Macedonian language naming dispute

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).[1] This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations[2][3] and the World Health Organisation.[4] The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.[5]

However, for historical reasons, as well as due to the Macedonia naming dispute, 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 in the Hellenic branch; sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language.[6] There is also a dialect of modern Greek called Macedonian and spoken by the Greek Macedonians.[7][8][9]

Macedonian Greek

A Greek dialect spoken mainly in northern Greece, in particular Macedonia, Thrace and Thessaly. It is fully intelligible with other Greek dialects. The dialect is usually referred as Makedonika (Greek: Μακεδονικά, Translation: Macedonian) or Makedonitika (Greek: Μακεδονίτικα, Translation:Macedonitic).

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 Ethnologue as an alternative name for the Macedonian language,[10] 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.[11]

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.[12]

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:[13]

[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.[14]

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:

...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.[15]

FYRO Macedonian/Macedonian (FYROM)

The terms "FYRO Macedonian"[16] and "Macedonian (FYROM)"[17] have been used by the Microsoft 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.[18] 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.[19]

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 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 in Communist Yugoslavia after 1944. The term has notably been used in the title of Harvard professor Horace Lunt's A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language published in 1952 which was the first English-language grammar of the Macedonian language.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Republic of Macedonia - Constitution Archived 2000-08-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: Presidential Election - OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission - Final Report
  3. ↑ UNTERM - the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
  4. ↑ World Health Organization - WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
  5. ↑ Sussex, R. (2006) The Slavic Languages (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press) ISBN 0-521-22315-6
  6. ↑ Joseph, B. (1999) Romanian and the Balkans: Some Comparative Perspectives In S. Embleton, J. Joseph, & H.-J. Niederehe (eds.) The Emergence of the Modern Language Sciences. Studies on the Transition from Historical-Comparative to Structural Linguistics in Honour of E.F.K. Koerner. Volume 2: Methodological Perspectives and Applications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (1999), pp. 218–235 PDF version
  7. ↑ Ανδριώτης (Andriotis), Νικόλαος Π. (Nikolaos P.) (1995). Ιστορία της ελληνικής γλώσσας: (τέσσερις μελέτες) (History of the Greek language: four studies). Θεσσαλονίκη (Thessaloniki): Ίδρυμα Τριανταφυλλίδη. ISBN 960-231-058-8.
  8. ↑ Vitti, Mario (2001). Storia della letteratura neogreca. Roma: Carocci. ISBN 88-430-1680-6.
  9. ↑ Lindstedt, J. (2000). “Linguistic Balkanization: Contact-induced change by mutual reinforcement”, D. G. Gilbers & al. (eds.): Languages in Contact, (Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics, 28.), Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA, 2000: Rodopi, 231–246. ISBN 90-420-1322-2.
  10. ↑ Ethnologue - Macedonian language
  11. ↑ Eurominority - Macedonians protest Council of Europe decision on their Country's name. Archived 2007-07-08 at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ Fishman, J. A. (2000) Can Threatened Languages Be Saved?: Reversing Language Shift, Revisited - A 21st Century Perspective ISBN 1-85359-492-X
  13. ↑ Laografika Florinas kai Kastorias (Folklore of Florina and Kastoria), Athens 1996
  14. ↑ Greek Helsinki Monitor - The Macedonians
  15. ↑ Greek Helsinki Monitor - Press Release - 2002 - EBLUL and EUROLANG drop references to “Slavo-Madedonian language”
  16. ↑ Microsoft - NLS Information for Windows XP Service Pack 2
  17. ↑ Microsoft Keyboard Layout - Macedonian (FYROM)
  18. ↑ Metamorphosis - Macedonian Government Signs Strategic Partnership Deal With Microsoft
  19. ↑ Microsoft - NLS Information for Windows Vista
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