Macedonian language naming dispute
Encyclopedia
The name of the Macedonian language
, as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia
, is "Macedonian" (македонски, makedonski). This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations
and the World Health Organisation. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.
However, for historical reasons, as well as due to an objection by Greece, several other terms of reference are used when describing or referring to the language. Some of the names use the family to which the language belongs to disambiguate it from the non-Slavic Ancient Macedonian language
, an entirely different language, characterized as Indoeuropean Greek
branch (IEGB, ISO CODE XMK); sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language. There is also a dialect of modern Greek called Macedonian and spoken by the Greek Macedonians.
, Thrace
and Thessaly
. It is fully intelligible with other Greek dialects. The dialect is usually referred as Makedonika or Makedonitika .
as an alternative name for the Macedonian language , along with simply "Slavic" (see section on Slavomacedonian below). , Eurominority reports that the Council of Europe
uses the term "Macedonian (Slavic)" to refer to the Macedonian language.
In 'Can Threatened Languages be Saved?' (2000, ed. Joshua A. Fishman), Australian linguist Michael Clyne states that in 1994, the state government
of Victoria
'bowed to pressure from Greek diplomatic representatives and sections of the Greek community' by declaring that the Macedonian language
should be referred to as 'Macedonian (Slavonic)'; that in 1997, the ethnic Macedonian
community appealed to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
but that the appeal was unsuccessful; that in 1998, the community appealed to the Supreme Court
and that the decision was overturned; and that the state government then made an appeal but that the verdict was affirmed in 2000.
Although acceptable in the past, current use of this name in reference to both the ethnic group and the language can be considered pejorative and offensive by ethnic Macedonians. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports,
The term was initially used by the EBLUL to refer to both the Slavophone minority of the Greek region of Macedonia
, and the majority ethnic group of the Republic of Macedonia
, the term was dropped by them after complaints by ethnic Macedonian
organisations of the diaspora, but references to the Slavic people and Slavic minority were retained on the EBLUL website. Commenting on the name change, the Greek Helsinki Monitor said it hoped the decision would be shared by EBLUL with the Greek media and authorities:
of the Republic of Macedonia
is used by the Greek people to refer to the language. An alternative term is Bulgaroskopian. Patrick Seriot writes that, "In Greece, the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia are thus called «Skopians»" (Σκοπιανοί) as the Greeks assert that they have a "...kind of «copyright» on the name Macedonian". Many ethnic Macedonians do find these terms offensive. Other alternatives based on the name of the capital city include "Slav idiom of the State of Skopje"
dialect continuum
. In most sources before WWII, the dialects covered by the modern Macedonian language were referred to as Bulgarian
dialects.
corporation in its Windows
software. In 2003, Metamorphosis, an NGO registered in the Republic of Macedonia
reported that Mr. Goran Radman, General Manager of Microsoft Adriatics (the region including all ex-Yugoslav countries and Albania) explained that Microsoft would "correct the 'mistake' regarding its attitude towards the Macedonian identity", such as using constructs like 'FYRO Macedonian' instead of 'Macedonian' as the name of the language in its publications. The report stated that this came about as the result of a deal between Microsoft and the government of the Republic of Macedonia. As of 2007, Microsoft only uses "Macedonian (FYROM)" as the name of the language in its then-current operating system, Windows Vista
.
's A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language
published in 1952 which was the first English-language grammar
of the Macedonian language
.
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
, as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, is "Macedonian" (македонски, makedonski). This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and the World Health Organisation. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.
However, for historical reasons, as well as due to an objection by Greece, several other terms of reference are used when describing or referring to the language. Some of the names use the family to which the language belongs to disambiguate it from the non-Slavic Ancient Macedonian language
Ancient Macedonian language
Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages...
, an entirely different language, characterized as Indoeuropean Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
branch (IEGB, ISO CODE XMK); sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language. There is also a dialect of modern Greek called Macedonian and spoken by the Greek Macedonians.
Macedonian Greek
A Greek dialect spoken mainly in northern Greece, in particular MacedoniaMacedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
, Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
and Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
. It is fully intelligible with other Greek dialects. The dialect is usually referred as Makedonika or Makedonitika .
Macedonian Slavic
The term "Macedonian Slavic" also includes variants such as "Macedonian Slav", "Slavic Macedonian", "(Slavic) Macedonian", "Macedonian (Slavonic)" etc. Macedonian Slavic (македонски словенски) is listed by EthnologueEthnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
as an alternative name for the Macedonian language , along with simply "Slavic" (see section on Slavomacedonian below). , Eurominority reports that the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
uses the term "Macedonian (Slavic)" to refer to the Macedonian language.
In 'Can Threatened Languages be Saved?' (2000, ed. Joshua A. Fishman), Australian linguist Michael Clyne states that in 1994, the state government
State government
A state government is the government of a subnational entity in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or be subject to the direct control of the federal government...
of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
'bowed to pressure from Greek diplomatic representatives and sections of the Greek community' by declaring that the Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
should be referred to as 'Macedonian (Slavonic)'; that in 1997, the ethnic Macedonian
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
community appealed to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
The Australian Human Rights Commission is a national human rights institution, a statutory body funded by, but operating independently of, the Australian Government. It has the responsibility for investigating alleged infringements under Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation...
but that the appeal was unsuccessful; that in 1998, the community appealed to the Supreme Court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
and that the decision was overturned; and that the state government then made an appeal but that the verdict was affirmed in 2000.
Slavomacedonian
The term Slavomacedonian (Cyrillic script: славомакедонски) was introduced in Greece in the 1940s. A native of Greek Macedonia, a pioneer of ethnic Macedonian schools in the region and local historian, Pavlos Koufis, says:[During its Panhellenic Meeting in September 1942, the KKE mentioned that it recognises the equality of the ethnic minorities in Greece] the KKE recognised that the Slavophone population was ethnic minority of Slavomacedonians]. This was a term, which the inhabitants of the region accepted with relief. [Because] Slavomacedonians = Slavs+Macedonians. The first section of the term determined their origin and classified them in the great family of the Slav peoples.
Although acceptable in the past, current use of this name in reference to both the ethnic group and the language can be considered pejorative and offensive by ethnic Macedonians. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports,
... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness. Unfortunately, according to members of the community, this term was later used by the Greek authorities in a pejorative, discriminatory way; hence the reluctance if not hostility of modern-day Macedonians of Greece (i.e. people with a Macedonian national identity) to accept it.
The term was initially used by the EBLUL to refer to both the Slavophone minority of the Greek region of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
, and the majority ethnic group of the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, the term was dropped by them after complaints by ethnic Macedonian
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
organisations of the diaspora, but references to the Slavic people and Slavic minority were retained on the EBLUL website. Commenting on the name change, the Greek Helsinki Monitor said it hoped the decision would be shared by EBLUL with the Greek media and authorities:
...in the hope that, at long last, they respect the use of the name of the language (and the corresponding people) chosen by its users and unanimously accepted by the international scholarly and NGO community, as well as by many intergovernmental fora.
Skopian
The term Skopian, along with Skopianika, derived from the name of the capital cityCapital City
Capital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....
of the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
is used by the Greek people to refer to the language. An alternative term is Bulgaroskopian. Patrick Seriot writes that, "In Greece, the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia are thus called «Skopians»" (Σκοπιανοί) as the Greeks assert that they have a "...kind of «copyright» on the name Macedonian". Many ethnic Macedonians do find these terms offensive. Other alternatives based on the name of the capital city include "Slav idiom of the State of Skopje"
Bulgaro-Macedonian
Bulgaro-Macedonian is a term used to refer to the East South SlavicSouth Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
. In most sources before WWII, the dialects covered by the modern Macedonian language were referred to as Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
dialects.
FYRO Macedonian/Macedonian (FYROM)
The terms "FYRO Macedonian" and "Macedonian (FYROM)" have been used by the MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
corporation in its Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
software. In 2003, Metamorphosis, an NGO registered in the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
reported that Mr. Goran Radman, General Manager of Microsoft Adriatics (the region including all ex-Yugoslav countries and Albania) explained that Microsoft would "correct the 'mistake' regarding its attitude towards the Macedonian identity", such as using constructs like 'FYRO Macedonian' instead of 'Macedonian' as the name of the language in its publications. The report stated that this came about as the result of a deal between Microsoft and the government of the Republic of Macedonia. As of 2007, Microsoft only uses "Macedonian (FYROM)" as the name of the language in its then-current operating system, Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
.
Slavic dialect of the State of Skopje
This phrase was used in print by Nicholas P. Andriotis, professor of Linguistics at the University of Thessaloniki). Chapter VI of his book, 'The Federative Republic of Skopje and its Language' (Athens, 1966), is entitled "The impact of the Greek Language on the Slavic Dialect of the State of Skopje". His choice of descriptors for the language reflects Greek objections both to the use of the term 'Macedonian' to designate the language of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and to the use of the term 'Macedonia' to designate the state.Macedonian literary language
This term is used by experts working within the field of Slavic linguistics to refer to the standardised language developed after 1944. The term has notably been used in the title of Harvard professor Horace LuntHorace Lunt
Horace Gray Lunt was a linguist working in the field of Slavic Studies, Professor Emeritus at the Slavic Language and Literature Department and the Ukrainian Institute at Harvard University....
's A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language
A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language
A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language is the title of the first English language grammar of the Macedonian language. The grammar was written by Horace Lunt, an American working in Yugoslavia.-Bibliography:...
published in 1952 which was the first English-language grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
of the Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
.
See also
- EBLULEuropean Bureau for Lesser-Used LanguagesThe European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages is a non-governmental organisation that was set up to promote linguistic diversity and languages. It was founded in 1982...
- Macedonia naming disputeMacedonia naming disputeA diplomatic dispute over the use of the name Macedonia has been an ongoing issue in the bilateral relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia since the latter became independent from former Yugoslavia in 1991...
- Political views on the Macedonian languagePolitical views on the Macedonian languageThe existence and distinctiveness of the Macedonian language is disputed among the politicians, linguists and common people from the neighboring countries...
- Slavic language (Greece)