Macedonian Language - 16th Century

[Bratot]

One is truly speaking here of a nation. A nation which has its own original ethnic character, its traditions, its aspirations, its unique and specific personality.

This nation, on the very soil where it has developed and endured, where history has planted it, to which it is bound by its roots and its culture, is treated as a collection of slaves and evildoers.

La question macedonienne est-elIe si complexe que cela ?"Fe de ration Balcanique" No.51, Nov. 1, 1926, p.867

The Macedonians, who have their own separate language and indisputable ethnic originality, do not have the right to be called Macedonians.

Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) French Writer, Un peuple asservi, "Monde" No.108, June 28.1930, p.2

[Bratot]

This winter a Macedonian theater group, under the direction of Crnodrimski, gave guest performances in Belgrade and certain other cities of the Kingdom of Serbia. It presented original Macedonian dramas in the Macedonian language. In one word, we had attempts at a new spiritual-cultural literature and art - Macedonian.
Let us not fool ourselves. What Crnodrimski presented was not jargon but a tryout of a foreign culture in another milieu, just as Chech actors give guest performances in our National Theater, or, still better, just as for example Salvini visited Belgrade with his group a few years ago. Let us leave aside for the moment the fact that Crnodrimski has two versions of his plays, that for Sofia and that for Belgrade, and realize that the very existence of his Macedonian productions tells us that we have before us the beginnings of a new, fourth, literature in the Slavic South. And we have applauded this fact!

A. Gavrilovic, "Pred chetvrtom knjizhevnoshchu (Before a Fourth Literature), Brankovo Kolo X 17, April 29, (May 12)1904, p.516

[Bratot]

Vostokov himself, concerning the question of the origin of the Old Church Slavonic language, was in favor of Macedonism, naming as its fatherland Macedonia, and therefore, said Vostokov, it could be called Macedonian. But Vostokov was never in favor of Bulgarism of this significant scholarly thesis in the narrow meaning of the word, as his opponents claimed; on the contrary, as concerns the Bulgarian tongue itself, it could have, according to Vostokov, differed from the former (Macedonian) in many important features since ancient times and we will note, on our own part, as it differs from it even now. One would expect that sooner or later Vostokov's assertion will be confirmed by the investigation not only of historical linguistic documents but also of the contemporary structure of the Slavic tongues and especially of the Slavic dialects in the supposed fatherland of Cyril and Methodius's Slavic language.

P.D. Draganov, "Nosovye glasnye zvuki v sovremennych makedonsko-slavjanskich i bolgarskich govorach" (Nasal Vowels in Contemporary Macedo-Slavic and Bulgarian Dialects), Russkij fiblogicheskij vestnik, vol. XIX, issue 10, Warsaw 1888, p.2 (reprint)

http://www.gate.net/~mango/Draganov.htm

[Soldier of Macedon]

Good sources Bratot, thanks.

[Daskalot]

Thank you very much Bratot for all these great sources!

[Soldier of Macedon]

I see through it, and we all do here, but how do we reason our way through the propoganda that such a label attracts?

By collaborating together so we can consolidate our arguments, by facing the facts and then subsequently clarifying them, and by using one of the greatest weapons of all - logic.

[Bratot]

Maybe of some relevance to our conversation here, it's a usual article on Wikipedia.. but related pretty strong to our "problem":

The Balkan sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among languages of the Balkans, which belong to various branches of Indo-European, such as Slavic, Greek, Romance and Albanian. While they share little vocabulary, their grammars also have similarities; for example they have similar case systems and have all become more analytic, although to differing degrees.


Do some further reading here > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_linguistic_union

and check this one:

The Finnish linguist Jouko Lindstedt computed in 2000 a "Balkanization factor" which gives each Balkan language a score proportional with the number of features shared in the Balkan linguistic union.[7]

The results were:

Language Score

Macedonian 12
Balkan Slavic 11.5
Albanian 10.5
Greek, Balkan Romance 9.5
Romani (Gypsy) 7.5

So, apparently the Macedonian language characteristics are most common in the other languages from this Balkan linguistic area.

[Pelister]

I like those sources Bratot.

We know that its Macedonian, but in the context of the colonial discourse and propoganda produced by our neighbours over the last century the label "Bulgarian" on a document like this is problematic. You have to admit that its a problem. I actually agree with all of you about why that label was put there by its author. The problem with such a label however is that Bulgarian nationalists can easily use it as a descriptor also. We can differ in terms of why we think the term 'Bulgar' is there, and I for one do not see the logic in the Bulgarian or Greek line. How do we deal with that? What in history can we use to fight the distortion?

[Pelister]

By collaborating together so we can consolidate our arguments, by facing the facts and then subsequently clarifying them, and by using one of the greatest weapons of all - logic.

It keeps coming back to this issue of classification, but I don't know exactly how to approach the problem. What you say using 'logic' is the only way to go.

I am certain that Macedonian and Bulgarian proper were mutually unintelligible. Is this a fact? What gave late 19th century 'Bulgarophiles' the impression that Macedonian language and Bulgarian, were similar? Was it this? The American Missionaries printed a dictionary using a Macedonian dialect and called it "Bulgarian" which was eventually chosen to be the national language of modern Bulgaria. If they had gone with Bulgarian proper - we wouldn't have a clue what they were saying. So modern Bulgarians were 'macedonianized' for mine. Probably not the thing to be discussed here.

Rather than tackle the label 'Bulgar' head on, simply address it accurately as not the most important thing and focusing on the fact that its a Macedonian langauge has been an outstanding approach.

[Soldier of Macedon]

I am certain that Macedonian and Bulgarian proper were mutually unintelligible. Is this a fact? What gave late 19th century 'Bulgarophiles' the impression that Macedonian language and Bulgarian, were similar? Was it this?

Macedonian shares peculiar relationships with a number of Slavic languages, with Bulgarian and Serbian being closest. It is logical to consider that significant parts of the languages and dialects, to a degree, will be very similar and therefore mutually intelligible. The definitive suffix that is unique to Macedonian and Bulgarian indicates a certain commonality (at least for a period of time) that has not been shared with Serbian, which can give Bulgarian a more Macedonian 'sound' than Serbian can.

The American Missionaries printed a dictionary using a Macedonian dialect and called it "Bulgarian" which was eventually chosen to be the national language of modern Bulgaria.

The missionaries used an eastern Macedonian dialect if I recall correctly, because it was in between Macedonia and Bulgaria and "could" serve as a compromise medium that would be generally understood by most, I am not 100% certain, but they way I remember it, Bulgarians eventually rejected this dialect, as they did with the attempted literary 'language' used by the Miladinov brothers, which is essentially Macedonian in any case. When Bulgaria was created by Russia, the dialects of the north-east of Moesia were used to form the core of the new Bulgarian literary language, a far distance from the capital established by the Russians in Sofia, which is near Macedonia. So, in the haste of birth, Bulgaria's capital was on one side of the new entity and the official language was on the other.

Furthermore, even today, literary Macedonian and Macedonian dialects in general are still closer to the Bogatsko dialect of the 16th century than they are to the Bulgarian literary language.

[TrueMacedonian]

I like those sources Bratot.

We know that its Macedonian, but in the context of the colonial discourse and propoganda produced by our neighbours over the last century the label "Bulgarian" on a document like this is problematic. You have to admit that its a problem. I actually agree with all of you about why that label was put there by its author. The problem with such a label however is that Bulgarian nationalists can easily use it as a descriptor also. We can differ in terms of why we think the term 'Bulgar' is there, and I for one do not see the logic in the Bulgarian or Greek line. How do we deal with that? What in history can we use to fight the distortion?

I think that the problem has been Macedonian academic institutions(the shitty MANU organization for one) not doing their part in combating against the propaganda on a world stage.
Also we have a topic that explains away many many reasons for this label and why it was used - http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...read.php?t=835

How do we deal with it? Like SoM said,,, with logic. Logical explanations using solid facts and resources.

[Soldier of Macedon]

I think that the problem has been Macedonian academic institutions(the shitty MANU organization for one) not doing their part in combating against the propaganda on a world stage.

You're right TM, that is certainly a large part of the problem. The sources we have uncovered and presented over the last couple of years are not one's that have recently been conjured, they have been in existence for decades and centuries, if we had a central committee that concerned itself with gathering and compiling all of this data throughout the last century or so, one can only imagine how far ahead we would be on this front against all of our enemies.

Nevertheless, we are all here now, working on it together. What has been started cannot be stopped, and as a Macedonian I remain extremely excited about future findings regarding our land and people. As was stated earlier with regard to the main article of the thread, the fact that our language has remained virtually untouched for over 500 years is amazing, and gives further motivation to present all of the other information out there, just waiting to be discovered.

[Pelister]

On the issue of calling this dialect "Bulgarian"

As indicated above, the term Bulgarian has a long history of use for various South Slavs living in European Turkey. During the early 19th century, the Bulgarian literary language had no yet developed its definitelyt East Bulgarian character ...

The term "Bulgarian" was used to refere to speakers of South Slavic dialects from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, on occasion as far north as Belgrade and Sarajevo (Koneski 1968: 24; cf. also the use of bugarin "Bulgarian" to mean simply "peasant"

The question of whether to call the language of the books of the earliest writers who use the Macedonian dialects either Macedonian or Bulgarian is basically immaterial

The Macedonian dialect was unique and distinctive to Macedonia. Macedonian language is a distinct, separate dialect

Texts from Macedonian speech areas show Macedonian linguistic features. There are a number of manuscripts in Macedonian dialects utilizing Cyrillic or Greek orthography, but we shal focus here only on published materials using Cyrillic ...

There were several publication of books in a language based on Macedonian dialects... Hadzi Krchovski (d.1820) and Hadzi Pejchinovik (1770-1845) both called their langauge Bulgarian, but since their dialects were Macedonian (distinctively and exclusively), they can be considered as the first to publish books in some form of Macedonian. (Koneski, 1967a:88)

Source: The quotes and references posted right here are taken directly from and cited in, Victor A. Friedman, "The Modern Macedonian Standard Language and Its Relation to Modern Macedonian Identity" in Roudometof, Victor, (Ed.) The Macedonian Question: Culture, Historiography, Politics, (New York, 2000), pp.173-201

Victor Friedman then goes on to describe "THE POWERFUL POLITICAL FORCES" working against any teaching and/or publication of the Macedonian language.

The essay cites example after example of Greeks, Serbians, Bulgarian agents preventing and/or blocking the printing, publication and teaching of the Macedonian language from the middle to the end of the 19th century.

[Soldier of Macedon]

That's what I am talking about Pelister, good stuff, thanks for the references.

[Pelister]

That's what I am talking about Pelister, good stuff, thanks for the references.

I understood that that was what you meant, but I was trying to think about it like someone who does not have much education would think about it. Anyway, I can't say I know much about the history of the Macedonian language - I always knew it was distinctive and unique to Macedonia, and that it was largely unintelligible to the official Bulgarian of Moesia/Thrace ... More than that I don't know what I was thinking to be honest, but reading that essay about the history of the Macedonian language by Victor Friedman really opened my eyes.

I always knew that there were powerful forces working against us, but no one has brought this fact to light better than Friedman in this paper he wrote.