Talk:South Slavic languages/Archive 1

Untitled old discussion
To Millosh: Exactly this is genetic classification not political. The standard Serbo-Croatian language that is based on Shtokavian doesn't exist. It is term that includes all 3 standard languages and all 4 dialects. And Slovenian is another language and not dialect thats why it must be moved on left. Luka Jačov 17:42, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

For Luka

Show me one single country in the world where your virtual "Serbo-Croatian" language exist? How we all knows that thing (I cannot call him language, becouase it is not and it was not) is nationalists-communists product from 1954 in Novi Sad, Serbia so where is your right, historical right to describe that like language? Learn one for all, in history of the Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro we have 3 languages and they are Bosnian, Croat and Serb language. Everything else is fiction.


 * To others :) Just to note that we were talking over ICQ and IRC and found that classification from Luka's edit of 22:05, 23 September 2005 is acceptable for all of us. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 16:04, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Tag?
Is there a reason for the tag still being here? --Latinus 23:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

RE: Slavic Language Greece
The Slavic language sopken in Greece is undoubtedly as South Slavic Language and it therefore should be stated in the article. I know people will say that it is disputable whether it is Dopii (Native), Macedonian or Bulgarian. The users of wikipedia should decide using evidence and post the language up on the South Slavic Lanaguage Page. P m kocovski (talk) 07:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * How about having it at Slavic language (Greece) then? Wikipedia is not the place to make up solutions - it just tells the facts without interpreting them in any way (especially in a single-POV way). -- L a v e o l  T 18:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Would Slavic language (Greek Macedonia) be more appropriate while still having a link to the Slavic Language (greece) as that article does not mention any other forms of slavic languages in greece apart from Macedonia. [some people may argue that other varieties of the slavic language in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace are possibly bulgarian, and only for that reason.] Whereas the article for SLAVIC LANGUAGE(GREECE) primarily deals with the lanaguage in the Western Macedonia region. Is that a satisfactory proposal? please reply logically :) P m kocovski (talk) 07:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Torlakian
I agree that not only Serbs talk Torlakian, but I would like to hear what is definition of "transitional dialect", as well as I would like to see map of this and surrounding dialects. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 00:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC) I must say that Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and the language of Montenegro is all the same language. Now if you want to make differentiations of that be my guest, but they are all the same language call it what you will..all of you can have a conversation no problem so they are thus mutually intelligle. I dont see Mexicans, Cubans and Argentinians fighting about a language that they all know is the same..even though clear differences exists in both slang and accent, and culture in those countries, like yours. It is still the same language so accept the fact.


 * Torlakian can be treated as the part of East South Slavic languages.
 * May I see a source for this claim? According to Pavle Ivić, all of the Torlakian dialect (in Serbia as well as in Macedonia and Bulgaria) belongs to the Western South Slavic group. --George D. Božović (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

According to Stefan Mladenov (Geschichte der Bulgarichen Sprache, Berlin - Leipzig, История на българския език, София 1979, с. 360-362) these dilects are transitional between Bulgarian and Eastern South Slavic languages. Also he comments some similarities with Ucrainian languge. Mladenov considers these dialects as more closer to Bulgarian language, than Serbian (Serbo-Croatian). Similar are the statements of Benjo Tsonev, Rangel Bozhkov, the russian Afanasii Selishtev etc.--JSimin (talk) 16:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Bring up these points at Template talk:Southslavlang if you want.  Balkan Fever  06:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Slovene language: dialects
"While, for example, Slovenes basically speak the same dialect" This sentence is wrong or at least unclear as there are numerous dialects spoken in Slovenia. --Eleassar my talk 12:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That doesn't seem to make much sense.  Balkan Fever  12:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Serbian language no što-štokavian, serbian = štaBold text-sebian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.0.144.143 (talk) 07:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Serbo-Croatian comrades
- Perhaps you've been living under the rock for the last 2 decades, having been indoctrinated by books written by ex-professors of "Serbo-Croatian languages" who graduated "Yugoslavistics" (I've heard there are some active ones with sysop rights on German WP, pushing the "Yugoslav nationality" for every Croat and Bosniak born before the Croatia/B&H declared independence from communist claws, hehe), which for pure political reasons pushed the notion of "Serbo-Croatian dialects" as an alleged "genetic node" in the South Slavic branch. This notion of abundantly exploited for misappropriation of Croat-only cultural heritage, of which there are plenty of remnants in modern Serbian books (like this article on Serbian WP I accidentaly bumped into the other day - bugaršćice by Molise Croats and medieval Čakavian writers like Hektorović as a part of "Serbian epic poetry", what a joke!)

Well, some news for you: There was almost certainly no "Proto-South Slavic" language, and within it - certainly not some ancestor language of Chakavian+Kajkavian+Štokavian+Torlakian. There are no non-trivial isoglosses that encompass South Slavic languages only (and would thus represent common innovation). When speaking of "Croatian dialects" or "Serbian dialects", the geographical designation is the only implied, not some "genetical". Bosniak linguists like also to speak of "Bosnian dialects" as an extension of "Bosniak/Bosnian language", which should in theory be spoken everywhere where Bosniak live, even in Sandžak, but no one cares what they think and like to think anyways..

You say in your edit summary "we can't claim in the genetic section that serbian štokavian is descended from proto-serbian and croatian štokavian is descended from proto-croatian, because it isn't." - that was never claimed anyway. There is no "Proto-Croatian" or "Proto-Serbian" (the latter one maybe in some Serb nationalist book like Srbi - narod najstariji) implied in that hierarchy, because it's not a genetical classification in which hierarchy would imply the "ancestrality", but synchronic overview by regional distribution. Phrases "Serbian language" and "Croatian language", besides the sense of "standard language" have also the sense of "set of dialects on present-day Serbia and Croatia" and where significant diaspora exists whose language belongs to Croatian or Serbian on cultural grounds.

There was also no "Proto-East-Slavic", if you take into account Old Novgorod dialect that didn't exhibit extremely old change of second palatalization that operated in all the other Slavic dialects. There was also no Proto-West-Slavic - but within it, there was possibly (and probably) ancestor language for Leichitic, Czecho-Slovak and Lusatian languages. Similarly for South Slavic branch, there was possibly ancestor language for all Slovenian and Croatian dialects, and also similarly possibly Proto-East-South-Slavic (Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects) - but certianly no "Proto-South-Slavic" and within it some "Serbo-Croatian" node, who would be more unhomogeneous than any other real European language diasystem! The ancestral language of all idioms spoken nowadays by Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins never existed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Genetic, geographic, dialectal
- Zocky, dialectal classification is geographical classification, meaning that "Serbian dialect = dialect of Serbia = dialect of Serbian language", same for Croatian, Bosnian (excepting the last =), Bulgarian, Macedonian and Slovenian. There is no point in listing "Štokavian dialect" as a "West Slavic language", sharing the same level with Chakavian and Kajkavian, these three sharing the same level with "Slovene language", "Bulgarian language" and "Macedonian language".

Either the Slovene, Bulgarian and Macedonian should be expanded to their dialectal subgroups, and thus the notion of national appropriation be completely eliminated, or it should be completely restored within the X-language hierarchy, implying that dialects listed under "X-language" means "dialects within the borders of X" or "belonging to X on the basis of cultural or ethnical šgrounds" (for exogenous speeches).

Also, non-English terms such as jugozapadni istarski, timočko-lužnički etc. should be Anglicised to usual English terms, whatever they are, by someone knowlegable.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivan Štambuk (talk • contribs) 20:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, please do add (you or anybody who knows enough) dialects of Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian. It's quite possible that some Eastern Slovenian dialects should be classified with Kajkavian (based on phonetics), and that Western Bulgarian and Eastern Macedonian dialects should be grouped together (at least that's what speakers of both tell me). As for a geographical classification, it could have its own list, but I don't think it would be too useful, since it would largely coincide with the sociolinguistic one. Zocky | picture popups 10:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Do either of you know what citation note [2] is meant to say? I'd like to improve the classification section, but Macedonian and Bulgarian don't really have a situation comparable to Što-/Ča-/Kaj-kavian. Template:Macedonian dialects and Template:Bulgarian dialects list all the dialects of Eastern South Slavic, so is the idea just to copy all of them to the article? Slovene dialects is simply a list of narečje ("dialects") and govore ("speeches"), so duplicating the content doesn't seem like a great idea. That article really needs some work, but alas I'm not in a position to offer much.  Balkan Fever not a fan? say so! 11:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I translated most of the subdialect terms - generally in English the cities and regions (which give the dialects their names) do not become adjectives, but stay as nouns. Could somebody more knowledgeable in Western South Slavic follow that system for the ones that I left?  Balkan Fever not a fan? say so! 12:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I have again reverted this. There is simply no dialectal classification under which Serbian Štokavian and Torlakian belong in one group, and Croatian Štokavian and Čakavian in another. 193.2.132.121 (talk) 22:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * But Western Štokavian is more associated to Čakavian, and Eastern Štokavian with Torlakian. Homogenisation and standardisation have largely eliminated historical differences, but the close association is still quite preserved in e.g. Molise Croatian. That would be pure dialectology. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

To be as auxiliary is also used in Macedonian
In this article states that the verb have is used in Macedonia as a substitute for to be, when forming the perfect. But in Macedonian both verbs are used as auxiliary just in different tenses. You could also say : (Јас) сум видел - (I) am seen - literally, as you could say it in Bulgarian or Serbian - видял съм & видео сам (ја сам видео). I am not an expert in linguistics but I happen to be native speaker of Macedonian, and speak a bit Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.28.5.170 (talk) 16:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * And that is precisely the beauty of Macedonian, that it is so versatile - it uses so many aspects of grammar and lexis that the languages around it only partly use themselves. But i think this article intentionally highlights the differences and bullet-points them as briefly as possible in order for it to be as clear as possible (it does say that "Macedonian largely bases its perfect tense on imam", thereby intentionally hinting that there's more to it than that, without getting too bogged down). By all means, feel free to clarify on the Macedonian language or, better still, the Macedonian grammar pages - the latter already mentions this to a degree - that sum predominates in Eastern Macedonia, while imam predominates in the West. BigSteve (talk) 21:57, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

South Slavic contiuum
" South Slavic dialect continuum ". We're speaking about languages, not continuum. Even the issue of Central South Slavic diasystem is disputed, since one can always created certain continuums from certaing group of Slavic languages, depending on criteria. Every pair of Slavic languages can be classified in certain diasystems, depending on criteria. Kubura (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, those are good points, but the word "language" is poorly defined in English. For some people it's a literary register, everything else being a "dialect"; for others, different languages exist where people can't understand each other; and here, language is defined by official standardization. All are legitimate, but we shouldn't present one over the other. For the average English speaker, it's relevant that SCBM are all completely intelligible to each other; we need to be clear what we mean by "language", and when we're using which definition. (Yes, I know that some dialects of Croatian are not easily understood in Belgrade, but then they aren't readily understood in Zagreb either!) kwami (talk) 01:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, do you speak Croatian or do you speak Serbian so you can speak about those languages?? I know what these women are talking about here. Do you know? Kubura (talk) 01:37, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Basic dialects of Croatian
. Solely Shtokavian dialect is the basis of Serbian, Bosniac and Montenegrin. Croatian language is based on three dialects: Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kaykavian dialects. These aren't represented equally, but modern standard Croatian is composed of all these dialects. Important note: contemporary subdialect of Dubrovnik is considered as part of East Herzegovina subdialect, but they aren't completely the same. However, subdialect of Dubrovnik was for a long period specific dialect of Shtokavian dialect of Croatian language (Vijenac Josip Lisac: Dubrovnik i hrvatska tradicija). Kubura (talk) 00:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

About the development of Croatian, and some comparative historical analysis of Croatian language, see the book of Dalibor Brozović, Povijest hrvatskoga književnog i standardnoga jezika", Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 2008., ISBN 978-953-0-60845-0. Kubura (talk) 03:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Čakavian and Kajkavian are linguistically different languages by themselves. The only reason why they're treated as "Croatian" is because most of their speakers self-identify as Croats. The term Croatian is at any case todays basically synonymous with standard Croatian, i.e. Neoštokavian. Čakavian and Kajkavian are spoken by uneducated people at rural areas and are only of cursory interest. Dubrovnik's speech today is of course pure Neoštokvian, and the "Dubrovnik dialect" that you speak of has been extinct for centuries. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

"Linguistically different". Yeah, wright, our ancestors from Čakavian, Štokavian and Kajkavian areas took dictionaries with themselves whenever they went to markets in Split, Rijeka, Karlovac, Zagreb, Bjelovar. Štambuk, first ever mentioning of Croatian language is in Čakavian text. Čakavian author is self-referencing the language of his text as Croatian. Marko Marulić. Judita (written in 1501, published 1521). ...u versi haruacchi slozhena.... If you knew anything about Croatian language, you should know this. But it seems you don't. Ivan Štambuk, how come that you've appeared here? Are you wikihounding me (WP:HOUND)? Kubura (talk) 01:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've rectified and reverted edits committed by this IP. Apparently it was some Croatian extremist with very poor English skills and a propensity to twist facts a bit. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Montenegrin language
Don't put Montenegrin and Serbian language together. Don't create your original work. Respect Montenegrin linguists. Respect the free will and right of the nation that wants to have and to name its own language. Kubura (talk) 01:05, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This article is not about politics, it's about languages. If you have specific problems, please bring them up here and we can discuss the best way to resolve them, bearing in mind that this is an encyclopedia. A proposal of "why don't we change the passage XXXX to YYYY, for reasons ZZZZ" is much more likely to be helpful and to be received well, than shouting "don't belittle my people!" without explaining what you find belittling. kwami (talk) 01:14, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, that last edit approached vandalism. You can be WP:blocked for that kind of thing. Again, bring your concerns here for discussion. kwami (talk) 02:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, has the term vandalism changed its meaning? Kwamikagami, do you know anything about the history of Montenegrin culture? Do you speak Montenegrin? I don't know for you, but I don't want to reduce the Montenegrin culture and to deny their culture from the times before they were conquered by Serbian Empire. Interesting is that you find that all other contributors have to prove and reference their texts, but you don't apply that same rule for you. What, you're right by default, just because you said so? Kwamikagami, threat with blocking isn't argumentation. It's the attempt to impose your personal attitude by force/by intimidation of your opponent. Kubura (talk) 03:12, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * No, I'm saying that you should cooperate with other editors, specify what is wrong, and suggest a solution. If you don't do that, you're only a problem to be overcome, not a contributor who can make a better article. If I understand you correctly, you object to Serbian and Montenegrin being listed in the same line. However, you did not correct that, but damaged the article by reverting other things as well, so it's difficult to know what your point is. The reason S and M are listed together is because they are different standards of what is essentially the same language. After all, speakers understand each other without difficulty. This in no way denies the existence of Montenegrin; if I had wanted that, I would have deleted it altogether. In fact, I have been going around Wikipedia adding the Montenegrin language to articles, and reverting editors who delete it! But your immediate response is to imply that I am anti-Montenegrin. I could see putting Macedonian and Bulgarian on the same line as well, and I'll go ahead and to that. But the way it was laid out suggested that Bulg, Mac, Serb, and Mont. are equidistant, which we know is not the case. kwami (talk) 05:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this before your edit: And your edit did this: We know those games "it's not important, don't make a fuss" but you put those two languages in the same line. Why have you removed that additional line of Montenegrin and put it together with Serbian? Further, I've enriched the article, but you've blatantly removed all my edits. Including the ones about cultural orientation. You simply took several centuries away from Montenegrin culture. I'm not naive. You're pushing your limited knowledge and use edit war methods. I've enriched the article with info about new štokavian and old štokavian dialects, Kaykavian with Ikavian speech. But it seems that what you don't know, doesn't exist. So you blatantly revert. With this, you've insulted Macedonians. Before your edit was: After your edit was: You do tend to put languages together, just because you have fixation on that, don't you? Kwamikagami, this edit of yours is blatant vandalism. See how many referenced lines you've removed, as well as basic stuff about Štokavian dialect that every South Slavic languages enthusiast must know. Kubura (talk) 00:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Serbian
 * Montegrin
 * Serbian and Montenegrin
 * Bulgarian
 * Macedonian
 * Bulgarian and Macedonian


 * I've told you what is wrong with your edits. If you make problematic edits I will revert them, even if they include some good material. I'm not going to re-write them for you to save the good stuff: That's your job.
 * I explained why I put the langs together. You are intelligent enough to understand, so please don't pretend you don't. I put Bulg & Mac together because of your objections, as I've said. If you have another proposal for formatting that does not misrepresent the langs the way the old format did, please suggest it. kwami (talk) 01:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What mine objections? Don't lie. I haven't mentioned Bulgarian and Macedonian at all...Until above (in 00:57), but it was you who put them together, not me. " If you make problematic edits I will revert them, even if they include some good material. I'm not going to re-write them for you to save the good stuff. That's your job.". Kwamikagami, that's vandalism. Are you aware what you've said? Because of one allegedly problematic line, you've removed several paragraphs. You know what you've did ? Before your edit, article had 29,432 bytes. After your revert 27,443 bytes. Almost 2,000 bytes less. I've put the effort to write those informations, but you simply reverted (=deleted) them because these info is way above your limited knowledge about the topic. Kwamikagami, don't put yourself in the position of the Sun King. We are not here write again and again like idiots, hoping that The Sun King won't feel agitated, otherwise Sun King'll revert us again, ignoring several hours of our work. Kubura (talk) 01:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * All right, if you're going to attack people for disagreeing with you, then you are not worth trying to cooperate with. I have better things to do with my time. I will simply ignore you from now on, unless you demonstrate that you are willing to work together in good faith. Good bye. kwami (talk) 01:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It's you who attacked (threat with block) and disrespected users. It was you who self-willingly removed the contributions you don't like. It's you the one that has to explain your behaviour. And you have a lot to explain. Kubura (talk) 02:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is Kubura that your "enrichment" of the article also contained nonsense such as Serbo-Croatian: Yugounitarist political project, attempt of imposing of Serbian language through unified name. You're effectively pushing your extremist nationalist agenda through what it may seem as good-faith content-expanding edits. In fact, the only reason why you're adding noncontroversial content, is so that the controversial claims could more easily slip in unnoticed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:54, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Dear Ivan Štambuk, have you ever read the message of our dear colleague Ivan Štambuk, written here on wiki, on this very page. He nicely explained so-called Serbo-Croatian issue here "Dear Serbo-Croatian comrades,... you...having been indoctrinated by books written by ex-professors of "Serbo-Croatian languages" who graduated "Yugoslavistics", which for pure political reasons pushed the notion of "Serbo-Croatian dialects" as an alleged "genetic node" in the South Slavic branch. This notion of abundantly exploited for misappropriation of Croat-only cultural heritage, of which there are plenty of remnants in modern Serbian books (...bugaršćice by Molise Croats and medieval Čakavian writers like Hektorović as a part of "Serbian epic poetry"...)...". Colleague Ivan Štambuk nicely told that. Ivan Štambuk, I hope you won't tag Ivan Štambuk's work as "extreme nationalist agenda". Please, read WP:PERSONAL, WP:CIVIL, WP:ETIQ. Kubura (talk) 05:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Cultural orientation
This paragraph is just nonsense. Besides being written in mostly illiterate English, it simply abounds in counterfactual statements:
 * These languages were exposed to the strong influence of the Greek language and culture. - and so did "Catholic" Croatian, which has thousands of Greek loanwords, just like Serbian. Besides, Hellenisms form an essential ingredient of the Western culture, and are in no way exclusively attached to Christian Orthodox tradition.
 * Official letter in the Cyrillic script. - Except that Serbian and Montenegrin are primarily written in Latin script these days.
 * These languages were influenced by oriental culture, which left its mark in a number of Turkish words. And so does "Catholic" Croatian and "Islamic" Bosnian. Hundreds of everyday high-frequency words in modern standard Croatian were borrowed from Ottoman Turkish. Even some morphological features (suffixes such as -ana or -džija). Again, these words are usually classified as "Balkanisms", because they're spread all across the Balkans in several unrelated language groups (Albanian, Romance Romanian, Slavic and Greek). For some examples see this Wiktionary appendix. There is no clear-cut line along religious, ethnic or "cultural" criteria for their distribution. Slovene is the only exception because it was on the outskirts of Ottoman Empire, and most of "Balkanisms" in it are in fact later borrowings from Serbo-Croatian.
 * Southwest Slavic languages belong to the cultural circle of Catholic culture, these languages were exposed to the strong influence of the Latin language and Western culture.  - Again, you can find thousands of Latinate lexical roots in "Islamic" Bosian and "Orthodox" Serbian. This has nothing to do with religious line of influence but to wider Wester literary circle.
 * Catholic cultural languages - this is just idiotic. "Catholic language" OMG. Last time I checked Croatia and Slovenia were constitutionally secular states.

I'm removing this entire paragraph until the issues I mentioned are addressed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * There was a joke where one Irishman asked another, "Are you Catholic or Protestant?". He answered, "I'm an atheist." The first guy replied, "But are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?". I think that's the point of the references to religion, even if they need to be cleaned up. In the overview to religion in the ELL2, they give SC as an example:
 * "Social divisions or enmity on grounds of religion often arise within a single language community: in Northern Ireland, for example, despite wide-ranging differences in religious vocabulary, Catholics and Protestants have English as a common language. Serbo-Croatian (Serbo-Croat) is generally held to be a single language, despite religious vocabulary differences and a difference in writing system".
 * And of course many SC "Muslims" are atheist. — kwami (talk) 20:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

These are not true

 * Croatian language:
 * 1) Kaykavian dialect, Chakavian dialect and west-Stokavian subdijalects is Croatian dialects group!
 * 2) Croatian standard language is consists on all three dialects of Croatian, Croatian based in west stokavian subdialects or precision in Dubrovnik literature!
 * 3) The Croatian language is written exclusively Croatian Latin script (Gays alphabet-by Croat Ljudevit Gaj).
 * 4) Croatian language is exclusively ijekavian and ikavian YAT.


 * Serbian language:
 * 1) Serbian language consists of Torlakian dialect and east-Stokavian subdialects.
 * 2) Serbian standard language is based on the east Štokavian subdijalects!
 * 3) Serbian official language is written in Serbian Cyrillic and are informally allowed and Latin!
 * 4) Serbian standard language has ekavian YAT, but permits and dialectal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.47.51 (talk) 08:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you explain what exactly is not true? Some I see, such as the claim that Croatian and Serbian are based on different dialects. But others I don't: AFAIK, Croatian is written only in the Latin alphabet. — kwami (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * All bollocks. Standard Croatian is based exclusively on Ijekavian Neoštokavian, and the number of "influences" from Kajkavian and Čakavian can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There is no such ting as "Croatian Latin script", because the same script is used to write standard Bosnian, Serbian and Motenegrin, with the same letters denoting the same sounds. You can call it "Croatian Latin script", but there is really nothing inherently or exclusively "Croatian" in it. Standard Serbian has as much to do with Torlakian as standard Croatian with Kajkavian and Čakavian - i.e. nothing. Latin is not "informally" allowed, but officialized in the orthography and grammar books. Standard Serbian is based on both Ijekavian and Ekavian form (in act, originally it was only Ijekavian, Ekavian came later). You're spreading a bunch of lies and propaganda that can be refuted by a 10-second Google search. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Protection
I have fully-protected this article for a week, as it seems that the edit-warring is disrupting the article. If you can't reach consensus between you in that time, I'd suggest that some form of dispute resolution should be followed. Rodhull andemu  22:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian in the table

 * 12:50, 3 June 2010 JorisvS m (32,851 bytes) (Undid revision 365801713 by 89.172.45.2 (talk) remove talk page clutter (no talk element))
 * 11:48, 3 June 2010 89.172.45.2 (35,372 bytes) (→Serbian language and Croatian language is two differentes languages: new section)

There was actually one bit that wasn't a copy and paste - the user split the S-C entry into two. I have to admit I don't quite see the logic in treating this as vandalism. If the the old standard language name is used in the table, the column heading stays simple, but the content is complicated because of all the (perfectly legitimate) versions. If the new standard language names are used in the table, we get several more columns, but the content is simple because each version can span only one line. This is not plain vandalism, it's a content dispute. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 11:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * By "versions" you mean Latin and Cyrillic spelling? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you have opened this talk, I would otherwise probably also have done so somewhere in the future. Of course this isn't a case of simple vandalism but, as you say, over content; that must be obvious here.
 * The problem lies in that these (anonymous) people try to "prove" that Croatian and Serbian are different languages by citing a handful of barely-different words without engaging in talks as to why their reasons should be considered valid. (Did, for example, the last anonymous user ask anything, or otherwise engage in discussion?) Also, they seem to try to deny the existence of Serbo-Croatian, which remains true whether one regards these national standards as dialects thereof or as languages in their own right, as all national standards derive from Štokavian (this is also what I had put in a hidden comment on the page, without much success I might add).
 * I do think that I understand why they keep changing it, given their tumultuous history. However, I should also point out that this is an encyclopedia, not a political instrument, so that we should try to report the facts, not simply conform to people's emotions understandable these may be. I await your replies. --JorisvS (talk) 16:20, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * To answer your general concern - compare the three words in Russian and Serbian Cyrillic ekavian - all three are identical. Yet, when the existing standard Croatian version with non-identical examples is separated out, then that's petty nationalism. So what exactly is the criterion for inclusion in the table - pointing out similarities between faraway languages is okay, but pointing out differences between adjacent languages is not okay? Do you see the problem now? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 18:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * They're perhaps spelled the same, but they're pronounced completely differently (Serbo-Croatian has phonological orthography, Russian morpho-etymological, with accent and vowel reductions directing pronunciation), and inflect completely differently. The only difference between Ijekavian and Ekavian Serbo-Croatian form in zvijezda [zʋjěːzda] vs. zvezda [zʋjěːzda] is in this [j] sound, which is barely even phonological. Furthermore, Ijekavian Štokavian is also used for Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. You're effectively downplaying similarities which are much more important, and emphasizing differences which barely matter. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That's great, but that kind of an explanation is not actually there. You could talk of that if this was about e.g. a removal of the IPA code from the table, but that did not happen. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 07:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You stated that Ekavian Serbian in Cyrillic and Russian word were spelled the same, implying that they were somehow much more "similar" by that fact than Ekavian Serbian word is with Ijekavian Croatian counterpart, and that some kind of "injustice" was being done by grouping B/C/S together. I tried to explain that that is not the case, and that the spelling can be misleading. Cross-links to Wiktionary are provided where one can see inflection and IPA. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again, this explanation is not actually there - if you can see the explanation only once you click on a gazillion links, that's still not actually in the article. So if we are clear on the simple fact that what is in the article can be misleading, why don't we, say, fix that then? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. And that's why I say we include IPA transcriptions! Such a suggestion is easily made now, but cannot be made when IPA transcriptions are included. --JorisvS (talk) 11:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If they are already included on Wiktionary (phonetic and phonological, in several transcription and transliteration schemes - there is enough space), then they shouldn't be here. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't and it shouldn't be. Natural languages have complex phonological systems that cannot be explained in one sentence. If a reader doesn't understand how and why Russian звезда is read quite differently than Serbo-Croatian звезда, that is not our problem. It only takes a single click of the mouse button to get to the cross-linked Wiktionary page where IPA transcription and Latin Romanization is provided as a clue. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * So what exactly is the criterion for inclusion in the table  - relevance to the described sound changes. You and the IP need to read the actual article :) And just for the record: inherited Proto-Slavic word for "thousand" tisuća has been attested in hundreds of Serbian literary works throughout the centuries (e.g. in Dušanov zakonik), and hundreds of Croatian writers used (and still use) the Greek borrowing hiljada. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Look at the content now. It has "zv(ij)ezda звезда" and "cv(ij)et цвет". I for one find putting the proper Croatian spelling in parenthesis outright wrong, and even malicious given the context. Or, if you will, the Serbian Latin ijekavian spelling - same deal. If all those other identical versions can be duplicated, this one can be spelled out nicely at the very least. See, this is exactly the kind of behavior that gets the Croatians all riled up. Every other teeny weeny variant gets their own simple slot, yet ours is demoted to a parenthesized sub-option. If people can't understand that how or why this is perceived to be wrong from examples as simple as this one, well, then all I can say is that there's going to be a perpetual dispute. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 18:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that doesn't seem fair, so we shouldn't do it this way. Kwami's suggestion below, however, looks like a good solution to me. --JorisvS (talk) 19:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * What exactly is "wrong" and "malicious" with it? That's how it's usually done in linguistic works. Scientists don't really care about the nationalist feelings of the subjects they study. I'm sorry if you feel that your tongue has been downgraded to the status of a "parenthesized sub-option", but that's all there is to this "Croatian language" - an Ijekavian suboption of Serbo-Croatian. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, how about that for a concrete elaboration of why I used the word malicious - if this comment of yours isn't exactly that, it's at least utterly pompous and not scientific at all. You have been promulgating this complete reversion of the language nomenclature to the pre-1990s state in every related comment I have seen in the last few months, while failing to establish the same reversion in the relevant articles under the well-known set of encyclopedic criteria. So it's just POV pushing that is completely analogous to the nationalist POV pushing, only in an different direction. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 07:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, for one, in English the term was never gone, so cannot be reintroduced. I merely split the parenthesized option because from a scientific perspective they are equal. Splitting SC into Croatian, Serbian etc. is not equal from a scientific perspective: Stating Croatian, Serbian etc. are different languages makes little sense from the meaning of the English term "language" in the first place. --JorisvS (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * First of all, I certainly never said it was gone or that it was to be reintroduced. The thing is, the common/standard way of referencing these dialects, for years now, had been to reference the current names of standard variants rather than the old name of standard variants, and the reasons for that have been fairly clearly spelled out in the relevant articles. It is not adherence to "scientific perspective" to ignore the basic tenet of an encyclopedia - which is to describe, not to prescribe. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm just overlooking it, but I can't find this "fairly clearly" of yours. Common practice or not: it raises the question how dialects can be much more different from "its" standard than the standards are from eachother. Can you answer that? (And please don't give (only) social or political arguments; they can only answer why it's common practice, not why this usage would be valid.) Yes, an encyclopedia must describe, not prescribe. However, changing "the facts" for political reasons would be just that: not adhering to the scientific perspective. Of course we must also include the political reality in our description, but we mustn't change them due to politics. --JorisvS (talk) 11:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * For the clarity of why the naming scheme is non-trivial, just read the article on Serbo-Croatian language? Regarding "the facts", the fact is that nomenclature and categorization (such as the choice of table columns and headings) is not a simple matter of fact, but of judgement. You could also add a French column, which would be factual, but still pointless. So please steer clear of the apparent pitfall of pontificating on how using the old name is superbly scientific. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 19:29, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * What exactly is "PoV pushing" in my comment? Is it not the fact that the only relevant isogloss differentiating Ekavian Serbian and Croatian standard is long jat reflex, pronounced as subphonemic [j], intuitively understandable to all SC speakers? That's just as trivial as British and American English rhotics. Sorry to bust your myths. We cannot allow that nationalists overtake Wikipedia, and make it look like that B/C/S/M are 4 completely different languages that have nothing to do with one another. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There we go, more of the same. You seem to think that you're surrounded by some sort of crazy nationalists who are all hell-bent on making a false impression of extreme differences. Guess what? No, that is not the case. Those people do exist, but their existence (and their occasional vandalism) does not make it right to shun common sense. I've stated the simple reasons to avoid using the old standard name, yet you keep ranting as if you were on a soapbox. Please stop doing that in response to my comments. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Look below Talk:South_Slavic_languages - are these not simply lies? Aren't the arguments propounded on Talk:Croatian_language by a group of nationalists simply not lies? Mir Harven is repeatedly stating that standard Croatian is not based on Ijekavian Neoštokavian, which is a claim so bizarrely detached from reality that arguing with it seems like participating on paraolympics. You're making some generalized meta-statements on my comments from which I cannot extract anything worth addressing. Please no cheap psychology and self-victimization. Names are irrelevant, it's the content that matters. We could split one SC column into 4, Serbian with Ijekavian+Ekavian in 2 scripts, Bosnian Ijekavian in 2 scripts, Montenegrin Ijekavian in 2 scripts, Croatian Ijekavian in 1 script, but that would simply look ridiculous. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * So you saw something strange on the comment page. On the Internet. Yes. Nonsense exists. Opinions are like arseholes - everyone's got one. That doesn't mean you have to address everyone with someone else's opinion in mind. If the content is really what matters, then let's get back to what I explained to be misaligned - listing a standard language as a parenthesized suboption makes it sound like it's got less value than the others, which it does not, and there is no real benefit gained from doing that, so let's simply not do that because it's plain common sense. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 19:29, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I can see separating Chakavian, Torlakian, etc, but not standard CBS, which are the same dialect. Also, we seem to go into much more detail for SC than we do for, say, Slovenian, which is also quite diverse dialectically. Should some of the detail be moved to the SC article? — kwami (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think separating Čakavian, Kajkavian, Štokavian, and Torlakian instead of the national standards is also more interesting and informative. We should then of course also note that all national standards have been based upon Štokavian. This would also (for the most part; maybe not completely?) circumvent the problem we are facing now. I for one would like to learn more about the differences between these dialect groups.--JorisvS (talk) 19:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Using dialects would not help because it's the two variants of Štokavian that are Ijekavian and Ekavian, and obviously it would be a bias against standard languages and in favor of dialects in a page that explicitly says "language" in its title. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 09:00, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * How big are the differences between Čakavian, Kajkavian, Štokavian, and Torlakian anyway? --JorisvS (talk) 10:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, using (and separating) the national standards only would mean giving undue weight (linguistically) to Štokavian only... And what does the term 'language' still mean if the (Štokavian) national standards are called languages while Kajkavian and Čakavian are called dialects? --JorisvS (talk) 11:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * But that's the reality. All those varying standards all picked some variant of Štokavian, none picked any of the other three (IOW there is no Kajkavian or Čakavian national standard per se), so giving the others equal standing gives them undue weight. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 12:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the reality is that all four dialects exist and that all national standards happen to have been based on Štokavian. Linguistically, one cannot consider one dialect more important or interesting simply because it happens to have become the basis of several national standards. --JorisvS (talk) 14:00, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, then I just have to verify - have the other standard languages in the list undergone the same treatment? If so, then do that. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 07:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * My statement here can be verified quickly enough. Having (one or more) standards doesn't give a variety more weight from a scientific perspective. About the (other) standard languages—see below. --JorisvS (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Currently the table lists for SC: "zvijezda, звезда, zvezda". For some strange reason, Cyrillic script for Ijekavian is missing. Why? It is used for standard Ijekavian Serbian, Montenegrin and (in theory) Bosnian. This is so absurd, I'm restoring the original form with parentheses. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If the Cyrillic Ijekavian script is missing, why not just add that one too? At the very least this says nothing about using parentheses or not for its Latin counterparts.
 * Anyway, I think there is much more to be said against the table. It includes no transcription into Latin script for Cyrillic (we can't assume readers be familiar with Cyrillic) nor into IPA, which, as you have stated above, would be quite useful for showing actual differences that exist between the languages. As it stands now, using only orthographies, is rather suggestive. Moreover, of the modern languages this table only includes the standard languages of the other Slavic branches, which isn't quite neutral (from a scientific perspective) either. It does not, for example, include Kashubian. --JorisvS (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Because 4 rows is an overkill. If the reader is not familiar with Cyrillic script, he has no business in reading and understanding the section on linguistic prehistory of South Slavic languages. We cannot assume absolute possible amount of ignorance by the reader. IPA and transcriptions are provided at Wiktionary cross-links. Standard languages are just enough to illustrate the described sound changes. Dialects and obscure languages are irrelevant. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, that's just bullshit! Such transcriptions are commonplace, and we should make articles as accessible as possible. Assuming readers understand Cyrillic makes it less accessible. There are a myriad of possible routes that readers could have taken getting here without learning to read Cyrillic first (let's see: IE→Slavic, and poof, →South Slavic languages; or better yet: Italy→Slovenia→Slovenian, poof, South Slavic languages; etc.) And if you want readers to hop to Wiktionary 'for every fart', than so much for accessibility/clarity here. And more bullshit: From a scientific perspective "obscure" languages are just languages like every other, and they could well be very interesting. You're mixing socio-politics with science here (granted, you're not the only one, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place). The same thing can apply to certain dialects: they might be quite interesting. And no, that's not to say we should also include all dialects. What we should do is find valid inclusion criteria. --JorisvS (talk) 23:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be much more helpful if you could be civil and avoid "arguments" such as "that's just is bullshit".
 * Such transcriptions are commonplace, and we should make articles as accessible as possible. - Where exactly are they commonplace? Is there some official Wikipedia MoS or policy page requiring them? Why exactly should unnecessary and irrelevant lexicographical details such as IPA and Romanization be added, when they're already provided in a much less cluttered form on the respective sister project which can be trivially linked to?
 * Assuming readers understand Cyrillic makes it less accessible. - This is like saying that the article on Fundamental theorem of calculus requires reader to know arithmetic, which makes is "less accessible". It is a specialized topic not meant for general ignorami. If a user doesn't know Cyrillic script (which can be learned in a few hours by any reasonably intelligent and educated human), he in all likelihood is not really interested into Slavic studies and wouldn't be able to comprehend a single sentence of that entire section.
 * There are a myriad of possible routes that readers could have taken getting here without learning to read Cyrillic first.. - your point is what exactly? That we should compensate for all imaginable scenarios where readers could hurt their fragile little minds by being introduced to a topic not explicitly dumbed down to make up for the worst possible ignorance threshold? If a user does not know what Cyrillic script letters mean and how they are read in a particular Slavic language (and general knowledge of Cyrillic script is useful, but not completely because words are usually not read as they are written, and they could mean different things in different languages), he should than perhaps click the appropriate "XXX language" wikilink in the respective column and familiarize himself with the information stored in there. It's that easy.
 * And if you want readers to hop to Wiktionary 'for every fart', than so much for accessibility/clarity here. - The purpose of Wiktionary is extensive lexicographical treatment. The purpose of Wikipedia is extensive encyclopaedic treatment. There is little point in duplicating the effort. Clicking the back button in browser is no accessibility impediment IMHO. You WP regulars are severely prejudiced to wikilinking to sister projects. Sorry that we steal your precious clicks.
 * Note: I'm also active on Wiktionary. Please don't assume some (severe) prejudice. --JorisvS (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * From a scientific perspective "obscure" languages are just languages like every other, and they could well be very interesting. Yes but they're irrelevant proportionately to their usage and political-cultural insignificance. 99% of them will grow extinct within 1-2 generations, according to the most optimistic estimates. Listing them inside the table would be giving them undue prominence. I'm sure that there are scenarios where listing them would make sense, but they don't add any additional value to the table. I mean really, Kashubian?! C'mon.
 * What we should do is find valid inclusion criteria. - Well all the major Slavic "languages" are covered. We're missing Sorbian, Kashubian, Slovincian, Polabian and Silesian, which are either extinct and/or lack significant speech communities. Adding them would only introduce additional clutter. IMO it would be sufficient to include only OCS + major ones from all 3 groups (SC, Russian, and Polish). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:55, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, true, for the sake of correct interpretation of written material like this, lacking any non-verbal support, terms like "bullshit" should better be avoided.
 * Transcription/Readability. There is a big difference between using arithmetic on Fundamental theorem of calculus, where such is central, and using only Cyrillic here, where this is peripheral. WP:RF, especially the Our audience section, explains why it is better to include some more information, rather than less. It also explains why it improves an article like FToC by also explaining it in words. The Russian language page, where the use of Cyrillic is more central than to this article, includes IPA transcriptions where appropriate (and where it doesn't it does so without compromising intelligibility for those not familiar with it). And please don't decide for readers whether they're interested in something or not, let them decide. Also, please remain civil also to those not engaged in this discussion ('ignorami'? 'worst possible ignorance threshold'? 'their fragile little minds'?).
 * Inclusion criteria. Don't deride minority languages simply for being minority languages, certainly not using emotional pseudoarguments like "I mean really, Kashubian?! C'mon.". My point was that it's the national standards that are included in the table. Following this rationale leads would lead us to conclude that Croatian and Serbian etc. instead of SC should be included. Since this article is on South Slavic languages I say we include a wide variety of SS languages, while keeping only one language of the other two branches for reference. (So no, I wasn't really arguing to include the minor (non-SS) languages.) --JorisvS (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No there is no difference, and your point is very far-fetched, because people are much more likely to decode Cyrillic (used by hundreds of millions of people) than IPA hieroglyphs that Wikipedia keeps pushing, but which are in fact completely unknown to the general public and are a tool used by specialists. So IPA junk and scientific transcription should not be forced. That information is there, one click away. If the readers are too lazy to click wikilinks, it's their problem.
 * and where it doesn't it does so without compromising intelligibility for those not familiar with it - Sure it does. In the very first sentence in the lead: "[ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]". That's completely intelligible....not. Sure it helps some, but 99% of readers simply skip that junk.
 * And please don't decide for readers whether they're interested in something or not, let them decide. - And how exactly am I suppose to to that. Your logic is that we first insert superfluous information that is of no use but to a close-knit coterie of professional phoneticians, and that we listen to possible negative feedback after that decision. That makes no sense IMHO. IPA is useless clutter that shouldn't be there.
 * I'm not "deriding" what you call "minority languages" but simply stating facts and drawing conclusions from them. The fact is that 1) they're usually culturally irrelevant 2) growing extinct 3) average and even knowledgeable reader is very unlikely to hear for them (99% of Slavs probably don't know about Kashubian either). National standards are recent historical fabrications (especially in case of B/C/S/M), and there is no need to resort to nationalist terminology from political sphere. For all the practical purposes, the designation Serbo-Croatian would suffice. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course the designation Serbo-Croatian suffices (nowhere I'm actually disputing that, although I did make a typo), because you're right saying they're fabrications (okay, I'd say 'social' here, but that doesn't matter). Could you explain how "I mean really, Kashubian?! C'mon." is 'simply stating facts'? And you can let readers decide what they're interested in by not deciding for people what is to be considered 'clutter' or not, because deeming something clutter is actually an opinion (you may think so but someone else may well find it useful). --JorisvS (talk) 16:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's begin this by trying to answer the following question: How big are the differences between and within Slovenian, Kajkavian, Čakavian, Štokavian, Torlakian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian? --JorisvS (talk) 23:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Some Slovenian dialects are mutually unintelligible. Some Čakavian and Kajkavian dialects are mutually unintelligible (Kajkavian is more related to Slovenian dialects than to Štokavian and Čakavian). Standard Bulgarian and Macedonian are pretty much 100% mutually intelligible, but their differences are comparatively larger than among B/C/S standards. Torlakian of today is actually much closer to Bulgaro-Macedonian than to Štokavian, and is not much intelligible to SC speakers who haven't been exposed to it before (at least not more than normal Bulgarian and Macedonian). I'm not familiar with internal differences in B&M dialects. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:55, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! Now we're making progress! I'd like to note that part of this isn't clear from the article, while being VERY relevant. Now lets try to work more detail into this. --JorisvS (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really see how that's relevant to this article. Intelligibility issues are already (partially) discussed on the respective article pages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Mhm, how are the relationships between languages in a language family not relevant to an article about that language family? --JorisvS (talk) 16:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Not having read all of the above, here are my 2c:

There are several possible criteria for inclusion, all valid, but with different aims. One would be to show the development of SS as a language family, by choosing divergent dialects that illustrate historical sound changes. Another would be to illustrate national standards, regardless of whether they say much about historical change. There is also a choice between how many levels of the classification are illustrated. For example, in illustrating Nostratic, it would be silly to have both Serbian and Croatian. In illustrating Serbo-Croatian, that would be essential. I'd be hard pressed to justify them in Indo-European, rather less so in Slavic.

IMO, what would be most informative would be to include the major Slovene, SC, and Bulgarian-Macedonian dialects, and maybe OCS. The national BCS standards could then be covered by Shtokavian, and could be illustrated in the article on SC. Similarly, in an article on Central Indic languages, I wouldn't see any point in separating Urdu from Standard Hindi, and in a Malayic languages article, no point in separating Malay from Malaysian from Indonesian. For some people national standards might be more important, but to me the point of such a table is to illustrate the diversity of a language family, not to give equal time to each political interest. — kwami (talk) 20:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian not corect term

 * 1) Is not Croatian term !
 * 2) Is serbian term ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.168.99.36 (talk) 23:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Is WP:English term. — kwami (talk) 03:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

SOUTH SLAVIC LANGUAGES
Serbian language and Croatian language is two differentes languages; serbo-croatian not CROATIAN LANGUAGE or SERBIAN LANGUAGE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 * http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=292-16 SOUTH SLAVIC LANGUAGES
 * http://www.nsk.hr/UserFiles/File/Slu%C5%BEeno%20prihva%C4%87anje%20izmjena%20ISO%20639-2%20Registration%20Authority.pdf DIFFERENTS CROATIAN LANGUAGE AND SERBIAN LANGUAGE!
 * Is that your proof? That Ethnologue decides to dodge the sensitivities and depricate the language code? It wouldn't be Ethnologue's the only incorrect thing. --JorisvS (talk) 10:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

History languages map in Europe 1901

 * http://www.mycity.rs/slika.php?slika=147222_635514442_%26%231045%3B%26%231074%3B%26%231088%3B%26%231086%3B%26%231087%3B%26%231089%3B%26%231082%3B%26%231080%3B%20%26%231112%3B%26%231077%3B%26%231079%3B%26%231080%3B%26%231094%3B%26%231080%3B%201901%20%26%231075%3B%26%231086%3B%26%231076%3B%26%231080%3B%26%231085%3B%26%231077%3B.jpg Croatian language and Serbian language is two differents languages ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.168.104.218 (talk) 22:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Is that your proof? A very incorrect map? --JorisvS (talk) 10:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

About "Serbo-Croatian"
Here're some linguist sources. This is from the interview: Vijenac Ranko Matasović, the linguist: Srpsko-hrvatski nikada nije ostvaren, jer nije postojao (Serbo-Croatian has never come into reality, since it never existed ). ''Za hrvatski je jezik važno ...treba stalno isticati da je različit od srpskoga standardnog jezika i bošnjačkog i crnogorskog bez obzira na međusobnu razumljivost. Laicima je teško shvatiti da postoje ljudi koji se međusobno vrlo dobro razumiju kada govore o svakodnevnim stvarima, ali kad je riječ o standardnom jeziku, u prvi plan dolaze suptilne stvari kao što su znanstvena i pravna terminologija, koja se posebno u hrvatskom dosta razlikuje od one u srpskom i bošnjačkom jeziku. Tu treba biti odlučan i dosljedan da se poštuje taj identitet hrvatskog kao posebnoga standardnog jezika. ''Kako biste objasnili razliku između hrvatskog i srpskog? ''– Treba objasniti ljudima da to nije razlika kakva postoji između američkog i britanskog engleskog. To su bliskosrodni idiomi među kojima postoje razlike na izgovornoj, pravopisnoj razini, ponekoj sintaktičkoj konstrukciji, ali su znanstvene i pravne terminologije na britanskom i američkom engleskom gotovo identične zbog toga što je postojala velika suradnja i protok ljudi i ideja između Velike Britanije i Sjedinjenih Država, kada su provođene standardizacije. Zbog različitih kulturnih i povijesnih uvjeta u kojima su provođene standardizacije hrvatskog i srpskog jezika nazivlja su u velikoj mjeri različita. Pogledajte popis kemijskih elemenata. To je često akademik Brozović isticao kao primjer. Ja ne bih znao napisati osnovnoškolski ili srednjoškolski sastavak o kemiji na srpskom jeziku. Moja djeca to ne bi ni razumjela. Na svakodnevnoj komunikacijskoj razini razlike su doista minimalne, a kad dođemo do tehničkih stvari, pravnih formulacija i deklaracija na proizvodima, razlike su znatne i treba ih poštivati. ''Je li srpsko-hrvatski koji se godinama učio u školama bivše Jugoslavije mrtav jezik? Mnogi ljudi koji su tijekom rata otišli živjeti u inozemstvo još govore tu neku inačicu jezika koji su naučili! ''– Taj je jezik bio projekt u glavama skupine lingvista i mnogih političara. Usprkos pritiscima kojima je hrvatski bio izložen, nikada nije bilo provedeno ujednačavanje standardnih oblika u hrvatskom i srpskom. Ideološki pritisak nije bio podjednako jak u svim razdobljima komunističke vlasti, bilo je popuštanja i pojačavanja pritiska, ali nikada potpuno ujednačavanje standardnih jezika nije provedeno. Kao standardni jezik '''srpsko-hrvatski nikada nije postojao. Bio je projekt''' koji nikada nije ostvaren. Kao jezik promatran iz kuta genetske lingvistike on nikad nije postojao zbog razloga o kojima govorim u knjizi. I can translate this later. Kubura (talk) 01:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Translation: ''It's important for Croatian language to permanently emphasize that it's different from Serbian standard language, as well as from Bosnian and Montenegrin no matter how interintelligible they are. It's hard for non-experts to understand that there're people that understand each other very good when they speak about everyday things, but when things come to standard language, then other things come in front: suptile things like scientific and juristic terminology, that's especially different from the one in Serbian and Bosnian language. There one must be determined and consistent in order to respect that identity of Croatian as special standard language. ''How 'd you explain the difference between Croatian and Serbian? ''– It must be explained to people that that difference is not the difference as the one between American and British English. These are closely related idioms that have differences on pronunciation, orthographic level, some syntactic constructions, but the scientific and juristic terminologies in British and American English almost identical, since there was big cooperation and fluidity of humans and ideas between Great Britan and USA in the times when standardizations have been implemented. Because of different cultural and historical conditions in which the standardizations of Croatian and Serbian language were carried out, the terminologies are in high degree different. Just look at the list of chemical elements. Academist Brozović often emphasized that as example. I wouldn't know to write in Serbian language the elementary school or middle school task. My children wouldn't understand that. On everyday communication level, the differences are really minimal, but when we come to technical stuff, legal formulations and declarations on the products, the differences are sizeable and these must be respected. ''Is Serbo-Croatian that was learned in the schools of former Yugoslavia, dead language? Many people that have left abroad during the war are still speaking some variant of language they've been learning! ''– That language was the project in the heads (note by Kubura: "head" as human anatomy) of groups of linguists and many politicians. . Despite the pressures against the Croatian language, the uniformization of standard forms in Croatian and Serbian has never been carried out. Ideological pressure wasn't equally strong in all times of Communist rule, pressures were looser and stronger, but the total uniformization of standard languages has never been carried out. As standard language, '''Serbo-Croatian has never existed. It was the project''' that has never been materialized. As a language, seen from the angle of genetic linguistics , he (Serbo-Croatian) has never existed because of the reasons I'm talking about in the book. There's more in that text in, but this is helpful enough. Kubura (talk) 00:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Kubura, no-one denies any of this. It's not the issue. The issue is that Croatian and Serbian are not separate branches of South Slavic, coordinate with Slovenian and Bulgarian, but standards of a single dialect of a single branch of South Slavic. The dialect is called "Shtokavian". The branch is called "Serbo-Croatian". You can provide all the sources you like for Croatian and Serbian being separate standards, but it's utterly irrelevant: we're not talking about separate standards, and not denying separate standards. — kwami (talk) 03:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That is correct: from the perspective of genetic linguistics, there is no Serbo-Croatian node encompassing all spoken dialects. But the thing is, according to the same criteria, there is no Croatian, Bosnian or Serbian node either. Čakavian+Kajkavian+Croatian Štokavian have 0 exclusive isoglosses. On the other hand, standard languages have something in common - the same dialectal basis, and since when you say Croatian in English you most likely mean "standard Croatian, as it is taught in schools and spoken in the media", it makes sense to group B/C/S together. Again, this was explained to you for some x times.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Single dialect?????? Croatian is consisted of three dialects (Chakavian, Shtokavian and Kaykavian), Serbian is consisted of one dialect (Shtokavian). Croatian has three speeches (Ikavian, Ekavian and Iyekavian, older works mentioned fourth one, Yekavian), Serbian has two speeches (Ekavian and Yekavian). Shtokavian is so heterogenous, that you cannot place all subdialects under one roof just like that. Croatian and Serbian are separate branches. You cannot place Marulić's poetry, Balade Petrice Kerempuha, Šenoa's Zlatarevo zlato (a translation into Serbian was made over a century ago!) into Serbian. Kubura (talk) 00:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, Kubura, for the nth time, we know all this. It's already covered in the articles. — kwami (talk) 03:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Modern standard Croatian is exclusively Ijekavian Neoštokavian. Other dialects (Old Štokavian, Čakavian and Kajkavian) are spoken on some rural areas, and are growing extinct since they're not taught in schools or written in the media. They have nothing in common, at least not common to the degree higher than modern standard Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian do, other than some of their speakers identify themselves as "Croatian", which was not the case until 2 centuries ago when nation-building across Europe began. Yes Štokavian is heterogeneous - but much less then e.g. Čakavian or Kajkavian themselves, yet you still put them under the same roof ("Croatian") along ethnic lines. This has been explained to you countless times Kubura, stop trolling over and over again. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Croatian language form thre dialects

 * Croatian dialects:
 * 1) Kaykavian dialect
 * 2) Chakavian dialect
 * 3) Shtokavian dialect: (Croatian Western-Shtokavian subdialects, (history; "Westernshtokavian dialect"): slavonian subdialect, western ikavian subdialect, western ijekavian subdialect and esternbosnian subdialect).


 * Croatian not Torlakian dialect and Estern-Shtokavian subdialect, (history;"Esternshtokavian dialect"): (estern ijekavian subdialect, zeta-sandžak subdialect, kosovo-resava subdialect, shumadia-vojvodina subdialect). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.15.179.170 (talk) 21:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you'll read the article, you'll see this is already included. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Torlakian is considered Croatian dialect too (again, along ethnic lines since some Croats speak it too, although it's prevalently Serbian). Modern Croatian dialectology books do cover Torlakian dialects . And BTW, there is no such thing as "Eastern Štokavian dialect". --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Karaševski dialect is part of the Croatian language. Torlak dialect is not part of the Croatian language and can not be classified into Croatian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.15.183.84 (talk) 16:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Karaševski dialect is a specific dialect spoken by about 5,000 Croats in Romania's Banat, created by mixing kajkavian and Banat Bulgarian-speaking, because it now considered part of the group Torlak dialect.

`Star' in Ukrainian: rather `зірка' than `звізда'
`Звізда' is a really old-fashionable and funny word. You can't find it in modern dictionaries. The word is `зірка'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Art3mus (talk • contribs) 13:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the point of the table is to include cognates, and зірка isn't that. It might be a good thing to note, though. --JorisvS (talk) 14:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Croatian language
Croatian language is written exclusively by a bevy of Latin and Ijekavian variant without parentheses!
 * 1) Croatian written: zvijezda, cvijeće..
 * 2) Croatian speech : zviezda, cvieće.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.237.116.156 (talk) 18:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, good catch, these parentheses are indeed not orthographic; they are scientific. You may have noticed that Serbo-Croatian is a pluricentric language, which means it has multiple standards; this is simply the way to concisely represent these. --JorisvS (talk) 22:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Mister JorisvS, sorry but the Croatian and Serbian languages are two different languages, these are two different standard languages, two different letters, two different systems (Croatian dialects; Kajkavian, Chakavian and western Shtokavian), (Serbian dialect; Torlakian and estern Shtokavian). The similarities that exist between them are equal and the other Slavic languages. These two languages are approximative political violence since 1918. to 1941./1945. to 1990. because there are other similarities, but this is not one language, they are two separate languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.15.186.151 (talk) 09:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The point is not that these differences you mention do not exist, the point is that these differences do nothing to impede intelligibility between speakers of the various standards: that's why they are the same language when one looks at the issue scientifically. The differences between (standard) Croatian and Serbian, both Štokavian, are far smaller than the differences between these and other Slavic languages, even far smaller than between the "dialects", another reason why they can't be languages proper. Also, some Croatians do speak Torlakian (Krashovani). Political upheaval has nothing to do with the languages the people in question speak; it never has, though it can result from the perceptions the people have of it and how they behave having these. --JorisvS (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit war?
What this is pell-mell retraction between Ivan Štambuk and the anon? Necessary first here a discussion. Doncseczznánje 21:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Not edit-war, but vandalism undo. Extremist Serb nationalist diaspora has a problem when coming to terms with reality. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Ivan has a point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bascanska (talk • contribs) 13:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

"Central South Slavic diasystem/area" and/versus/or "Western South Slavic Section/group/dialects
I hope I am not raising an issue which was addressed before, since I haven't read through this discussion, but I am nonetheless wondering how so that diasystem (Serbo-Croatian, if I understand correctly) is named Central South Slavic, while Serbo-Croatian and its dialects/languages are in Western section. Beside the obvious need for such naming because of Eastern-Western division, I don't know why is there some centralness "within" Serbo-Croatian. Is this the right place to ask this kind of question? Best regards, Biblbroks (talk) 00:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * "Central South Slavic" originated from Croatian linguists in communist Yugoslavia who sought a replacement for the politically-repugnant term (to them) "Serbo-Croatian" (the "Serbo-" part was rather galling to them). Their new term hasn't gained that much traction in Slavic Studies, and its use has remained limited primarily to Croats who wish to avoid "Serbo-Croatian" or some Bosnians who feel excluded by the lack of explicit mention of "their" language in "Serbo-Croatian". Fundamentally "Central South Slavic" is no better or even slightly worse than the sometimes problematic term "Serbo-Croatian" because "Central South Slavic" basically implies a geographic dimension on a matter of linguistic classification even though isoglosses are not highly supportive of such a designation. See the map on p.10 of this article. The idea was that Central South Slavic should replace Serbo-Croatian and so it still includes Shtokavian (where each of the current "Bosnian", "Croatian", "Montenegrin" and "Serbian" derive from the same Shtokavian sub-dialect - to date it's partial on the emerging Montenegrin standard), Čakavian (a now peripheral group of dialects used by some Croats living along the Adriatic coast) and Kajkavian (a peripheral group of dialects used by Croats that is transitional to Slovenian and in a certain way can even be treated or analyzed usefully as a Slovenian dialect instead). The trouble is that by letting "Central South Slavic" cover this heterogeneous cluster of dialects, the notion of "centrality" becomes flimsy considering that it includes Kajkavian which merges with Slovenian and is dubiously "Central". Vput (talk) 16:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Chakavian speaking Slovenes, community Ilirska Bistrica
Ther are chakavian speaking Slovenes or chakavian speaking Slovenian citizens claiming to be ethnical Slovenes South of Podgrad (Golac, Polane, Starod), community Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia.

http://istra.lzmk.hr/clanak.aspx?id=2291

http://www.primorske.si/Primorska/Srednja-Primorska/Cica-ni-prevarija-nidan-hudic!.aspx

80.109.224.73 (talk) 07:15, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This title has nothing to do with reality, and neither of these links also have absolutely nothing to do with dialect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.45.205.101 (talk) 19:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Official linguistic map of Europe
Official linguistic map of Europe — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.45.223.190 (talk) 00:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Звiзда
In Ukrainan "star" is "зiрка", not "звiзда". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.164.130.93 (talk) 11:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

"Рало" in the East Slavic languages
I am a native speaker of Russian and I don't think I've ever seen or heard the word "рало" used in Russian to mean "plough" before coming across this article. I am aware that the most common word "плуг" can't be used in the table, since it should only include cognates of the other words in the line, but the word "орало" also seems to be a descendant/cognate of *ordlo, and is actually still used by Russian speakers in at least some contexts. Is there a reason why we can't use that word instead of or alongside "рало"?

Also, I have no idea if a descendant of *ordlo is actually used in Belarusian to refer to ploughs, but if it is shouldn't it be pronounced and spelled "рала"? Or is the stress on the second syllable?VonPeterhof (talk) 18:30, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

"plough" in Polish and Russian languages
I agree. Polish is my mother tongue and the word "plough" should be translated in Polish as "pług". I've never heard of the word "radło" for "plough" as suggested in the table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Slavic_languages#Linguistic_prehistory

Both words, Polish "pług" and Russian "плуг", are pronounced in almost exactly the same way.

--Filip667 (talk) 11:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * So, words that you personally never heard of don't exist? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:05, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 November 2015
please change ((Albanian)) to ((Albanian language|Albanian))

73.154.175.89 (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2015 (UTC)


 * ✅ Tropcho (talk) 16:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Burgenland Croatian
The article says: "At most 100,000 people speak Burgenland Croatian and almost all are bilingual in German." [http://www.zigh.at/index.php?id=71&L=1. Here] are the actual numbers for Croatian speakers in Burgenland from the Wissenschaftliches Institut der Burgenlandkroaten (scientific institute of the Burgenland Croats). In 2001 there were only 17,730 speakers in the census, and this number includes not only natives but also immigrants from Croatia. An independent study found a higher number of 25,000 speakers in 1991. So there's a certain margin, but even if it was 25,000 in 1991 it is now less. The Burgenland Croats themselves say that the group is in decline because of "der starke Assimilationsdruck und die Überalterung der Volksgruppe" (the strong assimilation pressure and the high average age of the ethnic group). --- Croats in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary are also sometimes included in "Burgenland Croats", but even then the number of speakers would never reach 100,000. And, of course, it couldn't be said that "almost all are bilingual in German". 178.4.151.167 (talk) 19:30, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Specifics of Slovene language appear to be deliberately neglected
There are many more differences between any Serbo-Croatian dialects and Slovenian language than this article states. From grammatical perspective only dual is mentioned here. In fact the declension system, the endings in particular are simply different. Also the counting, Slovenes use Germanic system (31 one-and-thirty). Apart from the grammar, the vocabulary overlaps less then 50%, many words have switched meanings or completely different roots. All in all, only Croatians near Slovene border can understand some Slovene. If you move just 20km further, you can order coffee in Slovene, but they won't understand anything more complicated than that. Any person speaking a Serbo-Croatian dialect will find it practically impossible to use Slovenian declension system and will need to invest significant time and effort to master it. Similar goes for vocabulary.

Since the war in ex Yugoslavia there enormous effort was invested mainly on Croatian side to somehow separate Croatian language from others, Serbian in particular. Part of this strategy is to give the impression than Croatian is more similar to Slovenian than to Serbian and this article is leaning in that direction. This is simply not true. Croats and Serbs understand each others dialect with the greatest of ease, but neither of them can understand much Slovenian (apart from the border people, as noted before) and learning to speak Slovenian for them is far from easy.

To illustrate, difference between Slovenian language and Serbo-Croatian languages/dialects would be like difference between Italian and Spanish. Differences within Serbo-Croatian dialects could be compared to differences between various Spanish dialects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hrevaklev (talk • contribs) 15:10, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 November 2020
There are many more differences between any Serbo-Croatian dialects and Slovenian language than this article states. From grammatical perspective only dual is mentioned here. In fact the declension system, the endings in particular are simply different. Also the counting, Slovenes use Germanic system (e.g. 31 one-and-thirty). Apart from the grammar, the vocabulary overlaps less then 50%, many words have switched meanings or completely different roots. All in all, only Croatians near Slovene border can understand some Slovene. If you move just a bit further, you simply cannot have a conversation if you try to use Slovene. Any person speaking a Serbo-Croatian dialect will find it practically impossible to use Slovenian declension system and will need to invest significant time and effort to master it. Similar goes for mastering Slovene vocabulary. Hrevaklev (talk) 16:20, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Melmann 17:47, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Suspected Canvassing, Recruiting or Tag Teaming
We just saw several North Macedonian editors come out of nowhere and remove a certain map one after the other to avoid reverting by only one of them. I have observed this a number of times, and I can claim that a number of North Macedonian editors are keeping in touch with each other and coordinate in order to attack and disrupt pages. VMORO
 * VMORO I can safely state that I have no contact with any other editors outside of Wikipedia. It could be that a social media post has attracted the attention of several editors, but that is only my speculation.
 * I'll copy-paste what I've written above:
 * VMORO firstly I'd like to preface WP:AGF and WP:NATIONALIST (see "Anti-nationalist" section). I have no where, absolutly no where mentioned any other map, you are putting words in my mouth. It's a fact that Macedonian and Bulgarian have vastly different dialectal classifications, even disregarding dialects outside of N.Macedonia.


 * The source listed by the creator of the map for Macedonian and Bulgarian is a map by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - which also maintains a fringe-POV view that the internationally-recognized Macedonian language, recogonized by effectivly all foreign sources, does not exist i.e is a "language norm" of Bulgarian.


 * Judging by your comment here and here, we can agree that this map is inaccurate. Hence it should be removed, until it is corrected, which also includes my concerns above. Best regards. Kluche (talk) 12:59, 10 May 2023 (UTC)


 * "You can only state, you can only state". I know how much your statements are worth. Btw, I haven't forgotten about your disruptive editing on Bulgarians in North Macedonia, where you are trying to hide state oppression against North Macedonian citizens with a Bulgarian ethnic consciousness by erasing sourced statements. But we will get there:). I would recommend that you restore all deleted content. VMORO
 * Again, I'd like to preface with WP:OTHERCONTENT and that I'm still WP:AGF in this conversation, although it could be breaking WP:CIVILITY. I feel that you are directly attacking and impilcating my edits, as well as threating. I do hope that I am wrong. Kluche (talk) 13:21, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
 * No, no worries there. VMORO 13:47, 10 May 2023 (UTC)