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In my opinion there are no issues in the article, I would write the history parts better, but some Bulgarian editors would complain about that never mind... But the User:Подпоручикъ is making Bulgarian propaganda in the article it's obvious, propaganda with a lot of grammar mistakes. Pleasently I would like to plead the Bulgarian editors to leave the article, because as you can see their pose it's not the same as us (Macedonians) and it's of course unacceptable. Administrators Please react! 1111tomica (talk) 18:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)1111tomica1111tomica (talk) 18:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that the Map of the area in classical antiquity (situation of ca. the 5th century BC) presently used to illustrate the section Ancient history of the territory is not very adequate — which is not surprising as it apparently was made for a different purpose, focusing more on Epirus rather than on the territory of the present Republic of Macedonia in antiquity. The map even fails to show the entire territory of Macedonia (region), missing its eastern parts. There should be some better map available I reckon. Apcbg (talk) 10:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Document No 2

The 1992 Top Management Forum Competing in Global Markets

Henry Kissinger

An Analysis of the Global Geopolitical Environment

Management Centre Europe 18-19 June 1992, Paris 2/10/92

This is an abstract of the minutes kept during the annual meeting of Management Centre Europe held in Paris on June. During the questions time at the end of Henry Kissinger's presentation one of the questions was:

   "What is your opinion for the problem which Greece have to accept the name Macedonia which the Scopia Government is trying to implement?" 

Mr Kissiger asked the man who asked the question:

   "Are you Greek ?" 

Reply "Yes"

   "Look, I believe that Greece is right to object and I agree with Athens. The reason is that I know History which is not the case with most of the others including most of the Government and Administration in Washington.

   The strength of the Greek case is that of the History which I must say that Athens have not used so far with success." 

Other questions followed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.174.90 (talk) 22:01, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is one of a number (about 100) selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

The language section is problematic. Let's face it, "Macedonian" is no longer extant - it died out some time during the late Roman or early Byzantine empires. "Macedonian" was almost certainly a Doric Greek dialect. (Please, no nationalist wars over this.) From the very article, it sounds like modern-Macedonian is more or less Bulgarian. At the very least, the term should be changed to contemporary-Macedonian or some such ... HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)HammerFilmFan[reply]

"Macedonian" is the standard linguistic term in English for the modern Slavic language spoken in Macedonia. "Ancient Macedonian" is the standard term for the extinct ancient language. (I'll list standard references illustrating this if you need them.) This is not nationalistic, it is simply the fact in English linguistics. There is absolutely nothing wrong or confusing about the language section. It is accurate linguistically and uses correct linguistic terminology to discuss the use of Macedonian and other languages in Macedonia. --Taivo (talk) 02:52, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes... But of course you know that Macedonians are not dead like the "ancient macedonian" language that you mentioned! If greek-macedonians still exist and they still speak greek how can you say that the slavic language of FYROM should be called "macedonian"? It could only be called slavomacedonian... Nobody can change such a great and long history like that of Greece. And the history of Macedonia is, of course, a big part of greek history... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.138.146.242 (talk) 22:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Forget it, you wont beat Taivo, he has put his 1000s of hours into protecting anything Fyrom. He even admitted discussing strategies on msn with other editors in order to control the content. You will not convince him of anything and he has much power here. I suggest you leave this article and concentrate on one he has not seen yet, this one is a sealed unit. We scored a small victory getting the article back to 'Republic of Macedonia' after he and others changed the article late one night to 'Macedonia' and protected it so no one could change it! Be careful on this article, it is a very dangerous place. Reaper7 (talk) 17:59, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"There are also smaller minorities of Adyghe and Greek speakers" is listed on the article.

• UN source [1] : no Adyghe and Greek
• EU (eurominority) [2] : no Adyghe and Greek
• Britannica [3] : no Adyghe and Greek
• BBC [4] : no Adyghe and Greek
• Eupedia [5] : no Adyghe and Greek
• Ethnologue on Republic of Macedonia page [6]: no Adyghe and Greek

On what objective and non cherry-picked but multiple sources is the clame of "Adyghe and Greek linguistic minority in Macedonia" based than? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.91.95 (talk) 09:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

About the sources you cited above:

• "UN source": contains no information about languages at all.
• Eurominority: amateurish website, notoriously unreliable, no official affiliation with EU (it's the website that famously lists "Makedonia xakousti" as the hymn of the ethnic Macedonians [7], right?)
• Britannica map: a Europe-sized map, by far not fine-grained enough to show even many of the notable minorities, let alone small ones.
• BBC website: only a rough list of the most important minorities, no claim to exhaustiveness ("Others include…"). Cannot be used as evidence against the existence of a small minority.
• Eupedia: again, a Europe-wide map showing only the very largest groups, by far not fine-grained enough for smaller groups.
• Ethnologue: in contrast to your claim, the page you cite clearly does include Adyghe – but Greek only as an "immigrant language"

About the pages cited currently in the article: Ethnologue actually needs to be taken with some caution. The page on "Greek" [8] has some obviously dubious entries (Greek is "Widespread, especially in Greek Macedonia". ORLY? The major dialects of modern Greek are "Katharevousa, Dimotiki, Saracatsan". ORLY? "Graecae" is an alternate name of Greek. ORLY?). The page on Macedonia, in its 2010 version, lists Greek as an "immigrant language". ORLY? Apparently its older versions still listed Greek among the main list (see discussion at Talk:Greeks in the Republic of Macedonia#Greeks are mainly settled in the cities of Gevgelija ...). Apparently Ethnologue also added a few more entries in its reference list. Back when we discussed it last time, it said "mainly from B. Comrie 1987, W. Browne 1989, 1996". Now, it says: "W. Browne 1989; W. Browne, E. Dornisch, N. Kondrashova and D. Zec 1997; B. Comrie 1987". I'd have to check what those sources are and what they actually say. If we can identify these, we can hopefully clarify this and sidestep Ethnologue, whose performance on this issue has been less than satisfactory. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Update: The Browne/Dornish/Kondrashova/Zec publication must be this: W. Browne, E. Dornisch, N. Kondrashowa & D. Zec (eds.), Proceedings of the Annual Workshop on Formal approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Cornell Meeting 1995. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. This means it's unlikely to be the source for Adyghe and Greek, which leaves us with just the Comrie 1987 source (that's B. Comrie, The World's Major Languages). Can somebody check this? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comrie 87 doesn't really talk about Greek emigration (at least in the chapter on "Greek") and it doesn't mention Adyghe at all. I'm not up for perusing the entire 1000 pages of Comrie 87. --Taivo (talk) 15:56, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) You clearly haven't read this, the most recent edition of Ethnologue. Ethnologue is considered perhaps the most reliable source for actual language information since it is solely a language reference. The BBC is not a linguistic source, you're kidding me, right? The UN and the EU are not linguistic sources with no real interest in actual linguistics, but politics and economics. Britannica is a general source without a specific focus on anything at all. Only Ethnologue is an actual linguistic source that focuses entirely on languages. Citing multiple poor sources is not preferable to citing one major source. --Taivo (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Future Perfect is correct that Ethnologue contains errors that are often brought over from other sources, but as an overall source, it is more reliable than any other linguistic source that covers the planet and far more reliable for languages than any of the other sources the anon IP cited. --Taivo (talk) 15:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

UN,EU, Britannica and BBC poor sources? Are you kiddign me? Eurominority the United Nations project an amateur site??? And Ethnologue a cherry-picked single source, is reliable? Few points here:

• 1. Ethnologue is single source, if this language minority is there it must have been evidented by other sources.
• 2. If none of the other sources evident this minority it could be that its so small and negliable to evident it, so no place for this info on the main page of R.M.
• 3. Ethnologue does not indicate Greek among the languages in Macedonia: The number of individual languages listed for Macedonia is 9. Non of the 9 listed by Ethnologue is Greek.

I really don't see the logical sense and objective evidence to list Greek or Adyghe among the languages spoken in Macedonia. At this point this clames cannot stay on the page, please provide different sources to support this theories. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.91.95 (talk) 15:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You don't understand Wikipedia, anon IP. There is a major reliable source that lists these languages. Wikipedia requires reliable sources and the sources you list are inferior as sources for linguistic information to Ethnologue. --Taivo (talk) 15:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning Adyghe: B. George Hewitt, "Introduction", The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus, Volume 2, The North West Caucasian Languages (1989, Caravan Books): "As a result one finds today NW Caucasian peoples spread throughout the Near East, predominantly in Turkey but with populations also in Jordan, Syria, Israel, Yugoslavia and even in Western Europe (originally Gastarbeiter from the Near East) or America (e.g. New Jersey)" (pg 16). Hewitt is one of the major authorities on Caucasian languages. On pg. 17 he cites "Yugoslavia (200 Circassians)" (Adyghe is one of the Circassian languages). --Taivo (talk) 16:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that sounds better. Here is a bit more, with a further reference to A. Popovic (1991), The Cherkess on Yugoslav territory, Central Asian Survey 10: 65–79. However, so far I've only seen sources that locate this tiny group in Kosovo, rather than Macedonia, if they locate it to anywhere specific in Yugoslavia at all. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok enlighten me on Wikipedia:

WP:CHERRY Ethnologue single source VS the sources "I listed" that infact were already cited on the article, all "inferior and less reliable sources" like are UN documents [9], Eurominority reports [10], Britannica articles [11] BBC reports [12]Eupedia [13] and on top of it all even Ethnologue your main argument [14] does not list Greek among the 9 languages in Macedonia. So please do explain on what wikipedia basis you are pushing this information on the main page of Republic of Macedonia. Another point, isn't there a level of importance, if the number of the linguistic minority is way too small and insignificant shouldn't we reconsider keeping this information for a specific page on the Languages of Macedonia and not for the main page. Same for the minor immigrant language Greek. Its not that the USA main page under languages could keep all the immigrant languages spoken there... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.91.95 (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anon IP. You need to take a basic research class at any university. The quality of sources on a particular topic is always important. If you want to write a paper on fissionable material, you rely more heavily on one book specifically about fissionable material than on three books about plumbing a nuclear reactor, regulations on nuclear power, or uranium mining sites. While the other books are reliable in their fields, they are not necessarily the most reliable sources on peripheral topics. Your argument is that 10 peripheral, non-specific sources are preferable to a single work that is focused on the topic at hand. And I still don't see why you cannot see the very clear mention of "Immigrant languages: Greek" at the top of the language page on Macedonia in Ethnologue and the listing of "Macedonia" as one of the countries where Greek is spoken at the Greek page. Perhaps your glasses need adjusting?

On Greek: Voegelin and Voegelin, Classification and Index of the World's Languages (1977, page 148) lists eastern Yugoslavia as one of the places where Greek is spoken. This is most likely the (uncited) source of the Ethnologue listing of Greek in Macedonia. --Taivo (talk) 16:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eastern Yugoslavia is not Macedonia

Thank you kindly for enlighten me. Could you also be so kind in explaining not nuclear physics but how:

• United Nations documents about ethnic affiliation data (that go down to 0,4% Vlach)
• Britannica Articles [15]
• BBC reports on Languages
• Eupedia and Eurominority reports on languages

happen to be non-specific peripheral sources, non quality sources???

Ethnologue the single cherry-picked article you base your clames on is contradictory to say the least.

• here [16]

Indicates that a Greek language is spoken in the Macedonia Region, (not Republic of Macedonia)

• on the language map of Greece-Macedonia by Ethnologue [17] there is Aromanian, Megleno, Gheg, Turkish, you name it... and no trace of Greek (marked by brown) in R.M.
• while on this page [18]

Ethnologue listis quote "The number of individual languages listed for Macedonia is 9. Of those, all are living languages." none of the 9 listed is the greek

also adds an arbitrary "Immigrant languages: Greek" whatever that means.

So not only none of the "less reliable sources" like the UN documents lists Greek among the languages in R.M. But also Ethnologue does not, even if it has a lot of opportunity to do so. We are down to an arbitrary sentence "Immigrant languages: Greek" Please keep on the argument and be constructive.84.223.91.95 (talk) 17:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• At the Macedonia page for Ethnologue, Greek is listed as an immigrant language. An immigrant language means that it doesn't necessarily occupy a specific region, but would be found in urban areas mixed with other languages. That's a simple concept. There are many immigrant languages in the U.S., for example, but they are found in urban areas and would not be marked on a map. The Greek article plainly states that Greek is 1) spoken in Greek Macedonia (the Greek region) and 2) in the countries listed, which list includes Macedonia. Your comments are getting ridiculous in not reading the plain English of Ethnologue. Ethnologue very clearly states that Greek is spoken in Macedonia in two different places.
• "Eastern Yugoslavia" is used in pre-breakup sources and does not refer to Serbia-Montenegro exclusively. It's not clearly stated what "eastern Yugoslavia" does or does not constitute, so just saying that "Macedonia isn't eastern Yugoslavia" is a rather poor argument. Macedonia is further east than nearly every other state of the former Yugoslavia. Indeed, the same source lists Macedonian as being spoken in "southeastern Yugoslavia", so "eastern Yugoslavia" probably includes the region where Macedonian is spoken.
• Your other sources, as I and Future Perfect have stated many times are not primarily linguistic in nature. While Ethnologue is 100% built for and by linguists, the other documents are not. Britannica is not a primarily linguistic source. While a reliable source by itself, it is always to be superceded by specific sources. UN ethnicity documents are about ethnicity--that is a different creature from language. The BBC is a news organization. How many journalists are experts on linguistics? Few, if any. They're going to report on fires, wars, and murders more often than on issues of linguistic minorities, which they generally don't understand and misreport anyway. So far, you have offered no evidence from reliable linguistic sources, only from general information sources. Future Perfect and I are looking at actual linguistic sources. If you have something productive to offer based on reliable linguistic sources, then please do so. --Taivo (talk) 17:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• In order to keep "Greek as minority language" in Macedonia on the page we more evidence from different sources. Ethnologue and Ethnologue only cannot be the only evidence there is, if there is any significant language minority of this kind in Macedonia.

• Also a simple question arises: If according to Ethnologue Greek is a linguistic minortiy in Macedonia why Ethnologue does not place it on the list of the 9 languages spoken there?
• In order to keep this statement please provide other relevant sources, since we cannot base a statement on a single cherry-picked even if very relevant source.84.223.91.95 (talk) 10:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article Greeks in the Republic of Macedonia contains a reference to the 2002 census where a minority of 422 Greeks is mentioned. This correlates well with the ethnologue data on the Greek language. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 18:21, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Dr.K, 442 immigrant people is a ridiculously low number of people to be reported as a linguistic minority on the main R.M. page. Its the greek embassy staff members plus local businessman. Ridiculous, we all do realize that this information about 442 people, reported just by an arbitrary sentence on Ethnologue, are not significant enough to stand as a linguistic minority on the main page of Republic of Macedonia. 442 people, arbitrary sentence on Ethnologue and a vague

"Greek language in eastern Yugoslavia" reference, are we chasing ghosts here?84.223.91.95 (talk) 10:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call 422 people ghosts. They are real and they are located in the republic. This coupled with the ethnologue reference which is a reliable source WP:RS allows us to accomodate this fact in the article. As to what they are and who employs them this is speculation and original reasearch WP:OR on your part. By the way the threshold of including a fact in Wikipedia is verifiability WP:V not truth. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 14:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@ User 84.223.91.95, can you get a user name for yourself? It makes life easier for other editors, Thanks for your contributions. Politis (talk) 15:20, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

just didBlizzb (talk) 20:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@dr.k

• 442 people is a ridiculously low number of people to be reported as a linguistic minority
• Ethnologue does not list greek among the 9 spoken languages in Macedonia [19]

There is just a single arbitrary sentence on "immigrant language". So in order to have a WP:V and not a single WP:CHERRY information, please provide multi source, relevant evidence that this 442 people in Macedonia are considered a linguistic minority. thank you Blizzb (talk) 20:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, you continually ignore the fact that in two separate places, Ethnologue lists Greek as a minority language of Macedonia. This isn't "cherry-picking" as you continually misuse that term. "Cherry-picking" is where you select one favorable quote from a source and ignore other quotes from that source. This is using a specialist source which is always superior to using general sources. If you picked one source out of equal sources, that would also be cherry-picking, but in this topic, Ethnologue, a specifically linguistic source dealing only with linguistic communities, is a far superior source to the BBC or Encyclopedia Britannica, neither of which puts an equal amount of effort into linguistic topics. We actually now have three different sources placing Greek in Macedonia--Ethnologue (a specialist linguistic source), Voegelin and Voegelin (another specialist linguistic source), and Dr. K's census. That's three sources. And there is no "official cutoff" for listing languages in a country. Each case is taken separately. No one but you, Blizzb, objects to including the Greek speakers here. Wikipedia works on consensus based on verifiable information from reliable sources. The information on Greek speakers in Macedonia can be verified by its appearance in three reliable sources, two of which are specifically focused on linguistic communities in the world. Your comment "ridiculously low number" is rather in poor taste. There are many languages in the world that would be greatly benefited by 422 more speakers. --Taivo (talk) 21:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Taivo, thank you for your eloquence. It sure makes my life much easier not to have to add any new points since you so adequately covered all the bases and then some. Thanks again. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 21:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the article for Greece, Ladino is mentioned as a language. It is probably spoken by fewer than 500 people (irrespective of statistics), but it is included. I dont see the problem with Greek in the Republic of Macedonia. My un-wikipedish personal research suggest that it is spoken by well over 1,000 people on a daily basis by R.Macedonian citizens who were Greeks, Slav/ethnic Macedonian refugees from Greece, Vlachs and Sarakatsan. Also remember that until the late 1920s there was an entire neighbourhood in Skopje called, the Greek quarter. I understand the sensitivities about a Greek presence in R.Macedonia and a larger Slav/ethnic Macedonian presence in Greece, but hopefully we, longer standing Wikipedia editors, have found a solid modus vivendi. By the way, good to see Blizzb has chosen a name :-) Politis (talk) 21:33, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@Taivo Im sorry but the information on a "Greek linguistic minority" in the sources you quote simply is not there:

• Ethnologue, again, does not place greek on the list of the 9 spoken languages in Macedonia. [20], greek could have been there as language N° 10 and things would have been more clear, still it is not. Its a fact.
• Voegelin and Voegelin from 1977, indicates a vague reference of "eastern Yugoslavia", we could debate what is considered by this, still fact is Macedonia is not named, so this is irrelevant information too.
• About the census data, yes there are 442 Greeks in Macedonia, no one denies this, what we are interested here though is a minority language in Macedonia status assigned to this 442 speakers. This census data indicates ethnic affiliation not linguistic minorities.

Bottom line, fact is all we do have is a single phrase: "Immigrant languages: Greek" by Ethnologue [21], while on the same page it keeps Greek off the list of spoken languages in Macedonia. So we do need relevant multi source information. other than this single phrase. thank youBlizzb (talk) 21:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We are not going to engage in original research by analysing and rejecting sources the way you suggest. In addition all evidence so far points to the undeniable fact of a small but existing Greek language presence in the republic. Thus this fact remains in the article and we do not need to second-guess the evidence provided by our reliable sources. If you do not like them you are free to find additional sources to further strengthen this fact. Meanwhile the presence of the current sources is enough, under our policies, to allow this fact to remain in the article. Further debate will be counterproductive and time wasting, as you are the only one who disagrees with this approach so I am quietly invoking WP:IDHT and WP:DEADHORSE. Thank you. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 22:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Im sorry to see that in lack of arguments you bring up various WP:. My points are not original research or analyzing, they are plain facts. They are key arguments and should be adressed, running and hiding behind various WP or invoking dead horses wont make up to the lack of arguments.

• Fact is we have pretty relevant, even if generic linguistic sources like UN, EU and Britannica that don't tace a Greek linguistic minority, even if they go down to 0,4% of population.
• Fact is we have some vague references in specific linguistic sources, as Voegelin's "eastern yugoslavia", and a non specific census data on Greeks in Macedonia.
• Fact is we have Ethnologue that on one hand does not list Greek among the living languages in Macedonia and on the other indicates it as "Immigrant language".

Now, to avoid WP:Cherry, and in order to have verifiable information from different reliable sources we need more relevant sources. I do hope you understand my request as it is a good faith constructive edit. Thank you Blizzb (talk) 14:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are still calling eurominority.eu a "EU source"? Man, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to develop better reading skills. Eurominority.eu is a private website without any affiliation with the EU or any other public organisation, and run by people with no academic or other professional linguistic qualifications [22]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, even if you are right on Eurominority Fut.Pref, we still do have UN, Britannica, BBC and ::plenty of other generic linguistic sources that don't report Greek among the languages in ::Macedonia. Please don't cling to a single point, rather I invite you to adress the different ::open issues I have pointed out above. Thank you Blizzb (talk) 15:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I already debunked the other alleged references with my first posting above. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you be more specific, your argument was about the Adyghe language in Kosovo and not in Macedonia, if im not wrong.[23], and this does not adress the open issues I pointed out above. Thank you Blizzb (talk) 15:50, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking about my very first posting in this thread, where I explained to you why your "EU, UN, Britannica" etc sources don't help your case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:58, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing the point here, we are looking for evidence about a linguistic Greek minority in Macedonia, in other words evidence that supports there is a linguistic minority of this kind, not documents that don't evidence this linguistic minority.

In the meanwhile I found the book Bernard Comrie - The World's Major Languages Second edition published in 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN ISBN 0-203-30152-8 Master e-book ISBN and under the Greek language chapter page 347-373, and mainly 19.2 Greek in its Geographic and Social Context there is no reference of Greek language minority in Macedonia. Please point out some relevant evidence that supports there is this kind of minority thank you. Blizzb (talk) 17:02, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finding a book that does not mention a fact does not prove that the fact does not exist. Please spare us from such logical fallacies. You started by using the BBC and other linguistically specious sources as arguments and now you are expanding to Google books using essentially the same fallacies. We don't need this. Especially since we have reliable sources which do mention this fact. You are trying to invalidate Ethnologue and other sources which establish both the presence of a Greek minority and the presence of the Greek language in the republic by using arguments which have been repeatedly rebutted. This is original research combined with a bad case of I didn't hear that. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 17:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Dr. K. Let me just add, about my own stance on this, that I'm actually somewhat skeptical about the Greek case myself (I remember debates we had over at the "Greeks in the..." article, where people were trying to find reliable sources but they all remained incredibly vague). As far as I'm concerned, the jury on whether we can substantiate this case is still out. I just want Blizzb's specious arguments to be cleared out of the way first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@A Dr.K Bernard Comrie - The World's Major Languages is not "a" book, if you have actually read the dispute above, it has been quoted by Ethnologue, and the "Greek immigrant languages" was supposed to be quoted from there, which doesn't happen to be the case. Bernard Comrie is one of the most prominent experts on the matter, he lists a lot of greek linguistic minorities (even in Ukraine) still does not name Macedonia.

@ Fut.Perf we actually agree, there is little clear evidence on this supposed linguistic minority, thats all this debate is about. We could start by listing what evidence there is supporting this supposed minority. thank you Blizzb (talk) 18:00, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Future, nice to see you after such a long time by the way :) Maybe the sources available are not the most definitive but I think that the evidence points conclusively toward a small but existing presence in the republic and maybe the small size of that prsence is the reason why many sources simply ignore it. Further analysis will of course not harm the encyclopedia. But I agree with you that any analysis cannot be done using fallacies. Thank you. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 17:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@Blizzb

• First, I seriously wonder how you can accuse others of cherry-picking, Blizzb, when you ignore the actual evidence in Ethnologue: 1) under "Macedonia" we find "Immigrant languages: Greek"; and under "Greek" we find "Also in Albania, Armenia, ..., Macedonia, ...". So in two separate places Greek is unambiguously placed in Macedonia.
• Second, I remind you that your "general linguistic sources" are not linguistic at all--they are "general" only. Neither the BBC nor the Encyclopedia Britannica are linguistic sources, but only sources of general information. Indeed, the charge of reverse cherry picking can be leveled at you since you refuse to acknowledge the best and most relevant of the reliable sources that are being cited here.
• Third, you misrepresent the evidence in Comrie. Comrie does not include an exhaustive list of countries where Greek is spoken. Indeed, he specifically states that Greek is spoken throughout the southern Balkans without any enumeration whatsoever of what countries the "southern Balkans" does or does not include.
• Fourth, while Comrie is one of the listed sources for Ethnologue, it is not the only source for information. Much of Ethnologue is based on sources that are only cited in the general bibliography and not on any specific references listed in any individual article. Ethnologue scientists and editors have taken data from a wide variety of sources, so you cannot assume that Ethnologue's information about Greek is based solely on Comrie or the other two cited sources. Your accusation that they have overreached Comrie's statement is ill-founded. They use a wide variety of sources in compiling and editing Ethnologue including published sources, unpublished sources, and personal contact with specialist scholars.
• Fifth, Voegelin and Voegelin is a reliable source for this as well. While it is not sufficient by itself to establish a presence of Greek in Macedonia since it only says "eastern Yugoslavia", when combined with the evidence from Ethnologue and the census data, it provides additional confirmation. --Taivo (talk) 18:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Taivo, thank you for taking part of this. Ill start with the most important evidence we have in favor of this Greek linguistic minority: Ethnologue.

• Ethnologue, yes under "Macedonia" we find "Immigrant languages: Greek"; and under "Greek" we find "Also in Albania, Armenia, ..., Macedonia, ...". Still you forget there is a third entry [24]: The number of individual languages listed for Macedonia is 9. Of those, all are living languages. There is no Greek on this very specific list on the living languages in Macedonia. Greek is not a living language in Macedonia? Why is Greek on a separate entry and not on the list with the other languages? I don't want to speculate or present personal interpretations here, I just underline a fact that there is a certain amount of contraddiction between the 2 entries and the clear list of languages presented. Thats why we are looking for other linguistic evidence.
• Second, we have the PDF data on the 442 Greek inhabitants in Macedonia. Two points here;
  • One:This[25] is the actual data from the official census from the Macedonian goverment site, there are no Greeks evidented. The PDF[26] that was pointed out that indicates this 442 Greeks is a study, a non official census data (where does the number 442 Greeks come from??)
  • Two: on what basis you discredit the ethnic affiliation census data on this UN [27] document that does not present any Greek minorities with the excuse that the data are not specific linguistic on one hand and in the same time keep pointing this other ethnic affiliation census data PDF (not even offitial document) when its another non specific linguistic information? Are we keeping or are we not keeping consideration of ethnic affiliation census data? Isn't this WP:Cherry?

• Third: Voegelin and Voegelin. as you note "it is not sufficient by itself to establish a presence of Greek in Macedonia since it only says "eastern Yugoslavia". Not even when when combined with the contradictory evidence from Ethnologue and the non-specific unofficial census data. Three improper or vague sources cannot simply summ up for a single solid WP:RELY one.

In this constuctive edit I kindly ask for reliable evidence that indicate a Greek linguistic minority in Macedonia. Thank you. Blizzb (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have a reliable source that is specifically focused on linguistic communities--Ethnologue. Other sources are focused on ethnic communities and not necessarily linguistic ones. Ethnologue by itself is a sufficiently reliable source to place a Greek-speaking minority in Macedonia, but when we note the Voegelin and Voegelin statement and the census data that Dr. K presented, then the evidence becomes conclusive. You keep refusing to read the two simple, straightforward, unambiguous statements in Ethnologue and instead rely on an absence of a statement. Absence of a statement does not, in any way, prove an absence. If your sources said, "After extensive search, no Greek speakers were found in Macedonia", then you have a positive source proving your POV. But the absence of a statement does not mean the absence of a community when a more reliable source says that there is a community. You think that the "9 languages" list without Greek proves that Greek isn't there even though the preceding paragraph specifically mentions Greek as an immigrant language. Ethnologue tends to be inconsistent in these lists. Look at the entry for the United States to compare. The prose paragraph mentions Tagalog (1,220,000 speakers) and "languages of the Gypsies" (1,000,000 speakers) as immigrant languages, yet Tagalog does not occur in the list of 176 living languages and none of the Romany languages occur there either. This puts the stamp of error to your argument about the "9 languages" of Macedonia. Are you going to now argue that neither Tagalog nor any of the Romany languages are spoken by over 2 million people in the U.S.? I know Tagalog speakers personally. Are they ghosts? There are more than two dozen of these immigrant languages in the U.S. entry that don't also occur in the itemized and numbered list of languages that follows (Pingelapese, etc.). Your argument is false. Ethnologue has two positive, unequivocal, unambiguous statements that Greek is spoken in Macedonia--one at the entry for Macedonia and one at the entry for Greek. That closes the case conclusively as to Greek's existence in Macedonia. The issue of whether 422 speakers is enough to count is a separate issue, but their existence is verifiable with one of the most reliable sources on the issue of linguistic communities in the world. --Taivo (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An anonymnoys editor added a paragraph abount Macedonia's history in antiquity. The problem is that there is already a section on this topic, so this is redundand. If anything, information contained in this paragraph should be incorporated into Republic of Macedonia#Ancient history of the territory. Additionally, the language and the formatting of the paragraph does not comply with encyclopedic standards. I deleted the paragraph.  Andreas  ^(T) 13:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please change the sentence “Macedonia is a member of the UN and the Council of Europe. Since December 2005 it has also been a candidate for joining the European Union and has applied for NATO membership.” To ““ The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a member of the UN and the Council of Europe. Since December 2005 it has also been a candidate for joining the European Union and has applied for NATO membership ” As that this is a fact. No such a country by the name Macedonia is a member of the UN or the Council of Europe or has been a candidate for joining the European Union or has applied for NATO membership. Proofs can be found in the “Notes and references” of the article Republic of Macedonia [54] [55] [56] [57]. 09:37, 18 July 2010 (UTC) Kokosekos (talk)

Won't happen, don't bother asking. See big notice right at the top of this page. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If FYROM doesn't accept a name like "Northern Macedonia" or "Slavomacedonia" which shows who they really are they will never enter the EU or the NATO... And they have to learn that they can't steal history! They are slavs and they should be proud about that! They are betrayers of their own identity! Shame on them! Enough with that lie! You could only be named macedonians if you accepted to become part of Greece! Why everything found in macedonia is written in greek? Not in greek alphabet, but in greek language! Why Alexander the Great has a greek name? He 's called Alexandros Megas! Not Aleksandar Veliki! Why? Come on! You play a silly game from which you can't win anything... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.138.146.242 (talk) 22:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The whole section is trying to point out that Bulgarians are responsible for the Macedonian national awakening. While the uprisings in the neighbouring countries were an INSPIRATION towards Macedonian national awakening, they were in a few (if any) cases that were under influence by the other countries for the genuine Macedonian national awakening. Of course, there were plenty of cases where Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbians tried to fanthom the Macedonian people under their nationalistic agendas (propagating that they are Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, respectivelly). But that made no significant change in the national feelings of the native Macedonian people, then, and, though they work hard at that very purpose even today, it makes no significant change nowadays too.

So, an article pointing out at the Bulgarian nation as the only responsible factor for the Macedonian national awakening is flawed, and I invite a thoroughly thought-out revision for this section. Thank you. MakedekaM (talk) 14:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]