User talk:Ivan Štambuk/Archive 2

Differences between standard Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian
I don't appreciate you waiting until I'm clear of the article and then reverting my edits, it is unprofessional and cowardly, not to mention counter-productive - an extended edit war has much the same impact as the regular kind. Oh, and by the way, could you archive your talk? I'm over my cap (thus on a slowed connection) and this page was a pain to load. Thanks (and happy belated new year!). +Hexagon1 (t) 02:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I wasn't waiting until you clear of the article, it's just that I've noticed later that you've reverted my edit. You haven't provided any sensible input on how exactly is the intersentence the first script devised for writing Slavic language, "misleading" ? The Glagolitic alphabet was used nowehere but in Croatia in the period of 12th-19th century, and some 98% of all extant Glagolitic MSS and books (they were even printed!) are of Croatian Glagolitic provenience. Furthermore, the exact nature of relationship of Croatian Glagolites and Cyrillo-Methodian tradition is still not 100% ascertained. It is worth emphasizing the preservation of the tradition of the original Slavic alphabet, invented by Constantine-Cyrillus, by far the most talented linguist of the 9th century, in the lands were Slavs were not subjugated to cultural domination of Orthodox churches that sought to obliterate their native culture and melt it into pan-Greek hodgepodge. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 09:26, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good luck passing 'pan-Greek hodgepodge' as NPOV. :) It is misleading as it renders the impression that the alphabet was Croatian in origin, which is not true. In my opinion the best solution here is expanding the note on Glagolitic. How about changing it to: "Historically, Croats had also made use of the Glagolitic alphabet, the first script devised for writing Slavic languages which was brought from Great Moravia for use in writing both Croatian Church Slavonic and vernacular documents."? I think that's a good compromise, I would personally phrase it a little different but I hope that this will be acceptable. +Hexagon1 (t) 15:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, lots of books emphasize that the reason why Cyrillic quickly substituted Glagolitic in the lands of Slavia Orhtodoxa is because it was more acceptable to Byzantine authorities due to its similarity with the Greek alphabet (Cyrillic is essentially bastardised Greek alphabet, which is itself bastardised Phoenician, itself bastardised Canaanite glyphs, utlimately bastardised Egyptian hieroglyphs ^_^). It is no surprise that only in the Catholic areas that were under the lesser influence of Byzantine conquerors seeking to obliterate "heresy" (northern Dalmatia and Istra) that the Glagolitic script survived, and moreover flourished. Of course, Glagolitic script is no one's in origin: it was a result of a mental effort of a single person (Constantine-Cyrillus, linguistically talented polyglot and the librarian in Constantinople), describing a phonological system of Thessaloniki surroundings, but its refinement in angular form is of exclusive Croatian. As I said, AFAIK it is not known whether Glagolitic was brought to Croatia by Methodius' disciples after expulsion from Moravia (more likely scenario), or it precedes that event via some indirect route. At any case, it does not matter particularly: what matters is that Glagolitic script for 7 centuries served as an extremely producitve literary medium for Croats, both for liturgical and non-liturgical purposes, eventually becoming a part of national identity (that te point that e.g. you can see Glagolitic letters in pre-electional placards for extreme right-wing parties). During the Communist times the role of Glagolitic literature was intentionally diminished and marginalised (there are literary hundreds of codices stil awaiting critical editions by competent paleographers, textologists and philologists), as if something "unimportant" and of no real value, despite the fact that, when in comparison of other, very scarce in volume, literary monuments of "brotherly Orthodox" countries whose non-Church-Slavonic writings essentially started only in the 18th/19th century, it represents cultural achievement par excellence. But now that I think about, this all is prob. too much for that short sentence. Let it be like it is now. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Tsakavian archaisms
Hi Ivan. I'm going to edit new "Chakavian Archaisms" article. Do you have some of literacy mentioned in the same article in hr.wiki? Zenanarh (talk) 18:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What article on hr wiki? As far as the lexical archaisms in Čakavian are concerned, by far the most authorative and up-to-date work of scholarship is Čakavske leksičke studije - Praslavensko naslijeđe u čakavskome leksičkom fondu. I've read sam parts of it in the Algoritam store and I can assure you it's all you'll ever need ^_^. There seems to be available copies in KGZ, so if you start an article I can promise to expand it upon it once I borrow it.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * mmh it's here sorry. I'm shocked how many words that we usually use :-O not some marginal words :-O Zenanarh (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunatelly, most content on that page is just rubbish. On a quick glance, 95% of those "archaisms" from Akkadian, Tocharian, Aryan, Anatolian, Old Persian or whatnot are just derived from Dalmatian, Venetian, Ottoman Turkish, or are just Common Slavic. Of listed reference works, I have access to Čakavisch-deutsches Lexikon and Jadranske etimologije --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? Referrences are not so rubbish. Dalmatian, Venetian, Ottoman Turkish, or just Common Slavic languages were mediators. The point is that these archaisms are almost unchanged in forms, pronouncation and meaning (!) in comparison to the original. Question is what archaisms were found in the same place in local langugaes and what are brought via proto-Slavic or other. In some examples I know that Romancized words were a little bit different. Ie tarma; in the central Dalmatian aquatory it's garma - a Dalmatian language word. But I did hear form tarma in the northern islands. It's completely the same as an original. This word doesn't exist in other Italic languages! The same can be said for the most of other.
 * Italian Massimo Pallotino wrote a book, recently translated to Croatian, he investigated Ethruscan language through Chakavian Croatian - spoken in the northern half of Adriatic (islands) - ex Liburnia. Ethruscan word for "what" was ca! The most often Ethruscan word found is ašutina (on the funeral inscriptions) meaning "graveyard" or "(eternal) peace", by Latinization distorted to sutina in the inscriptions and then disappeared in the northern Italy. Via Liburnian to Chakavian it was saved like šutnja (peace) from where to other Croatian dialects in the same meaning. By archaeology the Liburni were trading with the Old Greeks and Ethruscans a lot. In 7th cent BC they had colonies on the Italian coast of Adriatic, to Corfu in the south. In next centuries they were gradually losing sea territory to be concentrated only to the northern Adriatic half in the 4th C BC and finally only in Liburnia (from Krka to Istria) in 2nd C BC, then Dalmatae (who were not seafarers!) broke through to the coast cutting off their south. So the last Gothic Liburnia Tarsatica was from Nin to Trsat. Whatever Liburni must have left a lot of sea-specialized terminology and vocabulary as well as tradition, like leut - an old Dalmatian type of a boat which geometry is based on the traditional Liburnian fishing boat, by the Old Greek writers noted as Liburnian lembus. Crna kužina is actually typical kitchen of the Dalmatae (and their relatives), unchanged for 2.300 yrs, until WWII, etc.
 * Ethruscans, Veneti, Liburni, Old Greeks, etc they all had important ethnogenetic Levantine sublayer, an influx from the Asia Minor, outlined in 4th-2nd millenium BC, attached to the autochtonous population of older Neolithic or Paleo roots. Allegedly there was "Sea people" migration from the Mediterranean to Asia Minor and its counter effect in opposite direction, Levantine migration to the west, resulting with groups mentioned. Indo-Europization episode, isn't it?
 * You know very well that South Slavic languages developed in the same place and the only connection to other Slavic idioms is proto-Slavic. It means assimilation in both directions, locally and globally. Zenanarh (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know about ašutina, but ča is a regular reflex of Common Slavic *čь < by palatalisation from Proto-Slavic *ki < PIE interrogative/indefinite pronoun *kʷid, *kʷid. As I said: from my memory I can tell you that 95% of lexemes listed on that page have pretty-much established alternative etymologies. While I have no doubts that they may be some pre-IE Wanderwörter preserved in some Čakavian idioms, I can assure you that it's not to the scale that page presents it. I have serious doubts that the references that article mentions indeed quote Etruscan, Tocharian, Akkadian, Indo-Aryan etc. as the original sources :) The author was simply...too imaginative, which is bad, as it puts the real Common Slavic archaisms in Čakavian into bad perspective. My advice would be to use Čakavske leksičke studije as the primary source. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm In some islands in the north as well as in Brač there was never ća. It was ca and still is. Brac, Bracani :)
 * Wouldn't it be possible that this palatalisation was a little bit influenced, 2 I-E forms of "what" met, ca and *ki? Zenanarh (talk) 15:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

No, *ki clusters were not allowed in Common Slavic (so-called "intrasyllabic synharmony"), so such /k/ > /č/ > /ts/ ('c'). No known South Slavic dialect preserved such *k AFAIK. The secondary sound change of /č/, /ž/, /š/ > /c/, /z/, /s/ is what defines tsakavism. It's an interesting change, but it unfortunatelly not an archaism. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess the rest of literacy mentioned there should be checked first. I've started to doubt in everything too middle stream :) or what they taught us, but either Age of Aquariaus inventions are probably not all reliable... Zenanarh (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

hope you can answer...
why you delete my version without any reason notwithstanding I gave a source. Look here --84.142.63.91 (talk) 15:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Prominant Individuals
Vladan Desnica His father was from noble Serbian family and his mother was from old Croatian family Luković. He is an descendant of a Serbs from Croatia. Ethnicity, means descendants. The edit is thus wrong, i expect you to undo it or provide me an alternative reason why you think that your edit was right.Serbian Defense Forces (talk) 14:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said, nationality/ethnicity is not something genetically transferred, otherwise we'd classify Vojislav Šešelj as a Croat. By cultural affiliation and language, V. Desnica is Croatian writer. If you can find a reference where he declares himself as a Serb, that'd be another thing. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I dont understand your argument, please clarify. Ethnicity is in fact something that is inherited according to the definition of ethnicity stated above. Those people that you have removed did in fact all have at least 1 Serbian parent. I also dont understand the point you are trying to make in the brackets, where you start by saying "funny thing".Serbian Defense Forces (talk) 15:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ivan you are confusing your self with Seselj whos parents are both Serbs. Seselj is not in any sense of Croatian. I don't want to talk about him because I don't understand your point, with Seselj. There are two ways to determine ethnicity, the place where you were born or your parents descent. Let me explain. Let's say a a person is born to Serbian parents in Switzerland. he is Serbian by descent of his parents or he is Swiss by the place of his birth. now Vladan Desnica was born in Austria-Hungary (Croatia) to Serbia and Croat parents. Therefore he is Austrian Hungarian or he is Serbo-Croatian. I don't see how he can be only Croatian and not Serbian.Serbian Defense Forces (talk) 15:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I must strongly disagree. The relationship to the ethnicity is defined by 1) person's self-declaration (primarily, unless he declares himself as Klingon or something) 2) the cultural milieu he belongs to (e.g. religion, language, where the person worked for the majority of his life). I'm personally abhorred by the notion of ethnicity of something being genetically transferred.
 * As for the Budmani, Maretić, Pucić et al. - do you have a reference for them having Serb parents, or you're twisting the logic here of them favouring the brief "Serb Catholic" movement hence genetic heritage being inapplicable? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

''Ethnic: 1. relating to national and cultural origins 2. denoting origin by birth 3. descent rather than by present nationality.'' Petar Preradović had a Serbian mother so he falls into category number 3. With these type of people (mixed marriages) I can understand how it is somewhat sensitive. I guess we can use discretion in these cases. However, Milka Mesic, is 100% ethnic Serb by definition 3. According to your definition 1 Medo Pucić is Serbian. How do you think that we should determine ethnicity?Serbian Defense Forces (talk) 17:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Your MetaWiki talk page
Hi,

I was wondering if you have seen my comments on your MetaWiki talk page (specially this one). Alefbe (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Help
Can you please solve my grammar problems in article Croatia ? I am writing history section in article Croatia (because nobody has writen this).--Rjecina (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I did what I can...--Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

proto-Slavic
Have you read.

Curta believes that Slavic spread throughou the Balkans later than 600s, more like after 700, into the 800s. His primary evidence is that loan words into Romanian or ALbanian come from Bulgarian, Serbian etc rather than late Common Slavic Hxseek (talk) 04:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Nice paper! Curta goes at length explaining the historical background, but he doesn't offer much of the data to look at. I know that there are several Slavicisms in Romanian that obviously predate liquid metathesis in South Slavic (second half of the 8th century), which puts them firmly in Common Slavic period. Of the lexemes he mentions: Albanian magulë he connects to Romanian măgură assuming the change of /l/ to /r/, which is silly as the Albanian word perfectly matches with Proto-Slavic *magūlā (Common Slavic *mogyla). Same is with Alb. karrutë, Greek karouta < Proto-Slavic *karūta (Comon Slavic *koryto), Abl. matukë, Greek matouka < Proto-Slavic *matūkā (Common Slavic *motyka).
 * The difference between Proto-Slavic (spoken at around y. 600) and Common Slavic (or "Late Proto-Slavic") is in fact that the former had quantitative oppositions of vowels (as modern-day Czech or Croatian), where every vowel could be short or long: *a : ā*, *e : *ē, *i : *ī, *u : *ū (note the absence of short *o and long *ō). In Common Slavic period the changes occurred that made quantitative oppositions qualitative ones: *a > *o, *ā> *a; *e > *e, *ē> *ě; *i > *ь, *ī > *i; *u > *ъ, *ū> *y. So e.g. the old quantiative opposition *a : *ā became new qualitative one: *o : *a. Other phonological changes from Proto-Slavic to Common Slavic were the monophthongisations of the diphtongs (*ej > *i, *aj > *ě, *aw > *ō > *u) and the rise of nasal vowels from a sequence of a vowel followed by a nasal (*em/en/im/in > *ę, *am/an/um/un > *ǫ), all in concordance with tendencies known as "low of open syllables" or "syllabic synharmony" (really empty phrases if you ask me). So if you look at those 3 Albanian and Greek etymons Curta mentiones, all of them point to pre-Common-Slavic, so I have no idea what he's talking about. That Vasmer's book on Slavic onomastics in Greek lists 90% of Slavic words reflecting such Proto-Slavic. I mentioned the Croatian autonym on that talk page: Greek Χαρβάτα < Proto-Slavic *xarwāt- (Slavic long vowel is marked with stres in Byzantine Greek borrowings) (> Common Slavic *xorvat). Or e.g. Slavic word for "town, settlment" - Common Slavic *gordъ < Proto-Slavic *gardu, attested in Greek toponyms  Γάρδι,  Γαρδικάκι, Γαρδίκι(ον), Γαρδίτσα, also lacking liquid metathesis and palatalisation of a suffix that would become later -ac, -ec, -əc. One of them is basically equal to Pannonian Slavic gradec that later gave the name of Graz...
 * So in short: I have no idea what Curta is talking about, as the evidence for Common Slavic and pre-Common-Slavic presence in the Balkans (prob. dating to y. 600 - 750) is very abundant. You can't speak of Serbian or Bulgaro-Macedonian until centuries later. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks buddy Hxseek (talk) 01:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Offensive message
Could you please refrain from leaving offensive messages on my talk page???--71.252.55.101 (talk) 00:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * These are not "offensive messages" but translusions of the usual anti-vandalism templates. You are not supposed to remove them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Friendly note regarding talk page messages
Hello. As a recent editor to User talk:71.252.55.101, I wanted to leave a friendly reminder that as per WP:USER, editors may remove messages at will from their own talk pages. While we may prefer that comments be archived instead, policy does not prohibit users -including anonymous editors like this one- from deleting messages from their own talk pages. The only kinds of talk page messages that cannot be removed (as per WP:BLANKING) are declined unblock requests (but only while blocks are still in effect), confirmed sockpuppet notices, or IP header templates (for unregistered editors). These exceptions only exist in order to keep a user from potentially gaming the system. Thanks, Kralizec! (talk) 00:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of that, thanks for noting me. Malicious IPs are really given too much free will around here. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Croatia
Thanks for information. We are having vandal which is trying to start edit war between hungarian and croatian users. Maybe I am making mistake but earlier user name has been user:Toroko. Our contact with hungarian users about this question is user:Hobartimus.--Rjecina (talk) 20:16, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Vandal?
What the heck? I feel like being in the USSR. If a say a word that is not the accepted by SOME PEOPLE then I am accused of being a vandal? Do you know what the concept of FREE SPEECH means? Are you accusing me because of the Croatia Hungary relationships?! THAT's CALLED A DISPUTE! And it's not only me! Historians argue on ACADEMIC LEVEL! WIKIPEDIA is NOT YOURS!. It's meant to present the sheer facts! Wikipedia lists all significant viewpoints! That the policy of NPOV:Balance. What you do is you oppress one of the viewpoints, so that you artifically justify yours! ALL viewpoints should exists beside one another if there is a dispute! Are you going to ban me for citing the opinions of other academics that do not conform to you ideas? Who the hell do you think you are? And who the hell are those names that you put on my user page? Are you paranoid? Am I Torokko? Rly? I didn't know that. What you do is you exploit your admin rights to censor Wikipedia. But it is not just you. In the Croatia in personal union with Hungary talk everything was deleted that cited sourced Academic Level References of the other viewpoint. And because I readded them I am called a Vandal? That's the Joke of the century! --Bizso (talk) 22:16, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi. Actually I'm not an admin here (and wouldn't want to be one, as I would prob. abuse privileges), but it's just that your edit pattern, argumentation, obsolete or unverifiable references (1911 Britannica) and knowledge of Wiki markup strikingly evoke those two. E.g here you "add back censored information" which, if one looks into the edit history of that talkpage, was also done by a dozen of banned sockuppets. How did you know that that the history of that talkpage has some "interesting" material? :) I mean, it's too easy.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for accusing me again of being someone else. If you admitted that there was some interesting material in the talk page history then why did it have to be removed in the first place? After all, the talk page is for the Discussion of the topic isn't it? And indeed, what was censored had valuable material and sourced reference that was clearly relevant to the topic. The reason I found it is because I noticed that although this matter is dipsuted, it isn't mentioned in the talk page everywhere. So I checked the page history and that proved doubts my right... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizso (talk • contribs) 03:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I see that you still believe I am some kind of socketpuppet of Velebit or PaxEquilbrum. Well, all I can say is that the one who accuses someone most vehemently is the one who is most likely guilty himself...--Bizso (talk) 22:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that I believe, but I'm 99% sure. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, in that case I'm glad that it doesn't matter what you think. --Bizso (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Or else innocent rabbits would have been already slaughtered on green fields with rainbow :)--Bizso (talk) 02:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Serbian Kinship
Does anyone know the etymology of these obscure words? They're Slavic up to the forth ancestor, čukun- is from Turkish kökün "root, ancestor", and the rest down to the 15th generation look very non-Slavic to me. If they were borrowed from Ottoman Turkish (like the čukun- prefix), it's hardly likely that they have anything to do with the retention of of zadrugas. My limited resources (Skok's dictionary, ARj, corpora search..) yield absolutely nothing. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There isnt much material on this but these terms predate the ottoman period so i ask you now why is it that to you čukun is a turkish word and not slavic. Turkish has the word ata (father) and dede (grandfather, old man). Are you going to tell me otac, tata and deda are of turkish origin as well. Why is it that every time Slavic shares a word with another language especially Turkish we assume its theirs. In Serbian there are words similar to čukun such as čuka (hill, mountain), čukanj (bunion), kuka (hook) all of which indicate something bulged or humped so there is greater prossibility that the word čukun means an old (hunched) grandfather (just like a hrvat - hrbat (srp.), hrbtenica (slo.), hrebet (rus.) - kraljeznica). Root, ancestor are paradeda and navrndeda and askurdjela it just depends on the generation. To a deda root, ancestor are paradeda and narvndeda but to navrndeda paradeda isnt a root, ancestor so it doesnt make sense that to a cukundeda we would place the turkish preffix when the meaning can apply to all - besides it is used for descendants čukununuk/a (great-great-grand-son/daughter) which disproves your turkish origin completely. It doesnt make sense that we waited up until the 14th century (that is if the moment we saw them we picked up their word kukun and placed it in front of deda otherwise i should say 15th or 16th century) to have a word that was used before the turks knew what a spoon was used for. Turks were nomads before they settled where they are now so they physically couldnt live long due to their lifestyle and secondly since they took a serbian word ata (otac), baba (from greek papa), dede (from serb deda) so to them (with very poor kinship terms) cukun-deda was a ''root" or a distant ancestor.


 * To you the words kapak (klop>klap + diminutive suffix -ak) and kasika (kasa (porridge) + diminutive -ka, even though historically turks like the rest of the east ate food with their hands until they came to invade the byzantine empire and the balkans and a second common fact that they used serbian as a language of politics in international relations which could've influenced turkish in cultural aspects as well very easily) arent Slavic enough cos whatever the west quasi-linguists say goes, so your opinion doesnt really matter. Those are all ancient Slavic words so their roots arent that obvious especially because there arent comparable (surviving) ones in other IE languages.


 * If your resources yield nothing you cannot claim that they are turkish. If we didnt have the words for our ancestors it doesnt make any sense that we would take every single one from the turks and then because we really liked to have a 16th generation term we made up one of our very own "bela orlica"/"beli orao". Also turks have magically lost all of their kinship terminology for 10 generation. Or was it that we traded for those 10 and gave them 2 (dede and ata). Yaay, we got the better end of the deal didnt we. Please cut the crap honestly.


 * PS I didnt find the word kökün in any turkish or ottoman turkish dictionary. You used your vivid imagination didnt you just like your western colleagues. Good on you mate. And one query before we get into askurdjela or sajkatava - could you please tell me what Hrvat means - a mystery ain' it. "Doesnt sound very Slavic to me" aye. In stead of worrying about serbian kinship terms go worry about your own identity.


 * I sincerely hope that your won't dare adding your imaginative "etymologies" to articles. I mean, every sane person sees that askurđela is native Slavic word as much as ngwtoto is English. Muslims to this day track ancestorship to Muhamed, and that's where these "Serbian" terms are coming from. Cure your Ottoman complexes elsewhere, I've heard enough of your crap at the Wiktionary. As for the hrvat - it doesn't "mean" anything, it's and ethnicon. For some theories of etymology - see [[Name of Croatia]] article I wrote. It still needs some work tho. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Steward elections

 * Thanks for your vote, for or against, and your constructive comments. Apteva (talk) 16:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Bulgars
Yes the Bulgars are of the Utigur royal lineage. Read about it, there are plenty of academic materials on the matter. Yes they are an ancient nation, which used the Orkhon writting script and was noted in the Bactrian texts, then known as the Balhars of the Kingdom of Balh. This is all cited so don't delete things which consequently could get you in trouble. And please don't threaten me! I have documented your threat and will be forced to report you if you continue to do so. On the other had if you are polite we can work together and improve many articles.

You are free to write about the Bulgars, as I am free to write about Croats, but you have no right to deny their Utigur, Orkhon and or Altaic language roots. Again, read up on what any of these things mean and you will find they indeed pertain to the proto-Bulgars.

Thanks... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monshuai (talk • contribs) 09:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The inhabitants of Balhara were called Bulh in the fifth-seventh century AD Armenian geographical atlas ‘Ashharatsuyts’. The atlas describes them as an old settled, artisan and trading nation rather than nomadic tribe, inhabiting the area centered around the ancient major city of Balh (Balkh) that comprised roughly present northern Afghanistan, Pakistan and most of Tajikistan. According to Bulgarian historian Georgi Bakalov as well as Dr. Bozhidar Dimitrov (Director of the National History Museum), Bulhi was probably the Armenian name of the ancient Bulgars. Historiographers in late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages such as Agathias of Myrina, Theophylact Simocatta, and Michael the Syrian also identify Mount Imeon as an early homeland of the ancient Bulgars.

The above references the oldest written records about the Bulgars as well as the views of foremost proto-Bulgar and Balhar historians.

All the best... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monshuai (talk • contribs) 09:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Phh. THe Bulgar article is very poor quality. It needs serious input from a knowledgeable scholar. ATM, it is a battle gound between pro-Turkic and pro-Iranic schools, all too ignorant to realize that historic groups were political creations who claimed descent from here and there, but were ethnically mixed and largely of local origins. Hxseek (talk) 11:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Early Slavs
I created an article by the above name, going into depths of evidence and explanations for Slavic 'expansion' and origins. Please feel free to read it, esp on the linguistic evidence part. Hxseek (talk) 11:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's really an awesome article! I'm looking forward to contribute some pieces of the puzzle with my limited knowledge. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I had some trouble thinking about how to present the load of data I researched- whether to do it chronologically, by theory, by type of evidence, etc. Hxseek (talk) 03:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Please see
Please see Bizso vandalism:  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvatel (talk • contribs) 22:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

RFC
All users involved in personal union discussion are invited to RFC on Talk:Pacta conventa (Croatia)--Rjecina (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

A question about PIE
Hi! I see that you are an expert in the PIE language. Could please tell me how would the following short sentence be in PIE?
 * "This user can contribute with a basic level of PIE"

I know the request is a bit silly, but I would like to create a userbox - as fun, of course - in the Hungarian wiki. Thank you in advance. :) --El Mexicano (talk) 21:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello there. No, I'm not an expert in PIE (hopefully could be one they ;), but I'm pretty sure that the words user or level, not to mention Proto-Indo-European (or alternatively, the PIE autonym itself of any kind) are not reconstructable for PIE... These concepts are simply too abstract for relatively "primitive" culture of PIE speakers in the 5th millenium BCE, don't you think ^_^. Perhaps you can look into grammars/dictionaries of Modern Indo-European - if I remember correctly, they've coined quite a few terms for such modern/abstract concepts on the basis of either PIE or ancient languages' lexical roots..MIE is not really PIE, but is sure close enough for all the practical purposes ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's true, but isn't there any simple sentence that can be reconstructed and means something similar, for example "This person speaks a little of PIE". Esencially it is the same :))) --El Mexicano (talk) 17:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * this = *ḱós
 * person = *wih₁rós ("man, husband"), *h₂nḗr ("man") *dʰǵʰm̥mō ("man", originally "earthling")..or e.g. a neologism for "user" with agentive suffix as *bʰruHgʷtēr
 * speaks = *weryeti, *bheh₂ti, *wekʷti..
 * PIE...well, I'll just leave it as "PIE", because as I said there was no PIE ethnicon/autonym that can be reconstructable..
 * small = e.g. *smēykos
 * So e.g. ḱós h₂nḗr smḗykos PIEosyo wéryeti :)) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much! For PIE, I read it would be "Sindhueuropaiom" in nominative; so, would it be "Sindhueuropaio" in accusative? --El Mexicano (talk) 17:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * No, for neuter nouns in PIE accusative = nominative (the so called "nominoaccusative" :) See PIE noun for flexinal endings.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the same in Latin (and as I know, the final -m in Latin was never pronounced, it is just taught that it was. :P). Thank you very much. I invite you to look at the tamplate I made @ hu.wiki: hu:Sablon:User PIE-1. If you like it, we may create one for the en.wiki. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by El Mexicano (talk • contribs) 21:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks nice ;) I'm not sure about about -m not being pronounced in Latin tho... --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it was not pronounced, there is evidence for it: it's the unique final consonant that has disappeared in all Romance languages; while final -t is conserved in Sardinian (though it is pronounced, according to dialect), and also in French when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. Although, in the very first documents of Romance dialects from IX-X centuries, -m doesn't appear either. See also: Vox Latina: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin, W. Sidney Allen, Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0521379369. --El Mexicano (talk) 09:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, p. 30 of that book claims that -m "seems to have been reduced to a mere nasalisation of the preceding vowel" - i.e. something like like Sanskrit anusvāra ṃ symbol. It appears to be non-phonological word-final sandhi phenomena. Sihler has more info on it (§ 237) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. As it says, it was "something", but not an [m]. For example there are a few learned words from Latin in Spanish that conserved -m in writing, e.g. álbum, ultimátum, referéndum, and they are actually pronounced something like, , etc... --El Mexicano (talk) 13:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Politically Motivated Historical Facts On Wikipedia Web Site!
Hello Mr. Ivan Stambuk,

Thank for your eloquent invite to participate in the article in the talk pages concerning Dalmatia. I’ve taken some time to think about this and undertook some research on the weekend to examine the history of the article in question. It is true that the article has come a long way but it’s still appears to me to be a politically motivated historical work (which is scary!).

I also had a look at other articles that relate to Dalmatia and it’s writers (& their personal Wiki Pages with their Wikipedic symbols and statements). I found some of the authors of these articles to have stated that they support biased and questionable political leanings. For example dictator worship, support for communist regime, anti fascist slogans (World War Two ended more than 1/2 century ago), atheistic declarations and so on. What is this all about? I am not declaring that all the writers are that way inclined but it seems to be that way.

From a western point of view it looks like a gathering of the old Yugoslav Communist guard. Correct me if I am wrong, however weren't they responsible for war crimes, politically imprisonment, torture etc?

I choose not to debate or engage in conversation with any of these individuals and do not want to participate in dialogue that is not based on facts.

To put it succinctly there is a clear contradiction to their stated historic statements. The ethnic demographic of that region is predominately made up of people who have Croatian ancestry and some Italianic ancestry (Roman/Venetian). One merely has to research the Census documents and family names to reach this conclusion. In the face of these facts you still have researchers on your web site contradicting these simple truths. Due to this contradiction, it appears these articles are politically motivated.

There is also the issue of Red Croatia. Byzantine, Roman, German, and Venetian chronicles all suggest the existence of Red Croatia which appears to explain the ethnic demographic of the area.

I have researched the “www.britannica.com Dalmatia Region Croatia” web site and they do not mention “De Administrator Imperio Chronicles” as an historical reference for the Dalmatian Region. This omission is obviously due to the fact that this reference is considered contradictory and therefore unreliable for that region. Maybe Wikpedia could consider adopting the same approach as www.britanica.com.

For Wikipedia to retain any sort of respect as a serious and reliable research tool, I would think it would be advisable to address the idea of some sort of academic unbiased screening of questionable material.

''Sincerely

123.2.59.195'' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.59.195 (talk) 01:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

PIE and Armenian
Hi again! I think there is something very strange with the Armenian numerals: PIE *duwo ?> yerku, *treyes > yerek... how is it possible? Though I can imagine *treyes > *reyeh > *yereh > yerek, but *duwo > yerku is just a nonsense for me. Is it sure that it comes from *duwo and not from another word, or maybe it is borrowed from another (non IE) language? What do you know about it? --El Mexicano (talk) 22:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * PS: PIE *-s is -k in Armenian? It seems to be so, as the 1st singular verb form is also -enk < *-mes. --El Mexicano (talk) 22:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry mate, I don't know shite on Armenian historical phonology. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Loanwords
Hi Ivan. Do the majority of Germanisms into Slavic come from the Gothic period ? Hxseek (talk) 03:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Correct. I'd say at least 80% Germanic loanwords to Proto-Slavic come from Gothic (or are mediated via Gothic). But they've entered Slavic during a long period - from pre-expansion Slavic to e.g. Balkanic Gothic loanwords that entered only South Slavic languages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Croatian literature
I've changed the template's layout, see its talk page for comments. Hope you like it - if not, feel free to revert. GregorB (talk) 11:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks awesome :D --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Talkpages and sources
First, do you distinguish "Serbo-Croatian language" and "Serbo-Croatian diasystem" (obsolete term for the Central South Slavic diasystem)? These are two different things. Second, if you have so big knowledge about the matter, you should have read that Brozović's (and Babić's) cited work by now. Third, "phonology exactly the same, trivial differences in morphology & syntax". Yeah, wright, we pronounce "ć" the same way the Serbs from Belgrade and Pirot do. Syntax differences are also trivial between Croatian and other Slavic languages (not only South Slavic). Tebja nužno govorit 10 razov? Or you think that Poles create the sentence the way Chinese do? Kubura (talk) 16:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I indeed distinguish those two meanings of the term Serbo-Croatian, the concept of diasystem being a piece of Brozović's creative imagination not generally but used in some minor (usually Croat-nationalist-affiliated circles). I haven't read that particular book of Brozović you mention, but I'm sure professor Matasović says, him having quite a strong point claiming in his Poredbenopovijesna gramatika that Brozović does not elaborate on this "diasystem" being valid gentic/dialectological grouping, moreover quoting Brozović himself on the usual "internal divergence" of this diasystem with respect to other European diasystems. The term Serbo-Croatian in a sense "collection of dialects" is still very much used in the English literature, whether you like it or not.
 * The pronunciation of /ć/ that you mention - it varies significantly on the territory of Croatia too, 4 biggest Croatian cities moreover completely lacking the opposition of /č/ : /ć/ in their locally spoken idiom, which is prescribed by orthoepy. See: So your point is actually worthless. The thing is that the prescribed standard languages (regardless of the particular actualisation in vernacular speech) are 99% identical in grammar, and we simply cannot lie about it. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Who's Matasović? Some linguist-wannabe? (compared to Babić and Brozović) "...Brozović's creative imagination not generally but used in some minor (usually Croat-nationalist-affiliated circles". Read WP:OR. Brozović is an academist. He hasn't earned that title just like that. His work is appreciated by another academist, Stjepan Babić (book Hrvatski jučer i danas, Školske novine, Zagreb, 1995, p. 246-252, ISBN 953-160-052-X). Babić and Brozović are highly respected names among linguists. Further, don't try to beat the opponent by using heavy defamatory adjective like "nationalist". The "term 'Serbo-Croatian' in a sense "collection of dialects" is still very much used in English literature". Oh, yes, some authors that write in English still live in their shells, never leaving the stereotypes and evading any scientific challenge. Has it ever occured to you that scientists are increasingly using the term CSSD? About "ć". Dear child, I've told that we don't have the same pronounciation as those Serbs. Please, don't draw the attention away from the original topic. I've pointed out the difference between Croatian and Serbian language, not inside Croatian language. Kubura (talk) 02:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ranko Matasović is the greatest linguist in Croatia at this moment. Maybe you should read his Wikipedia article, or his biography at the Matica hrvatska page . He authored the historical grammar of Croatian (in fact Štokavian - Serbo-Croatian) published last year, and etymologies in Croatian encyclopedic dictionary (being one of the editors). This year he published etymological dictionary of Proto-Celtic as a part of IEED project which is the greatest ongoing Indo-European etymological dictionary project in 50 years. He is currently writing new (as a replacement of Skok's a bit outdated but immensely comprehensive) etymological dictionary of Croatian as a research project funded by the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics. So it's really pathetic to see you trying to belittle his importance and authority (with which I'm pretty sure you're acquainted with) calling him "linguistic wannabe" and comparing him with some Serbophobic nationalist like Babić (who published a booklet of ustašoid aphorisms).
 * Being and academician doesn't make you objective and rational (btw, Matasović is also associate member of HAZU). After a well-known scandal of refusing to promote the greatest Croatian scientist Miroslav Radman as a member (member of French, European and World Academy of Sciencies, likely a future Nobel laureate if he continues to make ground-breaking discoveries at this rate), HAZU lost all credibility in public eyes, being simply one of those pointless moronic institutions populated by nationalist pigs who would rather engage in counting somebody's blood cells rather than look at the list of his accomplishments.
 * Regardless how Babić and Brozović's work is "appreciated", we cannot simply take e.g. Brozović's postulation from 1971 of "Serbo-Croatian diasystem" as dogma, when it's being heavily attacked and moreover basically completely disputed by a distinguished authorities such as professor Matasović. We must provide full perspective on the topic. Per WP:NPOV, when you're writing "CSSD is a South Slavic diasystem" you're in fact deliberately lying, misleading the reader to the conclusion that there is more to the CSSD than there is not.
 * Oh, yes, some authors that write in English still live in their shells, never leaving the stereotypes and evading any scientific challenge. Has it ever occurred to you that scientists are increasingly using the term CSSD? - as long as the greatest authorities such as Wayles Browne continue to use it that way, so shall Wikipedia. Everything else would be POV-pushing.
 * Dear child, I've told that we don't have the same pronunciation as those Serbs. - First, I'm not a child (I'm 24). Second, I was trying to explain to you that your comparison makes absolutely no sense at all, since /ć/ is not spoken like it's prescribed by current Croatian orthoephy in 4 biggest Croatian cities, so it makes little sense to compare it's pronunciation to that of some Serbian cities. There is a great variation within the borders of all Serbo-Croatian area. What is important, is what the orthoephical norm prescribes (which is the same). Anyhow, if you ask me, the difference between /ć/ and /č/ should be altogether eliminated, because it's allophonic in 99.99% cases in spoken language (i.e. in a context) (same observation is valid with /đ/ and /dž/).
 * BTW, this conversation should really be at the talkpage of SC article. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

"Ranko Matasović is the greatest linguist in Croatia at this moment". So says certain user from Wikipedia who has nothing to lose, no matter what has he written. I don't say that Matasović has no quality, but, please, compare Matasović's works with works of Stjepan Babić, Stjepko Težak, Dalibor Brozović, Radoslav Katičić. How many books about Croatian has he written? One? And how many Stjepan Babić? " Being and academician doesn't make you objective and rational ". What????? Are you joking???? How can you say something like that? And whome shall we take as serious source? Academists or some Wikipedian wannabe? "being simply one of those pointless moronic institutions populated by nationalist pigs ". Nemoj govorit napamet. Cruel fact is that many scientists are waiting for decades to become the Academy member. Some of them are over 80, who knows will they ever get the chance. Radman can wait for few years. So, that's the matter of some other kind of politics. Radman hasn't entered for the Academy for the same reason why Plavi orkestar won the award "Album of the year", instead of Bajaga's Sa druge strane jastuka. Both were excellent, but who knew will Loša and co. ever make so good album again. "Per WP:NPOV, when you're writing "CSSD is a South Slavic diasystem" you're in fact deliberately lying, misleading the reader to the conclusion that there is more to the CSSD than there is not.". I'm sorry, I don't understand you on this one. You want to say, if I write e.g. "Russian is a Slavic language", than I'm "deliberatlely lying, misleading the reader to the conclusion that there is more to the Russian than there is not."? "if you ask me, the difference between /ć/ and /č/ should be altogether eliminated". I can't believe it. Man, you've drowned yourself with this. Only the students with weak marks cannot tell the difference between these two. I hope you're not such person. Any illiterate person from Zagora pronounces differently č and ć (as in "paščić"). "Brozović's postulation from 1971 of "Serbo-Croatian diasystem" as dogma". As I've written, Stjepan Babić and Miro Kačić disagree with Brozović's postulation. On the other side, many big scientific names are against them and "pro" Brozović. So, to be balanced, I gave both attitudes in the article. I'm not defending any dogmas, as you can see. "He authored the historical grammar of Croatian (in fact Štokavian - Serbo-Croatian) published last year". This "Croatian (in fact Štokavian - Serbo-Croatian)" can be considered as inflammatory, trollish behaviour. See troll (internet): troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages... with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response" . Looking forward our future cooperation, Kubura (talk) 16:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * So says certain user from Wikipedia who has nothing to lose, no matter what has he written. I don't say that Matasović has no quality, but, please, compare Matasović's works with works of Stjepan Babić, Stjepko Težak, Dalibor Brozović, Radoslav Katičić. How many books about Croatian has he written? One? And how many Stjepan Babić? - So says everyone familiar with Serbo-Croatian linguistics, taking a look at e.g. the papers written in last ten years by Matasović, and by Babić et al. I mean Kubura, those 4 are certainly not some minor figures, but all of them combined are too fucking dumb to even understand Matasović's grammar completely. None of them is expert on modern perspectives of historical/comparative South-Slavic linguistics. A bunch of old guys who have lost touch with modern research, and are simply not mentally capable anymore to follow the ever-changing landscape of current theories on Balto-Slavic historical phonology. I'm not saying that we should completely ignore what they think, but what Brozović thought in the 1970s is of little value compared to what e.g. Matasović writes today. Unfortunately, trying to persuade someone like you to objectively asses the relative importance of either is hopelessly pointless task, as you would use an opportunity to belittle opponents ("wannabe-linguist"), and glorify those that you find "truthful".
 * What????? Are you joking???? How can you say something like that? And whome shall we take as serious source? Academists or some Wikipedian wannabe? - No I'm not joking. It's called argumentum ad verecundiam (you should really read this article) and it's a logical fallacy. Just because someone is a member of some academic institution, it doesn't make his theories 100% truthful, objective and "real", as opposed to those postulated by ones who are not. Peer-review and academic consensus is what makes something more "truthful" (at least in non-exact sciences, where things are not mathematically provable). For example, there are people with Ph.D. in theoretical physics who believe in stuff such as hydrino, creationism, flying saucers, even "gods" (today proven to be deified natural phenomena, or simply a product of somebody's imagination). This is especially important in the context of Balkanic states where Academy usually gets populated by people along political (usually right-wing nationalist) lines, not on academic merits.
 * Radman can wait for few years. So, that's the matter of some other kind of politics. Radman hasn't entered for the Academy for the same reason why Plavi orkestar won the award "Album of the year", instead of Bajaga's Sa druge strane jastuka. - Radman didn't enter the Academy because HAZU is populated my mediocre "scientists" under the influence of the master-moron minister Dragan Primorac who outvoted those in favour of the approval of his application. Let me remind you of some of the "arguments" of the discussion that preceded the voting, and were laid out by some academic zeros: Glasovanju je prethodila rasprava potaknuta pismom akademika Zvonimira Devidea koji, ne slažući se s kandidaturom M. Radmana (inače već dopisnoga člana HAZU), pita može li u Akademiju “osoba koja si prisvaja privilegij da trajno vrijeđa Republiku Hrvatsku”, te jesu li akademici svjesni “kakve mogu biti materijalne i moralne posljedice za HAZU ako izabere kandidata koji je službeno opterećen ogromnim materijalnim dobrom za čije djelovanje i značenje dosad ne postoji nikakvo pokriće”. Complete brain fuck-up, Balkanic style. He's good enough for World/European/French Academy, good enough for Nature or Cell, but not for HAZU. To puke your guts out of disgust.
 * I'm sorry, I don't understand you on this one. You want to say, if I write e.g. "Russian is a Slavic language", than I'm "deliberatlely lying, misleading the reader to the conclusion that there is more to the Russian than there is not."? - No, you were writing the article as CSSD is a South Slavic diasystem - stating as it's a matter of fact, in a place not really appropriate (it should've been in a section of the SC language article), when in fact there is no such thing as "CSSD" except in the heads of some people, as such the existence of such thing is not provable. Lets quote professor Matasović Interes javnosti možda će pobuditi teza da nešto što bi bio prasrpskohrvatski ili prasrednjojužnoslavenski nikada nije postojalo kao valjana jedinica genetske klasifikacije. U gramatici se iznose argumenti kojima se nastoji pokazati da je posljednji prajezik između praslavenskoga i suvremenoga hrvatskog bio zapadnojužnoslavenski prajezik iz kojeg su se razvili ne samo svi hrvatski dijalekti i srpski i bosanski i crnogorski nego i slovenski. To znači da ne postoji zajednički prajezik iz kojega su potekli svi hrvatski dijalekti, kajkavski, čakavski i štokavski, koji bi bio različit od praslavenskoga. Kad su Slaveni došli u 7. stoljeću na obale Jadrana, oni su govorili praslavenski, ne prahrvatski, ne neki izdvojen, različit idiom od ostalih slavenskih dijalekata. Sve razlike među slavenskim jezicima mlađe su od toga razdoblja. Postojalo je neko jedinstvo, komunikacijska zajednica koja je obuhvaćala one govore iz kojih su potekli slovenski i hrvatski jezici, ali ne prahrvatski, koji bi obuhvaćao sva tri naša dijalekta. Tu su tezu u nekim oblicima zastupali i drugi lingvisti, ali ovdje je i jasno argumentirana.  and Srednjojužnoslavenski je zgodan pojam kojim se opisuje skup dijalekata među kojima je dolazilo do zajedničkih dodira i međusobnih utjecaja, posebno utjecaja štokavskih govora na čakavske i kajkavske, zbog masovnih migracija stanovništva prigodom dolaska Turaka, gdje su mnogi štokavski govori preplavili čakavske i kajkavske. Riječi su se posuđivale, proširile su se naknadne glasovne promjene. Nije postojao srednjojužnoslavenski prajezik različit od praslavenskog.
 * I can't believe it. Man, you've drowned yourself with this. Only the students with weak marks cannot tell the difference between these two. I hope you're not such person. Any illiterate person from Zagora pronounces differently č and ć (as in "paščić"). - Actually I was raised in Metković where more or less pure Neoštokavian is spoken, I can both hear and pronounce (when I pay attention, I usually don't in quick colloquial speech) them differently. 90% of Croatia can't, and that's the point. Kids in Zagreb need to learn at school by heart thow to spell words with /č/ and /ć/, as they can't do it "by ear". Most Croats hence writes imaginary phonemes in their "perfect, phonological" orthography, and the academics keep wondering why most people are semi-literate. And don't get me started on accents and lengths.. Really, try reading a nice overview in Kapović's paper on urban idioms of big Croatian cities. He's one of the few linguists in Croatia who actually knows his work.
 * This "Croatian (in fact Štokavian - Serbo-Croatian)" can be considered as inflammatory, trollish behaviour.  - Really? How so? Matasović's grammar describes the history of "standard Croatian", which is based Neoštokavian dialect, which is another generic name for standard varieties of Serbo-Croatian. I'm sure that you're disappointed, but Matasović's grammar is completely valid for other imaginary "languages" such as "Bosnian language", "Serbian language", "Montenegrin languge" etc. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Holy moly, I'm shocked. When I compare some of your comments in this recent exchange with Kubura and the polemics that we had a few months ago on the SC talk-page, you and I now appear to stand rather closer on the politics around the SC / BCMS mess than I had thought. I was particularly struck by your referral to Babic as a "Serbophobic nationalist". I'm curious, Stambuk. What happened over the last few months? --Vput (talk) 04:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You'd be surprised to discover that lots of Croatian linguists don't care less on Croatian literary tradition, but are instead conditioned by political motives of distancing as far as possible from Serbian. Although, these days it's pathological Anglophobia not Serbophobia which bothers them most. Some of the jokes on Serbs by Babić border on flirting with Ustašism and Nazism, and calling him "Serbophobic nationalist", perhaps impolite and PoVish at first sight, is not that far from truth. I usually evade any kind of political connotation/context when discussing stuff, but Kubura's attempt to glorify people like Babić and at the some time belittling doubtless experts like Matasović really enraged me :/ Furthermore, I'm very much acquainted with Kubura's trollish methods of argumentation from other wikis, and trust me there is no other way but to cut it at start otherwise you end up sounding as some PoVish lunatic while he gets an aura of the "defender of the truth". --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Does Matasovic's emergence signal a slow changing of the guard in Croatian linguistic academia or do the old nationalist linguists like Babic, Brozovic, Kacic and their followers such as Natasa Basic still rule the roost? (By the way, does Matasovic's book come in translation? My SC isn't at the highest level but I'd be still interested in what else he has to say about the evolution from Proto-Slavonic to the contemporary BCMS / SC forms.) I hope that it wouldn't be like reading the politically-infected tracts/analyses by the "old guard" that I suffered through in earlier times. --Vput (talk) 16:50, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Jat'
I did not "simply delete" a bunch of content. I excised those parts which are not relevant (i.e. not about the cyrillic letter jat'), and rather than delete them and lose the work that others had contributed, I moved them to another page. At the same time I edited so as to give that page a more balanced and coherent content. This involved adding material regarding a number of languages, and pruning the disproportionately long Croatian section, which (a) consisted almost entirely of material present already on the page on štokavian dialect (which is where it properly belongs) and (b) written to a large extent in barely comprehensible English. So no content is gone: it is still present, but on more appropriate pages.

Now you have done precisely what you accuse me of doing: simply deleting a bunch of content, by reverting to the status quo ante, at the same time restoring a number of erroneous statements that I had corrected. By all means edit, but try to do so constructively: don't just wipe out an extensive and considered edit because certain aspects of it don't appeal to you.

I am about to depart for Bulgaria, so if you write on my page and I don't respond, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring you, it just means that I haven't read it yet.

Лудольф (talk) 19:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you deleted 13K of content which was not relocated elsewhere. That page was not about Cyrillic letter jat - it was about both the jat phoneme and Glagolitic/Cyrillic (Cyrillic jat was taken from earlier Glagolitic jat) grapheme. Reflexes of Proto-Slavic jat are extremely complex in various Slavic dialects, and extensive overview is needed to provide proper encyclopedic account.
 * As I said, mentioning stuff that happened well after the Proto-Slavic period, like the reflexes of jat in e.g. East South Slavic dialect continuum (jat border) is not really appropriate for the page on Proto-Slavic language. More appropriate would be 1) pages such as Macedonian phonology or Bulgarian phonology, in a section dealing with historical phonology 2) one common page that would deal with the reflexes of jat in all Slavic dialects, such as yat.
 * The page on Štokavian dialect contains nothing of the information on jat reflexes in Croatian dialects that you removed. It only contains definitions of Ijekavian/Ikavian/Ekavian reflexes of long jat together with a section on their earliest historical attestations. The material I added on Croatian dialects is indeed "disproportionately long", but that is a Good Thing, as most of other language sections are extremely scarce. I would've added material for more dialects, esp. in the whole Serbo-Croatiana area, but Slavic dialectology books are not easily obtainable so I added a section on jat in Croatian dialects from the resources I have (historical phonology chapter of the grammar published by the Institute). The section is really concise when you think about it, considering how much information it contains. I would sincerely hope that the treatment of jat in other Slavic dialects on that page achieves the same level of technical competence and comprehensiveness.
 * If you have problems with comprehension of my English please feel free to rephrase any of my constructs. If you find some parts unclear tag them with or something and they will be taken care of. I personally don't see how e.g. the lead paragraphs of the yat article are less comprehensible than the section on jat in Croatian dialects, either to a casual reader or to a relatively informed one.
 * I haven't deleted anything, but merely restored 13K of content that has been lost.
 * I know that the article yat is extremely messy but it needs to be cleaned up/rewritten without loss of information, and after more information of jat on sections pending expansion is inserted. It's a continuous work in progress and there's no hurry. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Re:Serbo-Croatian languages
Nema problema. Inače se ne mješam u konflikte na tom članku jer jednostavno nemam previše znanja u tom području, al bacit ću oko na POV. Regards :) -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 08:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Serbian and Croatian official in the FPRY?
I wonder if you could help me out with a question User:Imbris put in my mind. He stated that a (standardized) Serbian and Croatian language were official languages in SFR Yugoslavia during a period. He seems to think this was true of the period of the Croatian Spring, and is insisting on listing the Croatian and Serbian languages as official, alongside Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian), Slovene, and Macedonian. Your thoughts? (I don't mean to drag you into this, so please say so if you'd prefer to stay away. :) -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 21:55, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, there was simply one official language (per constitution and various "agreements) called Serbo-Croatian in two literary "varieties", Western one conventionally (simply in order not to give prominence to either ethnic component) designated with terms such as "Croatian literary language" (hrvatski književni jezik) or "Croato-Serbian" (hrvatskosrpski). Grammars, orthographies, dictionaries (both synchronic and etymological) were written as if for one. Croatian didn't start to function as separate standard language until the 1990s. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * DIREKTOR is deliberately misleading you and the community. I have never said that it is the time period of Maspok (around 1971). If Mr. Ivan Štambuk doesn't know that the Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1946-01-31) was written in both a separate Croatian language and a separate Serbian language, which can be easily checked by means of listing the Official Gazette of the time before 1953/1954, then I rest my case. I hope that Ivan Štambuk is a different sort of a person than Mr. I. R. (the DIREKTOR). Why? Because the DIREKTOR is a dissident who advocate controversial POV and is highly biased towards all Yugoslavian issues.
 * It seems that despite Ivan Štambuk should know that there was no (singular) official language in the SFRY, except maybe in the "Army", he should support using the phrase Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian in such places as Hey, Slavs.
 * The fact that there were a standard, or there is no standard has no bearing on the fact that there were four "official" languages up to 1953/54 and the agreement of some private persons that lead to a forced agreement on the "official" part of the society. Then there were an era of three "official" languages (of nations, not counting nationalities). Even if Croatian by the "belief" of Ivan Štambuk started only in 1990 - Croatia was still in the SFRY so the language most certainly belongs there.
 * I would suggest that Ivan Štambuk check his position of playing into the hand of Mr. DIREKTOR who is using Ivan's expertise to promote unitaristic POV, which might ruled in Yugoslavia during some period (e. g. up to 1953/54) while that unitarism recognized four languages, and after the unitarism Yugoslavia experienced we had "democratic centralism" with self-government which tryed the melting-pot up to 1974. but abandoned it (temporary up to 1980. - and Tito's death).
 * Imbris (talk) 23:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Imbris is ignorant on the subject of (ex-)Yugoslav languages, even more so than myself, and is unable to conduct an informed debate on the subject. Mr. Imbris is unable to comprehend that the constitution was written in: 1. both variants of the Serbo-Croatian language, 2. Macedonian language, 3. Slovene language. Mr Imbris actually has no idea what he's talking about, and has been continuously embarrassing himself by proudly exclaiming and parading his ignorance (provided anyone in his "general auditorium" actually gives a damn about this petty nonsense). If I recall, Mr. Imbris even concocted a theory on how Croato-Serbian and Serbo-Croatian were two languages, and has now renamed his seperate "Serbo-Croatian" into "Serbian", and his seperate "Croato-Serbian" into "Croatian". Mr. Imbris won't stop until he "reestablishes" Croatian as an official language of Yugoslavia. I was not purposely misleading anyone. I simply thought that your ideas have some cohesion and, struggling to make some sense of your claims, I imagined you were referring to the MASPOK period. It turns out your ideas have absolutely no contact with the real world, in that you think that Croatian and Serbian were seperate official languages of the SFR Yugoslavia. I suppose I should have assumed the most ludicrous option available to one trying to extract coherent relevant statements between your references to my personal "schemes" and "bias". (Right, "variant", what's with me?! I'm losing my mind because of this guy :P ) -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 00:13, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Imbris, I'm looking at the 1946 constitution at the Serbian wikisource, but I don't see the name of the language mentioned anywhere?! Also, I can assure you I'm not trying to be either mislead by D, or to be pushed into either side. I just try to be 100% historically objective when it comes to language issues in the history which are often very manipulable and get PoVed in either direction. All schools of thought need to be represented equally (respective to their relative importance weight, of course), and none must be taken as "truthful". Unification of Serbian and Croatian literary languages was never really completed in the whole period of its planning 140 years, but nevertheless astounding amount of progress was made. Today people from Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo understand each other without problems, even though they nominally belong to separate standard language groupings. At the same time, some archaic Kajkavian speeches of Bednja and Čakavian of Krk are barely understandable by other parts of Croatia, but they belong together with Zagreb speech into "Croatian language" container along ethnic lines (Matasović 2008: §22: hrvatski je jezik onaj kojim govore i pišu ili su u prošlosti govorili i pisali Hrvati). To make peace with those two different perspectives (dialectological and ethnical), especially considering how fluent the concept of "ethnicity" was before the 19th century, and the unitarist (either politically enforced by the communist, or willfully promoted in the Illyrian movement times or by Croatian Vukovians) language politics throughout the ages. Literary Croatian language tradition in pre-1990s times never really died or was merged with Serbian literary tradition (both Serbs and Croats had several literary languages that eventually died out), but the choosing of Neoštokavian dialect for literary idiom was not an independent process in Croatian and Serbian - it was planned, architected and finalized by people drawing on almost the same lexical stock, with pretty much identical orthography and grammar. Unfortunatelly Croatian Štokavian literary tradition came up with the biggest loser in all that, but that's entirely different story (so that today you have "geniuses" like Babić et al. promoting freshly-coined words like uspornik or proširnica no one speaks and no writer uses, hence being born-dead, and at the same time immense lexical heritage not being revitalized and ignored even more than Vukovians did). OK, as for the Hey Slavs issue, IMHO it's ridiculous to have in the lead both Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian and Serbo-Croatian. Also I don't see any difference between the "Croatian idiom" "Croatian" language forms, and "Serbian idiom" and "Serbian" language forms, so one of them should really be dropped. Plus there's this thing you're forgetting of Serbian having both Ekavian and Ijekavian standards... --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

As I guessed on User talk:Imbris, the languages are not named. The guy misunderstood the source. The interesting thing is that he's still introducing them as "official" on Hey, Slavs, despite probably realizing he's wrong. Good old Imbris... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 09:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Answer to Ivan Štambuk

 * Dear Mr. Štambuk, you do not have to describe the issue in so many words. All of us see that you are knowledgeable in the issue of Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian diasystem, not only as a linguist, but also as a person who realize the context which surrounds the matter.
 * Now on the issues:
 * First. Have I ever said that the languages were named in the Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia? — No. I have not said that. What I have said is that the Constitution of the FPRY existed in the four different languages, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, and Slovenian. Also Mr. DIREKTOR deliberately speaks of SFRY in order to cloud the issues.
 * Croatian language was and is open to neologisms, with an excellent authors like Bogoslav Šulek. As for the standard language, it is in major connection with sociolinguistics.
 * As for the official languages of I should remind you of the Odluka o objavljivanju odluka i proglasa Antifašističkog vijeća narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, njegovog Predsjedništva i Nacionalnog komiteta na srpskom, hrvatskom, slovenskom i makedonskom jeziku (»Službeni list Demokratske Federativne Jugoslavije«, br. 1/45, No. 10, stranica 5.) and of the sources listed below my contribution to this discussion.
 * As for the fact that languages were not listed in the Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1946-01-31), I should refer you to its Article 65. Zakoni i drugi opći propisi Federativne Narodne Republike Jugoslavije objavljuju se na jezicima narodnih republika. (See also the Article 13 and the Article 120.)
 * From 1970s the Official Gazette of the SFRY was also published in the Albanian language and the Hungarian language, see Odluka o početku izlaženja Službenog lista SFRJ na albanskom i mađarskom jeziku (»Službeni list Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije«, br. 51/70, No. 582, p 1216)
 * Mr DIREKTOR is simply wrong, not only because of the facts, but because his POV is blinding him.
 * Sources:


 * Uz te svoje »preteče«, ovaj rječnik ima i svoju pretpovijest. Njegov je zametak nastao zapravo još u danima prvog desetljeća komunističke vlasti, kad je još (doduše uglavnom samo zato da bi se hrvatski narod dao lakše podjarmiti) postojala ustavna odredba o četirima službenim jezicima u Jugoslaviji; srpskom, hrvatskom, slovenskom i makedonskom, pa još nije bilo zabranjeno i govoriti hrvatski, nego su se, dapače, čak i sami Titovi govori s njegova socijalističkog metajezika u beogradskom tisku prevodili na srpski a u zagrebačkom na hrvatski. U to dakle prijelazno vrijeme ranog socijalizma u kojemu je kroatiziranje srpskih tekstova, dakle njihovo prevođenje na hrvatski, još bio zakonit posao, a ne kontrarevolucionarna rabota, radio sam profesionalno na uspoređivanju srpskih književnih tekstova s njemačkim i francuskim izvornicima i »prevodio« ih za hrvatske čitatelje. Pri tome sam bilježio sve leksičke, sintaktičke i stilističke osobitosti srpskoga jezika, s čvrstom nakanom da načinim neku vrstu priručnika za »čitanje s razumijevanjem« srpskih književnih djela, priručnika prijeko potrebna svakome govorniku hrvatskoga jezika koji bi se želio temeljitije pozabaviti kako suvremenom tako i starijom srpskom književnošću, za što je u prvom redu potrebno potpuno razumijevanje teksta koji se čita.
 * Otkako Jugoslavija postoji, u njoj se nije ustalio trajniji i jedinstveniji koncept jezične politike, pa je povijest problema bitno diskontinuirana. Njen se diskontinuitet manifestira u ovih nekoliko varijacija: hrvatskosrpski kao jedinstven jezik ili ne, hrvatskosrpski kao zajednički jezik ili ne.
 * Iako mi jezičnu i nacionalnu šarolikost Jugoslavije rado ističemo kao nešto posve iznimno, moramo odmah reći da to u odnosu na većinu evropskih zemalja nije, osim eventualno po broju različitih etničkih i jezičkih skupina, ništa specifično. No posve je jedinstven status etničkih i jezičnih skupina u Jugoslaviji u pogledu upotrebe svoga jezika, i općenito njegovanja kulturne, jezične i nacionalne posebnosti; ovom modelu u jezičnoj politici, kojemu je osnovna načela dao AVNOJ, približuju se samo Švicarska, i donekle SSSR. Naime, za Jugoslaviju je karakteristično da nema jednog državnog i nadnacionalnog jezika, koji bi važio na cijelom teritoriju, a da osim osnovnih nacija (južni Slaveni osim Bugara) i svaka druga etnička i jezična skupina, koja to želi, ima puno pravo i slobodu na upotrebu jezika u gotovo svim sferama javnog života (ali ne npr. za službeni saobraćaj u JNA), tj. da na svom jeziku, ili na varijanti svoga jezika, organizira sve stupnjeve škola, izdaje novine, časopise i knjige, da se svojim jezikom služi u lokalnoj administraciji itd. Iako u novije doba i u drugim zemljama, barem načelno, zapažamo slične razvojne tendencije, do danas nijedna zemlja nije dosegla razinu jugoslavenske jezične politike ni u pogledu pravnih normi ni u pogledu prakse. Jugoslavija zauzima posebno mjesto na jezičnoj karti Evrope, ne samo po broju i raznorodnosti etničkih i jezičnih skupina neko i po upotrebi jezika narodnosti u najrazličitijim sferama života.
 * Poznate su i često citirane odredbe Avnoja i Ustava FNRJ, gdje se navode četiri jezika, među njima srpski i hrvatski.
 * »Termin hrvatskosrpski/srpskohrvatski za Hrvatsku je u 45 godina druge Jugoslavije kao ustavna kategorija važio devet godina, od Ustava FNRJ 1963. do amandmanā na Ustav SR Hrvatske u ožujku 1972, sankcioniranih Ustavom iz 1974, odredbom da su u SRH “autentični tekstovi saveznih zakona i drugih saveznih općih akata (...) na hrvatskom književnom jeziku, latinicom” « (Matković, 2006, 204)


 * Imbris (talk) 18:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No Imbris, you're wrong. You see, your POV is blinding you. Most of the stuff above is selective representation of sources on your part. These are personal legal "interpretations" by authors, some more some less biased in the matter. Where are all the official state documents you used to quote? -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 22:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said the only person who is bilinded and misinformed is Mr. DIREKTOR. I do not have any POV other that quoting sources, and Odluka o objavljivanju odluka i proglasa Antifašističkog vijeća narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, njegovog Predsjedništva i Nacionalnog komiteta na srpskom, hrvatskom, slovenskom i makedonskom jeziku (»Službeni list Demokratske Federativne Jugoslavije«, br. 1/45, No. 10, stranica 5.) is official enough. Where is now your spirit of searching and finding those facts that support your claim that Yugoslavia was good for Croatia, and that Croatia had substantial authonomy, even, independence. You are now hiding under the protection of your rude interpretations.  The persons I have quoted are respectable authors and Yugoslavia did not had any official state language, no matter what you belive.
 * Imbris (talk) 23:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "Mr. Imbris", you're back! Well, we all know how Mr. Imbris likes to clarify history for us blind fools. Now, from my source (The Collected Sayings of Mr. Imbris), I've been able to finally understand the real history of my language. Mr. Imbris finally made me understand that the Croatian language is immortal and holy, and that it was official throughout the 20th century.
 * The Kingdom of Yugoslavia? They never had an official language, you know, so the invincible Croatian language was right there. That unitarianist nerd Alexander I, he was stupid enough not to use a language in his country (my theory is that the Sign language was used in official capacity), now Croatian can leap free out of a loophole into the hands of its Nazi saviours!
 * World War II? What are you talking about? Croatia was an "Independent State" then! Not an occupied part of Yugoslavia, no! Croatian was never more... CROATIAN back then, was it?
 * The SFR Yugoslavia? Heh, those communist morons thought they finally unified the languages, little did they know that "Croatian" cannot be stopped! It was just hiding, under a real-live alias no less. Now we can reveal the true identity of the so-called "Croato-Serbian language"!
 * And thus, voilà: beaten and bruised, but still immortal and eternal, Croatian makes the whole journey as an official language from 1919 to 1991. Can I get an applause, please, and maybe an amen too? :) -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 01:17, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What really brings a tear to my eye is how stalwart, objective, and completely neutral Mr. Imbris remained while explaining all this to me. If only I may be cured of my blindness so that I can fully appreciate his professionalism... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 02:27, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Imbris, I thought that the issue we're discussing is the existence of Croatian as a seperate standard language during the existence of Yugoslavias, independent of Serbian. I'm not saying that during the even the most "unitarist" period there was not some "Croatian literary language" with markedly different lexis (especially in e.g. scientific and legal sphere, with less Turkisms and more neologisms), as opposed to the literary language used in Serbian circles, but these two were very closely connected and mutually influenced one another. 90% of words Šulek coined never made it out to the spoken language (initial volumes of Academy's dictionary of SC ignored them completely, but once they caught on the editors started adding them), but of those that did, whole bulk of them made it to modern literary Serbian (vodovod, sladoled, pojam, kišobran, ishod, ples, košarka, posuda, uređaj, zbirka, obrazac, poredak..). The other day on h-alter.org there was this article that ridiculed some Croatian coinages that there being promoted somewhere, despite the fact that no one uses them, and the author used the word pozorište, and one of the (I guess Croat nationalist) commentators on the article tried to ridicule it saying "What is pozorište, I don't understand that word", not knowing that pozorište was a coinage by Bartol Kašić (today celebrated as a person who wrote the "first Croatian grammar", in fact mixed Čakavian - Ikavian Štokavian) as a calque of Latin spectaculum, (also variant form pozorišće was in use), that it was from Croatian literary circles that it entered literary Serbian, and modern Croatian word for "theatre" kazalište was only started to be used in that sense since the 19th century.. What I'm trying to say Imbris is that, while certainly there have ever been differences between Croatian and Serbian literary languages, and the complete "unification" never really occurred, it would be very misleading to speak of them as completely separate languages that had nothing to do with one another prior to the period of 1990s when both of them were officialized (and seperate grammars, orthographies, dictionaries..started to be written). Before that, what today are differences in standards, used to be treated as stylemes of Eastern/Western "variety" (lexical, morphological, syntactical). If you open up books of some of the greatest Croatian writers of the 20th century like Krleža or Matoš, you'll see plenty of instances of what would today be called "Serbianisms" (at least by Brodnjak's dictionary), words like uslov, hiljada or historija. The concept of "language" was much more fluent back then, and obviously the greatest writers didn't have prejudice in using words that are today ethnically marked. With common grammars and dictionaries, I don't think we can really speak of separate Serbian and/or Croatian in that period. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Everything you said has no connection with the real issue. Had Croatian (and of course Serbian) existed on paper as separate languages in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia or had not? I belive that I have proven that there were at least four "official" languages, named in the times of AVNOJ that existed in the times of the Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1946-01-31), in which the first Constitution of the socialist Yugoslavia had been published. I have also proven that there had been translations of texts between Croatian and Serbian language (and vica versa), that in those times Croatian literary language was considered a separate language to the Serbian literary language. Etc, etc.
 * Brodnjak is not some "hrvatoid" as would Šuvar say, he described in the introduction to his dictionary that he started his work in the times when the two language were considered separate, and he published the dictionary in such order that the serbian word is the headword, in order to allow Croatian users to better understand works of Serbian authors.
 * Wait a moment, you say Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian never really existed as per Ranko Matasović, and then express your personal belief that Croatian and Serbian never functioned as separate languages during (at least) the period before Novosadski dogovor.
 * What do you think? DIREKTOR and I talk on your talk page (with your, prefferably not with each other) for the pleasure of simple conversation with you? The issue is that DIREKTOR insist that Serbo-Croatian is still a language and not a mere macrolanguage, and that it (the language) should appear on the list of current South-Slavic languages.
 * DIREKTOR insist that a separate languages policy did not exist (ever) in the times of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and that there were only one official language in FPRY/SFRY called Serbo-Croatian (with two other that did not function as a totally official languages, Slovenian and Macedonian).
 * DIREKTOR insist that only a term Serbo-Croatian language with the following variants Serbo-Croatian language or Serbo-Croatian could be only written in this wikipedia's articles, and denies the possibility that we include (without deleting his preffered choice) the Croato-Serbian language and Croato-Serbian.
 * You have been approached by the DIREKTOR, I followed suit, to realize that you are never going to say or let alone do anything to help us both.
 * I belive that what I am proposing is most NPOV and respectfull to both parties concerned and that you should say (once and for all) whether: Are you going to say your opinion on the issues or not?
 * Imbris (talk) 18:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

You've proven nothing, Imbris. Croatian was not an official language of the SFR Yugoslavia. It simply wasn't. No amount of weaselish quote mining can undo a fact that is simply public knowledge. tian currently exists as an official language of any country. And you do not get to say what kind of list that section is. Nice try, though... -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 18:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "What do you think? DIREKTOR and I talk on your talk page (with your, prefferably not with each other) for the pleasure of simple conversation with you? The issue is that DIREKTOR insist that Serbo-Croatian is still a language and not a mere macrolanguage, and that it (the language) should appear on the list of current South-Slavic languages."
 * Oh I'm so sorry. I had no idea you already proclaimed the section a "list of current Slavic languages". There I was thinking that the list was there to include all versions of the song, regardless of the current state of the language the version is in. Oh I get it, you're trying to make me sound nuts aren't you, you sly dog you... I never said Serbo-Croa
 * I insist on using the common term in English on the English Wikipedia, yes. You know, the one that's used EVERYWHERE? Not the term you like to use just because it makes your crazy theories look like they make sense.

OK, to be concise now, in answering the question: Had Croatian (and of course Serbian) existed on paper as separate languages in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia or had not? - in my opinion, not. Not "on the paper" (i.e. not officially), and neither in practice (grammars, dictionaries and orthography books were common for both literary varieties). Just because someone called it hrvatski jezik somewhere sometimes, is simply not enough. Standard Croatian started functioning separately only in the 1990s (and still is "starting", given that to this day there no dictionary of standard Croatian published, the first coming only in 2011 ) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice to see that this is your opinion?! Did you read sources I had presented to you, practice is more than some linguistic manuals. You are simply wrong, not because I say so, but because sources say so. We are not speaking about the standard language, stop using that disclaimer to protect your view on the matter. People called their language officialy as Croatian and there were translations (given green light by then authorities). Stop presuming on my character on the basis of what Mr. DIREKTOR (a 21 or a 22 year old) writes, that is defaming and not AGF (and should also be a reason for ANI). Stop mistaking a sociolinguistics term (a standard) with a pure scientific and structuralist term (a language). -- Imbris (talk) 18:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Imbris, so far you gave exactly zero evidence of Croatian functioning as a separate "language" during the Yugoslavias. As I've told you, even the dictionaries that were title Hrvatski rječnik such as that of Broz-Iveković drew heavily on the Serbian literature. There was no official "Croatian language", there was no standard Croatian language, the only thing that there was was somebody using the phrase hrvatski jezik which in practice meant nothing. Language as a structuralist/scientific term (as you call it) is only one - Neoštokavian dialect, and modern standard B/C/S just being codified instances of it. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What you have just written is proposterous. You and your opinion, linguistic and otherwise have proven nothing, even Dr. Šuvar stated in one of his articles that by the decrees of the Constitution of 1946. there were four separate languages. You are denying both AVNOJ and ZAVNOH as being part of the history of SFRY. You are in big denial, of not only legal sources but the practice of both ordinary and expert speakers. Language is a matter of teaching, even if it is maternal, ours, or, people's, you need to study harder my dear Ivan Štambuk. I see why you are virtually banned from the hr.wiki. Your opinions have no foundations, and when presented with sources you expect me to deliver you more and more sources (obviously for your private and proffesional pleasures). I will not indulge in your attempt to make me your slave, and this conversation has lost its charm, so goodbye, EOD. --

Imbris (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yada yada...just don't try to put your BS in the en.wp article and everything will be A-OK. You might have more luck on proving the existence of "Croatian language" before the 1991 on the Croatian ustašopedia, with folks like Kubura and Ante Perković around ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, what about my post?? :( -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 20:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, Imbris: Serbo-Croatian was a language with two variants. One of these variants may have been called "Croatian" at a point during the history, but it was still only a variant of Serbo-Croatian. In the real world, Imbris, the one not trying to resurrect Croatian, it takes more than a name change to change a language. You're essentially saying that Croatian and Serbo-Croatian are identical, to the point that it was only a matter of the naming. And anyway, even this meaningless name change was only for a short while. -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 10:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

File talk:Slavic languages.png
I would appreciate if you stepped in and had a word with the editor which reverted our changes to that image, I simply haven't got the time right now. It would appear his argument is based on a lot of "should" and not enough "is", but I haven't even thoroughly read it. +Hexagon1 (t) 23:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Re
Well, I must say you beat my personal record. Best I got was 3 days when I was editing on the Chetniks article and having my "chats" with good old User:AntePavelić 1929. :) -- DIREKTOR  ( TALK ) 23:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)