Talk:Macedonian language/Archive 4

message: I'd encourage anyone who thinks I have violated or am violating the article ownership policy here to take it up with dispute resolution. - FrancisTyers 17:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:OWN]]

message: I've removed the majority of the Dialects section because it is a copyvio from Friedman's (2001) Macedonian. - FrancisTyers 23:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See . - FrancisTyers 23:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

text: That would be great :) If you haven't got time to do it, I'll do it this weekend. - FrancisTyers 01:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the info as of now is quite sufficient, and the opinions of Bulgarian linguists are mentioned clearly enough. The references to Stoykov were things that I had posted previously, so I didn't know that he was also the source of your additions. I now see that he does indeed confirm Nevrokop and Serres' being rupski. But in any case, I don't see why their being rupski is notable enough to deserve a mention. As for the link to Stoykov, I don't know who deleted it and why (I had no idea that book was available online, that would have spared me a walk to the library). I'll add it back in the references section. --194.145.161.227 18:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The significance of their rupski nature is that they are far closer to the rest of the rupski dialects from the Rhodopes to the Black Sea than the Prilep-Bitola dialects.  Hence the whole idea of the Macedonianness of all Slavs of Macedonia being based on some shared common linguistic traits looks very dubious.  Also, classifying the inhabitants of Razlog, Goce Delchev and Melnik as Macedonian speakers and therefore ethnic Macedonians based on language becomes rather difficult.  This is not to deny the legitimacy of OMO "Ilinden" activists' right to self-identification, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.  (149.77.24.89 18:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I see what you mean, but to make this point clear to the general reader, we'd have to explain the geographical extension of the Rupski dialects. As for the conclusions from it, the fact that the dialects can be classified as (close to) East rather than West Bulgarian in several respects (yat-vowel behaviour, unstressed vowel reduction) is already mentioned in the article and pretty telling. Anyway, I'll insert a mention of the Rupski thing again. --194.145.161.227 19:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you.  I think I had mentioned the extent of the Rupski dialects in my original sentence.  On a sidenote, it is funny that the activists of the VMORO left at the turn of the 20th century, to which current Macedonian (and a lot of Western) scholarship tries to impute some sort of Macedonian nationalism, came almost exclusively from the Seres district or from Bulgaria proper (the Principality).  Whereas the pro-Bulgarian nationalists of the VMORO right came mostly from Western Macedonia, whose population was already at that time being perceived by some (e.g. Brailsford) as somewhat different from the Bulgarians in the Principality.(149.77.24.89 19:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, I had no idea about that. Yes, you had written that they "strech across southern Bulgaria, through the Rhodope and Strandja mountains." But I didn't have your reference then, and you see, we have an awful lot of trouble with anonymous IP users on sensitive topics like that. Nothing personal. It still seems borderline excessive as a detail, given the scarcity of proper linguistic information about the language itself in the article. --194.145.161.227 19:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Dialects

message: In contrast, in other Slavic languages that have the perfect tense, it is almost universally built with the verb "to be" and a past active participle; that is also an option in Macedonian. The older common Slavic form with сум "to be" is predominant in the east of the country, while the form with "to have" is more widespread in the west, but has spread in the younger generations due to the influence of the standard language. Example: имам галено (new perfect) - сум галил/галел (old perfect) - I have caressed. 
Do we have a source for this? - FrancisTyers 00:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Perfect tense

message: For the record - vreden just can't mean "ureden" ("orderly") in standard Bulgarian. In some really exotic dialect, maybe. :) --85.187.44.131 01:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See my reply. Francis, it's better to archive only inactive discussions or wait until things settle. Todor Bozhinov  → 08:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I'll remember that in future, although it was going outside the remit of the talk page somewhat. - FrancisTyers 09:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Lazar, do see Folk linguistics. BTW How did you conclude Macedonian is Bulgarian and Bulgarian isn't Macedonian? --dcabrilo 03:11, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vreden 

message: FrancisTyers - What didn't you like about the reference conversion in this article? Armedblowfish 23:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See comments at Wikipedia_talk:Footnotes. The new system is buggy. - FrancisTyers 00:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fail to see anything significant there. Can you be more specific? Duja 09:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New reference style 

message: Does anyone else think that the Grammar section could probably make its own article now? We could summarise in this article and have a  link, like with the history section. - FrancisTyers 01:00, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Grammar

message: Removed as we have conflicting sources. - FrancisTyers · 08:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Re-added the "syllabic /r/" bit. Nobody disputes it.--85.187.44.131 16:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Semivowels

message: FrancisTyers, why you don't do the same in the article about the Bulgarian language? Thre are allowed Common Bulgarian expressions. Only in the article about the Macedonian language is not allowed that? Is it ussual here at EN Wikipedia to spread only the Anti-Macedonian propagandas? Unfortunately I got that feeling reading most of the articles here. --Amacos 20:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, truely I am acting in an anti-Macedonian fashion, pushing the POV of the Bulgarian/Greek/Albanian [delete as appropriate] government (subtext: read my comments on this talk page, read the archives before you accuse me of anything). However on the other hand, if you look here, you can see we already have a list of common Macedonian expressions. The examples section of this article should include phrases which highlight interesting linguistic features of the language, such as clitic doubling etc. - FrancisTyers · 20:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't accuse you personally for anything :) My point was: Look at the article about the Bulgarian language, there are Common Bulgarian expressions, and there is also separate article including the bulgarian phrasses too, look here. I did the same. If it's allowed for the Bulgarian language why it's not allowed for the Macedonian language? I hope you did understand my point. Regards, --Amacos 23:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but it shouldn't be in the Bulgarian article either. The example section should be reserved for demonstrating interesting linguistic features of the language. Unfortunately many language articles disregard this. - FrancisTyers · 00:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Common expressions

message: I mention that in all books about Macedonia published in Romanian by Aromanians from this region, Macedonian language is considered a Bulgarian dialect. However, I see in Wikipedia a trend to accept very easy (and without scientific arguments) the aparition of new languages. Serbo-Croatian was divided in Wikipedia in Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, soon will follow a "Montenegrian" language. It seems that politics interfere with linguistic in new language definition, and I don't believe this is a good thing.--MariusM 18:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully agree with that. Not to mention that the possibility that Aromanian is a Romanian dialect (which is the view Britannica takes) is suppressed here.--Tekleni 18:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This discussion is pointless. There is no generally accepted definition of a language as oppose to a dialect.   Andreas   (T) 18:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think we go by how people call their language today.  The majority of the native speakers of this language in the Republic of Macedonia call it Macedonian and consider themselves ethnic Macedonians.  It is also good to point out the historical developments, sure.  Plus modern Macedonian is a standardised language, it can hardly be called a dialect.  And what was spoken in Macedonia in 1913 was not one Bulgarian dialect but a group of very diverse Bulgarian dialects.  Modern Macedonian is based on a small subset of those and it has undergone a lot of Serbian and other influences.  I would not call it a dialect of Bulgarian.  It is a separate language vis-a-vis standard Bulgarian. (VMRO 19:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bulgarian dialect?

message: Couple of questions:
"It's interesting that Greek and Romanian are centum languages, and Bulgarian-Macedonian and Albanian are satem languages, so the Balkan sprachbund includes many kinds of Indo-European languages."
Do we have a source for that? (Also "It's interesting that" is not a particularly encyclopaedic way to start a sentence).
"Macedonian is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Standard Bulgarian. "
I think this is simplifying it slightly, and is already covered better in the "Classification and related languages" section. No need to repeat outselves. - FrancisTyers · 21:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You need a source for the first??? That's a linguistic fact - see Centum-Satem isogloss. As for the second - your Macedonistic agenda is rearing its ugly head yet again. --Tēlex 21:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how much relevance it has here, it should be mentioned at Balkan sprachbund. As for the second oh no! I've been exposed once again! But seriously, if you would prefer mention of the mutual intelligibility be made in the lead we can do that, but I think it makes sense where it is at the moment. - FrancisTyers · 21:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure we can't mention it everywhere. --Tēlex 22:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the article already leaves it to no doubt that standard Macedonian is really like standard Bulgarian and that they are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. - FrancisTyers · 22:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I thought it was more like the Azerbaijani language and the Turkish language (which are mutually intelligible). --Tēlex 15:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know much about Turkish/Azerbaijani to agree or disagree. It is possible that the connection is asymmetric, that is the Bulgarian to understand Macedonian lang. better than vice verse, but for myself, when I try to read Bulgarian, although I understand most of the words, sometimes I can’t understand the entire context. I wonder if there was a real science study to research mutually intelligible level between Mac. And Bulg.--Cigor 15:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cigor, as far as I am aware there has been no quantitative research published on this issue. It should be something that is fairly easy to quantify, I have in mind an idea for a study, but as of yet I don't have the resources to put it into action. Interested parties should contact me about this. - FrancisTyers · 15:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you have a bunch of hot-blooded Bulgarian and Macedonian wikipedians on disposal :-). However, somehow I feel that the outcome of a potential poll would be that most Bulgarians would (pretend to) understand Macedonian text perfectly, while Macedonians would (pretend to) have significant problems reading Bulgarian text :-). Duja 15:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually I was thinking more along the lines of taking ~30 school age kids from Macedonia and Bulgaria, controlled for "aptitude" and giving them a series of tests on comprehension and performance over a range of tasks over bilingual aligned text. Possibly using some kind of SAT "multiple choice" option for the comprehension part. My suspicion would be that the Bulgarians over-report and the Macedonians under-report and they both have approximately the same comprehension (good) and performance (bad). Of course the Bulgarians may be able to perform in Macedonian more easily as the alphabet is easier. - FrancisTyers · 15:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite. User:FlavrSavr (Macedonian Slav) speaks mk-N and bg-1, and User:TodorBozhinov (Bulgarian) speaks bg-N and mk-N. --Tēlex 15:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: O Telex!

message: Can we just remove "Greek, Slav, Greekized Slav", we have sources for all of them, but it doesn't really add to the article. - FrancisTyers · 17:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we have Greek, we have the rest, if we don't have the rest, we just have Byzantine. What is the problem with having "Byzantine" ? Or not mention the ethnicity and just have "monks". Their pages clearly state their ethnicity. - FrancisTyers · 18:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: U don't have any idea when we should include something cause it is accepted by the majority of scholars/historians etc, do u? they are considered greeks by the majority of scholars, a reader curious about them, will take a look in their article, where the issue is presented. If we have Greek, we have the rest, so, why not everywhere in wikipedia that we mention Macedonian language, shouldn't we mention Slavomacedonian' or 'Bulgaromacedonian' as well? If we have Macedonian language, we have the rest, if we don't have the rest, we just have "the official language of RoM"-NPOV enough... just because the monks lived in the state that we call 'Byzantine Empire', it does not mean that we should not call them 'Greeks' (and there are reliable sources to do that!). btw, here take a look and "correct" Francesco I Sforza's article that says he was italian, to a version that says he was Ambrosian... haha --Hectorian 18:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  As an Orthodox Christian, I accept the hagiography of the Orthodox Church, which states that the mother of Sts Cyril and Methodius was Maria, a devout Slavic woman from the hinterlands of Thessaloniki, while their father was a Greek-speaking aristcrat. If you are Greek, then you must be Orthodox, therefore I ask why are you trying so hard to edit the article against the teachings of your own Church. CRCulver 22:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Please do not remove sourced information. It could be considered vandalism. - FrancisTyers · 18:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I won't, don't worry... Btw, u were the one who removed sourced info , so it is u whose edits could be considered vandalism... --Hectorian 18:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, this is absurd. We don't have to consent in every damn talk about what these two were. Address your objections in their main article if you wish (and feel they would stand). In the meantime, we're calling them "Greeks (i.e. Byzantine)" and we only include one source that states so. Anything else is POV ommission. :NikoSilver: 22:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If this was an article on monks yes. Macedonian language, no. - FrancisTyers · 23:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually this is better. Those monks get too much screen-time anyway.  - FrancisTyers · 22:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. The coding system for this language was invented by some neighbours with whom there is controversy today. I think this is highly relevant, highly informative, avoids mis-information (you know what I mean), and should bring the two of us closer, than further apart. I really think you should add it back and call them "Greek (i.e.Byzantine)" with only one source that states so. Anything else is POV ommission. :NikoSilver: 22:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think it is particularly relevant or informative, particularly if you're just going to edit war about it. The writing system is more important than the supposed ethnicity of any monk. - FrancisTyers · 22:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I am an orthodoxically scientifically thinking editor. Cite your information in Saints Cyril and Methodius, and state any documented hypothesis for that. Then, alter the consensus there, call them smthng else (other than "Greek (i.e. Byzantine)") and copy that in the language article, citing the one source that states so. Have you read WP:NOR? :NikoSilver: 22:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  There were sources to back up the claims that they were Slavs, half-Greek half-Slavs, or "Greekized Slavs". Those sources were removed. And if I claim that the article should obey the teachings of the Church we both belong to, that is not original research, but rather the opposite: respecting authority. CRCulver 23:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Monk moratorium. - FrancisTyers · 22:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They have passed to immortality, as you know. You can't kill them. :NikoSilver: 23:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They won't mind the wait then... - FrancisTyers · 23:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice argumentation! Sound! Congratulations on making the article less informative. I'll be back you know. When I am right, I am right. :NikoSilver: 23:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Copy it yourself. You added it after I copied the rest here, anyway. Oh, and you will be surprised. I've never been more determined, and I see no arguments. Not serious at least. Goodnight for now, and help a little with all those comments if you wanna do something productive... :NikoSilver: 23:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Arrrrgghhhh! Good heavens, παιδιά, I can't believe you are sqabbling over this here. This is an article about the language, not about the monks. There's a controversy about the monks, live with it, keep that controversy in their article. Wherever else the monks must be mentioned, like here, use the most neutral term possible to describe them. Just "Byzantine" is fine. It has strong connotations of Greekness anyway. And it does make clear the one and only point that's really of relevance for this article: that they were culturally outsiders, not native members of the Slav communities they were working for. They could have been Armenians, Goths, Arabs, Alans, it wouldn't make the slightest difference for this article. -- Note to CRCulver: your religious beliefs or Niko's or mine are entirely irrelevant here, I'm afraid. Deference to church traditions just because they are church traditions is out of place here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That has been my position from the get go :( - FrancisTyers · 11:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Fran, your gesture is highly appreciated. The question of the monks ethnicity has already been subject to several furious crusades by Slavic editors, to repeat them here would be absurd.--Aldux 12:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Seconded 100%. Thank you for your politeness, Fran. :NikoSilver: 14:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You know the scene from Βαλκανιζατέρ that this all reminds me of, right? Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the Greek or otherwise character of the Byzantine monks

message: I thought it would be much more accurate to include the correct grammatical structure in the last three lines of the Lord's Prayer in Macedonian. The first person plural direct object "ne" has an accented "e" to differentiate it from the negative particle. This is standard in Macedonian and is certainly necessary in the case of both appearing in the same line!
As well, the Macedonian language uses the standard south-slavic Latin alphabet variant. The two are interchangable! š, č and ž are always used in the standard Macedonian transliteration instead of sh, ch, zh; This transcription should be consistant especially because otherwise "c" would be anglicized into "tse", etc. 
I can't help feeling that the transcription and transliteration was done begrudgingly in such a way as to minimize the unique structure of the Macedonian and to bulgarianize the latin spelling!
--24.193.68.141 03:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  lord's prayer in Macedonian 

message: Also missing from the grammatical section of the past tense was the formation of the aorist, past definite complete tense. The passage is taken from "Makedonski Jazik" by Christina E. Kramer, published in 1999 by The University of Wisconsin Press; 
Because this is a politically sensative topic, it should be noted that this is an entire grammatical structure that differentiates Bulgarian and Macedonian. Not to mention the fact that the endings of the first person singular and 1st person plural in almost all grammatical tenses differ in Bulgarian and Macedonian. To be fair, these differences should not be omitted! Linguistic similarities and differences should be given EQUAL presence especially in light of the political conflict on the matter!
--24.193.68.141 03:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid you have inaccurate information about Bulgarian grammar. Both Bulgarian and Serbian have an aorist tense. In fact, Bulgarian has "more" of an aorist tense than Macedonian, because it forms it from imperfective verbs as well. As for the endings, they don't differ in all types of verbs. Anyway, we've already devoted so much space to differences from Bulgarian that the reader can draw his/her conclusions. I think it's better to focus on adding whatever else is missing (such as a present tense section) until the article finally contains a proper and complete description of the language. --194.145.161.227 21:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's bulgarian past tense formation. It might help determine what are the differences between it and the macedonian past tense formation.--Arath 10:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macedonian Past Tense Formation 

message: According to Euromosaic, the dialects spoken in Greece are not readily mutually intelligible with standard Macedonian .
I had a brief look through the source and couldn't find where this was stated. It does however state that, "La compréhension mutuelle ne pose pas de problèmes particuliers." (Mutual comprehension does not pose any particular problems). If it really is in there, could someone please indicate the line. - FrancisTyers · 15:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Haha, I was actually looking for this quote the other day. The part about it being "derived from Ancient Greek". I see that part now, "The relative difficulty of comprehension of the official language of Skopje and that of Sofia, which is used in the press and television has contributed to this sentiment, also assisted by the idea that the language spoken in the Republic of FYROM [sic] :D — is different." — We could say something like "It has been reported that speakers of the Slavic dialects of northern Greece have relative difficulty in understanding the language of the press and media of both the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria." — to be honest I would imagine they would certainly have difficulty understanding the press, as they probably aren't taught the Cyrillic alphabet. I'm not sure about the rest of the media, but it is plausible I guess — I mean they subtitle certain accents/dialects of English when featured in the USA. I don't know, I mean, the source seems to contradict itself. What do you think? - FrancisTyers · 21:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see a contradiction. The sentence "la compréhension mutuelle ne pose pas de problèmes particuliers" is in reference to the comprehension between different Macedonian/Slavic/Bulgarian dialects in Greece. I do admit that it doesn't mean much as an argument in the ongoing nationalist dispute, but it is notable enough to be included if true. --Pseudonymus Bosh 19:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not readily intelligible 

message: I removed it because it's an obvious copyvio (scanned from a book) and has to be deleted. Also, it is highly biased to refer to the dialects in Greece and Bulgaria as Macedonian, since their speakers don't consider them such and neither does the international science. I'd like us to have a map of the Slavic dialects of Macedonia, but I'm not tolerating RoM propaganda in any case. Todor→Bozhinov 16:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted the map, those sassy guys! When will they learn? Friedman is good, but he tends to take a linguistic inclusivist viewpoint, as the map shows. What I think would be wonderful (if it were possible) would be three/four maps -- one for each perspective.) - FrancisTyers · 18:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am reworking the Political views on the Macedonian language section dealing with Bulgarian views.  Please give me some time to source it properly.  There is a dated map representing the Serbian view.  Here are some maps based on Stoykov although they were created by a friend of mine and only deal with the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria. And here are some others.  (VMRO 23:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The map 

message: I've removed this section pending reliable sources. Yes folks, thats non-partisan, peer-reviewed articles, publications, etc. that describe this process as "Serbianization".  - FrancisTyers · 18:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can at least write that after the act of removing. Is the word "Serbianization" the only thing bothering you? Another source:    /FunkyFly.talk_  18:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole section, whether it be titled "Serbianisation" or "Horrible Serbian plot to Corrupt the Noble Bulgarian [sic] Language". Get reliable sources as specified above. - FrancisTyers · 18:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Talking about extremes... How about "Post 1944 Serbian influence on the Macedonian language".   /FunkyFly.talk_  18:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I highly doubt Friedman refers to any of this as "Serbianisation", and you are talking about an anachronism. What you mean to say is "Serbian influences on the Bulgarian language, which transformed into the Bastard tongue of the Bulgarians who call themselves Macedonians". - FrancisTyers · 18:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Friedman is a pupul of Lunt's - both very partisan.  I have spoken to the former - his views on history were pretty much those of the Skopje historians - he completely is out of line with most impartial Western scholars (Banac, Mazower, Brown, etc.).  (VMRO 22:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  I have not done extensive research on this but I believe the new Macedonian language was at first not taken very seriously among linguists in Europe, even though Macedonian dialects had been of great interest to them.  It was people like Lunt who were the pioneers in establishing the new orthodoxy.  In reality, Yugoslavia and later (since the 60's) Bulgaria both nurtured foreign champions of their respective viewpoints.  We are talking free tours of the country, conferences, banquets, vacations in Ohrid and Struga, the Black Sea coast, etc.  I think Yugoslavia had the natural advantage of being the West's darling whereas Bulgaria was a sinister Stalinist dictatorship.  It was hard to sympathise with it.  The few remaining pro-Bulgarian scholars like Clarke, Stammler and Kronsteiner did so not because they liked Bulgaria's government but because of their ties to the old Macedonian emigration which stuck to a Bulgarian identity.  Bulgaria also lagged behind in the international propaganda game because it did not suit the interests of its suzerain (USSR) and Macedonia was a taboo subject almost until the 1970's.  It did make a comeback with the ridiculous "1300 Years of Bulgaria Campaign" but a feeble one.  Plus all these foreign and objective scholars respond to incentives just like anyone else.  Philip Shashko, for example, of Ukrainian-Bulgarian descent was staunchly pro-Bulgarian.  He switched for unknown reasons recently.  Someone was telling a story about him from a couple of years ago.  At a conference dedicated to Misirkow in Skopje, he read his report in standard Bulgarian trying to "Macedonise" it by replacing "във" and "със" with "во" and "со". (VMRO 22:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  I agree Serbianisation is a non-neutral term and does not belong in the article.  However, the Serbian influenceis there. A lot of it was deliberate (throwing out the "dark vowel", etc.), a lot of it the result of close communication with Serbian and the dominant sstatus of Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslavia.  The claim of "Serbianisation" is raised not just by Bulgarians, it has also been voiced by many Macedonian nationalists in in the post-1991 period (Kiselinov, etc.).  Also, by many Macedonians with a Bulgarian identity (Srbinovski, etc.).  The German linguist Christian Voss has a few articles on the subject, mostly in German.  He is an expert on the Slavic dialects of Greece.  See his webiste here.  This is an English-language abstract of one of his works. (VMRO 22:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I've read some of Voss' work, and yes of course there was Serbian [Serbo-Croatian] influence, and Turkish influence, and [more now] English influence. This is very common in languages, and does not denote some kind of "sinister plot". I completely agree that the dominant status of Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslavia would have had an effect on the Macedonian language, and yes claims of Serbianisation have probably been raised from Macedonian 'native' nationalists who were probably concerned about the effect of bilingualism on their "pure" language. Basically, this phenomenon can not be placed down to any kind of "evil serbianisation plot", it is much more complicated, and discussing the relative "Serb-ness" of words like "avion" is not the way to tackle this. Incidentally, I think that the vocabulary section could do with improving, so this might be a good place to start.  - FrancisTyers · 23:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you are (perhaps unintentionally) insulting the intelligence of the Bulgarian nationalists by reducing their views to claims of an "evil Serbianisation plot".  I don't happen to agree with the Bulgarian nationalist position but have ended up playing devil's advocate on many occassions now just because I don't think "objective" views are that objective.  The claim as I understand it is the following: Serbian influence was natural given the circumstances of Yugoslavia and was tolerated while everything Bulgarian was actively proscribed.  Serbs came to occupy important positions in Macedonia, including the media, etc.  Again, it is purely anecdotal (although verifiable if someone applied himself to it) that many language editors of Macedonian newspapers were actually Serbs.  And again, these identical claims are raised by Macedonian nationalists who have nothing to do with Bulgaria.  If you really take the case to its logical extreme, a lot of the purged "high" as opposed to "dialect" Bulgarian vocabulary was common to Bulgarian and Russian by way of Church Slavonic.  Which is essentially... "Old Macedonian"! (VMRO 00:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've yet to read any Bulgarian nationalist text discussing language that doesn't essentially reduce it to this. Verily all of the articles etc. that I have read verge on the hysterical. Again, including information on the view of Macedonian nationalists would be important if we were to include the view of the Bulgarian nationalists. - FrancisTyers · 13:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which ones have you read actually?  I do not think that claims of intentional Serbianisation of the Macedonian language (supported by Macedonian nationalists like Kiselinovski and Western linguists like Voss and [humanities.uchicago.edu/depts/slavic/papers/Friedman-MacLgNatBalkanistica.pdf Friedman]) are equivalent to claims of an evil Serbian plot.  I think Bulgarian historians and linguists are mature enough to attribute this Serbianisation to the very rational political goals of Yugoslavian leadership rather than some putative irrational Serbian evil. (VMRO 18:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Anyway, in view of the fact that no impartial detailed sources about intentional Serbiansiation exist outside of writings of Macedonian nationalist or pro-Bulgarian scholars and Bulgarian scholars, I think we should not present those views as Wikipedia views and only as Bulgarian (and Macedonian nationalist) views.  On the other hand, the Serbianisation of unspecified or natural type might be metioned in the Vocabulary sectrion of the article since it is claimed by "impartial" foregners like Voss and Friedman. (VMRO 18:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Also, bear in mind that Crnushanov's text that was referenced is based on an analysis of Macedonian political documents and newspapers (the media most likely to be influenced by Serbian) from the 70's and 80's (when Serbian influence was at its height.  I see things changing these days: a lot of English/Latin/French borrowings ranging on the absurd.  Also some return to the true "Macedonian" forms (which are identical to Bulgarian but that is not mentioned for political reasons). (VMRO 00:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Interestingly Voss uses the terms "Vardar" and "Aegean" Macedonia. This makes him a Macedonian nationalist in the minds of many of our Greek contributors. - FrancisTyers · 23:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  But not in the minds of everybody else - I think the three way terminology (Pirin, Aegean, Vardar) is not contentious for anyone else.  The term Macedonia changed its geographic scope and by the 19th century it coincided much more with the Roman province of Macedonia rather than the Kingdom of Macedon (which itself had very flexible borders - mostly flexible outwards).  Anyway, even the narrower Greek concept of Macedonia prior to 1913 included parts of what is now Vardar Macedonia. (VMRO 00:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that the three way terminology is not contentious for anyone else. - FrancisTyers · 00:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Serbianization 1 

message: Friedman says, "This did not exclude borrowing from Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian, but made a principle of seeking native material first". He also mentions: "It marked the beginning of Bulgarian claims that the Macedonian standard was a Serbianizing plot" (p. 9). He gives some interesting examples. - FrancisTyers · 18:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That Bulgarian borrows from Bulgarian is an interesting concept but OK, I relent on this particular presentation. The issue should be mentioned in some form though, because it is eminent.   /FunkyFly.talk_  18:58, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is really more of a political view than a linguistic view, and I think VMRO is covering it in Political views on the Macedonian language. The information can be fitted in the article if it is sourced. It can be contrasted with Bulgarian and Serbian. We can't say "this is serbianisation" though. - FrancisTyers · 19:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: In Russian it's spelt the same, although it is pronounced самольет/самољет. --Telex 21:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I don't think it's exactly like that. Turns out in Russian it's samalyot - even more different. --Telex 22:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Truely it must not be a Russian word, but an authentic Bulgarian word! Probably from the ancient Bulgar language!  - FrancisTyers · 23:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh Francis, your Britishness is showing again. Airplane is spelt correctly, look it up. Anyway, the point is that Bulgarian words (loaned or not) are replaced with Serbian (loaned or not).   /FunkyFly.talk_  22:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: More like fixed-wing aircraft :) And no that isn't the point, that is your interpretation. Man -isations are pretty funny. Incidentally, does the fact that many Turkish words appear in the Macedonian lexicon denote a turkification of the language? Or does that not fit into your (for the want of a better word), "fairy tale"?  - FrancisTyers · 23:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: "Авион" is a Serbian borrowing from French. Bulgarian opted for the native term "самолет" (literally "self-flying" machine). Might have been a borrowing from Russian. The point is that for many terms that were lacking in the peasant dialects the Serbian form was chosen over the Bulgarian. This includes Serbian transliterations of Western words, etc. For example, geographic names are in many cases the same as in Serbian (Данска, Шведска instead of Даниja, Швециja). (VMRO 23:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Friedman is right that in theory, the idea was to build up Macedonian based on the West-Central dialects, that are have less Serbian influence than the Northern ones and are sufficiently distant from Eastern Bulgarian. The people who started this "ethnic" brand of Macedonian nationalism were from Bulgarian families, with a Bulgarian education, with left leanings and ties with the Comintern and the Bulgarian Communist Party. But ultimately the power was with the Yugoslav Communists and their former Serboman Macedonian followers. Koneski is from a Serboman family, his uncle was a Serbian chetnik. Vidoeski/Vidoevich was himself a Serbian chetnik leader, not even a partisan! These are the guys Lunt was in contact. So in three language commissions they managed to introduce many of their views over the opposition of the more nationalist-minded Macedonians. Also, the Serbian influence was very much in vocabulary. It did not happen overnight but the first dictionary did not appear until the 60's - plenty of time to codify new stuff. Plus since then the Serbian influence has only grown - the presence of Serbian media, etc.. (VMRO 23:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Haha "Serboman" does not seem like a very intelligent answer to me.  The "chap" you are referring to is a guy from Prilep, a native speaker of the West-Central dialects.  Incidentally, he taught my grandfather in high school.  I did not mean to use "Serboman" as an ethnic slur.  It is a common term for both Bulgarian and recenty Macedonian historiography.  We can say Slav Macedonian with a Serbian national identity, if you prefer. So it was these Slav Macedonians with a formerly Serbian identity who ran the show and those with a formerly Bulgarian identity had to sit and listen.  (VMRO 23:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The way I was introduced to it was as a slur. From Macedonia (terminology), "Srbomani (србомани) or srbofili (србофили) are derogatory terms used to refer to people in the Republic of Macedonia self-identifying as Serbian, or having a pro-Serb orientation" — perhaps it should be added that this is a common term and not necessarily derogotary. The reason for my laughter (aside from the general banter that we all enjoy on these talk pages) was for your use of what I understood as an ethnic slur to describe someone. So is this guy a "true Macedonian patriot", or is he one of those horrible "Bulgarofils" :D - FrancisTyers · 23:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is a negative term but not a slur in the Western sense of the word - a derogatory term for someone who is considered in some sense inferior.  Serboman and Grkoman have the connotation of "traitor" for people who first converted to those "religions" but when it comes to their offspring they are merely descriptive terms meaning that the person refereed to is not a "real" Greek or Serb but only considers him/herself to be such. (VMRO 00:10, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: By the way, Francis, if you really want to sound intelligent on the topic, do yourself a favour and learn Bulgarian or Macedonian.  You are really out of your depth at the moments since you cannot really evaluate what is Serbian influence and what is not. (VMRO 23:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It has been on my mind. In fact I was going to learn Serbo-Croatian instead of Romanian, but unfortunately was unable to find anyone to teach me for free. In this particular subject it is not particularly a specific help. If you think I'm sounding "unintelligent", you are welcome to your opinion, personally I don't really need to "sound" (or have the appearence — or façade one might say) of being intelligent. :) - FrancisTyers · 23:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Did not say you sound unintelligent but I am not sure you are fully aware of the political subtleties everywhere.  You strike me as someone who takes Lunt and Friedman at face value.  I think Friedman is a good reference for learning Macedonian - grammar, phonetics, etc. but politically he is pro-Skopje.  Anyway. Read what I sent you, I pretty much agree with this guys's views. (VMRO 00:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly not. Lunt is notably more pro-Macedonian than I am — you should read some of the drivel he writes about "authentic literature" — and Friedman has his moments (his at times simplistic view of the Slavic dialects spoken in northern Greece). There are certain aspects of their views that I subscribe to, others which I don't. I wouldn't be surprised if I am perhaps missing some political subtlety, but that doesn't mean that I can't detect that a section entitled "Serbianisation", with a few examples of different words is not good content for an encyclopaedic article. I have repeatedly called for inclusion of peer reviewed literature from the Bulgarian or Greek side, and in fact the article encompasses currently quite a wide range of views. It does however probably represent the English speaking Western orthodoxy on the matter. Which is a good thing. I would expect that it would seem horribly pro-Macedonian to a Bulgarian or Greek, but horribly "unfactual" to a Macedonian. I read one of the papers, and I'll read the 91 page one when I have a bit more time. The guy strikes me as quite reasonable, and probably not one to subscribe to the kind of thing written in the section I removed. - FrancisTyers · 00:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Serbianisation name is probably incorrect because it implies a conscious top-down act.  But the claims as to the words are not incorrect.  My friend would definitely subscribe to the claims in the article although not necessarily with its political tone.  He is not a Bulgarian nationalist so he does not view "Serbianisation" as some evil thing, just as a thing that happened.  In fact he is not even Macedonian so he is a bit more detached from the issues.  In fact, in my conversations with Bulgarian friends about Macedonian affairs we really like to use Macedonian and especially Serbian words to have a laugh at the nationalistic disputes. (VMRO 00:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What I'm trying to say is "can you be sure that the word was adopted from Serbian-Croatian, and not from French"? I'm sure there are many Serbo-Croatian loan words in the Macedonian language. I was not trying to say that "no Serbo-Croatian loan words crept in", what I was trying to say was that it is difficult to prove a "top down" policy of serbianisation. The claims of "serbianisation" are therefore in my opinion a political label for a perfectly normal linguistic phenomenon, that of words being loaned. The geographical name changes may have a point, but the word for "aeroplane", come on ;) - FrancisTyers · 00:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see your point and to a relatively uninformed external observer this seems a very logical conclusion.  But take for example the word for "train" - воз which is from Serbian.  It is not the Bulgarian влак or the more archaic Bulgarian borrowing from English (or French?) трен.  In Russian it is поезд by the way.  You cannot say for sure about aвион but it is much more likely to have come from French through Serbian rather than directly.  It could be a vestige of the earlier Serb period in Macedonia (1918-1941).  After all, aeroplanes really became more widespread during that time. (VMRO 01:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is interesting is that (at least according to Friedman) there was a conscious serbianisation during that period. - FrancisTyers · 15:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  The question of Serbian influence in Macedonian is more complex than what nationalistic squabbles make it seem to be.  There was an original Serbian influence from the 14th well into the 19th century and although overlooked by Bulgarians, it is to a large extent responsible for some differences between the Central and Northern Macedonian dialects and Old Macedonian/Bulgarian.  But when Bulgarians talk about Serbian influence they only talk about the influence in modern times -  after roughly 1870 (when Serbs decided Macedonians are not Bulgarians but really "Old Serbs"/"Southern Serbs" or a Slavic "masse flotante").  And specifiacally after 1944. (VMRO 01:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is precisely what I've been trying to say. You can't boil something as complex as down to a "Serbian plot" or more hilariously "invention of Tito" (which some of our contributors would like to have it). What do you mean by "Old Macedonian" (I'm not sure this term is widely in use)? It would be interesting to cover both the old and the new influence of Serbian/Serbo-Croatian. - FrancisTyers · 12:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Old Macedonian" I am simply using the modern term used in RoM for the language of the First Bulgarian Kingdom.  It was based on the speech around Salonica.  Old Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic are the internationally used terms I believe, although neigher of them is appropriate in my view. On the first Serbian influence, read the Serbian philologist Павле Ивич: Српски народ и његов език. Српска књижевна задруга. Београд. 1971. стр. 47-48. (VMRO 15:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I've been told that this isn't described as such, in fact that "Old Macedonian" is one of the names for the Ancient Macedonian language. Discussion here: here and here. I understood that "Old Church Slavonic" was the most used term. - FrancisTyers · 18:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  So to summarise, I don't think that the process of loaning Serbian words (after 1944, not in the earlier periods) was as natural as the process of loaning Albanian or Vlach words for example.  And Serbian influence is not just in loanwords.  It is in word formation (suffixes, etc.), syntax and other things.  Indeed the codification of the alphabet and prthography was a very pro-Serb act.  It was very contentious and politically charged, there were lawsuits (Kiselinov vs. Koneski), etc.  No doubt a lot of "Serbianisation" came unconsciously.  But a lot of it did not.  Unlike the development of dialects (arguably), the development of a standard language is a normative act.  When somebody publishes a grammar or a dictionary, they fix a particular norm.  It is people like Koneski, who pushed for more Serbian forms in Macedonian and managed to get those codified.  Also, a lot of the influence that came "naturally", i.e. not deliberately, was a result of Yugoslav dominance and would not have happened in an independent Macedonia.  I am talking about people of formerly Serbian persuasion (Serbomans!) and even ethnic Serbs from Serbia being powerful in government, in media and in academia.  They had grown up in a Serbian cultural millieu and it was only natural for them to borrow Serbian forms freely when coining new phrases, words, etc.  Bulgarians are not claiming that all such acts were deliberately done with evil intentions.  Add to this the fact that Macedonians learned Serbo-Croatian in school as a second language, that they watched Serbian TV, that most existing specialised and technical literature was in Serbian and you get the picture.  This is all fine of course but for example Bulgarian was very much unnaturally denied access to Macedonia, it was definitely proscribed.  These are the Bulgarian views in a nutshell. (VMRO 02:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Train (in English) it seems is originally from French. I know the Romanian word is "tren" and they also took it from French. I would be interested in reading about the lawsuits. I agree that to a certain extent the influence came naturally, as you mentioned, all high level education was in Serbo-Croatian. The prevalence of Serbo-Croatian effecting the language would be interesting to discuss.  If you could find reliable sources which show the parts which were "conscious attempts" to make the language closer to Serbo-Croatian (or Serbian if you will), I would be interested in reading them. If they are in Bulgarian or Macedonian I will get a friend to translate them. If they are long, please supply paragraph or line references. - FrancisTyers · 12:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I am not sure that someone outside of Bulgaria has seriously studied the issue.  The formation of the alphabet was clearly a conscious attempt - there are documents from the language commissions, etc.  One should analyse the early work of Koneski and to what extent he was pushing Serbian suffixes as opposed to Bulgarian ones, etc.  One should also analyse the evolution of Macedonian grammars and dictionaries through time, etc.  Reliable sources will come when some foreign linguist seriously takes it up to investiage the problem.  For now you will have to make do with Bulgarian linguists like Duridanov (originally from Shtip), Kochev (originally from Struga), Shklifov (from Kostur), Crnushanov (from Prilep), etc. (VMRO 15:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can present the sources then that would be great. But links from nationalist run websites are a no-no. - FrancisTyers · 18:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am not sure what you mean by nationalist-run websites.  A website may merely publish some text that appeared elsewere.  The Bulgarian linguists mentioned above did not publish their view on websites.  There are established journals (Български език, Македонски преглед), books, etc.  So Crnushanov is one such source that appeared in Македонски преглед (Macedonian review).  The article by Kochev and Alexandrov was not published on a webiste either. It was from Македонски Преглед as well.  You can also check out the 1978 publication of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, etc. (VMRO 18:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  I am told that a new book came out in Bulgaria about the Macedonian norm but I know nothing about it and have not read it. (VMRO 18:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Finally, I think that standard Bulgarian and Macedonian are equally "artificial" languages but at least Bulgarian had a long tradition of a literary language in Old Bulgarian/Old Macedonian/Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic.  It was very archaic by the 1800's but the codifiers of Bulgarian thought it natural to draw upon that tradition when developing the written language.  Modern Macedonian nationalism claims that tradition only on paper. Effectively, it was purged so as to sever ties with standard Bulgarian. (VMRO 02:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We agree on that part at least. Any kind of standardisation process is "artificial". - FrancisTyers · 12:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  They are a just a few examples but you will agree that one cannot fit all cases in an article.  One would have to write a mini-dictionary.  The only valid claim you have is that it is not peer reviewed (well, actually it is but it is a Bulgarian journal and they do not publish pro-Skopje works).  On the other hand, I am not sure any foreign author has seriously rsearched and published on the issue so it will be impossible to find a non-partisan article that it is as detailed. (VMRO 00:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then we don't really need to give it in that much detail. As I said below, this can probably be summarised in a few sentences. - FrancisTyers · 00:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  In view of the above, I included these examples in the page about the Bulgarian views.  I think a description of the Serbian influence is necessary even if it might be politically contentious. I am not sure if FunkyFly should have transferred (and expanded) them here but one should be able to see them and judge for himself/herself. (VMRO 00:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm happy to describe the Serbian influence in the Vocabulary section. It would also be interesting to comment on the other influences. I remember Friedman particularly singles out Turkish and [later] English. - FrancisTyers · 00:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serbianisation 2 

message: I am going to repeat my and clarify my views here and stop arguing because it is a waste of time:
* The original codifiers of Macedonian sought to make it distinct from both Serbian and Bulgarian and rely on the West-central Macedonian dialects
* In practice a minority of linguists and politicians with previous pro-Serb leanings managed to impose many traits that were more characteristic of Serbian
* In view of the fact that no impartial detailed sources about intentional Serbiansiation exist outside of writings of Macedonian nationalist or pro-Bulgarian scholars and Bulgarian scholars, I think we should not present those views as Wikipedia views and only as Bulgarian (and Macedonian nationalist) views.  On the other hand, the Serbianisation of unspecified or natural type might be metioned in the Vocabulary sectrion of the article since it is claimed by "impartial" foregners like Voss and Friedman. 
* The Macedonian literary language was built and developed in Yugoslavia and its development would have been very different in an independent Macedonia.
* In particular, it experienced a heavy Serbian influence especially in the areas of "high" vocabulary (technical, scientific, legal, political, etc.)
* This influence was a natural result of the position of Macedonia within Yugoslavia with its dominant Serbo-Croatian language, as well as the severed ties with Bulgarian
* The situation with the Russification of Bulgarian during the time of Soviet dominance is very similar but lesser in degree as Bulgarian already existed as a codified literary language 
* What is mainly behind the differences between modern standard Bulgarian and Macedonian are the developments in the "high" language over the last 60 years and not the dialectical basis.  On that basic level, while differences do exist, the languages are more or less mutually intelligible (VMRO 00:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I basically agree, as far as I am competent to judge at all, except for the last point. The main obstacles to mutual comprehension are probably the Russian vs Serbian loanwords. But the differences that are more interesting from a linguistic point of view - the phonological and especially the grammatical differences - are indeed a result of the dialectal basis (i.e. of the particular dialects that were chosen by the codifiers). --Pseudonymus Bosh 10:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

text: These considerations are purely theoretical, of course, and have no significance for the Wiki article.--Pseudonymus Bosh 10:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure there are differences in the dialectal basis, just as there are differences within the rest of the Bulgarian dialectal territory.  But my point was that these differences on their own do not impede mutual intelligibility. (VMRO 15:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serbianisation 4 

message: Check out this article in "Vreme" - the reader comments are particularly telling.  Two Macedonian liguists are complaining about the absurd use of English and otehr foreign words in Macedonian.  Some readers attack them as being Bulgarians (which they are not and neither are they pro-Bulgarian). (VMRO 01:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Набилда! :) Hahahahah! Sounds so lame. For Francis: билд = build.   /FunkyFly.talk_  01:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not so lame. I think билдам is actually from German "bilden". AFAIK, German "bilden" has a more abstract meaning than "bauen" - "to form, construct, organise" as opposed to just "build". It is a nice word, difficult to translate, which could motivate borrowing it (the snobbishness of it all aside). As for the addition of a prefix - well, I often think that there is a lot of rigidity and a lack of vitality in the Bulgarian reluctance to bilden new words by means of native morphemes. :) --Pseudonymus Bosh 20:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bah, it's just yet another example of Serbianization rather than Anglicization :-). Over here, there's a plenty of билдери. Gotta run now, морам да избилдујем some software :-). Duja 07:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Very soon Macedonian and Bulgarian will become the same language again.  It will be called... English. (VMRO 02:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nah, the situation in the Republic is reminiscent of Bulgaria in the early 90s. It was fasionable to use loan words on TV then, but it gradually fell out of style. The whole loan word thing is stupid, people use loan words to simply show off, and I hope Republicans realize this is stupid.   /FunkyFly.talk_  02:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anglicisation of Macedonian 

message: I cant see any reason the specified bug would affect this article in any way by changing form  → {{tl<note}} to using Cite.php, as long the first reference specify what it reference. If at later day the patch is applied, you may change the reference data to the second referenced place, if that's necissary (dunno when it would be necissary thou). →AzaToth 15:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have ever worked on an article with new references using large numbers of journal articles or correct referencing using citeweb, you'll know that it is almost impossible to write and reference properly using Cite.php. That is what the bug is about. Please do not change the referencing system without having consensus on the talk page. Contrary to popular belief, ref/note templates are not deprecated. - Francis Tyers · 15:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The probles with ref/note is that it easly breaks a citation, and can give the impression that a citation exist even if it doesn't, I'll fix those problem now (was two in this article), and let you use the more archanic system untill cite.php is patched. →AzaToth 15:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this is one of the downsides. Periodically I go through the article to check the references in this way. I'm glad you spotted (and fixed) a couple. The Lunt reference did exist, just not in this article (I've fixed that). Just because a system is old doesn't mean it is bad. And yes, it does require more care on the part of the user, but this is not always a bad thing :) — did you ever get involved in programming holy wars? :) - Francis Tyers · 15:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  About the references 

message: A guideline on whether or not to italicize Cyrillics (and all scripts other than Latin) is being debated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters. - - Evv 16:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italics in Cyrillics 

message: SL is the ISO 639-1 code for slovenian, not for macedonian. The Organization for the European Minorities (Eurominority). lists this language as Macedonian . Apart from this, the Organization for the European Minorities is a private organization and does not have any official status, therefore is not suitable as a source when the official source for ISO 639-1, the International Organization for Standardization is available .   Andreas   (T) 14:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The source does nowhere state that the codes in that page are ISO-whatever. We can safely suppose that they are just acronyms used within the site. Other language acronyms are different too. •NikoSilver• 20:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

text: In the Eurominority map, the code for Slovenian is SI. This is in fact the country code for Slovenia, see List of Internet top-level domains . The language code according to  ISO 639-1 is sl. So, this cannot be the language code for Macedonian, because two languages cannot have the same code (or do you want to tell us that Macedonian is the same language as Slovenian?). Even if you personally disagree with the naming of the language treated in this article, in WP we have to conform what is present in the sources. A single source, that does not mention specifically ISO 639-1, cannot be taken a evidence for an ISO 639-1 code , even less so if its main aim is entirely different: the codes used in this map are just meant as abbreviations to put into the map because the full names of the languages would not fit.   Andreas   (T) 21:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ISO 639-1 

message: I removed "It is also officially recognised in the District of Korçë in Albania." from the lead. We don't have a citation for it. - Francis Tyers · 11:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure it is, because they can have primary schools which teach this language (according to nationlist websites though). We just need a good source... BTW Francis, great minds think alike.--Tekleni 12:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation needed