The Power of Babel

[Ptolemy]

'The Power of Babel' is a book written by John McWhorter. Someone told me, inside that book McWhorter compares the Bulgarian language and the one spoken in FYROM concluding its the same language.

According to McWhorter, "Bulgarian and "Macedonian" on either side of the respective borders of these two nations would likely exhibit more similarity than two dialects of "Macedonian" at opposite ends of the nation". :lol:

Anyone owns this book?

[Cadmus]

Hi Ptolemy!

Yes , Fyrom is as much as an Bulgarian enclave as in Serb/Albanian but they adopted the Bulgarian/Serbian slavic language etc...me wonders how many original Macedonia has survived under that thick blanket of Bulgaranism...

[Tsontos]

Been reading this book for a while. Very interesting analysis of a wide range of langauges. you guys might also be interested in its entries about the evolution of Ancient Greek to modern and Latin to the Romance languages as well. Heres the part about "Macedonian" (FYROMian) and Bulgarian, where is compares it to the Romanian/ Moldovan analogy and the interference of the Soviets. Sounds a very similar situation to "Macedonian", Bulgarian and unsuccesful attempts of the Yugoslavs to de-bulgarize the language:

Today's "Dialect" is Tommorow's "Language"

Not only has one of many hitherto unranked dialects often been anointed the standard, but we even see dialects actively dismissed as "quaint vernaculars" at point A only to be enshrined as inherently noble vehicles of humans' loftiest thoughts at point B, with nothing but a decisive geographical shift at the root of the mysterious change in perception.

The Romanian-speaking area extends Eastward into a little hump of land called Moldova, much of which for decades was incorporated within the Soviet Union. Moldovan is not just "close" to the Romanian dialects in Romania proper: it is very much one of them, not differing from the standard dialect any more than any Romanian nonstandard one does...The Soviets however, in a quest to discourage Moldovans from identifying with their Romance-speaking neighbours to the west, directly required Russian linguists to foster a conception of Moldovan as a "different lanaguage" from Romanian, exaggerating the import of the minor differences inevitable between dialects of any language. Many grammar books of "Moldovan" were little more than translations of Romanian-language Rommanian grammars into Russian. Now independent, the Moldovans continue to encourage a perception of "Moldovan" as a distinct "language" from Romanian, in part because Romanians tend to dismiss their dialect as sounding uneducated. Hence the Moldovan "language," fully intelligible with Romanian right next door...

...These [Swedish and Danish] are even closer than Standard German and Schwabisch or Standard Italian and Milanese...

I once asked two Bulgarians what Macedonian sounded like to them, and they said in unison, "Its a dialect of Bulgarian!" "Macedonian" is indeed so close to Bulgarian that Bulgarians crossing the border need make even less adjustment than Swedes make going to Denmark. Many Macedonians would find my Bulgarian freinds' comments a little irritating , which stems from the fact that "Macedonian" is considered a seperate "language" owing its speakers' distinct political and cultural identity from Bulgarians, reinforced by their incorporating until recently into the Yugoslavian federation.


-McWhorter, John, The Power of Babel, 2002, p69


I remember a skopjian on this forum claiming that he "was watching Bulgarian TV and couldnt understand a thing", yet this author points out that "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian" are closer than Standard Italian and Milanese
:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Tsontos]

On the Serb influence historically encroaching to the North of Skopje:

Not only can Bulgarians understand Macedonians next door, but Macedonians on the border with Yugoslavia can communicate with Serbo-Croatian speakers on the other side...

-McWhorter, John, The Power of Babel, 2002, p83