Macedonian language naming dispute

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This article is about alternative names for the Macedonian language, for information on the language of antiquity, please see Ancient Macedonian language.

Macedonian language
Naming dispute
History
Alphabet
Political views

The name of the Macedonian language (Macedonian: Македонски јазик) as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia is "Macedonian" (Macedonian: Македонски) ^[1]. This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations ^[2] and the World Health Organisation ^[3]. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.^[4]

However, for historical reasons, as well as due to a naming dispute with 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 undoubtedly non-Slavic Ancient Macedonian language, others use geographical disambiguation.

1 Macedonian Slavic
2 Slavomacedonian
3 Skopian
4 Bulgaro-Macedonian
5 FYRO Macedonian
6 Macedonian literary language
7 See also
8 References

[edit] Macedonian Slavic

This sub heading also includes variants such as "Macedonian Slav", "Slavic Macedonian", "(Slavic) Macedonian", "Macedonian (Slavonic)" etc. The term "Macedonian Slavic" (македонски словенски) is listed by Ethnologue as an alternative name for the Macedonian language ^[5], along with simply "Slavic" (see section on Slavomacedonian below). As of 2004, Eurominority reports that the Council of Europe uses the term "Macedonian (Slavic)" to refer to the Macedonian language.^[6]

In Australia, the state government of Victoria decided in 1994 that the Macedonian language should be referred to as "Macedonian (Slavonic)". The decision was made after pressure from the Greek community and Greek diplomats. The ethnic Macedonian community was outraged, and appealed to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The appeal was unsuccessful, but the Supreme Court of Australia finally reversed the decision of the state government in 1998.^[7]

[edit] Slavomacedonian

The term Slavomacedonian (Cyrillic script: славомакедонски, Greek: Σλαβομακεδονικά) 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 in Laografika Florinas kai Kastorias (Folklore of Florina and Kastoria), Athens 1996, that,

[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. ^[8]

The term was initially used by the EBLUL to refer to both the Slavic speaking minority in northern Greece, and the population in the Republic of Macedonia, the term was dropped by the after complaints by ethnic Macedonian organisations. The Greek Helsinki Monitor noted that the name was changed,

...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.^[9]

[edit] Skopian

The term Skopian, along with Skopianika, derived from the name of the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia is used by the Greek people to refer to the language. An alternative and equally offensive term is Bulgaroskopian.^{[citation needed]} Patrick Seriot writes that, "In Greece, the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia are thus called «Skopians»" as the Greeks assert that they have a "...kind of «copyright» on the name Macedonian". ^[10] Other alternatives based on the name of the capital city include "Slav idiom of the State of Skopje" ^[11]

[edit] Bulgaro-Macedonian

Bulgaro-Macedonian is a term used to refer to the East South Slavic dialect continuum.

[edit] FYRO Macedonian

The term "FYRO Macedonian" ^[12], or "Macedonian (FYROM)", This term is used by corporations such as Microsoft, in their Windows XP software. As of 2003, Metamorphosis, an NGO registered in the Republic of Macedonia states that Microsoft will, "correct the 'mistake' regarding its attitude towards the Macedonian identity, such as using constructs such as 'FYRO Macedonian' instead of the proper name of the Macedonian language in its publications." ^[13] The change came about as a result of a deal between Microsoft and the government of the Republic of Macedonia.

[edit] Macedonian literary language

This term is is used to refer to the standardised language developed after 1944. The term has notably been used in the title of Horace Lunt's A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, the first English-language grammar of the Macedonian language.