Talk:Bible translations into Macedonian

Re: Neofit's translation of the New Testament

You updated the page Bible_translations_into_Macedonian with this statement: "Per author himself, it was done in Bulgarian language, and de facto in the Maleševo-Pirin dialect, which is transitional between Bulgarian and Macedonian."

I don't disagree with this statement, but I don't think we have a source to back it up. The truth is, I think, a bit more complicated. I think Neofit was trying to create a standard Bulgarian language and he was using a dialect that is central (transitional) between Bulgarian and Macedonian. But Elias Riggs believed that this is a Macedonian dialect and he urged Neofit to not include many words from it. Since Riggs was the editor, he probably edited out some words that Neofit originally used. Later in the mid 1860-ties Riggs came to believe that this translation is done in a peripheral dialect, outside of Bulgaria Proper, so he, Riggs, (helped by Slaveykov and few others), revised this translation to reflect the Eastern Bulgarian dialect. This we can back up with the references that we have. GStojanov (talk) 20:53, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I don't see that Riggs himself came to believe that this translation is done in a peripheral dialect, outside of Bulgaria Proper. In his long report after his return in Bulgaria ca. 1870, he dwells on the necessity of using the Eastern variety of speech, instead of the Western (Macedonian), for all further publications, since from his inquiries among schoolteachers and other competent men, he had become convinced that the future belonged to that Eastern dialect, i.e. it would be the basis for the future codification. However, Bulgarian was finally codified in 1899. Jingiby (talk) 06:40, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Riggs thought that Bulgarian is spoken south of Danube and north of Balkan, east of Vidin and west to the Black see: In his Notes on the Grammer of the Bulgarian language. And Leo Wiener definitely thought that Macedonian is a dialect outside of Bulgaria Proper: "Later, when culture penetrated into Bulgaria Proper, this abnormal state of raising a dialect spoken beyond the provinces of the country to the dignity of a literary language could not be maintained."[1] GStojanov (talk) 19:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Riggs devoted himself to learning the Bulgarian language. He wrote that Western, Macedonian dialects were very developed, unlike the Eastern ones which were very poor and often very close to the Russian language. Riggs even wrote in Macedonian dialects until 1859. Probably one of his Bulgarian textbooks was based on the grammar of Neofit Rilski. That was the grammar he published in 1844. Riggs became also very interested in the collection of the Miladinov brothers. He translated nine songs from their Bulgarian Folk Songs into English and sent them to the American Oriental Society in Princeton, New Jersey. In a letter from in June 1862 about the Collection, Riggs wrote: "…The whole present an interesting picture of the traditions and fancies prevailing among the mass of the Bulgarian people…" See also Riggs' The Bible in Bulgarian (December 1, 1871), where he wrote:...In a tour taken by Mr. Byington and myself in the autumn of 1859, we found the teachers all through Macedonia readily and unanimously acknowledged that their language was destined to be mainly molded after the Eastern model. With equal unanimity they held and expressed the view, that the language was to be one and not two... Jingiby (talk) 04:03, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. I should have started it on the Talk:Bible_translations_into_Macedonian. Do you mind if we move it there and continue there? GStojanov (talk) 14:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

No problems. Jingiby (talk) 14:58, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Konikovo Gospel

We have conflicting statements in the article. We need to think how we harmonize them. To me it seems like the manuscript existed prior to Pavel Bozhigropski's print. I will have to read a bit more to make sense of all of this. GStojanov (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I have realized that there were two KG. The first KG is from the late 18th -early 19th cent. by an anonymous translator who used Greek script. KG-1 thus represents “the oldest known text of greater scope that directly reflects the living Slavic dialects of what is today Greek Macedonia” and also “the oldest known Gospel translation in Modern Macedonian”. KG-2 is written in a second hand by Pavel Božigropski. We are thus in effect dealing with 2 KG, the first of which is represented by the unedited version of the original KG manuscript ca. 1800, while the second is represented by the same manuscript as edited by the hand of Pavel Bozhigrobski and published in 1852. Jingiby (talk) 19:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)