Talk:Bosniaks

• /Archive1: Discussions until June 5, 2006.

Bosniacs and Illyrians???????

No one did genetical resarch on Illyrians so why try to adopt history of albanians (illyrians) into this pseudo nation called bosniacs, why all this lies . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.33.242 (talk) 06:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary prominent anthropologist such as John J. Wilkes claim that Bosniaks are the original descendants of Indigenous Illyrian tribes and that Serbs are newcomers.

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Bosniaks are from Illyrian descent. Therefore, back up something factually when you say it. MrBosnia 04:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

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100 Years of Russian/Slavic/Gypsi propaganda will have you believe that Bosniaks are Slavic, yet the common accepted knowledge is that North Illyrians (Blonde Europeans) were never driven out of Bosnia by Slavs. Guess what Austro Hungarian empire called Bosnians? Illyrians. The problem is nobody can provide credible evidence that Bosniaks are Slavic, so I'd like to see that word removed from Bosniaks page untill 100,000 Bosniaks are examined genetically. That's fair.

Himler tried to recruit Bosniaks to form his largest SS division, considering what he thought of Slavs (Servs or Serbs) do you think he would have alowed Bosniaks to be the lead in his most feared storm troopers?

Also, why don't you Serbs go and edit the Serb bits, with Serb/Serv words and such instead of other cultures stuff, I don't notice any Bosniaks/Croats/Hungarians/Austrians (some of the nations you've tried to hurt and wish were dead) altering your stuff? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BosnianHolocaustSurvior (talk • contribs) 19:57, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, calm down. We get your point. But there is something you fail to realise. Not all Bosniaks are Illyrians. Some are Slavic as well. I'm both actually, and that is very highly common within the Bosniak population as Slavs and Illyrians assimilated with each other, causing their descendants to have mixed Slavic and Illyrian backgrounds. --Prevalis 22:57, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually Bosniacs were recruited by Hitler solely because he knew that they hated the Christian Serbs (enemies of Germany). That's all. Otherwise i;m sure Hitler would have had little regard for Turkophile Muslims that are Bosniacs. Secondly Bosniaks aren;t Illyrians. Pure and simple. They are merely Slavs (ie Serbs and Croats) that may have intermixed with some Illyrians, that subsequently converted to Islam. With the Ottoman millet system, people were not differentiated by ethnicity, but by religion. Serbs fell into orthodox miilet, Croats Catholic, and the Slavs of Bosnia that converted to Islam -> Muslim millet. When the Ottoman empire fell, these muslim Slavs continued to identify themselves as Muslims by nationality, or 'Bosniacs'.203.166.99.230 (talk) 09:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Untrue because Chetniks quite famously applied to join the NAZI side, and were rejected due to not conforming to NAZI physical features, and were instead exterminated along with Gypsies.

The thing is, you have to realise that the actual Slavic tribe that Serbs belong to is officially called Servian tribe (Serving cast) this was later changed to Serb, you can read up on that independently to find out why. As it happens Servs are famed for their habit of spreading around flat lands because it was easier to cultivate obviously as they are traveling tribe (Bosnia is very hilly). We also know and it is common knowledge that Illyrians were a waring people, and defended their land very jealously. Now as no book or legitimate source mentions a single battle between Servic tribe and Illyrian tribe before modern times, we can safely assume that Illyrians never mixed with Servs in significant proportions. Not to mention the fact that Bosniaks very consistently use the word "Babo" for father, which is an Italian word for father, where as Servs or Croats categorically do not. It would not take much imagination to realise that a particular word for father is passed down from real heritage and not changed easily due to peer-pressure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BosnianHolocaustSurvior (talk • contribs) 14:04, 28 October 2007

From a linguistic point of view, Bosenski of course is a Slavonic language. And it has nothing do to with genes if someone thinks of himself he/she is a Bosnjak/Bosenka. A discussion of genetic features of Bosniaks or of any population of any region makes not much sense in a context of discussion culture. Of course, you may discuss to what extent the genom of an average Slavonic speaking inhabitant of Bosnia in, say, 1900, was different from the genom of an average Slavonic speaking inhabitant of Bulgaria, Serbia, or Russia... but what sense would that make? When Nazis decided that Bosnjaks were better people than others due to lighter eyes and skin, this is Nazi stuff, and we must not continue this nonsense, must we? - We should better delete the topic from this article, or at least discuss it at the end, not in the beginning. Chgeiselmann 19:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC) 9.11.2007, Christian Geiselmann

Yes, linguistic point of view, fine. But Bosniaks have learned their lesson and are now gradually changing back their language from their Russian attempted conquerers, in schools and so on. Adding to that, Bosniaks are categorically rejecting the Slavic heritage in schools and are exclusively teaching the childrean in schools that they are a Northern Illyrian tribe with Scandinavian presence, both being old European tribes and trading partners. So what you won't be able to do for long is to label Bosniaks something they don't want to be labled, for example "Slav" something they themselves are refusing in EVERY school. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.73.117 (talk) 11:01, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH. MAN YOUR ARE DELUSIONAL. GET REAL, HOW CAN MUSLIMS BE ARYANS- POOR HITLER WOULD BE TURNING IN HIS GRAVE. HA HA . YOU MAKE ME LAUGH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.166.99.230 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Whoever wrote the stuff in capital letters, please do not mix religous beliefs/ghost stories with genetic/tribal heritage which occured before religions. Remember religions in that region are only a few hundread years old in cases, due to difficult terrain/access. 83.67.73.117 (talk) 12:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, tons of research has been done on the subject, and beyond doubt consistently Bosniaks are Northern Illyrian tribe upon analysis of Y and X chromosomes with a significant Scandinavian presence, much like the Northern Italian tribe. Which explains why when I traveled to Bosnia, Bosniaks appeared blonde and blue eyed, and Serbs appeared dark and black eyed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.73.117 (talk) 10:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, that we need to actually verify the research, ensure it comes from reliable sources, and present the information in a balanced manner. --Ronz (talk) 16:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay then, if that was the case, althought there is no sources at all to say that Bosniaks are "South Slavic" before we make such a claim, "we need to actually verify the research, ensure it comes from reliable sources", before we use this term. However towards the contrary argument, there is rather solid evidence from one of the few people who researched into the subject anthropologist John J. Wilkes.83.67.73.117 (talk) 04:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

Does anybody have any issues or comments about the introduction? For a number of reasons, it's very important that we get this part right. There have been so many edit wars and arguements over this most basic summary of the topic that it's imperative we find something we can all agree on and stick to if the article is ever to become stable. I think we should all be able to agree on the information presented in it. I would like to add another paragraph in between the current two with further basic information about Bosniaks, but I am not sure exactly what to write. Live Forever 23:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem I have is that the Bosnians are called "Indigenous." I understand this is a sensitive topic, but even the oral tradition of Bosniak people of many families recalls a time when they considered themselves Serb or Croat by ethnicity. i.e. Mesa Selimovic.

There are no problems, there haven't been any edit wars until you showed up. Damir Mišić

I beg to differ. For instance, from merely casually glancing at my watchlist I noticed numerous significant disagreements and edit-wars between you and user Jadran. Live Forever 00:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I, Jadran and Duja haven't reverted this article for some time. You removed this vital part: The modern Bosniaks are a Southeast European ethnic group descended from South Slavic converts to Islam, that lived in Bosnian Kingdom (they called themselves Good Bosnians, in Bosnian: "Dobri Bošnjani", "Dobrije Bošnjana"). There are newer theories, by mainly local historians, claiming that Bosniaks were not originally Slavs at all, but in fact Illyrians, who took up Slavic culture following the arrival of Slavs to the Balkans.Damir Mišić

You removed this vital part: The term Bosnian is somewhat imprecise in this context, as it denotes all inhabitants of Bosnia (i.e. not only Bosniaks, but also to Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats or anyone who lives there); the term rather being geographical whereas the term Bosniaks distinguishes ethnicity.Damir Mišić

I do not though disagree with your edits but please you removed to much and replaced it with worse and less informative text. Damir Mišić 00:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You haven't reverted the article essentially because the other users have either given up trying to reason with you or have settled for a hodgepodge nationalist compromise that is even farther from the truth than the conflicting versions themselves. As for your specific objections, the term "Dobri Bošnjani" is irrelevant in its correct context - as it is, it's there trying to make a political point by taking a side on the debate about that very term itself (i.e. that the inhabitants of pre-Ottoman Bosnia were already a distinct ethnic group that merely evolved into the modern-day Bosniaks through Islamicization). Such implications are very deceitful and do not accuratly portray the essential facts about the origins of Bosniaks. The new paragraph clearly states that Bosniaks are predominantly descenddnts of indigenous Bosnian converts to Islam - anything more than that is simply nationalistic wishful thinking. As for the Illyrian theory, it's complete pseudohistory used to needlessly reinforce the difference between Bosniaks and Serbs and Croats. It is completely irrelevent if Bosniaks are genetically descended from "Illyrians", partly because the "Illyrians" themselves were probably largely genetically descended from even earlier inhabitants of the west Balkans but also, more importantly, because ethnic groups are divided by culture, not genetics. Bosniaks speak a slavic language and so it doesn't matter whether they are genetically 1% or 99% what you call "Illyrian", they are still culturally (i.e. linguistically) Slavic. In the same way, Turks can be described as a Turkic people even if genetically they are largely descended from Greeks and other early peoples who inhabited Anatolia. By your logic, Turks are actually Greeks. Sounds silly, doesn't it? That's because it is, but, unfortunately, in the context of the Balkans such ludicrious nationalist pseudoscientifict theories are treated as valid opinions. Live Forever 00:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

In the same way you can claim that Greeks are actually Turks. Genetics are a very important tool to find out where cultures originated after they have been subject to genocides and exterminations such as the Kosovo case. Which is the main argument as to why Most of Europe want Kosovo to split. 83.67.3.166 16:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Damir, I think he(live forever) hit the nail on the head with what he said. :) --Jadran 07:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote above: Bosnjani do NOT need to be mentioned, and if you respected the historical facts about that word you wouldn't have any particular desire to see them mentioned either. Illyrian popular theories can not be mentioned because they are ridiculous and ahistorical, and the Bosnian kingdom already IS mentioned in noting that Bosniaks are descendants of INDIGENOUS Bosnian converts. The ethno-geographic nature of Bosniak identity is already mentioned in the very first paragraph. Live Forever 00:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

But I guess everybody are not as clever as you are! So they NEED the extra explainations and not only to have it explained in the opening paragraph in a shallow way. Bosnjani are the inhabitants of "pre-ottoman" bosnia, the adherents of bosnian church are Bosnjani - historically thought and accepted that bosniaks are descendants of these. Bosnia is most surely an illyrian name - the inhabitants of bosnia have undisputedly illyrian origins according to many local historians - and also western (i.e john fine with others who have mentioned a possibility) - turks greeks what? I will not even ask! No live this time you have gone to far. Damir Mišić

"historically thought and accepted"? Historically thought and accepted by who? That's just a really bad example of WP:Weasel. Imamovic, Malcolm, and a horde of other influential historians have soundly rejected that theory. Information retrieved from Ottoman defters shows that a miniscule portion of the population belonged to the Bosnian Church - labeling Bosniaks as having descended from them in particular is ridiculous. Bosnia might be an Illyrian name, but Bosniaks got their name from the country and not the other way around, so I don't see what this has to do with any alleged connection to Illyrians. Illyrian origin doesn't mean anything because the only real influence the Illyrians have had on Bosniaks is genetic - genetics is not what nations and ethnic groups are defined by. Having (partial) Illyrian origins doesn't make Bosniaks "actually Illyrians" and "not Slavs", just as having Celtic origin doesn't make the English Celts, having Aztec origin doesn't make the Mexicans Aztec, having Berber origin doesn't make the Maghreb Arabs Berber, etc. etc. And the only scientific studies on the subject have shown that Bosnian Croats are even more, what you call, "Illyrian" than Bosniaks, so I fail to see what point you're trying to make. If we applied your logic we'd have to say that Croats and Montenegrins are also actually "Illyrians". Live Forever 06:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Live Forever, I could kiss you! If i didnt have a wife or kids haha Hvala Bogu someone has been able to hit the nail on the head!--Jadran 07:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

"But I guess everybody are not as clever as you are!-Damir Mišić" I assume you are going to include your self in this mix, so how bout i make it simplier for you by putting in bold the points you seem not to grasp!--Jadran 07:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

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Wow, what a little war in my absence. I didn't forget about the article, just have a bit less time. Since old discussions were archived, let me re-copy something from there and cite sources (something I've never ever seen Damir doing).

Here's http://www.iis.unsa.ba/prilozi/30/30_prikazi_nove.htm an excerpt from theories of renowned Bosniak historian Mustafa Imamović, and I won't even quote less benevolent historians. (Emphasis mine) Duja 09:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC):

Porijeklo. Većina Bošnjaka prihvata jedan mit o porijeklu, koji vodi u njihovu etnogenezu u srednjem vijeku. Popularna legenda je jednostavna, privlačna i nedvosmislena. Nakon doseljavanja na Balkanski poluotok u šestom i sedmom stoljeću, priča kaže, da su stanovnike Bosne koji su govorili slavenskim jezikom, pokrstili kršćanski misionari iz Rima na zapadu i Konstantinopola na istoku. Bosanci, koji nisu htjeli pripasti pod katolike ili pravoslavne, stvorili su svoju crkvu i mnogi su vjernici prihvatili dualističku herezu, poznatu kao bogumilstvo. Srednjovjekovna bosanska država pod vodstvom Kulina bana (vladao od 1180-1204) i kralja Tvrtka (vladao 1353-91) zauzimala je velika prostranstva. Ona je stvorila sigurno uporište za Crkvu bosansku i bogumilske heretike. Nakon osmanskog osvajanja Bosne (završeno 1463), bogumili i plemstvo srednjovjekovne Bosne je en masse primilo islam i postali su bosanski Muslimani, pripadnici grupe, koja je danas poznata kao Bošnjaci.

U Historiji Bošnjaka Mustafa Imamović zauzima nešto drukčiji stav o bošnjačkoj etnogenzi i ne negira popularni mit. On citira brojne (recentne studije o Crkvi bosanskoj i zaključuje da se malo zna o doktrinama, ostavljajući otvorenim pitanje, da li je crkva bila uporište bogumilske hereze. Više se zna o hijerarhiji i strukturi Crkve bosanske i Imamović tvrdi da je crkvena organizacija podržavala etnopolitički razvoj srednjovjekovne bosanske države.

Imamović je primanje islama u Bosni ocrtao kao duži proces (a nije bio brz) i sa malim izuzetcima bio je dobrovoljan. On citira mnoge recentne studije, koje se osnivaju na osmanskim dokumentima popisivanja stanovništva i izvještajima katoličkih vizitatora, da pokaže kako se primanje islama odvijalo postepeno, od 1450-tih do početka sedamnaestog stoljeća. Nadalje, oni koji su primili islam dolazili su iz sve tri kršćanske vjeroispovijesti: katoličanstva, pravoslavlja i Crkve bosanske. On je odbacio spoznaju da je bosansko srednjovjekovno plemstvo en masse primilo islam, da sačuva svoje posjede i privilegije, on tvrdi, da je sultan davao zemlju samo onima koji su u bitkama služili Carstvu. On ne hvali hipoteze o rapidnom i prisilnom primanju islama, što su neki historičari zastupali i izjavljuje, da se ovim želi diskreditirati autentičnost bošnjačke nacionalnosti.

So basically, we should remove the word Illyrian from all of worlds Encyclopedias and Dictionaries then, seeing as Duja the Servian admin has decided that we Bosniaks are not permitted to describe our earliest Heritage in the Introduction? Perhaps we aught to clarify with other Wikipedia admins whether we should be allowed to use what was agreed above to be at least Genetic heritage by the opposing arguments? BosnianHolocaustSurvior 17:41, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Why are there Serbs editing these pages? Please remove the trolling Serbs and close this unit somone who isn't fighting Internet wars for Serbia can contribute. No Serb should be let on Bosnian history or Bosniaks page. 148.160.188.195 (talk) 00:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)Babo

See WP:SOAP and WP:BATTLE. Anyone can edit this article. --Ronz (talk) 00:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Because there is no sources at all to say that Bosniaks are "South Slavic" before we make such a claim, "we need to actually verify the research, ensure it comes from reliable sources", before we use this term.83.67.73.117 08:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move

Should we move this page to "Bosniak people"? I'm intersted in what the rest of you think. The majority of other articles about ethnic groups go by the convention "(singular form) people", including both thus-far featured articles (Pashtun people and Tamil people). I would personally support such a move, but I want to make sure that everyone else would be on board as well. Live Forever 05:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

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I am not sure if that is a smart move particulary since Bosniaks are usually viewed in context with article about Serbs and Croats and I am affraid that renaming this article would somehow set Bosniaks apart from those other arguably related article. On the other hand it would somewhat help with the confusion between Bosnians vs Bosniaks by differentiating titles a bit more. I would like to here more arguements in favor of the move. --Dado 00:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Dado, it seems not only Serbs and Croats follow the current Bosniaks convention, but Slovenes, Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans, Czechs, Greeks and Poles. There appears to be no overriding reason to change - I don't see how it could help to differentiate more between Bosnians and Bosniaks. Best to keep things the way they are.Osli73 07:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Oppose too. As I see it, the general problem is lack of disambiguation of "member of ethnic group" versus "citizen of" in English language, as well incompleteness of nouns accompanying adjectives. For example, adjective "French" does not have plural noun—"Frenches" is ungrammatical, "Frenchmen" politically incorrect, ergo we have "French people". As many other articles cites by Osli confirm, there are no ambiguity problems with Bosniaks, so we should take the simplest path. Duja 08:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Lack of Sources and References

This article goes on at length about the history and culture of Bosniaks, but no references are provided except for "The Peopling of Modern Bosnia-Herzegovina: Y - chromosome Haplogroups in the Three Main Ethnic Groups". Since the aforementioned article contains nothing regarding culuture or history I beleive that we need to expand out list of sources.

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NPOV Check

I would like to have a domain area expert (i.e. someone with deep knowledge of genetics) perform an NPOV check on the genetics part of this article. It seems that the results of the research are being intentionally misinterpreted to push a particular view point.

In particular, I would like to have someone explain how a frequency of a certiain halo group or a sub-halo group can lead to the conclusion that a given ethnic group is indiginous in some geographic area. My knowledge regarding geneological genetic testing is not very strong, but according to this article http://www.slate.com/id/2138059/ we can not use genetic testing to deterime the origin or our ancient ancestors.

I'll have to say that I kind of agree with this user. I do, allthough, think that ancestors can be decided in some extent by genetictests but, however, not by the methods available now. Furthermore I have to say that the frequency of dinaric genes is not equal to indigenousness in the balkan area; dinarics can also be found in large amounts among ukrainans and german people, while the dinaric frequency, at the same time, is almost zero among native balkans peoples like greeks and albanians. So my conclusion is that high frequency of dinaric genes is not equal to indiginousness in balkan or mediteranian area. We should in some way rewrite that part of the article. Damir Mišić 21:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The genetics section now contains a contradiction. First it asserts "It should, however, be mentioned that "Dinaric genes" are not indicative of indigenousness to the Balkan or Mediterranean areas.". Then it concludes with "As it stands, current studies have shown that, genetically, Bosniaks are largely indigenous and have a large fraction of the ancient gene pool distinctive for the Balkan area." I have removed the later sentance in order to eliminate the contradiction.

That second statement was added on later by someone with an agenda. Either way, don't worry about the genetics section much right now because it will probably disappear with a more economical history section and creation of a "main" article over the next few days. As for sources for the culture, it's essentially all basic facts so I don't see what the problem is at the moment.

I am disputing the neutrality of the whole,and I can pin-point a lot... What I can see it is just making some stupid remarks about denial of "Dinaric genes"(Theory of mutation... that Dinaric is some creative mutation from Atlantic and Mediteranian antropological type have been long time dead buried in the stupidity of 20 century),and on top of that there are citation about absent of presence in "native"Balcan peoples.From where are they are native?From neolitic settlers?.And where are theories about migrations of Bogumils and Babuns in Bosnia based on real historical events wich can be traced back from Srbia,Macedonia,Bulgaria etc ?.And what is with findings of Semino and others wich have shoved some other meanings of that presence of Dinaric genes in populations in Europe-paleolitic dispersion from Balcan refuge...

History section

The history section is a bit garbeld.

• Does the genetics paragraph really belong here? Are there any interesting conclusions that can be drawn from it? Are the conclusions correct? The Croats article has quite a long section on genetics, though I'm not sure they have interpreted the results of the studies they cite correctly (or have overintrepreted them). I propose that it is taken out all together or considerably improved.

• Is someone planning to enter informatin on the Islamicization and prosperity, Decline and development, The struggle for recognition and National awakening and genocide sections? If not, take them out for the meantime.

• To me it seems that Bosniak identity is closely related to but different from islamic identity. Perhaps they are even each others opposites (I'm not sure). However, I think it would be interesting to have more on the Bosniak identity and its relation to Muslim identity. One possible source is [1]

Osli73 14:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree.

• Yes, the genetics paragraph does belong here because it provides important historical insight into the background of the Bosniak people. It debunks the popular traditional view that the South Slavs are predominantly Slavic people who somehow replaced the existing inhabitants of the region, and more or less confirms the long-standing suspicion that the inhabitants of the West Balkans are for the most part direct descendants of the same people who have lived there for thousands of years and who were assimilated during the Slavic migrations in the 6th and 7th centuries. As for the veracity of what is written in the article, it is essentially paraphrased from the summary of the findings done by the researchers themselves - it states exactly what the study found. How exactly the information presented can be "considerably improved" is beyond me, considering that it amounts to two very simple and directly referenced sentences. Considering the well established sections on genetics found on other "people" articles (i.e. Basques, it would be absurd to get rid of these perfectly fine and valid sentences here.
• Yes, someone is planning to enter information for those sections and that someone is planning to do it in the very near future.
• I don't understand what your point is. Bosniak is a national identity, Muslim a religious one. End of story. I will read your source though, as perhaps it can be utilized elsewhere in the article. Live Forever 17:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Live Forever, about the background of the Bosniak identity I found this pretty interesting article (especially towards the middle part). Basically it seems to assert that there has been a long-standing Bosniak identity but that it has differed quite a lot throughout history - Muslim, Turkish, Ottoman, Slavic and Bosniak. I think entering some of this information might give the article a bit more depth.

http://www.iranian.com/History/2003/November/Bosnia/index.html

Osli73 09:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes

Rv. Please see talk page.

1. It's very hard to say exactly what the population of Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina is, but it is definitely not anywhere near 2,159,508. The CIA factbook doesn't provide an exact number of Bosniaks but merely a percentage, and then proceeds to give us a separate population estimate. As I said earlier, there is no reason to doubt their estimate that the country is 48% Bosniak - it seems perfectly valid. Their population figures are almost certainly faulty, however, because they add in population figures for the FBiH that include hundreds-of-thousands of diasporans. The European Union population estimates don't make the same mistake and they give a figure of approximately 3,800,000. Now, as I'm assuming we all agree that 48% is a reasonable estimate for Bosniak composition of BiH population; we are merely left to choose between the EU estimate and the U.S.A. estimate. The latter implies that after genocide, ethnic cleansing, a declining birth rate, and massive emigration (war and post-war); Bosnia and Herzegovina actually gained 200,000 people. I think the choice is clear.
2. Thank you whoever added the IPA pronunciation of the native word. That is a constructive improvement.
3. ”Slavic” or “Slavic-speaking”. Again, somebody obviously has a problem with portraying Bosniaks as Slavic so they’re trying to replace the wording with euphemisms that are easier for them to handle. The fact of the matter is that this change makes absolutely no sense; Slavs are a linguistic group, so what else does it mean to be “Slav” than to be “Slav-speaking”? The former version stays because the latter presumably intends to imply that Bosniaks aren’t “really Slav” (whatever that’s supposed to mean).
4. Making “indigenous converts to Islam” link to the Bosnian church is just plain wrong. Read Malcolm’s “A Short History” or Imamovic’s “History of the Bosniak People” – the Bosnian church was a very small and insignificant presence by the time Islamicization was underway. Most converts to Islam were (at least nominally) Catholic and Orthodox.
5. "their tie to the Bosnian historical region” or “their historical tie to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian region”. I’m honestly surprised you’d oppose this, but let me spell it out for you anyways. It’s important to note “Bosnian historical” region instead of “Bosnian-Herzegovinian region” because the former includes all territories historically considered part of or affiliated with Bosnia (including Herzegovina, Sandzak, etc.) whereas the latter confines this to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
6. The issue of having a separate section on the name… I would prefer that it stays with the introductory paragraph and would hope you’d reconsider. The situation really isn’t that complicated right now. I would, however, support eventually adding a section on “Etymology” similar to the one on the Bosnian Wikipedia – provided that it’s well referenced. The etymology section could perhaps, if you guys wish, explain what it is mentioned in the introductory paragraph in more detail. Live Forever 21:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

p.s. Yes, Damir - to answer your remark on my talk page - the Bosnian church and kingdom will of course be mentioned in the history section.

Vrijedne su naročite pažnje religiozne i socijalne prilike ove zemlje prije turskog osvajanja. Većina tamošnjeg stanovništva pripadala je kršćanskoj heretičkoj sekti bogumila. Ovi šizmatici su od XIII stoljeća bili izvrgnuti progonima papa. Čak su pape protiv njih nekoliko puta preporučivali krstaški rat (papa Honorus III - 1221. godine, Gregori IX - 1238. godine, Innocent IV - 1246. godine i Benedict XII - 1337. godine. Inkvizicija je osnovana 1291. godine)Patnje koje su trpjeli bogumili u XV stoljeću postale su tako nesnošljive da su se radi svog spasa obraćali Turcima za samilost, jer su grubi postupci i pritisci bosanskog kralja i svećenstva bili takvi da im nema primjera. Njih četrdeset hiljada pobjeglo je u susjedne zemlje. Oni što nisu pobjegli poslani su u Rim, okovani u lance. Međutim, ove grozne mjere malo su usluge učinile umanjivanju bogumila u Bosni, jer se priča da je ova hereza jednako bila jaka i u 1462. godini.Sljedeće godine, kada je sultan Mehmed II podvrgao Bosnu, tamošnji su katolici napustili svoj kraj. Ključe Bobovca, prijestonice kraljeve, predao je Turcima njegov namjesnik koji je bio bogumil. Pošto su se i druga mjesta i utvrde povele za njim, za jednu sedmicu palo je sultanu u ruke oko sedamdeset utvrđenih mjesta. Mehmed II priključio je i Bosnu ostalim osvojenim krajevima. Otada se više ništa ne čuje o bogumilima. Misli se da su po turskom osvajanju u velikom broju prigrlili islam. Većina je katolika iselila u susjednu Austriju i Mađarsku, a za preostale se misli da su se mnogi od njih poveli za primjerom pređašnjih obraćenika. Neki su Evropljani pretpostavili da je mnogobrojno obraćenje bogumila u islam bilo u početku turskog osvajanja s tom namjerom da se povrate u svoju naročitu sektu, čim im se u budućnosti pruži prilika. Kao dokaz za ovu tvrdnju oni navode da su bogumili, zbog gore spomenutog stradanja i pritiska, našli zgodan put kako će namjerno zanijekati svoju staru vjeru (katoličanstvo), te budući da im se kasnije nije pružila očekivana prilika u povratak, to se napokon namjera njihovih pređa zaboravila. Obično je ovakva pretpostavka samo nagađanje, te se na nju, kao nepobitni dokaz, ne može osloniti. Mi smatramo jačim razlogom to što su bogumili pomiješani s muslimanima bili skloni islamu zbog mnogih tačaka u njihovom vjerovanju koje su slične islamskom učenju. Bogumili su odbacivali obožavanje Marije, ustanovu krštenja i sve vrste klera. Krst su, kao znamen vjere, mrzili. Smatrali su idolopoklonstvom upućivanje molitvi slikama i kipovima svetaca i relikvijama (moćima). Protivno katoličkim crkvama, koje su nedostojno ukrašene slikama, njihovi su hramovi bili skromni i jednostavni. Kao i muslimani, imali su hrđavo mišljenje o crkvenim zvonima, koja su nazivali "satanske trube". Vjerovali su da nije Isus lično razapet, nego da je to bio neki iluzorni lik, te su se u ovom pogledu djelomično slagali s Kur'anom (Njihova je tvrdnja: "Mi smo ubili Mesiju Isaa, sina Merjemina, Božjeg poslanika. Niti su ga ubili niti razapeli, nego im se tako pričinilo." - Sura IV, An Nisa', 157). Osuđivanje alkohola i sklonost asketskom životu i jednostavnosti spadaju u one sklonosti koje su poslužile zbližavanju bogumila s islamom. I oni su se pet puta dnevno molili. Često su puta padali na koljena i izražavali blagodarnost Bogu. Prema tome, za njihovo sudjelovanje pri molitvi u džamiji izgleda da nije trebalo velike preinake. Ovdje sam sakupio neke tačke koje su slične sa propisima islama, a koje se nalaze u šizmatičkoj sekti bogumila. Međutim, u bogumilskom vjerovanju ima i takvih tačaka koje sadrže formu kršćanskih propisa da ih pobožni muslimani ne mogu smatrati dostojnim za primanje. Dok su zajedničke tačke ovako nabrojene, može se zaključiti da su se uvjerili u potrebu postepenog napuštanja onih vjerovanja koje islam ne trpi. Njihovo vjerovanje, slično dualizmu manihejaca, nije se moglo izmiriti s vjerovanjem muslimana, ali je islam uvijek bio tolerantan (napisano 1913.!) prema ovakvim religioznim rasuđivanjima, samo pod tim uvjetom da ova svoja šizmatička naziranja ne izjavljuje. Turci, da omile svoju vjeru Bošnjacima, po svom poznatom običaju nagovarali su ih nuđenjem svih vrsta materijalnih i duhovnih probitaka. Svima onima koji su prigrlili islam osiguravali su vlasništvo svega njihovog posjeda, a spahije su bile oslobođene od poreza. Moguće je da su mnogi od islamiziranih pripadali plemstvu i bili lenski gospodari, te zbog svoje hereze prema katolicima bili prije lišeni tih prava. Napokon, uključivši se pobjedničkoj vjeri, uhvatili su priliku da povrate svoje vlasništvo. Bosanski su muslimani sačuvali svoju narodnost, te do dan-danas nosili prezimena kršćanska i govorili nacionalnim jezikom. Istovremeno su uvijek bili sa revnošću i oduševljenjem privrženi vjeri. Staro viteško držanje muslimana plemića, predana privrženost islamu, pored njihovog upliva i moći uvijek su na njih svraćali naročitu pažnju. Nekima su od njih povjeravana važna zvanična mjesta. Dapače, između 1544. i 1611. godine, zauzimala su devetorica od njih predsjedništvo vlade.

(T. W. Arnold: Povijest islama, Sarajevo 1989., str: 235-238.)

That's nice, but the book was published in 1896... Duja 10:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Noel Malcolm's and John Fine's view on Bosnian Church

I feel obligated to correct these serious mis-interpretations on Noel Malcolm and John Fine among some users at wikipedia. Non of these two object that the Bosnian church was predominantly bogomil, if you for example visit Malcolm's Bosnian institute you will see that he writes that: "the Bosnian Church (with its supposedly Bogomil beliefs)". Now I'm not especially good at English I guess, but I do know that the word "supposedly" implies "the most likely" so to speak. But I do on the other hand agree with the fact that there weren't many Bogomils (adherents of the bosnian church) left when the turks came, simply because they had been practicly forced to convert to Catholicism and in a much smaller extent orthodoxism. But we also know that these "bosnian catholics" in most cases remained true to the bogomil-bosnian tradition but "officially" changed to catholicism to avoid persecution - these bogomil bosnians - who officially recognized themselves as catholics - were the same who took Islam. So catholicism is a later part of bosnian history - bosnian church is earlier than that. First bosniaks were bogomils, then "catholics" and muslims in general. Damir Mišić

POV Tag

I've removed the POV tag. I'm sorry, but I honestly don't feel that one user pushing radical, unrecognised, fringe opinions into a perfectly fine article justifies a tag that implies the information in the article is significantly disputed - it's not. User Damir Mišić is the only one continously disputing and (I'd even say) disrupting the development of this article. Opposed to him are essentially all users who have been involved in this article over the past few weeks, including users Duja, Dado, Jadran, and others. His edits all substantially change the core information of the article to make it something completely different, and all his allegations and concerns have been thoroughly refuted on this talk page. His claims are ridiculous and should not be allowed to drag this article back. Live Forever 21:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Genetics=

As a genetic researcher I find the info added her on trivial and not realy scientific. There is no such thing and it would be wise not to alter history to fit political ammo.

If you were a scientist, you would be able to spell stuff properly. I find that Serbs often pretend to be something they're not. This behavioral pattern is common in Romania where Serbs most probably arrived from in ancient times. 83.67.3.166 16:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

5m figure?

I'm sorry if I seem a bit too inquisitive - that 5,000,000 Bosniak figure seems a bit too large. What are the sources for it? This is odd, as the figure on Croats has also jumped to 9,000,000... --PaxEquilibrium 22:42, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Map

The map is errorous. It shows a Bosniak major region on the south of Kosovo. --PaxEquilibrium 21:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I see objection to what percisely is errorous - well, the fact that it shows a Bosniak-populated region at the south of Kosovo (when there is no such). --PaxEquilibrium 15:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

More issues

The article considers anyone who registers as "Muslim by nationality" or even "Bosnian" a Bosniak. If they wanted to be nationally known as Bosniaks, then they would've declared themselves as such. Would it be appropriate if we put on Croats article [+Bunjevci, +Shokci, +Krasovani, etc...] or on Serbs article [+Gorani, +Montenegrins, +Krashovans, or God forbid +Macedonians]? Also, who came up with the 100,000 elsewhere in the world fiugure? --PaxEquilibrium 20:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Last paragraph

There is a problem in this paragraph :

"It is believed that Bosniak identity was lost among these people due to Turkish assimilation laws in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Bosniak immigrants to Turkey were required to change their names to Turkish or Turkish sounding ones(under the Law on Family names). As a consequence of this, today some Turks do have somewhat Slavic sounding surnames. However some also have entirely Slavic surnames, the most common one probably being "Kiliç" spelled in Turkish as compared to the Bosnian version which is spelled "Kilić"."

"Kiliç" is a popular name in Turkey and it is Turkish. It means "sword" and does not have any linguistic relation with the Bosnian word "Kilić".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilic

Mesa Selimovic

Mesa Selimovic, was a muslim by religion, but by ethnicity he declared himself a SERB, AND NOT A Bosniak Many Serbs declared themselves Turks during the Ottoman occupation, but that is the language of the times and not an accurate description! George Washington isn't called a Brit in modern times, now is he?

Mesa is a SERB as he traced his family line to pre-ottoman Serbs and opted to return to his roots! Respect a late man's passion for his nation.

I think that's because he looked like a Roma Gypsi which is what prediminantly Serbs look like, so he realised that religion isn't as important as Tribal heritage, due to Modern religions being a very new thing in the Balcans region. 83.67.3.166 16:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Now Confused About Definition of Bosniak

After reading this article, I am confused about what 'Bosniak' entails... To be Bosniak:

• Must one have been born in Bosnia or is that not necessary?
• If not born there, is it one's close personal ties to Bosnia that makes one Bosniak?
• Must one be Muslim?
• Must one have ancestral Muslim/Arab/Turkish etc. roots?

Personally, I believed (not so sure anymore) that to be Bosniak one must (1) have close personal ties to Bosnia, (2) have Muslim/Arab/Turkish etc. roots, and (3) also practice Islam. If one does not practice Islam, but has close personal ties to Bosnia, they are Bosnian, not Bosniak. And also, since Bosniak entails an ethnic group, ethniciy is strongly dependent on ancestry. Therefore, one who has Serb, Croat, Italian, Spanish, etc. ancestry, but is Muslim, and feels a strong personal connection to Bosnia should not call themself Bosniak.

Am I right? Am I wrong? Correct me if I am. (Especially regarding the religion part). What are people's opinions? Any atheist/agnostic Bosniaks here who want to expand on their take on this? Stop The Lies 10:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)Stop_The_Lies

According to widely accepted modern treatment, a member of ethnic group X is anyone who feels like a member of ethnic group X. The unifying traits such as language, ancestry or religion are just guidelines and, except for few oddities (Jews e.g.) don't have a particular bearing. Duja► 08:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I would agree with you that a member of ethnic group X is anyone who feels like a member of ethnic group X, except ... the word 'ethnic' is there for a reason. Don't you think? I mean, to be part of an ethnic group implies that you have certain shared characteristics: race, religion, and whatnot.

And another thing, if we were to find out the demographics of a certain country, having to ask people which ethnic group they feel they are part of would be very time consuming, so many times this is done by assessing religion, ancestry, etc.

I'd like to say it's 'whatever one feels like' but it seems like some ethnic groups should have specific characteristics, especially in places such as ex-Yu, where the lines tend to get blurred, and it gets confusing and complicated... but then again, maybe we should start blurring the lines there more... it might lead to good things hehe

Stop The Lies 09:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)Stop_The_Lies

Well here are answers to your questions: to be Bosniak you have to be of Slavic origin, to have personal historical ties to historical Bosnia (not current one because historical Bosnia included some other areas too, for example Sandžak), and to have personal historical ties to Islam (but not necessary to be believer since many Bosniaks are in fact atheists). PANONIAN (talk) 15:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good way to put it. Stop The Lies 20:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)Stop_The_Lies

Or - you could be simply a Moslem Serb/Croat (and have nothing to do with Bosnia). Such is the case with even the Father of the Bosniac nation, Alija Izetbegovic - he's family's from Belgrade and has nothing to do with Bosnia at all and he was a Muslim Serb (just like his family all the way from Ottoman ages). --PaxEquilibrium 17:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Well the problem is that this word has not always meant what it means now. Currently it is the correct way to refer to the ethnic group previously know as Bosnian Muslims. This term is considered incorrect because Bosniaks are also found outside of Bosnia in lands which were previously Bosnian and there are a large number of non-religious or non-muslim Bosniaks. In the SFRY (former Yugoslavia) Muslim with a capital M referred to the ethnic group and muslim (lower case m) referred to the religous followers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.27.104.3 (talk) 05:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

Bosniacs

Isn't Bosniac more correct than Bosniak - it is that way in all official records, including the English version of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. --PaxEquilibrium 19:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I will check this out, but so far most people use the term "Bosniaks" instead of "Bosniacs". I think it is Bosniaks. Pozdrav, Vseferović 06:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so this is what I found searching on-line:

• Dictionary.com
• Congress of North American Bosniaks
• Google thinks that it is wrong

Thanks, Vseferović 07:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Can we make a conclusion that Bosniac is the correct one, but Bosniak far more widespread, but generally incorrect one? We should make notion of it in this article. The Soviet Union has in the pretext its unofficial popular name (Russia). --PaxEquilibrium 20:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No, we cannot. What is "correct" is determined largely by popular usage. —Psychonaut 22:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

What? So if someone's called Thomas, but all call him Tommy, his real name should not be in the article??? --PaxEquilibrium 17:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

There's no "real" or "correct" name in this case: only different forms of transliteration in English, one of which is far more common. English language doesn't have an Academy to regulate it. Duja► 17:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I would to ask what the single form of Bosniaks is in Bosnian. I need to translate this name using its sound. In Chinese (and Japanese, etc), singles and plurals are not denoted by something like adding an s in English, but rather using number words or whatever.--Fitzwilliam 12:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Bоšnjak (IPA: ['bɔʃɲaːk]), roughly "bosh-nyak". Duja► 16:10, 23

January 2007 (UTC)

• Excuse me, but why is there a problem with just adding a line that says that Bosniak is also often spelled Bosniac in English? That is true, right? It would help cut down on confusion and that is a good thing, right? If you look at the article for Beijing, they added the line, "It was formerly known in English as Peking". I happen to be old enough to recall when it was called Peking in English and when one day the news started to talk about some city called "Beijing", I wondered what in the world they were talking about. It took me quite a while to finally figure out that they changed the way the name was spelled in English but that it is the same place. Why add to people's confusion when a single line can help? Fanra 17:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

EGO

EGO Just draw parallel between Switzerland and Bosnia. There are no SWITZERIANS,there are French,German and Italian linguistic and ethnic groups. I understand that it is dificullt for muslims from Bosnia to admit their Serbian or Croatian background. They are like part of river cut from mainflow. But i advice all the people to read history and not pseudo-history. And it is sad that borders of today are not drawn neither historicaly neither by ethnicity. It is important to have in mind that Bysantian ruler-Konstantin the 7th named Bosnia(land around river of the same name) explicitly state of the Serbs. Name of the state could be taken from ethnical(Croatia,serbia,England) or geographical(Switzerland,Moldavia,Austria,BOSNIA) background. Those are the facts that are well known and not hidden in some pseudo-historical lectures. After all,we are all one people torn apart by religion(which wrote the most of the bloody and sad pages in worlds history. Zanimljivo je sto Hamburski Nijemac uopste nemoze da razumije Nijemca iz Bavarije ali ipak zive u istoj zemlji,imaju stardandizovan jezik i obojica kazu za sebe da su Nijemci.Svakoga ko moze procitat ovo ja smatram svojim bratom a za kraj parafraziracu Andrica:Tko ti iskopa oko?Brat.Zato je rana tako duboka i krvava.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Me%C5%A1a_Selimovi%C4%87"

RE EGO... Also by this logic there are no Americans since they are really British, French, German, Polish, Chinese, Mexican, Cuban, Columbian, Irish... Also there are no Canadians, only British, French... Bosnia came into being over 1000 years ago. There was a Bosnian church seperate from the orthodox and catholic churches. In reality everyone is really a part of something bigger. Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Bulgarians are all South Slavs. This doesn't change the fact that they are also something else.

Citation needed

Taken from the article:

Bosniaks belong linguistically to the wider Slavic ethnic group, but their genetic make-up is however more complicated than that. Bosniaks are mainly descendants of pre-Slavic indigenous Illyrian tribes and, to a significantly smaller extent, Slavs, Celts and Germanic tribes (Goths) who spanned the Balkans for distinct periods.

Sounds like original research/myth. Please provide a reliable source for that claim. Duja► 11:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Bosoni, the "silence" is not necessarily "sign of approval"; it can merely means that no one noticed it (which was the case here). The paragraph in question above was added by yourself on February 3, someone added {{fact}} and I felt compelled to move it here for citation per WP:CITE#Tagging unsourced material. There are several problems with it, namely:

• It hints at the popular myth that Bosniaks (largely) stem from Illyrians. Please refer to the former talk Talk:Bosniaks/Archive1#Recent Findings of the Origins of Bosniaks and even link to the Imamovic's article therein. The bottom line is: all the Balkan peoples are a mix of indigenous peoples and settlers, the genetic issue is moot, and similar conclusions be reached (or not reached) for all neighboring peoples. (See related Noel Malcolm's book which pertains more to Kosovo, but I don't see a reason why it should be much different elsewhere around).
• The "genetic evidence" presented here and in History of Bosniaks is inconclusive as well.
• How did suddenly Celts and Goths come into play? Evidence?

Duja► 10:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Okey Duja let's go and visit the Origin of Serbs article and take a look at what it says. Dubble moral? I will erase some "facts" frome there and all by using your "reasons" Ancient Land of Bosoni

No objection from me. It's one of "dump all the myths and original research here" articles :-). Duja► 13:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Duja listen, why don't you allow me to write this text-piece (without a "cite") when you agree with the pretty much same statement in the serbian article (without a cite)? I'm starting to believe this is a missunderstanding. Ancient Land of Bosoni

Here goes a longish story: ideally, every statement in every article should be cited from a reliable source, preferrably using <ref></ref> tags. On one hand, it provides the proof that the editor did not make it up and thus provides a ground for the assertion. On the other hand, especially in the past, citing was far more sloppy (which I confess to have done myself). Of course, citing should not be overdone for trivial statements ("sky is blue"), summary sentences, as well as for non-controversial articles written from one or two sources (when it suffices to put the "References" section at the bottom). If you read any WP:FAC, you'll see what I mean.

Now, since obviously we're far from that ideal goal in many articles, marking the statements with {{fact}} mostly serves as the marker for controversial or doubtful statements. When the entire article is uncited, it normally suffices to put {{unreferenced}} at the top instead of spreading all over the article (like I just did on Origin of Serbs). In yet other cases, the lack of citation simply goes by, as no one seriously questions the validity of assertions in e.g. SpongeBob (although they should).

So, even if we kind of reached a compromise about the sentence, neither you nor I have proven that it were or weren't Illyrians or Goths involved. Since this article (among others) does cause a great deal of controversy, it should be cited far better.

As a counterexample, look at far more controversial Srebrenica massacre, where every citation was painstakingly analysed and put during the course of time. Or, look what I had to do at Fikret Abdić (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) since Jan 29 to save it from deletion.

Of course, {{fact}} can be (ab)used with malice like much anything else. See WP:CITE#Tagging unsourced material for a guideline. Duja► 14:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Zlatan

Image of Zlatan Ibrahimovic duly removed from the article. What purpose does it serve, anyway, apart from being a POV-edit-war magnet? Is there an image of traditional costume, sevdalinka band or similar? Duja► 09:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Musliman

I'd like to make small protest about a certain point made in the article. There are several points where it is implied that "Muslims" (Muslimani) and "Bosnians" (Bosanci) are Bosniaks who just haven't realized it yet. This smells of the same kind of nationalism used by other parties in the Balkans to claim that Bosniaks are converted Serbs and Croats. As a person from Sandzak, I can testify that many of my friends still living in Priboj, Novi Pazar etc. call themselves Muslimani or Sandzaklije. There are many cases of this, and many simply don't identify with the Bosniak nation! Muslimani were recognized as a constituant people of yugoslavia. Negating their existence has no place in an encyclopedia.

Example.

"However, some of them still identify themselves as "Muslims" or "Bosnians", according to latest estimates" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.229.211.59 (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

Please be bold and fix the article if you feel things should be addressed. // Laughing Man 16:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. LaugingMan responds to this suspicious post 20 minutes after it was made... maybe a sockpupet? Different IP's? Who knows. Bosniak 07:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Bosniak... please stop this campaign of insinuations and fabrications agains editors you disagree with. There's a thing called Special:Watchlist, you know, and if a wikipedian is online and checks it regularly, like many do, he can respond in far less than 20 minutes. If you have something to say regarding the original post, by all means do. But vague accusations of sockpuppeting and bad faith not backed by any reasonable evidence have no place here. Duja► 12:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Current title

Shouldn't this article be under "Bosniak" or "Bosniak people" to be more consistent with other ethnic/nationality articles? I favor "Bosniak" myself because it also makes linking easier. Cool Hand Luke 22:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. It looks like the plural form is actually the majority. Article's like Briton seem to be the outliers. Cool Hand Luke 22:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

MedCab case

Hi all. I'm currently mediating a case into which this article is involved.

Every editor can see how's going the mediation and voice his opinion here.

For a successful mediation, I need to hear every position and its arguments.

In order to keep mediation-related stuff all together, I prefer if we discuss on the mediation page rather than here.

I'm at your disposal for every question.

Happy editing,

Snowolf^(talk)_CON^COI - 18:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Bosnian Muslim

Here are some sources that use the term "Bosnian Muslim"

• http://www.worldnewsaustralia.com.au/region.php?id=126598&region=3 - From SBS World News Australia - a very respected news source, which happens to be a multicultural and multilingual television network, with many programs and movies from overseas.
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1858086.htm - From the Australian ABC news - very respected news source, and as a government funded station, does not deliberately try to offend people.
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3254890.stm - From the BBC - one of the most respected news sources in the world, need i say more.

"Bosnian Muslim", it seems, is in no way offensive, and by far the most widespread term used in English. Former Anon 06:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

There are absolutely no sources that claim "Bosnian Muslim" is considered an offensive term. And it is by far, the most widespread term in the English speaking world - most people would never have heard of the term "Bosniak" before coming to Wikipedia. So please, trying to portray the term "Bosnian Muslim" as an insult - because it is not. Former Anon 07:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I was wrong here because Britannica spells it "Bosniacs", but nevertheless, it's often qualified with a "(Muslims)" or "(Bosnian Muslims)", so the term can't be as obscure as it's being made out. Google hits for "Bosniaks" or Bosniaks is almost five times lower than fon "Bosnian Muslims", so I think a source is vital for those claims.--Domitius 08:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Bosniak became the official term when the Bosnian constitution was written. Bosnian Muslim is an outdated and inaccurate term since not all of that ethnic group is religiously muslim. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.27.104.3 (talk) 05:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

See International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic - Trial Chamber I - Judgment - IT-98-33 (2001) ICTY 8 2 August 2001. If "Bosnian Muslim" is an outdated term why was it used in 2001 in the genocide trial? Wtnsses like General Halilovic use the term "Bosniak", but English is not their first language and it is not clear if what they said is a translation or their words. But in the court records the phrase "Bosnian Muslim" is used from Paragraph 1 (the Introduction) onwards.

If the term "Bosnian Muslim" was still current in 2001 when did it become "antiquated"? If the sentence about being outdated in English is to be kept in the article there needs a [[WP:|verifiable]] reliable source --Philip Baird Shearer 21:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I just put one in, the CIA, I assume you would consider that a reliable source? Fanra 21:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The links do not seem to work please could you check them. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Just checked the links, they work fine in both IE and Firefox. Note that they are Secure links, "https://" and that IE reports a Certificate Error (although it still worked once I told IE to go there regardless). So your problem might be related to either of those issues. For your information, what the CIA says about it is, "note: Bosniak has replaced Muslim as an ethnic term in part to avoid confusion with the religious term Muslim - an adherent of Islam". Fanra 22:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

You had missed out www in the URL. The source does not say to use "Bosnian Muslim" is an antiquated term. Further it is not clear if the CIA are describing a universal truth or a term within their publication. I think you would have to consult the Oxford dictionary to determin if the usage of "Bosnian Muslim" was "antiquated" (or thought if this were to the case it would probably use the term "archaic" rather than "antiquated"), but it is not going to say that as the term is still in use. For example the BBC uses both terms. --Philip Baird Shearer 23:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, you are making me work for my dinner. :). I copied and pasted the URL and the CIA doesn't seem to bother with www and I've not been using www for quite a while now for every address in my browser and I've not noticed a problem. I will try to be more careful in the future. Fanra 00:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
• I guess the term I would use would be "ambiguous". As for "antiquated", I don't think that is the best word, although it might fit if you use this definition, "continued from, resembling, or adhering to the past; old-fashioned". Note that is different from "obsolete", which would imply that it is no longer used. I guess we need some references from Bosnia scholars but it seems not too many have been publishing on the web in a fashion that goggle can find. I have found this: [2] and [3] which says, "Many Muslims refer to themselves as Bosniaks." but then says, "Bosnian Muslims make up 44 percent, Serbs 33 percent and Croats 17 percent of the population." Frankly, I've pretty much had enough of this, so I'm going to stop trying to find the answer. :) Fanra 00:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I edit on wikipedia far less than I used to, but as a "Bosnian Muslim" myself I'll try to step in here and explain the situation. "Bosnian Muslim", popularized by the media during the conflicts of the 1990s, probably is the most popular english language term for this ethnic group, but it is not one endorsed by the "Bosnian Muslims" themselves - especially in formal contexts such as encyclopedia entries. To provide an example that non-Balkan editors might better relate to, the relationship between "Bosniak" and "Bosnian Muslim" is to some extent comparable to that of "Inuit" and "Eskimo", "African American" and "Black", or "Roma" and "Gypsy". "Eskimo", "Black" and "Gypsy" are all probably more popular terms than their counterparts - some, such as "Black", might even be more popular among the group in question (at least in a colloquial setting). Despite this, in a formal context (such as the title of wikipedia articles), we would refer to these groups by the more formal name. Obviously these are all very unique situations and the comparison isn't perfect, but the essence of the argument holds. Searching the internet, media, and various other sources for the use of "Bosnian Muslims" is besides the point here, since wikipedia's policy is clear enough on the matter: Bosniak is the current, undisputed official name of the group in question and it is self-identifying name of the group. As to "Bosnian Muslim" being offensive, that is probably the wrong word. For Bosniaks, however, it is certainly antiquated. The term only entered wide usage in the english language because of media-use during the bosnian war; albeit very simplistic, it was convenient and descriptive enough for western audiences (ie. they are Bosnians, and they are predominantly Muslim) and it is used to this day for this same reason. Bosniaks themselves, however, have objected to this; I myself have seen several letters and other efforts to major media outlets asking them to stop using the outdated and imprecise "Bosnian Muslim" in favor of "Bosniaks". With all this in mind, trying to present "Bosnian Muslim" as equal to "Bosniak" simply because of its wide-spread use in the media is wrong; while I don't necessarily condone some of the language previously used in the article, I do believe that the article should make clear the outdated status of one word relative to the other. Live Forever 06:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

It is your opinion that it is outdated. The English language is not the French language there is no right and wrong with the use of words. The OED records usage, and the word/phrase is in current widespread use. For example the websites of the four major broad sheet london based newspapers return in a Google search:

• 439 English pages from guardian.co.uk for "bosnian muslims" | "bosnian muslim"
• 57 English pages from guardian.co.uk for "Bosniaks" | "Bosniak"
• 28 English pages from independent.co.uk for "bosnian muslims" | "bosnian muslim"
• 4 English pages from independent.co.uk for "Bosniaks" | "Bosniak"
• 83 English pages from timesonline.co.uk for "bosnian muslims" | "bosnian muslim"
• 6 English pages from timesonline.co.uk for "Bosniaks" | "Bosniak".
• 139 English pages from telegraph.co.uk for "bosnian muslims" | "bosnian muslim"
• 1 English pages from telegraph.co.uk for "Bosniaks" | "Bosniak"

It is not up to Wikipedia to set the trend in these issue but to present the facts as they currently are. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and here are some simple facts.

• "Bosniak" is the current, undisputed official name for the people in question, as demonstrated by all relavent institutions and organizations (the OHR and CIA are but two examples).
• "Bosniak" is the self-identifying name of the group.
• According to Wikipedia policy on naming articles, the above two conditions mean that Bosniak takes precedence over "Bosnian Muslim".

All very simple facts. Live Forever 17:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• By the way, I'm in favor of using Bosnaik because Bosnian Muslim is ambiguous. But as far as the post by Live Forever, your problem is that you need to find us some sources. While I believe what you posted is true, we need some sources that say so. I'm aware that Bosnia is one of the poorer nations in Europe and probably not much Internet access, but I would think that a Bosnaik political party would have a web site or something we could look at but I can't find one. Or some Bosnia scholar; or some post on the UN web site or Bosnian government site of the Bosnian UN representative asking the UN to use the term Bosnaik instead of Bosnian Muslim. The fact that the UN, which I think is normally sensitive to these kinds of issues, continues to use both the terms Bosniak and Bosnian Muslim is not a good sign. Fanra 18:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• Also, I think the current solution is a good one, where it explains that it is ambiguous. Also, I did find this link from the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina: [4] Fanra 18:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you want to go there (Wikipedia:Naming conflict) because we are not discussing the page name and if we were you would have problems with that section "Proper nouns" because it says "# The most common use of a name takes precedence; If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific names;" More to the point, is my re-write of the disputed sentences OK? --Philip Baird Shearer 18:46, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• I like your re-write. We can modify it later if necessary but right now it is good. Fanra 18:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Serbs and Croats are ethnic groups that derived from different slavic groups and so are the Bosniaks. They derived from Serbs and Croats by changing they're religion and tradition. Just because this happend in more recent history doesn't make the Bosniaks less of an ethnic group. You conservatists can't accept the fact that history is changing and new ethnic groups are being created, just because a type of people have been around longer doesn't make all sorts of closly related people the same as them.

Pejman47

Welcome dear Pejman47. Would you mind explaining this revert of yours? What exactly was the weasel word? Your edit comment did not make much sense to me. I added fact templates, yet they were removed with no reasons assigned. What's going on? You've never edited this article before, how come you "suddenly" turned up? Were you following me or perhaps did "someone" ask you to come? I look forward to having an honest conversation with you to agree on how to do out bit to make this article better.--Domitius 19:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I reverted back to Domitius' version, as there was no justification for Pejman47's revert. Former Anon 08:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith and stop accusing other users. I asked Khoikhoi in his talk page to lock a page (Masoud Rajavi) and some hours later I looked at this [5] (I don't think it is any "bad" to do this) to find out what he/she has done for it. And by his three revert to this article, my curiosity led me to review the talk.

If these people really get offended by calling them Bosnian Muslim, I don't see any reason for your edits, I will try to find more sources for this. and the the changing of weasel words is : ( also -> more often) you wanted to change the impact of the article to the reader, by changing those words and pushing your own POV; If I find any other sources, I will come back to this article. --Pejman47 15:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If you had "reviewed the talk", you would have noticed in the section above this that a google test returns five times more hits for "Bosnian Muslims" than "Bosniaks" and "Bosniacs" put together - I think this demonstrates which is "more common in English" and also raises questions on the soundness of this article's present title. "If these people really get offended by calling them Bosnian Muslim" - there is no proof that they do (which is why I added the fact templates which you removed). Reliable sources use the term, so my edit is justified (all explained by my and another in the section above this). All these plainly obvious and pointed out facts were unknown to you which as far as I can see discharges the requirement to assume good faith within reason. The guideline does not require one to assume good faith to the point of absurdity, remember that and don't ask people to do so.--Domitius 00:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Changes

I removed the unrelated (to the subject) medieval preferences regarding Medieval Bosnia.

P.S. Why are those that self-declare as Muslims listed on the article as well (as Bosniacs)? --PaxEquilibrium 23:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I came to the discussion page to ask the very same question. If they wanted to be Bosniaks they could have simply declared as such. --Methodius 12:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

There is no historical "Bosniak" people like the article pretends with pseudohistorical data and dubiosly reinterpreted facts. Todays Bosniaks are nothing else than former-yugoslav "Muslims" who took this name for political reasons during the 1990th. To claim anything else is simply an attempt to falsify history and facts. -Noirceuil 12:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, not to mention that the article classifies the Kotromanovic dynasty as being Bosniaks, when they had always called themselves SERBS! Tvrtko Kotromanovic was king of "Serbs and Bosnia" in the 14th century, there is no mention of "Bosniaks" until the late 20th century... -Revolucija 11:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Parenthesized "(Bosnia)"

My issue with this is that later on in the same sentence, parenthesis are used to note that Kosovo is a province of Serbia, so here we have parenthesis used twice in the same sentence to imply different things. I also don't think it's really necessary, because we could simply use the appropriate/specific terms later on to avoid any confusion. Please see the article Bosnia (region) to understand why using Bosnia to mean Bosnia-Herzegovina might be misleading. Live Forever 23:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Putting it in brackets is the standard way to define what a word means. By doing this it means throughout the article when the word Bosnia is used it means Bosnia-Herzegovina. It can not be misleading if it is defined this way near the start unless someone does not know this convention. It is not I who introduced the word Bosnia into this text all I've done is made sure that when it is used it means Bosnia-Herzegovina and not any other meaning. To be absolutly explicit it should be ("Bosnia"), I'll make that change. Eg --Philip Baird Shearer 11:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Mak Dizdar

I find estavisti's edit summary a bit dubious: so the thoughts/actions of his own son are unimportant, but the opinion of one contributor to a nationalist Bosnian croat website (i.e. the source used on the Mak Dizdar wiki article) sets the standard for validity? Once again, it'd be useful if editors familiarized themselves with a subject before reaching out for straws to satisfy preconcieved notions. Mak's son, Majo - a notable author in his own right - makes no qualms about his, his father's or his family's ethnic identity. He's a frequent contributor to/participant in Bosniak cultural events[6] and organizations[7], and he's long worked to solidify his father's status in the Bosniak literary tradition[8]. The wiki article you reference for denying his ethnic identity was recently reverted based on a nationalist publication from Tudjman's Croatia in 1996, where one Mr. Karihman reaches some wild conclusions about the inherent "hrvatstvo" of Dizdar's forrays into medieval Bosnian culture and other literary work. Hell, the source goes as far as naming him a "founder" of Herzeg-Bosna, the same Croat para-state that eventually ethnically cleanes his hometown and community during the wars of the 90s. Wikipedia doesn't have to give equal validity to sources, and I believe it's pretty clear which one holds precedence. Live Forever 01:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 17:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Bosniak is sometimes spelled Bosniac

Removing this line and adding it to footnotes is a bad idea. No one checks the footnotes. The idea is to have it shown right away when someone is sent here after typing in "Bosniac" into the search box and wondering why they wound up at "Bosniak". If you seek to shorten the Lead Section (which I think is a good idea), the second paragraph could probibly go elsewhere in the article. I was thinking about how to move it but wanted to wait for some of the other issues to be settled here first. Fanra 20:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No my motivation was to remove a hanging sentence. I do not think that a native English speaker would be supprised by seeing Bosniac spelt Bosniak and if they were there is alway the footnote. The other possibility is to add the phrase "(sometimes spelt Bosniac)" at the start of the article --Philip Baird Shearer 10:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• The latest opening sentence, "The Bosniaks or Bosniacs[1] " is a good idea. I've been bothered ever since you removed the "hanging sentence" and I'm glad you have figured out a way to include Bosniac. Fanra 12:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Recent attacks by "user: Philip Baird Shearer" and others

In recent days, user "Philip Baird Shearer" has been questioning the "term Bosniak", as he calls it. First off, Bosniak is not a "term" nor is it a "recently constructed name" - Bosniak (and Bosnia) have historical land founding roots back to the early middle ages. BOSNIAK is a historic ethnic designation for people who stem from Bosnia. User "Philip Baird Shearer" has however been insisting on the highly inappropriate term "Bosnian Muslims", note: this is (in contrast to Bosniak) truly a TERM and not a historic NAME/ethnicity. This term came about in the 60's during a period when Yugoslavia and Bosnia were heavily dominated by serb/croat nationalist interests. The nationalist and communist serb and croat officials frankly denied Bosniaks as a people, despite that this people is the first one recorded to inhabit the Bosnian state, if you read the article you will see that BOSNJANI (Bosniaks, in old Bosnian language) are the first recorded people of modern Bosnia. And if you further read the 'Bosnians article' you will see that bosnian croat and serb nationalities didn't exist in Bosnia prior to the 19th century. Now "Bosnian Muslims" is an inappropriate term that the west ADOPTED from communist Yugoslavia, despite that this state was not based on human rights - the way the west handles and handled Bosnia is a disappointment of great magnitude, compare for example how the kurds in turkey were called "mountain turks" by turkish officials, I haven't however yet seen any western media use this designation. What I am trying to say is, Bosniaks are a people/ethnic group that are defined by the fact that Bosnia is their motherland and their common language is Bosnian - and NOT that their majority religion happeneds to be Islam -Bosniaks have existed even prior to Islam, as any normal humanbeing could suspect (see Bosnian church). And still one should not forget that Bosniak (and Bosnian language) is a name that is protected by the Bosnian constitution and international law. The fact that MEDIA uses a false term is no reason to call it appropriate - media is famous for missguiding people and facts. User philip baird shearer says that none of his friends nor he knew about bosniaks until he read wikipedia - well Philip, we live in a time when Bosniaks almost became extinct - something which was prepared for already in the sixties by giving Bosniaks the name "Muslims" in order to undermine them as a distinct people and instead designate them as merely a religious group. Politics aren't simply black or white, remember that. Nor is it a good characteristic to be morally equivavelent all of the time, sometimes neutrality automatically serves the purpous of the perpetrator. In the future you should double check all the Bosnian facts that you might hear from croat or serb users, I have noticed that you enjoy to engage in discussions with these people. Ancient Land of Bosoni

"User philip baird shearer says that none of his friends nor he knew about bosniaks until he read wikipedia" Where did I write this? --Philip Baird Shearer 19:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• The above argument is a rehash of what we have been discussing here for quite some time. Wikipedia isn't a place to go over political points. While it might be true, See: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. See: Wikipedia:Verifiability. Pay close attention to THIS because it is an official policy on the English Wikipedia:

“ The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. ”

Frankly, this whole argument is getting tired. Some people like to post on how it is EXTREMELY WELL KNOWN and EVERY BOSNIAK FEELS THIS WAY but somehow they can't find, among the thousands of Internet sources, anything to back them up. Let me try to make this clear, if Bosnian Muslim is such an offensive phrase, why doesn't the official web sites of the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina say so?

Personally, I dislike the term "Bosnian Muslim" because it is ambiguous. Therefore, I feel we should avoid using it, however we should note that it is commonly used to mean Bosniak. We also should not put in statements like "Bosnian Muslim is an offensive term" unless we can prove it with sources.

Let me try to make this more clear. If the current year was 1900 and Albert Einstein constantly edited the articles here on Physics to agree with his view points instead of the ones current in 1900, he would be wrong. I don't care that he was proved to be right, he has to convince the world first and Wikipedia second. Fanra 07:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

OED

AFAICT the OED does not have an entry for Bosniak it has an entry for Bosniac:

1836 Penny Cycl. V. 231/1 The inhabitants of Bosnia are composed of Bosniaks, a race of Sclavonian origin. 1848 E. LEAR Jrnl. of Landscape Painter in Albania (1851) 17 The packed Wallachians, and Bosniacs, and Jews started crampfully from the deck. 1920 Edin. Rev. Oct. 218 The ruling race absorbed large numbers of Christians, Greeks, Slavs, and later on Albanians and Bosniacs.

Etymology: [ad. F. Bosniaque, or G. Bosniake, ad. Russ. Bosnyak.]

To be in line with the OED should this article be moved to Bosniac? --Philip Baird Shearer 10:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Well, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina also spells it Bosniac, which is why I put in the sentence that it is sometimes spelled that way, the sentence you removed. You said it was "a hanging sentence." which is something I don't understand to be something bad. Bosniak is also a medical classification of Cystic Renal Masses. I would go with moving it to Bosniac but leaving a redirect page here and making it very clear in the Lead Section that it is spelled both ways in English, since there are a large number of Google hits on both spellings. Fanra 16:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Why, exactly? A google search shows 5x as many hits for the term "Bosniak" without wikipedia references. You will also find numerous organization within Bosnia that use the term with a K, so I fail to see how an outdated dictionary definition and constitutional court use are so convincing. Moving this article would also require dozens of changes throughout wikipedia to articles that use the term "Bosniak" (whether wikilinked or not), which seems a little pointless for a more commonly used and equally acceptable term. Live Forever 18:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

As for the reference to "Cystic Renal Masses", I hope you realize that the term comes from the surname "Bosniak" of one of the people responsible for discovering it (a certain "Morton A. Bosniak"). Bosniak is a common surname in the west Balkans, stemming from the days when it simply referred to an inhabitant of Bosnia. Someone with this surname obviously immigrated abroad to the United States, had the name anglicized to Bosniak, and made some discovery relating to "Cystic Renal Masses". Now, on the basis of this, you believe we should move the article to a different spelling? I hope even you can recognize the absurdity here. Live Forever 18:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not using Cystic Renal Masses the basis of my idea behind moving it. I figured that the use of Bosniak for that was due to the reasons you said. I merely reported the fact, I didn't use it as any basis to decide anything.

As for the rest of your statements, if the page was moved to Bosniac, this page would redirect to it, so all your points about links and other articles here is not of any concern. As for your statement that "outdated dictionary definition and constitutional court", you need to show us that OED is outdated, since although there is no official body that decides what is proper English (unlike French), the OED is normally considered the best source in the world. As for the Constitutional Court, legal bodies, especially ones that are based in Bosnia, are a good place to look for a good source.

An important thing to remember is that a major problem with this whole article is that we can't find any reliable sources about the word Bosnaik (or Bosnaic). If you can find some, please link them. Again, if we have two sources that say Bosniac, and zero that say Bosnaik, wikipedia policy says go with Bosniac. Fanra 06:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

contradiction?

hi everyone,

(thought I'd open this for discussion rather than put up a 'contradictory' tag or anything)... but it seems a bit contradictory that the article starts by defining the term Bosniak in a certain way, but then describes a couple of paragraphs down that the meaning is disputed by scholars and that the article has essentially 'chosen' a certain definition.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to *begin* the article with that dispute, rather than (seemingly) taking a side on it straight away...?

Cheers Jonathanmills 12:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• Every subject in Wikipedia has people who dispute it. Even ones on the fact that the world is round has people who claim it is flat. If you see: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, you will see we have to include all reasonable points of view, however, we do not have to give every point of view equal weight. Note this part of the policy: "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority."

The term used in this article to define "Bosniak" is the generally accepted one. If it is not, please cite us some sources and we can try to fix it. Otherwise, the Lead sections should continue to say what they do and the minority view point is covered below it. Fanra 01:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

No worries, I just thought the article might read a bit better if it was stated at the beginning that there is some dispute over what the term means, but then going on to say that the common one (and the one used in this article) is... etc. Not actually disputing the definition of 'Bosniak' used. Cheers Jonathanmills 12:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Origins of Bosniaks

While no one can deny the existence of Bosniaks now, this article does clearly illustrate the origins of Bosnians

They way it reads now, it is as if Bosnians just 'sprang out of the earth'.

In fact, Bosnia was one of the slavic medieval 'states' that formed in the 7th centruy AD. THe northern states of dalmatia and pannonia were croatian, whilst raska and doclea were Serbian. Bosnia, as well as frontier realms along the adriatic like pagania and Zahlumje were populated by both Serbs and Croats.

Given its midway position, Bosnia was liable to attempts by both Serbs and Croats to consolidate their realms, i.e to include Bosnia into their Serbian and Croatian kingdoms. However, this was never fully achieved as the both kingdoms were too fragmented by power struggles which occurred in their 'core' territories. At the same time it's position made it insulated from Roman and Byzantine inroads, as well as foreign conquests

After the croat and serb kingdoms fell in 12th century or so (to hungary and Byzantium, resp) , Bosnia's nobles seized their chance to hold power for themselves, and infact grew their land at the expense of Dalmatia. AT this point of time, people in the balkans did not really identify along ethnic lines, but rather linguistic and religious.

Bosnians spoke Serbo_croatian, although i know many Boaniacs, Serbs and Croats will argue and try to find single word differences as 'proof' for the existence of different languages.

For reasons pointed out above, many people living in Bosnia failed to really identify with either catholicism nor orthodoxy (and in fact the Bosnian bans changed their religions from catholicism to orthodoxy, and vice versa according to situations).

When the ottomans invaded, the Bosnian bans converted to Islam to enjoy social and economic privillages at the hands of the oppressive regime. Subsequently, the majority of the peasant masses in Bosnia did so too (although they enjoyed only slightly less oppression compared to christians). These people became 'Bosniaks' . THey identified themselves as muslims above all else (as is the Islamic doctrine), and in censi they called themselves 'Muslim' by nationalilty rather than Serbs or Croats. Thus the 'origin' of Bosniaks.

Yet some remained catholic and orthodox, and thus became to be known as Bosnian croats and serbs, resp.

Those who remained Catholic or Orthodox did not "become" known as Serbs or Croats, they continued to be known as such while the Muslims created the new ethnicity, Bosniak.--Revolucija 19:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, They were always Serbs and Croats. I mean they are now referred to as "bosnian' serbs and croats because they now live within the borders of a state - BiH- with a majority 'ethnicity' being Bosniak.

Has it really boiled down to that? Bosniaks are the "true" Bosnians, while Bosnian Croats and Serbs are merely national minorities?

No that is not what I meant, at all. Please re-read the discsussion. My main arguement was that Bosnians was merely a geographic term referring to the inhabitants of medieval Bosnia. The terms Bosniak, Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb then were constructed during and after Ottoman times. I think user Revolucija's theory is there was never a bosnian ethnicity, they were all either Serbs or Croats that happened to live in Bosnia, some of which converted to Islam, hence became known as Bosniacs, whilst the rest remained as Serbs and Croats. This is not my belief though, for several reasons. Back then , people were not educated enough to have a sense of ethnic-based nationhood. They only identified with the church. Since neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism were strong in Bosnia, it was easy for them majority of the to convert en masse to Islam. Some that were deeply Catholic or Orthodox remained so, and identified as Croats and Serbs, respectively. Now, how Bosnians saw themselves as before the Islamic invasion is a matter of controversy. Croats will say they are croats, Serbs will say they are Serbs, and Bosniacs say they were always Bosnian. One can produce heaps of historical 'proofs' which can be interpreted either way. Does it really matter anymore anyway ? Probably not. Truth is, they are more similar than different. Hxseek 14:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you read over the Wikipedia page on Bosnians. Many non-Bosniaks identify as such, so where do they fit into this scheme? A substantial number of Croats actually bear the surname "Bosnjak". I disagree with the idea that a Bosnian identity based on history and culture may only suit Bosniaks. Bosnia is not a nation-state, but a country composed of several nations. Some Bosniaks wish to turn Bosnia into "their" country and relegate Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs to national minority status, this is true. The fact that historical figures like King Tvrtko and Queen Katarina are portrayed as "Bosniaks" on this page proves this. However, there are also Croats and Serbs who support a multi-ethnic Bosnia and strongly identify with its history and culture. I count myself as one, and absolutely loathe when laymen confuse the terms "Bosniak" with "Bosnian" -- this happens when Bosnian history, culture, tradition, religion, etc., is exclusively claimed by one side and either ignored or rejected by the other. Many Croats and Serbs in Bosnia either downplay Bosnian history as Croatian or Serbian history, or disassociate themselves from it altogether. Thus Bosniaks feel an exclusive "right" to Bosnianhood, even if that means ignoring those Croats and Serbs who feel the same way about their country. We mustn't let these "national" antagonisms cloud our judgements online. Wikipedia must remain neutral on these issues and simply present the facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.235.39.246 (talk)

HOUSE OF KOTROMANIC

It is utterly ridiculous to state that Tvrtko I Kotromanić and Katarina Kosača-Kotromanić were "Bosniaks" in any way, as the House of Kotromanic was ethnically SERB and geographically BOSNIAN but certainly not Bosniak. To include them on the list of prominent 'bosniaks' is in direct odds with all common sense, with all historical facts, and also with the House of Kotromanic page on Wikipedia itself.

Please take the Kotromanic members off this page as "Bosniaks are typically characterized by their tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional adherence to Islam, and common culture and language", seeing as how the Kotromanic Dynasty was most certainly NOT an adherent of Islam and they did indeed speak Serbian Cyrillic and not the language of the Bosniaks, which is now called bosnian.

--Revolucija 23:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. THe medieval history of Bosnia is essentially serbian, +/- croatian. While it would be approppriate to include the Kotromanic dynasty in an article about 'Bosnia', it should not be poached into an article about 'bosniacs'. Kotromanic were not bosniaks, although they lived in bosnia. Bosniak history begins in the 16th century or thereabouts.

INTRO

Can;t the second paragraph be simplified and made to sound smoother ?

Something like:

' Bosniacs are classified as a south Slavic people. Genetically, they are descended from the mixture of Illyrians (the inhabitants of the area since ancient times) and the Slavic tribes which migrated to the Balkans in the 5th and 6th centuries; as are all the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. Thus the main distinguishing feature between Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats is not ethnicity (or language for that matter), but religion and an often independent history. '

The places of Turkey and Switzerland must be changed in the "Regions with significant populations" section. Check external links to understand what's going on.

King Tvrtko and Queen Katarina of Bosnia weren't "Bonsiaks" by the modern definition

Here, we can clearly see Muslim Bosniaks attempting to show their cultural ties to the medieval Bosnian state. I don't take issue with that so much as the fact that the word "Bosniak" today implies Muslim Slavs from Bosnia, who comprise about 48% of the total population. King Tvrtko was not a Muslim and so wouldn't identify as "Bosniak", and their was Kraljica Katarina-Kosacha (she embraced the Roman Catholic faith during her later years). Granted, they were both Bosnians, but that word means something entirely different. Ideally, both historical figures belong on the template found on the Bosnians page.

The point is, as much as "Bosniak" and "Bosnian" once meant the same thing, i.e., an inhabitant of Bosnia regardless of ethnicity, today Bosniak means something very specific, and to imply that pre-Ottoman historical figures like King Tvrtko and Queen Katarina shared the same ethnicity as modern Muslim Bosnians is politicizing history, to say the least. Perhaps all people from Bosnia once belonged to the same ethnic stock, as some Bosniak intellectuals claim; I do not dispute that here, nor do I really care about that question myself. Leave that debate to nationalists, as far as I'm concerned. However, we cannot apply a very politicized term like "Bosniak" to ancient historical figures who lived long before notions of nationhood and nation-states prevailed in Europe.

I would take issue with someone attempting to prove Tvrtko a Serb or a Croat the same way. Please, stop tampering with history.

Important Dates in Bosniak history

I will have to agree with Montenegro Interactive, the dates I removed only have to do with Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina and not with Bosniaks in general, even if 90% of Bosniaks are from Bosnia. What about the 10% of Bosniaks outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina that aren't from Bosnia, i.e. from Montenegro, Serbia or the Republic of Macedonia? Aren't dates from the Bosniaks there important as well? Either way, I have created the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the following reasons: to explain the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to keep the article about Bosniaks to be about Bosniaks in general, and not mostly about the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina. --Pointe LaRoche 00:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Please, don't remove important dates of Bosniaks, because some can think that you are malicious and that you are a sockpuppet of Montenegro Interactive which means you can be blocked indefinitely. The source about the dates of Bosniaks is "History of Bosniaks" by Imamovic Mustafa. Btw, what about the dates of Turkish people in Germany, or Irish people in USA? Bosniaks are identified with Bosnia as an ethnic state, just as Irish people with Ireland, no matter where they live. Also, there isn't article called Irish of Ireland, just Irish. If you continue to misuse Wikipedia, I will devote my life to follow your edits and you sockpuppets. Bye. 85.158.33.85 00:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Bosniaks aren't Bosnians! Bosniaks kept there heritage in Bihor, a region in Montenegro, not in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and are true Bosniaks. When the Bosniaks in Montenegro were gaining notability, that's when the Bosnian Muslims decided to go with them and began to declare themselves Bosniaks. Bosniaks aren't ethnically tied to Bosnia, either, except for those who are from Bosnia. BTW, Mustafa Imamović was a Bosnian Bosniak, there is a difference. This article, as per what Pointe LaRoche says, shouyld be about Bosniaks in general, not mostly about the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and no, Mr. LaRoche isn't my sockpuppet. For God's sake, I don't even know who he is. --Montenegro Interactive 02:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

There are no true or false Bosniaks. Please, restrain yourself from racist arguments. I will report you, and Pax, and other sockpuppets who do this. "Bosnian Muslims" decided to become Bosniaks, according to whom?! My grandfather and whole family always called themselves Bosniaks, or "Bošnje" (in Bosnian) and they are from the bottom of Bosnia. Now, your claim confirms your racist motive. You deny Bosniaks to be Bosniks, saying that Bosnian Muslims decided to be Bosniaks?! It is the main cause of genocide committed on Bosniaks by Serbs helped by Montenegrins (Novak Kilibarda), because they denied Bosniaks to be Bosniaks. Ottomans called my people Bosniaks, Njegoš called them Bosniaks, and they called themselves Bosniaks. And when you say that "real" Bosniaks are from Montenegro, and that they don't have ties with Bosnia, how possibly do they have Bosnia in their ethnic name? A little common sense wouldn't kill you. 85.158.33.136 09:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW, Šako and Dado Polumenta are Bosniaks from Montenegro and they don't have any ethnic ties to Bosnia nor are from Bosnia. Neither does Jašar Ahmedovski from the Republic of Macedonia. Nor Emina Jahović, her brother Mirsad and Elma Sinanović, who are all from Novi Pazar in Serbia. What about Rasim Ljajić, the only Bosniak minister in the Serbian government? Not even him. And I can continue with this list if you would like me to. --Montenegro Interactive 02:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't care about Šako and Polumenta, I don't even know who they are. Emir Kusturica also doesn't have any ethnic ties to Serbia, nor Ivo Andric, and they are Serbs. If you want to write about them, that's ok, but this is racism. 85.158.33.136 09:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Rascism?!?!?! How is this rascism? I myself come from a Montenegrin-Bosniak family. Those people I mentioned have no ethnic ties to Bosnia, that's what I meant for all those people. --Montenegro Interactive 21:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't care about Montenegro. If you want to write about it, I don't care, but if you continue to write lies about Bosniaks, I will also write smth about Montenegrins, such as their genocide role against my people in cooperation with Slobodan Milosevic.

Your people are the Bosnian Muslims that turned to Bosniakhood after the Bosniaks in Sandzak began gaining notability with the Bosniak nation. The Montenegrins didn't genocide, they only helped out of fear because Serbia was "bigger and better" and since Montenegro was small, they didn't want war to come to them out of fear because they feared that Serbia would crush and say good-bye to Montenegro. Think about it. --Montenegro Interactive 18:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Listen here, buddy. Thanks to Šerbo Rastoder and other Bosniaks from Montenegro, the Bosniak name came back. What you are being told are lies. BTW, my family as I said is Bosniak, but they aren't tied with Bosnia in any way whatsoever. --Montenegro Interactive 13:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Your sentences are contradict. First, I don't believe you, and I don't care. Second, you say that Bosniak name came back, as it didn't exist before, and after that you say you are from Bosniak family?! So your lies are clear. 85.158.32.121 22:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Who says you have to believe me? You believe whatever you want to believe, but I am truthfully telling you what is the truth. You have been told lies, my friend. The Bosniak nation (and name) existed before but you fail to realise that. The Bosniak name and culture was kept with the Bosniaks of Bihor (in Montenegro) (who were known as Muslims at that time), not the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosniaks from Bihor are what everyone in Montenegro call "the place where true Bosniaks are from", of which my family is from. You fail to realise that as you were told a propogandist story of the Bosniak nation and its history. O, and my, I do come from a Bosniak family who fought for the Bosniak nation. My grandfather, a Bosniak, was a big speaker for the Bosniaks in the Montenegrin parliament. He fought hard for Bosniak rights, however, he died before he was able to see what name the Bosniaks have now and one of his long awaited dreams, to see Montenegro become independent. I'm even fighting for Bosniak rights just like my grandfather once did. So, you can't say I don't come from a Bosniak family, because I do. --Montenegro Interactive 18:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Nor are any of my other Bosniak friends in Montenegro. So you believe what you want to believe since we do have different views on different topics. --Montenegro Interactive 13:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Montenegrins committed genocide against Bosniaks, so I see what is your goal here, but no pasaran my friend. 85.158.32.121 22:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Montenegrins never committed genocide against Bosniaks during the Bosnian war. And if they did, find evidence to prove your biased accusation. And what is my goal? The only goal I have right know is to spread the truth about the Bosniaks, not some propogandist, biased lies. Most of the article about Bosniaks are about the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina and their history, not about the Bosniaks in general.--Montenegro Interactive 18:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I've restored an unreferenced tag to this section. I propose removing the section completely to stop this edit-warring if no sources can be provided. --Ronz 22:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This isn't about the dates anymore, this is about a war about Bosniaks. --Montenegro Interactive 02:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it isn't about creating a good wikipedia article by following wiki policies and guidelines then it's not going to remain in its current form for much longer. --Ronz 17:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It is about you who are malicious and who want to fabricate the facts. I can understand what happened during the war, but I don't understand why again and here?! 85.158.32.121 22:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I added the reference ISBN 9958-815-00-1 given by 85.158.32.21, along with a failed verification tag. If anyone can list the dates actually provided from this source, we can just remove the others and be done with it. --Ronz 23:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Bosanski jezik

I moved the following from the article for discussion. Only the English version should be in the article, and then only when sourced and rewritten so that it makes sense. As is, I'm not even sure what the editor is trying to say:

Bosanski jezik

Isto tako više od 7 miliona Bošnjaka živi i na prostorima Turske , to su Bošnjaci kooji su za vrijeme povlačenja Turaka, zajedno sa njima otišli u svoju drugu domovinu. Turska i Bošnjačka kultura, vjera i jezik su veoma slični. Što se tiče starobošnjačkog jezika, on obiluje sa mnogo turcizama, koji su se i dan danas zadržali u kućnom jeziku bošnjačkog naroda.

Englis language

Also, seems like that more than 7 milions of Bosnian populatione lives in Turkey. That Bosnians are go with Turkeys in Turkey during the 1904-1910 , in them second country - TURKEY. Turk's and Bosniak's cultures are very seems. Turk's are get in Bosnia with new religion, coulture and language. Bosniak language are very seem's with Turkey language, i meen, old-bosnian language.

--Ronz 16:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me translate it for you because your translation made no sense whatsoever:

Over 7 million Bosniaks live even in Turkey. Those were the Bosniaks, who during the time of Turkish rule, went together with the Turks to their second home. Turkish and Bosniak culture, religion and language are very similar. Concerning the Old Bosniak language, it contains many turkisms, of which were kept even today in the language used in the homes of the Bosniak people.

--Montenegro Interactive 15:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Ronz 18:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Moved from article for verification: Important dates to Bosniaks

• 29 August 1189 - Bosnian statehood charter by ruler Kulin Ban
• 3 July 1436 - Document mentioning Bosnian language
• 25 October 1478 Death of Katarina Kosača-Kotromanić, last Bosnian Queen, in exile in Rome
• 29 March 1831 - The Great Bosnian uprising
• 25 November 1943 - Day of the republic
• 6 May 1950- "Cazin uprising" against Communists and their agrarian reforms
• 2 May 1991 - Day of the Patriotic league
• 1 March 1992 - The Independence day
• 15 April 1992 - Day of the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (today day of Bosniak unit - part of Defence forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• 7 May 1993 - Day of mosques
• 28 September 1993 - Official rebirth of a national name
• 6 March 1995 - Day of the first Bosnian flag
• 11 July 1995 - Day of genocide
• 14 December 1995 - The Dayton agreement
• 4 February 1998 - Day of the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 19 October 2003 - Death of Alija Izetbegović, first president of independent Bosnia and Herzegovina

I removed the above from the 18:09, 31 August 2007 version [9]. We now have two references that fail to verify the list. I don't think we should add any list back at all until we get complete quotes from references we intend to use, then make a list using only the dates listed in the references. The references so far are:

• Imamović, Mustafa (1996). Historija Bošnjaka. Sarajevo: BZK Preporod. ISBN 9958-815-00-1
• Enver Imamović, Korijeni Bosne i bosanstva, Sarajevo 1995

--Ronz 18:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I just oppose adding the first three - because it doesn't make pretty much sense to add them. That's all. --PaxEquilibrium 20:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I would generally oppose keeping most of these dates as these dates only have to do with the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But of course, no one will listen to me. So instead, I'll give you my list of which ones to remove because I don't see why they are needed in the first place:

• • 29 August 1189 - Bosnian statehood charter by ruler Kulin Ban
  • 3 July 1436 - Document mentioning Bosnian language
  • 25 October 1478 Death of Katarina Kosača-Kotromanić, last Bosnian Queen, in exile in Rome
  • 6 May 1950- "Cazin uprising" against Communists and their agrarian reforms
  • 6 March 1995 - Day of the first Bosnian flag
  • 4 February 1998 - Day of the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • 19 October 2003 - Death of Alija Izetbegović, first president of independent Bosnia and Herzegovina

--Montenegro Interactive 01:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the perspectives. Hopefully this will simply come down to what can be verified. --Ronz 17:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Montenegro Interactive pretty much got it. --PaxEquilibrium 18:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Validation

This is clear example of Serb intention against Bosniaks. ICJ ruled that Serbs had specific intention to destroy Bosniaks in Eastern Bosnia. It was called genocide. I think this is the same thing here, because I gave you two sources to confirm the dates, which are important to Bosniaks (You Serbs shouldn't worry about it, because those dates are important to Bosniaks, not to Serbs, so you don't have to delete it, if you don't like it; no more genocide behaviour). But, if you like, I will validate this dates, not because of you (it is pretty clear what are you trying to do here), but for those who wants to read it:

• 29 August 1189 (Page 32, "History of Bosniaks" - II Chapter (Birth of Bosnian state))
• 3 July 1436 - (Page 15, "History of Bosniaks" - Introduction)
• 25 October 1478 Death of Katarina Kosača-Kotromanić, last Bosnian Queen, in exile in Rome (Page 114, "The roots of Bosnia and Bosnianhood" -E.Imovic - "Do we need a queen?")
• 29 March 1831 - The Great Bosnian uprising (Page 333, "History of Bosniaks")
• 25 November 1943 - Day of the republic (It is celebrated every year by Bosniak Institutions, and in Bosniak dominated parts of Bosnia; Also it is still legal holiday according to Deyton agreement)
• 2 May 1991 - Day of the Patriotic league (It is celebrated every year by Bosniak Institutions)
• 1 March 1992 - The Independence day (It is celebrated every year by Bosniak Institutions, and in Bosniak dominated parts of Bosnia)
• 15 April 1992 - Day of the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (today day of Bosniak unit - part of Defence forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina) (Celebrated according to military law of Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• 7 May 1993 - Day of mosques (Page 259, "Takvim 2007")
• 28 September 1993 - (Page 17, "History of Bosniaks" - Introduction)
• 11 July 1995 - (Page 259, "Takvim 2007")

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.158.33.176 (talk • contribs) 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, you shouldn't be calling us Serbs, as they may be a personal attack to some, like me. I am no Serb, I am a proud Montenegrin Bosniak. If you have a problem with this, then go to the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina article. This is the reason why it was created. What we are trying to do on the "Bosniaks" article is the make the article to talk about Bosniaks in general, not mostly about Bosniaks of BiH, something you are trying to do and for that reason, I believe you should go and do you business in the Bosniaks of BiH article, as mentioned earlier. --Prevalis 00:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it until another editor validates it, given with the past problems we've had with editors erroneously claiming sources properly validated the information. --Ronz 19:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Further, this could be a case of WP:OR, given that the notes above indicate these dates are found across multiple pages of multiple sources. --Ronz 19:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

"ICJ ruled that Serbs had specific intention to destroy Bosniaks in Eastern Bosnia. It was called genocide." The ICJ did no such thing. See the ICJ press release that makes it quite clear:

(2) by thirteen votes to two,

Finds that Serbia has not committed genocide, through its organs or persons whose acts engage its responsibility under customary international law, in violation of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(3) by thirteen votes to two,

Finds that Serbia has not conspired to commit genocide, nor incited the commission of genocide, in violation of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(4) by eleven votes to four,

Finds that Serbia has not been complicit in genocide, in violation of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(5) by twelve votes to three,

Finds that Serbia has violated the obligation to prevent genocide, under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in respect of the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995;

--Philip Baird Shearer 08:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Philip: Western people know what happened, no matter what the Serbs and Russians paid the ICJ officials, we saw death camps in the western media, so it's too late for people like you fortunately. Holocaust deniers are just that Holocaust deniers. Fortunately it is standard practice that nobody really takes them seriously. 83.67.73.117 22:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Slavic Muslims

The article is written from the perspective that Bosniaks are Slavic Muslims. If you disagree, please discuss rather than edit-warring. Thanks! --Ronz 19:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

As soon as we take 100,000 Bosniaks DNA sample and conclude that they are a Slavic/Servic tribe, they sure look different to me and any western visitor. Servs appear similar to Gypsies, and Bosniaks have blonde hair mostly and blue eyes, last time I visited Bosnia. So the most educated approach would be not to mention the word "Slavic" untill concrete genetic test brings about such evidence, am I right? Or are we going to go against recognised professional methods of reaching conclusions?

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by BosnianHolocaustSurvior (talk • contribs) 01:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC) 

Bosniaks vs. Bosnians

I've noticed several repeated attempts at conflating Bosnian historical figures with Bosniak Muslims. Steccak tomb stones relate to Bosnian history and the folklore of all three peoples, not just Bosniaks. Likewise, King Tvrtko was a Christian monarch. If you wish to say that Bosnian history only pertains to modern Muslim Bosniaks, then come right out and say it. Otherwise, stop tampering with history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.39.246 (talk) 23:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Number inflation, yet again

I'm tired with repeated number inflation in infoboxes, not only for Bosniaks, but for other peoples as well. I'm reverting to the old version of the infobox, which was referenced from at least semi-proper sources (no, I'm not checking the refs yet again).

As for Bosniaks in Turkey, we've been here numerous times before: yes, there were large waves of emigration, especially in 1878-1925. No, most people of their origin cannot be counted as Bosniaks anymore; few of them speak the language, not all are even aware of their origin, and Turkish census apparently doesn't count them as such. At best, they're "Turks of Bosnian origin" now. It is duly noted in the text, still uncited. Take it out of infobox please. Duja► 08:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've provided a very good reason

User "Ancient Land of Bosoni" continues to promote a biased view of Bosnian history, treating Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian-Herzegovinian historical figures as virtually the same. According to his view, Bosniaks are the only legitimate heirs to Bosnian history and culture. Nevermind the cultural legacy of Bosnian Croat Franciscans and others. Bosnian Croats and Serbs who consider themselves Bosanci as well do not factor at all, according to him.

At least acknowledge that King Tvrtko was a Christian monarch, and the steccak tombs were erected by members of all three churches alike. If you want a good page to post those pictures, I suggest you direct them to the Wikipedia page on Bosnians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.39.246 (talk) 22:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, so.. I fail to see the problem. Croats and Servs/Serbs may share the same heritage, and everybody knows that people of the "Ancient Land of Bosoni" have not been driven out, as there is zero evidence of any conquest of those people by Servian Slavic tribe. BosnianHolocaustSurvior 01:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The article does not describe these bosnian monuments and kings as solely Bosniak, if you read carefully it says 'Bosnian' not 'Bosniak'. Ancient Land of Bosoni —Preceding comment was added at 19:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Bosnians and Bosniaks

If Bosniaks (Bošnjaci) want to be a people, it is fine, why not. Who are Peruvians, as an example. Citizens of an country. So bosniaks want to be recognized as new nation, members of an country. But in their wish, they must not endanger other Bosnians (Bosanci), Bosnian croatians and Bosnian Serbs. If we agree, Bosnians are citizens of Bosnia, disregard of their religion, and Bosniaks are people from Bosnia with muslim religion. For moment two terms are more or less one. --Billy the lid 11:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, not all Bosniaks are from Bosnia. The term "Bosniak" is now generally being applied to Muslims in the countries of former Yugoslavia. --Prevalis 22:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Number inflation + Population estimates

People, please stop inflating the population - especially the Total Population estimate. The fact is, the total population is only, and can only be an estimate. It is incorrect to insist on keeping the estimate at 2.8 million, especially after you add up the number in the "Regions with significant populations" sections; the total comes to just over 2.4 million. Unless hard evidence can be found of these 400 000 that someone insists belong here, the population estimate should stay at 2.4 million. Frvernchanezzz 05:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Important Dates in Bosniak history - yet again

Please see WP:SYN. The list appears to be nothing more that dates taken from various sources that the editors, not the sources, deem important to Bosniak culture. What I think would be clearly acceptable is a list from single reliable source on Bosniak culture. For anything else we will need to demonstrate that we're not the ones deciding what dates are deemed culturally important. --Ronz 17:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you quote it? Appears to whom? The sources are well known to every Bosniak on Earth. For example Takvim is one of the four books every Bosniak home has. It contains the calendar and the list of dates that Bosniaks celebrate every year, so please don't behave like a vandal removing that fact or get the source and check it for yourself. 85.158.33.106 18:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

No they don't. Maybe Bosnian Bosniaks but not Montenegrin Bosniaks. --Prevalis 19:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide a source to back that Takvim is so widely owned?

Please observe WP:TALK, or other editors may be inclined to ignore your comments. --Ronz 01:35, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

No need for this numbers

there is one thing i dont understand... and it is about this table on the right side(number of bosniaks not living in Bosnia and H.). why is there the number of muslims living in these countries? are they supposed to be bosniaks too?! like i would write(e.g. english people in China: 50000 (12 mil. christians))!? thanks!

WP:LEAD

The lead section is drifting away from WP:LEAD. It should summarize what is in the main article. It shouldn't be the main and sole place for presenting information. --Ronz (talk) 05:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Ethnicity

Ancient Land of Bosoni, please stop trying to "prove" they are not Slav, as you have failed before you even begin. Ethnicity is all about a shared language, culture and customs - it has nothing to do with genetics. Inserting second rate sources from obscure figures stating that Bosniaks have some "Illyrian blood" doesn't mean they aren't Slavs. Obviously any ethnic group from the balkans is going to have some Illyrian in them, since all the migrants mixed with the indigenous tribes - it's not as if newcomers just exterminated everyone already living there. You don't need to keep trying to "prove" that Bosniaks are a different people than Croats and Serbs; They are different, OK, we get it, we accept it, and we understand it. So stop inserting these ridiculous theories akin to Nazi eugenics. Frvernchanezzz (talk) 05:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

obscure sources and naziiiii!?!?! by a prominent anthropologist in the field? you are obviously not sane unfortunately, I have asked for protection. Bosniaks don't have any slavic customs or culture and nor do they have "some" illyrian blood, exact ratios are not known! No but genetics have to do with origins, which is highly significative in this case. Ancient Land of Bosoni (talk)

You're not getting the point, my friend. Bosniaks are Slav because they speak Slavic language, have Slavic customs, and have Slavic culture - and there is not one scholar in the world who would argue anything different. It is plain wrong to say Bosniaks have no Slavic culture or customs, as many of their customs and culture are shared with otehr Slavs throughout Europe. The fact is, it is almost certain to assume that every ethnic group in the balkans has around the same amount of Illyrian genetic material as eachother, and to argue that one is "more Illyrian" than another is just plain wrong, and is bordering on eugenics. Frvernchanezzz (talk) 05:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

HAHAHA! all balkan peoples have same amount illyrian blood? when Illyrians only lived in western balkans?!?! and the geographical topography in Bosnia is much more preservative towards cultures than what it is in croatia and serbia?!?! get real, and stop vandalising..I will get you blocked and this article protected..if you want to contribute than add any of your own reliable sources, as for example from university of london ;) ciao Ancient Land of Bosoni (talk)

Geographical topography doesn't have anything to do with preservation of a people's culture. Remember to remain civil. Look, I'm proposing a compromise.

This is what you want inserted into the article (I have bolded what I object to)-

Bosniaks belong per linguistics to the Slavic ethnic group, but their genetic make-up is a mixture of Slav settlers and descendants of pre-Slavic indigenous Illyrian tribes. . For example, the prominent anthropologist John J. Wilkes regards Bosniaks (and Bosnians in general) as the direct descendants of Illyrians. In addition, Celts and to a lesser extent Goths who spanned the Balkans for distinct periods, often encountering Illyrians, may have influenced today's Bosnian population.

I propose we have the following -

Bosniaks belong to the Slavic ethnic group, but their genetic make-up is a mixture of Slav settlers and descendants of pre-Slavic indigenous Illyrian tribes. . For example, the prominent anthropologist John J. Wilkes regards Bosniaks (and Bosnians in general) as the possible descendants of Illyrians. In addition, Celts and to a lesser extent Goths who spanned the Balkans for distinct periods, often encountering Illyrians, may have influenced today's Bosnian population.

Note that I am willing to keep your source, but I advocate the removal of "per linguistics", as it is redundant and oxymoronic. And i propose the replacement of "direct" with possible. Please give me your opinion on this proposal. Frvernchanezzz (talk) 06:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I accept! Deal! Ancient Land of Bosoni (talk) 06:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks man! I'll add it now. Frvernchanezzz (talk) 06:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Not so fast please. Bosoni, since you're fast to scream "vandalism", please be so kind to provide a relevant citation from the book. I'm just reading it at the Google books, but only the pages 254-255 are fully available. Bosnia is mentioned several times throughout the book, but even less prominently in the chapter 9 you're citing. Actually, I'm not sure what you're trying to prove, as the vast part of Illyrian culture mostly died out before 1000 AD, and the people who live on that soil certainly do have "Illyrian blood", whatever that means. Actually, being born in Bosnia as child of a Serb and a Croat, whose ancestors are also born in Bosnia as far as the collective remembrance goes, I claim that I have more noble Illyrian blood than you.
Frankly, I'm tired of all those "genethic origin" theories, and propagation of myths which have no grounds for anything. Ethnicity means culture; Bosniak culture is based on Islamic traditions and Slavic language. The whole "genetic makeup" is, complete bollocks, pardon my French. Duja► 08:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Obviuously Frvervnchanezzz is a far more patient man than I, coz i would merely say that Anceint Land of Bosoni is living in a world of folklore and pseudoscience. Nothing he says is credible. EVERY Yugoslav has some Illyrian blood. What absurd thought would make you think that for some reason Bosnia is an oasis of Illyrian ethnic purity (we all know how mixed the Balkans are! ). So absurd that i don;t even know why the other could editors are even entertaining this joker ? ! No one has shown that Haplo I actually equates with "Illyrian-ness". In so many articles we are saying Croats have say 35% I1b, whereas Serbs have only 20 % , which means Croats are more Illyrian, blah blah. We cannot make such pseudo-scientific oversimplifications. And Bosniacs having gothic blood ? Now we are stretching it. There is no evidence to suggest this, apart from the fact that the goths roamed across eastern europe at one time, before moving into Italy. So even if a few Gothic families were left behind, their contribution to any modern cultural or even purely genetic component would be so miniscule as it is not worth a mention. Lets be realistic please fellas. Bosnian Serbs and Croats know that they are pure and simply Serbs and Croats. Why do Bosnian Muslims think they have some 'magical' genetic origins? Just because this is an article about Bosniacs, it does not mean that we have to please one or two nationalist editors so it reads the way they dream their heritage to be. This is an encyclopedia, and we must pursue good standards , free of nationalism. If all else, just use your commonsense. We should not try to intentionally delineate Montenegrins from Serbs from Croats from Bosnians. Dare I say (and i don;t apologise for upsetting all you nationalists) but they are ALL the same, or at least were originally, but hundreds of years of diferent religions and different foreign influcences have created (slightly) different cultures. So yes, if we define an ethnic group by culture, they may be considered different now, but they are all of the same origin -south slavs (that is why Yugoslavia was created in the first place, and was even going to include Bulgaria). Hxseek (talk) 10:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

And of course, that's why Bosniaks apparently are the only SLAVIC tribe which wasn't exterminated by NAZI's and was instead recruited to form the LARGEST SS division in WW2 which by the way required the specific and strictest ever appearance, scientific, and behavioural patterns and not to mention the fact that Bosniaks are the only group out of Serbs Croats and Bosniaks that use the Italian word for father. Although famously Serbs tried to join the NAZI side, and were exterminated instead along with Gypsies which is another story for another topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.73.117 (talk • contribs) 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Dates

As this is allegedly a free encyclopedia I re-added date section about important dates to Bosniaks. All dates are sourced so I don't see the problem here? Can anyone explain me the date section deletion? Grandy Grandy (talk) 20:33, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Bosniaks#Important_Dates_in_Bosniak_history Talk:Bosniaks#Moved_from_article_for_verification:_Important_dates_to_Bosniaks Talk:Bosniaks#Important_Dates_in_Bosniak_history_-_yet_again --Ronz (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

So the problem is...?! Where is the explanation? Grandy Grandy (talk) 06:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Bosniaks#Important_Dates_in_Bosniak_history_-_yet_again --Ronz (talk) 18:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Admin,

{{editprotect}}

There is a contradiction in the article. It says "Most Bosnians are Muslim". Earlier on however it says that they are only 40%, and therefore constitue perhaps a plurality rather than a majority. Therefore I kindly request the admin to replace the words "Most Bosnians" to the words "A plurality of Bosnians" or something to those lines.Tourskin (talk) 05:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

No it doesn't. It says "most Bosniaks are muslim". That K makes a big difference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.170.64.169 (talk) 07:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

N article does not have that specific phrase. SkierRMH (talk) 09:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Which causes the same problem actually, so there is a contradiction still as per CIA claims which state that Bosniaks are not exclusively of Muslim religion. In fact I went to Bosnia recently and I've yet to meet a religous person amongst the Bosniak population. They seem to have lost all trust in religion after the Genocide they've endured. 83.67.73.117 20:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Tip of advice, you shouldn't have said that they seem to have lost all trust in religion because believe it or not, many Bosnian Bosniaks are deep into religion, especially Islam. You should watch Bosnian TV more and read Bosnian Bosniak sites more often. :) --Prevalis 21:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I do, and you're wrong, because Bosnian media is run by the West and it's loaded with things like "Friends" and American+European films. I've been there last year, and got bored of it. There is common mourning of mass graves and stuff like that with people filmed praying, but that's about the only praying those people do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.73.117 (talk • contribs) 21:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Zzzzzzzz.....run by the West? Heard that a billion times, and that's where you're wrong. They only syndicate foreign programming because they don't have much programming of their own and need that extra airtime to be filled. Am I the only with common sense? --Prevalis 21:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Great so you've gone back on your previous statements. Secondly, western powers have many military bases in Bosnia and pull all the decision making strings, unfortunately for Russia. It wouldn't be a mature dispute, to dispute that. :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.73.117 (talk • contribs) 30 November 2007 (UTC)

You shouldn't be making obvious statement like yours because many already know this. --Prevalis 23:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)