Talk:Macedonian language/Number of speakers

Number of speakers in Greece

The 2 million Greeks who live in Macedonia (the Greek province) are know as Macedonians and they speak Greek and not some offshoot dialect of Bulgarian. Thus this article is full of falsehoods. Furthermore, there is no officially recognized "Republic" of Macedonia; there is only the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.—the preceding unsigned comment is by Mnemics (talk • contribs)

Total number of speakers

The current number (2-3 million) is dubious and badly sourced (an article about Bulgaria??). Ethnologue reports 1,598,247 (of whom 1,386,000 in the Republic of Macedonia; data as of 1986), and I don't see how the population growth rate could've made them 2-3 million in 2006, as it's only barely positive due to the Macedonian Albanians (correct me if I'm wrong). → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 10:34, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess they count the approximate number of Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria, the way they see it - some 800.000 in Greece and 200.000 in Bulgaria, although the majority of them do not have the Macedonian national feeling now. Zikicam

Todor, Ethnologue does not appear to count members of the Macedonian diaspora, which according to a paper I have here number approximately 580,000. The reference is:

Topolinjska, Z. (1998) "In place of a foreword: facts about the Republic of Macedonia and the Macedonian Language" in International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131, pp. 1-11

The citation she gives for the figure is:

Kostantinov, D. (1964) Pecalbartvo [Migrant Workers] Bitola: Kiro Dimitrovski-Dandaro

I will change the infobox to note that the Ethnologue number does not include diaspora. - FrancisTyers 15:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've reverted your edit. Ethnologue reports all the countries on its list, which are; Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Macedonia.

1,386,000 in Macedonia (1986)

15,000 in Albania (2001 Johnstone and Mandryk).

? in Bulgaria

180,180 in Greece (1986 census).

= 1,581,180

Ethnologue gives Population total all countries: 1,598,247. (which presumably includes Bulgaria), this does not include the diaspora which as I have mentioned number significantly more than 17,067 according to any numbers you care to cite. - FrancisTyers 16:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Are you out of your mind? All countries is all countries and that includes every conceivable country that might have emigrants. FunkyFly 16:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

No, it includes a total for all countries listed. For example, see Bulgarian, it lists Canada, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey (Europe), Ukraine, USA. and includes these in the total for all countries listed. Of course this is not worth arguing over — nationalism is puerile and seems to cause problems with basic arithmetic. Enjoy :) - FrancisTyers 16:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I just wanted to paste a message here, so that I too can become a member of The Unreasonables (nice new term, I already feel like Kevin Costner in The Untouchables).  NikoSilver  ^{(T) @ (C)} 18:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)