[Manuel_D]

I think the above commenter's point is that "countries" doesn't just mean the formal nation state, but the cultural group. The nation of China was created on 1949. China is much older than 75 years. Likewise, Germanic tribes existed as far back as the Ancient World.

[neilkk]

But the only real connection between 'Germanic tribes' and the modern state of Germany is that people from the latter believe the former to be their forefathers. They are not genetically closer to them than other Europeans, nor do they speak the same language or call themselves the same word or have the same lifestyle or inhabit the same places.

During the Yugoslav period, there was a minority group of Bulgarian migrants in one region of Yugoslavia. Like most linguistic groups they adopted the national language and believed themselves to be Yugoslav. However their group was sometimes referred to as 'Macedonian' because the corner of Yugoslavia near Bulgaria is also near Macedonia in Greece. They now have their own country (and language - whose only differences from Serbo-Croat are those which were intentionally introduced), and many believe themselves to be the descendants and cultural and spiritual heirs of Alexander the Great (even though Alexander reigned over and left an influence over a region bigger than Europe).

All countries have things like this in their history. It's just that generally they are a few hundred years further away.

[Manuel_D]

No, there are continuities in language. It's changed over time, but it's still descended from those older cultures. French has it's roots in Frankish people that settled there in the migration period, with Latin and other influence. It's not just people arbitrarily claiming lineage. There are also specifics in culture and tradition, e.g. Christmas trees date back to pagan Germanic festivals.

[neilkk]

Modern German is no closer to the language of a randomly chosen 'Germanic Tribe' than English, Prussian, Danish, Yiddish, Swedish, Czech, etc.

Most people living in what is now France would have spoken other languages than French well past the time of the Frankish people.

Literally all over Europe, and a lot of the world, people have trees at Christmas.

[Manuel_D]

Incorrect, English does indeed have German influence but it also has more Celtic influence. One is closer to Old German than the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_High_German

[neilkk]

Germanic tribes in the ancient world did not speak Old High German. The status of Old High German as the origin language of modern German is part of the construction of German history in exactly the manner I have described.

There is very little Celtic in Old English. It's very close to a synthesis of Anglish and French. There's much more Danish in English than there is Celtic.

[Manuel_D]

> Germanic tribes in the ancient world did not speak Old High German.

As per the link, it was spoken around 500 AD. Which is at the tail end of the Ancient World but it's still far older than Germany as a country.

> The status of Old High German as the origin language of modern German is part of the construction of German history in exactly the manner I have described

Are you just rejecting the entire field of linguistics? Languages absolutely do have descendants, and while there is admixture and external influences there is broad continuity between old German and contemporary German.

[vik0]

>During the Yugoslav period, there was a minority group of Bulgarian migrants in one region of Yugoslavia. Like most linguistic groups they adopted the national language and believed themselves to be Yugoslav. However their group was sometimes referred to as 'Macedonian' because the corner of Yugoslavia near Bulgaria is also near Macedonia in Greece.

Wow, this is... biased. Sincerely, a Macedonian.

People living in Macedonia (or, to avoid confusion, sigh... North Macedonia), have at one point (and even today, by some), yes, been called Bulgarians, but we've also been called Serbs and Greeks (in northern Greece, since Greece claims that everyone in Greece is Greek, lol). So, you claiming that we have only been Bulgarians, who, judging by the tone of your comment, got brainwashed into thinking we're Yugoslavs and after that Macedonians is absurd, to say the least.

Serbs tried to make us Serbs before Bulgarians tried to make us Bulgarian, and they too failed. You can't make up an entire nation in a top-down manner, the people living in those lands first have to show signs that they consider themselves as a separate nation from the rest in any given region, which the Macedonians have, time and again.

Now, to be fair to Serbs, there's a lot of Serbian cultural influence here, and a lot of people here do understand Serbian more than Bulgarian (even though Bulgarian and Macedonian are, on paper, more similar than Serbian and Macedonian), but still, they failed in trying to convince us to be Serbian rather than what we are now, a separate nation, Macedonian.

Also, the modern idea of a separate, sovereign Macedonian state for the Macedonian nation has existed since at least 1880*

> (and language - whose only differences from Serbo-Croat are those which were intentionally introduced)

1. And this is how I know you're not a Bulgarian because a true Bulgarian nationalist would claim that Macedonian is not its own language, but that it's only a dialect of Bulgarian.

2. There are a lot of differences on paper from Serbo-Croatian. It's closer to Bulgarian. Still, you don't create a language in a top-down manner. Read "Za makedonckite raboti" by Krste Petkov Misirkov.

> and many believe themselves to be the descendants and cultural and spiritual heirs of Alexander the Great (even though Alexander reigned over and left an influence over a region bigger than Europe).

Not sure how true this is. There are some definitely, but I feel they're more of a very loud minority, or at least not the majority by a long shot. Anybody who is seriously claiming they're direct descendants of some guy who lived over 2 thousand years ago, and completely forgetting about everyone that has walked and mixed in that region between then and now (think of all the Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Jews, Ottomans, and everybody else I'm not mentioning) is to have his mental faculties questioned. This goes not only for my fellow denizens, but for anybody claiming such a historical connection to a long-lost civilization, and especially so for those who are geographically not related (I could name names, but that would further diverge this conversation.) But at the same time to claim that people living in present-day Macedonia (the entire region, not just the state) have no connection whatsoever, is, as well, stupid.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Assembly_of_Macedonia... * https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:A_Manifesto_from_...

[neilkk]

Thanks for proving my point!

[vik0]

You didn't even bother to read the comment, did you?

[neilkk]

I read the whole thing. It's literally a showcase of all the mental tics and obfuscations involved in the construction of artificial national histories as I described in my earlier comment.

Accusations of bias, the suggestion that 'only nationality X would question this aspect of our proud Y history', turning minor linguistic coincidences into meaningful history, the admission that 'everyone is from all over the place, but nonetheless we are all definitely from Z because [no evidence]'.

Self-definition based on 'we are W because we're not U and definitely not V.' The denial that it's possible to force the construction of a cultural, linguistic or ethnic group, despite numerous examples of exactly this happening. Appeal to biased histories written by true believers. Appeal to linguistic treatises only available in the language in question. Appeal to the time-honored authority of ... the 1880s, a (not very distant) era when every single group of people in Europe was trying to become a nation.

Alexander the Great did not live in Skopje. He did not speak Macedonian, 'a language closer to Bulgarian than to Serbian'. There are at least 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe which have closer cultural, political or ethnic connections with Alexander the Great than Macedonia does.

[vik0]

>I read the whole thing.

Alright

> It's literally a showcase of all the mental tics and obfuscations involved in the construction of artificial national histories as I described in my earlier comment.

I agree, all nations are artificial creations. I'd recommend Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. And never did I claim that a unified Macedonian nation has existed for longer than 144 years (since 1880), so not sure what the "artificial national histories" part is alluding to(?)

>Self-definition based on 'we are W because we're not U and definitely not V.'

What's wrong with this? Americans are American because they defied the British Empire. What are you going to claim next - that Americans don't exist? If so, good luck!

And isn't that how all nations are? The French are French because they're neither German, nor English, nor Spanish, nor Italian. Nations are essentially just in-group vs out-group behaviors and dynamics manifested in relatively large landscapes.

Serbs are Serbs because they're not Croats or Bulgarians or Macedonians or Albanians. Macedonians are Macedonians because they're not Serbs or Greeks or Bulgarians or Albanians.

All nations (groups) have traits that are different enough from another nation (group), which is why they become a group (nation) in the first place.

>The denial that it's possible to force the construction of a cultural, linguistic or ethnic group, despite numerous examples of exactly this happening.

I suppose I worded that part terribly, so it's my fault. I tried to say that all (yes, all) top-down nation-building projects don't work. I know you're going to provide examples of something like the middle eastern arab states, but that would be a terrible example, as no one, and I mean no one, from, say, as an example, from Saudi Arabia views himself as Saudi Arabian first, instead they view themselves as Arabs; same goes for people from other projects like Qatar, QAE, Bahrain and the other "nation"-states in that region. The people living in those "nation"-states didn't organically decide to create their state based on their nation, instead their "nation"-state borders were created by some interventionists in a faraway land, unsuccessfully because nobody there thinks that his "nation"-state is much different from his neighboring "nation"-state.

Macedonia, conversely, is not a top-down nation created by bureaucrats - people here, like people all over the world who belong to bottom-up nations, came to their own conclusion that they're different from those around them, hence they became a separate group (nation). And yes, if we got back far enough, at one point people here did consider them Bulgarians, and at another time Serbs, and at a third time, much further back, Greeks (I am not arguing against this fact, if you think I am then we are arguing bout different topics), but if we go back far enough, most people in Europe alone came from one group, which does not invalidate their national affiliations today.

>Appeal to biased histories written by true believers.

Where did I mention this? True believers?

>Appeal to linguistic treatises only available in the language in question.

Haha

https://www.amazon.com/Macedonian-Matters-Krste-Petkov-Misir...

And if you don't want to buy it, you can translate it yourself part by part:

http://damj.manu.edu.mk/pdf/0005%20Za%20makedonckite%20rabot... https://www.deepl.com/translator https://translate.google.com/

And btw, it's available in Bulgarian too, it was published in Sofia in 1903 after all; and most copies were confiscated or destroyed by the Bulgarian police, wonder why that happened?

I also wonder why Bulgaria occupied Macedonia in WWII - it wouldn't make sense to occupy one's own people, no? Unless... :)

>Appeal to the time-honored authority of ... the 1880s, a (not very distant) era when every single group of people in Europe was trying to become a nation.

And when did I say that the Macedonian nation has existed since time immemorial? Starting to look like you didn't read my comment. And what's wrong with the 1880s specifically? Would it have been better if it happened in the 1980s? What about the 1780s? Does America not exist because the revolution happened to be in 1776 - a random year as any?

>Alexander the Great did not live in Skopje.

Never said he did. He probably never stepped foot in what was Skopje at the time. Still, Macedonia is not Skopje, contrary to what most foreigners think (along with our politicians, unfortunately.)

>He did not speak Macedonian

Of course not, and I never said he did. The modern Macedonian language is a Slavic language, it would be absurd if he spoke a Slavic language some ~1000 years before the Slavs came to the Balkan with their language.

There is a chance that he spoke some version of Aincent Macedonian, likely a dialect of Greek, which is very likely not related to the modern Slavic language which bears the same name, along with Greek, the prestige language of the time.

> 'a language closer to Bulgarian than to Serbian'.

Yes, what's wrong with that? It's in the South Slavic branch of languages, in the eastern group with Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic. All languages in the South Slavic group form a dialectic continuum, meaning that we can all more or less understand each other (except, I would add, Slovene). Does that mean that no nation whatsoever exists in the Balkan? Or that we are all just one nation, even though we don't think we are, which is what nations are based around in the first place - thinking we belong to one group and not the other?

>There are at least 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe which have closer cultural, political or ethnic connections with Alexander the Great than Macedonia does.

And when did I say otherwise?

Seems to me that more than half the time here you're just arguing with yourself. And a couple of lines of yours read like they've been copy-pasted from some ready-made document full of zingers