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Originally Posted by Bulair
Hehe, you got me there, I cannot find independant sources, but I think you'll agree that prior to WW2 there were no evidence of other languages in FYROM other than Serbian and Bulgarian.
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Well, yes, but then again, that's the result of the mess the Ottomans left
in the early 20th century.
The modern Balkan nations are just a distant continuance of the feudal pseudo-nations which existed before the Ottomans arrived.
In the 19th century, there was a mess... the people had no such identity.
Most people who today know themselves as Bulgarians, or Serbs, or Vlachs, Croats, Bosnians etc. didn't keep their identity since medieval times.
They knew themselves as 'we', not more than that.
Even in medieval times, these people weren't exactly 'Bulgarians' or 'Serbs' or whatever, they were just an asset of whichever Feudal lord had power over that teritory at the time.
Take also into account the close relation of the south-Slavic languages,
and you got a mess which was then 'solved' through several wars,
early 20th century nationalistic propaganda ( used both for forming nations, as well as for forming animosities ).
This is the fate of peoples who were occupied by empires.