As for Greece, they mention someone called Boskov and that's about it. Can you provide a source? (Ethnologue's mkd page) Wurstinger (talk) 01:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Nobody? Wurstinger (talk) 17:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ethnologue is a joke. We should start deleting unreliable and unreferenced links. Bg3000 (talk) 15:35, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually it's not a joke, but a high priority language source. Tomica1111 (talk)

Actually it has tons of inaccuracies. And not only the BG-Mac joke. --Laveol ^T 21:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually your "joke" source it's used in the List of languages by number of native speakers. Want it or not, that's the true. Tomica1111 (talk) 1111tomica

I didn't say it was a joke, but simply that it had tons of inaccuraces.
Do you see anywhere in the article a claim that these are the actual numbers? There is a reason they've cited more than one source. --Laveol ^T 12:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Intro edits

Recently the sentence "...accumulated a thriving literary tradition" was removed for the nonsensical reason that it is a superlative (and superlatives should not be used in encyclopedic texts). My response:

the word thriving is not a superlative;
it's complete nonsense to say that superlatives should not be used;
- go to any large article and I guarantee you'll find several examples;
the phrase "thriving literary x" is almost idiomatic;
- in the case of Macedonian it is used to describe the transition from spoken dialect to fully fledged literary language with a very active base of writers, etc.

I've noticed that the user who removed the text speaks less than perfect English, so I'll assume it wasn't vandalism. --203.59.11.27 (talk) 08:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Point taken, but I too find that "thriving" etc. has something of an unnecessary peacock term. If it can be toned down to something less evaluative, that'll be fine. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:32, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

What exactly would Macedonian be promoted over with the inclusion of "thriving"? There really is no better alternative than the set phrase common in linguistic literature. "Thriving" does not give Macedonian importance over another language, as a peacock term would. Let's not look at this from a Balkan perspective of petty competition. --203.59.11.27 (talk) 08:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Dialect continuum

About [2]: 1111tomica, Jingiby is clearly right about this one. Indeed, all Slavic languages are part of a two large sets of dialect continuum. And it's not often I agree with Jingiby on something. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, you are both right. I misunderstood something. Sorry. Greetings Tomica1111 (talk) 1111tomica

Changes in the lead of the article on the Macedonian language

I disagree with the adjustments made in the introduction of this article for the following reasons:

According to the source there is attached (Studies in contact linguistics, G. Gilbert, Glenn G. Gilbert, Janet M. Fuller, Linda L. Thornburg, Peter Lang, 2006, ISBN 0820479349, 9780820479347,p. 213.) Macedonian language was standardized in 1945 and was codified in the period between 1945 and 1950. Now this is not described by that way in the article and some readers will be misled. Furthermore, other attached source (UCLA) indicates some Western linguists maintain that the Macedonian language is a Bulgarian dialect. The article now says that the recognizing of the Macedonian language is not supported by all the neighbors of the state. In the case, this issue is not about the neighbors, but about linguists. Please, correct these factual inaccuracies. Thank you. Jingby (talk) 08:03, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, Jingiby is right about what the source states to be the codification period, just access the source. --JorisvS (talk) 08:55, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Does somebody disagree with JorisvS' conclusion about the source's contents on th codification period and it's deletion? Jingby (talk) 11:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe undue weight is given to the codification; such a thing is absent from the lead of almost every other language article, but I won't object to its inclusion. I do object to Kwamikagami's edits for the following reasons: a certain language variety is not codified to be distinct from another language, but from every other language. The Prilep-Bitola dialect, or more precisely an idealized variant of it, was given literary status for the purpose of being an official language in Socialist Macedonia. So yes, it was intended to be distinct from Bulgarian, but also from French, English, Japanese and Arabic. To suggest a separation from Bulgarian would assume a prior unification which is anachronistic: how can two standard languages be united if one of them wasn't standardized until later? As far as the continuum is concerned, there can only be one entity at each extreme otherwise we're not speaking of extremes. Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian are central within the continuum — don't confuse their classification into the abstract terms "Eastern branch" and "Western branch" with their position in a physical continuum. --124.148.227.163 (talk) 11:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That makes no sense. No-one claimed the Macedonians spoke French; they did claim they spoke Bulgarian. Before Macedonian was established as a separate language through codification and literature, it was a dialect of Bulgarian. It was never a dialect of French, English, or Japanese.

You didn't say that Macedonian lies geographically between Bulgarian and SC, you claimed it was linguistically transitional. SC isn't really central either (that politically motivated position has already been debunked), and in any case Torlakian links Bulgarian with SC just as surely as it links Macedonian. Historically there was an east SS and a west SS, which (assuming SS was a coherent node, which is dubious) met as they displaced Balkan Romance and started to fuse as Torlakian. So the central lects are Torlakian, not Macedonian. — kwami (talk) 12:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

You 124.148.227.163 are wrong. The South Slavic languages are divided in two subgroups. In the eastern one are the Bulgarian and the Macedonian. I think you have made a big confusion in the lead without discussing. Please, stop your disruptive editing and respect the opinion of others! Check below:

1. The Slavic languages Cambridge language surveys, Roland Sussex, Paul V. Cubberley, Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0521223156, p. 43.

2. Denying ethnic identity: the Macedonians of Greece, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki (Organization : U.S.) 1994, ISBN 1564321320, p. 36

3. Word prosodic systems in the languages of Europe, Harry van der Hulst, Typology of Languages in Europe, Walter de Gruyter, 1999, ISBN 3110157500, p. 436. Jingby (talk) 12:24, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it doesn't make any sense — that's precisely my point. How a language was classified historically doesn't mean it becomes something else when classification is revised. We do not say the Belorussian language suddenly came into existence as soon as the term "Little Russia" was done away with. You're overanalyzing my comment regarding the continuum: Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian are central with respect to their position in a continuum with Bulgarian and Slovene at both extremes. I admit, the wording isn't the best.

Thanks for the spam, Jingby, but I'm not disputing that (already explained above). --124.148.227.163 (talk) 12:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, actually, we do. There was no Byelorussian language before it was established as a language. Before that it was a "dialect" of Russian. The language itself didn't change much, of course, but conceptions of whether it was a "language" or a "dialect" did change. As long as Macedo-Bulgarian had one literary form, the various dialects were all "dialects" of Bulgarian. And this includes the dialect that was later standardized as Macedonian. We're not talking about languages which are objectively independent, but of dialects in a continuum, some of which are arbitrarily promoted to "languages", and others of which remain "dialects". If southern Macedonians were to decide tomorrow that their dialect is not Macedonian but another language, they might argue that it never was Macedonian. But as far as people today are concerned, it is.

An example closer to WP-en is Scots. It's often seen as a separate language from English, and some people are promoting it as such, but historically it was (socially) a dialect of English.

Intentionally or not, your edits have the effect of denying or at least obscuring the period of Macedo-Bulgarian unity. — kwami (talk) 14:17, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding condescending, I'm going to ask you to read Codification (linguistics). Standard Macedonian is an idealized variant of a Macedonian dialect whose norms were agreed upon in the 1940s. Standard Bulgarian is an idealized variant of a Bulgarian dialect whose norms were agreed upon in the 1890s. If there was once a unity, that would mean we have a pluricentric language. That is a fringe view largely contained to Bulgaria and therefore doesn't belong in the lead. --124.148.227.163 (talk) 13:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

An admin here supports a fringe view pusher. Deletion of added reliable sources as "ungramatical" and the distortion of other sources here shows only lack of respect on the reached consensus. Jingby (talk) 14:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

This is horribly frustrating. Standard Macedonian being codified "as a language distinct from Bulgarian" is a misnomer and nonsensical. Yes, Macedonian replaced Bulgarian as the administrative language, but codification is the formal development of a standard language in opposition to all other standard languages in the world, not just those to which it is related. According to your logic, Standard Macedonian would have had to have been already codified prior to its own codification! --124.148.227.163 (talk) 14:24, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Jingiby, the fringe view is the one only subscribed to in one country and rejected by mainstream experts. Also, a consensus has not yet been reached. We're still having a discussion, are we not? --124.148.227.163 (talk) 14:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

A consensus was reached on the period of the codification as per sources. Look above. You yourself wrote: I believe undue weight is given to the codification; such a thing is absent from the lead of almost every other language article, but I won't object to its inclusion. However, Future Perfect has deleted the added clarification, wich contradicts even the sources. Jingby (talk) 14:46, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to that. I'm objecting to the inclusion of "as a language distinct from Bulgarian". --124.148.227.163 (talk) 14:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding the source. It states, "...drawing on the west-central dialects around Prilep and Veles and incorporating a strong Turkish legacy, all differentiating the language maximally from both Bulgarian and Serbian". This means that the characteristics of the standard had the effect of making it unique with respect to Serbian and Bulgarian, not that it was derived from either of those two languages. This also begs the questions, why did you forget to add 'Serbian'? --124.148.227.163 (talk) 14:57, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I'm not sure I understand why you object to Slovene being included in the description of the continuum. --124.148.227.163 (talk) 14:31, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: The Belorussian and Ukrainian languages did exist prior to the codification of their standard varieties. Linguists determine the boundaries between languages on the basis of isoglosses, not the political climate of the day. The English language would be the same one we're writing in now even if it was renamed (the name of a language can be political, not its classification). The Earth would still be a sphere if we could time-travel back into prehistoric times. The 'conception' of language (Macedonian) vs. dialect (dialects of a larger Bulgarian group) is irrelevant, as scientific methods have proven it to be so. If southern Macedonians, as you say, were to elevate their dialect to that of a standard language, then we would have a pluricentric language. Actually, there was never any "Macedo-Bulgarian unity", but there was an attempt at it. It didn't succeed and that's why today, among other reasons, we have a Standard Macedonian language. --124.148.227.163 (talk) 14:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

"Linguists determine the boundaries between languages on the basis of isoglosses, not the political climate of the day." Serbia and Croatian? Hindi and Urdu? Malaysian and Indonesian? Tagalog and Filipino? Spanish and Portuguese? Or later, Portuguese and Galician? Scots and English? Whether Scots is a separate Germanic language from English is as much a sociopolitical decision as anything.

There are also many many "languages" with greater internal diversity than Macedonian–Bulgarian. German, for example. Sure, linguists can delineate isoglosses, but in the case of a dialect continuum, there will be few clear-cut results. If the people who call themselves Macedonians and Bulgarians today were to go by the same name, and say that they speak the same language, then we would say it's one language. If they had divided themselves in three instead of two, we'd say there are three East SS languages instead of two. Language can be defined in terms of isoglosses, but when two languages blend into each other, the definition will generally be social and political. Sociolinguistics is just as much linguistics as dialectology is. Classifications are political.

You're also contradicting yourself. You say that if S Mac were to split off, Mac would become a pluricentric language. Yet E Bulg did split off (to Mac), yet you deny that Bulg is a pluricentric language. Basically, it seems that your 'facts' are filtered through the conclusions you wish to draw, rather than the conclusions being drawn from the facts.

Let's say that in the year 2150, (are you Macedonian?) speakers of your dialect decide that they speak a different language. They don't elevate it to a distinct language; rather, they argue that it always has been a separate language, and that this fact has been scientifically proven. By your logic, what you speak today is therefore not Macedonian, because in 2150 it won't be Macedonian, and such things cannot be a political decision. — kwami (talk) 15:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Serbian and Croatian are national standards of what's termed Serbo-Croatian. Hindi and Urdu are independent standards of Hindustani. Malaysian and Indonesian are independent standards of the Malay language. Filipino is, to quote the article, a "prestige register" of the Tagalog language. Spanish and Portuguese are independent languages. Portuguese is in fact a pluricentric language. There will indeed be fewer clear-cut results, which is why we can speak of transitional dialects. I never said a language ends at national borders. In such a case (no Macedonian ethnicity) we would not necessarily be speaking of only a Bulgarian language: there's a Piedmontese language, but no Piedmontese ethnicity. There's no Hindi ethnicity either. You're claiming east Bulgarian dialects split off and magically became Macedonian simply because of the change in conception (mind you, not one popular with the speakers themselves — why else would this article exist?) which is a notion, to be frank, so backward that I will not entertain it. I don't mean to offend you, but it seems your conclusions are based on the belief that the Macedonian dialects are a part of Bulgarian dialectology (a belief rarely held outside of Bulgaria itself). No, I'm not an ethnic Macedonian but I do speak one of the dialects natively, and such a case is impossible. I could theoretically make the same claim about my dialect and possibly even win over a few followers, but we'd be grouped with UFO cultists and the like. --124.148.227.163 (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

So your argument is simply, "I'm right and you're wrong". Not terribly convincing. — kwami (talk) 16:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't dismiss an entire paragraph of response with a cute catchphrase. By your own admission, you are basing your argument on ethnicity and politics. --124.169.185.41 (talk) 22:38, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I would like to add something. I have rewritten one of the sentences at the beginning, but I do not why it shows that I have edited it three times. However, the ref that is provided does not state that Macedonian was codified just to be different from Bulgarian (and Serbian), but it says that by choosing the central dialects the language is different from both neighboring languages. In fact no where in serious, reliable and academic papers you can find that the language was codified just to be different from the other. That is ridiculous. Best, --MacedonianBoy (talk) 18:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Your edits seem fine. It appears that Bulgarian was a pluricentric language: Back when the shift was made from OCS to vernacular, two self-styled "Bulgarian" standards arose, one in the east and one in the west. When the eastern form was made the sole official language, advocates of the western resented this and started to agitate for theirs to be recognized as a separate language, which they called Macedonian. So Macedonian was Bulgarian once upon a time. But at the same time, Bulgarian is only one half of the original literary tradition; it's simply the half which inherited the original name. — kwami (talk) 12:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The next candidate for the Price "I'm right and you're wrong" is editing the article without any discussion. Jingby (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Any problems Mr. Lawyer? --MacedonianBoy (talk) 18:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately for my argument, MacedonianBoy is right. The source does not state such a thing. --124.169.185.41 (talk) 22:38, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Umm, don't you think you just breeched WP:3RR with the latest edit. While not entirely the same as your previous reverts, it does constitute one, doesn't it? And this after you were specifically warned. --Laveol ^T 06:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. I removed an unsourced statement I identified as vandalism. --58.7.226.38 (talk) 10:48, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Then, stop avoiding 3RR on different articles related to the Macedonian language and register you, please. Such a conduct is not welcomed here and is far from fairplay. Jingby (talk)

I would like to warn you about the vague language that you are using, especially the User Kwami, it's ok everybody has it's opinion, but without bulls*its and stuff. Tomica1111 (talk)

Macedoniaan is not transitional between Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, but Torlakian. Bulgarian and Macedonian sharply divergent from the rest South Slavic languages. The added source is not verifiable. This is POV or manipulation. Jingby (talk) 12:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Torlakian dialects are transitional to all three languages. I agree that the wording is problematic and I've tried to rectify this. --58.7.226.38 (talk) 12:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, does the elaboration of on the situation in Bulgaria seem a little too lengthy? Would anyone else rather do away with it? It is, after all, explained in a little more detail in the linked article. --58.7.226.38 (talk) 13:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Your latest changes (several edits) have not been an improvement. "[[Dialects of Macedonian|Macedonian]] is a terrible easter-egg link at that point. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:07, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... I didn't think it read well with several instances of 'dialect' and, considering it's about a continuum of dialects, I thought it obvious. --58.7.226.38 (talk) 13:11, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The point is that we are already on a page that is about Macedonian, so if the reader sees a link that is also titled "Macedonian" but ostensibly goes to a different page, they will naturally be confused about what that is going to be. It is in fact not immediately obvious to a reader that there is going to be a second, separate article dedicated to the dialects. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:13, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Right, I can understand that. --58.7.226.38 (talk) 13:16, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to fight over this any more today, but I plan to delete everything you've done, because AFAICT it's nonsense. You appear to have a propaganda point to push, and that's not what we're here for. — kwami (talk) 14:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Now, the lead is biased, and reminds an Yugoslav linguistic lecture from the times of Communism. Jingby (talk) 17:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The commissions you refer to were (1) proclaiming Macedonian as the official language and (2) choosing which letterforms would constitute the Macedonian alphabet. The lexis, grammar, orthoepy and syntax were already consistent. You don't find it odd that Misirkov's language is 99% identical even though his works didn't become known until much after these commissions? I know you'd like to think the Macedonian language and ethnicity were invented by the Comintern as part of an anti-Bulgarian conspiracy, but that's simply not true. --124.169.218.177 (talk) 23:16, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

All the fluff wording about codification is totally unnecessary in the lead. Whether codification is easy or hard is totally secondary to the fact that it was codified at a certain point in time. Interested readers can look at the references, but I removed all the totally unnecessary and controversial fluff (although retaining the references for the truly interested reader). --Taivo (talk) 02:51, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Does the elabortaion on the nomenclature used in Bulgaria also belong in the lead? --165.187.10.16 (talk) 05:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

So, the commissions were 3. Jingby (talk) 07:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

POV/misleading captions on maps

I believe captioning the whole southeast Slavic dialect continuum in the region of Macedonia as 'Dialect divisions of Macedonian' (in the thumbnail of File:Macedonian Slavic dialects.png), then further down as 'Map of the use of the intervocalic phoneme kj in the Macedonian language' and 'Map of the use of the intervocalic phoneme gj in the Macedonian language (1962)', is rather misleading.

The source supposedly used to support the first caption is one co-authored by a Macedonian linguist from the Yugoslav period, Božidar Vidoeski (Z. Topolińska and B. Vidoeski (1984), Polski-macedonski gramatyka konfrontatiwna, z.1, PAN.). I believe this makes the source unreliable for such an assumption. I find the map File:Macedonian Slavic dialects.png misleading itself: the captions 'Macedonian' and 'Bulgarian' are so positioned that one might easily think Blagoevgrad Province is a Macedonian-speaking area which is only transitional to Bulgarian in its northeastern part.

Even worse, the two other maps, File:LinguisticdivideinMacedonian1.png and File:LinguisticdivideinMacedonian2.png, label all Slavic dialects in the region of Macedonia as 'Macedonian' without making any distinction whatsoever: everything is clearly part of a 'Map showing the distribution of the Macedonian language'. There are no third-party sources used to support this claim: the Macedonian authors Božidar Vidoeski and Blaže Koneski are cited in addition to Bulgarian author Stoyko Stoykov, who, of course, is of the opinion that all these are dialects of Bulgarian. His work is conveniently mislabeled as The dialects in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, suspiciously leaving the 'Bulgarian' out from the original name of the chapter and failing to mention the entire name of the book, Bulgarian Dialectology.

My suggestion is to caption the map File:Macedonian Slavic dialects.png as something along the lines of '[Distribution of] [Southeast] Slavic dialects in the region of Macedonia' or '[Distribution of] Macedonian and/or Bulgarian dialects in the region of Macedonia'. File:LinguisticdivideinMacedonian1.png and File:LinguisticdivideinMacedonian2.png should be captioned 'Map of the use of ... in the [Southeast] Slavic dialects of the region of Macedonia'.

Yes, the wording may be more cumbersome, but the current situation is like making a map of Dutch and northwestern German dialects and labeling them all Dutch just because they form a continuum. It may be shorter, but it's incorrect. — Toдor Boжinov — 11:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Nobody cares where in that dialect continuum the one language ends and the other begins. Take your boring old ideological fixations elsewhere. On this page, the only purpose of these maps is to show where those isoglosses are, and it shows them in the terminological framework of the reliable sources that were were used for producing them. If you can create a better map that shows the isoglosses with a bit more context to the north and east, be my guest. These maps are precisely as legitimate here as the map File:Bulgarian dialect map-yus.png is the way it is used at Bulgarian dialects. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

By the way, before you go on pontificating about how to treat Dutch and German, have you actually studied File:Niederländische Dialekte.png? It's pretty decently done, actually. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you please remain civil? Your response only consists of unnecessary qualifications and generalizations. The sources used are not suitable for the purpose of labeling all of these dialects as Macedonian because they are not third-party sources. The map on Bulgarian dialects you're referring to is clearly labeled as 'early 20th century', when a second Southeast Slavic literary standard did not yet exist.

I have no problem with the maps remaining in this article, but I'd like them to be captioned neutrally and clearly. At the moment, my opinion is that they are misleading.

I had not reviewed tbe Dutch dialectal map you're referring to, but I took a look at it and I do like it, it does a good job of representing the continuum. Strangely, I did not see any huge captions going from one country to the other assigning various dialects to Dutch or German :) The map is also sufficiently well captioned as 'Dutch dialects and their peripheries...'. Gives context and makes it clear that not everything on the map is to be considered a Dutch dialect. — Toдor Boжinov — 12:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

If by "be more civil" you mean you want me to hide my profound disdain for the whole POV agenda you show in your editing: no, I won't. I consider the whole motivation you display deeply inimical to this project. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

If you are unwilling to 'hide your profound disdain' and to actually respond to my points on this issue, I have no other option but to request a neutral opinion. — Toдor Boжinov — 14:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Future Perfect. The maps are, indeed, neutrally captioned based on reliable sources and standard linguistic practice. Your analogy to Dutch and German is imperfect. Linguistic maps, do, indeed, make a line between Dutch and German, whether that line is "accurate" or not. At Wikipedia, we reflect the practice of the field and follow reliable sources. The captions are accurate in that regard. --Taivo (talk) 15:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion! Can you please elaborate on why you consider the sources reliable for the purpose? And from the map captions, were you really able to understand that not all of these dialects are universally considered to be dialects of Macedonian? Also, can you please show me the line between Dutch and German on File:Niederländische Dialekte.png? Thanks again! — Toдor Boжinov — 15:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It's crystal clear, Todor. Read the legend on that Low Countries map--it clearly differentiates between Dutch dialects (Niederlandische) and Low Saxon dialects (Niedersachsische). Take out your crayon and trace the boundary between the dialects and you have your line. Just because the map doesn't draw that line more boldly than the others doesn't mean that the line isn't clearly delineated by reading the legend. --Taivo (talk) 18:53, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, it may be my fault, but I'm not getting it. We are talking about File:Niederländische Dialekte.png and the only legend you're referring to are the colour codes and groupings in the same image, right? Niedersächsisch (West Low German/Low Saxon) is a group which includes both German (e.g. Westphalian) and Dutch (e.g. Tweants) dialects. More importantly, can you please answer my other questions? Thanks! — Toдor Boжinov — 23:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Todor, you're just POV pushing and nit-picking at this time. I agree with Future Perfect, and his assessment follows the sources and pretty standard linguistic practice. That's all I'm going to say about it. You asked for another opinion and you got one. It's not my problem that you don't like it. --Taivo (talk) 03:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that Todor has a valid point (and despite references that say otherwise). The Slavic language that is spoken in northern Greece is both a dialect of Bulgarian as well as a dialect of the language of the "Republic of Macedonia". The ethnicity of the Slavic-speakers of Greece underlines that. I also agree that Fut Perf's style is customarily poison-pen (and that is not a personal attack) that is just Fut Perf's style. Todor should be allowed to make his point without being harrassed. One only has to look at articles like Lofoi to see that this issue is disputed across many articles. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 12:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

@Todor: Also, can you please show me the line between Dutch and German on File:Niederländische Dialekte.png?
There's the point: there is NO line between "Dutch" and "German". That "line" is an entirely wrong way at looking at a situation in a dialectal continuum. Similarly, there is NO line between Macedonian, Bulgarian and Slavic dialects in Greece, and NO line between Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. Such "lines" are artificial, and can be only drawn by political means: "Dutch", "German", "Macedonian", "Bulgarian" etc. are just convenient names for entities whose borders are blurred, and whose speakers identify as such largery by their political POV. For a person not prejudiced by such viewpoints, both File:LinguisticdivideinMacedonian1.png and File:Bulgarian_dialect_map-yus.png represent a sensible presentation of linguistic features, with nomenclature naturally influenced by the country of origin.
I understand (but do not justify) Fut. Perf's cynism: insistence on drawing of such lines by all means is a red flag of nationalism, and he's had too many nationalists, particularly in this part of the world. No such user (talk) 12:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Nipsonanohmata's comment points up the failure of Todor's entire argument: "despite references that say otherwise". Wikipedia is not driven by nationalistic POVs, it is driven by reliable sources. If our reliable sources and scientific consensus do X, then we cannot do Y just because X offends some editors on the other side of a border. And all linguists recognize that there are dialect continua between languages such as Dutch and German, Macedonian and Bulgarian, etc. No one disputes that fact on the ground. But linguistic practice is to choose a place to draw a line on maps. We do not just place a flag at Amsterdam and label it "Dutch" and a flag at Berlin and label it "German" and leave the middle undefined. We decide where to draw the line and then draw it. That's standard linguistic practice. It doesn't mean we don't understand the facts of the continuum, but it means that for purposes of a map we make a decision. That's what linguists do, so that's what Wikipedia must do--follow the practice of the sources and the field. --Taivo (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

However, Todor has also noted references that are WP:RS that oppose your argument. Moreover, the actual history of villages such as Lofoi make it absolutely clear that the language taught in certain villages at certain times in history was Bulgarian and not "Macedonian"/"Macedonian Slavic". Yet the nationalistic POV of the "Republic of Macedonia" prevails and the historic Bulgarian name for the village continues to be excluded from the article. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 16:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

@No such user, my point is precisely that there is no line, whether between Dutch and German or Bulgarian and Macedonian. Yet, in this case, instead of going with a neutral caption which does not attempt to describe all of these dialects as one or the other, we have a caption which describes them as one, and not the other. Note that the Dutch dialects map is labeled as 'Dutch dialects and their peripheries' in the thumbnail, while the maps we have here are only labeled 'Macedonian'. Neutral and unamibigious captions which do not appropriate dialects to one standard because the article happens to be about it is all I'm asking for. — Toдor Boжinov — 15:34, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Any who actually reads the article about the 2 disputed dialects (Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect and Maleševo-Pirin dialect) will realise that they are transitional. Having Macedonian language and its peripheries doesn't really establish much either. Lunch for Two (talk) 15:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

On a different note, the map is overambitious. The areas bordering the Aegean Sea in Greek Macedonia belong to the swampy regions of the Axios delta which have been gradually claimed as agricultural land since the 1930s. They were and remain uninhabited. Politis (talk) 14:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I've never used or ever heard the term "Greek Macedonia". It's called Macedonia. Nobody calls it "Greek Macedonia" except the propagandists outside the northern borders of Greece. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 16:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear. [3]. Of course, the "Greek" in "Greek Macedonia" is not part of a name. It's a descriptive disambiguator, and it's quite routinely used in just the way we are using it here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You're a highly educated individual. I though that you knew how to use Google. Why not have a look at what it says on page 38 of those results. Only 375 results. Indeed "Oh dear!". [4] I had no idea it was such an obscure term. In fact, if you exclude Wikipedia [5] there are only 369 results. Which begs the questions. "Why are the propagandists allowed to use this name on Wikipedia?" And "Is Wikipedia intentionally promoting non-historically-used terminology?". "Do Editors on Wikipedia have an agenda biased towards the use of this little used and little known terminology?" "And why do articles with "Greek Macedonia" in the title exist on Wikipedia?" Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 16:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Nipsonanomhmata, you are acting willfully blind. We use "Greek Macedonia" in Wikipedia to distinguish it from "Macedonia", which is the republic, and you know that very well. If you're going to ignore the point that Politis is making (that there is an uninhabited area that the map marks as inhabited) and focus on your own silly and needless exceptionalism, then please practice your art elsewhere. --Taivo (talk) 18:01, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

No. I do not know that very well. If you are doing that then you need to adopt mainstream terminology. Macedonia in Greece is not called "Greek Macedonia". Wikipedia is about the mainstream, at least that is what you and Fut Perf tell everybody else, and not a place to repeat non-mainstream propaganda. Trying to pull a fast one by linking to a Google page with misinformation on the number of hits that "Greek Macedonia" has does not inspire confidence. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 19:25, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

How to tag Slavic names of places in Greece

Um, "Greek Macedonia" = "Greek" + "Macedonia". That should be obvious. We also have two arbcom decisions on this.

What I would like to see is a consensus on what to call Greek Slavic, or if we call it Greek Slavic, where to link it, as that seems to be the focus of the latest idiot wars. If there is an old agreement somewhere, please let me know (on my talk page, maybe) so I can start enforcing it rather than reverting and protecting articles, which becomes disruptive after a while. — kwami (talk) 20:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sigh! Then the arbcom decision has adopted a non-mainstream method of naming Macedonia, Greece. In Greece, the language is called Slavic and the people who speak it are Slavic-speakers of Macedonia (also referred to as Slavomacedonians) or Slavic-speakers of Greece (also referred to as Slavophones). However, in the "Republic of Macedonia" "Slavomacedonian" and "Macedonian" are the terms that they use to describe the language of the "Republic of Macedonia". The overlap is a problem. Since when somebody from the "Republic of Macedonia" says "Slavomacedonian" or "Macedonian" they know what they mean and it doesn't mean the same thing that it means in Greece. In Greece, Macedonian is what they call people from the Macedonian region of Greece. Therefore you will always have fallout and edit wars concerning the meanings of these words. I think that the best solution would be to link to a page like Slavic-speakers of Greece or Slavic speakers of Macedonia (Greece) or Slavic speakers of northern Greece whenever referring to the language. It is a dialect of the languages of Bulgaria as well as the "Republic of Macedonia". It is not fair to exclude Bulgaria. There are currently articles at Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia (a POV title) and Slavic speaking minority in northern Greece (which redirects to a paragraph within Minorities in Greece). Another name for the language is "South Slavic" as per South Slavic languages or Old Church Slavonic (which is closest geographically). Both are general terms that should not offend any country. It would be an honest way of getting around the problem. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 21:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The more I think about it. The more I like Old Church Slavonic aka Old Church Slavic. Geographically it is a bullseye. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 21:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You suffer from a fundamental naming problem, Nipsonanohmata. That problem is that you make claims like "It's called X in Greece". No, it's not called that. It has a Greek name in Greece, not an English one. On Wikipedia, we are not constrained by translations of your Greek POV names for Macedonia, Greek Macedonia, Greek Macedonian, etc. We use English names here. Now, as kwami so properly explained the proper way in English to call the Macedonian region in Greece is "Greek Macedonia", that is, Macedonia that is in Greece. That is proper English naming. It doesn't matter a lick what Greeks call it in Greek. --Taivo (talk) 22:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It matters a great deal. You're not very constructive Taivo. In all our encounters I have never found your contributions constructive. In the English-speaking world Macedonia in Greece has been called Macedonia for all history. The name itself is an ancient Greek name. And when the "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" fell out of Yugoslavia and started calling itself "Republic of Macedonia" the Macedonia in Greece is still called Macedonia and will always be called Macedonia. Only now, on Wikipedia, we have to say that it is the Macedonia in Greece to avoid confusion with the "Republic of Macedonia". It is not called "Greek Macedonia" (which is a propagandic way of saying that Macedonia in Greece is only part of Macedonia despite the fact that Alexander the Great's ancient Macedonia falls entirely within the modern territory of Macedonia in Greece). As Macedonia expanded north with ancient Upper Macedonia a small part of that fell within the territory of the modern "Republic of Macedonia" but much more of that fell within the territory of the modern Bulgaria and of Thrace (which despite being part of ancient Macedonia is still called Thrace today). This is not my POV. The use of the word "Macedonia" for the Greek territory is the popular English version for most of human history. ARBCOM has taken a decision to use "Greek Macedonia" when the use of "Greek Macedonia" on Google appears to be obscure-at-best as can be seen at [6]. Greece has precedence on the use of the word Macedonia. Hellenes have been using it for longer than anybody else on the planet and the ancient Macedonian language was Hellenic (and you and ARBCOM have totally ignored that). Meanwhile, the discussion has moved on and we are currently discussing Old Church Slavonic. Do you have any objections for calling this dialect of Slavic (at least within the boundaries of Greece) -> Old Church Slavonic throughout Wikipedia? Does anybody else have any reasonable objections or anything constructive to contribute? Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 00:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This is silly. Macedonia (region) quite obviously includes part of modern Greece. That part is Greek Macedonia. You can say 2+2=5 until you're blue in the face, but you aren't going to get anywhere. Unless you have something constructive to say for improving the article, you're just wasting time.

I object to calling it OCS, because it isn't OCS. That would be like calling Greek "Attic". I don't care if it's called Greek Slavic, Macedonian, Slavo-Macedonian, or Bulgarian, but the name should name what it's referring to, not something else. — kwami (talk) 04:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree, Kwami. Calling Greek Macedonian "Old Church Slavonic" is linguistically naive. Nipson, the only reason you think my comments are "unconstructive" is because I have never supported your hypernationalistic POV. So I take your objections as a compliment. The Arbcom is definitive for Wikipedia as far as naming these regions. Kwami, I get the feeling that only another Arbcom will end the confusion and edit wars over what to call the Macedonian/Bulgarian dialects in Greece. We are constantly dealing with Balkan nationalism in these issues. As I recall the issue of using Serbo-Croatian as the label for the non-Slovenian West South Slavic dialects was simply imposed by force of will by the linguists involved in the discussion. Ethnologue lists the Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia as part of Macedonian and gives the alternate names of "Slavic, Macedonian Slavic" for these dialects. It lists the dialects of Thrace as Bulgarian with "Macedonian, Slavic" as alternate names. "Slavic" is, for obvious reasons, unacceptable as a linguistic name for these dialects. "Macedonian Slavic" isn't very accurate because the language of Macedonia is, technically, also "Macedonian Slavic" (just as Bulgarian could be called "Bulgarian Slavic"). The most accurate and least ambiguous term for the dialects of Macedonian in Greece would be Greek Macedonian. However, you might want to consider a compromise between Macedonian and Bulgarian in Greece by using "Macedonian" in Greek Macedonia and "Bulgarian" in Thrace. --Taivo (talk) 04:34, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Just read the discussion on your talk page, Kwami. The circumlocutions "Macedonian language in Greece" et al. really are a problem. I would suggest "Greek Macedonian" if we have to distinguish the dialects. But if distinguishing the dialects isn't necessary, it should be called "Macedonian" since that's what they call themselves and their language and there doesn't appear to be any contradictory linguistic opinion. --Taivo (talk) 04:44, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with calling it "Greek Slavic" for the simple fact that it is not a term used in literature at all, for good reasons. I agree with Taivo, it makes sense to refer to it as "Macedonian" in Greek Macedonia and "Bulgarian" in Thrace. I guess this approach would be consistent with people such as Trudgill in Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity who says that "It seems most sensible, in fact, to refer to the language of the Pomaks as Bulgarian and to that of the Christian-Slavonic speakers Greek Macedonia as Macedonian." Lunch for Two (talk) 05:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

So Greek Macedonian is Slavic and Macedonian Greek is Hellenic. I guess that's about as clear as we can be.

I'd be happy to enforce "Bulgarian" for Thrace and "Macedonian" for Macedonia, with one caveat: Mostly we're dealing here with how to word the lede, because in the text it's easier to to fit in a circumlocution that doesn't offend anyone. In the lede, however, where we give the English name of a town, then its Greek and Slavic name, choosing a single word for the latter can be difficult. Okay, if we use 'Bulgarian' for Thrace, those towns are solved. But calling the name of a Greek town "Madeconian" when it isn't Macedonian Greek seems to run afoul of ARBMAC2. Is it clear enough in context that we mean Slavic that this should not be a problem in a Greek article? (Maybe Greeks saying "Macedonians suck!" makes it clear that it's not ambiguous even to Greeks?)

I don't see why "Slavic" is necessarily out, though. In context, it's pretty obvious what is meant, and if we link to this article, it's even more obvious. So I'd think that [[Greek language|Greek]]: X, [[Macedonian language|Slavic]]: Y would be adequate. — kwami (talk) 05:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Various nitpicks: Pure "Slavic" is not optimal, because it's not sufficiently clear to the non-expert reader. Its meaning may be "pretty obvious" in context to us, but hardly to outside readers who might initially not even know there is any such thing, and who will associate the term more with Russian and Polish than with anything else. A better alternative if we were to go along those lines would be "local Slavic" (I remember that was the solution favoured by some Greek editors three years ago, but it too has its problems; see below). "Greek Macedonian" is far from optimal, because "Greek" will very easily be misunderstood as an ethnic/linguistic marker rather than a geographical one. As for ARBMAC2, since you mentioned it, WP:NCMAC didn't in the end legislate anything about language names, so we're left to our own devices here. (I once drafted Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Macedonia/miscellaneous#Language name, but it was never included in the decision process.) – Finally, with several of the proposals here, there is a problem with intended generality and specificness when it comes to these geographical names. The actual linguistic forms of names that people put into the articles are sometimes:

local dialect forms, rendered according to the convention of Macedonian orthography
local dialect forms, rendered according to the convention of Bulgarian orthography
normalized forms in standard Macedonian
normalized forms in standard Bulgarian
common forms that are identical in all or some of the above.

Any term that implies local dialectal specificness (including "local Slavic" or "Greek Macedonian") is problematic when the actual form so tagged is not indeed specifically local but normalized (and whether it is the one or the other will typically be impossible to verify without OR). Here, again, "Macedonian Slavic" is helpful, because it is graciously ambiguous between being understood as an actual name and synonym of Macedonian language, and as a mere geographic descriptor. Sometimes deliberate ambiguity is a blessing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

@Kwami, I can see where you are going with the Macedonian Greek/Greek Macedonian example, however I think both examples clearly refer to a linguistically/ethnically Greek element. "Aegean Macedonian" is probably the best descriptor which adressses the issue you are raising. This term is extremely common within Macedonian language discourses, and is also quite common in English, however has been attacked by Greeks as "irredentist", despite it simply being a term used for clarification. A seemingly relevant comparison would be "Pontic Greek" as opposed to "Turkish Greek" or the like. Lunch for Two (talk) 07:45, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The main problem with 'Macedonian Slavic', in addition to that 'blessing' ambiguity, is that there is no such standard. Any names we list as 'Macedonian Slavic' will be names spelled according to the Macedonian literary standard (I'm yet to see someone spelling a name in Bulgarian when describing that same name as 'Macedonian Slavic'). As Fut. Perf. said, without OR it would be very difficult to supply the actual local form of the name (as pronounced in the dialect of that village). In contrast, names in Bulgarian and Macedonian can be sourced significantly more easily.

One aspect we are forgetting is that alternative names may not be relevant only for linguistic, but also for historical reasons. Many villages in Greek Macedonia were inhabited in the past by Bulgarian-identifying people, with Bulgarian schools, Bulgarian Exarchate churches, etc. WP:NCGN defines relevant alternative geographic names as 'used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place'.

Because, per WP:NCGN, I feel the standard Bulgarian name is relevant where a historical presence of Bulgarians can be established, my proposal is to use the names as spelled in the standard languages, e.g.:

Where the names are spelled differently: Lofoi (Greek: Λόφοι; Bulgarian: Забърдени, Zabardeni; Macedonian: Заб’рдени, Zab'rdeni)
Where the names are spelled identically: Achlada (Greek: Αχλάδα; Bulgarian and Macedonian: Крушоради, Krušoradi)

Thoughts? — Toдor Boжinov — 08:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem I have with this NCGN argument is that in this way the "group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place" is represented twice, as if it was two separate groups. We are not talking about two different local minorities with two different languages forming part of the local historical tradition. The "Bulgarians" with their Bulgarian schools in 1900 and the "Macedonians" or "Macedonian Slavs" today are the same people. It's not the actual languages that are different, but merely the terminology used to refer to them. One terminology is outdated, the other is current. Yes, there were "Bulgarians" there in 1900, but these are just the same people whose language is today called Macedonian or Macedonian Slavic. Therefore, covering them twice creates a false impression, and offers no additional factual information value. Moreover, the spelling differences between the "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian" versions are for the most part utterly trivial, as in the Lofoi example you cite: as you certainly know, the Macedonian spelling with the apostrophe ("’") and the Bulgarian spelling with "ъ" are precisely the same sound. (Any reader who knows Macedonian and Bulgarian can figure out the one spelling from the other themselves; any reader who doesn't know them would never care either way.) As a result, I can see no benefit in cramming all this petty detail into lead sentences; the only message it sends to the reader is that of symbolic "territory-marking" ("look, Bulgarian editors were here and have made sure Wikipedia bows down before their POV sensitivities"). It really does nothing much beyond that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Why stop at Greek Macedonia though? By this same logic the Bulgarian name should be applied to every single village in R. Macedonia inhabited by ethnic Macedonians. Why we're at it we should add the Serbian name to all of these villages too, because at one stage or another a "Serbian presence" can be shown to have existed there too.

How about an approach that does its best to reflect the actual linguistic status of the language which is spoken there? Possibly a 'region specific' approach?, so to speak. Lunch for Two (talk) 09:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference between R. Macedonia, where the population has a clear ethnic consciousness and a codified language norm has been established, and Greek Macedonia, where there is no official standard, the dialects are roofless and spoken by people who mostly do not identify as ethnic Macedonians. The Serbian argument is invalid, apart from Bitolj and Skoplje I know of no Serbian names that are at all different from the current Macedonian version.

I acknowledge it's a valid point that the Bulgarian speakers of 1900 and the Slavic speakers of today are the same people who speak the same dialects. A few questions and assumptions arise from this though:

For settlements where the contemporary presence of a Slavic-speaking population cannot be established (either due to lack of reliable information or due to the abandonment of the settlement by its Slavic speakers at some point in the 20th century) yet a past Bulgarian-identifying population can be proved, the Bulgarian name is the only one relevant.
How are we going to treat settlements with a reliably confirmed contemporary Slavic-speaking population within the Solun-Voden and Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect areas? — Toдor Boжinov — 10:44, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

At the risk of abominable OR, my personal opinion: take 'em, you can have 'em all to yourself. I've said before that one reasonable pragmatic solution would be to call everything Bulgarian that is geographically closer to Bulgaria and everything Macedonian that is closer to the RoM. It would have the advantage that (a) linguistically, there seems to be at least one reasonably prominent isogloss bundle that runs conveniently along just that north-south line, and (b) historically, it seems to be the case that a much higher percentage of the Slavic population from those parts actually emigrated/were expelled to Bulgaria, so a primarily "Bulgarian" affiliation is a good deal easier to justify there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

@Todor, your comments do not address the "historical significance" argument which you are trying to run.

To quote Schmieger, R. 1998. "The situation of the Macedonian language in Greece: sociolinguistic analysis", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131, 125-55., "Apart from certain peripheral areas in the far east of Greek Macedonia, which in our opinion must be considered as part of the Bulgarian linguistic area (the region around Kavala and in the Rhodope Mountains, as well as the eastern part of Drama nomos), the dialects of the Slav minority in Greece belong to the Macedonian diasystem."

How about "Macedonian" for West Macedonia and Central Macedonia (except the Eastern most prefecture); "Bulgarian" and "Macedonian" for Serres Prefecture (Which covers most of the transitional Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect usage area); and "Bulgarian" in East Macedonia and Thrace? I feel that this is a fair compromise between the two arguments. Lunch for Two (talk) 11:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Well d'oh, this is turning into a Treaty of Bucharest. I am not really an advocate of 'this prefecture is yours, the other one is ours' (dialects do not follow prefecture lines) or 'you can have everything east of the yat border' (it doesn't do a good job with transitional dialects). What I prefer as a method is:

if there's a modern Slavic-speaking population, let's have 'Macedonian Slavic' with the Macedonian spelling (I'd be alright with 'Macedonian' too, but I'd wager this nomenclature would face problems from the Greek side);
if there's no modern Slavic-speaking population but there was one in the past, let's have 'Bulgarian' with the Bulgarian spelling;
in the transitional areas of Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect and Solun-Voden dialect if there's a modern Slavic-speaking population, let's have both. If it's too cumbersome to fit all the {{lang-bg}} and {{lang-mk}} stuff with romanization and everything in the lead, we can have this as a sentence, e.g. In Bulgarian and Macedonian, Lofoi is known as Zabardeni or Zab'rdeni (spelled Забърдени and Заб'рдени respectively). Note that this village is only used as an example, per the above Lofoi would only have 'Macedonian Slavic'.

As for Schmeiger 1998, your quote comes with the footnote We will not comment on... the question of defining the borderline between the Macedonian and Bulgarian linguistic areas, because these questions are irrelevant for the phenomena being investigated here. The source distances itself from making a statement on this issue, so I don't think we can use it to draw any lines. And why do we have to do that anyway? — Toдor Boжinov — 12:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec)No, Todor, I disagree with your division based on some "history". That means that a village that happens to have inhabitants today speaks Macedonian, while a mile away a village abandoned a century ago spoke Bulgarian. That's a ridiculously artificial and non-intuitive division. We all know that the people of that ruin spoke exactly the same language as the people of the contemporary village, so to label their languages as different is a lie that we would be pushing on our readers for the sake of a nationalistic POV. Better is a simple geographic split--Greek Macedonia is Macedonian-speaking territory, while Thrace is Bulgarian-speaking territory. It's simple and intuitive. The other alternative is that all Greek Slavic speakers speak Macedonian. --Taivo (talk) 13:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems that our choices are (1) Greek Slavic, (2) Greek Macedonian, (3) Macedonian, (4) (Greek) Macedonian in Macedonia and Bulgarian in Thrace. [Or (5) Macedonian Slavic –K] I expect the other ways of dividing up Mac/Bulg would simply devolve into more edit warring based on whether town A is on which side of whichever line we draw. As for that boundary being arbitrary, so what? The boundary being Macedonian and Bulgarian already is arbitrary, in the sense that national boundaries don't follow isoglosses. — kwami (talk) 13:52, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Kwami, I don't think (1) or (2) are acceptable options. I'm not sure where you have read about (1) being used as a name for the language spoken, but it is not found in linguistic discourses. Upon hearing "Greek Macedonian" one instantly thinks of a connection between Greece/ethnic Greeks with Macedonia; the term is not used to describe ethnic Macedonians/Macedonian speakers living in Greece. As I commented further above "Aegean Macedonian" is the only term currently in circulation which is specifically designated for ethnic Macedonians/Macedonian speakers from the Greek region of Macedonia (However, it too has a few issues). Lunch for Two (talk) 13:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Lunch that (1) and (2) are not useful: it would be a Wikipedia-produced neologism. It's just not what the literature does. I still wonder, Kwami, why are you so reluctant to consider "Macedonian Slavic"? Unlike the others you listed, it's actually used in the literature, and it has exactly the degree of specificness required. In fact, it ought to make everybody happy: Linguists can parse it as just a quirky synonym of "Macedonian" [7] used in the local context; Greek readers can parse it as "some weird dialect that doesn't really belong to any language at all but is somehow a form of Slavic, and happens to be spoken in Macedonia"; and Bulgarian readers can parse it as "that dialect of Bulgarian (i.e. Slavic, which Bulgarian undoubtedly is) which is spoken in Macedonia, and which we just choose to spell according to the rules of whichever of the literary standard forms of Bulgarian happens to be nearer". It's perfect. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:14, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I can tell you why I don't like the use of "Macedonian Slavic". The only reasons that I don't like it is that it in the article that describes what it is it identifies as being the language of the "Republic of Macedonia". Although the dialect of Slavic-speakers in Greece overlaps the "Republic of Macedonia" in a couple of cities, as noted by Lunch for Two, the dialect originated in northern Greece and not in the "Republic of Macedonia". It's like saying we no longer identify with our roots, we are giving this language a new name and identity. Moreover, it ignores its strong relationship with the Bulgarian language too. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo, my point is not whether the dialect of an abandoned village was the same as that of the still-inhabited Slavic-speaking village nearby; it probably was. The idea is that because the population of that abandoned village was described as Bulgarian, the name in the Bulgarian literary standard is relevant to it per WP:NCGN. The naming convention is on my side here: the Bulgarian name is well motived, definitely relevant and permitted. With such villages, the question is not whether including the Bulgarian name is justified, but whether a name in the Macedonian literary standard is relevant at all. Sure, the division is artificial and non-intuitive, but you should address your complaints to ASNOM, not to me.

@Kwamikagami, I think 'Greek Macedonian' is very confusing. Without a hyperlink and without having a knowledge of Greek/Cyrillic writing, I may well assume it's about a Greek dialect of Macedonia.

@Fut.Perf., it is exactly this ambiguity of 'Macedonian Slavic' that I dislike. I feel that instead of letting readers interpret it as they wish, it would simply look wrong to everyone. I can't imagine the interpretation you're presenting from a Bulgarian perspective ever occurring in the mind of a Bulgarian reader. Instead, we'll have Dinner for Three-like revert wars going on all over these articles... To me, from a Bulgarian perspective, 'Macedonian Slavic' with a link to a section of Macedonian language is but a synonym for 'Macedonian language'. — Toдor Boжinov — 14:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, if that's the case, then I congratulate you for finally thinking like a linguist. It's fine. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

All good points Todor. Well done. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

"Greek Macedonian" is no more confusing that "Australian English" or "Canadian French" or "Brazilian Portuguese". It consists of a geographic modifier followed by a recognized language name. From what I understand, the Slavic speakers of Greece self-identify their dialects now as Macedonian. So if native speakers identify their speech form as a dialect of a language, and the linguistic evidence does not contradict that, then native speaker preference should prevail. Since the speakers of these varieties say they are speaking Macedonian, and there is no linguistic evidence to contradict that, then their language should be called "Macedonian". It doesn't matter whether or not Bulgarians are confused or offended by this. This is the English Wikipedia and Bulgarians are not our target audience. Claiming that Bulgarians would be offended by native speakers saying "We speak Macedonian" smacks of the overt nationalist POV that we work hard to ignore in Wikipedia, just as we ignore Nipson's hypernationalism that tries to eliminate any reference to Macedonian or Macedonia within the borders of Greece. --Taivo (talk) 18:31, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Now that's what I call a personal attack. btw you can't call it 'Greek Macedonian' because ancient Macedonian was Greek and it was called Macedonian. It's like calling it 'Greek Greek' or 'Macedonian Macedonian'. Slavic is Slavic and the written language is directly from Old Church Slavonic. Refer to Ancient Macedonian language. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 19:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Taivo: I quite agree with your argument about the principle, of course. But "Greek Macedonian" is still not what the literature calls this thing. You may find it logical, but it's still a neologism. Nobody calls it that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:48, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

That's a legitimate argument, Future. The argument "Bulgarians and Greeks don't like it", that is being offered by others, is not a legitimate argument. That's really my point. @Nipson, what languages were called in the past is irrelevant. What is relevant is what they are called now. The Aztec/Nahuatl language used to be called "Mexican", but no one makes the argument that contemporary "Mexican Spanish" should not be called that because "Mexican" used to refer to another, unrelated language. You have no basis in fact for your objection, Nipson, other than the standard Greek anti-Macedonian POV, "We don't like it". --Taivo (talk) 22:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

FutP, I don't have anything against Macedonian Slavic. I didn't think it was still in the running. I added it to my list above. As for Greek Macedonian not being in the lit, does that matter? We're not postulating a new language, we're simply speaking of the Macedonian language in Greece. That's no different than Canadian Gaelic, New York Cantonese, or Indian Urdu. — kwami (talk) 00:31, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Macedonian Slavic excludes Bulgarian. Calling it Greek Macedonian would cause more disputes. Does it have to be called anything? My first suggestion was to link to an article like Slavic speakers of Macedonia (Greece) (currently called Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia) instead of a language. That way all the language issues could be rolled in to that one article and Wikipedia readers would benefit from that information being in one place and that would prevent disputes across a range of articles. All disputes would be focussed in that one article and there would be far fewer disputes. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 01:02, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Taivo's initial proposal (also Kwami's 4th suggestion) seems the most logical and easiest to implement, given the clearly defined borders between Greek Macedonia and Thrace. Lunch for Two (talk) 01:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The geographic border between Greek Macedonia and Thrace may be clearly defined, but there is no isogloss between these two regions. Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect is transitional to the Rup dialects. I do not think it is appropriate to draw linguistic arguments against the inclusion of a Bulgarian name, then call it a day and divide everything along the Mesta. Suddenly ditching linguistics for geography makes no sense to me. At one point it's "they're the same", "what do you care about spelling differences" and "there is no border", the next minute it's "you can take this piece if you leave the rest of the region alone" and "let's invent a border".

And just to make it clear, what is the scope of this discussion? I'm assuming we're only talking about villages that currently have a Slavic-speaking population? — Toдor Boжinov — 10:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Todor, I made a suggestion which was reflective of the very issue you have raised regarding the Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect. Instead, you likened it to the Treaty of Bucharest and further derided the idea by saying "this prefecture is yours, the other one is ours", etc. Yes, it is true, dialect continuums do not follow prefecture lines, but in order for this issue to be solved lines must be drawn somewhere (We are all here discussing this issue precisely because no decisions have been made regarding this issue before). Across Wikipedia country borders are generally used, and in the absence of some authoritative information telling up who speaks what and where, it would make sense to make decisive calls at some point. And it these calls achieve consensus, then I don't see why they should not be implemented. Lunch for Two (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

My English is bad, but I will try to write my points, sorry for that. Thanks.

My first point (Slavic categorisation):

I personally have been at (2) and to some degreee at (1) proposal, just completelyy confused and I think others could be confused too. (4) is clearly non-linguistical, it is classifying languages by simply different geographical regions and the linguistic border should be rather used than borders of geographic regions isn't it? To me as the best categorisation seems Slavic, e.g.- Skopos (Greek: Σκοπός; Slavic: Сетина, Setina) and including both Bulgarian and Macedonian inscriptions if necessary, e.g. - Lofoi (Greek: Λόφοι, Slavic: Забърдени|Забрдени, Zabrdeni), which is much more appropriate than taking native names of Bulgarian and Macedonian Wikipedia under "Macedonian Slavic". The Slavic-speaking population in Greece has still not a codified language norm, language consciousness, actualy the majority language consciousness among these people is just Slavic and as alternative they identify their language as "Local", the categorisation would pass great with the self-identification of the locals, simple but including all points and standardized languages - Slavophone, Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavic. There are more refugees in Bulgaria from this area who still remember the names of their villages strongly claiming they are Bulgrian, the names are native in both Bulgarian and Macedonian Wikipedia, and in the Bulgarian Wikipedia there are even all the Slavic names to the lowest administrative unit, which do not exist in the Macedonian Wikipedia, are they copied from the Macedonian Slavic language? No, they are originally Bulgarian. The Slavic categorisation is the last which is going to cause serious disputes. What do you think about it?

My second point (Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect):

I strongly disagree with the (4) proposal - Macedonian in Macedonia and Bulgarian in Thrace. I am just amazed to where can go the lies of the Yugoslav, so called linguists. How not a Macedonian Slavic dialect (Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect), same as those of the Pomaks in West Thrace, as well as of Burgas, Haskovo etc. will be classified as Macedonian Slavic because Božidar Vidoeski, Z. Topolińska and B. Vidoeski want to consider it as such?? And they consider it as Macedonian Slavic only because it is located in Macedonia (region), still claiming that all Slavic dialects in this region are Macedonian Slavic and not giving any linguistic reasons or comparisons, altough some of the dialects are spoken at the Black Sea Coast - are they also Macedonian Slavic? Now the new science of these authors is going to discover that at most of the Black Sea coast and the Rhodopes are populated by ethnic Macedonians. However let's see the real feutures of Serres dialect here: Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect#Relationship to Standard Bulgarian and Standard Macedonian - Paradoxically, amazing but fact: 13 out of 13 feuteres of the dialect are the same as Standart Bulgarian and 0 out of 13 pass with Standart Macedonian, and I would like other Cyrillic-reader just to reread the 0% compatibility of Macedonian Slavic with this dialect, I am personally not suprised, the Rup dialects, from which group is this dialect, have the same feutures, that's the dialects of cities such as Plovdiv (partially), Malko Tarnovo, Burgas and they continue even to Northern Bulgaria. This crearly uncover the Macedonian Slavic propaganda in this region trying to steal all dialects in the region of Macedonia, regardless what are they in real. The Slavic languages should not be treated as geographical regions of Greece but rather we should see which dialect shares more features with which language and where is the linguistic border not the geographic border of Macedonia and Thrace. --Dinner for three (talk) 21:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Dinner for three, since "Slavic" is the name of the language family as a whole, it is unacceptable for the name of a single variety of a language of that family. This has been stated before, but perhaps too subtly so that you didn't notice it. "Slavic" is unacceptable. We draw arbitrary language boundaries all the time. So choose between option 1) Macedonian Slavic or 2) Macedonian in Greek Macedonia and Bulgarian in Thrace. Those seem to be the most viable options at this time. --Taivo (talk) 22:16, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

"Slavic languages" is the name of the language family as a whole and "Slavic" can mean varieties of things, let's heard other opinions for it. I didn't undarstand or leastways was not written for which region/teritorry you purposed "1) Macedonian Slavic"? --Dinner for three (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

As I read the discussion I see that User:Nipsonanomhmata and User:TodorBozhinov havе similar with mine points and would probably support me. --Dinner for three (talk) 23:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Dinner for three, Nipson is on the verge of being topic banned so I wouldn't count on his support. And Todor's main interest is in making sure that the Bulgarian POV is represented. "Macedonian Slavic" would cover all speakers of Macedonian in Greece since virtually all "Slavic" speakers in Greece self-identify as Macedonian. "Slavic" alone is unacceptable to the linguists here. It's not even in the range of possibilities that we're discussing and you pushing it won't make it any more acceptable, so you should simply give up on that answer. It is no more acceptable than Nipson's ridiculous suggestion of using "Old Church Slavonic", the name of a medieval language. So the two options that have gained the most traction are 1) "Macedonian Slavic" for all Slavic varieties in Greece and 2) "Macedonian" for varieties in Greek Macedonia and "Bulgarian" for varieties in Thrace. --Taivo (talk) 01:45, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

In this case I do agree with Dinner for three. "Slavic languages" is a generic title that covers all the angles. Yes, I know that "Slavic languages" covers all the languages in the Slavic world. But in modern Greece this descriptor is ever more accurate. Many Russians, Bulgarians, and Serbians have immigrated in to northern Greece and the Macedonian region of Greece. Yes, "Slavic languages" is acceptable to me. And I do not agree with Taivo that virtually all Slavic speakers in Greece self-identify as "Macedonian" (nor is that consensus on Wikipedia, if you take the trouble to read the articles on Wikipedia). They do identify as being "of Macedonia, Greece" (which is also described as "Macedonian") but only a minority self-identify as being "Macedonian" in the way that it is defined on Wikipedia (which represents pro-"Republic of Macedonia" POV and makes the Slavic speakers of Greece appear to be "ethnic Macedonian" which many are not). My first suggestion was to avoid linking to a specific language and to link to something like Slavic speakers of Macedonia (Greece) which is an honest descriptor and this has been completely disregarded because editors including Fut Perf and Taivo appear to prefer disputes throughout Wikipedia rather than on just one language-related page. A generic descriptor will reduce the number of disputes considerably and it reflects the actual situation (and not a contrived 'let's force-feed "ethnic Macedonian" propaganda to the world'). Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 11:01, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

On a contary all good points are from Nipson and Todor, who follow the sources. As for "Bulgarian POV being represented", will you be the new inventor of a new model in Wikipedia, because we should stick to the sources not to new inventions? The Bulgarian speakers and Bulgarian-identifying population of 20th century from the sources and the Slavic speakers today are the same people who speak the same dialects. The present-day sources doesn't say that all the Slavic speech in Macedonia and even in Thrace is Macedonian Slavic, the dialects are not geographical regions, Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialect is classified as Bulgarian by thirty-party sources such as Roland Sussex and Paul Cubberleym, it have 0 out of 13 (~0%) similarities with standart Macedonian Slavic and 13 out of 13 are the same as Standart Bulgarian:(see the table in the bottom)

and could you point how you will invent this dialect as Macedonian Slavic? Solun-Voden dialect is also transitional between Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavic and will you be the new inventor that invent it only as Macedonian Slavic? The sources also say for big part of these villages in every area, to the most western in Florina, that were inhabited until mid-20th century by Bulgarian-identifying people, with Bulgarian schools, Bulgarian Exarchate churches, etc. and WP:NCGN defines relevant alternative geographic names as 'used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place' (copied from Todor's great point). You said that all "Slavic" speakers in Greece self-identify as Macedonian?? Do you know anything about them, on a contary allmostly all identify as Slavophones nowadays and in the soon history the majority as Bulgarians for much more time than the present-day minority of those who identify as ethnic Macedonian. You said "Slavic" alone is unacceptable to the linguists here? Does the new invention "Macedonian Slavic" is more acceptable by the linguists for all Slavic varieties in Greece incl. Xanthi and the Pomak villages in West Thrace, or for the Bulgarian speech in Serres and Drama, as well as the transitional in Solun-Voden?

Comparison of the Serres-Nevrokop dialect with Standard Bulgarian and Standard Macedonian

Parameter	Serres-Nevrokop dialect	Standard Bulgarian (based on Eastern Bulgarian)	Standard Macedonian	Dupnitsa dialect	Samokov dialect	English
Proto-Slavic tʲ/dʲ – Old Church Slavonic щ/жд (ʃt/ʒd)	щ/жд (ʃt/ʒd) – леща/между	щ/жд (ʃt/ʒd) – леща/между	ќ/ѓ (c/ɟ) – леќа/меѓу	щ/жд (ʃt/ʒd) – леща/между	щ/жд (ʃt/ʒd) – леща/между	lentils/between
Proto-Slavic ɡt/kt – Old Church Slavonic щ (ʃt)*	щ (ʃt) – нощ	щ (ʃt) – нощ	ќ (c) – ноќ	щ (ʃt) – нощ	щ (ʃt) – нощ	night
Old Church Slavonic ѣ (yat)	я/е (ʲa/ɛ) – бял/бели, sometimes even я/я (ʲa/ʲa) – бял/бяли (Drama)^[1]	я/е (ʲa/ɛ) – бял/бели	е (ɛ) – бел/бели	е (ɛ) – бел/бели	е (ɛ) – бел/бели	white
Old Church Slavonic ѫ (yus), approx. ɔ̃	ъ (ə) – мъж	ъ (ə) – мъж	а (a) – маж	а (a) – маж	а (a) – маж	man
Old Church Slavonic ъ (ə)	ъ (ə) – сън	ъ (ə) – сън	о (ɔ) – сон	о (ɔ) – сон	а (a) – сан	dream
Old Church Slavonic ръ/рь	ръ/ър (rə/ər) – връх, кръф	ръ/ър (rə/ər) – връх, кръв	vocalic r – врв, крв	vocalic r – врх, крф	vocalic r – врх, крф	summit, blood
Old Church Slavonic лъ/ль	ъл (əl) – сълза	лъ/ъл (lə/əl) – сълза	oл (ɔl) – солза	vocalic l/ъ (ə) – слза/съза depending on region	у (u) – суза	tear
Old Church Slavonic x /x/	Preserved – бях, хубаво	Preserved – бях, хубаво	Lost or replaced by ф/в (f/v) – бев, убаво	Preserved – бех, хубаво	Preserved – бех, хубаво	was, nice
Vowel reduction	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Definite article	Single definite article – момчето	Single definite article – момчето	Triple definite article – момчето, момчево, момчено	Single definite article – момчето	Single definite article – момчето	the boy
Ending of verbs in 1st person sing. present time	а (я) – 1st and 2nd conjugation, ам (ям) – 3rd – чета, пиша	а (я) – 1st and 2nd conjugation, ам (ям) – 3rd – чета, пиша	only ам – читам, пишувам	а – 1st and 2nd conjugation, ам – 3rd – чета, пиша	only (и/е)м – четем, пишем	(I) read, (I) write
Formation of past perfect tense	бях + past participle – бях писал, бях молил	бях + past participle – бях писал, бях молил	имам + past passive aorist participle – имам пишано, имам молено	бeх + past participle – бех писал, бех молил	бех + past participle – бех писал, бeх молил	(I) had read, (I) had written
Word stress	Dynamic - доби́тък, пера́	Dynamic - доби́тък, пера́	Fixed antepenultimate - до́биток, пе́рам	Dynamic – доби́ток, пера́	Dynamic – доби́ток, пере́м	cattle, (I) wash

--Dinner for three (talk) 11:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

That comparison is pure WP:OR (which is why I just deleted it from the dialect article). Who tells us that these 13 features are in fact representative, and that we wouldn't find 14 others where the comparison works out the other way round? Personally, I would actually agree it looks like there are more similarities that way, but as long as no reliable source proposes this argument ("the Serres dialect belongs not to Macedonian but to Bulgarian"), it's difficult to base any decision on it. Unfortunately (for your point of view) you can't even hope to get any such argument from Bulgarian dialectologists, because they seem to be far too preoccupied with proving that all of Macedonian is Bulgarian anyway, which means that such a comparison wouldn't even make sense to them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Future Perfect knows neither Bulgarian nor its dialects spoken in Macedonia, but this does not prevent him deleting the work of others claiming that it is "not representative". Funny things going on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.87.254.57 (talk) 13:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Oooooh, see who's back. Lantonov, if you want to join discussions again, use your account. And try to avoid willfully misrepresenting what other people say, it's not good. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Nipson/Dinner, to claim that there is a terminological difference between "Slavic" and "Slavic languages" and that our readers would understand that "Slavic languages" are somehow not a derivation of "Slavic", but that the latter is a descendant of the former, is utter and complete foolishness. You're so determined to push that Greek "nothing's going to be named Macedonian if we can do anything to prevent it" POV, that you are failing to stand back and actually look at what you are saying with a critical eye. And Nipson, you completely confuse ethnicity with linguistic identity. The two are different things, but people who don't know any linguistics often confuse the two. The people, of course, say "We're Macedonian" because they live in Greek Macedonia--the Greek speakers say that, too. But I'm talking about answering the question, "What language do you speak?", not "What are you?" If the speakers of this language in Greece are saying that they speak "Macedonian" and not "Bulgarian", then that should be taken into consideration here. But it doesn't matter how hard to push here, the linguists here are going to reject "Slavic" as a label for the Macedonian language spoken in Greece. --Taivo (talk) 12:32, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Unproductive sidelined discussion

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

"Slavic" and "Slavic languages" is the same thing and I don't know what you are trying to say in your first sentence. Your second sentence is nonsense since the region of Macedonia in Greece is called Macedonia and has been for most of human history (unlike the the new wider geographical region that has mostly appeared over the last century) and the people of Macedonia in Greece are called Macedonians but that is not their ethnicity since their ethnicity is Greek. Have you ever walked through the region of Macedonia and asked people what language they speak? The last time I walked through Thessaloniki I noted that there were more Russians than I was expecting. Not one person claimed that they spoke anything other than Russian, Bulgarian, or Serbian. Are you going to claim that they are frightened of declaring that they are "Macedonian" from the "Republic of Macedonia", that they are closet "ethnic Macedonians" and that they prefer to declare that they are Serbian. Serbians certainly are popular in Greece and moreso because of the camaraderie in the first and second world wars. Or is it perhaps because the "Republic of Macedonia" used to be called South Serbia (Vardar Banovina) and because the language that they speak is a dialect of Serbian as well as Bulgarian. What they identify with today (in the majority) in what used to be South Serbia is not what they identified with at the beginning of the 20th Century. Ofcourse you are going to argue that it only matters what they identify with today and it makes no difference whatever anybody else says. Moreover, is it not possible for you to write one single paragraph without attacking anybody. If you look back throughout this discussion it appears to be your mission to attack individuals. Do you have difficulty conversing without attacking people? It is not necessary. As for what language they speak in modern Greece and what ethnicity they are they can be generally identified as bilingual Slavophones/Hellenophones with Greek ethnicity. Any further attempts at subdivision is politically-motivated irredentist nonsense, and blatant WP:OR as is the case in villages like Lofoi. And yes it is always possible to find WP:RS to back up political-nonsense in the English-speaking world as is evidenced by many articles on Wikipedia. Having said all of the above. I am certain that there will be continued attempts to subdivide it. In which case, do not exclude Bulgarian and don't forget to mention that there are other slavic speakers too and notably Russians (and take a look at Mount Athos since there are no "ethnic Macedonian" monasteries at Mount Athos). Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 09:51, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Nipson, you don't seem to know much, if anything, about linguistics and keep returning to ethnicity and off-topic arguments about Slavic immigrants. This comment from your talk page, "The only "Macedonian" ethnicity that I recognise was reverse assimilated in ancient Greece" says everything we need to know about your POV--you don't accept any Greek Slavic speakers as "Macedonian" and never will. So your presence in this discussion is rather unhelpful. But you are correct in one thing--"Slavic" and "Slavic languages" are the same thing, so calling Greek Macedonian "Slavic" is unacceptable here (other than discussing its historical origin). It's like calling the English language spoken in France "Germanic" rather than "English", because the French don't like the English. It's not a valid linguistic argument. --Taivo (talk) 12:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Or by calling the Serbian language spoken in the "Republic of Macedonia" "Macedonian" rather than Serbian (or as a dialect of Bulgarian). Ethnicity is packaged in to this only because Wikipedia articles indicate, in an irredentist manner, that the "Macedonian language" is attributable to an ethnicity. Nor can you exclude the immigrant makeup of the Slavic-speaking population of northern Greece because it is not inconsiderable and the immigrants are part of the Slavic-speaking population. There was a Russian Post Office at Mount Athos and you cannot attribute the Russian name of Mount Athos to "Macedonian Slavic". Ofcourse I recognise Slavophone/Hellenophones who were born and live in northern Greece as Macedonian but not the new kind of "Macedonian" that is being touted as an irredentist ethnicity. My presence in this discussion has at least allowed Todor to contribute constructively as he was not allowed to do so before I entered this discussion. That much has been useful at least to Todor and Dinner for Three. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 13:35, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Fut Perf. Your last action was plainly impolite. Not that it was out of character. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 13:58, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it was an appropriate action, since the question we're asking is strictly a linguistic question, and not an ethnic question nor an immigration question nor a historical question. --Taivo (talk) 19:08, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Back to the substantive question

As of this point, Todor and I seem to be in basic agreement that a compromise is possible. Right now there are two main options that will be acceptable to the linguists. It will be pointless to discuss other options since they are non-starters.

"Greek Macedonian". This subsumes all the native South Slavic dialects of Greece under a single label.
"Macedonian" for native South Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia and "Bulgarian" for native South Slavic dialects of Thrace.

I don't really see the need for a separate article on the native South Slavic dialects of Greece because the linguistic information could easily be subsumed under Macedonian language (Greek Macedonian varieties) and Bulgarian language (Thracian varieties). The Greek "Slavic" article is not a linguistic article at all, but a historical and ethnicity article. As a linguistic article it is basically a content fork because it duplicates information that should be in a dialect section of Macedonian language (or Bulgarian language). The article should be renamed "Slavic people of Greece" or something like that, because it's not about the language, but about the ethnic groups that speak that language. It should not have linguistic content linked to it just so Greek editors can link somewhere besides Macedonian language. --Taivo (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, it's very regrettable I find myself in partial disagreement with you once more, Taivo. About your options: number one is completely out, for two reasons: first, "Greek Macedonian" is still excluded for the reasons I stated – because nobody uses it; it would be a Wikipedia-invented neologism. You have not refuted this objection. Second, the scope of the proposal is wrong. Nobody has ever suggested we should have a single term for all of northern Greece. To apply anything containing the term "Macedonian", in whichever combination, to Thrace would be absurd; the Pomak dialects there have never been claimed as such, and nobody here has ever proposed to extend any such naming solution to them. About the second solution: I'm not sure you have made yourself familiar enough with the geograhic details. The possible boundaries that we have been discussing, and which I do believe could serve as a basis for some compromise, are substantially further west than that between Macedonia and Thrace.

About saying that other than these two options are non-starters, I don't think that's constructive (ignoring for the moment the likes of Nipson's OCS, which of course is absurd.) I reiterate the option of "Macedonian Slavic"; it's certainly still what much of the actual literature uses. – I agree with your argument about the separate article; we certainly could have one, but we haven't one now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:49, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

While I don't share your particular objections to "Greek Macedonian", if it doesn't work for you, then that's fine. I'm not pushing for any particular option as much as I'm trying to keep unacceptable options at bay--"Old Church Slavonic", "Slavic", etc. "Macedonian Slavic" would be an acceptable option for me. Since it's used in the literature and "Macedonian" properly narrows the scope of "Slavic", then that would be OK, but we need to link it somewhere. Linking it to Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia is not an accurate link since that article is not a linguistic article. For now, it should link to Macedonian language primarily or, perhaps, an article to be created as a stub which links appropriately to Macedonian language and Bulgarian language. --Taivo (talk) 22:01, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

In regards to either "Macedonian" or "Macedonian Slavic", they both face the same problem; At what stage in the dialect continuum does the language become less like Macedonian and more like another language (In this case presumably Bulgarian)? If we are going to call dialect X which clearly falls under the Bulgarian diasystem as "Bulgarian", then I don't see why we shouldn't also call Dialect Y which is clearly part of the Macedonian dialect group as simply "Macedonian". It is possible to arrive at some compromise between the Bulgarian and Macedonian sides as to where the demarcation of the dialects should be. No doubt, this is likely to include some sort of dual solution/formula in the exclusively transitional zone. If "Macedonian Slavic" and this dual formula approach is to be adopted, it seems somewhat unusual to have "Macedonian Slavic/Bulgarian" as the local name, given that there is nothing less slavic about Bulgarian or more slavic about Macedonian. I am yet still to see a linguistic (and non-ethno/political) reason as to why simply "Macedonian" is not adequete (notwithstanding the fact that there is only one "Macedonian language"; Greek and Aromanian dialects aside).

If "Macedonian Slavic" is being proposed simply to keep the peace between from the side of the Bulgarian/Greek users then it hardly seems like a compelling reason to implement this term. If ethnic affiliation is the reason why there is some hesitation as to using simply "Macedonian", there are a range of other comparable solutions already working effectively on Wikipedia. One only needs to look to at the system regarding the Cajun French for example, who no doubt have a strong American ethnic consciousness, however in the towns inhabited by them the "French" form is given in the title, because linguistically, it is this language that they are speaking. The moment ethnic affiliation gets dragged into the debate the messier it becomes and the debate gets sidetracked from what is really being discussed. Maybe a bit of WP:BOLD could come in handy here? Lunch for Two (talk) 03:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

"Macedonian" means the Macedonian as opposed to Bulgarian language. Or perhaps the Macedonian dialect of Greek. "Macedonian Slavic", on the other hand, means the Slavic language or dialect(s) spoken in Greece. The first runs into the problems addressed at Arbcom, the latter is a geographic label. Not saying it's ideal, but it's what I'd lean toward. — kwami (talk) 03:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Well yes, it does mean Macedonian as opposed to Bulgarian because that is the language which is spoken in places such as Florina and Edessa. I feel that this has been thoroughly proven already. The fact that the Macedonian dialect of Greek is almost never referred to as simply "Macedonian" in an English speaking context makes me wonder whether the average reader would somehow make this conclusion. The term that you were proposing earlier ("Greek Macedonian"), however, does give the impression that it would be a dialect of the Greek language.

"Macedonian Slavic" is arguably just as applicable to the Slavic dialects spoken throughout the rest of the geographical region of Macedonia (Including all of R. of Macedonia and parts of Albania, Greece and Bulgaria). I am not aware of "Macedonian Slavic" being restricted to the varieties spoken in Greece, many of which are exactly the same as varieties used in the Republic of Macedonia. Rather, it would seem unusual, for these purposes, to revive a term which has seen considerably less circulation than simply "Macedonian" over the past 65 years. Lunch for Two (talk) 05:55, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow. "Macedonian" also refers to Slavic dialects spoken throughout Macedonia, so I fail to see how that is an argument for or against either, unless it's for or against both. Macedonian Greek is the Greek of Macedonia. Greek Macedonian is the Macedonian of Greece. That's how English noun phrases work. — kwami (talk) 06:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

No, sorry, in this case, they just don't work like that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Local Slavic (Bulgarian/Macedonian) would be the best solution in my opinion. Jingby (talk) 06:09, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Local Slavic is fine by me. — kwami (talk) 06:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Only if the names given are in fact specifically local dialect forms. Won't work if they are normalized or coincide with the standard form. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you are reading "Macedonian Slavic" wrong. In normal English usage, it is not an alternate name for "Macedonian". It is identical in structure to "Greek Macedonian", which can be paraphrased as "the Macedonian spoken in Greece". Thus, normal English usage would paraphrase "Macedonian Slavic" as "the Slavic spoken in Macedonia" (which we would then have to assume meant "Greek Macedonia"). So Macedonian Slavic doesn't necessarily connect the Greek Slavic dialects with Macedonian. But it's still not an optimal solution as the potential for ambiguity is great. If we can agree on a dividing line, simply labeling each "Macedonian" or "Bulgarian" really solves most of the problems. As you know, Future Perfect, we can't always follow WP:COMMONNAME to the letter because of other problems that are introduced. In this case, accuracy is something that might be sacrificed were we simply to count noses and not use our brains to evaluate the results as well. --Taivo (talk) 06:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

As I said earlier, I regard the "potential for ambiguity" as an advantage in this case, not a disadvantage. As does much of the academic literature, which opts for this solution for precisely the same reason. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:36, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, your assertion that "Greek Macedonian" = "the Macedonian spoken in Greece" is wrong. For a variey of reasons, "Greek Macedonian/Macedonian Greek" has never been used to describe the forms of this language spoken in Greece. The only term in existence to describe these language form is "Aegean Macedonian", and it is rarely used because these dialects are not exclusively interrelated to eachother, in a way which makes them specifically notable when compared to the rest of the dialects of the Macedonian language. The only time this term is used is when general and non-linguistic statements are made (eg. the Aegean Macedonian dialects at one stage were openly supressed, etc.). I'm not advocating that "Aegean Macedonian" should be used (it would make things more confusing/Isn't reflective of the trend on WP), but rather and just mentioning that it is generally the term used in this context.

Furthermore it is extremely difficult to assume that "Macedonian Slavic" can be paraphrased as "the Slavic spoken in Greek Macedonia", especially when the name itself is so vague. I do however agree with you that once some form of dividing line is found, then the matter will be much simpler. At the moment we are discussing numerous issues, and this is leading to the confusion. Lunch for Two (talk) 07:24, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

No, not "the Slavic spoken in Greek Macedonia", just "the Slavic spoken in Macedonia". As you've said, ambiguity can be desirable. — kwami (talk) 07:47, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Like I said above, I am strongly opposed to the ambiguity of 'Macedonian Slavic'; I find it quite misleading, and I do not see how this could be desirable. 'Local Slavic' is fine by me also. — Toдor Boжinov — 08:19, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

"Local Slavic" is not really a good option since there isn't any kind of description as to what "local" we're talking about. "Local Slavic" is equally descriptive of the language of Moscow, of Vladivistok, of Kyiv, of Warsaw, of Prague, etc. It isn't much better than simple unmodified "Slavic", which isn't going to fly with the linguists. And, Lunch for Two, your assertion that "Greek Macedonian" and "Macedonian Greek" are synonyms is simply wrong and ignores the basic rules of adjective-noun combinations in English. As I said above, I don't have a strong preference for one solution or another, but I oppose any of the linguistically wrong ("Old Church Slavonic") or intentionally vague solutions ("Slavic" and "Local Slavic"). While it isn't my first choice, Future Perfect correctly points out that "Macedonian Slavic" has the support of reliable sources. --Taivo (talk) 11:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, I may sound like I am repeating myself here, but "Greek Macedonian" in 99.9% of cases refers exclusively to something ethnically/linguistically Greek, which is related to the Greek region of Macedonia. Regardless of what may be logical in English, the phrase "Greek Macedonian" has never been used to describe the forms of Macedonian spoken in Greece. Lunch for Two (talk) 11:36, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

One option that hasn't been mentioned is "Southern Macedonian", a term used by both Linguasphere and Voegelin & Voegelin for the Macedonian dialects of Greek Macedonia. Both sources also place Bulgarian only in Thrace. While these aren't the first-line sources for the issue, it is another option. --Taivo (talk) 15:17, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

"Southern Macedonian" has the same problem as "local Slavic", in that it implies dialectal specificness where that is mostly not the case. As for Linguasphere, small correction: it has "53-AAA-hai. makedonski-SE" for the region of "Kukus... Voden"; that's the orange-ish area around Edessa and Thessaloniki in our MKD map. There is also "53-AAA-hag. pirinski" located in "Pirin mountains" (that's the green-ish area in the MKD map that stretches into SE Bulgaria, i.e. "Pirin Macedonia", overlapping with the yellowish SW area in the BG map). Then, assigned to the Bulgarian side, it has "53-AAA-hbe. bulgarski-SE", located in "Maritsa middle valley southwards, Plovdiv+Khaskovo... Rodopi Planina ... Primorsko-coast" (that's essentially the red "Rup" area in our BG map, presumably including any adjacent Greek areas to the south of it, i.e. the brownish area around Serres and Drama in our MK map), and "53-AAA-hbd. bulgarski-SW.", located "south of Sofia" (that agrees with the yellow area in the BG map, and apparently overlaps with the "Pirin" entry). So, if there's any boundary through Greece implied here, it is, as I said, substantially further west than the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace. What it seems to be describing is a division approximately along the Yat border, which quite conveniently coincides roughly with a straight north-south line from the MK-BG state border south to Thessaloniki (the border between the orange-ish and brown-ish areas in our MK map.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:44, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

So, Future, the implication I get from your posts is that your preferred option is "Macedonian Slavic" because 1) it is used in the literature and 2) it is sufficiently ambiguous without being overly vague. --Taivo (talk) 17:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:01, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

"Macedonian Slavic" is ambiguous also because of the name of the "Republic of Macedonia". The language is not of the "Republic of Macedonia" because its written origin is in northern Greece and the language existed before the formation of the "Republic of Macedonia". Moreover it supports the irredentist POV of the "Republic of Macedonia". "Local Slavic" is fine by me also but not "Greek Macedonian". Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 18:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

"Local Slavic" is unacceptable because it is almost as vague in its import as "Slavic" and is far more vague than "Macedonian Slavic". People in Moscow also speak "Local Slavic". --Taivo (talk) 20:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Then how about "Slavic of northern Greece" or "Slavic of Macedonia (Greece)"? Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 22:05, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Far too long and too cumbersome. We are talking about language tags of alternate names in lead sentences here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:07, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

When considering the complexity involved here wouldn't it be easier to have one long name that satisfies all Balkan countries than a short name that satisfies only one? Moreover, wouldn't it be easier to only have to discuss this once and agree this once and not have to have this conversation for almost every border village in northern Greece? Although I suspect that the spelling of the alternative Slavic name will continue to be argued over. The majority of editors in this discussion favor "local Slavic" (or at least something that represents "local Slavic") that is distinguishable between the Slavic language that has recently been called "Macedonian" language. I do not think that it is unreasonable to use "Slavic of Macedonia (Greece)" as "local Slavic". Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 15:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Just to remind you, Nipson, Wikipedia doesn't run by "voting". "Local Slavic" is unacceptably vague for the linguists here. Your political issues that blind you to anything called "Macedonian" in relation to the Slavic-speaking population of northern Greece (as evidenced by your own comments on your talk page) are irrelevant here. "Macedonian Slavic" is a perfectly reasonable form to use and, as Future Perfect has pointed out, it is the term used by reliable sources. No one uses "Local Slavic", so that's the end of that discussion. "Macedonian Slavic" has the evidence to support it. --Taivo (talk) 17:06, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Where X is X and Where Y is Y

Regardless of what term is eventually decided upon in the above discussion, it makes sense to come to a consensus as to where it would be appropriate to implement the agreed terms and where not to. Furthermore, given the linguistic issues surrouding this debate, would it be appropriate to reflect the transitional nature of the language spoken in some parts (possibly using both languages?), or better to solve the issue by a one phrase appelation only. Lunch for Two (talk) 07:20, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Old Church Slavonic

playground closed

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I think that Old Church Slavonic is being dismissed too casually. Please take the trouble to read the article on Old Church Slavonic thoroughly. Old Church Slavonic is the keystone of ALL written Slavic language. The written Slavic language propagated from Thessaloniki to the rest of the Slavic speaking world. Moreover, Old Church Slavonic has no ethnic or national identifiers in the name which makes it neutral. It is also kind to both Bulgaria and to the "Republic of Macedonia" in that it is the genuine/actual root of the written language in both cases. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 13:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

No, Nipson, it is being dismissed because it is completely inaccurate and linguistically false. Old Church Slavonic is the label used for a language that is no longer spoken. As Kwami pointed out, it would be the equivalent of calling English "Anglo-Saxon". You would be lying to our readers. --Taivo (talk) 13:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, well. As they say in Biblical Latin, "Bunã dzua oaminji bunji sh-ghini v-afaiu." Let's keep this out of the above thread though. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Taivo, Wikipedia is already lying to its readers. Wikipedia claims that there is a distinct "Macedonian ethnicity" and a distinct "Macedonian language", which are both modern inventions, that ignore their roots in "Old Macedonian" (which is an alternative name for OCS). Moreover, Wikipedia claims that villages in Greece have "Macedonian Slavic" names as though these villages were at some time populated by the "Republic of Macedonia" which mostly lies outside the territory of what was once ancient Upper Macedonia. (btw that's the first constructive thing I've ever seen you do ... the last section was getting far too long). Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes Nipson, I don't exist, I am a modern invention. :| I guess I should be grateful that your people showed mine "how to write" and "how to pray" [8]. Everyone has tried to be patient with you (especially those such as myself whom you constantly slander, vilify and offensive ethnic slurs about), maybe it's time to reflect some of this respect towards the others here? Just a suggestion. Lunch for Two (talk) 14:10, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I've never identified with the Greeks "as my people". Although I do like them quite a lot. Did you take the trouble to read the article about Old Church Slavonic? Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

It is good to see some development of the discussion here. However, I must point out that the Slavic language throughout northern Greece is fundamentally the same. The Slavic has the same roots in OCS. It does not seem appropriate to carve up Greece like a cake to stick a Bulgarian flag in some articles and a "Republic of Macedonia" flag in other articles. However, if you are both going to ignore your fundamental OCS roots. As Todor has already suggested when the historic record shows that Bulgarian schools and churches were at certain villages then you should allow Bulgaria to stick its unique identifier in to that article. I don't think that it is reasonable, as Fut Perf suggests, to ignore Bulgaria. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:10, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Nipson, "Old Macedonian" was a branch of "Old Church Slavonic", just as "Old English" was a branch of "Old Low German". But that was 1000 years ago. Applying millennium-old labels to modern languages when linguists make no such assertions is less constructive than pointing out the ridiculousness of the suggestion. When you succeed in getting English language moved to Anglo-Saxon language or French language moved to Old French language or Vulgar Latin, then you might have a leg to stand on. --Taivo (talk) 14:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I was not in the Macedonia-related articles for quite a lot, cause the POV discussion gives me a lot of negativity. However, I am here again. How can you say that we are modern inventions?! Like we are maybe invented just as the light/power was invented. Your arguments are stupid and outdated. And for the names of the villages in Greek Macedonia, yeah there should be a Macedonian (Slavic) version of the name. — Tomica1111 • Question Existing? 14:21, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

No, Taivo. "Old Macedonian" is an alternative name for Old Church Slavonic. And I do not deny your existence 1111tomica. I just am telling you that your ethnic identity was fabricated in Communist Yugoslavia like the Yugo automobile. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

IMO this is what your ethnic identity and language looks like to me. No offence intended. I am just trying to put across my opinion in this case. Clearly, there is no pedigree in the automobile. Detaching the ethnicity and language from its roots is like manufacturing a new car in the 20th Century with no pedigree. Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there a WP policy to deal with this kind of offensive behavior and ethnic hatred? It is a pattern which has been constantly repeating itself since the Kostas Novakis fiasco. Lunch for Two (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

As I said before. No offense or hatred intended. Just trying to put across my opinion. Do you really dislike the Yugo automobile so much? Nipsonanomhmata ^(Talk) 14:46, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why your comments are still being taken seriously. Not just because of the Yugo shit but a lot of what you write is so stupid (ex: the Greek Macedonia thing just above) that I often find myself laughing while reading what you write. --Local hero ^talk 14:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This is certainly no longer tolerable. Reported at WP:AE. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

There's Already a Hatnote

Istormacedonian, there's already a hatnote to distinguish modern Macedonian from ancient Macedonian. Your edit is simply pushing an anti-Macedonian POV. If you continue to revert, your editing privileges can be subject to blocks or bans. --Taivo (talk) 11:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

No article about Macedonian (Slavic) Language should miss a statement about Ancient Macedonian Language being a Greek dialect, for obvious reasons. (Comment from User:IstorMacedonian placed in wrong section, moved here by User:Taivo.)

There is already a hatnote on the article that makes that distinction. Once a hatnote is placed, it is no longer repeatedly mentioned in the article. The hatnote takes precedence. --Taivo (talk) 12:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, first of all, Ancient Macedonian wasn't a Greek dialect, at least not in the strict sense of the word, or Alexander's generals would have been able to understand him when he spoke Macedonian. But I do agree that we should note in the classification section that it was not related to Macedonian Slavic, because that is a point that is sometimes confused, sometimes purposefully. IMO, just dab'ing "for other uses" doesn't cut it, as it doesn't correct the misunderstanding. — kwami (talk) 13:38, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm willing to consider some very neutral wording, but IstorMacedonian's wording wasn't neutral. The wording "should not be confused with" isn't neutral. (I used the "other uses" template because it was quick and available. If there is a more appropriate template for a hatnote, that's fine.) Another option is simply to place the word "modern" in front of "Macedonian" in the first sentence of the classification section. --Taivo (talk) 13:45, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The most accurate and neutral statement is "The modern Macedonian language is not descended from the Ancient Macedonian language." That's all that need be said about it. --Taivo (talk) 14:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

That's perfect. — kwami (talk) 14:47, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

^ Тhe use of ʲa is more wide-spread than in Standard Bulgarian, e.g. ряка /rʲaka/, чувяк /t͡ʃuvʲak/ [river, human] where Standard Bulgarian has ɛ): река /rɛka/, човек /t͡ʃuvɛk/

[1] Тhe use of ʲa is more wide-spread than in Standard Bulgarian, e.g. ряка /rʲaka/, чувяк /t͡ʃuvʲak/ [river, human] where Standard Bulgarian has ɛ): река /rɛka/, човек /t͡ʃuvɛk/

[1]