[Hegumen]

Originally Posted by Vojvoda

their langauge is closer to Old Church Slavonic

The Macedonian and Bulgarian languages are the direct descendants of OCS.

Originally Posted by Bulair

I'll have to disagree, because macedonian is a bulgarian dialect, people in south-west Bulgaria speak the same way as macedonians.

Originally Posted by Awar

It's also the same with Serbian regions which are near Macedonia, and also mutually intelligible with most Serbian dialects.

In Bosnia, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks all speak the same... Serbs in Croatia speak like their fellow Croatian countrymen. The Muslim Slavs in Kosovo speak like their southern neighbors, just as Macedonians near the border to Bulgaria speak a dialect closer to Bulgarian.

Originally Posted by Zrinski

I am sorry, but I am simply not convinced that Macedonian and Bulgarian are closer to Old Slavonic....

Well, look at it this way. OCS is in the Eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages (as are Macedonian and Bulgarian) while Serbian and Croatian belong to the Western subgroup.

Originally Posted by Reltih

Also modern macedonian had absorbed plenty of serbian, croatian, slovenian, i.e. yugoslavian words during the days they were part of one state.

Prove it... and don't just make a list a common words.

Originally Posted by Whiteruthenian

The Old Slavonic language = the Old Macedonian language, isn’t it?

It's sometimes called "Old Macedonian" in Macedonia and by some Western scholars, but it's a little misleading, because:

Originally Posted by Monolith

the language spoken by ancient Macedonians was not Slavic at all. Slavs came much later.

...so it has fallen out of use and the most common name today is "Old Church Slavonic".

Originally Posted by Superstar

Funny you should say that, my grandfather (who died over 20 years ago) was around before WW1 and he told me that he always identified himself as a Macedonian.

I had asked my grandmother, who past away only a few years ago, a similar question during a family gathering. She was rather confused and perplexed as to why I'd asked her such a question. She was completely oblivious to the dispute between Macedonia and Bulgaria and had only ever thought of herself as being a "Makedonka".

Originally Posted by Superstar

Hopefully we will all get along better in the future.

Unfortunately, as long as there are people like Bulair and Asparukh denying our existence, this will not be possible. I, however, have a few Bulgarian friends and get along with them very well.