Talk:Serbo-Croatian/Archive 8

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Restrict component-language articles to the standards?

There has been some discussion, due to the recent move of historical material from the Croatian article to this one, that the Croatian article should be restricted to Standard Croatian, with coverage of the-general-language-spoken-by-Croats here. We would, of course, have to do the same with all four individual articles.

The Serbian article is already pretty close to that. The difficulty would be the history section, which currently has nothing to do with developing Serbian as a separate language from Croatian. Do we have the refs to do that? I can understand leaving some of the pre-Serbian history that's cited in histories of the Serbian language, as long as it's mentioned here as well, but where would the main coverage of Serbian-language history start? In the mid-19th c, with the establishment of a dual standard? With Croatian nationalism during the Yugoslav era? With the separation of the standards after the breakup of Yugoslavia? Note that in Bosnia, for several years after independence "Serbian" was simply the name used for SC when spoken by Croats, and was not linguistically distinct from Croatian.

I think we obviously need to have a comfortable approach with Serbian before we can think of messing with Croatian, which is more involved. — kwami (talk) 21:16, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to restrict the Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian articles to the Standards and put everything else here. --Taivo (talk) 22:31, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I think the history sections should consider the entire period since the first emergence of them as a distinct standards—the 19th century for Croatian and Serbian AFAIK. --JorisvS (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

It might be the late 19th century, but as I said, I'm reasonably certain no explicit distinction was made until the mid-20th century. Though I admit it would take some considerable research to make absolutely certain noone advocated the point of view that these are separate languages before that time. Anyway, yes, its probably a good idea. -- Director (talk) 14:26, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Could be, I really don't know. But regardless of whether they were considered distinct languages, the standardization history relevant for the current Standards would start there. --JorisvS (talk) 16:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

If we restrict them to their standards, what do we do about Burgenland Croatian? That's an entirely different language than "Croatian", yet it goes by the same name. It would make no sense to cover it (other than passingly) in an article on standardized Croatian SC, yet it would also be weird to exclude it from an article on Croatian. — kwami (talk) 18:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Probably no more weird than excluding Fijian Hindustani from the article on Hindustani. --Taivo (talk) 19:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In the application for ISO recognition of Slavomosilano, the author says, referring to one of the individual Standard languages of this group, e.g. Croatian or Bosnian, should be avoided, the more so, as its individual character is mainly due to the language contact with Italian and its dialects, especially that of Lower Molise. So they also think of "Croatian" as being a SC standard. — kwami (talk) 10:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Selective argumentation, one point of view and contradictory claims  !

This entire article is in total contradiction with its individual subject elaborated elsewhere in this very same encyclopedia (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin) !!! I haven't seen such bizarre situation on Wikipedia, ever, although I am well aware of all its weaknesses and contradictions, and I have been in all kind of strange situations and seen all kind of strange articles (as you probably all have) but this one elevated absurdity to another level.

Unfortunately, instead of encyclopedic summary of information, this article rather struggling to prove its point, for all the wrong reasons and from one and entirely biased point of view, selectively using facts and arguments from historical and recent events. Bottom line is that article instead of informing, cheery picking facts and unreferenced claims for the purpose of advocating theory which in essence and reality lacks any relevance and meaning. Entire article is written in truly deceptive manner, with chapter "Name" gone furthest.--Santasa99 (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Care to elaborate? --JorisvS (talk) 23:14, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I was just about to place templates on first three chapters, but I am pretty reluctant or even having second thoughts since I'm not sure if I have enough patience to elaborate and then defend arguments which I feel are doomed in advance because it really seems as if this article was written from the "fan POV", while using "wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information" or with cheery picked info's. So, question is do you care to accept reasonable arguments and even support changes, or you are just willing to hear my elaboration so that I can receive a proper "lecture" for my "digressions".--Santasa99 (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

OK, I placed templates, and hopefully we will be able to make some correspondence without storming into crusade. Templates are temporarily placed to point chapters which I find unbalanced to some extent. I am open to debate, point by point to avoid any confusion or misinterpretation. My first objection is that article favors one side, very openly, with arguments and facts, sometimes dubious and references often unreliable or biased --Santasa99 (talk) 03:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted your edits since you haven't provided any actual evidence. Your opionion without stating the issues is irrelevant. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:45, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed. -- Director (talk) 07:58, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Ivan, it is ironic that this whole article is based on opinion, your as well, and also you are playing dumb, while obviously omitting my expressed intention to engage in constructive discussion, and especially avoid to incite this kind of reaction ! In my previous note I very clearly stated that I do not want to antagonize anyone, while your first and only sentence is nothing but brusquely attempt to disrupt my intention, as you also obviously don't mind to antagonize me or others. (We have history of similar behavior, where your first response was quite impolite (archived)) Your demand for evidence in this matter, while evidently article is written to endorse one particular opinion and avoid to express and explain extreme nature of controversy surrounding it, means that you blindly defending something I never attacked in the first place ! But you are in this defensive mode and your response was foreseeable, especially if you acting within environment which allows this particular issue to be forced by shier number of editors endorsing particular view. The fact is that my intention was to fill gaps left by biased and unbalanced approach, to try to add what encyclopedia need to have in case of controversy - all sides without favoring any of them in particular ! But that's impossible on this series on BSH, while random editors are confronted with well-tuned clique. It would be interesting to see how many editors were banned on this issue, it's always a telltale sign of what's going on.--Santasa99 (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The whole article is based on referenced facts. Various opinions on the matter are presented in a balanced and unbiased manner. You haven't really raised any particular points of contention other than "I think that this article is written in a NPOV manner". You yourself have said, citing: "I'm not sure if I have enough patience to elaborate and then defend arguments ". If you don't want to raise and defend arguments than you're simply wasting everyone's time. Judging from your edit history, my guess is that you're infuriated due to the article's allegedly impartial treatment of the so-called "Bosnian language". Perhaps you should file a complaint to the cantonal minister? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Complaint to cantonal minister, really, is that a joke ?! It's possible that you just want to break the ice for decent correspondence, or it's just me misreading you being ironic ? Humor, no matter how enlightened and hilarious may be, aside !

I am always in dilemma when confronted with impolite, self serving idlers, faking their impartiality and pretending, uncomfortably though, to be objective and neutral with open mind, completely dispassionate and above all quarrels and controversies (so-called or genuine).

It wasn't too hard nor complicated to see my intention, and when I said I am open for debate point by point (!), starting with my first objection, in most cases people respond with inquiry and some more questions, which guide debate to more concrete argumentation, not to arrogant dismissal with open antagonism and inconsideration.--Santasa99 (talk) 22:08, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Blah blah blah.. sources, please. This isn't a forum. -- Director (talk) 23:48, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Santasa99, you have yet to come with any actual arguments for your case. If you don't present arguments, people won't take your opinion seriously. --JorisvS (talk) 23:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Article title

Why is the article titled "Serbo-Croatian" and not "Serbo-Croatian language"? 93.142.133.17 (talk) 13:09, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Because there is no "Serbo-Croatian people" to disambiguate it from, and hence 'language' in the article title is unnecessary. For most languages, there is also a people with the same name. --JorisvS (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree, Serbo-Croatian is exclusively a proper noun of a language and not an adjective. Praxis Icosahedron (talk) 19:04, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Slashes or Dashes

According to Google Scholar, slashes in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian are about three times more common than dashes in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, even when the search is for "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian". --Taivo (talk) 18:39, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Punctuation marks mean zilch to Google; both searches return the exact same results. What I did is go thru about 5 or 6 pages and it looked like both are used, though slashes are probably more frequent. Anyway, I've already explained my rationale in the edit summary. — Lfdder (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Dashes and slashes have a slightly different meaning. Slashes imply "X aka Y aka Z" or "X and/or Y and/or Z", which is, I think, what we're trying to convey. Dashes would mean something like "X vs Y vs Z", or "from X through Y to Z", neither of which are what we mean. For example, "Hindi-Urdu" takes a hyphen; a dash is used far "the Hindi–Urdu controversy", so I think dashes are actually incorrect. — kwami (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

> "X and/or Y and/or Z"

Well, this is what I thought we should avoid 'cos it might seem like we're referring to the standard register in each of those countries.

See Dash#Relationships_and_connections. — Lfdder (talk) 19:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

When people speak of BCS, they're talking about a single language that goes by various names. Slashes capture that. Dashes would mean three languages in conflict, which is not what people mean. It's basically the same as why we don't use a dash in "Hindi-Urdu". — kwami (talk) 19:45, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I know that, and I've just explained that this is why slashes might confuse. That seems to be your own interpretation of dashes; dashes are used to express several other relationships. We don't use a dash in Hindi-Urdu 'cos it's a proper name. Anyhow, I've just checked the MoS and it doesn't seem to support my use of dashes, so hyphens might perhaps be better. — Lfdder (talk) 20:07, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think hyphens would be fine. That's how we punctuate nearly all other compound language names. — kwami (talk) 20:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I've not found a single instance of dashes on GScholar, just a lot of commas, slashes, and hyphens. Not that it matters, since we correct sloppy punctuation in our sources all the time, but I don't see how it makes sense in this case. — kwami (talk) 19:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

If we were talking about the article title, then this whole conversation would be different and based on WP:COMMONNAME (which, in this case, is "Serbo-Croatian" anyway). But we are talking about common alternate designations, not some grammatically appropriate entity that must label the article as a whole. With that in mind, if you look at the results from Google Scholar, and you eliminate the versions (which predominate) that have commas, then the slashed version is about three times more common than the dashed/hyphened version. It's a simple question. Which alternate name is more common in the literature? The version with slashes and not dashes/hyphens. If you want to include the version with dashes/hyphens (only Kwami seems to care about the difference), then it must be the third variant listed after the one with slashes, and not one replacing the most common variant. --Taivo (talk) 21:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. — Lfdder (talk) 22:07, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Što/ča/kajkavian and ije/e/ikavian?

These both split the general language area into three groups, but what is the relationship between the two types of groups? Do all nine combinations exist? Ijekavian kajkavian, ekavian čakavian and so on. Or is the distinction only relevant for štokavian and both čakavian and kajkavian are exclusively ije-, e- or ikavian? CodeCat (talk) 21:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if all combinations exist, but the split also exists in Chakavian. --JorisvS (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

For Čakavian there is Ekavian, Ikavian and "mixed" area governed by Jakubinskij's law. For Kajkavian there are areas with exclusively Ikavian reflex of jat as well, but not with such nice geographical distribution. Ijekavian/Ekavian split is usually important with respect to Croatian/Serbian varieties of Serbo-Croatian (i.e. standardized Neoštokavian), and in dialectological consdirations it usually plays a secondary role (some other isoglosses are much more important). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

EU

Since now Croatia has joined the EU, and the Croatian language (not Serbo-Croatian) is an OFFICIAL EU language, I believe you should remove or edit thoroughly these innacurate series of non-existing Serbo-Croatian language. Thanks! --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 10:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

You need to read the rest of the Talk Page. We've had this discussion many times and the consensus of linguists is clear. Who cares what the EU says or thinks politically? This is page isn't about politics, but about linguistics. Basically, there is a non-Slovenian West South Slavic language that comprises the dialects of Kajkavian, Chakavian, and Shtokavian. The most common name in English for that language is "Serbo-Croatian". The standard varieties of Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian are all based on the Shtokavian dialect. So we use "Serbo-Croatian" as the most common term in English to cover that whole range of dialects and subdialects. There is no other term in English for that single language. --Taivo (talk) 10:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

What's exactly the purpose of describing a system that doesn't exist? It is a linguistical blob. Moreover, by which criteria are Chakavian and Kajkavian included in it? And if they were truly included, how come there are no spots in Hungary (and even in Slovenia)? Kajkavian is spoken there too! And which linguists, may I ask? I can't imagine a linguist seriously discussing this matter and not noticing this major flaw. --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 15:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Then add Hungary and Slovenia to the description of Kajkavian if you have reliable sources that place it there. --Taivo (talk) 06:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I won't. This page was created in 2009. 2009! For 4 years nobody has noticed this major flaw! Why? Obviously there is a huge hole in this whole conception of "Serbo-Croatian" system! Please explain why are Kajkavski and Čakavski included because I don't see why would anyone in their right mind include them. Especially if we are not taking political criteria into account, but exclusively linguistical (and by that meaning - this mutual intelligibility - which is btw a very loose imprecise nonscientific term). There is no mutual intelligibility between Kajkavian, Chakavian and Stokavian, whatsoever. I would be grateful if you redirected me to a discussion page with this topic. I can't endure this absurdity anymore. Thanks! --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 12:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

They are included by the same criteria applied by Croatian nationalist linguists to include Čakavian and Kajkavian as "dialects of Croatian" - completely arbitrarily. South Slavic area constitutes dialect continuum (however, not a genetic clade per se), with the distinction of Western/Eastern South Slavic groups similarly being drawn on the basis of geographic and historical conventions (Macedonian has been codified relatively recently in historical terms, and the former Bulgarian (Bulgaro-Macedonian) area with Balkan sprachbund features is a much larger outlier to Western South Slavic than either of its internal dialects which are, as you've remarked, so diverse that they are often not even mutually intelligible). Apart from transitory (borderline) ones, Slovene dialects are not "Kajkavian" (despite using the pronoun kaj) - what comprises Kajkavian is defined on bundles of specific isoglosses (in phonology, morphology etc.) which you can find listed in the literature (e.g. M. Lončarić, Kajkavsko narječje, Školska knjiga 1996) and not on "how similar do they sound" or "what interrogative pronoun do they use".

Regarding Croatian as the official EU language - it's a linguistically meaningless fact. "Croatian" didn't come into existence by that legal act, and neither with Serb-Croatian perish the day Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin (and whichever they invent in the meantime) achieve the same status. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Chakavian and Kajkavian are treated as Croatian dialects out of political reasons. Would have they been included in "Serbo-Croatian" system if Kajkavian region was part of Slovenia and Chakavian region part of Italy? No. Of course not. That means they are included in this case merely because they are inside Croatian political border. Political much? I thought the purpose of this term was to draw a border comprising major isoglosses.

I didn't say Slovenian dialects are Kajkavian. I said there are parts along the border where Kajkavian is spoken. And I certainly didn't mean to include them in Kajkavian because - "how similar do they sound". Even though that obviously seems sufficiently scientific and acceptable to you and the creators of this article. By the way, why isn't Burgenland Croatian included in this map?

I have alredy asked this few times, but didn't get a clear answer - what are the requirements for a language to become a part of the "Serbo-Croatian" system? Thanks! --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 11:3, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

On the Balkans countries pop in and out of existence every few decades, whereas linguistic conventions are much more inert. Serbo-Croatian was the "norm" since the mid 19-th century, and you cannot expect established terminology to change overnight. The term Serbo-Croatian is certainly necessary to refer to the common Neoštokavian core of the four standard languages (BCSM), as well as to provide a holistic treatment of them (e.g, in the grammar and differences articles).

Grouping of substandard Ča and Kaj dialects however is separate topic. It is

1) arbitrary - based on ethnic consideratinos (Burgenland) or borders (Kajkavian)

2) ambiguous in terms of whether you're referring to

2.1) ethno-geographic - "Croatian dialect" meaning "dialect spoken on the territory of Croatia" or "dialect spoken by people that declare themselves as Croats"

2.2) linguistic - "Čakavian is a Croatian dialect" meaning "Čakavian is a dialect of Croatian language". This is the point of interest. Each language can be treated in two different ways:

2.2.1) as a standard, codified register as is described in the grammar books.

2.2.2) as collection of dialects, both standard and substandard, used as vernaculars. Since we already treat Croatian as a hyponym of Serbo-Croatian in the meaning listed under 2.2.1 it would be logical to extend it to 2.2.2 as well. There are additional arguments for this: Ča and Kaj were prior to migrations induced by Ottoman invasions spoken on a much greater territory and were subsequently pushed back. During the 20th century many Čakavian and Kajkavian areas (e.g. major cities such are Rijeka, Split, Zagreb) were completely Štokavianized. During all this Ča and Kaj have been subject to extensive Štokavian influence, which created the need to treat them in common. I'll quote from Matsović's 2008 Poredbenopovijesna gramatika hrvatskog jezika (Comparative-historical grammar of Croatian language), page 64:

U dijalektologiji se za skupinu dijalekata koji se govore na tom području koristi Brozovićev termin »srednjojužnoslavenski dijasistem«. Kada se taj termin odnosi na skup dijalekata, ko­ji su na različite načine tijekom povijesti bili u međusobnoj interakciji i među kojima granice često nisu posve jasne, to je terminološki opravdano, a ujedno je i dobar način da se izbjegne politički nekorektan naziv »hrvatskosrpski« ili »srpskohrvatski«, koji se nažalost previše udomaćio u inozemnoj slavistici. Nema nikakve dvojbe da postoji potreba za terminom koji bi izrazio činjenicu da su upravo čakavski, štoka vski i kajkavski dijalekti, osobito tijekom burnoga razdoblja seobi izazvanih turskim osvajanjima u 15. i 16. st., intenzivno utjecali jedni na druge, što je dovelo i do nastanka miješanih dijalekata, osobito na štokavskom području.

The problem is that Brozović's term Central South Slavic diasystem(srednjojužnoslavenski dijasistem) appears to be only used by him and a few of his associates. It's obscure in English-speaking world, and mostly used geographically (with uncapitalized initial c and not in a dialectological sense).

I'd personally be OK with

1. Using Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin in the meaning 2.1. in phrases such as Croatian dialect.
2. Eventually shifting to Central South Slavic (diasystem) when and if the term gains wider acceptance. Perhaps in 5 years.
3. Introduce a viewpoint in Serbo-croatian#Dialects section on how are the dialects grouped and under what name in by "prominent linguists/works" in all four countries. Their opinion is a fact of encyclopedic interest. We already know the Croatian viewpoint, but NPOV requires us to cover all of them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Level of English

Some sectures or sentences of the text have a poor level of English. (I'm not a native English-speaker myself, and I don't mean this in a rude way.) Someone should read through the article and correct such mistakes. For example, the section about Croatian views of Serbo-Croatian starts with: The majority of Croatian linguists think that there was never Serbo-Croatian language. It's not a big deal, but correct English should be used: The majority of Croatian linguists think that there has never been a Serbo-Croatian language. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.192.88 (talk) 15:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Based on Eastern Herzegovinian

"The pluricentric Serbo-Croatian standard language and all four contemporary standard variants are based on the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of Neo-Shtokavian, the other dialects not taught in schools or used by the state media."

While this generally holds for Croatian and Bosnian, the Serbian standard in Serbia is Ekavian, and Eastern Herzegovinian is not Ekavian, but Ijekavian. So standard Serbian in Serbia has a lot of elements of Šumadina-Vojvodina dialect, and that's also stated in the corresponding Wiki article:

Šumadija–Vojvodina dialect (...) is a subdialect of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian.[1] It is a base for Ekavian Standard Serbian. Šumadija–Vojvodina dialect

To be more precise, there are some elements of Younger Ikavian in standard Croatian as well, mostly in accentuation of some words, but it's a rather fine point.

dnik ► 10:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, correct, but do we have to include all the fine points in the lead section? Except for ekavian/ijekavian pronunciation, Šumadija-Vojvodina and Eastern Herzegovina dialect have much in common, and the standard Serbian accentuation is still based on Vuk's EH idiom rather than (subtly different) Š-V. As you noted above, the classification of SC dialects (as any other classification) has elements of arbitrariness, because of the dialect continuum you mentioned above. Do you have proposals for alternative, weaker, formulations? No such user (talk) 12:08, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I might suggest "mainly" based. Standard Serbian accentuation is based on EH, but Standard Croatian (according to published manuals) is not (it's based on YI). However, accentuation is just one aspect, other grammar comes mostly from EH...

However, I would really explain these finer points a bit later. Situation is really complex :( dnik ► 14:29, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by standard Croatian accentuation not being based on Eastern-Herzegovinian? What is "YI" ? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian Dialects

Since my edit was reverted, I'd like to point out that there's some bad linguistics goin' on for decades and decades. Just take a look at this map:

Isn't it interesting that a historical distribution (prior to e.g. 1400 AD) ends at more or less exactly today political borders, e.g. Čakavian dialects are exactly up to today Croatian-Slovene border in Istria? Štokavian up to today Serbian-Macedonian border? Is it plausible?

Also, take a look at the choice of colors, and how dissimilar eastern and western Štokavian look. But were they as dissimilar as Štokavian vs. Kajkavian, as this map implies?

Were there at that time any unifying characteristics of such dialects, that distinguished them from ones in future Slovenia? Are there any today? (They aren't; even better, "Kajkavian" in Gorski kotar is still more similar to dialects in Slovenia than to other Kajkavian dialects today).

Besides, are we really sure about precise borders of dialects 600 years ago? How come all borders are drawn in the same way (no border is blurred, no question marks...), despite huge difference in evidence for various regions?

I was maybe too ambitious to change tone of this article in relation to dialects, but I thing e.g. this article by M. Greenberg shows how discussion about dialects was not really neutral in last decades and century. [1]

How to fix this? dnik ► 21:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see what you describe . But if you have a source , by all means present it . Though I do agree the map colors should be more iconic. — kwami (talk) 05:08, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

M. L. Greenberg writes: According to the view of non-Croatian linguists, the Western-South Slavic linguistic area underwent differentiation by innovations primarily arising in the Štokavian area, leaving archaic regions in Slovene, Kajkavian, Čakavian (Ivić 1964, 1965, 1966; Šivic-Dular 1987 and bibliographies in these works). Although Kajkavian and Slovene share archaisms, which do not help much in establishing ancient affinities, they also share a number of innovations, so that “the majority of characteristics of the Kajkavian system appear in the Slovene system” (Ivić 1966: 383) and, consequently, “[t]he genetic closeness of Kajkavian [to Slovene] is obvious” (loc. cit.). In Map 3 it can be seen that a major bundle of isoglosses separates Slovene and Kajkavian from the rest of the Western-South Slavic speech territory, which has a pattern of gradual, largely parallel isoglosses.

Further: Junković created a myth of an ancient dialect division emphasizing a prehistoric unity among the present-day dialects of Serbo-Croatian and, by the same token, discontinuity with its nearest relative, Slovene. This theory implicitly supports the claim that the Kajkavian dialect is appropriately subordinated to the Štokavian based standard. Junković enlarged the ancient territory of the Kajkavian dialect, in which territory the Croatian capital of Zagreb is located, at the expense of Slovene. Junković’s myth may be considered successful in the sense that it has been accepted uncritically by leading Croatian linguists and has been transferred to popular references about the history of the Croatian language." [2]

Kapović writes (my emphasis): The other problem, when talking about Serbo-Croatian as the ‘whole package’ (including the dialects) and not just as a standard language, is that this term is no more scientific than the ‘separatist’ terms Serbian and Croatian, in spite of this being a major argument for the use of the term Serbo-Croatian by many. The simple fact is that, dialectologically speaking, there is no Serbo-Croatian, in the same way as there is no Croatian. The whole South Slavic area is a dialectal continuum, from Bulgaria in the South-East to Slovenia in the North-West. [3]

Therefore, in their opinion (and Matasović and Holzer share it) are no "Serbo-Croatian dialects", there are no "Serbian dialects", there are no "Croatian dialects". There are "dialects spoken by Serbs", of course.

Historic maps of dialects are a bit misleading. How do we actually know where the edge of Čakavian was in Istria circa 1400 AD? Do we actually know or we just assume it was the whole Istria up to exactly the present Croatian-Slovenian border? Border between Western and Eastern Štokavian exactly on Danube? We should not just take maps that are copied over and over for granted. It is only a reconstruction, and a very rough one... dnik ► 10:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think it is rather obvious that, given that the map purports to present the 14-th history data, the reader should not take dialectal borders for granted, but only as a rough approximation. Also, projecting it on the modern-day political borders does not bode well on the author. Still, it should be useful in understanding the early situation, as long as we don't get a newer one. You did well to put a disclaimer in the map caption.

@Kwami, care to explain the revert? It is indeed true (or can be argued that) that "Serbo-Croatian" is not a proper genetic node, being a term for an area of the dialect continuum, at least in the same way as German language is not one. No such user (talk) 12:13, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

From the genetic perspective there are indeed no "Croatian dialects" or "Serbo-Croatian dialects". But there are indeed Štokavian, Kajkavian, Čakavian and Torlakian, each with bundles of isoglosses characteristic of them. And in the 99% of all the literature on the subject they are listed as dialects of SC or of B/C/S/M. This historical-genetic perspective in no way invalidates the traditional grouping. The same criticism - the lack of exclusive shared innovations - can be applied to any language in the world, with suddenly dialects turning "languages" on their own. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:56, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

While this is the traditional view prevailing in the literature, there are other views. For instance, Ivić wrote in 1998:

Раскид српскохрватске језичке заједнице на нивоу књижевног језика ставља на дневни ред питање да ли постоји таква заједница на нивоу дијалеката. (...) Постоји уз то и чисто дијалектолошки разлог против схватања о "српскохрватској" дијалекатској заједници. То схватање, наиме, никад није ни почивало на правим дијалектолошким мерилима, него на политичким или, ако хоћете, социолингвистичким. Српскохрватским су сматрани они дијалекти којима говоре припадници одговарајућих народа и који стоје у функционалној корелацији са српскохрватским књижевним језиком.

Ivić, P. 1998, "Srpski dijalekti i njihova klasifikacija", Zbornik Matice srpske za filologiju i lingvistiku, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 113-132. [4]

My rather rough translation: "Breakup of the Serbo-Croatian language community on the level of literary language brings the question if such a community exists on the level of dialects. (...) There's also a purely dialectological reason against concept of a "Serbo-Croatian" dialectal community. That concept was never grounded on proper dialectological considerations, but on political or, if you prefer, sociolinguistic ones. Dialects spoken by corresponding peoples which are in a functional relation with the Serbo-Croatian literary language were considered Serbo-Croatian".

Also, Marc L. Greenberg criticized such political groupings, especially singling out "dialects of Croatian". This is not true for all languages. For instance, Hungarian or Greek dialects are a true node.dnik ► 07:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Greek dialects are very diverse, and their common ancestor is some Proto-Greek language, and not some attested Greek dialect. I don't know about Hungarian so I cannot comment on that. All Slavic dialects pretty much developed in situ from Late Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) period (sudden expansion, Avar khaganate etc. you know the history) and are separated by some very old isoglosses (like the reflexes of *t' and *d'). However, they exhibit extraordinary amount of shared development in later centuries. Indeed, you cannot derive all Chakavian dialects from Proto-Chakavian, or all Shtokavian dialects from Proto-Shtokavian, but you also cannot derive all Slovak dialects from Proto-Slovak either, all Russian dialects from Old East Slavic (e.g. Old Novgorodian lacks second palatalization and has some other strange features), Slovene dialects from Proto-Slovene and so on. The real world doesn't fit in the idealized Neogrammarian Stammbaum model. However, that doesn't mean that there are no isoglosses that mostly cover only Čakavian, only Kajkavian or only Štokavian dialects, because there are. Furthermore, see PPGHJ p. 64-65: "Nema nikakve dvojbe da postoji potreba za terminom koji bi izrazio činjenicu da su upravo čakavski, štokavski i kajkavski dijalekti, osobito tijekom burnoga razdoblja seobi izazvanih turskim osvajanjima u 15. i 16. st., intenzivno utjecali jedni na druge, što je dovelo i do nastanka miješanih dijalekata, osobito na štokavskom području." - grouping of Ča, Kaj, Što under the Serbo-Croatian umbrella has historical justification that predates modern sociolinguistic or political conventions. See: Shtokavian_dialect#Relationship_towards_neighboring_dialects. When you state that the grouping of SC dialects is completely arbitrary, you're not really telling the whole story. It's almost as if you're playing into the hands of Croatian nationalists that claim that "Serbo-Croatian never exhisted" ;) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:30, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but modern Greek dialects are not a part of a larger continuum. All Greek dialects share a common ancestor that no other (e.g. Albanian) dialect shares with them. But your point is valid: there are common developments. However, they are not uniform: while there are dialects in e.g. Istria that show a mix of čakavian and štokavian features, there are really no dialects that show a štokavian-kajkavian mix, at least not that I know of. Next, there's a problem of goranski dialects which are classified as "kajkavian" with no clear criteria whatsoever except being in Croatia and using "kaj" (even ones of Ravna Gora, which are rovtarski, as shown by Majnarić). My main point is: this classification is a convention which was mainly politically motivated at the time it was created and seldom questioned later. Nobody started with a clear set of features common to čakavski, kajkavski, and štokavski and concluded these dialects should be lumped together. It was hard to find criteria even for čakavski! But if you quote PPGHJ, it's obvious that Matasović considers these influences a later development, due to migrations, and not some genetic affiliation; at least that should be mentioned! As for "nationalism", I think you would have a really hard time finding any nationalism in any of my discussions. dnik ► 16:42, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Greek dialects do not form a continuum, are you 100% sure? :) At least in historical times they probably did. I'd be surprised if they didn't. Certainly there are outliers (e.g. Mycenaean due to its antiquity), and certainly there are disturbances due to later migrations, but now that you mention, neither does Serbo-Croatian (or South Slavic) dialects form a dialect continuum anymore because the original dialect picture was broken in the period of migrations caused by Ottoman incursions. We have various irregular pockets everywhere..

this classification is a convention which was mainly politically motivated at the time it was created and seldom questioned later - so, who cares? Wikipedia is there to promote the established knowledge, not fringe interpretations. Which, however, if they do represent the most recent and up-to-date scholarship, definitely deserve a mention. We cannot simply disregard classification which is found in 99% of the literature because Vermeer and Matasović disagree (the latter one only in one paragraph in an unrelated book though).

Also, that classification is politically motivated is a pretty strong statement. As I said, there are many bundles of isoglosses that cover most of the individual Ča/Kaj/Što dialects, and which in turn characterize the groupings themselves in general, and indeed there are few which characterize them exclusively. Those bundles of isoglosses are found in all of the relevant literature, some of them even mentioned in Wikipedia articles. The criticism is AFAICS primarily stemming from the obsolete Stammbaum model of language development which is a gross simplification of reality. (And is the reason why the uniform proto-languages reconstructed by comparative method usually have nothing to do with real languages, just look at Proto-Indo-European with "words" such as "dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s").

it's obvious that Matasović considers these influences a later development - Are you suggesting that in the last 5-6 centuries Ča and Kaj dialects have not changed? That is even greater period than they did develop "on their own" from Late Proto-Slavic (lets say 10th century at best ;) The influence of Štokvian cannot be trivialized like that. It's present in everything - from lexis, morphology, even accentuation... Today the only ones who speak "true" Ča and Kaj without Štokavian interference are old people in some villages in the boonies where people live like that did 5 centuries ago. There is really no point in separating the pre-migrational and post-migrational Ča/Kaj/Što.

I understand your point, but simplifying the whole classification into a statement "Grouping of several dialects as "dialects of Serbo-Croatian" is purely a convenience, because there are no features that are common to all of them and only to them" is a gross understatement and misrepresentation of the general POV established by the dialectologists and needs to be properly put into context. Actually, I don't think that even deserves a mention on how fringe it is, perhaps in the freshly written^Hcompiled article [[Dialects of Serbo-Croatian]], section ==Criticism== ? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

But while that means that SC is not a cladistic node , it doesn't mean that Kaj, Cha, and Shto are not cladistic nodes . — kwami (talk) 09:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if Kajkavian would be either. It may well be a node only when combined with Slovene. Or maybe it's only a node if you consider some of the Kajkavian dialects of Croatia to be actually part of Slovene. CodeCat (talk) 12:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Frankly I don't think there are true nodes at all in such a continuum. There is e.g. a feature that a half of dialects in Slovenia have in common with Čakavian and Štokavian: long ъ, ь > long ə > long a. Of course this does not hold for short "semivowels" but it does not hold as well in Čakavian dialects on islands of Cres and Krk. For instance, Vermeer criticized Čakavian as a meaningful grouping in his important article:

it must be understood that the “čakavian” dialects, just like those called “štokavian” have nothing significant in common except the label linguists use to refer to them. [5]

Therefore, all groupings are a bit artificial, and "Serbo-Croatian" grouping is completely artificial and just traditional. Really there's nothing common to them. Note that this statement applies to dialects as spoken in mid 20th century and earlier; now all dialects are under some influence of the standard language and they get common features from there... dnik ► 10:25, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

That's certainly a valuable point to make. However, given the chronic trouble we have with SC, it would probably be best to have several good sources before we claim they are artificial constructs. — kwami (talk) 11:12, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah and there he goes on to "disprove" individual isoglosses by noting how they don't cover all of the subdialects. E.g. 5. "In most of čakavian and štokavian long-stem (c)-stressed ī­ presents have become (b)-stressed [...] the innovation failed to reach the western-most dialects of Posavian štokavian.". So what? It covers 98% of the territory. I'm perplexed that he tries to trivialize the Stammbaum model of language development and the resulting classification, while at the same time not recognizing the need put a label on areas that collectively exhibit many of such isoglosses. If you ask me all of those isoglosses would be have a unique ID (like genes in the DNA), and every word should have a "signature" (=combination of IDs that reflect its "origin" from the proto-language, e.g. Proto-Slavic), and all the words in a particular spoken idiom (or a standardized idiom like the standard Serbo-Croatian) would then have "collective signatures" assigned by sampling individual word IDs. Ča/Kaj/Što isgogloss bundles would then be "chromosomes", LWs horizontal gene transfer... Perhaps one day :) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:04, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Slovene dialects are even more diversified that Ča/Kaj/Što within themselves. "Dialect of Slovene" means "non-standard dialect spoken by people of Slovene ethnicity", nothing else. Kajkavian speakers have since the earliest times referred to themselves as Croats or Slavs/Illyrians, never Slovenes. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Torlakian dialects

The infobox lists the Torlakian dialects as part of Serbo-Croatian, which is not true and tends to create a POV. Please see the separate article about the dialects and the excellent section about their classification.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No, it does not. It lists it as controversially part of SC, which is true. See e.g. Comrie & Corbett (2002). — kwami (talk) 03:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you say controversially part of Macedonian or Bulgarian, which is, at least, more true? Have you ever heard about language evolution in the Indo-European languages? You still didn't explain why it should be classified as part of Serbo-Croatian and what makes it more familiar with this language than with Macedonian and Bulgarian. Maybe the fact it covers larger area from Serbia or because of any political reasons?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)8

We follow sources, that's all. — kwami (talk) 08:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Nice. I will follow the same to insert this claim in the articles about Macedonian and Bulgarian.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:31, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

With dialects form part of a dialect continuum it's always going to be hard to objectively group dialects together, and it's always going to be more or less arbitrary. CodeCat (talk) 03:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

If you think it's arbitrary and hard to make any objective decision, then there is no place for such speculations in an encyclopedic article. As for your source, Friedman (2001, 2006 and 2008), for instance, classifies it as part of Macedonian and demonstrates that most of the properties of the dialects are much similar with the Eastern group rather than the Western group of South Slavic languages. Your behaviour here with extremely subjective conclusion already provides an extreme POV. So, it's sincerely appreciated not to remove the POV tag on the top of the article until the discussion ends with a compromise. I don't intend to call Macedonian and Bulgarian users to discuss the matter and thereby create another dispute on Wikipedia, but would like to see a discussion with facts that will eventually lead to a neutral solution. To say that something is disputed because it's being supported by some and opposed by others has nothing to do on Wikipedia and only lowers the quality of its content. Once again, we should always present facts on Wikipedia, not develop theories about validity of something.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:56, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

From Template:POV: "Place this template on an article when you have identified a serious issue of balance." Mentioning Torlakian in infobox, already duly noted as disputed, hardly counts as a serious issue; alternatives for tagging are listed below.

Further, it is not us editors who made "speculations", and I don't see anybody here drawing "extremely subjective conclusions" and "provide an extreme POV". Throwing around gratuitous accusations will not strengthen your case, on the contrary. Since our sources disagree on classification of Torlak, we duly note so in the text. The article currently reads "Torlak (disputed)" in the infobox, and has an additional sentence " Often the Torlakian dialect is added to the list, though scholars nowadays usually classify it as a transitional dialect between Shtokavian and the Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects." Do you have anything actionable to add or subtract from that?

Your statement "to say that something is disputed because it's being supported by some and opposed by others has nothing to do on Wikipedia " cannot be further from the truth and Wikipedia practices. When a dispute exists in the real word (i.e. our sources), we should mention it in our articles. From WP:YESPOV: "Indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view." How, in your opinion, the two short statements in the article do not accurately express the situation? No such user (talk) 10:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• David Dalby, The Linguasphere Register (1999/2000) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian with a note that it's transitional to Macedonian
• C.F. & F.M. Voegelin, Classification and Index of the World's Languages (1977) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian
• Albrecht Klose, Sprachen der Welt (2001) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian
• Wayles Browne, "Serbo-Croat," The Slavonic Languages (1993, 306-387) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian with a note that it's sometimes mentioned as transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian
• Greville Corbett, "Serbo-Croat," The World's Major Languages (1987, 391-409) includes "Prizren-Timok" (Torlakian) in Serbo-Croatian

--Taivo (talk) 11:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Most of these sources classify some Torlakian dialects as Serbo-Croatian, namely those who are spoken in what is today Serbia, while others give exactly the note that they're transitional. However, it doesn't change the point that this classification is disputed. If you feel that this evidence is convincing enough, you might be interested to contest why this is actually disputed. Now I can easily go on the articles about Macedonian and Bulgarian to insert the same and defend it with different sources on theirb talk pages, which seems to be far from any solution and only increases the number of articles with disputed claims. It also puts in question the well-referenced elaboration of the problem in the specific article about the dialects. But if you insist so, it's the only way to present some neutrality.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk), 16:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No, Kiril Simeonovski, none of the sources I cite list any Torlakian subdialects as anything other than Serbo-Croatian. Two of them make exactly the comments I posted as transitional. And no one disputes your comment that this is disputed--that's precisely why the word "disputed" occurs in the info box. But you asked for references that list Torlakian as Serbo-Croatian. I just provided five of them. --Taivo (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Only the works by Klose and Voegelin of the aforementioned entirely classify Torlakian as part of Serbo-Croatian. Corbet includes "Prizren-Timok" as part of Serbo-Croatian, which is only one Torlakian dialect spoken in Kosovo and Metohija. The two other classify it as a transitional dialect and provide a fairly good reference on the issue. On the other hand, Friedman (2001, 2003 and 2006) and Barentsen (1982) classify find closer association to Macedonian and Bulgarian. If you rely so much on Corbet and his classification of a single Torlakian dialect as Serbian, then Friedman includes the Kumanovo dialect of Northern Macedonia and the Gora dialects as part of Macedonian. There are two solutions of this problem and both of them were somehow expressed though my comments in this discussion. First, it would be more appropriate to refrain from mentioning that Torlakian is dialect of something since it has a separate article elaborating the issue. Having a disputed information only lowers the quality of content on Wikipedia. The other solution is to include the same claim in the infoboxes about Macedonian and Bulgarian, which is worse because it will also lower the quality but will at least counterbalance to reach some neutrality. Unfortunately, taking action to perform the second one appears to be logical from this discussion.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:28, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I provided five sources that list Torlakian as part of Serbo-Croatian. You have only mentioned Corbett as not including all of Torlakian, so you ignored two other sources: Dalby and Browne, both of which include Torlakian as a whole in Serbo-Croatian. So out of my five sources, four include Torlakian as a unit in Serbo-Croatian and you dispute the relevance of the fifth (Corbett) only. But the point still stands. We don't accept your POV as the primary way to go. There are sufficient reliable sources that place Torlakian with Serbo-Croatian to place it here as a dialect. Since there are some sources that dispute that claim, then we mark it as "disputed". That is a fair statement of the state of affairs. You will have to establish a consensus at Macedonian language and Bulgarian language if you want to do something like this there. Placing Torlakian here does not "cheapen" Wikipedia, it states the facts as they are. --Taivo (talk) 18:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I also provided sources that prove the contrary. Please feel free to examine them before uttering that the reliability of yours is greater and understand that most scholars classify only some dialects as part of these languages (only those spoken of the territory of these countries).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

So you provided sources and I provided sources. That's why the word "disputed" occurs in the Infobox. But, you actually didn't provide references. You just threw up a couple of names and dates. If you want people to take you seriously, then you should provide at least as much bibliographical information as I did. Just giving a name and date is laziness. --Taivo (talk) 19:13, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, but the article Torlakian dialect is a nice starting point elaborating the issue. Why do you think that we really need to discuss this on the talk pages of the articles about the languages when it deals with their dialects?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Please see my proposal here which could be a nice solution of the problem.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:31, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Decisions made on other Wikipedia pages are not relevant here. You must build an individual consensus on every page you want to change. --Taivo (talk) 22:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. You should refer to the aforementioned works listed by yourself to make sure that my change is not false. And please let me edit Wikipedia because it's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. You're not the authority to prevent me doing it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Sources providing evidence that some Torlakian dialects are classified as part of Serbian or Serbo-Croatian:

• Greville Corbett, "Serbo-Croat", The World's Major Languages (1987, 391-409).
• David Dalby, The Linguasphere Register (1999/2000).

Note that the Prizren-Timok are the most common Torlakian dialects classified as part of Serbo-Croatian.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Wrong about Dalby. Dalby includes all Torlakian under Serbo-Croatian and none under either Bulgarian or Macedonian. --Taivo (talk) 10:59, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

You are free to edit Wikipedia as long as you follow the rules. The rules say that if there are any reversions to your edits, then you must stop editing until you build a consensus on the Talk Page. --Taivo (talk) 11:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

No, the sources provide evidence that some Torlakian dialects are listed as part of Serbo-Croatian. Those mentioning that some are part of Macedonian or Bulgarian you can find on the talk pages to these articles.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:12, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

You still don't get it, Kiril. You can't use Dalby as evidence because Dalby does not divide Torlakian into three parts. He treats it as a single unit that is placed under Serbo-Croatian. If he placed part under Macedonian and part under Bulgarian, that would be another matter. But he doesn't. He places all of Torlakian under Serbo-Croatian. --Taivo (talk) 11:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I created and substantially expanded the article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian. Please change the infobox to summarize all the dialects as it's the case with the articles on Macedonian and Bulgarian language. By doing it, a single standard will be implemented for all of these articles and it will also remove a disputed claim from the infobox. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 01:29, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Since nobody commented on this for more than a day, it seems reasonable for me to change it in the article in order to align it with the other articles.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

98% of that article is a copy/paste from existing articles. But why not also list here that Ča/Kaj/Što/Torlak are dialects of SC? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

• I see that the articles on Bulgarian and Macedonian don't list individual dialects in the infobox either, but link to separate articles that cover them (Bulgarian dialects and Macedonian dialects, respectively). Unfortunately the infobox for languages does not support both the parameter |dialects= and |dia1=, |dia2=.., so there isn't way to link both to the main article on dialects and list the main dialectal groups. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment Ivan. To list separate dialects is not a good idea in my opinion since there are several problems that might occur when doing it:

• The inclusion of Torlakian is controversial and has been a hot topic of dispute among the linguists (especially between Serbian and Bulgarian linguists).
• Many linguists who classify Torlakian as part of Serbo-Croatian (notably Serbian linguists) refer to it as "Prizren-Timok dialect" and opine that it is actually an Old-Shtokavian dialect. Since Shtokavian is divided into Old-Shtokavian and Neo-Shtokavian, the latter fact will lead to a detailed division in the infobox, which doesn't look pretty from aesthetical viewpoint.
• Listing Torlakian written with the tag it's disputed in parentheses clearly leads to the problem of having unsure facts in the box which lowers the article's quality and doesn't give the readers a good sign at first glance.
• Other problem when detailing the dialects is also the classification of Burgenland Croatian and Molise Slavic. Both of them are varieties of Chakavian spoken outside the area that falls within the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages and it, therefore, leads to the same problem of detailed division in the box (in this case under Chakavian). Another problem with these two varieties is that some linguists consider them heterogeneous enough to be classified as separate languages derived from the Serbo-Croatian dialects (note that Slavomolisano has been even granted a separate ISO code).
• The comparison with the articles on Macedonian and Bulgarian is another valid reason to support its inclusion in this way.

Because of the aforementioned inconsistencies, it would be a much better solution to link to the article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian, which includes detailed description on each of the dialects and varieties of the language. After all, our aim is to make Wikipedia a place with articles that are comprehensive for our readers. If anyone is interested to read more about the dialects, then he could easily click on the link and get to the specific article about it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:46, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Also Croatian dialectologists, e.g. Josip Lisac in his most recent (2003) monograph on Shtokavian Hrvatska dijalektologija 1 - Hrvatski dijalekti i govori štokavskog narječja i hrvatski govori torlačkog narječja [Croatian dialectology 1 - Croatian dialects and speeches of the Shtokavian dialect and Croatian speeches of the Torlakian dialect] cover Torlakian subdialects spoken by ethnic Croats. In the book, however, he doesn't discuss the classification of Torlakian, only lists characteristics of the dialects (those spoken in villages/towns were Croats live).

I agree with on the rest of your points. If the articles on Bulgarian and Macedonian don't list Torlakian, the article on Serbo-Croatian probably shouldn't either. I wonder if that's the general practice on language articles - if there is the article Dialects of X, the infobox links to it, instead of listing the major dialects/dialect groups. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:03, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

You're correct. The Crashovan dialect spoken in Romania is viewed as a Torlakian dialect spoken by ethnic Croats. There is no general practice of arranging the infobox, but this seems like the most neutral solution. Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian are all languages with controversial classification of their dialects, which is mostly due to the fact that they're all part of a wide dialect continuum and that there is also a historical and political background behind it. The boxes, however, should be clear, tidy and neutral with no disputed claims or information.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:14, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I see that you're also aware of the fact that the article almost in its entirety has been expanded with texts brought from other articles. My personal remark on it is also that it mostly focuses on the political background and not more thoroughly on the characteristics of the language and its differences compared to some other languages. The easiest way to secure this is to find people who are native or nearly native speakers of the language and don't pay any attention on the politics beyond it. Unfortunately, the article is being controlled by a group of users who are not even speakers of Serbo-Croatian on any level and insist on keeping eye over its content all the time.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:15, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah this article has lots of political garbage written by nationalists years ago that needs to be removed and properly copyedited. Articles Croatian language, Bosnian language and Serbian language are far worse though. Article on Bulgarian is excellent however, on Macedonian a bit less. We definitely a separate article dealing with political history of Serbo-Croatian. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:08, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Definitely yes. The article is, generally, in poor shape and it needs substantial changes in order to put it in line with the other quality articles. The next step after creating the article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian is to create one that will focus on the political history of the concept and the reasons for its division in separate languages. I was thinking about the name of that article and the two most proper solutions emerge to be "Standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian" or "Varieties of Serbo-Croatian", among which the word "standard" in the former one limits the scope of the article and prevents the suitable inclusion of the Montenegrin language (changes in the alphabet were made, but official grammar hasn't been adopted yet) and the Bunjevac dialect (regarded as separate language by its speakers), so the latter name appears to be a more proper solution to me about the title. However, my doubt that the efforts put on creating additional articles to divide the content and clean this one from any political views falls on the fact that the article is being controlled by a closed group of users who revert the changes of those willing to help improving it and treat them as vandals. Please just have a look, for instance, at the comment bellow justifying the revert of my edit in the infobox and even attributing it as my "personal problems". First, we need to secure that it's possible to work on improving the article, which doesn't seem to be an easy task since the same group is even mighty enough to reach any consensus in its favour and thereby keep the article in its current shape. Requesting mediation might be a solution for this, but let's see if the insanity continues in near future.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:13, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to dial your rhetoric back a notch, Kiril. Building a consensus for anything is difficult with comments such as "insanity" in your proposals. --Taivo (talk) 17:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Building a consensus is not an easy task and one must always have in mind that Wikipedia is neither a democracy nor a bureaucracy, but when asking me to build a consensus before making any changes you have to be sure that there is consensus on your side as well (please see the same question in my reply to Kwamikagami bellow). Frankly, I'm not a person who is prone on matching one consensus against other to make any change on Wikipedia since it will completely deny the principle that anyone can edit Wikipedia and thus my wish is to scale down the artificial barrier that is usually raised on the talk pages of some articles. In the beginning of this discussion, my position was not supported with concrete reasoning and my beahviour was somehow immature, but I came to create a separate article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian, which you were averse to join me working on it by saying you were working only with the existing articles at the time, just to extract additional facts that justify summarising of all dialects into one article. Defending your position only with words against the activity of the other position to create a separate article which includes much information on the issue provides me no evidence to describe your position here as something other than insanity.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:58, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Kiril, please point to a single, solitary post that I have made against your work at Dialects of Serbo-Croatian. One? No? Then shut up about naming me as some kind of opposing force to your work there. Silence when someone is doing good work is not "insanity". Insanity is calling potential supporters "insane". Want to build consensus? Then actually take two seconds to know who is and is not opposing a particular effort you are making. --Taivo (talk) 20:27, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Please calm down! Nobody accused you for being against my work on that article. I was just worried that my treatment here is still as a vandal even though I came here with other points on why we should link to the summary of dialects in the box. Your silence here is not relevant for my conclusion, but the whole process of how the things are going here is "insanity". My question is explicit: Do you have a consensus on this talk page to maintain article's current format regarding the dialects?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

This was edited through consensus. You need consensus to change it. — kwami (talk) 21:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Then, please give me a link to the discussion in which the consensus was reached.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 00:46, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The box is both a summary and a navigation guide. Your personal problems with Torlakian are not reason to remove the dialects from the box. — kwami (talk) 20:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

First, It's sincerely appreciated to use less confrontational tone and don't bite the users who are willing to improve the article's quality. Phrases such like "your personal problems" are not pursuant to the rules for civility on the English Wikipedia and are not something that the others would like to see here. Second, you're welcome to read the latest discussion above to see some of the other points why it's better to not detail this list in the box. Feel free to join with your own opinion on them. Next, in the edit summary of your last revert on my edit you mention that it's necessary to reach a consensus here on the talk page first before changing anything, but I'd also like to see that this format of the box has been previously discussed here on the talk page and that there is consensus among the users to list the four dialects with the two notes in parentheses attached to Shtokavian and Torlakian. Finally, the box also contains a note in parentheses next to Montenegrin saying "incipient", so I wonder what is the measure used to gauge whether something is incipient or not. Can you also provide a link to the discussion on this to make sure that a consensus has been reached to use this wording?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Almost one week has gone after my last comment, but there is no answer yet on my request to see that consensus was built on this page about the current format of the article's infobox. I was ready to start a discussion in order to reach a consensus on making the necessary changes in the box, but it won't be possible if I don't get an insight on the things that have been discussed in the past. Otherwise, it's simply impossible to work upon word of mouth that the edits were made through consensus. Once again, please give me a link to the discussion where the consensus was reached. This will yield the following benefits:

• Having an insight in the previous discussion is always welcome on Wikipedia and shows respect to the work done by the other users.
• It also serves as a source of information on the things that were discussed in the past and helps to come up with clearer and more concise request.
• The format of the whole process of building consensus in the past could be used as a proxy for starting the same once again. It's very difficult and time-consuming to introduce new rules if there is, at least, one archived discussion that followed some rules.

Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:50, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

All that stuff has been archived. I suspect you could find it as easily as we could. — kwami (talk) 18:51, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but you were the one who mentioned that it was edited through consensus. If you know that there was discussion upon which a consensus was built, then you're surely more knowledgeable about it and could find it much easier than me. Saying that there was consensus which you cannot detect in the archived discussions equals to having no consensus. I will repeat it once again that requesting mediation might be a good solution for this.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Kiril, you're just being lazy. Kwami edits literally thousands of articles and he does not remember the details of each and every one of them when it comes to discussions and when/how consensus was built. Get off your behind and search through the archives yourself. It's not Kwami's job to hand-feed you everything you want. --Taivo (talk) 21:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I checked all the archived discussions to find that there is nothing similar to a consensus on using this format in the box. Some of the interesting discussions and comments pertaining the dialects or the infobox are the following:

• A discussion on multiple problematic claims in the article was commenced on 4 August 2005, which includes a tiny part about the dialects with disagreement that the term "Serbo-Croatian dialects" is only used as a political term. The discussion continued until 16 August 2005 with no consensus on any of the discussed topics.
• Another fruitful discussion on the dialects was carried out on 9-10 August 2010. Note that Kwamikagami was one of those involved in the discussion and presented some related points that the lede should be a summary of the article's body and that Chakavian and Kajkavian are dialects of Serbo-Croatian. Yet, the discussion lacks any concrete solutions except the agreement that Chakavian and Kajkavian are dialects of Serbo-Croatian. Note also that the infobox is not even mentioned in this part.
• The first real discussion about the infobox and its content followed the previous one and started on 10 August 2010. Unfortunately, the discussion didn't continue with a focus on the dialects and the way they should be arranged in the box.
• A comment on the references in the lead was leaved by Kwamikagami on 31 January 2013. It didn't, however, attract any other response to start a discussion and its content mostly focuses on the question of Serbo-Croatian being the only pluricentric language within a single state. There is once again no mention of the dialects or the infobox.
• The most recent discussion was the one on this page, which is still ongoing at some points, but mostly focuses on the history and distribution of the dialects.

It's evident that none of these discussions or comments includes any consensus upon which the box should be arranged in the way Kwamikagami is trying to promote now by referring to consensus that actually does not exist. There is also not even a single word about the most problematic thing of whether the Torlakian dialect denoted as disputed in parentheses should be included in this form in the box.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:41, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

As for your note, we all work on thousands of articles and cannot remember all the details, but this is not a reason to be dishonest and say there is something which actually does not exist.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Kwami works on hundreds of articles a day, Kiril. Your editing history is nothing compared to his. So accusing him of dishonesty is another of your personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with you. This article is also part of a complex of articles including Serbian language, Croatian language, and Bosnian language and there have been hundreds of discussions on various points about how to deal with this difficult situation. Specific discussions have sometimes occurred on other articles in this complex and the ramifications then carried over into the other articles in the complex. You're a newcomer to this whole process, so rather than acting like a know-it-all, you should back off and be less aggressive and more polite in your comments. You might get what you want, but not by simply coming in here acting like a bulldozer and accusing the other editors of dishonesty. Make your case clearly and concisely without your accusations and see what you can accomplish with politeness rather than aggression. --Taivo (talk) 03:49, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

You're still refusing to answer on my questions:

• Where is the consensus that Kwami is trying to adhere to all the time? This is a very valid topic of discussion because that consensus prevents me to edit the article. Now you mention that specific discussions have sometimes occurred on other articles, but if so, then the changes and the consensus reached there are valid for those articles.
• What do you think is problematic with the reasons above beyond my proposal to embed "Dialects of Serbo-Croatian" instead of detailing all the dialects?

In addition, making comparisons that Kwami has more edits than me and his behaviour, therefore, should be tolerated is not appreciated and clearly disparages the work done by the others. For your note, please check my edit history to see my contributions to all Wikimedia projects before drawing conclusions that I am a newcomer in the whole process and that I have to reconsider my participation in the English Wikipedia (mentioned in one of your above comments). All the users must have the same treatment regardless of their edit history and there should be no justification for anyone's action on the grounds of the number of articles edited at the same time. Attributing to my every single word as a personal attack does not enhance your position and only provides evidence that you take a clear side in this whole discussion. If a word like "dishonest" when one does not tell the truth is considered a personal attack, then what to say about "your personal problems" which was addressed to me in one of the previous comments.

Finally, Kwami is surely one of the most prolific users on the English Wikipedia, but it doesn't follow any of the rules on Wikipedia that these users must be defended in their every single action. Sorry, but it's enough. Reporting this for mediation will surely save our time.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:01, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

You're still not listening, Kiril. That's your fundamental problem--you get hung up on your ego and start disparaging others. You get insulted when someone reverts your edits to the article and asks for you to build a consensus first and then you waste our time trying to prove that the other editor is wrong rather than simply backing up and building a consensus. You don't build a consensus by trying to call the other editors "dishonest" or demanding that they provide X, Y, or Z piece of evidence of past discussions. You build a consensus by 1) clearly stating on the Talk Page what you want to do, 2) providing clear, simply stated reasons for the change you want to make, and 3) listening to the other editors' possible objections and working together to make the article better. Your habit of editing the article, engaging in edit wars when you don't get your way, and then insulting other editors is not going to build that consensus. Again, you need to stop your aggressive accusations and simply and clearly state what you want to do without accusing other editors of anything. I challenge you to start a new thread with a simple title, state what you want to do in the info box, give a simple reason why you want to do that, then stop writing and let the consensus grow. --Taivo (talk) 10:25, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for being busy for quite a long time and therefore unable to continue the discussion, but after becoming less busy please let me make a summary of how the things went in this discussion after creating the article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian:

1. I left a message that the article has been created and requested to change it in the box to align it with the articles on Macedonian and Bulgarian.
2. After noticing that there is no response for more than a day, I followed the rule on Wikipedia to be bold and change it myself. I was careful to left another message on this page before going to the article and make the change.
3. The first user to comment on my edit was Ivan Štambuk by posting this comment.
4. My answer included some important points on why it's better to link to the specific article on the dialects here.
5. The user agreed with most of the points.
6. My edit in the article was reverted by user Kwamikagami who later came on the discussion page to post this comment and avoided to join the part of the discussion concerned with my points supporting the change.
7. I replied by leaving this message in which I solicited for a less confrontational tone and asked to see that the format of the article has been previously discussed on the page and that there is consensus about it. It was pretty strange to me then that one user can revert anyone else's edit even though there are supporting points for that specific change on the same page and another user has already agreed on it.
8. Later, the discussion continued with some comments indirectly relating the issue before Kwamikagami stated that "it was edited through consensus" and building a consensus is necessary in order to change it.
9. My reply was clear to see the discussion where the consensus was built.
10. After a week of silence with no response on my request, my reminder included some important benefits from seeing the previous discussion.
11. Kwamikagami commented that all the stuff has been archived and it's difficult to find the exact thread.
12. My response to this comment rationally questioned the existence of consensus at all. Using any avoidance to find the previous consensus will more likely mean that there is no consensus on the matter.
13. User Taivo joined this part of the discussion to bring out an opinion as supporting evidence for Kwamikagami's position.
14. But I decided to make it myself and after carefully studying all the archived discussions I came up with a list of interesting threads concerned with the either the dialects or the infobox to conclude that there is no discussion with consensus on the current format of the article's infobox.
15. Taivo replied by explaining the complexity of the topic and that a discussion with consensus might have occurred on discussion pages of other articles, even though in the guidelines for talk pages it's mentioned that the purpose of a talk page is to discuss the changes related to its associated article.

From this summary it's clear who avoided to discuss the change in the article and tried to support it with non-existing consensus. Another very important dimension which was unveiled from this discussion is the restriction of my freedom to edit Wikipedia, which may encourage one to watch a single page and revert the changes because there is non-existing consensus anywhere in the archived discussions or anywhere else on Wikipedia. This is totally out of the spirit of Wikipedia. It's time to terminate the discussion and report this for mediation.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:28, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

The issue with the change in infobox after the creation of article Dialects of Serbo-Croatian has been reported for mediation. Please find the specific page detailing the issue here. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• I consider this a trivial issue unworthy of my attention and byte-wasting, and I'm fine with whatever you guys decide. I'd solve this by fixing the template to display both the dialects page and a list of major dialects. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:37, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

It is, indeed, a trivial issue, but Kiril got so bent out of shape making accusations of lying, etc. against Kwami that he never got around to playing nice, making a simple, clear proposal that Kwami could agree to and then moving on. He kept trying to prove Kwami wrong instead of making a simple proposal without the side of baloney. --Taivo (talk) 06:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

It was enough to support Kwami in his every single action. Don't forget that in one of his comments he accused me for having "personal problems" but you were silent about it. You were also trying all the time to make Kwami a better user than me by ascending his contributions on Wikipedia and make me a newbie in the whole process. I didn't think it was worth to mention the accusations from both sides in the discussion, so I decided to leave them out of the summary. No further comments or offence needed; the mediators will take the matter to solve it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:37, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Now it's your turn to respond and accept the mediation request by signing your name there. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

You just proved my point, Kiril. You keep making this about Kwami and your wounded pride instead of making a simple proposal and leaving the personal stuff completely out of it. Here is what your typical comment looked like: "Kwami did this, kwami did that, kwami did something else, I want to do X but kwami won't let me, kwami is a Y." You made your comments all about kwami instead of leaving your personal beef with him out of the issue. Not once did you take my advice to drop all your conflict with kwami, start a new section, make a simple one-sentence proposal and justify it with a simple comment or two. Not once. And I'm not going to waste my time with mediation. This is trivial and you keep trying to blow it up into a major assault on Wikipedia. Your request is tiny, but you write paragraphs, 99% of which is complaining about kwami. --Taivo (talk) 15:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

This is not trivial. Kwami and you had the chance to comment on my points about the change above, as user Ivan Štambuk did, but you were ignorant to do so. Kwami has even reverted my edit without leaving any comment on it and supported his action with a consensus that apparently doesn't exist anywhere. I would have been content with any comment challenging my points and supporting why it's not good to make the change, but the only reply was a revert with no interest to join the discussion and later a ghost consensus to support this action. What is your opinion on this? Do you allow Kwami to revert my edits even though the change was discussed and approved on this page? Or maybe you think that Kwami owns this article and he must agree with it in order to make any changes? Sorry but it's not that much about the change, it's more about my freedom to edit Wikipedia. If you don't want to waste your time with mediation, then the next step would be to go and advertise the problem on Meta. The time to accept the request for mediation elapses in a week. It's your choice to decide what to do. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:39, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Yawn. You seem to be incapable of moving past your own wounded pride to address the issue. That's your problem, here, Kiril. Your pride is simply more important to you than following my simple advice to stop the personal accusations, open a new section, propose the very simple change you have, and move on. You have simply not allowed any consensus to develop around your change because you are so focused on your wounded pride rather than improving Wikipedia. Your change is trivial, but you have blown this up into a hurricane because you think you have been insulted. Get over it. --Taivo (talk) 18:48, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposed changes in the infobox

In this section I would like to propose some changes in the article's infobox. Some of them were already proposed above, but the whole discussion eventually turned in different direction and their visibility is not so easy to spot. Solution for the off-topic issue that emerged above was requested on other pages, so please do not refer to it as a stepping stone to this discussion. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

Question 1: Should the infobox include all separate dialects of Serbo-Croatian or only a summary of them?

Question 2: Should the infobox include Montenegrin as an incipient standard norm, a normal one as the other three or exclude it until it gets a separate ISO code?

Comments and votes on Q1

Change it to a summary To list separate dialects is not a good idea in my opinion since there are several problems that might occur when doing it:

• The inclusion of Torlakian is controversial and has been a hot topic of dispute among the linguists (especially between Serbian and Bulgarian linguists).
• Many linguists who classify Torlakian as part of Serbo-Croatian (notably Serbian linguists) refer to it as "Prizren-Timok dialect" and opine that it is actually an Old-Shtokavian dialect. Since Shtokavian is divided into Old-Shtokavian and Neo-Shtokavian, the latter fact will lead to a detailed division in the infobox, which doesn't look pretty from aesthetical viewpoint.
• Listing Torlakian written with the tag it's disputed in parentheses clearly leads to the problem of having unsure facts in the box which lowers the article's quality and doesn't give the readers a good sign at first glance.
• Other problem when detailing the dialects is also the classification of Burgenland Croatian and Molise Slavic. Both of them are varieties of Chakavian spoken outside the area that falls within the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages and it, therefore, leads to the same problem of detailed division in the box (in this case under Chakavian). Another problem with these two varieties is that some linguists consider them heterogeneous enough to be classified as separate languages derived from the Serbo-Croatian dialects (note that Slavomolisano has been even granted a separate ISO code).
• The comparison with the articles on Macedonian and Bulgarian is another valid reason to support its inclusion in this way.

Because of the aforementioned inconsistencies, it would be a much better solution to link to the article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian, which includes detailed description on each of the dialects and varieties of the language. After all, our aim is to make Wikipedia a place with articles that are comprehensive for our readers. If anyone is interested to read more about the dialects, then he could easily click on the link and get to the specific article about it (The whole text is copy of my comment left on 19 October 2013. It was an answer to a comment left by another user, but I didn't find it appropriately to copy other's comments without any approval.).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 23:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments and votes on Q2

Comment Here it's difficult to opt for any of the proposed solutions and the discussion is open for suggestions. The word "incipient" is somehow inappropriate because: (i) Montenegrin was spoken as language, dialect, variety or whatsoever it's called from earlier and the Montenegrin literature is said to have existed, at least, from the 19th century (the work The Mountain Wreath is generally included as part of the Montenegrin literature) and (ii) it opens the problem with Burgenland Croatian, Molise Slavic and Bunjevac dialect, who are all generally considered dialects of Serbo-Croatian, but have adopted their own ISO codes while Montenegrin still has not.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 23:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Overall Comment

Kiril, are you biologically unable to do anything simply? You have a TRIVIAL proposal to make. Why have you complicated it like some doctoral dissertation? You are the type of editor that makes Wikipedia the laughing stock of academia. No one, and I mean no one, wants to read three paragraphs of densely worded nonsense and vote on two different questions in order to make an absolutely trivial change the infobox. I guess I have to do your work for you. --Taivo (talk) 01:00, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm currently working on my master dissertation (the doctoral will probably come in few years) and maybe it's a relevant reason to think so. By the way, it was necessary to include some other points on the change because it's not that much to align the style as there are some other problems when listing the dialects one-by-one; please also read carefully that there is another topic for discussion relating the Montenegrin language. Thank you anyway.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 01:17, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Finally, you get to my main point that no consensus is necessary for such "trivial" changes. Since you insisted on starting a new thread to build one, you should have more respect to the others.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 01:58, 28 November 2013 (UTC)