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Fazla
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 6260 days ago
166 posts - 255 votes 
Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French
Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin
| Message 81 of 96 20 January 2012 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
Fazla, I haven't said anything insulting. Your own people called themselves Muslims for DECADES before they
called themselves Bosniaks.
"Bosniak" was a neologism (actually a revived one, since it was used in a non-ethnic
sense by the Ottoman empire at times) dredged up by Muhamed Filipovic in 1993 or 1994 I believe. |
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Wow.
Now even more I understand in which kind of circles you dwell. It's just too bad you decide to live in the past.
There are tons of documents, songs, of people referring to them as Bosniaks. The fact that in Yugoslavia the most used term was Muslim only tells how in those circumstances that was the best we could hope for and indeed it was.
Before a century a used term by Serbs in Bosnia for themselves was Vlachs. Should I call you Vlachs as that is how you used to call yourself?
Blacks in the USA used to call themselves with the "N" word. Would you still call themselves like that?
Most of people don't even know who Muhamed Filipovic is and if you think that 2000000 people just like that can "change" their national consciousness you are deeply deluded. Bosniak (Bošnjak in Bosnian) is just the name we've been known for centuries, and the name we always chose when we could form cultural institutions for ourselves. The fact that Bosnian orthodoxs and catholics decided to depart from that identity, and chose from themselves to be Serbs or Croats, is a fact we accept, have no problems with it, but you should learn to accept others too.
Quote:
The intent is
clear: to portray Bosnian Serbs and Croats as less native to Bosnia than the Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks. Sorry, that
won't fly. |
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It's not us who are making you less native to Bosnia, it is your policies of hating your own homeland who makes you less native in the eyes of the world. Demographic trends in the next years and decades will show you why hate for your homeland can only have disastrous consequences.
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I like that stab at Belgrade, too. As if Tito - who created the title Muslimani (ethnic group) instead of
muslimani (religious group) in 1968 - were a Serb. A Croat-Slovene explant who exterminated the Belgrade
elite in 1944, created autonomous regions of dubious validity only in Serbia but no where else, imposed a
Montenegrin identity on all people in Montenegro, purposefully codified the modern Macedonian language based
on dialects that were the farthest from southern Serbian, not to mention many other grievances - is now
supposed to be proof of Belgrade hegemony. Unreal! |
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Belgrade means "somebody outside of Bosnia deciding about our fate" be it Tito or the Serbian royal dinasty. Take all the tissues you need, a deep breathe, and understand those days are over.
Quote:
I'm out of here. The tensions are always close to the surface on these topics, but the days of delusional
Brotherhood and Unity and the Goli Otok gulag and Titoist lies that held Yugoslavia together are thankfully over. I
can't abide the lies and when I speak the truth some people don't like that. |
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You are using a term that has existed for 20 years because it was unacceptable to call us for what we are whereas I ask not only for you to not use a term I and 2000000 other people find to be derogatory, but a term that is in official use in English and also in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia and that has existed for centuries. You can think you know the TRUTH (which doesn't surprise me seeing where do you come from) all I ask is to have humility and respect when conversing with somebody else. If you wanna call Germans Nazis or blacks N__gers because that's how they called themselves in a certain period of time, don't blame the world for the "hostility and propaganda" you perceive about your people.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Fazla
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 6260 days ago
166 posts - 255 votes
Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French
Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin
| Message 82 of 96 20 January 2012 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
I don't know what the linguists say, I just know how I feel about the name issue and it's probably not far from
how Greeks feel about the Macedonia name issue. Perhaps I wouldn't feel that way if it hadn't been the case -
repeatedly - during the 1990s and still today that Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats were portrayed as invaders
rather than autochthonous ethnic groups fighting for their own territory in land they had inhabited since time
immemorial - and many centuries before the arrival of Islam to the area.
It's time our terminology in discussing these issues reflect the reality of three ethnic groups defined primarily by
religious affiliation (personal or ancestral) and all three are equally native to the area racially and have equal
rights to self-determination. The fact that Serbs also have Serbia and Croats also have Croatia in no way negates
the right of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia to self-determination. |
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Next time you fight for your "own territory in land you had inhabited since time immemorial" and your own "self-determination" can you please not deport, kill, rape and commit genocide on the others living on "your" territory?
truly yours,
the Bosniak people.
Quote:
The fact that Bosnian Muslims have increasingly identified themselves in a regional sense is not particularly
surprising, 1.) because their religious identity first gave them a sense of ethnonational separation from their
Christian neighbors during the days of the religiously - but not ethnically - discriminatory Ottoman Empire; |
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Bošnjanin and Bošnjak are words that compare and are used by Bosniaks as opposed to Serbs even before the arrival of the Ottoman Empire, during the Ottoman Empire and after the Ottoman Empire so again, what are you talking about ?
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2.) because as their religious observance declines and they increasingly reflect on that fact that religion generally
doesn't define a nation (Pakistan being a rare exception), they must grasp for something else. |
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Look up there.
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But what?
They are unable to trace a continuous cultural line from some ancient people, as has been attempted (dubiously,
I might add) with Albanians>Illyrians and Slavic Macedonians>ancient (Hellenic) Macedonians. |
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We have all the documents we need attesting the presence of Bosniaks in Bosnia in the middle ages so that's quite enough to us. Also, we are quite happy to not have the fetish for the past as you do.
Quote:
Nor does their language objectively differ from that of their Serb and Croat neighbors (their Bosnian/Bosniak
language notwithstanding). |
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Modern Serbo-Croatian is the standardized language of a region of Bosnia - why is it called Serbo-Croatian is out of my mind.
The first Bosnian dictionary has been made in 1631, the first Serbian dictionary in 1818.
Why on earth should the standardized language have something to do with Serbs, is out of my mind again.
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So what to do? Use the name of the region Bosnia as a way to affirm your (uniquely?) indigenous status, even
while passing down this identity through identification with Islamic faith and practice. |
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The Serbian and Croatian identities are completely intertwined with Orthodoxy and Catholicism so to whom are you preaching here???
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And then, when the time comes, some 50 years down the line and perhaps the demographics are even more in
your favor, you explain that the Serb and Croat invaders have no place in Bosnia and can go back to Serbia and
Croatia if they don't like being ruled by Bosniak Sarajevo. |
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That's how Karadzic reasoned... he would always love to talk how there are more and more Bosniaks in BiH. But if you don't love the land enough, that's not our problem, already in Yugoslavia Serbs were going to Serbia and Croats to Croatia. Because you can't prosper on a land you hate and spit on every day. It's not our fault, it's yours.
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As for your second comment, I have nothing to say other than that it would probably be best to carry on
discussions of history and ethnicity by private messages/mail since certain offendable parties are liable to get
angry otherwise. |
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And always will when I will feel disrespected.
Edited by Fazla on 20 January 2012 at 8:59pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5054 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes
Speaks: Russian*
| Message 83 of 96 20 January 2012 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
Is "Muslim" an offensive word? Don't Muslims now call themselves Muslims? In Russian this
word is usually used for Bosniaks.
Although I can call them Bosniaks, I don't see the problem at all.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Fazla
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 6260 days ago
166 posts - 255 votes
Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French
Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin
| Message 84 of 96 20 January 2012 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
Марк wrote:
| Is "Muslim" an offensive word? |
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As a synonim of Bosniak, it is, because Muslim tries to prove how we are not a people, an ethnicity, but just a religious group, which we aren't.
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| Don't Muslims now call themselves Muslims? |
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No, Muslims as a word has disappeared completely in official situations in all of ex yu (meaning on tv, newspapers, governmental reports) you can find only Bosniak and only the older generation still might use it.
Quote:
In Russian this
word is usually used for Bosniaks. |
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We know that, it has been the case in the whole world.
Quote:
Although I can call them Bosniaks, I don't see the problem at all.
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I am extremely happy about that, so to avoid any ambiguity and problems, please stick to Bosniaks.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7154 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 85 of 96 20 January 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
Chung wrote:
The irony with this reasoning is that Croatian and Serbian linguists usually insist on the term "Bošnjački jezik"
(Bosniak) rather than "Bosanski jezik" (Bosnian) per most Bosnian linguists' preference. The latter group's thinking
goes that each country/piece of turf must have a corresponding language name. If Hrvatska and Srbija can have
"hrvatski" and "srpski", then why can't there be "bosanski" for Bosna (i Hercegovina)? The Croats and Serbs don't
see it this way since somehow they've come to feel that calling it "Bosanski" must also refer to the language of
the self-identified Croats and Serbs in Bosnia and that it somehow "denies" the linguistic background of those
Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs by labelling "their language" as "Bosanski". Painting "Bosniak" as some kind of
neologism meant to marginalize a certain set of people is at odds with the dynamics of the dispute (at least on
the linguistic side). The Wikipedia articles also reflect this dichotomy in usage (and the implication for 'Bosniak'
and 'Bosnian') with Croatian and
%B5%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%BA">Serbian articles for "Bošnjački jezik" versus the
Bosnian one calling it "Bosanski jezik".
Wow. It sounds just like what I heard from a former classmate in high school who was fiercely proud of his
Serbian parentage but had spent his entire life in the arms of the Serbian diaspora in Chicago. |
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I don't know what the linguists say, I just know how I feel about the name issue and it's probably not far from
how Greeks feel about the Macedonia name issue. |
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I'm trying to keep the discussion on language (hence the dispute between linguists), and that is how I come to this matter. The people/speakers are a different matter and so are their concepts of self-identity or ethnic affiliation.
Merv wrote:
It's time our terminology in discussing these issues reflect the reality of three ethnic groups defined primarily by
religious affiliation (personal or ancestral) and all three are equally native to the area racially and have equal
rights to self-determination. The fact that Serbs also have Serbia and Croats also have Croatia in no way negates
the right of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia to self-determination.
The fact that Bosnian Muslims have increasingly identified themselves in a regional sense is not particularly
surprising, 1.) because their religious identity first gave them a sense of ethnonational separation from their
Christian neighbors during the days of the religiously - but not ethnically - discriminatory Ottoman Empire; and
2.) because as their religious observance declines and they increasingly reflect on that fact that religion generally
doesn't define a nation (Pakistan being a rare exception), they must grasp for something else.
But what?
They are unable to trace a continuous cultural line from some ancient people, as has been attempted (dubiously,
I might add) with Albanians>Illyrians and Slavic Macedonians>ancient (Hellenic) Macedonians.
Nor does their language objectively differ from that of their Serb and Croat neighbors (their Bosnian/Bosniak
language notwithstanding).
So what to do? Use the name of the region Bosnia as a way to affirm your (uniquely?) indigenous status, even
while passing down this identity through identification with Islamic faith and practice.
And then, when the time comes, some 50 years down the line and perhaps the demographics are even more in
your favor, you explain that the Serb and Croat invaders have no place in Bosnia and can go back to Serbia and
Croatia if they don't like being ruled by Bosniak Sarajevo.
As for your second comment, I have nothing to say other than that it would probably be best to carry on
discussions of history and ethnicity by private messages/mail since certain offendable parties are liable to get
angry otherwise. |
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I just remarked that it was uncannily similar to one that I had heard in the past. Anyway this fusion of one language with several ethnic identities is what many of us here find morbidly fascinating since your comments suggest that if I were to call your native language anything other than a term corresponding to your ethnicity, I would be offending you. Since this is a linguistic forum, I'll stick to Neo-Štokavian, thank you very much. To hell with ethnic and geographical markers since they seem to be taken literally here unlike other pluricentric languages (e.g. English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish). Why spare one group's feelings when I can "demean" the lot of you ex-Yugoslavians? :-P
Edited by Chung on 20 January 2012 at 9:34pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Merv
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5271 days ago
414 posts - 749 votes
Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian*
Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 86 of 96 20 January 2012 at 10:32pm | IP Logged |
Delodephius wrote:
Well I use Bosniak to refer to Muslim Bosnians. And I refer to Macedonians as
Macedonians because they do indeed have descent from the Ancient Macedonians, despite
the fact the A. Macedonians didn't speak a Slavic language. After all, Southern Slavs
only have about 10-20% "Slavic" genes and they're all practically descendants of the
ancient inhabitants of Balkans. The so called "Slavic Migration" was rather a small
invasion and imposition of the Common Slavic language on the locals, while the invading
Slavs merged with these locals beyond recognition. Only their names survive, which
ironically aren't even Slavic but Iranian (Serb, Croat) and Turkic (Bulgar), after the
elite class which ruled over the Slavic speaking warriors and commoners. Common Slavic
was the Lingua Franca of most of East-Central Europe at the time, and it was the
official language of for example the Avar, the Khazar and the Rus khaganate, despite
their elites speaking Turkic or Germanic languages. Some linguists theorize that the
Gothic kingdoms were the first to utilized Common Slavic as a Lingua Franca and after
the Hun invasion it spread throughout East-Central Europe as the LF of the Hun Empire.
To me that sounds as the most reasonable theory as I have spent years trying to figure
out the mystery of the spread of the Slavic language. |
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We all know that. It has nothing to do with race. Slavic Macedonians have nothing that connects them particularly
strongly to ancient Hellenic Macedonians culturally. They are no closer to that civilization culturally-speaking
than Bulgarians or Serbs, who were both deeply influenced by the Byzantine Empire and Greek civilization in the
like manner. Bulgarians consider themselves Slavs, not Thracians. Serbs consider themselves Slavs, not Thraco-
Illyrians. It's about language and culture, not race.
We are talking about cultures here. Portuguese are a Romance civilization and if they started calling themselves
Lusitanians and pretended that they were somehow more that than a Romance/Latin-influenced people...well, it
would look absurd.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Merv
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5271 days ago
414 posts - 749 votes
Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian*
Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 87 of 96 20 January 2012 at 10:46pm | IP Logged |
Fazla wrote:
Wow.
Now even more I understand in which kind of circles you dwell. It's just too bad you decide to live in the past.
There are tons of documents, songs, of people referring to them as Bosniaks. The fact that in Yugoslavia the
most used term was Muslim only tells how in those circumstances that was the best we could hope for and
indeed it was.
Before a century a used term by Serbs in Bosnia for themselves was Vlachs. Should I call you Vlachs as that is how
you used to call yourself?
Blacks in the USA used to call themselves with the "N" word. Would you still call themselves like that?
Most of people don't even know who Muhamed Filipovic is and if you think that 2000000 people just like that can
"change" their national consciousness you are deeply deluded. Bosniak (Bošnjak in Bosnian) is just the name
we've been known for centuries, and the name we always chose when we could form cultural institutions for
ourselves. The fact that Bosnian orthodoxs and catholics decided to depart from that identity, and chose from
themselves to be Serbs or Croats, is a fact we accept, have no problems with it, but you should learn to accept
others too. |
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I don't dwell in any particular circle. I've just read a lot of history and heard a lot of memory from oral accounts.
That's where I got my information.
Please provide evidence that Serbs ever called themselves Vlachs. I know you and the Croats have this delusion
that somehow proving the Serbs are of Dalmatian Latin blood will somehow make them less valid as natives of
Bosnia and Croatia. If anything, it makes them a more ancient presence since the Romans preceded the Slavs in
that area. But that's no matter, Serbs never identified as Vlachs and the Croatians made the mistake of mixing up
Serb people who adopted a Vlach lifestyle (i.e. of animal herding rather than Slavic farming), with the
Romanians.
Fazla wrote:
It's not us who are making you less native to Bosnia, it is your policies of hating your own
homeland who makes you less native in the eyes of the world. Demographic trends in the next years and decades
will show you why hate for your homeland can only have disastrous consequences. |
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Well obviously if they fought for their land they don't hate it, do they? Maybe they just don't want to be bossed
about by Muslims who only recently became the largest ethnic group in Bosnia (not even a majority). It's the
Muslims who are on a powertrip who, like some neo-Ottoman pashas, think they are entitled to rule over a
country in which they are not even over 50% and in which the majority of territory (~65% pre-1992) was owned by
Serbs.
You're right on the demographics. You learned that what you can't win by force of arms or historical continuity,
you can gain by reproducing and pushing out the others - or waiting till they die. Albanians in Serbia, Macedonia,
and Greece have perfected that strategy.
Fazla wrote:
Belgrade means "somebody outside of Bosnia deciding about our fate" be it Tito or the Serbian
royal dinasty. Take all the tissues you need, a deep breathe, and understand those days are over. |
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Yep. And now you're ruled by NATO and you and the Croats are gnawing at each other. O happy day!
Fazla wrote:
You are using a term that has existed for 20 years because it was unacceptable to call us for what
we are whereas I ask not only for you to not use a term I and 2000000 other people find to be derogatory, but a
term that is in official use in English and also in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia and that has existed for centuries. You
can think you know the TRUTH (which doesn't surprise me seeing where do you come from) all I ask is to have
humility and respect when conversing with somebody else. If you wanna call Germans Nazis or blacks N__gers
because that's how they called themselves in a certain period of time, don't blame the world for the "hostility and
propaganda" you perceive about your people. |
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You didn't consider it derogatory before 1993 or 1994...or was it 2000? I know that Bosniak didn't become in
vogue until the late 1990s or early 2000s. Now you're suddenly offended. Whatever.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7154 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 88 of 96 20 January 2012 at 11:33pm | IP Logged |
Guys, just settle down. For the love of God (or Allah), let's keep it to language, on which I think that several of us (by my count a Bosniak, a couple of Croats and a couple of Serbs in addition to me the non-Balkanian language geek) recently debunked Maks' insistence on Croatian and Serbian being more than just different variants/standard languages using blatantly manipulated lists/comparisons.
1 person has voted this message useful
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