Talk:Serbo-Croatian

EU

Since now Croatia has joined the EU, and the Croatian language (not Serbo-Croatian) is an OFFICIAL EU language, I believe you should remove or edit thoroughly these innacurate series of non-existing Serbo-Croatian language. Thanks! --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 10:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

You need to read the rest of the Talk Page. We've had this discussion many times and the consensus of linguists is clear. Who cares what the EU says or thinks politically? This is page isn't about politics, but about linguistics. Basically, there is a non-Slovenian West South Slavic language that comprises the dialects of Kajkavian, Chakavian, and Shtokavian. The most common name in English for that language is "Serbo-Croatian". The standard varieties of Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian are all based on the Shtokavian dialect. So we use "Serbo-Croatian" as the most common term in English to cover that whole range of dialects and subdialects. There is no other term in English for that single language. --Taivo (talk) 10:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

What's exactly the purpose of describing a system that doesn't exist? It is a linguistical blob. Moreover, by which criteria are Chakavian and Kajkavian included in it? And if they were truly included, how come there are no spots in Hungary (and even in Slovenia)? Kajkavian is spoken there too! And which linguists, may I ask? I can't imagine a linguist seriously discussing this matter and not noticing this major flaw. --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 15:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Then add Hungary and Slovenia to the description of Kajkavian if you have reliable sources that place it there. --Taivo (talk) 06:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I won't. This page was created in 2009. 2009! For 4 years nobody has noticed this major flaw! Why? Obviously there is a huge hole in this whole conception of "Serbo-Croatian" system! Please explain why are Kajkavski and Čakavski included because I don't see why would anyone in their right mind include them. Especially if we are not taking political criteria into account, but exclusively linguistical (and by that meaning - this mutual intelligibility - which is btw a very loose imprecise nonscientific term). There is no mutual intelligibility between Kajkavian, Chakavian and Stokavian, whatsoever. I would be grateful if you redirected me to a discussion page with this topic. I can't endure this absurdity anymore. Thanks! --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 12:09, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

They are included by the same criteria applied by Croatian nationalist linguists to include Čakavian and Kajkavian as "dialects of Croatian" - completely arbitrarily. South Slavic area constitutes dialect continuum (however, not a genetic clade per se), with the distinction of Western/Eastern South Slavic groups similarly being drawn on the basis of geographic and historical conventions (Macedonian has been codified relatively recently in historical terms, and the former Bulgarian (Bulgaro-Macedonian) area with Balkan sprachbund features is a much larger outlier to Western South Slavic than either of its internal dialects which are, as you've remarked, so diverse that they are often not even mutually intelligible). Apart from transitory (borderline) ones, Slovene dialects are not "Kajkavian" (despite using the pronoun kaj) - what comprises Kajkavian is defined on bundles of specific isoglosses (in phonology, morphology etc.) which you can find listed in the literature (e.g. M. Lončarić, Kajkavsko narječje, Školska knjiga 1996) and not on "how similar do they sound" or "what interrogative pronoun do they use".

Regarding Croatian as the official EU language - it's a linguistically meaningless fact. "Croatian" didn't come into existence by that legal act, and neither with Serb-Croatian perish the day Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin (and whichever they invent in the meantime) achieve the same status. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Chakavian and Kajkavian are treated as Croatian dialects out of political reasons. Would have they been included in "Serbo-Croatian" system if Kajkavian region was part of Slovenia and Chakavian region part of Italy? No. Of course not. That means they are included in this case merely because they are inside Croatian political border. Political much? I thought the purpose of this term was to draw a border comprising major isoglosses.

I didn't say Slovenian dialects are Kajkavian. I said there are parts along the border where Kajkavian is spoken. And I certainly didn't mean to include them in Kajkavian because - "how similar do they sound". Even though that obviously seems sufficiently scientific and acceptable to you and the creators of this article. By the way, why isn't Burgenland Croatian included in this map?

I have alredy asked this few times, but didn't get a clear answer - what are the requirements for a language to become a part of the "Serbo-Croatian" system? Thanks! --Sedam07 (Sedam07) 11:3, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

On the Balkans countries pop in and out of existence every few decades, whereas linguistic conventions are much more inert. Serbo-Croatian was the "norm" since the mid 19-th century, and you cannot expect established terminology to change overnight. The term Serbo-Croatian is certainly necessary to refer to the common Neoštokavian core of the four standard languages (BCSM), as well as to provide a holistic treatment of them (e.g, in the grammar and differences articles).

Grouping of substandard Ča and Kaj dialects however is separate topic. It is

1) arbitrary - based on ethnic consideratinos (Burgenland) or borders (Kajkavian)

2) ambiguous in terms of whether you're referring to

2.1) ethno-geographic - "Croatian dialect" meaning "dialect spoken on the territory of Croatia" or "dialect spoken by people that declare themselves as Croats"

2.2) linguistic - "Čakavian is a Croatian dialect" meaning "Čakavian is a dialect of Croatian language". This is the point of interest. Each language can be treated in two different ways:

2.2.1) as a standard, codified register as is described in the grammar books.

2.2.2) as collection of dialects, both standard and substandard, used as vernaculars. Since we already treat Croatian as a hyponym of Serbo-Croatian in the meaning listed under 2.2.1 it would be logical to extend it to 2.2.2 as well. There are additional arguments for this: Ča and Kaj were prior to migrations induced by Ottoman invasions spoken on a much greater territory and were subsequently pushed back. During the 20th century many Čakavian and Kajkavian areas (e.g. major cities such are Rijeka, Split, Zagreb) were completely Štokavianized. During all this Ča and Kaj have been subject to extensive Štokavian influence, which created the need to treat them in common. I'll quote from Matsović's 2008 Poredbenopovijesna gramatika hrvatskog jezika (Comparative-historical grammar of Croatian language), page 64:

U dijalektologiji se za skupinu dijalekata koji se govore na tom području koristi Brozovićev termin »srednjojužnoslavenski dijasistem«. Kada se taj termin odnosi na skup dijalekata, ko­ji su na različite načine tijekom povijesti bili u međusobnoj interakciji i među kojima granice često nisu posve jasne, to je terminološki opravdano, a ujedno je i dobar način da se izbjegne politički nekorektan naziv »hrvatskosrpski« ili »srpskohrvatski«, koji se nažalost previše udomaćio u inozemnoj slavistici. Nema nikakve dvojbe da postoji potreba za terminom koji bi izrazio činjenicu da su upravo čakavski, štoka vski i kajkavski dijalekti, osobito tijekom burnoga razdoblja seobi izazvanih turskim osvajanjima u 15. i 16. st., intenzivno utjecali jedni na druge, što je dovelo i do nastanka miješanih dijalekata, osobito na štokavskom području.

The problem is that Brozović's term Central South Slavic diasystem(srednjojužnoslavenski dijasistem) appears to be only used by him and a few of his associates. It's obscure in English-speaking world, and mostly used geographically (with uncapitalized initial c and not in a dialectological sense).

I'd personally be OK with

1. Using Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin in the meaning 2.1. in phrases such as Croatian dialect.
2. Eventually shifting to Central South Slavic (diasystem) when and if the term gains wider acceptance. Perhaps in 5 years.
3. Introduce a viewpoint in Serbo-croatian#Dialects section on how are the dialects grouped and under what name in by "prominent linguists/works" in all four countries. Their opinion is a fact of encyclopedic interest. We already know the Croatian viewpoint, but NPOV requires us to cover all of them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Level of English

Some sectures or sentences of the text have a poor level of English. (I'm not a native English-speaker myself, and I don't mean this in a rude way.) Someone should read through the article and correct such mistakes. For example, the section about Croatian views of Serbo-Croatian starts with: The majority of Croatian linguists think that there was never Serbo-Croatian language. It's not a big deal, but correct English should be used: The majority of Croatian linguists think that there has never been a Serbo-Croatian language. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.192.88 (talk) 15:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian Dialects

Since my edit was reverted, I'd like to point out that there's some bad linguistics goin' on for decades and decades. Just take a look at this map:

Isn't it interesting that a historical distribution (prior to e.g. 1400 AD) ends at more or less exactly today political borders, e.g. Čakavian dialects are exactly up to today Croatian-Slovene border in Istria? Štokavian up to today Serbian-Macedonian border? Is it plausible?

Also, take a look at the choice of colors, and how dissimilar eastern and western Štokavian look. But were they as dissimilar as Štokavian vs. Kajkavian, as this map implies?

Were there at that time any unifying characteristics of such dialects, that distinguished them from ones in future Slovenia? Are there any today? (They aren't; even better, "Kajkavian" in Gorski kotar is still more similar to dialects in Slovenia than to other Kajkavian dialects today).

Besides, are we really sure about precise borders of dialects 600 years ago? How come all borders are drawn in the same way (no border is blurred, no question marks...), despite huge difference in evidence for various regions?

I was maybe too ambitious to change tone of this article in relation to dialects, but I thing e.g. this article by M. Greenberg shows how discussion about dialects was not really neutral in last decades and century. [1]

How to fix this? dnik ► 21:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see what you describe . But if you have a source , by all means present it . Though I do agree the map colors should be more iconic. — kwami (talk) 05:08, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

M. L. Greenberg writes: According to the view of non-Croatian linguists, the Western-South Slavic linguistic area underwent differentiation by innovations primarily arising in the Štokavian area, leaving archaic regions in Slovene, Kajkavian, Čakavian (Ivić 1964, 1965, 1966; Šivic-Dular 1987 and bibliographies in these works). Although Kajkavian and Slovene share archaisms, which do not help much in establishing ancient affinities, they also share a number of innovations, so that “the majority of characteristics of the Kajkavian system appear in the Slovene system” (Ivić 1966: 383) and, consequently, “[t]he genetic closeness of Kajkavian [to Slovene] is obvious” (loc. cit.). In Map 3 it can be seen that a major bundle of isoglosses separates Slovene and Kajkavian from the rest of the Western-South Slavic speech territory, which has a pattern of gradual, largely parallel isoglosses.

Further: Junković created a myth of an ancient dialect division emphasizing a prehistoric unity among the present-day dialects of Serbo-Croatian and, by the same token, discontinuity with its nearest relative, Slovene. This theory implicitly supports the claim that the Kajkavian dialect is appropriately subordinated to the Štokavian based standard. Junković enlarged the ancient territory of the Kajkavian dialect, in which territory the Croatian capital of Zagreb is located, at the expense of Slovene. Junković’s myth may be considered successful in the sense that it has been accepted uncritically by leading Croatian linguists and has been transferred to popular references about the history of the Croatian language." [2]

Kapović writes (my emphasis): The other problem, when talking about Serbo-Croatian as the ‘whole package’ (including the dialects) and not just as a standard language, is that this term is no more scientific than the ‘separatist’ terms Serbian and Croatian, in spite of this being a major argument for the use of the term Serbo-Croatian by many. The simple fact is that, dialectologically speaking, there is no Serbo-Croatian, in the same way as there is no Croatian. The whole South Slavic area is a dialectal continuum, from Bulgaria in the South-East to Slovenia in the North-West. [3]

Therefore, in their opinion (and Matasović and Holzer share it) are no "Serbo-Croatian dialects", there are no "Serbian dialects", there are no "Croatian dialects". There are "dialects spoken by Serbs", of course.

Historic maps of dialects are a bit misleading. How do we actually know where the edge of Čakavian was in Istria circa 1400 AD? Do we actually know or we just assume it was the whole Istria up to exactly the present Croatian-Slovenian border? Border between Western and Eastern Štokavian exactly on Danube? We should not just take maps that are copied over and over for granted. It is only a reconstruction, and a very rough one... dnik ► 10:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think it is rather obvious that, given that the map purports to present the 14-th history data, the reader should not take dialectal borders for granted, but only as a rough approximation. Also, projecting it on the modern-day political borders does not bode well on the author. Still, it should be useful in understanding the early situation, as long as we don't get a newer one. You did well to put a disclaimer in the map caption.

@Kwami, care to explain the revert? It is indeed true (or can be argued that) that "Serbo-Croatian" is not a proper genetic node, being a term for an area of the dialect continuum, at least in the same way as German language is not one. No such user (talk) 12:13, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

From the genetic perspective there are indeed no "Croatian dialects" or "Serbo-Croatian dialects". But there are indeed Štokavian, Kajkavian, Čakavian and Torlakian, each with bundles of isoglosses characteristic of them. And in the 99% of all the literature on the subject they are listed as dialects of SC or of B/C/S/M. This historical-genetic perspective in no way invalidates the traditional grouping. The same criticism - the lack of exclusive shared innovations - can be applied to any language in the world, with suddenly dialects turning "languages" on their own. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:56, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

While this is the traditional view prevailing in the literature, there are other views. For instance, Ivić wrote in 1998:

Раскид српскохрватске језичке заједнице на нивоу књижевног језика ставља на дневни ред питање да ли постоји таква заједница на нивоу дијалеката. (...) Постоји уз то и чисто дијалектолошки разлог против схватања о "српскохрватској" дијалекатској заједници. То схватање, наиме, никад није ни почивало на правим дијалектолошким мерилима, него на политичким или, ако хоћете, социолингвистичким. Српскохрватским су сматрани они дијалекти којима говоре припадници одговарајућих народа и који стоје у функционалној корелацији са српскохрватским књижевним језиком.

Ivić, P. 1998, "Srpski dijalekti i njihova klasifikacija", Zbornik Matice srpske za filologiju i lingvistiku, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 113-132. [4]

My rather rough translation: "Breakup of the Serbo-Croatian language community on the level of literary language brings the question if such a community exists on the level of dialects. (...) There's also a purely dialectological reason against concept of a "Serbo-Croatian" dialectal community. That concept was never grounded on proper dialectological considerations, but on political or, if you prefer, sociolinguistic ones. Dialects spoken by corresponding peoples which are in a functional relation with the Serbo-Croatian literary language were considered Serbo-Croatian".

Also, Marc L. Greenberg criticized such political groupings, especially singling out "dialects of Croatian". This is not true for all languages. For instance, Hungarian or Greek dialects are a true node.dnik ► 07:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Greek dialects are very diverse, and their common ancestor is some Proto-Greek language, and not some attested Greek dialect. I don't know about Hungarian so I cannot comment on that. All Slavic dialects pretty much developed in situ from Late Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) period (sudden expansion, Avar khaganate etc. you know the history) and are separated by some very old isoglosses (like the reflexes of *t' and *d'). However, they exhibit extraordinary amount of shared development in later centuries. Indeed, you cannot derive all Chakavian dialects from Proto-Chakavian, or all Shtokavian dialects from Proto-Shtokavian, but you also cannot derive all Slovak dialects from Proto-Slovak either, all Russian dialects from Old East Slavic (e.g. Old Novgorodian lacks second palatalization and has some other strange features), Slovene dialects from Proto-Slovene and so on. The real world doesn't fit in the idealized Neogrammarian Stammbaum model. However, that doesn't mean that there are no isoglosses that mostly cover only Čakavian, only Kajkavian or only Štokavian dialects, because there are. Furthermore, see PPGHJ p. 64-65: "Nema nikakve dvojbe da postoji potreba za terminom koji bi izrazio činjenicu da su upravo čakavski, štokavski i kajkavski dijalekti, osobito tijekom burnoga razdoblja seobi izazvanih turskim osvajanjima u 15. i 16. st., intenzivno utjecali jedni na druge, što je dovelo i do nastanka miješanih dijalekata, osobito na štokavskom području." - grouping of Ča, Kaj, Što under the Serbo-Croatian umbrella has historical justification that predates modern sociolinguistic or political conventions. See: Shtokavian_dialect#Relationship_towards_neighboring_dialects. When you state that the grouping of SC dialects is completely arbitrary, you're not really telling the whole story. It's almost as if you're playing into the hands of Croatian nationalists that claim that "Serbo-Croatian never exhisted" ;) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:30, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but modern Greek dialects are not a part of a larger continuum. All Greek dialects share a common ancestor that no other (e.g. Albanian) dialect shares with them. But your point is valid: there are common developments. However, they are not uniform: while there are dialects in e.g. Istria that show a mix of čakavian and štokavian features, there are really no dialects that show a štokavian-kajkavian mix, at least not that I know of. Next, there's a problem of goranski dialects which are classified as "kajkavian" with no clear criteria whatsoever except being in Croatia and using "kaj" (even ones of Ravna Gora, which are rovtarski, as shown by Majnarić). My main point is: this classification is a convention which was mainly politically motivated at the time it was created and seldom questioned later. Nobody started with a clear set of features common to čakavski, kajkavski, and štokavski and concluded these dialects should be lumped together. It was hard to find criteria even for čakavski! But if you quote PPGHJ, it's obvious that Matasović considers these influences a later development, due to migrations, and not some genetic affiliation; at least that should be mentioned! As for "nationalism", I think you would have a really hard time finding any nationalism in any of my discussions. dnik ► 16:42, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

But while that means that SC is not a cladistic node , it doesn't mean that Kaj, Cha, and Shto are not cladistic nodes . — kwami (talk) 09:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if Kajkavian would be either. It may well be a node only when combined with Slovene. Or maybe it's only a node if you consider some of the Kajkavian dialects of Croatia to be actually part of Slovene. CodeCat (talk) 12:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Frankly I don't think there are true nodes at all in such a continuum. There is e.g. a feature that a half of dialects in Slovenia have in common with Čakavian and Štokavian: long ъ, ь > long ə > long a. Of course this does not hold for short "semivowels" but it does not hold as well in Čakavian dialects on islands of Cres and Krk. For instance, Vermeer criticized Čakavian as a meaningful grouping in his important article:

it must be understood that the “čakavian” dialects, just like those called “štokavian” have nothing significant in common except the label linguists use to refer to them. [5]

Therefore, all groupings are a bit artificial, and "Serbo-Croatian" grouping is completely artificial and just traditional. Really there's nothing common to them. Note that this statement applies to dialects as spoken in mid 20th century and earlier; now all dialects are under some influence of the standard language and they get common features from there... dnik ► 10:25, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

That's certainly a valuable point to make. However, given the chronic trouble we have with SC, it would probably be best to have several good sources before we claim they are artificial constructs. — kwami (talk) 11:12, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Based on Eastern Herzegovinian

"The pluricentric Serbo-Croatian standard language and all four contemporary standard variants are based on the Eastern Herzegovinian subdialect of Neo-Shtokavian, the other dialects not taught in schools or used by the state media."

While this generally holds for Croatian and Bosnian, the Serbian standard in Serbia is Ekavian, and Eastern Herzegovinian is not Ekavian, but Ijekavian. So standard Serbian in Serbia has a lot of elements of Šumadina-Vojvodina dialect, and that's also stated in the corresponding Wiki article:

Šumadija–Vojvodina dialect (...) is a subdialect of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian.[1] It is a base for Ekavian Standard Serbian. Šumadija–Vojvodina dialect

To be more precise, there are some elements of Younger Ikavian in standard Croatian as well, mostly in accentuation of some words, but it's a rather fine point.

dnik ► 10:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, correct, but do we have to include all the fine points in the lead section? Except for ekavian/ijekavian pronunciation, Šumadija-Vojvodina and Eastern Herzegovina dialect have much in common, and the standard Serbian accentuation is still based on Vuk's EH idiom rather than (subtly different) Š-V. As you noted above, the classification of SC dialects (as any other classification) has elements of arbitrariness, because of the dialect continuum you mentioned above. Do you have proposals for alternative, weaker, formulations? No such user (talk) 12:08, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I might suggest "mainly" based. Standard Serbian accentuation is based on EH, but Standard Croatian (according to published manuals) is not (it's based on YI). However, accentuation is just one aspect, other grammar comes mostly from EH...

However, I would really explain these finer points a bit later. Situation is really complex :( dnik ► 14:29, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by standard Croatian accentuation not being based on Eastern-Herzegovinian? What is "YI" ? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Torlakian dialects

The infobox lists the Torlakian dialects as part of Serbo-Croatian, which is not true and tends to create a POV. Please see the separate article about the dialects and the excellent section about their classification.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No, it does not. It lists it as controversially part of SC, which is true. See e.g. Comrie & Corbett (2002). — kwami (talk) 03:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you say controversially part of Macedonian or Bulgarian, which is, at least, more true? Have you ever heard about language evolution in the Indo-European languages? You still didn't explain why it should be classified as part of Serbo-Croatian and what makes it more familiar with this language than with Macedonian and Bulgarian. Maybe the fact it covers larger area from Serbia or because of any political reasons?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)8

We follow sources, that's all. — kwami (talk) 08:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Nice. I will follow the same to insert this claim in the articles about Macedonian and Bulgarian.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:31, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

With dialects form part of a dialect continuum it's always going to be hard to objectively group dialects together, and it's always going to be more or less arbitrary. CodeCat (talk) 03:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

If you think it's arbitrary and hard to make any objective decision, then there is no place for such speculations in an encyclopedic article. As for your source, Friedman (2001, 2006 and 2008), for instance, classifies it as part of Macedonian and demonstrates that most of the properties of the dialects are much similar with the Eastern group rather than the Western group of South Slavic languages. Your behaviour here with extremely subjective conclusion already provides an extreme POV. So, it's sincerely appreciated not to remove the POV tag on the top of the article until the discussion ends with a compromise. I don't intend to call Macedonian and Bulgarian users to discuss the matter and thereby create another dispute on Wikipedia, but would like to see a discussion with facts that will eventually lead to a neutral solution. To say that something is disputed because it's being supported by some and opposed by others has nothing to do on Wikipedia and only lowers the quality of its content. Once again, we should always present facts on Wikipedia, not develop theories about validity of something.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:56, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

From Template:POV: "Place this template on an article when you have identified a serious issue of balance." Mentioning Torlakian in infobox, already duly noted as disputed, hardly counts as a serious issue; alternatives for tagging are listed below.

Further, it is not us editors who made "speculations", and I don't see anybody here drawing "extremely subjective conclusions" and "provide an extreme POV". Throwing around gratuitous accusations will not strengthen your case, on the contrary. Since our sources disagree on classification of Torlak, we duly note so in the text. The article currently reads "Torlak (disputed)" in the infobox, and has an additional sentence " Often the Torlakian dialect is added to the list, though scholars nowadays usually classify it as a transitional dialect between Shtokavian and the Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects." Do you have anything actionable to add or subtract from that?

Your statement "to say that something is disputed because it's being supported by some and opposed by others has nothing to do on Wikipedia " cannot be further from the truth and Wikipedia practices. When a dispute exists in the real word (i.e. our sources), we should mention it in our articles. From WP:YESPOV: "Indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view." How, in your opinion, the two short statements in the article do not accurately express the situation? No such user (talk) 10:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• David Dalby, The Linguasphere Register (1999/2000) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian with a note that it's transitional to Macedonian
• C.F. & F.M. Voegelin, Classification and Index of the World's Languages (1977) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian
• Albrecht Klose, Sprachen der Welt (2001) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian
• Wayles Browne, "Serbo-Croat," The Slavonic Languages (1993, 306-387) includes Torlakian in Serbo-Croatian with a note that it's sometimes mentioned as transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian
• Greville Corbett, "Serbo-Croat," The World's Major Languages (1987, 391-409) includes "Prizren-Timok" (Torlakian) in Serbo-Croatian

--Taivo (talk) 11:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Most of these sources classify some Torlakian dialects as Serbo-Croatian, namely those who are spoken in what is today Serbia, while others give exactly the note that they're transitional. However, it doesn't change the point that this classification is disputed. If you feel that this evidence is convincing enough, you might be interested to contest why this is actually disputed. Now I can easily go on the articles about Macedonian and Bulgarian to insert the same and defend it with different sources on theirb talk pages, which seems to be far from any solution and only increases the number of articles with disputed claims. It also puts in question the well-referenced elaboration of the problem in the specific article about the dialects. But if you insist so, it's the only way to present some neutrality.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk), 16:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No, Kiril Simeonovski, none of the sources I cite list any Torlakian subdialects as anything other than Serbo-Croatian. Two of them make exactly the comments I posted as transitional. And no one disputes your comment that this is disputed--that's precisely why the word "disputed" occurs in the info box. But you asked for references that list Torlakian as Serbo-Croatian. I just provided five of them. --Taivo (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Only the works by Klose and Voegelin of the aforementioned entirely classify Torlakian as part of Serbo-Croatian. Corbet includes "Prizren-Timok" as part of Serbo-Croatian, which is only one Torlakian dialect spoken in Kosovo and Metohija. The two other classify it as a transitional dialect and provide a fairly good reference on the issue. On the other hand, Friedman (2001, 2003 and 2006) and Barentsen (1982) classify find closer association to Macedonian and Bulgarian. If you rely so much on Corbet and his classification of a single Torlakian dialect as Serbian, then Friedman includes the Kumanovo dialect of Northern Macedonia and the Gora dialects as part of Macedonian. There are two solutions of this problem and both of them were somehow expressed though my comments in this discussion. First, it would be more appropriate to refrain from mentioning that Torlakian is dialect of something since it has a separate article elaborating the issue. Having a disputed information only lowers the quality of content on Wikipedia. The other solution is to include the same claim in the infoboxes about Macedonian and Bulgarian, which is worse because it will also lower the quality but will at least counterbalance to reach some neutrality. Unfortunately, taking action to perform the second one appears to be logical from this discussion.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:28, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I provided five sources that list Torlakian as part of Serbo-Croatian. You have only mentioned Corbett as not including all of Torlakian, so you ignored two other sources: Dalby and Browne, both of which include Torlakian as a whole in Serbo-Croatian. So out of my five sources, four include Torlakian as a unit in Serbo-Croatian and you dispute the relevance of the fifth (Corbett) only. But the point still stands. We don't accept your POV as the primary way to go. There are sufficient reliable sources that place Torlakian with Serbo-Croatian to place it here as a dialect. Since there are some sources that dispute that claim, then we mark it as "disputed". That is a fair statement of the state of affairs. You will have to establish a consensus at Macedonian language and Bulgarian language if you want to do something like this there. Placing Torlakian here does not "cheapen" Wikipedia, it states the facts as they are. --Taivo (talk) 18:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I also provided sources that prove the contrary. Please feel free to examine them before uttering that the reliability of yours is greater and understand that most scholars classify only some dialects as part of these languages (only those spoken of the territory of these countries).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

So you provided sources and I provided sources. That's why the word "disputed" occurs in the Infobox. But, you actually didn't provide references. You just threw up a couple of names and dates. If you want people to take you seriously, then you should provide at least as much bibliographical information as I did. Just giving a name and date is laziness. --Taivo (talk) 19:13, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, but the article Torlakian dialect is a nice starting point elaborating the issue. Why do you think that we really need to discuss this on the talk pages of the articles about the languages when it deals with their dialects?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Please see my proposal here which could be a nice solution of the problem.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:31, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Decisions made on other Wikipedia pages are not relevant here. You must build an individual consensus on every page you want to change. --Taivo (talk) 22:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. You should refer to the aforementioned works listed by yourself to make sure that my change is not false. And please let me edit Wikipedia because it's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. You're not the authority to prevent me doing it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Sources providing evidence that some Torlakian dialects are classified as part of Serbian or Serbo-Croatian:

• Greville Corbett, "Serbo-Croat", The World's Major Languages (1987, 391-409).
• David Dalby, The Linguasphere Register (1999/2000).

Note that the Prizren-Timok are the most common Torlakian dialects classified as part of Serbo-Croatian.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Wrong about Dalby. Dalby includes all Torlakian under Serbo-Croatian and none under either Bulgarian or Macedonian. --Taivo (talk) 10:59, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

You are free to edit Wikipedia as long as you follow the rules. The rules say that if there are any reversions to your edits, then you must stop editing until you build a consensus on the Talk Page. --Taivo (talk) 11:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

No, the sources provide evidence that some Torlakian dialects are listed as part of Serbo-Croatian. Those mentioning that some are part of Macedonian or Bulgarian you can find on the talk pages to these articles.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:12, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

You still don't get it, Kiril. You can't use Dalby as evidence because Dalby does not divide Torlakian into three parts. He treats it as a single unit that is placed under Serbo-Croatian. If he placed part under Macedonian and part under Bulgarian, that would be another matter. But he doesn't. He places all of Torlakian under Serbo-Croatian. --Taivo (talk) 11:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I created and substantially expanded the article on Dialects of Serbo-Croatian. Please change the infobox to summarize all the dialects as it's the case with the articles on Macedonian and Bulgarian language. By doing it, a single standard will be implemented for all of these articles and it will also remove a disputed claim from the infobox. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 01:29, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Since nobody commented on this for more than a day, it seems reasonable for me to change it in the article in order to align it with the other articles.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)