Talk:Florina

Macedonian φλωρός

Until this anonymous edit, the article mentioned the possible Macedonian etymology of the modern Greek form. I will restore this, along with something more in line with the original edit upon which the current paragraph is based. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· (talk) 16:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Monastiri

For those pushing for local Slavophone form in first line: please take your skills to the article on Bitola and introduce Monastiri (in Greek alphabet) :-) Politis (talk) 11:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I commented above on Talk:Florina#...and_removing_it before noticing your comment here. You should show my comment to the editors on Talk:Bitola.... --Enric Naval (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Consistency is sorely needed, at least on a case-by-case basis. The name has been in the intro for a good while -let's leave it. OTHERCRAP is not a good argument plus why would you like to imitate articles that relegate the name of a city in a historically important language, as far as the specific city is concerned, to a "Names" paragraph among a billion other languages. 3rdAlcove (talk) 16:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Enric Naval, you are right about Bitola. But I see no reason for you reverting me. I think my editorial decision is justified and the information - as we can see - is repeated just one paragraph down. Politis (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(you mean one section down) I already pointed out my reasons. The alternative name's existance and usage was shown with multiple sources. Adding alternative names to the lead is a run-of-the-mill compliance-with-manual-of-style fix.

(I shouldn't have to be actually defending such an edit just because of perceived offence to the greekness of Florina or whatever any other reason that is compelling people to remove what ought to be an uncontroversial addition. Gotta love Balkan-related articles. Now, if you could please point out where on WP:LEAD it says that you can't repeat on the lead information that is already on the article, you would have a good argument there and we could start a policy/guideline based argument.) --Enric Naval (talk) 07:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The Name has Been resolved

I might be new at Wikipedia, but isnt it a bit fascist someone saying The name has been resolved and then reverting? It sounds like I decided that the Slavic name should stay for my own reasons and thus the issue has been resolved. That is not the case my friend. Whenever there is a different opinion, the issue HAS NOT been resolved. I cant understand the reason for adding a Slavic name in a Greek city. Is it for historical reasons? Is it for Minority reasons? Is it for your own reasons? Please provide info and sourced data. As far as I know, there is no Slavic Minority in Florina. For historical reasons you could add it at history section. Your own reasons dont actually matter. ThanksAeg2008 (talk) 18:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC) sockpuppet of User:Mywayyy

You're right to protest against someone saying "the issue has been resolved" (nothing further from the truth), but you have the wrong arguments. Yes there is a Slavic speaking minority in Florina. Nevertheless, this has nothing to do with the Slavic name being in the lead paragraph. It has to do with the Slavic name being in the article. Hell, let's start putting all the minority languages in the leads of all cities. Even countries. Yeah.--   Avg    19:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

:: Actually there isnt even a Slavic Speaking Minority. The term Minority implies a significant number of people. I dont know of any serious data that shows that in Florina there is a significant Slavic speaking Minority. If such is the case then the Albanians are a great great Minority and we should add in the lead of Greece article the name in Albanian, Romanian and why not Slavic as well...LOL. We should be serious at some point. I dont know why this happens with Greece and Greek cities all the time, maybe its because the Balkans and the neighbouring countries are in a real mess, but its very wrong to add other names in the lead of an article about a place. It gives strange impressions to the reader and to me it is suspicious. If there are Liguistic issues or historical reasons I am the first who will add even the Pakistani Language to an article. But never in the Lead. Always in the proper section and of course sourced.Aeg2008 (talk) 21:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC) sockpuppet of User:Mywayyy

Aeg2008 you're probably mixing the sense of a linguistic minority with that of an ethnic minority. There is a sizable minority of Slavic speakers in Florina. However, most of them are bilingual with Greek as their first language and they overwhelmingly claim to be Greek (the so-called "ethnic Macedonians" are at most a couple of thousands). I of course agree with the rest of your comment. Only official languages should be in the lead.--   Avg    22:16, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Fut Perf found this source[1] which translates as "In all the department of Florina, where they [the slavophones] constitute at least half of the population, [snipped a list of other regions of greece], a significant proportion of the population knows and uses the language [Slav] Macedonian, while recognizing its cultural specificities". To see the context of the discussion, Fut Perf's comment is on this same talk page, just search for "14:20, 11 June 2008" (without quotes).

As for finding sources, please check Talk:Florina#Adding_the_local_name_of_Lerin for a list of sources (look for "United Nations"). There was a lengthy discussion on this issue, and I think that all the issues you raise have already been raised elsewhere on this talk page, specially on the section I linked. See also the comments I made to another user [2].

Add another source: the prefecture of Florina website [3] which lists «Chlerina, Filourina», «Flerinon or Chlerinon» and Florina as names from 14th Century AD, and «Chlerinos» or «friend r fiber» from church documents from 1750 (obtained from this google translation, so some charactes may be wrong)

Also check google books and google scholar for plenty of sources using both names. There are also a few hits in google news in english.

Specifically page 152 of this book studying human rights from an anthropological perspective [4]. I quote "Unlike the routine and uncontentious use of the term 'Lerin' in everyday verbal exchanges" and then it goes to explain that the written form is perceived as provocative. Good for them, but we are writing an encyclopedia here, and there is a manual of style about what to do with alternative names. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Eric Naval, I would be happy to accept your argument if you followed it across wikipedia - including Skopje, Bitola, etc. But you seem to be making a stand on Florina only (unless I am wrong). Obviously this does not mean you are wrong about Florina, but it does mean that the second name issue is based on interpretation and discussion and not on wikipedia policy. In this light your stand looses ground and I am respectfully removing the second name while agreeing that it is necessary in the second paragraph, err, section. I look forward to your future 'stands'. Politis (talk) 18:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

As I told you on your talk page, I have spent a lot of hours looking at the situation of the name of Florina, and I'm not going to spend several more hours on Bitola or Skojpe Sjokpe Skopje unhearting sources for them because it's a volunteer project (and I already have work enough keeping the change here). Now, if you are interested on the slavic names, and if you think that those articles should have also the slavic name then find yourself the data for language, usage of the name by organizations, etc. I guess that if you actually do that or if point me to where that work has been already done, then I'll go there and argue for the alternative name on the lead. Remember that I have other interests than the Balkans, and that I'm not obligated to show my stand on anything. (altough at this point I feel tempted to just go to Bitola and make all the work just so you stop making that argument, and the only thing stopping is the thought that people on that article will just find another article without alternative name and tell me to go edit yet another article to show my "stand" before they accept the Monastiri name).

If you think that I'm not coherent on my stands, then I'll tell you that I live on a bilingual zone where one of the languages is not official, and I find similar problems on city articles, not only here but also on the spanish wikipedia and the catalan wikipedia (notice that I have given up on trying to solve most of the issues on the catalan wikipedia until it gets better on keeping catalan nationalism on check). Your comment just reminded me of checking articles of villages near where I live [5], where the catalan name has been removed for probably the same silly reasons that "Lerin" is removed from this article [6] despite it being an official name by the aragonese regional government. Actually, it has two official names "Alcampell" and "el Campell" as many other villages on the zone [7], so it's not just a translation, and yet it got as a catalan translation, and then it got removed, probably just because it's catalan and, as everybody knows, catalan is evil, and catalans want to use the catalan name to make territorial claims from 8 centuries ago and eventually integrate those villages on their territory and kill all culture except catalan culture. I think that you can see the paralelisms with the Balkans situation, right? (btw, I think that the alternative names were purposefully passed on Christmas Holidays so people wouldn't notice them and have time to organize a scandal over the catalan-ish names).

Now, if you will excuse, I will go uphold WP:BOLDTITLE on those articles [8][9][10][11], since they actually interest me, as opposed to some city on the Balkans I barely know anything about, and I can very easily find all the sources as I know very well where to find them, what keywords to use, and they are written using the same alphabet as all the languages I can speak so I don't have to use google's translator on half of the pages that I have to read so I can have the pleasure of trying to make sense of machine-translated english. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Since when did putting foreign names, other than that of the language of the country it's in, of a city become policy? Shall somebody come along and add Chinese or Japanese, or Mongolian, or Romanian, or even Serbian? WP:NCGN states adding only relevant foreign language names are permitted and should be listed. _{El Greco}^(talk) 00:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

How is it a foreign name when slavic spoken by half the population and there are traces of Slavic language on that area since century VI AD? "From the sixth century AD. J.-C., one detects traces of Slavs (and Slavic languages) in the territory of Greece today" (2.3 second paragraph, translated with google translator)[12] (You realize that the name of the language on the lead was changed to "local slavic" after a long discussion on which exact language it was, right?).

How about people start finding reliable scholar sources that say that the name is a foreign name and that it doesn't belong there, as per WP:V, instead of simply asserting that it's foreign and basing a decision on that? I have already provided sources for the city being called by its two names by scholar sources, and four comments above I quote an anthropology book saying that it's verbal usage is rutinary [13] (page 152).

As for WP:NCGN, the name is relevant because it's "used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place" (Actually, not only that, but we could be adding the archaic names too :P )

“ "From the sixth century AD. J.-C., one detects traces of Slavs (and Slavic languages) in the territory of Greece today. In the Byzantine period and the beginnings of the Ottoman period, involved a series of restructuring from the viewpoint of populations as well as settlements."

"The fact [is] that [in] Macedonia in the last century, we find all possible combinations of language and religion. From a religious point of view, the element Christian and [the] Muslim element constituted almost half the population each. Most of the Muslim element identified more or less to its Ottoman state. The Christian element was, in its vast majority, slavophone. The line Cvijic between grécophonie and slavophonie is generally accepted as indicative of the situation at the beginning of our century. In cities, Greek prevailed on the slave eventually supplant it gradually." (section 2.3 second and third paragraphs) [14]

”

So, yeah, slave was native to the area and it was spoken there, and it's not a recent language that got imported from outside. I suposse that the "Cvijic line" refers to some sort of geographical division drawn by geographer Jovan_Cvijić, if someone has an map with that division painted it would be nice to see it. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, I give up

You are right, WP:NCGN says that it's posible to leave only the most common name in english and move all alternative names to a separate section where a long explanation can be given (I should have given up already on July, mind you) --Enric Naval (talk) 21:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Why "Macedonian Slavic" is unacceptable

Okay, I've read the discussion on Fut.Perf.'s archived talk, and because it's archived, I've decided to express my opinion here, because this is a relatively high-profile article affected by the issue.

I'm aware why linguists find "Macedonian Slavic" acceptable (some are closer to the Macedonian standard, some are closer to the Bulgarian standard, yat border, ignorance of historical identity, yada yada), but I'm even more aware why PMK's trying to push this name and why it links to "Macedonian language". Having said that I'm aware, I'll say that I couldn't care less that it might be a good solution from a linguistic point of view if it's a horrible solution as seen by WP:NPOV.

I read that the "Bulgarian/Macedonian" solution is "cumbersome": cumbersome or not, we can't afford to support the Republic of Macedonia point of view at the expense of the Bulgarian and even the Greek one. And when neutrality calls for a descriptive solution, then we apply a descriptive solution: we list names as "Bulgarian/Macedonian/Local Slavic", if we have to, but we don't abandon neutrality.

Do I really have to talk about the historical reasons a Bulgarian name has to be mentioned in those articles and why it's more important than the later Macedonian and local Slavic codifications of Bulgarian (if "local Slavic" is even codified, I wouldn't care)? The Bulgarian language has the strongest historical grounds in the area of those three, if we have to assess that.

I am sure that you will be the first person to edit the article in order to present the "majority veiw". haha. PMK1 (talk) 10:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Now let's roll up our sleeves and, as we like to say, let's not "calculate the bill in the bartender's absence". Todor→Bozhinov 16:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

After some brainstorming, what's so bad with "South Slavic"? We can even add the "Macedonian language in Greece" section to South Slavic languages, except we remove "Macedonian" because the guys who speak those dialects aren't associated with the Republic of Macedonia in any way, for the most part.

For God's sake, think about identity and history once, the world's not only linguistics. If I can establish a "Republic of Lerin" in Florina and codify the local dialect of Bulgarian as "Lerinese", from a linguistic point of view all the dialects of Macedonia that are closer to Lerinese than to literary Bulgarian or Macedonian will be classified as Lerinese. If that is acceptable, I'm a tramway. Officially. Todor→Bozhinov 21:24, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This whole thing is a mess. You have some valid arguments there, i already mentioned in Kekrop's talk page that most of the names are no less associated with standard Bulgarian, at least historically. This solution was proposed with simplicity and modern linguistic consensus in mind, which are both decisive factors. "South Slavic" is more neutral as a reference but adding the section we added in Macedonian language there would be too much i think, our goal for neutrality here has little value in such a wide topic, to add "irrelevant" details. As a term it might be more vague than "local Slavic" but it can't imply that we take the written form from the dialects themselfs, which is inaccurate, but anyway, South Slavic languages as a target article at its current form is not very informative. Of course "Macedonian Slavic" doesn't serve it's purpose when placed in a historical context, in that case it's not just POV-pushing but giving completely false impressions. You would probably be content with something like [ [Macedonian Slavic in Greece|Macedonian] ]/[[Bulgarian] ] as a tag for most inclusions, but then again ethnic Macedonian editors might want to scrap the "Macedonian" pipe (and to that extent the relevant dialects section having no future at all in the target article). This way we also cut "Slavic" from the display in order to make it as simple as possible, which doesn't help, "Macedonian Slavic" is not very established as a reference to "standard Macedonian" which helped FP proposing it as it can as well imply "regional dialects" to the reader (i wouldn't know how much it succeeds, Greek readers don't understand it like that). As for the standard Lerinese argument, if something like that could affect the mainstream linguistic classification of course it would be thrown into mix here :P. It's not as simple as that but following the closest "standard language" is where "pure" lingustics end i guess. Figuring out if it's a distinct language has more to do with sociology, history and politics than measuring any linguistic distance, i'm not educated in the field but i can understand that at least. --Zakronian (talk) 22:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, I was beginning to feel lonely in here :D If a link to South Slavic languages would be too much of a burden to that article, I was comfortable with a pipe to "Slavic dialects of Greece". In any case, having the text as "Macedonian Slavic" and the pipe leading to "Macedonian language" is not acceptable, not from a Bulgarian point of view, and also not from a Greek point of view I believe. For me, "Macedonian Slavic" is a pretty established way to refer to the South Slavic variety as codified in the Republic of Macedonia.

Wikipedia is not a dictionary and so it's not only about linguistics... that was one of the points of the Lerinese thing. I understand what FP and the rest of the guys were trying to do, but on the way, they totally forgot about the other factors. To the joy of Republic of Macedonia Wikipedians, who are the only side that would support that decision. In the end, it's a very bad step in my opinion.

On a sidenote, I've raised the question of "linguistic consensus" before and all that I've been presented with is stuff written in collaboration with the Republic of Macedonia or citing their grammar books. That's not consensus. Todor→Bozhinov 23:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

"local Slavic" was a good compromise but as FP pointed out it's exclusive in the sense that it implies the dialectal form is different from that of the associated standard languages, more specifically (and most importantly for me) since the dialects are not codified they have no orthography, which means the written forms of the names are usually taken from those two languages. That won't stop me from using it instead of "Macedonian Slavic" in historical content where linguistics is not as important. The current formula hasn't stopped the edit-warring in general, so just join the party, lol. Seriously, i'm bit tired with this issue right now, it seems there's no ideal solution to agree to. If you can establish something better with the others i'm all for it. As for the linguistic consensus matter i haven't really looked any deeper than a few maps and sources here and FP's word. --Zakronian (talk) 06:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, i was preoccupied and forgot to comment on [ [Slavic dialects of Greece|South Slavic] ], it's not as intuitive as the other combinations but it seems a realistic approach. One could read it of course and think of Croatian as well, which doesn't even use Cyrillic.--Zakronian (talk) 06:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Remember Mr. Bozinov there is no need for WP:CRYSTALBALL. We are not talking about some "lerinese" language. The language spoken in Florina is the Macedonian one. I really cant see what your objection is. The macedonian language exists, and it is spoken in Florina, while bulgarian isnt. I assume your objection is only because Macedonian and not Bulgarian is put in the names section. Unless you have any valid objections i really cannot see why you are persisting. We all know that Macedonian (Slavic) is widely spoken there and not Bulgarian. PMK1 (talk) 02:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? Have you even read my comments? You continue inappropriately adding names to articles while you've been told there is no consensus about it. Todor→Bozhinov 15:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Guess what? You will never be happy with the so called non-consensus. It was agreed on, it does not count as a non-consensus just because you were not invited, as far as i can you are still a third party. The language in Florina is Macedonian, get over it. IT IS NOT BULGARIAN. And you konw it. It has been labelled Macedonian Slavic as a compromise. The names have been added where they are correctly due. Raise a serious concern and stop wasting my time before this dispute once again goes back on to here- Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars ever. What a petty dispute. PMK1 (talk) 22:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'll never be happy with the non-consensus, and I'll never accept the "decisions" that your edits are based on. To whom is "Macedonian Slavic" a compromise? It's the opposite of the Bulgarian point of view, it's the opposite of the Greek point of view, and it's the Republic of Macedonia point of view with "Slavic" added for some reason.

"Macedonian Slavic" doesn't mean "Slavic dialects spoken in Greek Macedonia" to the average reader, "Macedonian Slavic" means "the Slavic language spoken in the Republic of Macedonia, i.e. the Macedonian language". That's why it's a horrible solution and that's why it's getting reverted. Because it's strongly a POV solution.

The language of the Greek Slavophones has never been "Macedonian Slavic": it used to be called Bulgarian, but it has barely ever been called what you call Macedonian by its speakers.

I'm trying to resolve this mess that you have made: if you don't feel like wasting your time, give up your ridiculous claims and do something more useful. I don't mean to give in to something that I consider absurd, and consequently I'll continue to propose solutions. You can see that I'm being reasonable: I'm not swapping "Macedonian Slavic" with "Bulgarian" like the opposite of your vandalism would be, I'm suggesting various perfectly acceptable variants such as Slavic, South Slavic, Southeast Slavic, local Slavic, Bulgarian/Macedonian Slavic, etc. All of those are perfectly acceptable compromise solutions in my opinion. Todor→Bozhinov 23:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. "Macedonian Slavic" means "the Slavic language spoken in the Republic of Macedonia, i.e. the Macedonian language". guess what, The language spoken there IS the Macedonian language, this is a linguistic fact.

Macedonian Slavic was chosen as many people call it Slavomacedonian in greece. This is not the veiw of the ROM because ethnic Macedonians dont use "Macedonian Slavic" but simply "Macedonian. The bulgarian POV is that Macedonian is a dialect of bulgarian spokenm by politically disoriented bulgarians. And the Greek POV is slavika, dopia, slavomacedonian. Even on greek wikipedia, slavomacedonian is used and not this "south slavic/SE slavic/dopia". Why do you detest having the word "MACEDONIAN" as the approriate word use, after all we are talking about the real world. Where the Macedonian language and the Macedonian people exist. PMK1 (talk) 05:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

How funny that master Bozhinov has chosen to declare the agreement "null and void" simply because he "wasn't invited" to an open discussion. If you actually care about creating a consensus maybe you should cut the mindless reverting and contribute to discussion (Hint: "you are all wrong" is not a good start). Perhaps the reason nobody decided to notify you was because they knew stupid shit like this would happen. And good work on trying this when the one guy who hasn't lost his nerve with idiotic nationalism is on holiday. BalkanFever 07:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Why are you guys always trying to avoid the actual dispute and you're always turning it into nationalist jabber? I'm not going to explain to PMK1 once again that what he said isn't the Bulgarian POV and that I'm well aware the Macedonian language and people exist. Do you think I'm stupid or what?

Now, Fever's personal attacks I'm not going to comment on at large. It's simple: if only one side participated in the discussion, it's not a consensus.

My arguments await unanswered. If you're actually looking for a consensus, do discuss, but I won't leave this issue alone and, like it or not, it will be reconsidered. Todor→Bozhinov 14:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is meant to be inclusive, not exclusive. I'm inclined to leave the Macedonian Slavic names there if the Bulgarian names be included as well and if the Greeks don't mind. The Slavophones in Greek Macedonia considered themselves Bulgarians until the 20th century and they were regarded as such by most foreign researchers; many eminent Bulgarians were born in that region and even more stem from there. What's more, parts of the area were under Bulgarian rule during the World Wars; needless to say they've never been in the Republic of Macedonia. Next to being called "Slavic" or "local", the Slavic language of that land is still called Bulgarian by some of its speakers. References are all in Slavic dialects of Greece, the umbrella article that you're ignoring.

And just don't reproach me for not discussing enough: I'm the one who's looking for solutions here while you're reverting me blindly, I find it utterly unacceptable that someone with one (and useless at that) comment on this talk page can accuse me of not discussing. Todor→Bozhinov 15:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually it seems there was a solution until you threw a tantrum... BalkanFever 08:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You are inclined to leave the macedonian slavic versions but only if the bulgarian is also added, so you are in fact trying to push the bulgarian POV. Interesting, seeing as the bulgarian language is not spoken in central and west greek macedonia. It is a linguistic fact that The Macedonian language exists in greece, i cannot see why this cannot be mentioned. Please provide some evidences for your case or the matter can be considered closed. Even greek wikipedia has the "slavomacedonian" language spoken in greece by 0.6% of the population, [15], even on that version of wikipedia this "local" slavic rubbish is not used. Interesting. PMK1 (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the Greek Wikipedia does not claim that the "Slavomacedonian" language is spoken by 0.6% of the population; it is merely reporting the results of a survey conducted by polling company VPRC, according to which 0.6% of the 1095 respondents said they spoke it, i.e. a grand total of 7 people. The same article also contains a disclaimer: The survey was conducted with a sample of 1095 individuals, a number perhaps too small to derive safe conclusions. For example, questions have been raised regarding the credibility of the survey due to the large number of Italian speakers nationwide (1.4%), the nonexistence of Pontic speakers in Attica, the large percentage of Turkish speakers in northern Attica (10%), the absence of Romani speakers in Athens and Thessaloniki, etc. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 14:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I guess you'll be repeating the same thing over and over again, "you weren't there so shut up". You claim the Macedonian language is spoken in Greek Macedonia, you claim it's a linguistic fact that this language is Macedonian and not Bulgarian or even "Lerinese", so far I've seen no universal scholarly consensus on that matter: because there isn't one. But that's okay, you claim your thing and you push your POV, just don't make it sound as if it's accepted by everyone: because it isn't.

So I'm asking: would it be acceptable if I leave the Macedonian Slavic names as they are and just add the Bulgarian names? Would they be acceptable to you merely on historical grounds (historical identity of the population, medieval and World Wars rule by Bulgaria, etc.)? The articles about Skopje and Bitola list relevant historical names, as do those about Sofia and Plovdiv, so I don't see how this would affect your POV. You claim your thing, we claim our thing, we both have our own arguments to have our names there: what's the problem? Do you find the Bulgarian names somehow unacceptable on historical grounds?

I'm tired of hearing the same invalid arguments, so please, once, read what I'm suggesting and try to actually discuss instead of attempting to end this discussion in your favour. Todor→Bozhinov 15:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

But the Bulgarian and "Macedonian" names are almost always identical, which is why local Slavic was the lesser of multiple evils. Shame. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 15:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

True, and that's why I was so keen to accept "local Slavic". The harm has been done, however, so I hope my last suggestion would be acceptable to the Greek side. Todor→Bozhinov 15:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

To use a traditional Greek proverb, the Greek side sees it as two donkeys fighting in a foreign barn. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 15:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

To answer with a Bulgarian proverb, by giving in to "Macedonian Slavic" the Greek side consciously put a hedgehog in their underwear. You should have seen this coming. Todor→Bozhinov 17:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

In case you hadn't realized, it isn't up to the Greek side at all. The hedgehog is a protected species. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 17:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

• None the less, "lerinese" is not a language (why are we even dicussing such a thing)?. I should not have jumped the gun earlier, but none the less they have used "slavomacedonian" as opposed to dopia, or slavika. I am not just repeating the same thing over and over again, prove that bulgarian and not macedonian is spoken in west/central greek macedonia in todays world. PMK1 (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The Greek Wikipedia uses the term for the official language of a neighbouring country, not the native language of the Slavophones of Greece. Incidentally, the relevant article on the language describes it as a spoken (rather than written) Bulgarian idiom which was renamed by the Yugoslavs in 1944 and only acquired a written form when it became an official language of Yugoslavia in 1945. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 08:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I, for one, expected that much. BalkanFever 08:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

How kind. It does, of course, also mention Misirkov and the studies which began to distinguish the language from Bulgarian as far back as the nineteenth century, so in that sense it isn't that far off the mark. The point is that it was a minority view until the politics of newly communist Yugoslavia dictated otherwise. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 09:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I am sure that you will be the first user to edit the page accordingly, to the "majority" veiw perhaps? Interestingly though, it is the same native language spoken by these Slavophone Greek people. PMK1 (talk)

That's what everyone used to say about Bulgarian and "Macedonian", didn't they? As for the Greek Wikipedia, it merely reflects the majority view among Greek-speakers. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 11:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

TruePMK1 (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Because the proposal to add Bulgarian on historical grounds met no opposition, I have added the Bulgarian names separate from the Macedonian Slavic names; where both the Cyrillic and the transliteration are the same, I've listed the name only once but the languages are still linked separately and not grouped, so as to retain the pipe to the section on Greek Slavic in Macedonian language. Todor→Bozhinov 19:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Met no opposition? Do you not speak english? Bulgarian is not spoken in those places. I am reverting all of your recent edits as they are besides the point. Please provide something else or the names will remain that way. I hope is isnt due to the Tsarigrad Bulgarians? PMK1 (talk) 23:32, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Did you read my rationale above? How does it concern you that Bulgarian is mentioned too? Isn't it for the Greeks to decide what languages are relevant? The Bulgarian name is notable even only for historical reasons, beyond the dispute we're having here. So I'd ask you to stay away from this: it's outside this dispute. I won't say why Bulgarian is relevant for a third time, you can read above. I just don't see why you have to repeat "Bulgarian is not spoken there" when I couldn't care less about what you think; that point is of no importance if other points provide enough notability for the name. I don't understand it: you keep Aromanian, Albanian, Turkish, Katharevousa and you remove only Bulgarian "because it's not spoken in those places".

Back to my versions. Enough with your hypocrisy. Todor→Bozhinov 13:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

When the term 'Lerin' was coined, the language was known and referred to as Bulgarian. Just because a new official language emerges in 1940s called 'Macedonian' does not mean it has the right to distort the past records. Even local dictionaries called it Bulgarian. Politis (talk) 16:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Politis your response is not even worth an answer. As for you Todor, put bulgarian in places where it is spoken. ie. Ser and to the east. But in places like Kastoria and Florina it is innapropriate. By the same logic, Serbian, Ancient Greek and Roman are all equally "historical", but those languages are not used by a minority group, the same is the case your mother language. PMK1 (talk) 20:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll put Bulgarian where the policies deem appropriate, not where you say: accept it, the guidelines are on my side. You clearly have no idea as to what names are relevant in a geographic article. All Serbian names in Macedonia are variants of the Bulgarian names, if there are any changes at all. And I don't think Serbs have any interest in an area they've barely ever ruled and where they've never been present as an ethnicity: they have no history there, to put it simply. But I know you like Serbs a lot. Now, Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman names are always given where known, but most villages were founded later (usually in medieval times or during the Ottoman rule, if this is known at all), only some of the major cities in the region existed in Antiquity. Of course, ancient names are an absolute must because the Ancient Greeks and the Romans had a long presence in most parts of the Balkans. So here's your case solved, happy? Todor→Bozhinov 21:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

As for Politis, he has a very relevant point: your language was only codified in the 1940s, prior to that it was my language. And all names were given before the 1940s, needless to say.

P.S. I'm not sure how you define where Bulgarian is spoken and where Macedonian is spoken: does the new official policy of the Republic of Macedonia prescribe the partition of Greek Macedonia between Bulgaria and your country as a way to solve the naming dispute? ;) It's a dialect continuum, man, there are no freaking borders. If you've read somewhere that Bulgarian is only spoken to the east of the Yat line in Greece (judging by your mentioning of Serres and this map), then you should know that by the same logic the idiom of my own hometown should not be classified as Bulgarian because it's west of the line. Don't be modest: have your names in Serres Prefecture too if you like (I see you've already added the Macedonian name for the city of Serres), just don't remove what I add without thinking it over. Todor→Bozhinov 21:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

My parents are from the Kostur (Kastoria) region. We consider our language as being Bulgarian. Kostolata —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.52.86 (talk) 21:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

A Canadian IP-cum-Exarchist. Now that's a new twist... PMK1, I'm not quite following your argument. You say that Bulgarian is irrelevant because it is "not used by a minority group", but the text over at Macedonian Slavic acknowledges the existence of Bulgarian-identifying Slavophones in Macedonia even today. One would assume they refer to their language as one of the variants of Bulgarian mentioned: bălgarski, balgàrtzki, bolgàrtski or bulgàrtski. Why would those names be there otherwise?

In any case, I don't see why we can't go back to having a simple link to Slavic dialects of Greece, where both POVs are dealt with adequately. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 08:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

PMK1, try this as an exercise, find out how the language was called in the past. I have tried this test myself and the answer was 'Bulgarian' until the 20th century, and then I started seeing the gradual introduction of the terms 'Macedo-Bulgarian', 'Slavophone' and much later 'Makedonski'. If you find references to the language as 'Makedonski', I would be greatefull to you for communicating them to me. But if you cannot back up your comment with FACTS, please abstain from the argument. And please remember all names were given before the 1940s. Politis (talk) 10:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I have read all of your comments. Whatever the langauge was called 100 years ago, today it is called Macedonian. We are not talking about what it was called pre-1913, but what it is called now, which is Macedonian.

Kekrops, if i suddenly begin to identify as an ethnic bulgarian, but still keep using my native language (macedonian), that doesnt make macedonian simply bulgarian. I would still be speaking macedonian.

Todor, i am very aware that in pirin macedonia and western bulgaria the Yat split would not be a good measure on the are swap from macedonian and bulgarian. But in greek macedonia, this is a very good measure as it is just one of the many transitional features as the language slowly becomes either macedonian or bulgarian. It is really inappropriate for bulgarian names to be added in places where the bulgarian language is not spoken, but where the macedonian language is. By the same logic half of ROM could have "bulgarian" names there, purely for historical reasons.

Todor i dont care if you add your Vasil Kanchov data, whereby all of the villagers were bulgarians, i will not revert you for that. But addding Bulgarian toponyms in the hope of claiming the macedonian language as your own, really just cant be tolerated.

The language today is known as Macedonian. This language is spoken in west and central greek macedonia. Linguistically the bulgarian language is not spoken there by any native minority group. These people speak variants of the Macedonian language, not bulgarian. PMK1 (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Known as "Macedonian" by whom? The "Macedonians"? Who cares? ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 07:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Kwown as "Macedonian" by the rest of the world except for Greece and Bulgaria. But apparently that is not enough. PMK1 (talk) 09:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Not enough to censor their points of view, which is what you appear to be trying to do. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 09:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

PMK1, aren't you tired of repeating the same things when nobody actually cares about your POV? You've lost this round, man. Game over. Get busy with something else. I've left your language there and I've even been adding it and you insist on removing perfectly relevant names even after you've been reverted by various people a number of times. I'm not claiming anything as my own here: we have our history in that region and we have our perfectly relevant names, that is all. Live with it.

But I'm glad you've conceded that "The language today is known as Macedonian", it's a rare occasion of somebody from your place actually recognizing that it was Bulgarian :) Thank you for supporting my national POV.

Oh, and Pirin Macedonia is in western Bulgaria, but why are you separating those two, are you planning an invasion of the region so you can make it part of Greater Macedonia? :) What weaponry are you going to use, I thought you scrapped the old Russian tanks we gave you... Man, Macedonism is funny. Todor→Bozhinov 14:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

You must be talking about these people, todor? And let me tell you they are not singing Мила Родино. But with songs like Biser Balkanski they must of course be Slavophone Greeks, (@ Kekrops). Enjoy the video and enjoy the ethnic Macedonian culture, songs and dances all of which thrives in the Hellenic Republic. PMK1 (talk) 01:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

"Thrives"? Really? I thought Greece was supposed to be a quasi-Nazi régime that violated human and minority rights in every conceivable way. Make up your mind. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 11:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't hear Denes nad Makedonija either... I expected at least that if you're to show me anything. And why the heck would they sing Mila Rodino anyway? They're playing local folk songs and dancing horo, Mila Rodino is no freaking horo, man. It's not a damn drinking song. You don't play an anthem when you're getting drunk at your place, or do you? Especially not an anthem of a neighbouring state when you have a Greek citizenship and, in most cases, national consciousness. And to enlighten you, songs from Macedonia are extremely popular in pubs anywhere in Bulgaria. They're just well-known and part of our tradition as much as part of yours: remember, when those songs came into existence, you were us. In none of the songs did I hear anything like "I'm an ethnic Macedonian Slav like the majority of the population of the Republic of Macedonia, surely not a freaking Bulgarian and by all means not a damn Greek", and I doubt such folk songs exist :) For God's sake, if I wasn't looking at the descriptions as to in which village each clip was filmed, I'd think I'm listening to yet another recording of an uneventful evening at a perfectly average Bulgarian mehana. You've failed again. Todor→Bozhinov 19:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)\

"Ne se srami, ne se plaši, Makedonec da si!", "Edna misla imame, eden život živeeme, Makedonija cela da e, sekoj da ja znae".[16] Not your average slavophone song, not a "local" slavic song, not singing in their "dopia dialect", Vojo Stojanovski 1996 Skopje Fest. These people must clearly be Bulgarophone Greeks. PMK1 (talk) 02:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In other words, singers have been brought in from Skopje and have leapt at the opportunity to throw in a couple of patriotic songs which the Slavophone locals may understand but whose message they most often do not care much for, try as you may. What's the big deal? ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 05:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

In the book Bulgarian folk songs by Miladinov Brothers of 1861, which was (much later) published in the Republic of Macedonia by the titles Macedonian folk songs and Folk songs there are 158 mentions of "bugarin", "blgarin", "bugarche", "bugarka", etc. Of course, in the Macedonian editions, these were either changed to "makedonec", "makedonka", etc. or where the rhyme didn't allow, omitted or replaced with other text. --Lantonov (talk) 09:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Kekrops if there was a barnstar for excuses and bullshit it would go to you. You definately do a good job. When you grow up you should become a real estate agent or a used car salesman. You've convinced me to buy.

Would you like the simple explanation? These people are in fact apart of the Ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece, proud of their language (Macedonian), customs and culture. These people do not need to import singers to sing about Macedonia, they can do it themselves. As for the message they care even more than me or you, they are the ones stuck in the middle. They, unfortunately for you, have no intention of submitting to a forein culture, and to become grecoman macedonians or slavophone greeks. Just like in the song, "do not be embaressed, do not be frightened, to be a Macedonian", they are not scared to be proud of what they really are. Macedonians. PMK1 (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Cut the crap, Kocovski. You know and I know that singers and musicians are imported from across the border to perform at such events, and the songs they choose to sing prove nothing about the ethnic identity of the villagers. I may not speak Slavic, but I certainly know the difference between a Skopjan accent and an "Aegean" one with its inevitable Greek undertones. In any case, I resent your suggestion that the Slavophone Greeks are anything but Macedonians. If all the song is saying is that they should be proud to be Macedonians, they have no reason to feel excluded by or object to it. They are Macedonians, after all. And in their view, being Macedonian means being Greek. You may not like it, but that's just how it is. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 12:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all i respect your people, please show some respect to my people. We dont speak "Slavic" nor do we have "Skopjan" accents, only people from the city of Skopje would have a skopski accent. As you may or may not know, Skopje is the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia.

"We live one life, we have one thought, Macedonia to be whole, so that everybody knows". What crap, you do not understand. Grecoman Macedonians do not dance to song such as "edna misla imame" or "kade ste makedonchinja" or "Vardare, Pirin kaj ti e, Vardare, Egej kaj ti e" or "Svadba Makedonska". I feel like a broken record. These people are ethnic Macedonians, just like their cousins across an imaginary line to the north. As i said, you have 1001 excuses. But i dont need to prove to you, most of all that these people are ethnically non-Greeks. But Macedonians. PMK1 (talk) 12:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

And we all know that they constitute a small minority within the overall Slavophone community of Macedonia. Stop projecting your own brand of exclusive nationalism onto the entire crowd. Dancing along to a song cannot and does not define a person's ethnicity, especially when the performer is not even a member of the community in question. You feel like a broken record because you are. As for your "respect", it apparently extends to using the pejorative and extremely offensive term "Grecoman". No thanks, we don't need it. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 14:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

- - - - PMK1 (talk) 22:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

This whole discussion has grown tl;dr, so forgive me if I'm repeating something at this point. Just one thing: if you're going to add "Bulgarian", then the other link must return to plain "Macedonian", so we end up with "Macedonian/Bulgarian" or similar. There is then no more reason to have any alternative "Macedonian Slavic" or "Local Slavic" or whatever links. The only reason for having those was to have the Bulgarian option covered. But there are only those two options: the language is either MKD or BLG, there's no third independent language it could be. The different local naming preferences are not a reason for having such a divergent link. No matter what the locals prefer to call or not call their dialects, it doesn't make them a third language different from either of the two main contenders.

And BTW, please apply some reason and, if you need two language names, at least combine them into one wherever possible. I just saw, in one article: "(Greek: Κάτω Κλεινές, Macedonian Slavic: Долно Клештино, Dolno Kleštino; Bulgarian: Долно Клещино, Dolno Kleshtino)". Damnit, that's longer than the whole freaking rest of that freaking stub article, and it's the same freaking name in both! (And don't come telling me "š" would be an incorrect Romanization for Bulgarian; it's not.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the main point of the entire thing is that "Macedonian Slavic" isn't suitable if we're to cover Bulgarian. Most people (me including), I believe, would think it's just a "politically correct" (with respect to Greece) name for the Macedonian language. "Local Slavic" or "South Slavic" was what I proposed initially, thinking I would find support because I was proposing a reasonable alternative to an utterly flawed proposal; my following edits were met with furious reverting by PMK1 and BalkanFever, keen on defending their POV. Then I tried adding Bulgarian next to Macedonian, not touching PMK1's input: even more reverts. It wasn't until everyone else began reverting PMK1 that he stopped undoing my changes.

As for "Macedonian/Bulgarian", have that conversation with the Greeks. For me that's fine, for them, I really doubt so. Don't forget about WP:MOSMAC and the fact that we're dealing with villages that are all in Greece, leading to potential confusion: "In articles where there is a need to distinguish between the modern Macedonian language and Greek dialects or the ancient Macedonian language... Use "Macedonian Slavic" or "Slavic Macedonian" to distinguish it from "Macedonian Greek" and/or the Ancient Macedonian language". For me and for an educated reader the Cyrillic and the similarity/identity to Bulgarian would make it clear it's the modern Macedonian language, but an article has to be foolproof in my opinion.

How would you deal with the Slavic names of Kato Kleines? Š is OK for a Bulgarian transliteration (I've always been a fan of scientific transliteration because the current system lacks any way to transliterate Ъ correctly, among other issues like no complete "reverse compatibility", i.e. going back to Cyrillic from a transliterated text), but we have differences in Cyrillic too: when Serbian typewriters were introduced in Vardar Macedonia after WWII, they lacked the beautiful letter Щ :) Todor→Bozhinov 14:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Bah, didn't even notice the difference between ш and щ there. But so what. I must say I have even less patience with the Bulgarian POV obsession than with the Greek one in these cases. The "Bulgarian" view is internationally fringe. Everybody outside the narrow circles of those who have ideological stakes in the issue treat that language as Macedonian. Insisting of additional language tags serves no information value whatsoever but only to tickle the national egotism of a certain POV team. I'm not happy with having article leads cluttered with cruft only because of this pissing (i.e. national territory-marking) contest. That the place has a Slavic name is interesting encyclopedic information; but what form to choose to present that Slavic name should be a simple pragmatic issue: choose the closest standard language that is at all relevant, that a reader can readily identify, and that we have decent encyclopedic background information about. Macedonian fits the bill, problem solved. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

As I pointed out to PMK1, whether to include the Bulgarian name is beyond the dispute of what language the Slavophone Greeks speak: based on self-identification, it is neither Bulgarian nor Macedonian, and I've already addressed the closest standard language point: linguistically it might work (though I have some doubts about the way that "closest language" is measured), but politically it fails. The Bulgarian name is the original Slavic name, it is relevant to the article because those places have been part of Bulgaria (all of them in the Middle Ages, most also during WWI and WWII), the local population has undeniably identified as ethnically Bulgarian and the local language was universally called Bulgarian before the Macedonian language was codified not a long time ago. Just like we have the usually purely historical Aromanian, Turkish, Albanian and Katharevousa names, we'll have the Bulgarian name.

I believe I'm being reasonable enough by suggesting and approving "South Slavic", "Southeast Slavic" or "Local Slavic" + link to "Slavic dialects of Greece", but anything beyond that line is going to be clearly a support for the Macedonian POV. Personally, I believe I'm showing some good will for a compromise, but in any case, the Bulgarian POV is prominent enough and should be respected. Todor→Bozhinov 15:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for at least confirming that you are viewing the question in precisely these terms: as a pissing contest in staking out territory for nationalist claims. I'm sorry, but I detest this attitude. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I was shut out of the previous discussion about "Macedonian Slavic" with the kind words "Your opinions are unwelcome here". Welcome or not, my opinions were proven and disregarding them led to the POV mess we have now. First of all: the consensus about the Slavic languages that were spoken in now Greek Macedonia is that they are dialects of Bulgarian language. I don't have to rant or cite nationalistic sites to prove this. It is enough to look in the library of the Institute of Macedonian Language in Skopje, where they have serious foreign linguistic literature, some of which from the archive of the famous Macedonian linguist Acad. Vidoeski. This is taken from Macedonian language:

• MACEDONISCHEN STUDIEN, Vatroslav Oblak - 1896, in German
• Zur Sprachlichen Beurtellung der Macedonischen slaven,Leonhard Masing - 1890, in German
• Zur Laut und Akzentlehre der Macedonischen dialekte,Leonhard Masing - 1891, in German
• Dwie gwary macedońskie(Suhe i Wysoka w Soluńskiem) – Teksty , Mieczysław Małecki - 1934, in Polish
• Dwie gwary macedońskie(Suhe i Wysoka w Soluńskiem) – Teksty, Mieczysław Małecki - 1936, in Polish
• Documents, Contes et Chansons Slaves de l'Albanie du Sud, Andre Mazon - 1936, in French
• L'Evangeliaire de Kulakia Un parler Slave du Bas-Vardar, Andre Mazon et Andre Vaillant - 1938, in French

and these ethnographic and linguistic works were cited on previous occasions:

• ETHNOGRAPHIE VON MAKEDONIEN, Geschichtlich-nationaler, spraechlich-statistischer Teil von Prof. Dr. Gustav Weigand, Leipzig, Friedrich Brandstetter, 1924, ASIN: B0018H0Y82,LCCN: 25024383, LC: DR701.M4 W4, OCLC:6692519, Open Library
• Die Slaven in Griechenland von Max Vasmer, Mit eine Karte, Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1941 (Zentral Antiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Leipzig 1970)
• A.M. Selishtchev. "Studies in Macedonian Dialectology", Kazan, 1918 (in Russian)
• Andre Mazon. Contes slaves de la Macédoine sud-occidentale. Étude linguistique, textes et traduction; notes de folklore, Travaux publiés par l’Institut d’études slaves I, Paris, 1923
• K. Sandfeld. Balkanfilologien (København, 1926, MCMXXVI), p. 56 - cite: "sproget i Makedonien er bulgarsk tiltrods for, at dele deraf er lagt ind under Jugoslavien"

For instance look at the map in vol. I, p. XV of Malecki where it is written "Bulgarian" in 4 places. Unless one is not in the habit of automatically changing "Bulgarian" with "Macedonian" in all historical sources (a professional disease of RM historians), one cannot say that this is a consensus about the Macedonian (as opposed to Bulgarian) nature of these dialects. So I doubt that all linguists that studied these dialects have "fringe view" while the view of some biased socio-linguists are the "consensus".
Second, I come and tell you that "š" is incorrect Romanisation of Bulgarian ш at the present time. The correct Romanisation is "sh", which was officially accepted with a decree by Bulgarian Parliament in 2006. --Lantonov (talk) 15:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Whenever I see this random heap of pseudo-references quoted, headed by "Max Vasmer", my auto-pilot just switches into automatic ignore-not-worth-further-debating mode. That book is about the freaking Middle Ages. Citing it for the million-and-third time does not make your argument look better. If you want to be taken seriously, at least try to maintain a modest appearance of having read and understood what you're citing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to accept that you are joking unless you want me to believe that year 1911 is in the Middle Ages. For instance:Gebiet von Serrat (Serres), Nigrita und Demir-Hisar (Siderokastron): Die nördlichen Teile dieses Gebietes hatten noch 1911 slavische Bevölkerung, deren Ortsnamen neben den griechischen überliefert sind. In derartigen Fällen brauchte eine Etymologie nicht erst gefunden zu werden. Die in zwei Sprachen erhaltenen Namen stelle ich hier zusammen, weil sie für die Beurteilung der nur auf etymologischem Wege erfaßbaren Namen wichtig sind. ... Von bulgarischer Seite ist D. Matov mit einer Lehnwörteruntersuchung Grъcko-bъlgarski studii, Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija IX (1893), 21 ff. hervorgetreten. Auf dem Gebiete der Ortsnamenforschung verdienen außer der obengenannten Arbeit von I. Šišmanov auch noch die nicht wenigen Aufsätze St. Mladenovs Erwähnung, diein ZONF III 138—144 verzeichnet sind. Wichtig sind besonders seine Deutungen von Flußnamen, Spisanie na bъlg. Akademija X (1915) und XVI (1918). Sonst erwähne ich A. Iširkov, Izvestija na Etnograf. Muzej II (1922) S. 1 ff., als einen Ansatz zur bulgarischen Ortsnamenforschung. Wenig ergiebig, weil viel zu allgemein gehalten sind des letzteren Verfassers Schriften: Prinos kъm etnografija na Makedonskitě Slavěni, 2. Auflage, Sofia 1907, und ZapadnaTrakija, Sofia 1920 (= Geografska Biblioteka Nr. 1). Als dringendes Bedürfnis der Wissenschaft bleibt die Forderung nach einem vollständigen Verzeichnis aller bulgarischen Ortschaften Thrakiens bestehen. So tell me how you understand this. Better ignore and not debate on the losing side: this is a good self-defence strategy. Middle Age pseudo-reference? What a terminology! --Lantonov (talk) 17:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to say I do find calling Max Vasmer, one of the greatest Slavists of the 20th century, a "pseudo-reference", shocking; is that perhaps because he lacks a (mostly fake than not) –ski family name? His book is a study of toponyms, for God's sake, that's the same names that we're discussing now: of course it won't talk mostly about the modern times, those toponyms have been in existence for many centuries before that. Before there was any Macedonian language and ethnic Macedonians, there were the Bulgarian toponyms in question. And now we're asked to put up with those same toponyms being dubbed "Macedonian Slavic"? You can't simply dismiss our arguments as invalid here. We have a point.

P.S. Ignore your policy of TLDR and read my argument about Lerinese above, it will make you understand how ridiculous it is to rely on "closest standard language" for those things. I'm officially codifiying a Lerinese language based on the Bulgarian dialect of Florina. Because this is the closest standard language, I declare that from now on, most Bulgarian names in Florina Prefecture shall be credited as Lerinese instead of Bulgarian. F*ck history, tradition, ethnic identity, local names and politics, if it's the closest standard language, it's the language, simple as that, right. Todor→Bozhinov 17:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

D'oh. Vasmer wrote at a time when a Bulgarian/Macedonian distinction was hardly yet a topic of wide interest. And he wrote about a time when it was totally irrelevant. All his argument is framed within a general dichotomy of Bulgarian versus Serbian. MK was simply not yet on his radar. Look, guys, I agree with you: it of course makes no sense to project a BG-MK distinction back into the middle ages. We can take for granted that serious people don't do that. So don't throw the fact that an early-20th-century scholar did not talk about Macedonian when talking about the Middle Ages at me as if it was an argument for whatever. That might impress a nationalist of the opposing party, but it doesn't impress me. But that has nothing to do with whether an MK-BG distinction can or should be made today. And, Todor: if you or I invent a standard Florinese language and f*ck history, that's of no importance. If the world out there invents standard Florinese and f*cks history, we'll reflect that fact. So far, the world out there hasn't done so. It has, however, invented a standard Macedonian language (including f*ing history if you like), and we will reflect that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear that, felt more honest and reasonable, despite the euphemisms for "didn't exist" that you employed :) Of course we'll reflect the standard Macedonian language, that has never actually been out of the question. However, not reflecting Bulgarian is out of the question too. So let's not get stuck in monotonous argumentation, let's just make it clear: I want a plain, unambiguous, universally acceptable, neutral and working solution. "Macedonian" or "Macedonian Slavic" alone isn't any of those. I'd either stick with the current "slash solution" ("BG/MK") or adopt an "umbrella solution" ("South Slavic" and the like). If we're to go for the umbrella term, I'd prefer "South Slavic" or "Southeast Slavic" because "local Slavic" would look weird with the codified spelling and pronunciation of BG or MK, and we certainly don't want to research how every single village pronounces its name in the local tongue. Isn't that reasonable and well-meaning? I really am doing my best to come up with a solution that suits every side, beyond the personal/national POV that I have. Todor→Bozhinov 20:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

So when did the world invent the "Macedonian" language, if not in 1944 or the Middle Ages? ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 04:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I am more or less satisfied with Future Perfect's answer in the sense that we are all working towards a common solution. "South Slavic" is best for now, except that it is too general, sounding like "Yugoslavic", etc. connotations. Because we speak of geographic regions (Thrace and Macedonia) that are affected, I propose some wider geographic designation on the lines of "Aegean Slavic" or "Mediterranian Slavic". "Macedonian and Thracian Slavic" that I proposed before was rejected as too clumsy. Historically, this has always been a mixed region with Greek and Bulgarian ethnicities and languages predominating, followed by Vlachs and Albanians. Macedonian language was invented in 1944 to be used as an official language in (Socialist) Republic of Macedonia. The regions we are talking about do not belong to RM. And who is the linguist saying that people in Thrace speak Macedonian language ? --Lantonov (talk) 07:13, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Who the heck has ever been talking about Thrace??? We're talking (mainly western) Macedonia. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Everyone who talks about "Slavic dialects in Greece" should also include the Slavic dialects spoken in the Greek part of Thrace. --Lantonov (talk) 14:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

We're talking about Florina and surroundings. Whoever said we need to have a single formula for the whole of northern Greece? For Thrace, the primary affinity with Bulgarian is pretty undisputed, as far as I'm aware. Nobody claims those for Macedonian, so there's no problem to solve. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The dialects spoken in Thrace belong to a different langauge (Bulgarian), while the dialects in Western and Central Greek Macedonia belong to Macedonian. What is so hard to comprehend about that? Todor continues to talk about history of the region, yes 100 years ago, many peasents had a pro-bulgarian feeling. (they still spoke their native dialect Macedonian. Peasent and villagers did not speak literary Bulgarian or even some dialect/language closer to Bulgarian than todays Macedonian.) If so called history was to be an issue then every village and town in ROM should have the bulgarian name attached to it. What a ridiculous possibilty. PMK1 (talk) 02:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing ridiculous about it. Towns and villages in the Republic of Macedonia have their Bulgarian names now, in the present moment. With the exception of a few villages called Bugarevo, Bugarshtica, Bugarene, etc. which acquired new names with the aim to hide and forget their connection with Bulgaria, settlements in RM as a whole are called exactly the same as 100 years ago. Some villages had their Turkish names changed but this was so everywhere in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia ... . What you call "pro-Bulgarian" feeling is a Bulgarian nationality ("I am a Bulgarian from the region of Macedonia", not a Greek, not a Vlach, not an Albanian, but a Bulgarian, speaking Bulgarian language). People who had "pro-Greek feeling" (in fact, voluntarily acquired Greek nationality) but spoke Bulgarian language were called Grekomans (Bulgarophone Greeks) which is slightly pejorative according to the books I have read. The thing which is hard to comprehend (linguistically) is why the same dialect is called in one book Bulgarian, and in another book Macedonian. It is easy to comprehend this politically, though. The dialects spoken in Thrace form a dialect continuum with those spoken in Macedonia (Lower Moesia), and with those spoken in Upper Moesia. They are all Bulgarian dialects. So is written in the archived linguistic books that are hidden in the basements of the National Library and the Institute of Macedonian Language in Skopje. Here the question is all about history (Lerin is historical name) and, in fact, a history from a period 40 years before invention of Macedonian language. That's why we continue to talk about the history of the region. Hundred years ago, very few few people on the Balkans spoke literary language, be it Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian, Albanian, or Turkish. --Lantonov (talk) 06:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought that you were possibly different, but you are all the same. In the year 2009 the bulgarian langauge does not strech to korca, gora and ptoleimaida. We are in the 21st century, you are obviously stuck in the 1890s please move on. That rubbish is welcome on Bulgarian wikipedia but not in the real world. PMK1 (talk) 11:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you expected from me, but if it is participation in the campaign to change everything "Bulgarian" with "Macedonian", sorry. And now, in 2009, Korca and Gora are Albania/Kosovo, and Ptolemaida is Greece. This fact is as disagreeable to me as it is to you, but it is a fact nonetheless. What is left is their history which is great part Greek/Albanian, small part Bulgarian, and a tiny bit Serbian.--Lantonov (talk) 11:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

As much as is their history, Macedonian, Turkis, Roman and Byzantine. But the language used by the local "slavophones" is the Macedonian one. PMK1 (talk) 12:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Turkish, Roman and Byzantine, granted. As for Macedonian, too, but at the time of Thracian/Odrysian kingdom in our common land. --Lantonov (talk) 13:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

As for Macedonian, at the time of Paionian Kingdom in your common land, too PMK1. Jingby (talk) 14:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of it, how nice it would be if you simply chose to appropriate the name Paionians instead of Macedonians. We would all be happy now.--Avg (talk) 03:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Nah, not us :) Todor→Bozhinov 19:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 April 2015

Florina (Greek: Φλώρινα, known also by several alternative names) is a town and municipality in mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'. It is also the Metropolitan seat for the region. It lies in the central part of Florina regional unit, of which it is the capital. Florina belongs to the region of West Macedonia. The town's population is 16,771 people (2001 census). It is in a wooded valley about 13 km (8 mi) south of the international border of Greece with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. N.tsiakas (talk) 17:48, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 18:17, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

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Recent edits

Esslet, your changes are problematic. The original version of the sentence reads:

In 1896 French diplomat and traveller Victor Bérard visited Florina and describes the settlement as containing 1500 houses of Albanians and "converted Slavs", around 100 Turkish families, and 500 Christian families. According to Berard the "Slavs" considered themselves Greeks and spoke Greek."

Your alteration reads: In 1896 French diplomat and traveller Victor Bérard visited Florina and describes the settlement as containing 1500 houses of Albanians and "converted Slavs" -who, according to Berard, considered themselves Greeks and spoke Greek- , around 100 Turkish families, and 500 Christian-Greek families.

The bit cited by Hart from from Bérard reads: "The French traveler Bérard describes it in 1896 as consisting of 1500 houses of Albanians and “converted Slavs,” with perhaps a hundred “Turkish” families and 500 Christian families. “These Slavs nonetheless call themselves Greek and speak Greek—with us at least” (Bérard 1911 (1896):307)."

Your alteration does not conform to the source. Your change of by adding "who, according to Berard, considered themselves Greeks and spoke Greek- " after the bit on the Muslim population implies that they spoke Greek and considered themselves Greek, which is not the case and distorting what the inline states. You also removed additional information about the Slavic population of Florina and Greek affiliations and replacing it with "500 Christian-Greek families". You also added some sentences such as "In 1821 the Greeks were about 80 families." without even placing an inline or full details about the reference like year etc for a editor to go find and verify. The comment about deletions was in relation to previous edits when you added content while at the same time deleting others and not noting it [17].Resnjari (talk) 23:01, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

@Resnjari, Ok so first of all about my first edit: "...who, according to Berard, considered themselves Greeks and spoke Greek". The bit from Bérard is just numbering all the different ethnicities living in Florina. In the previous form, there was emphasis given for no reason(cause that's what happens when you write something in a different sentence) in the fact that the “converted Slavs” <<consider themselves Greek and speak Greek>>. I just took that sentence and put it right after the people it refers to, the “converted Slavs”. If I write: "This jar contains A, B -which is sweet-, C and D.", I think it's really obvious to whom the sweetness refers, B.

You write: " You also removed additional information about the Slavic population of Florina and Greek affiliations and replacing it with "500 Christian-Greek families" ". I'm really not sure what you are talking about here. I did not remove anything, I just added the word "-Greek" next to the word "Christian" because that is what those Christians were.

About the sentence: "In 1821 the Greeks were about 80 families.", the source is pretty clear I think, the only thing I don't have is the year it was published, but every other important information is there including the book title, the volume, the author and the page number.

Finally, about the only sentence I deleted: "In the late 19th century, it became a centre of Slavic agitation for independence from the Ottoman Empire", I did delete that initially and I will do again maybe only because it's a significant claim that needs a strong source but there is no citation for it at all. For all I know, it could be a centre of Greek agitation for independence, just like many other Greek regions nearby...

And one more thing, please be more careful next time about some things you do. I'm talking about that template/message you added in my talk page for no reason and without even having a conversation with me previously. By the way, don't you have to be an admin to add that?

Cheers, Esslet (talk) 09:51, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Esslet, your changes are still problematic. Converted Slavs in that context are in reference to the Muslim population, not the Orthodox as they are placed between Muslim Albanians and Muslim Turks in the sentence. The Christian element is separated and then information is given on the Slavs who are not converted. Your alteration of the sentence as i said previously infers that Muslim Slavs, along with Muslim Albanians spoke and felt Greek which is original research. The previous sentence structure did not mix these things and kept things separate in a neutral way. On the other edit you made, again you still have not provided an inline at the very least. I don't and other editors don't know if the author meant Greek in the sense of local Slavic people affiliating with the Patriarchate or they were Orthodox Greek speaking people (Romioi), or local Aromanians with Greek sentiments. This needs to be outlined with an inline. Considering that adding such content can be controversial, more information is required as the onus falls on you the editor who made those changes. If you don't provide these, the tags will be reinstated until you or some else provides that information in addition to year etc of the Greek author. On Florina and surrounding area in the late Ottoman period, it was involved in the whole Ilinden events, hence Slavic agitation. The Slavic history of Florina needs more work as does the Muslim Albanian and Turkish past of the town of whom they constituted a large part of its population. As for templates, no i don't have to be an admin. I added it because it was heading into an edit war. I don't know what you mean by "sweetness", but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not for POV editing.Resnjari (talk) 19:14, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

@Resnjari, I'm really sorry but I have a hard time understanding what you are trying to say. You write: " Your alteration of the sentence as i said previously infers that Muslim Slavs, along with Muslim Albanians spoke and felt Greek which is original research. " How does my edit infer that? The sentence starting with "who..." is right after the 'converted Slav' part. Not only that, but the more I read the inline (that I can see you added), the more confused I get: " The French traveler Bérard describes it in 1896 as consisting of 1500 houses of Albanians and “converted Slavs,” with perhaps a hundred “Turkish” families and 500 Christian families. “These Slavs nonetheless call themselves Greek and speak Greek—with us at least” "

In the way this is written it seems unclear whether he means that there were 1500 houses of Albanians and "converted Slavs" + 100 Turkish families + 500 Christian families, OR that there were 1500 houses of Albanians + 100 'Turkish' and 500 Christian families that(the last two) he describes as "converted Slavs", OR that there were a TOTAL of 1500 houses of which in some lived Albanians and on the rest 100 'Turkish' and 500 Christian families that(the last two) he describes as "converted Slavs", OR that there were a TOTAL of 1500 houses of which in some lived Albanians, in some "converted Slavs", in some 100 'Turkish' familes, and in some 500 Christian families?! So maybe you can enlighten me on that first of all(if you also know for sure of course) and go on from there on that matter...

Now about that other edit, I can see what you are saying and I agree that we can add a template asking for an inline citation if there is such a template, or something like that anyways. What I can tell, however, is that one thing the source does not mean is: " Greek in the sense of local Slavic people affiliating with the Patriarchate ", as you write. Such people would be called Orthodox Slavs, not Greeks -Ethnicity is one thing, religion is another. And there is also not much to work on regarding the "Muslim Albanian" past of the town by the way, if you are trying to seed "large parts" of Albanians everywhere, that sounds like your problem.

About the template, I was expecting an apology but I didn't get one. Seems to me that, according to you, when it's heading into an edit war we can just put irrelevant templates to people's talk pages, without even having a conversation with them before.

Finally, you write: "I don't know what you mean by "sweetness", but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not for POV editing." Just a simple look at your history says it all about who edits according to POV, for many years now. (You can also read: Sweetness by the way, but please try not to add any pro-Albanian POV sentences there, I'm sure you could find a way if you wanted to) Esslet (talk) 23:08, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Esslet, i added that inline and i understand it well. Berard is clear. The sentence structure is this. "The French traveler Bérard describes it in 1896 as consisting of 1500 houses of Albanians and “converted Slavs,” with perhaps a hundred “Turkish” families" all of this is in reference to the Muslim population. Berard then follows on by adding "and 500 Christian families." He separates this part by stating "and" and then following it on. In the next sentence he describes the Christian population and their Slavic/Greek identity issues. On the other matter you still have not added a inline for your source. How is one supposed to know what you have written is really based on that source ? Florina is known for its Slavic element and its historical Slavic countryside. The sentence you wrote needs elaboration or until such time the tags need to be there. As for Muslim Albanians and Islam being an important part of Florina's past that is historical fact and not about "seeding" whatever that means. You are new, i guess so i am going down this talkpage route with you. On templates, due to recent events i now follow the example others editors have set.Resnjari (talk) 23:30, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

• @Resnjari you write: "In the next sentence (i.e.: According to Berard the "Slavs" considered themselves Greeks and spoke Greek.) he describes the Christian population and their Slavic/Greek identity issues." Now how did you end up on that conclusion when he says that the "Slavs" considered themselves Greeks and spoke Greek?

• Another thing is, how do you know that the Albanians, those 'converted Slavs' and the Turks were all Muslims? In the inline you provided it doesn't seem to clarify that, how can you tell that they were Muslim instead of Christian, when Berard only mentions their ethnicity and not their religion? So, please, a clarification on that part from you would be great. Now, even if Berard did mean that the Albanians, the 'converted Slavs' and the Turks were Muslim, that 'with' there before the Turkish families needs to be removed because as it stands now it makes it seem like BOTH the Turkish AND the Christian families were considered “converted Slavs” by Berard . So it could be written as: "The French traveler Bérard describes it in 1896 as consisting of 1500 houses of Albanians and “converted Slavs”, about a hundred “Turkish” families" and also 500 Christian familes", so the separation of the Muslim from the Christian population is somewhat more clear, if I understand the sentence correctly.

• By the way, is your source in English or you translated it? And if so, could you please share the original sentence?

• On "the other matter", I told you in my previous reply that I agree on adding a template asking for an inline citation or something similar, didn't you read it?

• "Florina is known for its Slavic element and its historical Slavic countryside.": Slavophone element not Slavic, there's a difference. "As for Muslim Albanians and Islam being an important part of Florina's past that is historical fact and not about "seeding" whatever that means.": Oh I think you know what that means.

• "You are new, i guess so i am going down this talkpage route with you.": Yeah thanks, you're gonna be a great dad. Seriously, do not try making this seem like it's my problem.
• "On templates, due to recent events i now follow the example others editors have set.": You might need to elaborate on that a little

I transformed the text into a bullet list, so you can clearly read and answer ALL the issues I mention above, because you didn't seem to do that in your previous replies. I read your responses word by word and answer below, so I expect you to do the same or else you make me repeat myself for no reason.Esslet (talk) 11:12, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

@Resnjari, you still haven't answered the above questions and you are easily heading into edit wars all the time. Esslet (talk) 11:53, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I have answered your questions. We were both going in circles. The sentence in the article was therefore adjusted to most resemble Berard.Resnjari (talk) 05:25, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

We are not going in circles (yet, at least). You just have not answered my 3 questions from 11:12, 9 August 2017 (UTC). Your adjustment was towards the right direction but, still, the source itself is unclear(and I explained why above). If this is the case, as per WP:DISPUTED according to which: "The accuracy of a statement may be a cause for concern if: It contains information which is ambiguous and open to interpretation, either due to grammar, or opinionated wording." and WP:STICKTOSOURCE according to which "In general, article statements should not rely on unclear or inconsistent passages, or on passing comments. Passages open to multiple interpretations should be precisely cited or avoided." , it will have to be removed. For now, I'm just adding some relevant templates for a while. Esslet (talk) 12:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes i did as i outlined the reasons above. I am aware of the policy and based the sentence upon the source. Your adjustment inferred that Muslim Albanians and other Florina Muslims spoke Greek and were somehow Greek. That is problematic to say the least. Muslims never identified with Hellenism, not one bit.Resnjari (talk) 12:52, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

That was my initial adjustment and it did not infer that, nor does it matter cause I now realise the source is unclear on this particular statement and you don't actually understand it either it seems, cause you've made numerous personal assumptions and interpretations of the source as I noted on my replies above. Once again, for example, you claim that these Albanians mentioned by the source were Muslim and once again I ask you how do you know that.

By the way, I thought there are Greek Muslims living in Thrace and I also thought I had two Greek Muslim friends there but I guess you know better, right?... Esslet (talk) 21:26, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Because the sentence is split between the first part that refers to Muslims (Turks, "converted Slavs" -what were they converted from if not to Islam etc) and the second part which refers to Christians directly. On Albanians there is no mention of Orthodox Albanians being present in Florina town -unless you have something saying otherwise. Current Arvanites from Flambouro, Drospigi etc migrated from the interwar period onward to Florina. You know people from Western Thrace that are Muslims and ethnic Turks, ok good and i know people here in Melbourne that are from Florina, that speak Macedonian (or Slavika depending on ones view) with some being for a Greek identity others a Macedonian (Slavic) one and many family splits over the matter. I can speak their language, i am familiar with your one of course and fluent in my mother tongue, Albanian. I am personally familiar with Florina because my fathers village is on the other side of the border and his relatives used to live in Muslim Albanian villages (i.e Niki, previously Negoçan -now inhabited by Pontians) on the other side before they were forced to Turkey in 1923 as "Turks" -interestingly they still speak Albanian after all this time. I have also been in the area. There is more than enough scholarship on Florina that is absent from the article. I have placed some source below for those with time at the moment.Resnjari (talk) 11:35, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Your story is interesting but I'm not really sure why you mention all these things, I just provided a personal example because of your claim that "Muslims never identified with Hellenism, not one bit", which seems completely inaccurate. (By the way, I said I have friends that are Muslim Greeks, not Turks as you wrote for some reason...). Now about the Berard part, again, the fact that he writes 'Christians' at the end of that sentence doesn't mean that all the other ethnicities he mentions before are Muslims. I'm not saying that they couldn't be, just that, based on the sentence, such a claim would be original research. He doesn't even clarify what those "Christians" were(Greeks, Albanians, Turks?). The sentence, as I also mention above, has even more issues like for example the numbering of the houses in Florina and to whom they belong to. It's basically a mess and for all these reasons, unless of course someone can clarify it without a doubt, it has to be removed. Esslet (talk) 12:24, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Your story is interesting to about having a few Turkish friends, and yes they are Turks even if the state does not acknowledge it. Above comments were about noting. that i am familiar with the complexity of the Floriniot identity issues. Berard wont need to be removed as its clear. More content needs to be added to this article regarding its transformation from a Slavic and Muslim settlement into a modern Greek one. This article is very underdeveloped.Resnjari (talk) 10:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

What are you talking about?! What does "the state" have to do with what I said? I told you I KNOW them, they are Muslim Greeks, I'm not telling you what any state is acknowledging or not but what those people are and self-identify as! I never said there aren't Muslim Turks in Thrace, I just said there are Muslim Greeks as well and provided a personal example which you are rejecting and making fun of for some reason. What do you want Resnjari? To rewrite history and alter the facts to match your personal beliefs and "sources"? Next time think before you write. Finally, your source about the houses in Florina is unclear, deal with it or clarify it if you can. Esslet (talk) 13:22, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

That's all good that you know them. That still does not change the reality that Muslims in Western Thrace are ethnic Turks (even the ones that are Slavophone, i.e Pomaks a large part think of themselves that way) and over the years the community has sbeen trying to get themselves recognised as such instead of being refered generically as Muslims. Facts are facts (read in whole: Konstantinos Tsitselikis Old and New Islam in Greece: From Historical Minorities to Immigrant Newcomers [18]. I always think when i write, its why i write.Resnjari (talk) 14:06, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Of course there are people who identify both as Greek and Muslim, and most of these (converts aside) are from the Muslim minority in Western Thrace, which has been assimilated while keeping their religion, and many members do identify as Greeks. However their origin and identities in the source-relevant period of late Ottoman times were mainly Turkish and for some villages, Pomak (/Muslim Bulgarian). They also live in West Thrace, not Florina, for the most part. There was also a Muslim population that spoke Greek and practiced ethnic Greek customs that resided south of Florina near Grevena, but pretty much all of these were deported. Whether or not "Greek Muslims" exist should not be the topic here -- there are no sources reporting the existence of "Greek Muslims" in any sense of the phrase (Greek-speaking, Hellenism, whatever) that have been presented afaik. If and only if one is should they be mentioned on a page about Florina. --Yalens (talk) 20:53, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Another manipulated sentence: "In it he writes that "[a]bout the houses in Florina, we should indicate that there are at most 3000, with half of the population Albanian, Slav and Turkish Muslims and the other half Christian and (about 300) Bulgarians."

The corrected version according to the source provided: "Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn visited the city in 1861 and wrote about it in his travel log From Belgrade to Salonica. In it he writes that "[a]bout the houses in Florina, we should indicate that there are at most 3000, with half of the population Albanian and Turkish Muslims and the other half Christian Bulgarians." IE linguist (talk) 21:41, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Adding unreliable sources

@IE linguist the material you added is based on highly controversial and completely unreliable sources. You are vandalising the article for obvious propaganda reasons.

• "promacedonia.org" should be considered a reliable source on your opinion for god's sake?! My antivirus also gave me a warning by the way on that site.
• Anastasia Karakasidou and her work is highly disputed in Greece and elsewhere and her "estimations" are not needed on wiki.
• For some other significant claims you added you haven't provided an inline.

Therefore, I'm removing your material as per WP:QUESTIONABLE and WP:REDFLAG.

This area in particular is very sensitive regarding the Macedonian dispute. Please respect that fact and not add any nationalistic and unreliable claims. On highly controversial topics like the Macedonian one be modest, or else you should maybe stay away from Wikipedia and keep your "sources". Esslet (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Whatever is "not needed on wiki", you need to "stay away" with the source falsifications you have written. I have pointed the sources of all the statistics. It is explained according to whom the information is. Don't remove Karaksidou, her publisher is significant more than most sources on this article. All the publishers, except promacedonia don't need a red flag. Promacedonia is cited once, you can remove it, but the claim is also available in a state archive.IE linguist (talk) 21:59, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

On the Hellenisation of Florina (list of sources for use in the article)

Due to some previous discussions, on the Hellenisation of Florina (19th century-present), its Slavic population of both the town and surrounding area i came across the following wp:reliable] and wp:secondary academic content: [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25] (p.97). There is more but due to time constraints, this list is good so far. Whichever editor/s has the time to add this content to better this article, i wish them all the best.Resnjari (talk) 05:23, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Bit busy rn but I may find time to review these later if you don't. --Yalens (talk) 03:32, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Yalens, other articles kind of have taken up time for me. I just placed source there for now and it gives other editors a chance to read and edit as kind of a lot. Still the ongoing Hellenisation of the Slavic element in Florina has barely been covered in the wiki article and needs to addressed as per the scholarship.Resnjari (talk) 08:10, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Claim of source falsification

Not really sure what the dispute is here, but there seems to be a lot of reverting. Lately between Alexikoua and IE linguist; it seems Resnjari and Esslet seem also previously involved based on the talk page and the history, and so they should be notified too I guess. Alexikoua you just made a huge deletion[[26]] saying that IE linguist was an SPA and that he (she?) source falsified. I checked contribs and the account seems pretty new and people often only edit one article in their first few days, so I'm not sure "SPA" is the correct term here. Also not how I like to see newcomers treated, especially as I would love to have more linguists on here. But anyhow source falsification is a pretty serious claim (especially when used against newbies), and you didn't substantiate it. Would you care to substantiate what you are accusing IE linguist of falsifying? Bit busy right now but I think it is much better for all sides to discuss here rather than edit war, for the sake of general positive Wikipedia climate. --Yalens (talk) 03:32, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Also IE linguist, forgive me if I accidentally just notified you a bunch of times. Sometimes us older users never really learn how to do certain things well, oops :). --Yalens (talk) 03:39, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Yalens it's actually a typical case of disruption: someone creates a brand new account and directly jumps to an ongoing edit war and instantly reverts. Being more precise about "source falsification" the editor claimed that "the town became a centre of Slavic separatism." in WWI but unfortunately Baltsiotis doesn't confirm this.

Off course we need to treat a new user carefully but not of this kind (performing massive reverts from account creation? I assume are you kidding). Since we are talking about inappropriate behavior towards new editors we have a typical case of Wikipedia:BITE here [[27]] by posting ARBMAC warnings as a very first warning to a new account.Alexikoua (talk) 07:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Anyway apart from the above editor's expressed concerns, the main question here is are the edits done by IE linguist of merit/relevance to be reinserted back into the article, by possibly another editor? On my part i will have some hours spare a little later to give a better reply. Best.Resnjari (talk) 08:10, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Hahn is clear. he has described the town without Greek inhabitants.Jingiby (talk) 14:26, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

There is also an additional problem with IEL.'s barrage of edits: the various demographic estimates (new and old) are about the region (kaza, prefecture etc.) not the city itself. Thus they are not representative for this article.Alexikoua (talk) 20:48, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Ok, however Eselet recent contribution [28] to the page which kickstarted the addition of regional demographic material of kazas etc as opposed to just the town are also not representative for this article. Move that content to Florina (regional unit)?Resnjari (talk) 09:56, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I didn't add anything of what you are claiming I did. Be more careful. Esslet (talk) 13:31, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

You added content on Kazas, i.e district demographics. Check your own edits > [29]. This article is about the town. There is a article on the district.Resnjari (talk) 14:08, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

THAT WAS ALREADY THERE RESNJARI, it's just how my edit is presented on the revision page for some reason for god's sake!... Esslet (talk) 21:13, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

I looked into that, your right though its strange that the system highlighted that as a change. Might be a wiki glitch. Anyway that part ought to be transferred. Before its done and to avoid time wasting discussions that go nowhere thereafter, anyone objects to it being transferred to the relevant page about the district (if so why)?Resnjari (talk) 17:55, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Although technically it could be transferred, the text and the history section in particular is consistent as it is now. Moving only that part to the(less popular I guess) article about the regional unit will create a 'gap' here and it will also look kinda weird there having some historical info only about the early 20th century. The only section regarding the history of the town of Florina and the surrounding region exists in this article. Moving only partial information to the regional unit article and keeping other here will create a mess. I suggest we keep everything about the history of Florina and the region in this article and so I'm asking you to please not move it for the above reasons. Esslet (talk) 20:52, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Having the district info here kind of makes having a separate Florina district page redundant. Otherwise why two separate pages. There was a similar issue at the Korce page and Greek editors felt that district information should be transferred from the city page to the district page -regarding in particular demographics. I don't see why an exception ought to be made here. This article does purport to be about the town.Resnjari (talk) 06:40, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

OK, move it, but some of the added sources yesterday describe the composition of the 1500 households of the town of Florina and distinctively of the Florina kaza with over 10,000 households.IE linguist (talk) 18:16, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

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Article full of lies!!!! Please correct it to be REAL and USEFUL for people, not for propaganda!

1. You say it has "another names", and you fail to mention the name that many of its inhabitant use in their native language: LERIN. Why you do not mention that for the city? You go back in some theories about green vegetation, while you fail to see the REALITY - LERIN ! Please add, in brackets, after the name: Florina (Greek: Φλώρινα, Flórina; Macedonian: Лерин, Lerin). That is how REAL encyclopedia will look like. Look how it is written for Istanbul, even though there are almost ZERO greeks there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul

2. This is also disinformation: Lerin (Florina) is not in the "Northwestern Macedonia", but in the Southwestern Macedonia. Northwestern Macedonia is Tetovo and Gostivar. Look on the map. Wikipedia should be used for INFORMATION, not for lying to people.

3. There are many more lies on this page, but I bet you will delete this, so why waste my time anymore? I saved this, so I will post it to many other places, if nor reacted, to show how WIKIPEDIA is not true and should not be trusted! 77.28.174.109 (talk) 08:15, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine having "Lerin" in the lead, instead of just in the name section. Slavophones have historically been and still are a significant population of the town. --Local hero ^talk 05:02, 14 May 2023 (UTC)