From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: Macedonian Language and its History
Keywords: linguistic, accent, dialect, language, macedonia, history
Date: 14 Sep 92 19:29:00 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <9225715.171@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> sachz@montebello.ecom.unimelb.EDU.AU (SAS) writes:
<MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE AND ITS HISTORY
< 
<   It is 1992 and I can still hear Greek politicians exclaiming that
<there is no Macedonian language. Not far behind are the Bulgarian 
<nationalists who state that Macedonians is a Bulgarian dialect.

Bulgarian what?  Nationalists?  How about those who make the same or a
similar statement, without being driven by Bulgarian nationalism?

<   Let us examine the facts and draw our own conclusion.

Let's. ... Where are the facts?

<It was in 1950 that <...> Reginald de Bray
<stated unequivocally in his book "Guide to the Slavonic Languages",
<that - "By an irony of history the people who ancestors gave to the
<Slavs their first literary language, were the last to have their
<modern language recognised as a separate Slavonic language, distinct
<from the neighbouring Serbian and Bulgarian."

Where is the irony of history?  I only see a woeful non sequitur.
Just because the ancestors were the first to work on a literary form
of what was then the only Slavic language doesn't mean that now the
descendants speak a different language from their neighbours.

<Mr de Bray also put
<forward in his chapter on "Old Slavonic" that - "The first writings
<in Old Slavonic are now generally considered by philosophers to have 
<been in the language of the Slavs of Macedonia of the second half of
<the ninth century".

Yes, which was the same language as the one of all other Slavs anywhere.

<The brothers worked together to compose a Slavonic
<alphabet, which has become known as the "Glagolitic" alphabet. This
<used Greek lettering, combined with the phonetic sounds of the Slavonic
<language of the peasants of Southern Macedonia.

This last sentence shows how much you know about linguistics.

<   The monks Clement and Naum (who were disciples of Cyril and
<Methodius) further simplified the Glagolitic script and refined
<it into the "Cyrillic" alphabet that we use today.

Stuff and nonsense.  The idea of the Cyrillic alphabet being a
simplification of the Glagolitic one.  Get a _good_ book.

In any case, what on earth does all of this have to do with the status
of modern Macedonian?  How does it make it a language?

<Croatian scholar Vatroslav Jagic (one of the most famous Slavists
<of his time) - recommended on several occasions that we consider
<the Macedonian language as a separate south-Slav tongue since
<even medieval manuscripts showed the same tendencies.

We will consider that, but what are the tendencies?  What linguistic
reasons are there to give Macedonian the status of a language, as
opposed to dialect and literary norm?

<Many important Slavists have come to the same conclusions, especially,
<in the period between the two world wars were such Slavists as
<Antoin Meyer, Andre Vajan and Mjeveslav Malecki all found that
<Macedonian was distinct and separate language differing from
<both Bulgarian and Serbian.

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of arguments from authority and the lack
of real arguments.  What features of the phonetics, grammar, and
lexicon of Macedonian made these scholars consider it a separate
language?  Come on, type in a few.  Then we can have a discussion.

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Xref: sparky soc.culture.europe:8199 eunet.politics:1260 soc.culture.greek:8607 soc.culture.yugoslavia:8587