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The existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language is disputed among politicians, linguists and common people from the neighboring countries. Macedonian dialects are indeed part of a dialectal continuum which stretches from Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian Shtokavian dialect through Torlakian on the northwest, to western and eastern Bulgarian dialects on the East, the Macedonian language, like Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, being a standardized form of (some of) these dialects.

In relation to the above debate and also sharing common ground with the Greek objection over the country's naming, the name of the language is a source of controversy, leading to a number of alternative references being used, most often limited to a specific context.

Introduction
The disputes are rooted in the relatively late emergence of nation states in the Balkans, the Macedonian nation being the last to gain political recognition. The region of Macedonia having been a recent battleground of multi-ethnic rivalries is associated with the national and cultural identities of Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians along with that of ethnic Macedonians. The Macedonian language today shares a wide degree of recognition as a seperate language worldwide, both politically and from a modern linguistic approach. "Macedonian" is the prevalent name in use also, accepted by international organizations, educational and research institutions. Although belonging to an overall minority, the most common views from neighboring countries raise concerns over the "authenticity" of the Macedonian language, drawing arguments from the political background that led to its standarization and official status, and also pointing to historical facts prior to that. In relation to the name.

National perspectives
Macedonian view

According to the Macedonian view, now prevalent and official in the books in Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian was the first official language of the Slavs, thanks to the St. Cyril and St. Methodius's introduction of Slavic literacy language through the Glagolitic script, that was based on Southern Macedonian dialect from the neighbourhood of Thessaloniki, the home of the two saints. Later on, Macedonia fell under the rule of Bulgarians, and the Byzantines regarded all Slavic Macedonians as Bulgarians. According to a minority view, supported in the Republic of Macedonia, Samuil's realm in the early Middle Ages was allegedly the first Macedonian Slavic state. However, Krste Misirkov, who allegedly set the principles of the Macedonian literary language in the late 19th century, stated: "We speak a Bulgarian language and we believed with Bulgaria is our strong power."

The assimilation of Macedonians was almost finished in Bulgaria, and the Greek government expelled hundreds of thousands of Slavs from Macedonia, who settled finally in Vardar Macedonia under Yugoslav control, where in 1945, the local language became official, according to the decision made in 1944. Approximately 8-10% of the present inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are the descendants of the Aegean Macedonian refugees.

Bulgarian view

Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, most of its acedemics, as well as the general public, regard the language spoken there as a form of Bulgarian.

Most Bulgarian linguists consider the Slavic dialects spoken in the region of Macedonia as a part of the Bulgarian diasystem. Numerous shared features of these dialects with Bulgarian are cited as proof. Bulgarian scholars also claim that the overwhelming majority of the Macedonian population had no conscience of a Macedonian language separate from Bulgarian prior to 1945. Russian scholars cite the early references to the language in Slavic literature from the middle of 10th century to the end of 19th century as "bulgarski" or "bolgarski" as proof of that claim. (Please see the main article for facsimiles of those early texts.) From that, the conclusion is drawn that modern standard Macedonian is not a language separate from Bulgarian either but just another written "norm" based on a set of Bulgarian dialects. See dialect and dialect continuum to assess the validity of these arguments. Moreover, Bulgarian linguists, as well as Austrian linguist Otto Kronsteiner, assert that the Macedonian and Yugoslav linguists who were involved in codifying the new language artificially introduced differences from literary Bulgarian to bring it closer to Serbian. . They are also said to have resorted to falsifications and deliberate misinterpretations of history and documents in order to further the claim that there was a consciousness of a separate Macedonian ethnicity before 1944. After years of diplomatic impasse caused by an academic dispute, in 1999 the government in Sofia recognised the Macedonian Language. While widely unpopular in Bulgaria, this decision greatly contributed to improved relations and regional stability.

Serbian view

Serbia officially recognises the Macedonian Language as separate language to Bulgarian. In the 2002 census c.26,000 people declared themselves as Macedonians.

Greek view

From the Greek point of view, there can be only one meaning for the term Macedonia, and that is in reference to ancient Macedon and the modern Greek region of Macedonia. It follows that the term cannot properly be used for a Slavic language. Greece similarly rejects the name "Republic of Macedonia", seeing it as an implicit territorial claim on the whole of the region.

Books have been published in Greece which purport to expose the "artificial character" of the Macedonian language. Some Greeks believe that the Slavic dialects spoken in Greek Macedonia are actually a mixture of Slavic and Greek (see Slavic language (Greece)).

Other views
In the word of Horace Lunt, a distinguished Slavic linguist and Harvard professor, Bulgarian scholars who argue that the concept of a Macedonian language was unknown before World War II or who continue to claim that a Macedonian language does not exist 'look not only dishonest, but silly', while Greek scholars who make similar claims are displaying 'arrogant ignorance' of their Slavic neighbours". (Lunt 1984:110, 120). Lunt has been described as, "one of the finest scholars in the field". He wrote the first English language grammar of the Macedonian language in 1952.

Loring Danforth, professor of Anthropology at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, addresses the stance of linguists who attribute the origin of the Macedonian language to political will: All languages in the standardisation process have a certain political and historical context to them. The fact that Macedonian language had a political context in which it was standardised doesn't mean it's not a language any more than the fact that the Greek language was standardised and established in a political and historical context means that Greek isn't a language. And in terms of the name of the language, that's interesting because from a Greek perspective often the language is not called Macedonian but it's called Slavic, and the people are called Slav-Macedonians.

Italian linguist Vittore Pisani stated: "The Macedonian language is actually an artefact produced for primarily political reasons". Venko Markovski, writer, poet and Communist politician from Macedonia, who in 1945 participated in the Commission for the Creation of the Macedonian Alphabet and was among the leaders of the newly-established Republic of Macedonia, stated, in an interview for Bulgarian National Television only seven days prior to his death, that ethnic Macedonians and the Macedonian language do not exist and that they were a result of Comintern manipulation. He stated also that Macedonian language is a Bulgarian one, but written on Serbian typewriter. The name of the Macedonian language, as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, is "Macedonian" (македонски, makedonski). This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organisation. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.

However, for historical reasons, as well as due to an objection by Greece, several other terms of reference are used when describing or referring to the language. Some of the names use the family to which the language belongs to disambiguate it from the undoubtedly non-Slavic Ancient Macedonian language, an entirely different language, characterized as Indoeuropean Greek branch (IEGB, ISO CODE XMK); sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language. There is also a close variation of modern Greek called Macedonian and spoken by the Greek Macedonians, that has no relation to the Slavic languages of the area, with the exception of belonging to the Balkan sprachbund.

Macedonian Greek
A Greek dialect spoken mainly in northern Greece, in particular Macedonia, Thrace and Thessaly. It is fully understandable by other Greek speakers and its main difference to other Greek dialects is a somehow thicker sound for "L". Other than that, it has some local words and sometimes distortions. The dialect is usually referred as Makedonika (Μακεδονικά) or Makedonitika (Μακεδονίτικα).

Macedonian Slavic
This sub heading also includes variants such as "Macedonian Slav", "Slavic Macedonian", "(Slavic) Macedonian", "Macedonian (Slavonic)" etc. The term "Macedonian Slavic" (македонски словенски) is listed by Ethnologue as an alternative name for the Macedonian language, along with simply "Slavic" (see section on Slavomacedonian below). As of 2004, Eurominority reports that the Council of Europe uses the term "Macedonian (Slavic)" to refer to the Macedonian language.

In Australia, the state government of Victoria decided in 1994 that the Macedonian language should be referred to as "Macedonian (Slavonic)". The decision was made after pressure from the Greek community and Greek diplomats. The ethnic Macedonian community was outraged, and appealed to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The appeal was unsuccessful, but the Supreme Court of Australia finally reversed the decision of the state government in 1998.

Slavomacedonian

 * ''See also: Slavomacedonian

The term Slavomacedonian (Cyrillic script: славомакедонски, Σλαβομακεδονικά) was introduced in Greece in the 1940s. A native of Greek Macedonia, a pioneer of ethnic Macedonian schools in the region and local historian, Pavlos Koufis, says: [During its Panhellenic Meeting in September 1942, the KKE mentioned that it recognises the equality of the ethnic minorities in Greece] the KKE recognised that the Slavophone population was ethnic minority of Slavomacedonians]. This was a term, which the inhabitants of the region accepted with relief. [Because] Slavomacedonians = Slavs+Macedonians. The first section of the term determined their origin and classified them in the great family of the Slav peoples.

Although acceptable in the past, current use of this name in reference to both the ethnic group and the language can be considered pejorative and offensive by ethnic Macedonians. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports, ... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness. Unfortunately, according to members of the community, this term was later used by the Greek authorities in a pejorative, discriminatory way; hence the reluctance if not hostility of modern-day Macedonians of Greece (i.e. people with a Macedonian national identity) to accept it.

The term was initially used by the EBLUL to refer to both the Slavophone minority of the Greek region of Macedonia, and the majority ethnic group of the Republic of Macedonia, the term was dropped by the after complaints by ethnic Macedonian organisations of the diaspora, but references to the Slavic people and Slavic minority were retained on the EBLUL website. Commenting on the name change, the Greek Helsinki Monitor said it hoped the decision would be shared by EBLUL with the Greek media and authorities: ...in the hope that, at long last, they respect the use of the name of the language (and the corresponding people) chosen by its users and unanimously accepted by the international scholarly and NGO community, as well as by many intergovernmental fora.

Skopian
The term Skopian, along with Skopianika, derived from the name of the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia is used by the Greek people to refer to the language. An alternative term is Bulgaroskopian. Patrick Seriot writes that, "In Greece, the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia are thus called «Skopians»" as the Greeks assert that they have a "...kind of «copyright» on the name Macedonian". Many ethnic Macedonians do find these terms offensive. Other alternatives based on the name of the capital city include "Slav idiom of the State of Skopje"

Bulgaro-Macedonian
Bulgaro-Macedonian is a term used to refer to the East South Slavic dialect continuum. In most sources before WWII, the dialects covered by the modern Macedonian language were referred to as Bulgarian dialects.

FYRO Macedonian/Macedonian (FYROM)
The terms "FYRO Macedonian" and "Macedonian (FYROM)" are used by the Microsoft corporation in its Windows software. In 2003, Metamorphosis, an NGO registered in the Republic of Macedonia reported that Microsoft would "correct the 'mistake' regarding its attitude towards the Macedonian identity, such as using constructs such as 'FYRO Macedonian' instead of the proper name of the Macedonian language in its publications", and that this came about as a result of a deal between Microsoft and the government of the Republic of Macedonia. However, as of 2007, Microsoft continues to use "Macedonian (FYROM)" as the name of the language in its latest operating system, Windows Vista.

Slavic dialect of the State of Skopje
This is reported to be the least offensive term to Greeks, and highlights the Greek objection to the usage of the term "Macedonian" for the language (referring to it as a Slavic dialect), as well as for the state itself (State of Skopje).

Macedonian literary language
This term is used to refer to the standardised language developed after 1944. The term has notably been used in the title of Horace Lunt's A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, the first English-language grammar of the Macedonian language.