Do you speak any slavic language?

How's the Czech perception of the Polish language ?

Ed - and my mum says that Vardarites sound Serbianised, just like PIRIN Macedonians would have Bulgarian influences. See how the Prespans speak, the Greek language, not being Slavic cannot influence it as such, and you will hear a relatively untouched Macedonian tongue.

<<so? It doesn't mean that we are you, rather you are us. You came to Europe after we did and WE gave you your tongue. >>

Sorry to say this, but that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Let me tell you something. When you say "you came after we did", you probably mean the Bulgar tribe, right? Well, let me tell you that before they came, there was a big Slavic population south of the Danube and they mixed with the much less numerous Bulgar tribe and found Bulgaria. Our language, for that reason is Slavic and not anything else. So it has very little to do with the arrival of the Bulgars, who just gave the country's name.
And who are you referring to when you talk about Macedonians? Don't tell me that you share the view of most FYROMians that they are descendants of Alexander the Great because that's pathetic.

<<Apparently, I heard Macedonian is more similar in construction to Slovene>>

How is that apparent, dear?

Ed - I knew this would come to this. I am never going to agree with you about things and NOR can you make me agree. I can think as I please, this isn't George Orwell's 1984. I (being half Macedonian myself) have a right like other Macedonians to self-determination, whether you think some of the ideas posed are "pathetic".

"Well, let me tell you that before they came, there was a big Slavic population south of the Danube and they mixed with the much less numerous Bulgar tribe and found Bulgaria."

Yeah, that's a why a lot of you still don't look Slavic.

"Our language, for that reason is Slavic and not anything else. So it has very little to do with the arrival of the Bulgars, who just gave the country's name."

Yes, I don't deny it is a Slavic language, which was probably Macedonian to start off with! How can you say that my family is Bulgarian? What are you going to tell me, that I am a Western Bulgarian? What krock!

And don't patronise me by calling me "dear", OK son?

<<Yeah, that's a why a lot of you still don't look Slavic. >>

And you guys do? You are just as dark as they are (I'm saying "they" because I'm not an ethnic Bulgarian).

<<Yes, I don't deny it is a Slavic language, which was probably Macedonian to start off with! >>

Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree...

As you may or may not know, I am a Croatian/Serbian Canadian and a linguist and here’s my modest contribution:

Bulgarian and Serbian nationalists have often tried to assert that Macedonian is a mere dialect of Bulgarian or Serbian. This is as true, however, as a claim that Dutch is a dialect of German. In other words, it is baloney.

There is a thing called the South Slavic dialectal continuum. Basically, all Slavic dialects spoken between the south of Austria to the far east of Bulgaria (encompassing Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bulgaria) comprise a chain of gradually changing language varieties in which two adjacent varieties are always completely mutually intelligible, although not identical. We all know that similar continua exist elsewhere in Europe and in the world. The South Slavic continuum is irregular in certain places, and this is because of the numerous migrations that have taken place in the Balkans over centuries. However, the Macedonian part of the continuum is pretty regular, as far as I know.

Anyhow, what makes a “language” different from a “dialect”? The fact that it has a state to back it up, of course. This is why Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are called three languages (or four, if you count Norwegian as “two languages”). If there were a fourth continental North Germanic-speaking country, there would most definitely be a fourth continental North Germanic “language”. If Bavaria were a country and if they decided to standardise their language based on Bavarian dialects, you would have another West Germanic “language”. It’s as simple as that.

My mother, for example, comes from a town in the east of Serbia, smack dab on the Bulgarian border. The dialect that is spoken there is almost identical to the dialect traditionally spoken on the other side of the border, in Bulgaria. However, the fact that one dialect is (politically) in Serbia and the other in Bulgaria means, of course, that a person speaking the former is Serbian (my grandmother, for example) and a person speaking the latter is Bulgarian. Despite this situation, you don’t hear me saying that Bulgarian is in fact Serbian. Such a claim simply wouldn’t make much sense, because Bulgaria is a separate country and Bulgarians have a separate national identity. The same is true of Macedonian, Macedonia and Macedonians. What nationalists everywhere don’t seem to understand is that the notion of “a language” is largely a metalinguistic construct. Or, as often-quoted Weinreich aptly put it, “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”

Standard Macedonian is definitely not the same language as standard Bulgarian or Standard Serbian. It has its own orthography, its own grammar and its own vocabulary. Its speakers have a national and cultural identity that is quite distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbian national and cultural identities.

…

When it comes to Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian (and, who knows, possibly Montenegrin too in the future) the situation is not quite as clear, because these languages were considered to be one language with two (and a half) standards up to 1991. Now they are officially three languages, spoken by three nations, but, the thing is, they have almost identical grammars. Like Sanja said above, the difference between Standard Serbian and Standard Croatian is no greater that the difference between Standard American and British English. Their morphology and syntax are almost identical and the main differences are in phonology and vocabulary.

This certainly cannot be said of standard Bulgarian and Standard Macedonian, which are more like Standard Swedish and Standard Norwegian to each other.

(Local Serbian and Croatian dialects in their pure form, of course are not as similar as their respective superimposed standards. It’s not even the case within a country. I am a speaker of Standard Serbian Serbo-Croatian. I use standard Serbian morphology and syntax, with a trace of localised slang and (definitely) with a bit of a northern Serbian accent. When spoken to in a pure southern Serbian dialect, I don’t immediately understand 100% of the message. Hell, there are times when I don’t understand a word in rapid-fire speech).

…

Somebody above mentioned that Macedonian is more like Slovene than like Bulgarian or Serbian. This is not true. Slovene has a complex inflectional morphology, three tones and (unlike any other Slavic language, it retains the dual number in its noun, pronoun, adjective and verb systems). Macedonian, like Bulgarian and about a half of all Serbian dialects, (however, not the half that participated in the formation of Standard Serbian) has largely lost its complex Slavic morphology.

…

I have written about this before, so I won’t go on about it at length here, but South Slavic speakers are perfectly able to communicate with each other in their own respective languages, as long as they are willing to try. It is arguably the least difficult for Serbo-Croatian speakers, because of the central position of the language. It gets a bit harder for a Slovene and a Bulgarian, for example, but it’s still possible. They just have to try hard to separate the message from the “code-noise” (Einar Haugen’s term).

…

As far as all Slavic languages are concerned, Slovakian is geographically and linguistically close to the ideal of “centrality”, but it is still, of course, clearly a West Slavic language and has certain West Slavic traits that are pretty divergent from the other two groups of Slavic languages.

When I lived in Serbia, I often used to ride buses that were chock-full of Slovakian speakers (I come from the ethnically diverse province of Vojvodina) and I’d say I was able to understand most of their conversations pretty easily, although I had never studied their language. I just relied on my knowledge of Serbo-Croatian.

…

Whew. More than two pages. Who’s gonna read all this… Sorry, guys. Don’t get me going the next time around.

That was very much interesting, Ved. Thanx for that.

You are very welcome.

Thanks, Ved. I also found that extremely interesting.

<<My mother, for example, comes from a town in the east of Serbia, smack dab on the Bulgarian border. The dialect that is spoken there is almost identical to the dialect traditionally spoken on the other side of the border, in Bulgaria. However, the fact that one dialect is (politically) in Serbia and the other in Bulgaria means, of course, that a person speaking the former is Serbian (my grandmother, for example) and a person speaking the latter is Bulgarian. Despite this situation, you don’t hear me saying that Bulgarian is in fact Serbian>>

In eastern Serbia, there's a very big Bulgarian minority. They feel Bulgarian and indentify themselves as Bulgarians. That part was once part of Bulgaria and then during the many wars in the region it became part of Serbia. We refer to that are as Zapadni pokrainini (Western Outskirts (that's my own translation). I'm not saying that your mother is Bulgarian, but those people are in the east are Bulgarians, and this is how they label themselves even today.

And about Macedonia, when Bulgaria gained its independence from the Ottomam Empire, the area of Macedonia remained under Ottoman rule, but all of their Macedonian national heroes were fighting for independence and joining Bulgaria. For that same reason they are also considered heroes in Bulgaria.
When Yugoslavia was formed, the people of what is today Macedonian spoke the same language as the Bulgarians but Belgrade imposed a new Standard Macedonian which was much closer to Serbian both phonetically, and vocabulary-wise. Later on, they introduced the typical for Serbian letter "j" (equivalent to "y" as in yes). This combined with a heavy anti-Bulgarian propaganda created a new nation with made-up history and identity. Anyway...

Yeah, somebody came and imposed a language onto the poor Macedonians, and they all decided to go with it. So, one morning they all woke up speaking Macedonian and not Bulgarian.

You know what the interesting thing is? Serbian nationalists claim the exact same thing, only in reverse. That Macedonians spoke Serbian until 1945 and then came evil communists and made them speak the most Bulgarian dialect possible.

The truth, of course, is that a Macedonian standard emerged that is not Bulgarian and not Serbian. Ed, did you at all read my post above? "A language" is an arbitrary concept. If you had had two states in Bulgaria rather than one, you might have ended up with two standard languages. One based on the dialect of, say, Sofia and one based on the dialect of Varna. And then you'd also possibly have nationalists speaking one variety claiming that speakers of the other do not in fact speak a separate language. Enough of this already!

...

As regards my mother, she is not from the Bulgarian-speaking part of Serbia (Dimitrovgrad, Bosilegrad). She is from Zajecar.

I suppose that is what "balcanisation" is all about and it has become a common word in many languages. In Catalan it's "balcanització".

Nevertheless, as a linguist, one must separate what is philology from what is politics. I agree that there are diasystems that could have made up one literary language but that have ended up in several. Just to name one, which would'nt be too popular to mention, we even have Portuguese and Castilian! This said, they could have been the same language many centuries ago. There is an advanced evolution and a separate literature and hardly anybody in his right mind would argue that Portuguese and Castilian are now different languages although very close if you analise. The written form of Portuguese in 95% understandable for any semi-cultivated Spaniards although European phonetics render understanding extremely difficult. The problem with Brasilian Portuguese is that its phonetics are closer to Spaniard and that could be a factor which could, in the right conditions, make Brazilian Portuguese get closer to South American Castilian in the future.

On the other hand, although Spanish regional authorities state that Galician and Portuguese are different languages very few linguists (if any) would agree. Galician has a spelling based on Spanish and very little was written in Galician from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century when that Portuguese variety flourished again in a regionalist movement. Galician only really became a co-official language again in the late 20th century after centuries of oral Galician but official Castilian! Villages near the Spanish border side in Ourense speak the same variety than people in the first villages in the Portuguese side. They do have, of course, greater Castilian influence on the Spanish side.

What happens with the south Slavic languages? If people (on both sides of a border) speak exactly the same dialect linguists will tell you they speak the same language. Another matter will be the fact that those two neighbouring villages have different political Standard languages (which happen to be extremely close or that they name that language differently. That will be hardly relevant from a linguist's point of view. Do you imagine all those countries getting into the Europe Union with different language standards that are as different as some extreme English dialects.

Imagine somebody from the Scottish countryside, the north of England, the Australian outback, Singapore, Kentucky or Canada saying they speak different languages. Linguists will surely laugh at this and, yet, one has the feeling that is very much what has happened in the South Slavic world. That has little to do with the fact Macedonians, Bulgarians, Croatians or Serbian may all have the right in the world to have different nationalities. We could even create city states should we be strong enough to do so but I feel the strength of that world lies more in a linguistic unity that would preserve regional variation.

It is only my opinion and who am I, poor me, to tell nations what they must do. I realise it is an extremely thing to do given the growing balcanisation of the Balcans. When was has been unders so many empires one ends up forgetting who are your real brothers and who is your kin.

Sorry for that ;-)

I must re-phrase that last paragran because I went too fast and did not edit.

"It is only my opinion and who am I, poor me, to tell nations what they must do. I realise it is an extermely difficult thing to do, given the growing balcanisation of the Balcans. When one has been under so many empires, one ends up forgetting who your real brothers are and who is your kin."

Sorry for that ;-)

paragraph not paragran! Good Lord!

After a very early rise and 4.5 hour plane flight from Melbourne to Perth I have this to say:

Ved -Bravo! :) Thanks for the post.

Finally someone understands! I am not a linguist but you are able to voice my thoughts in a succinct fashion.
I find Slovakian easy to understand, I used to listen to it on the ethnic radio station in Adelaide. My dad grew up in Belgrade and he lived near a suburb called "Ceska Colonija" (diacritic on C in Ceska) and said there were many Slovakians and Czechs around which you could easily communicate with (even though they would speak their own tongue).

Ed, I will repeat what I have said: if you come to where my mother is from, ie Prespa (the Greek controlled part), I am sure you will hear a significant difference between Western Macedonian and Bulgarian. I personally feel I don't understand Bulgarian completely when I hear it spoken (of course I would understand some of it because it is another Slavic language). I don't deny the way Eastern Macedonian speak might sound more Bulgarian - it is only natural to be influenced by neighbours.

Please drop this ownership argument, that's what has caused this problem in the first place.