Talk:Macedonian language

Inaccurate maps
Both the maps of the distribution on the first part of the page and in the dialects part are unsourced and frankly inaccurate, to add up the first shows random dots all over Greece where supposed minority speakers live but this is unsourced and really just false. 194.30.254.75 (talk) 10:05, 6 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I tagged the first map. As for the map of dialects, I think there was controversy over it and it was supposed to be updated, but this has not happened. StephenMacky1 (talk) 10:58, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * According to modern Western sociolinguists, the dispute where the border between Bulgarian and Macedonian runs is entirely irrelevant from a modern perspective, as it fails to take into consideration the ethnic and linguistic identity of the speakers. According to Peter Trudgill, the question whether Bulgarian and Macedonian are distinct languages or dialects of a single language cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, but should rather take into account sociolinguistic criteria, i.e., ethnic and linguistic identity of the speakers. Jouko Lindstedt also opines that the dividing line between Macedonian and Bulgarian should be defined by the linguistic identity of the speakers, i.e., by the state border: Even Macedonian linguists as Božidar Vidoeski consider the eastern Macedonian dialects to be transitional to Bulgarian, including the Maleševo-Pirin dialect. According to Riki van Boeschoten, the Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia are divided into three main dialects (Eastern, Central and Western), of which the Eastern dialect is used in the areas of Serres and Drama, and is closest to Bulgarian, the Western dialect is used in Florina and Kastoria, and is closest to Macedonian, the Central dialect is used in the area between Edessa and Salonica and is an intermediate between Macedonian and Bulgarian. Trudgill classifies certain peripheral dialects in the far east of Greek Macedonia as part of the Bulgarian language area and the rest as Macedonian dialects. Victor Friedman considers those Macedonian dialects, but particularly those spoken as west as Kilkis, to be transitional to Bulgarian. Per Lindsted the yat border splits the Eastern South Slavic (including the region of Macedonia) on a structural grounds and he has assumed that this isogloss that runs from Thessaloniki to Velingrad may be in fact the dividing isogloss between Bulgarian and Macedonian. In this way this map presents a biased or at least not neutral POV. Jingiby (talk) 15:55, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The map can be moved to Political views on the Macedonian language. Same with the BAN map of dialects. I think it's best to treat fringe views as separate from the mainstream. StephenMacky1 (talk) 16:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

"Diferences between the bulgarian and the macedonian language" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diferences_between_the_bulgarian_and_the_macedonian_language&redirect=no Diferences between the bulgarian and the macedonian language] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. signed,Rosguill talk 17:43, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Should the article say that the East South Slavic dialect continuum was historically called Bulgarian?
The article currently says that "Macedonian developed out of the western dialects of the East South Slavic dialect continuum, whose earliest recorded form is Old Church Slavonic. During much of its history, this dialect continuum was called 'Bulgarian'".

The article cites the following source for this claim: Dennis P. Hupchick, "Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe", Palgrave Macmillan, p. 143. You can read the source for free here: https://archive.org/details/conflictchaosine00hupc. This claim should be removed because page 143 of the cited source simply does not support it.Anonymoususer95 (talk) 17:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * And according to the cited source, what do you think the author says? He definitely has an idea, and since it can't be quoted verbatim, to avoid infringing his copyright, it should be written what he meant. Jingiby (talk) 08:46, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no need to include this source. It states the Greek and Bulgarian nationalist position that the Macedonian language is a dialect of Bulgarian. This view is not widely held among WP:RS today.
 * To quote the leading scholar of Macedonia Loring M. Danforth in his article "Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia", Anthropology Today, 9:4 (1993), p. 8:
 * "Similarly, the Greek claim that there is no linguistic evidence to support the view that Macedonian is a distinct language and not just a dialect of Bulgarian ignores the widely accepted sociolinguistic insight that the decision as to whether a particular variety of speech constitutes a language or a dialect is always based on political rather than linguistic criteria. The existence of the Macedonian language is accepted by linguists everywhere in the world except in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece."
 * Put another way, the mainstream view among WP:RS is that a language is a dialect with an army. Both Macedonian and Bulgarian are dialects within the South Slavic dialect continuum that became languages when they "acquired armies" (i.e. became sponsored and standardized by a government).Anonymoususer95 (talk) 13:06, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "Should we erase history in order to appease my nationalistic POV" is what you're asking.
 * No. No, we shouldn't. There is very clear consensus on how the Macedonian language came to be and was codified, erasing the historicity of this process just because you don't like it is not how Wikipedia works. TzCher (talk) 17:45, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't have a nationalistic POV. Please read WP:AGF, which you are obviously violating.
 * Regarding the "clear consensus", I have provided an authoritative source supporting my suggested change. Per WP:RS, the article should be based on such sources. You have presented no sources, merely wild accusations and uninformed assertions.
 * I would appreciate input from editors capable of rational argument! Anonymoususer95 (talk) 19:18, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * You have a very clear nationalistic POV. You have presented no argument about the explicit exclusion of the information that the terminology for the dialect continuum was "Bulgarian" in the past. In fact, in your argument, you specifically lied, right here: "It states the Greek and Bulgarian nationalist position that the Macedonian language is a dialect of Bulgarian" - the article includes no such statement and the source is not added in support of this statement. This is simply a lie.
 * The fact that the Macedonian language was developed from a dialect continuum called Bulgarian by both linguists and common people, both inside and outside of the region of Macedonia is just that - a fact. It's consensus. Erasing that fact erases the process of development of the language and serves no scientific or encyclopedic purpose; instead, it serves only a POV purpose. You have supported your nationalistic POV with a source and quote that support no such thing - the only thing they support is that Macedonian exists today and now, which nobody on Wikipedia disputes. Neither your source, nor your quote support your agenda to erase the consensus that the continuum was, in fact, called Bulgarian in the past.
 * Also, an account that has 30 edits in the past 3 days all ultra-specifically connected to a single nationalistic POV and has been warned numerous times about disruptive editing is very much questionable regarding good faith. TzCher (talk) 20:00, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The article currently cites page 143 of Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe by Dennis C. Hupchick to support the claim that the East South Slavic dialect continuum was historically called Bulgarian. This page says no such thing - the article is lying about the content of the source. Anyone interested can read the source [] to confirm this.
 * I've been editing Macedonia-related articles because there is an epidemic of dishonesty about the content of sources on such articles. I have no particular view about the Macedonian language, but I strongly believe that Wikipedia shouldn't lie about the content of sources!
 * If you want to make the claim that the East South Slavic dialect continuum was historically called "Bulgarian" in the article, please provide a source. If this is indeed a "consensus" and "fact", this should be easy, although you have failed to do it thus far!
 * As I made clear above, it is the Hupchick book that adopts the standard Greek and Bulgarian nationalist position that Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian. As Danforth shows, this position is widely rejected by scholars today.Anonymoususer95 (talk) 20:49, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The quote provided in the article is literally verbatim the same as in the book and supports the statement in the article. What is now known as East South Slavic continuum was historically known simply as Bulgarian language. Once again, you are clearly lying. In fact, here is the entire quote on the page:
 * "An interesting historical argument arose in support of an independent Macedonian nationality that ultimately reached its maturity only after World War II and Tito's construction of a federated Communist Yugoslavia composed of six independent "historic" republics, of which one was Macedonia. The Macedonian nationalists quite simply stole all of the Bulgarian historical argument concerning Macedonia, substituting "Macedonian" for "Bulgarian" ethnic tags in the story. Thus Kuber formed a "Macedonian" tribal alliance in the late seventh century; Kliment and Naum were "Macedonians" and not "Bulgarians"; the medieval archbishopric-patriarchate of Ohrid, which Kliment led, was a "Macedonian," not a "Bulgarian" independent church, as shown by the persistence of Glagolitic letters in the region in the face of the Cyrillic that were spawned in Bulgaria; and the renowned Samuil led a great "Macedonian," rather than a "western Bulgarian," state against Byzantium (giving Slav Macedonia its apex in the historical sun). Under control of the revived Bulgarian state, and later under the Serb Dušan, the Macedonians had maintained their ethnic differences from their "foreign" masters, as demonstrated by their "king" Vukašin, who had died attempting to keep an independent Macedonia free from the Ottoman Turks. When ethnic-national consciousness reawakened among the Macedonian Slavs in the nineteenth century, the cultural revivalists, such as the Miladinov brothers, were consciously "Macedonian," and not "Bulgarian," in their efforts. The obviously plagiarized historical argument of the Macedonian nationalists for a separate Macedonian ethnicity could be supported only by linguistic reality, and that worked against them until the 1940s. Until a modern Macedonian literary language was mandated by the socialist-led partisan movement from Macedonia in 1944, most outside observers and linguists agreed with the Bulgarians in considering the vernacular spoken by the Macedonian Slavs as a western dialect of Bulgarian. In the interwar period (1918-39) the official language of Macedonia had been Serbian by compulsion, with the use of Bulgarian forbidden. The World War II socialist parti- sans in Macedonia proceeded to establish a commission to create the new "official" Macedonian literary language, which was presented to the world the following year (1945). From then on, it became the legal first language of the Macedonian Slavs, with Serbo-Croatian a recognized second language and Bulgarian officially proscribed... Led by the Skopje socialist linguist Blaže Koneski, and given international recognition in 1952 by Yale-produced Harvard Slavic professor Horace Lunt, the artificially created and structured Macedonian literary language ultimately provided the socialist-mandated ethnic validity for an independent Macedonian nationality. Over four decades of state socialization and education of Macedonian Slav children in that concept may have succeeded in creating such a creature in actual fact."
 * Given that the entire quote is far more damning to the Macedonian position and what is presented here on Wikipedia is very, very tame in comparison, and given you insist on sticking to the sources, how about we edit the article per source? Macedonian is an "artificially created" language based on a "Bulgarian dialect" with a specific "nationalistic purpose" of nation-building supported by "obviously plagiarized historical argument"...
 * The quote is verbatim the same and the text is very clear.
 * "I've been editing Macedonia-related articles because there is an epidemic of dishonesty" - thanks for so eloquently proving my point by confessing your POV and your own lack of good faith. TzCher (talk) 21:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * What your quote shows is that Hupchick states the standard Greek and Bulgarian nationalist position on the Macedonian language, as I said above. However, this position is widely rejected by linguists and historians and so should receive little weight in the article, per WP:WEIGHT. On the rejection of this position, please see:
 * Loring M. Danforth, "Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia", Anthropology Today, 9:4 (1993), p. 8, as quoted above.
 * Victor Friedman, "Macedonian Language and Nationalism During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries", Balkanistica 2 (1975), pp. 83 - 98.
 * Victor Friedman, "The Sociolinguistics of Literary Macedonian", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 52 (1985), pp. 32 - 35.
 * Victor Friedman, Macedonian (Munich: Lincolm Europe, 2002), pages 5 - 6.
 * I see you've abandoned the claim about the East Slavic dialect continuum!Anonymoususer95 (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * An academic with a position you don't like doesn't make him a nationalist. Even more nonsensical is your claim he's a nationalist for two nations at the same time. I don't see the need to continue this pointless discussion when you confessed your POV and lack of good faith. The source is valid and cited correctly. TzCher (talk) 13:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)