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Pushing a Bulgarian agenda

Tropcho is once again pushing a Bulgarian POV in this article. The above discussion ended with a consensus based on the vast majority of sources that these Slavic dialects in Greece were either 1) Macedonian or 2) part of a single language that includes both Macedonian and Bulgarian (not named "Bulgarian", by the way). The tiny minority of opinion was that they were Bulgarian dialects. Tropcho is again pushing the agenda that these are Bulgarian dialects. He is obviously using "Bulgarian" as the incorrect name of a language that includes both Macedonian and Bulgarian as a single language, but uses that term to confuse readers into thinking that these dialects are Bulgarian (and not Macedonian). --Taivo (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I think you shall encounter great difficulties producing a single diff (of edits by other users) supporting your rather interesting interpretation of the consensus (feel challenged). Your accusation is baseless and may be the result of psychological projection. Your claims were discussed in detail already, and I think it doesn't make much sense to repeat myself. Sadly, it appears you're inclined to debate to death to get your way, but I have to say this is getting disruptive. Tropcho (talk) 22:18, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
P.S. memory refresher for those that need one:
Perhaps you need to actually read the summary: "There is some consensus, that the information in option 2 is somehow incorporated into the section. The way it is incorporated, say in the first sentence, I find no consensus for." 1) There is some consensus that the information in option 2 is somehow incorporated into the section; and 2) There is no consensus on how to incorporate it. So trying to push your Bulgarian agenda based on the closing summary is simply your own fantasy. It is not what the summary said. If you actually read our discussion, and you actually read the set of references you provided, you will see that the vast majority of references call these dialects either "Macedonian" or dialects of a single "Macedonian-Bulgarian" language. Only a tiny minority of the references call them "Bulgarian". So according to the actual closing summary (not your fantasy of it), Bulgarian should be mentioned "somehow", but not necessarily in the first sentence. --Taivo (talk) 00:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
You didn't provide the diffs I asked for. The reason for this is that there are no such diffs. In other words, you've no support for your claims about the consensus that was reached.
You obviously believe your arguments weren't heard and want to re-open the RfC that was just closed. I think this doesn't make much sense. Your arguments were addressed (I don't see anything new here); I pointed out where they fail (in particular, you seem to be in denial about the fact that a number of the sources refer to the common Bulgaro-Macedonian language simply as Bulgarian; you tend to regard this POV as fringe, whereas the fact that many of the sources mention it shows that it is not, and you are at odds with WP:RS/AC), and I see little point in repeating the same things over and over again.
If you call the most obvious, straightforward interpretation of the RfC summary a "fantasy", and find that the summary rather supports your interpretation, for which you have no support (diffs), all the while ignoring comments by other editors that contradict your claims (e.g. [1], [2]) I am not sure that it makes much sense to argue. I suggest you revert your edits. Tropcho (talk) 00:39, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
You have clearly not actually read the summary or else you simply don't understand it. Your interpretation of the summary is another attempt to push your pro-Bulgarian POV and not based on actual facts. I have clearly stated precisely what the summary says. "Bulgarian", in the most common English usage certainly does not include Macedonian. If you want to refer to both Bulgarian and Macedonian with a single name, you do not call it "Bulgarian" in English. You hyphenate it as "Bulgarian-Macedonian" or "Macedonian-Bulgarian", or you use the label "East South Slavic". If you call that combined language "Bulgarian" in English, then you are lying to our readers and misleading them. --Taivo (talk) 01:53, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Are you aware you're arguing with the sources? Tropcho (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
No, I'm arguing with 1) your complete misinterpretation of the sources, and 2) your complete misunderstanding of WP:COMMONNAME. WP:COMMONNAME always takes precedence over whatever your misunderstanding of your sources wants to believe. When the word "Bulgarian" is used in English linguistics, it never includes Macedonian. That's the simple fact. Bulgarian sources and their usage don't matter. Your misinterpretation of sociolinguistic sources doesn't matter. All that matters is that the normal interpretation of the word "Bulgarian" in English linguistic sources doesn't include Macedonian. That's all that matters. You don't get to lie to or mislead our readers just because your pro-Bulgarian POV wants to reduce Macedonian to a dialect of Bulgarian without a new label. --Taivo (talk) 22:50, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it seems you're in denial. Of the sources already discussed, Katzner, Henniger, and van Wijk refer to the common language as Bulgarian or state that M. can be considered a dialect of "Bulgarian" (not Bulgaro-Macedonian, etc.); so do most Bulgarian linguists, including the two mentioned above (Ivanov and Shklifov), who happen to originate from the region we're discussing. That point of view (that M. is a dialect of Bulgarian) is mentioned also by Danforth, Crystal, Chambers & Trudgill. Do you acknowledge that? Tropcho (talk) 23:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
User:SMcCandlish, User:Hroðulf, User:Precision123, User:AlbinoFerret, would you please comment? It seems unlikely that Taivo and myself will make much progress if we continue this discussion on our own. Do you find Taivo's interpretation of the RfC outcome plausible? (I do not, for the reasons stated above). My interpretation of the RfC outcome can be found here. Perhaps the only improvement I can think of is to also mention that some sources refer to the common language as Bulgaro-Macedonian or Macedono-Bulgarian, etc., which is a fact. Tropcho (talk) 23:31, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I will clarify the close. The close found that "2) State that the dialects are sometimes classified as Macedonian and sometimes as Bulgarian" had consensus. This is directly in line with WP:WEIGHT. On WP if there is a controversy covering anything in sources we give the information from both unless its a fringe (as in the earth is flat) source. We might even mention them, but only in a small way. In this case, the consensus was that it is described both ways by different sources. This should end up with something that describes what both sources say. An example: The language is described by x soures saying this that and the other thing, and by y sources saying this that and the other thing. The example doesnt need to be followed, but it shows a possible way to put it.AlbinoFerret 00:07, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
User:Tropcho, you clearly have a problem evaluating your sources. First, van Wijk doesn't count since the issue is English common name, not French. Second, both Katzner (which isn't considered to be a reliable linguistic source by linguists) and Henniger simply say that some consider Macedonian to be a dialect of Bulgarian, but they still separate them into two languages for the purposes of their discussion. Third, I can list two dozen different reliable linguistic sources in English that consistently separate Macedonian and Bulgarian and use the word "Bulgarian" to only include the language of Bulgaria and not Macedonian. So while you have a couple of sources that you can misread to claim that "Bulgarian" can include Macedonian, the vast majority of English language usage does not include Macedonian in Bulgarian. The overwhelming weight of evidence for common English usage is against your Bulgarian POV. --Taivo (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
User:AlbinoFerret, the problem is that User:Tropcho keeps trying to push a Bulgarian POV that uses "Bulgarian" as a label for the language being discussed when Macedonian and Bulgarian are combined into one language. This usage is in violation of WP:COMMONNAME which requires us to use a label that is not "Bulgarian" because the most common English meaning for "Bulgarian" is strictly the language of Bulgaria. This usage is overwhelmingly the usage of linguists and non-linguists alike. I have rewritten the first sentence of the paragraph in question to include "Macedonian and Macedonian-Bulgarian" (it could just as easily be Bulgarian-Macedonian). That way we are not differentiating between Macedonian and the language of Bulgaria, but between Macedonian and the language we have if Bulgarian and Macedonian are treated as one language. --Taivo (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
If sources say that it is a mixed language, then thats how it should be described, as a mixed language. Its always best to go with what the sources say WP:STICKTOSOURCE. To call it one or the other when sources say it is mixed is WP:OR. AlbinoFerret 02:45, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
This is not a "mixed language". That has a specific linguistic meaning which doesn't apply here. I take it you are not a linguist. What the sources say is one of two things: 1) The Slavic dialects of Greece are Macedonian (because they separate Macedonian and Bulgarian into two languages), or 2) Macedonian and Bulgarian may be a single language, so these dialects are part of the transition zone between one end of the language (called "Macedonian") and the other (called "Bulgarian"). No one says they are "mixed". The point I'm trying to make here is that if you consider Macedonian and Bulgarian to be a single language, you cannot call it "Bulgarian" because common English usage (including common usage among the vast majority of linguistic sources in English) is that "Bulgarian" only refers to the language of Bulgaria and not to a language that includes both Bulgarian and Macedonian. Your comment about "mixed" is irrelevant. There are, indeed, sources that refer to this language that subsumes both Macedonian and Bulgarian as Macedonian-Bulgarian or Bulgarian-Macedonian. Most sources that talk about one language, however, don't even name it. They talk about Macedonian, they talk about Bulgarian, then they make a comment along the lines of "these languages can be considered to be one language" (but without actually assigning a name to it). A very small number of sources say something like "Macedonian can be considered a dialect of Bulgarian", but then you violate WP:COMMONNAME because "Bulgarian" in common English usage only refers to the language of Bulgaria and not Macedonia, and you violate WP:PRECISION because you have used a name for something that refers to something else in Wikipedia as a whole. --Taivo (talk) 02:55, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Your absolutely correct, I am not a linguist. I only know two languages, one is dead and I can only read and write it with a little time (Koine Greek). I dont know the specific jargon of linguists, and neither will the general reader. Stick to what sources say, if there is a controversy show both sides. AlbinoFerret 03:20, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
I am being quite precise in what the sources say, but it is also important to let specialists weigh the relative value of sources, evaluate the relative WP:WEIGHT of sources, and resolve potential conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRECISION. I am a linguist and that is exactly what I have done. The vast majority of linguistic sources separate Macedonian and Bulgarian languages. That meets the WP:WEIGHT argument. "Bulgarian", by the criteria of WP:COMMONNAME refers only to the language of Bulgaria (and not Macedonia) by the vast majority of linguistic sources and by the weight of common usage among non-specialists. Trying to push a Bulgarian POV, and using "Bulgarian" as the name of a single "East South Slavic" language, because User:Tropcho prefers it, because Bulgarian linguists prefer it, and because a couple of sources do it, is a violation of WP:PRECISION and is misleading to our readers. We must therefore choose a name besides "Bulgarian" if we want to refer specifically to a language that includes both Macedonian and Bulgarian. There are three options found in linguistic literature: Macedonian-Bulgarian, Bulgarian-Macedonian, or the more historically-oriented East South Slavic. I don't care which of these you prefer, but "Bulgarian" is simply not a valid option. --Taivo (talk) 04:06, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
But to be simple and clear, the way that I have worded the sentence in the article at this time is the most accurate way to summarize what the majority of reliable linguistic sources have actually said. --Taivo (talk) 07:10, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

First, I hope you realize that WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRECISION are about article titles and have little bearing here. Second, you say you can present additional sources to support your view. That's nice. So can other editors. I would ask, since you had plenty of time to present them so far, why didn't you do it? But I think the bigger problem is that your suggestion to bring in additional sources at this point is indicative of your desire to make a blanket statement based on these sources (which would constitute WP:ORIGINALSYN/WP:OR) and aims to compensate for the fact that none of the sources you provided so far support those blanket statements you're making (trying to present one view as fringe, tiny minority, etc.), in contradiction to WP:RS/AC. This is also obvious from your claims to expertise. Are you aware you're trying to do that? Is there a source that supports your blanket statements directly? Also, regarding Katzner, what is your claim about him not being reliable based on? Regarding van Wijk, are you saying there is any ambiguity in the translation of the French "Bulgare" into the English "Bulgarian"? Finally, if the view that Macedonian can be considered a dialect of Bulgarian is fringe, why is it mentioned by about 10 of the references we discussed? Tropcho (talk) 10:00, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

You clearly know nothing about the linguistic literature and are simply cherry-picking sources in order to push your pro-Bulgarian POV. Since you don't seem to understand the literature, here are reliable linguistic sources that separate Macedonian from Bulgarian. You also seem to think that just because there is a parenthetical comment or a footnote about the closeness of Macedonian and Bulgarian, that the source therefore doesn't separate them from one another. You couldn't be more wrong. In my listing of sources above, I only mentioned those sources that specifically discuss the dialects of Greece, but since you question the fact that most linguistic sources separate Macedonian and Bulgarian, the following list is more all-encompassing. ALL of the following sources list Macedonian and Bulgarian as separate languages.
  • C.F. and F.M. Voegelin. 1977. Classification and Index of the World's Languages
  • Merritt Ruhlen. 1991. A Guide to the World's Languages
  • George L. Campbell & Gareth King. 2013. Compendium of the World's Languages
  • Bernard Comrie, ed. 2009. The World's Major Languages
  • Anatole V. Lyovin. 1997. An Introduction to the Languages of the World
  • Asya Pereltsvaig. 2012. Languages of the World, An Introduction
  • Albrecht Klose. 2001. Sprachen der Welt
  • Benjamin W. Fortson IV. 2010. Indo-European Language and Culture, An Introduction
  • J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams. 2006. The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World
  • Oswald J.L. Szemerényi. 1990. Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics
  • Philip Baldi. 1983. An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages
  • Robert S.P. Beekes. 1995. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, An Introduction
  • Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paolo Ramat. 1998. The Indo-European Languages
  • William Bright, ed. 1992. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics ("Slavic Languages" article in volume 3)
  • Bernard Comrie and Greville G. Corbett, ed. 1993. The Slavonic Languages
  • Roland Sussex and Paul Cubberley. 2006. The Slavic Languages
  • David Crystal. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
  • Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco. 2007. A Glossary of Historical Linguistics
  • P.H. Matthews. 2007. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics
  • Lyle Campbell. 2013. Historical Linguistics, An Introduction
  • R.E. Asher and Christopher Moseley, ed. 2007. Atlas of the World's Languages
And those are just the volumes I pulled off my shelf this morning. I don't use Google Books or else I could easily have tripled the number of reliable linguistic sources that list Macedonian and Bulgarian as separate languages. To those I can add the two reliable web-based lists, Ethnologue and Glottolog, as well as the World Atlas of Language Structures. In other words, there simply is no question that the overwhelming majority of linguistic sources treat Macedonian and Bulgarian as two separate languages. I have only one solitary source in my library that treats them as one language--Linguasphere, but even then it clearly divides the listed varieties into two named dialects--Bulgarian and Macedonian. It calls the overall language "Bulgarski-Makedonski", not "Bulgarian", as User:Tropcho continues to push for. Glottolog calls the linguistic node that subsumes the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages "Macedo-Bulgarian". Most sources that label that node (not a language, but a node in a family tree that includes Bulgarian and Macedonian, and usually Old Church Slavonic as separate languages) as "East South Slavic". I could go on, but Tropcho's usage of cherry-picked sentences, sometimes out of context, to push a "Macedonian is Bulgarian" point of view is simply a fringe POV in linguistic circles pushed exclusively by Bulgarians. That doesn't mean that considering them as one language is fringe, although that is definitely a minority position, but that calling that single language "Bulgarian" is fringe. --Taivo (talk) 11:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
So with that said, the sentence as it is currently written in the article, "The dialects have been classified linguistically as dialects of Macedonian or of a single language comprising both Macedonian and Bulgarian," is absolutely accurate based on the non-Bulgarian consensus of linguists. Since there is no single name widely used for that "single language" I have adopted a general wording that doesn't include a name. What cannot be done is use the name "Bulgarian" since that reflects a fringe view and isn't supported in the literature outside Bulgaria. --Taivo (talk) 11:23, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
I think your comment illustrates well my point about your desire to do WP:ORIGINALSYN. In fact some of the references you list (Crystal, Corbett & Comrie) were already quoted above (by myself) and do mention the supposedly fringe view. Before I go on to discuss some other flaws of your original research, I think it's good to point out that you ignored my questions. That is I think a symptom of denial. And cherry-picking (it's funny you never accused me of this until now). Just go ahead and answer. Tropcho (talk) 12:06, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
  • I can't wade through all of that invective. Let's return to the RfC. The closer wrote: "There is some consensus, that the information in option 2 is somehow incorporated into the section. The way it is incorporated, say in the first sentence, I find no consensus for." Option #2 reads, in its entirety:

    #2 There are good reasons to mention both. There are a number of neutral sources that either a) consider Macedonian and Bulgarian to be dialects of a single language; or b) point out that all Macedonian dialects (including these spoken in northern Greece) have sometimes been classified as dialects of Bulgarian; or c) state that there is no sharp boundary on a local level between Bulgarian and Macedonian and that therefore the extent of the two languages is controversial d) state that from a strictly linguistic point of view the question whether Macedonian and Bulgarian are distinct languages or dialects of each other cannot be decided (D. Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2nd ed., and Chambers and Trudgill, Dialectology, Cambridge UP, 1998). According to L. Danforth (The Macedonian Conflict, Princeton University Press 1997), there is consensus among sociolinguists about point (d) (i.e. the question whether M and B are distinct languages is not decidable on the basis of strictly linguistic criteria). Thus in any case it seems justified to mention both.

    So, clearly there is consensus to mention both classifications in the secttion, and to cover the fact that there is controversy (off-WP, I mean) about them, including a reliably sourced view that the language cannot be unproblematically classified. There's no consensus to put this in the lead sentence of the section, so let's not. It doesn't make sense there anyway, since it would lead to a terrible run-on sentence (like RFC option #2 itself). It's enough material for several sentences. In the section, after a summarizing introductory lead in that tells readers there are multiple classifications and some controversy about them, go into sourced detail about the various classifications and those controversies, covering all four points, A–D, in #2 above. This solution is what will best serve our readers. Neither Taivo nor Tropcho are in any position to have this article be the "WP:RIGHTVERSION", advancing their favored view of which classification is the "correct" one. As a linguist by training (in part; it was my university minor, and cultural anthropology my major), I know full well that these sorts of classifications, even entire systems of such classifications, are artificial, arbitrary, shifting, subjective, based on incompatible factors, and frequently influenced by extraneous concerns, like politics. The controversial reclassification of all indigenous Western Hemisphere languages into three families is one such major upheaval, and another is the erosion of the P-Celtic and Q-Celtic linguistic theory. Linguistics is a rather soft science (or aggregate of sciences, if you like to think of disciplines like psycholinguistics as their own sciences), like all of the social sciences. Even the distinction between a "language" and a "dialect" varies between classification systems, and is subject to a lot of subjective interpretation. WP is not the place to advance a point of view about what language classification is "better". Some PoV pushing will naturally occur, and be corrected, as adherents to one theory or another try to improve the appearance of or denigrate a theory, in the articles on those theories. This kind of editorial strife is generally pretty manageable. It gets really out of hand rapidly, however, when people also start mixing in their ethnic and national points of view. If you want to see how that ends up, see the ArbCom cases WP:ARBAA and WP:ARBAA2, and see how many editors have been blocked or subjected to other discretionary sanctions in their wake. Let's not go there with this kind of topic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, while there isn't unanimity concerning whether these dialects are X or Y there is still a majority position. But the discussion has moved on and I've followed Hrothulf's advice (below) that the second sentence of the section in question really didn't advance the informative content of the article worth the level of discussion it was engendering. We've left Trudgill's quote about "Bulgarians think these are Bulgarian and Macedonians think they are Macedonian", but completely removed the problematic second sentence. As you can tell, even though the majority linguistic position in the sources is that most, if not all, of these dialects belong to Macedonian, there is enough Bulgarian baloney floating around to muddy the waters. Trudgill's comment is probably the best overall summary of the situation. --Taivo (talk) 01:14, 3 May 2015 (UTC)


Thanks SMcCandlish for the constructive input. I find it reassuring to see that a third editor, after User:AlbinoFerret and Hroðulf, has confirmed that RfC had consensus for mentioning both classifications. I hope this will prove sufficient to convince Taivo to drop his accusations agains me for "pushing a Bulgarian agenda" (which came after my first attempt to implement this consensus). Thanks also for the reminder to stay away from nationalistic strife. To avoid misunderstanding, it's probably good to point out that I don't think that either classification is the "correct" one, but I do believe (for reasons already mentioned) that both are significant enough to be mentioned. I think the proposals you make are good. As I am on the road these days, I'll probably only be able to come up with some particular suggestions along these lines in a few days. Let me add here that I think that removing the second sentence, as Taivo has done, doesn't really solve the issue, as long as other sections of the article (such as e.g. the lede) make similar (or even less balanced) statements - unless they are also removed or edited appropriately. Tropcho (talk) 07:20, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
@Tropcho and Taivo: To clarify, I don't mean to imply "You, Tropcho, and you Taivo, are engaging in nationalistic strife", but rather am observing that the issue is one fraught with that kind of argument in the real world, so it's best to steer explicitly clear of anything that can be mistaken for it, because bad things happen on WP when we wander into such an area. We do have a consensus that both classifications (and other concerns, like whether it can reliably be classified) are well-sourced enough to mention. It's also normal practice to lead with the majority viewpoint in RS (on any topic), though we need to beware of editorializing in article text about whether it is the majority viewpoint (unless a preponderance of RS also say that it is the majority viewpoint; to just surmise that collectively they can be interpreted as presenting the majority viewpoint is WP:OR). The problem with coming up with 10 sources, noting that 7 of them favor one view, and declaring that to be the majority viewpoint in WP's voice, is that there is no way for WP and its readers to be certain that this search was actually exhaustive (among other issues, like age of the sources, whether the sources themselves have agendas to push, etc.) The lead section would surely be best kept as neutral as possible, e.g. "classified as X by some authorities, and as Y by others; there is doubt as to whether it can be firmly classified", or something like that. Reading the above, I have to say an editor with an activistic position that one of the two theories is "baloney" and that anyone attempting to give it what they feel is fair weight has a "[national] agenda", clearly is not in a position to neutrally weigh the sources anyway (but nor is someone righteously convinced that this other theory is the better one). So, let's just avoid that kind of dispute if we can. An RfC with multiple proposed wordings to choose from might help resolve this.

I don't want to pretend I'm a totally uninvolved party on this talk page, but my involvement has mostly been (and remains) having concerns over the terribly ambiguous title. Something like "Speakers of Slavic languages in Macedonia" would be much clearer. "Slavic" isn't a language but a language family, and not everyone who speaks a Slavic language in Macedonia is native to that nation-state, the borders and even autonomous existence of which have not been stable in my lifetime. Using "of" here seems misleading, unless the entire construction were recast, e.g. "Slavic language demographics of Macedonia". Other constructions could be "Slavic languages in Macedonia", "Slavic-language usage in Macedonia", etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:04, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I actually agree with you and I don't have a problem mentioning both points of view. The real problem, however, is that the "non-Macedonian" point of view is being mischaracterized as "Bulgarian". The non-Macedonian point of view isn't "Bulgarian", it is Macedo-Bulgarian or East South Slavic. In English, "Bulgarian" only refers to the language of Bulgaria, not to a single language that comprises both Macedonian and Bulgarian. It's really the terminology that Tropcho is pushing that I object to, not the mentioning of a second point of view, that the Slavic dialects of Greece may be part of a larger entity without specifically assigning them to a language called "Macedonian". It is only the idea that these dialects are "Bulgarian" (as a language independent of Macedonian) that is the baloney I referred to. Even Bulgarian linguists who want to call these dialects "Bulgarian" do so in the context of using the term "Bulgarian" to include Macedonian. So it's the terminology that we have to be very careful of. Since in English the overwhelmingly most common meaning for "Bulgarian" is just the language of Bulgaria, then that term must be avoided in order not to mislead or lie to our readers. There are alternative terms in the literature that can be used: Bulgarian-Macedonian, Macedo-Bulgarian, Bulgar-Macedonian, East South Slavic, etc. And, yes, the title of this article is problematic, but it is the result of a consensus from about 2008 or so after a long discussion amongst editors representing three different points-of-view: Macedonian (including most linguists), Bulgarian, and Greek. In Greece, these dialects are called simply "Slavic" in order to avoid any reference to "Macedonia" for political reasons. But, as I have said, I have no problem mentioning the alternative to the "Macedonian" point of view, but it has to be properly and accurately described. And the most accurate description is not encompassed by the word "Bulgarian". Imagine, for example, using the term "Russian" to include Ukrainian. --Taivo (talk) 21:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable to me, something like "... classified by some other linguists in Macedo-Bulgarian or East South Slavic family". I agree that just referring to it as "Bulgarian" presents confusion problems. It would be fine, in a longer paragraph about this classification, to include something like, "This classification has been given various names by different linguists, including the East South Slavic, Bulgarian-Macedonian, Macedo-Bulgarian, Bulgar-Macedonian, and (in non-English sources) Bulgarian language family (not to be confused with the Bulgarian language itself, a subset of the classification, nor with Bulgar, a Turkic language)". This should result in the least likelihood of any reader confusion, and probably also the least likelihood of further editorial dispute. (I put "East South Slavic" first because it's both furthest from the term in dispute, and also a link target to the existing article section South Slavic languages#Eastern group. That article also needs to be updated with the same alternative terms and their sources, plus redirects need to be created for them to that section. From my mostly-bystander point of view, it's not exactly baloney/FRINGE that the term "Bulgarian" has been applied to the language family, it's just not used by itself (much? at all?) in English that way. It adds value and causes no harm to cover this clearly in the article text, because many sources on these languages will be written in the language dialects of the area, so it many help identify more sources, some of which might otherwise be mistaken for sources on the Bulgarian language alone.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks SMcCandlish for the nice explanation of the problem with WP:OR! It seems that the main remaining point to be discussed is whether Bulgarian is a suitable name for the second classification. While trying to resolve this, it's probably not a bad idea to stick to the sources.

Looking at the sources we find Bulgaro-Macedonian (Vaillant and Mazon), Bulgarski+Makedonski (= Bulgarian-Macedonian) (Linguasphere) used to describe the common Bulgaro-Macedonian language. We also find sources stating either that Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or that it is sometimes considered as such (Katzner, van Wijk, Chambers & Trudgill, Crystal, Henniger + most Bulgarian sources). Others state that the southwestern boundary of Bulgarian (i.e. the boundary between Bulgarian and Macedonian) is controversial and that the Slavic dialects of Greece are sometimes classified as Bulgarian (Comrie & Corbett, Schmieger). Trudgill states that the question is whether these dialects should be classified as Bulgarian or Macedonian. So it certainly appears that Bulgarian is not an uncommon name, and not less common than Bulgaro-Macedonian, Bulgarian-Macedonian, etc.

So it seems to me that using Bulgarian isn't problematic or misleading because 1) it is used by the sources 2) it appears to be the point of the sources mentioned above that these dialects can be classified as dialects of Bulgarian, precisely the language spoken in Bulgaria, and one of the two standard varieties in the dialect continuum.

At first sight it might indeed appear strange that there's an asymmetry, i.e. why would some sources say that Macedonian is considered a dialect of Bulgarian (which is basically equivalent to referring to the common Bulgaro-Macedonian simply as Bulgarian) and not the other way around?

The reasons for this are historical, and perhaps a small historical aside is in order here: In the Bulgaro-Macedonian (or East South Slavic) dialect continuum only one standard variety (Bulgarian) existed until the codification of Macedonian within Yugoslavia after WWII. Until then Macedonian dialects were widely regarded as dialects of Bulgarian. As recounted e.g. by Loring Danforth (The Macedonian Conflict, Princeton UP, 1997), the idea of a separate Macedonian language and identity didn't really pick up a lot of momentum until after WWII, when it gained strong support from the communist Yugoslav government, which saw in it a way to ward off Bulgarian influence in Vardar Macedonia, preclude potential territorial claims, and deal with pro-Bulgarian feelings among the population. Thus within Yugoslav Macedonia, the distinctness of Macedonian from Bulgarian was emphasized and the idea that B and M are dialects of a single language was something of a taboo, as it would undermine the distinctness of the Macedonian identity. Hopefully this goes some way in explaining the asymmetry. End aside.

I therefore would propose a wording in the spirit of: “These dialects have been classified as dialects of Macedonian or a common Bulgaro-Macedonian language variously referred to as Bulgaro-Macedonian, Macedo-Bulgarian, Bulgarian-Macedonian, or simply Bulgarian.” (or something along these lines). East South Slavic is already mentioned in the first sentence so do we want to mention it again? (btw, I agree that South Slavic languages#Eastern group should be expanded). Also I'm not sure I recall which of the sources mentioned refers to the common Bulgaro-Macedonian language as “East South Slavic”. P.S. It's quite busy at work these days so I might take some time to respond. Tropcho (talk) 23:14, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

@Tropcho and Taivo: If we need to cover this in the lead, then "These dialects have been classified as dialects of Macedonian or a common Bulgaro-Macedonian language variously referred to as Bulgaro-Macedonian, Macedo-Bulgarian, Bulgarian-Macedonian, or simply Bulgarian." would probably do this adequately. It could also serve as a topic sentence for a paragraph that continues with much of your "looking at the sources..." paragraph, above, which strikes me as a good rough draft of actual article text (or at least facts to include), complete with summarized citations. I'd be interested in whether Taivo thinks any sources and views are missing, and whether those cited so far are reliable. I think our job here is to report what external sources tell us the classifications are/have been, probably in order of most usage in reliable specialist (linguistic) sources, and to come to a consensus about which are reliable enough for WP purposes. PS: If there are sources for your historical aside, that too would be good to include in some form, somewhere. I had a strong suspicion something like that was going on, as that kind of mixture of politics and linguistics (or corruption of linguistics by politics) is quite common. This actually might not be the best place to put it, though, and working it all into the section to which East South Slavic redirects (South Slavic languages#Eastern group) would likely be the best option.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:07, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
I will have to look at them in more detail later, but some of the sources that Tropcho has been listing as calling this common language "Bulgarian" don't actually say that. They say something along the lines of "It's possible that Macedonian and Bulgarian are a single language" without actually naming that common language. Trudgill definitely falls into that category. The use of Crystal's comment is especially misleading since it is only a sociological note (that Macedonians call the language "Macedonian" and Bulgarians call the language "Bulgarian") while his actual classification (on a different page) separates Macedonian and Bulgarian into two languages. Tropcho has played very loose and fast with the use of "Bulgarian" throughout this discussion and has tried to claim that more sources back up his Bulgarian POV than actually do. But there needs to be a separate footnote following "Bulgarian" that clearly and unequivocally states the the vast majority of linguistic sources in English consider the name "Bulgarian" to exclude Macedonian and that very few sources outside Bulgaria use it in a broader context. I will write more on this later and evaluate each of Tropcho's sources (I have most of them at hand) to weed out those that don't say what he claims they do. --Taivo (talk) 03:20, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
For anyone interested, relevant quotes from almost all sources mentioned in my previous comment (except Schmieger and van Wijk) have been included in the table as part of the RfC above. Trudill is quoted in the article saying that "There is, of course, the very interesting Ausbau sociolinguistic question as to whether the language they [speakers of Slavic in Greek Macedonia] speak is Bulgarian or Macedonian, given that both these languages have developed out of the South Slavonic dialect continuum." Tropcho (talk) 23:12, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Second sentence of Education and Language

Option #2 was a pretty clear outcome of the RFC. We now merely have a dispute between two subtly different wordings for the second sentence of Education and language:

  1. The dialects have been classified linguistically as [[dialects of Macedonian]] or of a single language comprising both Macedonian and Bulgarian
  2. The dialects have been classified linguistically as [[dialects of Macedonian]] or [[Dialects of Bulgarian|Bulgarian]]

I have an interest in language politics but I am not a linguist. It seems to me that the RFC outcome is satisfied by the new first sentence, and that neither option for second sentence is helpful, since, as we say elsewhere The precise delimitation between these languages is fleeting and controversial. May I suggest that the entire sentence is deleted?

It might help readers to link the dialect continuum article somewhere in the paragraph.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

You are right, Hrothulf, that the first sentence is preferable to the second since the second is a clear POV fringe position. But I don't think that deleting it is a good option. Readers will want to know what language these Slavic dialects of Greece are usually tied to since "Slavic" isn't the name of a language, but a language family. They are only called "Slavic" in Greece (and here in Wikipedia) because of the political problem that Greeks have with the name "Macedonian". The title of this article was the subject of much discussion and compromise several years ago (about the time of WP:ARBMAC).
And User:Tropcho, you don't understand what WP:ORIGINALSYN means since my entire discussion is based on sources (which I have listed above). And just because Crystal et al. mention that Bulgarian linguists push a particular point of view doesn't mean that it isn't any less fringe. --Taivo (talk) 13:28, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
So it sounds like both Tropcho and Taivo want the second sentence. However they want different versions. No-one else seems to want to be involved, and all this scares off editors who actually want to improve the article. Tropcho Taivo says that "Slavic" isn't the name of a language, but a language family. It seems to me that political groups are allowed to choose the name of a language, so that Valencian and Ulster Scots become the name of a language - or of a geopolitically defined group of dialects. There is a sentence in the lede calling it Slavic and mentioning other names that seems to cause less dispute than this sentence. Isn't what we have enough? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Deleting the entire second sentence of that section is probably fine. The information is, indeed, found elsewhere in the article. --Taivo (talk) 14:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Hroðulf, thanks for your input. Just as a heads-up, I think in your last comment you misattributed Taivo's remark about Slavic to me.
@Taivo, I think that if a given statement is not acceptable in this section of the article, it probably won't be acceptable elsewhere in the article either. By the way, ignoring sources/questions as you do doesn't make them go away. Your synthesis is at variance with Trudgill's quote (included in the article) too. I don't have time to write more now, so I'll get back to you guys later. Tropcho (talk) 15:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I did mis-attribute a comment in my comment. Sorry and fixed. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:23, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Taivo, sadly, you've been practicing WP:IDONTHEAR. This is a problem because by ignoring sources we don't like we can reach almost any conclusion we want. Putting aside the fact that WP:ORIGINALSYN isn't allowed on wikipedia, the following quote from Trudgill is a clear indication that your synthesis is problematic: There is, of course, the very interesting Ausbau sociolinguistic question as to whether the language they speak is Bulgarian or Macedonian. If the issue weren't controversial and one view was held only by a tiny minority (i.e. fringe), this wouldn't be a "very interesting question", would it? Or perhaps you have seen a geography textbook that discusses flat earth theories on an equal footing with the mainstream? "Of course, there's the very interesting question as to whether the earth is flat or round. There's an ongoing controversy about that." I don't think so. (One of the problems of your synthesis is that we're discussing the dialects of speakers outside of B and M, who often don't have access to education in the two standard varieties, as pointed out by Trudgill; you also seem to conveniently ignore/forget the fact that the eastern dialects of Greek Macedonia are quite different from the western ones and have been classified as Bulgarian even by such scholars who consider M to be a separate language, e.g Schmieger, mentioned above). What is more, Crystal, Chambers & Trudgill, Comrie & Corbett, and Danforth, among others, state the the question is controversial, and that it is not resolvable on a purely linguistic basis. Have you seen a geography text that says that "it's impossible to resolve the question whether the earth is round or flat on a purely scientific basis"? Again, I don't think so. And I'm not even mentioning here Bulgarian sources, which you reject as biased, but if you read WP:NPOV#Bias_in_sources and WP:BIASED again, you'll hopefully notice that biased sources are not inherently disallowed and in fact can sometimes be excellent material for achieving NPOV in an article (as long as they meet reliable sources requirements, of course). It's probably worth mentioning that in the context of the total number of speakers in the Bulgaro-Macedonian dialect continuum (c. 12 million), the view that these dialects are Bulgarian is the most widely held. The bottomline is that there is plenty of evidence that the view you decry as fringe isn't fringe. We should find a way to include it in a balanced way. Tropcho (talk) 09:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
Aside from the fact that you are completely confused about what is being discussed from one moment to the next and you switch topics more often than a commuter train running through the throat of Grand Central Station, your accusations of original research are simply ridiculous (given my copious references) and illustrate your lack of linguistic training or understanding. You've clearly found individual citations on Google Books without actually reading the entire context or fitting those quotes into the context of linguistics as a whole. Trudgill's comment isn't a problem. It clearly demonstrates that Bulgarian politics have affected your and others' perception of the linguistic realities of the situation. But by removing that second sentence (as Hrothulf suggested), all of your arguments become moot and this whole discussion thread is now pointless. --Taivo (talk) 09:55, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
Copious references clearly do not exclude WP:ORIGINALSYN, which is the problem here. By the way, it's good to focus on arguments, rather than guessing (incorrectly) other people's methods of obtaining references. Should I take it that you have no good answer to the questions above? P.S. Other editors have suggested staying cool. Not a bad suggestion, I think. Tropcho (talk) 07:34, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
Hrothulf's solution is ideal. Your continued accusations of original research simply belie your linguistic ignorance and failure to see anything other than your Bulgarian nationalism. I have answered your questions multiple times over. If you knew any linguistics at all you would see that. --Taivo (talk) 08:51, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
Placing the citations after each claim in the sentence would remove OR. The compound sentence could also be split, and the citations for each applied. An Example "The dialects have been classified linguistically as dialects of Macedonian.[citation] They have also been classified as Bulgarian [citation]". This would remove syntheses. AlbinoFerret 13:10, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
The problem, AlbinoFerret, that this "solution" masks is that the great majority of the citations dealing with "Bulgarian" do not actually refer to Bulgarian as English speakers use that term. They are misinterpretations on Tropcho's part of the larger context of the quotes which is that the author is no longer talking about Bulgarian at the point of the quote but of the next higher node on the linguistic tree which combines Macedonian and Bulgarian into one language. This node is usually unnamed by the source (thus Tropcho's confusion as a non-linguist), but is variously called Macedo-Bulgarian (or some variant), Bulgarian-Macedonian (or some variant), or East South Slavic by the sources that do name it. Here's what happens. The overwhelming number of these sources say 1) these dialects are X (and not Y) (the "Macedonian" option) or 2) these dialects are X+Y (without always overtly naming "X+Y" as Z). There are almost no sources that state the third possibility, that these dialects are Y (and not X) (the "Bulgarian" excluding Macedonian option). But the terminological confusion that Tropcho wants to foster masks this very clear distinction. We cannot lie to our readers by saying that these dialects are straightforward "Bulgarian" because the relevant sources almost always have a vague sentence in the context of the second option above or have no name for the combined language of Macedo-Bulgarian. I've been trying to make this clear throughout this discussion, that the use of "Bulgarian" for this combined language violates WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRECISION. Tropcho has continuously clouded the issue as a non-linguist accusing me of original research. It is our responsibility as thinking editors of Wikipedia to make sure we are not deceiving our readers. In this paragraph the offending sentence isn't vital to the context, so it is far better to simply eliminate it rather than misleading or lying to our readers. --Taivo (talk) 15:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
What that solution does follow is the RFC. Compromise is whats needed here. Compromise means getting something both sides can live with, not pushing a point until you get exactly what you want. AlbinoFerret 18:19, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
But when the "compromise" is linguistically misleading and false, then is it really a "compromise"? In this case, Tropcho hasn't "compromised", he has just misled people by misquoting and misinterpreting his sources until people who only half-care and didn't really read the details of the discussion gave in to something that looked "fair and balanced". There is a balanced way to present this, but linking the "non-Macedonian" position to either Bulgarian or Bulgarian dialects is not it. That is the way of false linguistics and misleading our readers. If we are going to call the "non-Macedonian" position anything and link it somewhere, it needs to be linked to East South Slavic, not to Bulgarian. --Taivo (talk) 19:40, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Any famous living self-declared "Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia"?

Probably none. Why don't you move this to the page for ethnic Macedonians living in Greece? I will show you few hundred self-declared Macedonians, despite the government pressure... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirev (talk • contribs) 13:54, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

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"our own (language)"

According to statements by Slavic speakers of Hellenic Macedonia, the language is also called "our own (language)" among the Slavic speakers: [3]. This needs to be noted in the article. Առմենիե (talk) 04:57, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Sure, if you can find a reliable source for it. The blogspot is not a reliable source for that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:57, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
We are covering this, with sources, at Macedonian language#Greece. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:26, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
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