Talk:Montenegrin language

Self-ID and speaker numbers

Actually, Taivo, we do get this specific elsewhere. Just that usually a "language" has something to do with language, or at least religion, nationality or ethnicity, something that can be independently measured. In this case, it's merely what someone calls their language -- the only diff between a Montenegrin-speaker and a Serbian-speaker is what they've decided to call their language today. The number could change by an order of magnitude without any change on the ground. That's relatively unusual, and worth noting. — kwami (talk) 02:04, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

The same could be said of a great many "languages" distinguished by ISO code and little else linguistically. And there is an ethnic difference here since Montenegrins identify the difference between being Montenegrin and Serbian. The political boundary between the two regions is also not a recent one. While I completely agree with the near-identity between Montenegrin and Serbian, if we're going to differentiate Standard Bosnian and Standard Croatian from Standard Serbian and not quibble about "self-identification", then the same should be true of Montenegrin since it now has its own ISO code as well. There is simply no justification for treating Montenegrin differently than how we treat Bosnian and Croatian. --Taivo (talk) 03:06, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps it is changing, but until recently, people who identified as Montenegrin ethnically did not necessarily identify their language as Montenegrin. That's quite different than the case for Croatian, but yes, more like the early days of Bosnian. For BSC, though, you can be counted as a speaker of one or the other depending on your (cultural) religion. That doesn't work for Montenegrin. Do you have any recent data that Montenegrins have in general stopped considering their language to be Serbian?

And, AFAIK, there are not many other cases that don't have some sort of linguistic basis, even if not to the point of mutual unintelligibility. Those that do exist are mostly cases where retiring the ISO codes would cause a political storm (e.g. Hindi and Indonesian), and in such cases religion or nationality can be used as a stand-in for "language". — kwami (talk) 10:04, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think that your objection and the conditions that you name (religion, culture, etc.) are rather ad hoc. Montenegrins define themselves as "being of Montenegrin descent". Much like Burgenland Croatian is separately defined as "Croatian speakers in Austria", "Montenegrin" is defined as "Serbo-Croatian speakers from Montenegro". --Taivo (talk) 21:28, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

But no, that's not how it's defined. Some Montenegrins say they speak Serbian, some that they speak Montenegrin. So the number that we put in the box is not the number of speakers in any objective sense. That's different from most languages, where there's at least an attempt at estimating the number of MT speakers. It's even different from Hindi/Urdu or Serbian/Croatian, which involves a religious identity that's reasonably stable. It's more like Awadhi numbers in the Indian census, which is the number of Awadhi-speakers who consider their lect to be a distinct language, not the number of people who actually speak Awadhi. In such situations, a disclaimer is warranted, because otherwise readers will assume that what we give as the number of speakers is the number of speakers. — kwami (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

In the box, we give teh number as 229,251 in Montenegro (36.97%). I assume that the %age is relative to the population of Montenegro. But that's not the %age of the population in 2011 that was Montenegrin, meaning that Montenegrins do not in general speak Montenegrin. So, what defines the language, if not the language itself or the ethnicity of its speakers? — kwami (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Removal of sourced info

Springpfühler: Please do not remove well-sourced info from the article. You say in your edit summary that the first link works but it does not say a thing about Montenegrin in Bosnia, which is false. The given link mentions Montenegrin under the heading "Bosnia and Herzegovina". This link for Serbia also works perfectly fine, but this one from the B92 archives is perhaps better. The rest of your edit summary ("everybody knows...") is best covered by WP:OR. Wikipedia follows what is covered by reliable sources, not what you, I or "everybody" knows. --T*U (talk) 15:19, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Since Springpfühler is not willing to discuss here in the talk page, but prefers to "discuss" through reverts and edit summaries, I will start a RfC in order to get input from more editors, so that a consensus can be established. --T*U (talk) 20:41, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC about minority languages in infobox

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should Serbia be included in the infobox entry "Recognised minority language in" per this source? --T*U (talk) 20:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• Of course I have nothing against talking about, just that sometimes perhaps what I do not have is time...

And I also have nothing against the news per se.

I am just saying that it does not attest in any point that Montenegrin is a "minority language" in Serbia, not at all, therefore such information is not correct and should not be written.

The article just says that Montenegrin can be officially used in Mali Iđoš, by speaking or writing to the authorities.

That only means that Montenegrin people have the right to speak in their variety and to be answered.

By the way, that is what they have always done since they came to Vojvodina...just that know have formally the right to do that, and they will get an answer in Serbian language.

It is also evident that Montenegrin is nothing more than an ijekavian variety with a pecualiar accent. Ijekavian varieties are found also in Serbia, in the Western and South-Western part, like for example the area of Novi Pazar, thus not only in Croatia, Bosnia or Montenegro.

The differences between Montenegrin and standard Serbian variety are much less than those between Australian and New Zealand English...

In North Montenegro you will hardly find a single word which is not to be found somewhere in Serbia. Along the coastline you may find some, it occurs to me "pomidor" instead of "paradajz" for "tomato", but really a few, I mean like you'll find some standard English word different between towns in Australia or New Zealand, not more than that. If we talk about standard British and American English, the differences are many more, like in standard Serbian and Croatian. And if we talk about different dialects in the U.K...oh well, this really has no comparison in Serbo/Croatian, the differences there are like Serbian and Slovene or Slovak ; )

So, asking a Montenegrin not to speak in his accent or ijekavian variety in Vojvodina would be like asking a person from Auckland to imitate Sydney accent in Sydney, or someone from Los Angelese to imitate a New York accent in NY.

It does not make much sense, that is why almost nobody would do it, and nobody in Serbia would expect it.

This village simply officially fixed this obvious right, that's it.

They never defined Montenegrin to be a "recognized minority language" in their village, therefore we should not write an affirmation like that unless we find a document where it is specifically attested so. --Springpfühler (talk) 21:49, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Springpfühler: I have indented your comment for easier reading, hope you don't mind. I would also advice you to mark your entry with a keyword in boldscript (like "Oppose", "Do not include" or similar) for the convenience of the future closer of this RfC. --T*U (talk) 11:32, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

• Include. This has nothing to do with "the right to speak in their variety and to be answered". The scope of the decision is to introduce the Montenegrin language to official use. That means that people will be able to use Montenegrin (with its additional letters not used in the Serbian language) in their written communication with the municipality. But it also means that the municipality will be printing materials and documents in the Montenegrin language beside Serbian and Hungarian.

The difference between Serbian and Montenegrin dialects may be negligible, but that has nothing to do with this question. What matters here is the fact that the Montenegrin language is a normative variety within the vaste South Slavic dialect continuum, and that this norm now has been officially accepted in one municipality of Serbia (with possible two more to follow, according to the source).

In my opinion, the question is not whether this should be reflected in the infobox, but whether it should be presented as a minority language or as a official language. --T*U (talk) 11:32, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Ok, that is your opinion, I respect it, but in the link you provided nothing about it was written or said.

I think we don't have to paraphrase the words according to your or someone's opinion, but we have to use the words as they are exactly used in the documents we have.

Have you got a document where it is attested that Montenegrin is official language in Mali Iđoš? Great, then provide it, we'll read it and we'll report it. Otherwise, you cannot freely interpretate that Montenegrin "may be" official, if it is never said so. Thus, you cannot write in the article this free interpretation.

Have you got a document where it is attested that Montenegrin is minority language in Mali Iđoš? Great, then provide it, we'll read it and we'll report it. Otherwise, you cannot freely interpretate that Montenegrin "may be" minority, if it is never said so. Thus, again, you cannot write in the article your free interpretation.

In the article you provided it is just asserted that in Mali Iđoš, and at the moment JUST in Mali Iđoš, people can address the authorities in Montenegrin, both orally and in written form. Just it. That means, that the village specifically recognized such right to Montenegrin people. Everybody knows they already did it, as I said, do you think a person from Los Angeles changes his accent when addressing authorities in New York? Or a person from Vienna when addressing authorities in Munich?? It is absolutely the same. Nevertheless, Mali Iđoš has "legalized" this obvious right, nothing else.

But it is never mentioned neither Montenegrin being "official language" nor Montenegrin being "minority language". That is why I think we should put things as they are, and according to that, the Serbian flag in the box just because of Mali Iđoš does not belong at all. A mention in the article is more than enough. Saying that you can talk in your variety or dialect or language to an authority does not mean your variety is authomatically "official language". If nobody says it specifically, you cannot make the equation yourself and write it, because it would be false. And we do not want to write false things just with the purpose of putting one more flag. We are not here in order to put flags, we are here in order to write the truth and to interpretate things as less as possible.

Have a look at the official page of the Municipality of Mali Iđoš: http://www.maliidos.com/ You will see above at the right three flags: Serbian latin, Serbian cyrillic and Hungarian. You won't see any Montenegrin flag, that proves that Montenegrin variety is NOT any "official" nor "minority" language of Mali Iđoš. On the contrary, Hungarian IS a minority and official language in the municipality, therefore its flag.

Now, on which bases would you prefere your free interpretation of an article of a newspaper rather than the official page of the mentioned municipality?! You see, there is no basis to sustain such a theory.

Plus, as I already wrote, Montenegrin is not any language and it is 100% identical to ijekavian varieties of Western Serbia. The two characters that you mentioned are well known for being freely invented by Montenegrins, but you will find the sounds they represent in Serbian too. Montenegrin has to rely 100% on Serbian, because it is Serbian. Or you may call it Serbo/Croatian, as you prefere. Nobody would even dare to say a language can sustain itself on the basis of two invented characters. Moreover, not even the majority of Montenegrins have the guts to call it "language"...They assert they speak Serbian, or their Montenegrin variant of Serbian.

Anyways, that is not important now and it is not the purpose of what we are writing.

Fact is that Montenegrin people according to the article have the right to address the authorities of Mali Iđoš in Montenegrin, but it does not say that it is neither an "official" nor a "minority" language of the municipality. Thus, unless we find an official proof of it, we cannot write like that. --Springpfühler (talk) 14:32, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

I have again formatted your comment in the usual way for a talk page discussion. Please read WP:INDENT. --T*U (talk) 16:25, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@Springpfühler: 1) You say that it is never mentioned ... Montenegrin being "official language". What is then the translation of the term "zvaničan jezik", which is used twice in the article? 2) The link to the web site of the municipality goes to a page where a public announcement ("Javni oglas") is repeated twice, the second time with the heading "Javni oglas na crnogorskom jeziku", which I think translates as "Public annonuncement in Montenegrin language". Is that correct? --T*U (talk) 16:25, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

LOL have you read both announcements??? Can you find even a single difference apart from veće/vijeće?? LOL Btw, they say vijeće also in South-West Serbia, among other regions. It is NOT Montenegrin, we all know well that. Same if you open the link to the full announcement: one is in Serbian cyrillic and ekavian, the other in Serbian latin and ijekavian. No single difference apart of that. No single word coming from Montenegro. Well, I think it is all clear enough. If we want to write lies, we are still able to do it, I have no problem. But we are still writing lies, and it is correct that everybody knows we are writing lies on purpose, just for the sake of writing lies.

Yes, zvaničan jezik means official language, but I have also written that. Nevertheless, that is the definition of the newspaper, not of the Government of Vojvodina or Serbia. Do you honestly think that a tabloid has the right to define what is a language, or even more an official one, and what is not?! Anyways, sure I wrote that Mali Iđoš municipality gave Montenegrin citizens the opportunity to speak and write to them in their ijekavian variety. We all know very well that the thousands of Montenegrins who live in Serbia did, have done, do, and will always do so, everywhere they are, regardless of they being officially allowed or not. 99% of them speak and write as Montenegrins even if they have been living 30 years in Serbia, that's clear. Serbia never had a problem about it, first of all because Montenegrin is nothing more than any variety of South-Western Serbia, and there is not a single word that any Serbian would not understand. They would have MUCH more problems understanding varieties of South Serbia than Montenegrin ones... Moreover, Serbia is quite open-minded about these topics, unlike many other countries, see minorities in Vojvodina, etc. You'll find villages in Vojvodina with street signs in three or four languages...!

Nevertheless, allowing citizens to speak their variety does not mean this variety is acknowledged as an "official" or "minority" language. If it was like that, the page of the municipality should have been translated in this language, at least. By any official or minority language it is so. In Mali Iđoš it is so in Hungarian, because this IS an official language there, acknowledged from the Governments of Vojvodina and Serbia. But it is not so for Montenegrin, because it is NOT any official language there, it is NOT acknowledged from the regional Government of Vojvodina and it is NOT acknowledged from the Serbian Government. Plus, it is not even a language and not even people from Montenegro say they speak such a "language", but that is another topic.

Therefore, Mali Iđoš gave their Montenegrin community the right to use their variety and somewhere called it "language", but it never says that it is an official or minority language of the municipality. Moreover, they wouldn't even have the right to do so. They could put announcements or signs as much as they like, but the could also do so for any dialect or local variety or whatever. And this is so everywhere. Only the Governments of Serbia or Vojvodina can have the right to determine what is an official or minority language or not, and they never asserted Montenegrin being such, simply because it isn't. Therefore, again, we should not write any lie. A mention in the article, as an information of interest, is more than enough. --Springpfühler (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@Springpfühler: It would be very helpful if you could learn how to format your comments in talk page discussions for easier reading. Please read and follow WP:INDENT. --T*U (talk) 07:22, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

This article states that According to Serbian law, local authorities are obliged to introduce the language of a minority into official use if 15 per cent of the population is a member of that minority. That rather contradicts your claim about who has the right to determine what is official. --T*U (talk) 07:22, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment - First of all, I want to congratulate Springpfühler for his explanation in his first comment. You nailed it completelly, you explained the essence. Now, about the question, I think there is a problem. The source is ambiguos. It starts by saying the municipality addopted Montenegrin language as official, but later on in the text says it still has to be implemented, and the municipality president speaks as if it is not official yet. The text concludes by saying that the new Montenegrin letters (which are basically the only major change) could start to be seen in the documents and blabla, as an eventuality, and not a fact. I am not sure how much of the news report isn´t sensationalistic rather then real. Maybe is too soon to make a conclusion. FkpCascais (talk) 00:01, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@FkpCascais: For the record: The concluding section of the news article talks about the eventuality of other municipalities (Vrbas and Kula) doing the same as Mali Iđoš. Also, it is rather obvious that the implementation follows after the formal adoption, but there is no doubt that it has been implemented. This is born out by the fact that the municipality web site presents public announcements in two almost identical versions, Serbian and Montenegrin, and it is also mentioned in this article (which also explains that Vrbas has not followed suit). --T*U (talk) 07:22, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Include We should not be arguing, as I see some of above, over whether or not Montenegrin is a language. Our policy should be symmetrical for all cases. Serbian is listed in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Montenegro. In each of these cases another standardized version of the Shtokavian dialect is present and the "Serbian" of all of these regions has a greater resemblance to Bosnian, Croatian, etc and is in fact more like Macedonian in terms of many of its properties in Prizren and Gjilan (where Torlakian, not Shtokavian, is spoken and called "Serbian" and "Bosnian"). But we say what politically correct sources do, not the WP:TRUTH. We have in some cases a listing of "Bosnian" separate from "Bosniak". We therefore must apply the same perhaps scientifically dubious, but politically correct, and more importantly consistent, policy elsewhere - whether it is Bosniak/Bosnian or Serbian/Montenegrin.--Calthinus (talk) 06:31, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
• Include There is no sufficient reason to remove Serbia from countries where Montenegrin has some sort of minority language status (I say "remove" because Serbia was there till someone decided to remove it without consensus). Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:44, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
• Note This RS says that: According to Serbian law, local authorities are obliged to introduce the language of a minority into official use if 15 per cent of the population is a member of that minority....Although Vrbas has so far avoided officially introducing Montenegrin as an official language, another small town in northern Serbia, Mali Idjos, declared it official in December 2010. This means that Montenegrins in Mali Idjos can get documents in their own language or communicate with local institutions in Montenegrin. Ktrimi991 (talk) 10:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

First of all, I didn´t really understand the comment of Calthinus, are we perhaps trying to put Serbian on the same level as Montenegrin or Bosnian/Bosnjak (call it whatever you like)? That is of course a joke, not even a Montenegrin or Bosnian child would take it seriously. Montenegrin children would laugh out loud at it, they may have independence or whatsoever, but they are still intelligent enough to understand the difference. According to such jokes, should Serbians almost be "happy" because their language is called Serbian in Montenegro, Bosnian or Croatia? Let's remain serious, please. That would be like asserting that English people should be "happy" because in Dublin they call their local language English. Oh yes, they could have called it Dublinese indeed, that's right. Doing so, eventually English language as spoken in England could have become a variant of the Dublinese language...right? That sounds crazy, but it is exactly what some really hard-core people from Balkan sometimes try to say. But honestly, just persons who are 100% biased and thus not reliable at all could imagine something like that. I know people from everywhere in the Balkans, and I can assure that not even an average Croat, Bosnian or Albanian could seriously think so. Me, I am not from Balkans, I have no interests apart from visiting countries there, and I am not biased, everybody knows that the language is Serbian and that Bosnian and Montenegrin are inventions and no languages, at most a variety of Serbo/Croatian. We could perhaps talk about Serbian and Croatian languages, but like we talk about European and Brazilian Portuguese, for example. In Vienna, where I live, the language is officially one in the schools and at the university, and it is called BKS (Bosnisch/Kroatisch/Serbisch). The thousands of "Yugos", as they are called in Vienna, who live there, call it simply "naš (jezik)", thus "ours", meaning also that is one language. I find these names also ok, but I still call it Serbo/Croatian, simply because I like it more so. So, if some people find "politically correct" to call it in ten different names, I may disagree: I find more "politically correct" calling it with one common name and we see the results of this policy: Yugos in Vienna live in peace and brotherhood between them, they are integrated and they go along with each other really well. In almost ten years in the city, I have never ever heard of fightings or whatever between Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, etc etc. I find it thousand times better than Balkan policy, where their only purpose to give the language other names was to create separations, fights, resentment, rivality, and hatred. Some people may take advantage of it, but the majority not, and surely it is not "politically correct". We could begin to call Spanish language according to the region Columbian, Argentinian, Chilean, Mexican, we will get sooo many names more, more than 20, we could get even more than 40 if we add some regional varieties within a country, would that be "politically correct"?? Does really someone think like that seriously? I am talking of course just about SPANISH or CASTILIAN language, not about other languages of Spain which are not Spanish and are totally separated languages. Same in the ex-Yu, that is just about SERBIAN language, or SERBO/CROATIAN, other languages like Slovenian or Macedonian of course are not included. Serbian may be called in other names, but it still remains Serbian language, no matter if in Serbia, in Bosnia or Montenegro. And in South Serbia they also speak Thorlakian, which is different from Shtokavijan and thus from Serbo/Croatian language, but they also speak Serbian, so it has to be mentioned, of course.

Anyways, sorry, this was all off-topic. Coming back to Mali Iđoš, you can put again Montenegrin if you like, I have nothing against it. I just have doubts about Montenegrin being "officially recognized" because, as I explained, giving you the right to speak a language or variant with the authorities does not necessarily and authomatically mean that it is "officially recognized". In the page of the Municipality of Mali Iđoš I have not found anything about it, and the page is in Serbian and Hungarian, but not in "Montenegrin"...probably also because there would not even be a single word different. And in the official page of Vojvodina, I have found a list of officially recognized languages (Serbian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, Ruthenian, Croatian (all official languages of Vojvodina)), but Montenegrin is not mentioned: http://www.vojvodina.gov.rs/en/autonomous-province-vojvodina Anyways, if we put Montenegrin again, it shoud be as a minority language, just as it was before. Montenegrins are just 16.26% of the population of Mali Iđoš, that's clearly a minority, they are less than the Serbs and much less than the Hungarian majority. --Springpfühler (talk) 21:20, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Please indent your comments and reply to people one at a time. I also don't think it's productive to make comments about Bosnian and Montenegrin having a lower "level" than "SERBIAN".--Calthinus (talk) 23:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

"Lower level" is not my choice of words, Bosnian and Montenegrin are both ijekavian (and shtokavian) variants or dialects of Serbian, there is nothing bad in it. Then, what is linguistically a variant or dialect can also be named "official language" of a country for political purposes, it is evident. I am quite clear, the language is definitely just one (there can't be a single doubt about it) and its name is Serbian. At most, Serbo/Croatian. Other names would be pure fantasy. BKS, its official name in Vienna, may also be an acceptable choice, surely "politically correct" (that's why it was chosen in Austria, having Vienna so many thousands of people coming from the former Yugoslavia). But I find Serbo/Croatian, or just Serbian, linguistically more correct. All the rest are inventions made with the purpose of creating divisions and foment hatred. I am speaking from a linguistically point of view, of course. I am not from Balkan and really not into these Balkan rivalities and nonsense, but I am a linguist. "Bosnian" and "Montenegrin" do not exist as languages, at least not linguistically, absolutely not. Politically yes, as I just said, they do exist, obviously for the purposes I have mentioned above. But that is not the topic of this specific discussion.--Springpfühler (talk) 00:24, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

You literally said "are we trying to put Serbian on the same level as Montenegrin". Scientifically, yes, they are the same language (and Torlakian -- no idea about "Thorlakian", is that the Marvel version? -- is probably a dialect of a different language, whose identity is a separate political dispute). But there can be no scientific argument to what we call this language, or which of its four standards has the highest "level".--Calthinus (talk) 05:36, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, we are talking about Shtokavian, the basis of standard Serbian and Croatian, or Serbo/Croatian, languages, not about something else. That is one language and this is its name, later on some people wanted to call their regional variety with their own names (Bosnian and Montenegrin) and began to say these varieties or dialects are supposed to be "standard languages" of their countries. Everybody could easily do like that, everywhere in the world (Bavarians for Bavarian language, Americans or Canadians for American or Canadian language, Andalusians for Andalusian language, Kosovars for Kosovar language, Romans for Roman language, and thousands of etc.), but it does not give authomatically the right to call a variety a "language" from a linguistic point of view; linguistically speaking we know what can be called a language and what not, but it is true that sometimes politics play a major role in it (we cannot assert that, for example, Galician is more "language" than Napolitan, of course not, even if in Italy they normally call Napolitan a "dialect", it is a language without any doubt). But in the case of Bosnian and Montenegrin, I think ALL linguistics agree that they remain mere variants, without almost any special feature at all (two invented letters in the case of Montenegrin, some H here and there plus some mainly invented "Arabic" loanwords in the case of Bosnian). Linguistically it is still one language with two main varieties, Serbian and Croatian, thus Serbo/Croatian. If we call this language with other names, that is just for political reasons, but those names are still wrong, though. Politically speaking it is different, then yes, we can call it in many names as one may like. On a political or social level, none of these names is supposed to be "higher" than another, that´s right. Nevertheless, prestige or acknowledgment may still differ, here too. For instance, you can study Serbian, or Croatian, or both together, at pretty much all major universities in Europe, at least, whereas I strongly doubt you can do it for Bosnian or Montenegrin, you know. And you will hardly find a dictionary of these two varieties translated to any major European language.--Springpfühler (talk) 10:15, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Springpfühler All linguists agree that there are four standardized variants of Shtokavian which obscure a much more complicated picture since they are all disproportionately from the same dialect originating from Bosnia. Montenegrin as a standardized variety, it is true, has a shorter history -- Bosnian, not as much. Montenegrin and Bosnian also have some cosmetic similarities to Serbian relative to Croatian (je/e stuff) this is true.

However, what you are missing entirely here is the double standard. What do Serbs in Croatia speak? The version of Shtokavian they use in Croatia is... Croatian (sometimes written in Cyrillic -- very controversially -- but what do they speak). So how can we say that Serbian is a minority language in Croatia, without also saying Montenegrin is a minority in Serbia. Then the situation in Macedonia and Southern Kosovo -- where Torlakian dialects that are often identical to the Torlakian speech of the neighboring Macedonian populations in N Mac (and Bulgarian Torlak speakers and NW Bulg/Bosilegrad) -- are called "Serbian" and somehow different from the identical "Macedonian" speech in the village right next door, is even more Orwellian, from a linguistic point of view.

Surely, if we followed something that resembled your views actually symmetrically, Serbian would not be called a minority language in Croatia, Montenegro or Bosnia, and certainly not Macedonia. If we were to take a linguistic point of view things would look very different. That is not our policy. Our policy elsewhere -- as it should be here -- is a surrender of science to politics. What we cannot do is surrender some points but not others in a way that takes sides in a nationalist dispute.--Calthinus (talk) 16:42, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Calthinus said,

Our policy elsewhere -- as it should be here -- is a surrender of science to politics.

No, it isn't, and shouldn't be here. What our policy is, is neutrality, expressed by adding all significant viewpoints to the article, in due proportion to their prevalence in reliable sources. Science does not surrender to politics, any more than the reverse. Wikipedia is agnostic about both. Mathglot (talk) 18:18, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Mathglot I refer to policy in practice in topic area, not global policy. Which is, as can be seen throughout the topic area, using what "official" (political organ) language terminology is, those being the result of the post Yugoslav War situation where language became equated to ethnicity in census responses. If we want footnotes everywhere for all of these cases I could support that too -- in fact thay is useful info to have. That could be a useful discussion on a broader discussion board. But I don't think Wikipedia should state that Montenegrin is Serbian, while not saying anything of the like for the equivalence of Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. That's taking sides.--Calthinus (talk) 18:55, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

To exemplify what I'm saying : currently in Languages of North Macedonia, we have Serbian and Bosnian listed. Objectively this hides from readers tthat if they went to any Serbian or Bosnian village (i.e. not urban diasporas) they would encounter native speakers of Macedonian. If we added a note stating these sorts of things in all the such cases -- with appropriate sourcing of course -- I could support what you're saying. What I can't support is doing it in only some cases.--Calthinus (talk) 19:09, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Calthinus, While I'm having some trouble understanding you, I can respond to your last two sentences [edit of 18:55] which I disagree with. Wikipedia does not try to present "all sides" of an argument in order to enforce some illusory "fairness" doctrine. Wikipedia does take sides—whenever, and only when, the reliable sources do. See WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:WikiVoice, and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Mathglot (talk) 19:12, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

To your second comment: as long as it's in proportion to reliable sources, and not false balance, I have no problem with that. Mathglot (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Mathglot I have to admit that, while this is often not what actually happens in practice (in fact we just go with census results and political authority policy everywhere, uncritically), you're absolutely right. Also, I meant to redact my comment before you replied to it for the first time, because I didn't think the discussion was constructive anymore.--Calthinus (talk) 19:24, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• Leaning include: (Summoned by bot) – Tl;dr version: follow the reliable sources, keep due weight in mind, and don't feel that there are only two choices: "include", and "don't include". There's actually a middle ground!

This has been a fascinating discussion so far, and I've learned a lot. While I have little knowledge of the languages in question, I'm well aware of the political-linguistic divide that exists when discussing whether something is a language or not, in other contexts. Since nobody seems to have mentioned it yet, I'll just throw out the standard response in this situation: "A language is a dialect with an army and navy." Okay, now that we've got that out of the way...

While I think Springpfühler's comments are interesting (and I really learned a lot), in the end, trying to decide this question by trying to argue or logick your way into whether a political approach or a linguistic approach is better here, is futile, and doomed to failure, because there will always be somebody with vehement feelings on the opposite side. Luckily for us, we are discussing this in the context of Wikipedia, which provides us with some rules which offer a path to the solution.

This path starts off from Wikipedia's core principle of WP:Neutral point of view. The first stop on this path is at WP:DUEWEIGHT, which tells us that "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Now, as Springpfühler pointed out, the political sources may not agree with the linguistic sources. But again, DUEWEIGHT provides the answer; as both the linguistic and the political viewpoints are significant, the article must mention both of them; the fact that they do not agree with each other or even are completely in opposition, is no problem for us; Wikipedia is not an arbiter of Truth, but merely reports what the reliable sources say. When they disagree, we report all of the major viewpoints, and the significant minority viewpoints. (We skip the FRINGE views; they need not be mentioned at all.) To the extent that opinions may be biased or opinionated but still held by a significant minority, we report them with in-text attribution, quoting them and naming the source in the text, not just in a footnote. After all the significant viewpoints are out there, you can then figure out how to summarize that in the Lead.

To the extent that the Rfc question is a binary one (either Serbia is listed in the Infobox, or it isn't) it makes it harder to have "multiple viewpoints", but even that is not impossible. if one of the major viewpoints is that Serbia is a place where Montenegrin has minority status, but others say "no, it isn't", then I'd consider including it, with a Note (maybe use {{efn}}) watering down its inclusion, by saying something about how linguists don't even consider it a language, and it's mostly a political expediency, or whatever seems reasonable. I would say the only real argument for excluding it entirely, would be if no majority or significant minority view would make that claim. That's why I'm "leaning include" in my !vote, with the possible addition of a footnote to water it down, if needed. But I'd like to see what others have to say. Mathglot (talk) 11:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment About how "linguists don't even consider it a language", that belongs in the beginning of the lead, not in a fn from the infobox. If we have a RS than Montenegrin has separate official status from Serbian in some part of Serbia -- e.g. govt docs are printed in both standards -- then Montenegrin should be listed as a minority language in Serbia. This isn't about what people speak, because 'official language' in this case means the written standard. Presumably there's no difference at all between the spoken languages, but that's irrelevant for legal status. If British English were an option in the US -- say, you could get your ballot printed in American English, British English, Spanish and Vietnamese -- then 'British English' would have minority status in the US -- even if the only effective difference was the spelling of words like "judgement" and "colour". Whether we think that's an idiotic waste of taxpayer money is irrelevant. The same will be true if the EU decides to print all official doc in Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin (and who knows, maybe Slavo-Kosovan and Vojvodinian as well). Even if the docs only differ in auto-spelling substitutions and only serve to waste paper, those standards would have official status in the EU. — kwami (talk) 20:03, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
• Include per T-NOR, et al. It's what the RS are telling us, and no amount of emotive venting about "rights" is relevant.  — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 09:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Status of a minority language in Bosnia and Herzegovina

I was making an edit summary, and accidentally published the edit without finishing the summary.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's legal system doesn't recognise "minority languages", so Montenegrin couldn't be recognised as such. Moreover, the source used for such a claim didn't actually support it in any sentence (Montenegrin wasn't even mentioned by the source, nor the source talked about the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina). Governor Sheng (talk) 18:41, 22 October 2022 (UTC)