The Slavic dialects of Greece are the
Eastern South Slavic
The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic lin ...
dialects of
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
and
Bulgarian spoken by
minority groups in the regions of
Macedonia
Macedonia most commonly refers to:
* North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia
* Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity
* Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...
and
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
in northern Greece. Usually, dialects in
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
are classified as
Bulgarian, while the dialects in
Macedonia
Macedonia most commonly refers to:
* North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia
* Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity
* Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...
are classified as
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
, with the exception of some eastern dialects which can also be classified as
Bulgarian. Until the official codification of Macedonian in 1945 many linguists considered all these to be
Bulgarian dialects
Bulgarian dialects are the regional varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, ''Bolgarska gramatika'' (published 1835 ...
. However, some linguists opposed this view and considered Macedonian dialects as comprising an independent language distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbian.
Slavic dialects spoken in the region of Greek Macedonia
The continuum of
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
and
Bulgarian is spoken today in the prefectures of
Florina
Florina ( el, Φλώρινα, ''Flórina''; known also by some alternative names) is a town and municipality in the mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'.
The town of Florina is the capital of the Fl ...
and
Pella
Pella ( el, Πέλλα) is an ancient city located in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is best-known for serving as the capital city of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, and was the birthplace of Alexander the Great.
On site of the ancient cit ...
, and to a lesser extent in
Kastoria
Kastoria ( el, Καστοριά, ''Kastoriá'' ) is a city in northern Greece in the modern regions of Greece, region of Western Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria (regional unit), Kastoria regional unit, in the Geographic regions of Gree ...
,
Imathia,
Kilkis,
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...
,
Serres
Sérres ( el, Σέρρες ) is a city in Macedonia, Greece, capital of the Serres regional unit and second largest city in the region of Central Macedonia, after Thessaloniki.
Serres is one of the administrative and economic centers of Nort ...
and
Drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
.
According to Riki van Boeschoten, the Slavic dialects of Greek Macedonia are divided into three main dialects (Eastern, Central and Western), of which the
Eastern dialect is used in the areas of
Serres
Sérres ( el, Σέρρες ) is a city in Macedonia, Greece, capital of the Serres regional unit and second largest city in the region of Central Macedonia, after Thessaloniki.
Serres is one of the administrative and economic centers of Nort ...
and
Drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
, and is closest to
Bulgarian, the Western dialect is used in
Florina
Florina ( el, Φλώρινα, ''Flórina''; known also by some alternative names) is a town and municipality in the mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'.
The town of Florina is the capital of the Fl ...
and
Kastoria
Kastoria ( el, Καστοριά, ''Kastoriá'' ) is a city in northern Greece in the modern regions of Greece, region of Western Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria (regional unit), Kastoria regional unit, in the Geographic regions of Gree ...
, and is closest to
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
, the
Central dialect is used in the area between
Edessa
Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city ('' polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Os ...
and
Salonica and is an intermediate between Macedonian and Bulgarian. Trudgill classifies certain peripheral dialects in the far east of Greek Macedonia as part of the
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians.
Along with the closely related Macedonian ...
area and the rest as
Macedonian dialects.
[Trudgill P., 2000, "Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity". In: Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael (eds.), Language and Nationalism in Europe, Oxford : Oxford University Press, p.259.] Victor Friedman
Victor A. Friedman (born October 18, 1949) is an American linguist, Slavist. He is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in Humanities at the University of Chicago. He holds an appointment in the Department of Linguistics and ...
considers those
Macedonian dialects, particularly those spoken as west as
Kilkis, to be transitional to the neighbouring South Slavic language.
Macedonian dialectologists Božidar Vidoeski and
Blaže Koneski consider the eastern
Macedonian dialects to be transitional to
Bulgarian, including the
Maleševo-Pirin dialect.
Bulgarian dialectologists claim all dialects and do not recognize the Macedonian. They divide
Bulgarian dialects
Bulgarian dialects are the regional varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, ''Bolgarska gramatika'' (published 1835 ...
mainly into Eastern and Western by a
separating isogloss(''dyado, byal/dedo, bel'' "grandpa, white"(m., sg.)) stretching from
Salonica to the meeting point of
Iskar Iskar may refer to:
;Bulgaria
* Iskar (river), a river in western Bulgaria
* Iskar Reservoir, situated on the Iskar River
* Iskar (town), a town in the Iskar Municipality of the Pleven Province
* Iskar Municipality
* Iskar, Sofia, one of 24 muni ...
and
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...
, except for the isolated phenomena of the
Korcha dialect as an of Eastern Bulgarian
Rup dialects in the western fringes.
The
nasal vowels are absent in all Slavic dialects except for the dialects of
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
in Greece and the
Lechitic dialects (
Polabian,
Slovincian,
Polish and
Kashubian Kashubian can refer to:
* Pertaining to Kashubia, a region of north-central Poland
* Kashubians, an ethnic group of north-central Poland
* Kashubian language
See also
*Kashubian alphabet
The Kashubian or Cassubian alphabet (''kaszëbsczi alf ...
). This, along with the preservation of the paroxitonic in the
Kostur dialect and Polish, is part of a series of
isogloss
An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major ...
es shared with the Lechitic dialects, which led to the thesis of a
genetic relationship between Proto-Bulgarian and Proto-Macedonian with Proto-
Polish and Proto-
Kashubian Kashubian can refer to:
* Pertaining to Kashubia, a region of north-central Poland
* Kashubians, an ethnic group of north-central Poland
* Kashubian language
See also
*Kashubian alphabet
The Kashubian or Cassubian alphabet (''kaszëbsczi alf ...
.
The
Old Church Slavonic language, the earliest recorded Slavic language, was based on the
Salonica dialects. Church Slavonic, long-used as a state language further north in East and West Slavic states and as the only one in
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...
and
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centra ...
until the 18th century, influenced other Slavic languages on all levels, including
morphonology
Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes (mi ...
and
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
.
70% of Church Slavonic words are common to all Slavic languages,
the influence of Church Slavonic is especially pronounced in
Russian, which today consists of mixed native and Church Slavonic
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
.
Fringe views
A series of ethnological and pseudo-linguistic works were published by three Greek teachers, notably Boukouvalas and Tsioulkas, whose publications demonstrate common ideological and methodological similarities. They published etymological lists tracing every single Slavic word to
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
with fictional correlations, and they were ignorant of the dialects and the Slavic languages entirely.
Among them, Boukouvalas promoted an enormous influence of the
Greek language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southe ...
on a Bulgarian idiom and a discussion about their probable Greek descent.
Tsioulkas followed him by publishing a large book, where he "proved" through an "etymological" approach, that these idioms are a pure
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
dialect.
A publication of the third teacher followed, Giorgos Georgiades, who presented the language as a mixture of Greek, Turkish and other loanwords, but was incapable of defining the dialects as either Greek or Slav.
Serbian dialectology does not usually extend the Serbian dialects to Greek Macedonia, but an unconventional classification has been made by
Aleksandar Belić, a convinced Serbian nationalist, who regarded the dialects as
Serbian
Serbian may refer to:
* someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe
* someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people
* Serbian language
* Serbian names
See also
*
*
* Old Serbian (disambiguat ...
.
In
his classification he distinguished three categories of dialects in Greek Macedonia: a Serbo-Macedonian dialect, a Bulgaro-Macedonian territory where Serbian is spoken and a Non-Slavic territory.
Ban for use, language shift and language death
After the conclusion of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...
a widespread policy of Hellenisation was implemented in the Greek region of Macedonia.
Personal and topographic names were forcibly changed to their Greek versions.
Cyrillic inscriptions across Northern Greece were removed from gravestones and churches.
Under the regime of
Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas (; el, Ιωάννης Μεταξάς; 12th April 187129th January 1941) was a Greek military officer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941. He governed constitutionally for t ...
a law was passed banning the ''Bulgarian language''.
Many people who broke the rule were deported, or arrested, and beaten.
During the
Cold War cases of discrimination against people who spoke in local dialects had been reported. In 1959 the inhabitants of three villages adopted a 'language oath', renouncing their Slavic dialect on the initiative of local government officials. After the
fall of Communism
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...
the issue has continued. In 1994 report by the
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
, Greece implemented a program, which refuses the teaching of any Slavic language. The Greek state continues to exclude the Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia from operating TV-, or radio-stations in local Slavic. As result per Christian Voss in the Western and Central areas of Greek Macedonia is visible the typical situation of
language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are percei ...
and decreased proficiency from the Slavic vernacular to Greek as follows: "Households with almost monoglot Slavic-speaking grandparents, bilingual parents, and monoglot Greek-speaking children with a passive knowledge of Slavic." On the other hand in
Eastern Macedonia are a symptoms of full assimilation, which led to a
language death
In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its terminal speaker, last First language, native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by Second language, second-language speaker ...
.
Slavic dialects spoken in the region of
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
Some of the
Rup dialects of the
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians.
Along with the closely related Macedonian ...
are spoken by the
Pomaks
Pomaks ( bg, Помаци, Pomatsi; el, Πομάκοι, Pomáki; tr, Pomaklar) are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting northwestern Turkey, Bulgaria and northeastern Greece. The c. 220,000 strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is ...
in
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or West Thrace ( el, υτικήΘράκη, '' ytikíThráki'' ; tr, Batı Trakya; bg, Западна/Беломорска Тракия, ''Zapadna/Belomorska Trakiya''), also known as Greek Thrace, is a geographic and historic ...
in Greece. These dialects are native also in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...
, and are classified as part of the
Smolyan subdialect. Not all Pomaks speak this dialect as their mother language. It is generally qualified by Bulgarian researchers as an “archaic dialect” with some conservative features, which bear witness to an intermediate state of transition from Old Bulgarian/
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language.
Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other ...
to the modern Bulgarian language.
Evangelia Adamou
Evangelia Adamou is a senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, specializing in language contact and endangered languages.
Biography
Adamou studied at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (MA 1997) and Paris Desc ...
, Davide Fanciullo. Why Pomak will not be the next Slavic literary language. D. Stern; M. Nomachi; B. Belić. Linguistic regionalism in Eastern Europe and beyond: minority, regional and literary microlanguages, Peter Lang, pp.40-65, 2018.
Attempts of codification
Greek governmental codification
Under the 1920
Treaty of Sèvres, Greece had agreed to open schools for minority-language children. In September 1924 Greece also agreed to a
protocol with Bulgaria to place its
Slavic-speaking minority under the protection of the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide Intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by ...
as
Bulgarians
Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe.
Etymology
Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not complete ...
. However, the
Greek parliament refused to ratify the protocol due to objections from Serbia, and from Greeks who considered the Slavic-speakers to be Slavicized Greeks rather than Slavic people.
[Danforth, Loring M. ''The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World'', p. 70. Princeton University Press, 1995. ] Vasilis Dendramis, the Greek representative in the League of the Nations, stated that the Macedonian Slav language was neither Bulgarian, nor Serbian, but an independent language. The Greek government went ahead with the publication in May 1925 of the ''
Abecedar'', described by contemporary Greek writers as a primer for "the children of Slav speakers in Greece ... printed in the Latin script and compiled in the Macedonian dialect." The book's publication sparked controversy in
Greek Macedonia
Macedonia (; el, Μακεδονία, Makedonía ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and Greek geographic region, with a population of 2.36 million in 2020. It i ...
, along with
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...
and
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...
. The Bulgarians and Serbs objected to the book being printed in
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
.
[Poulton, Hugh. ''Who are the Macedonians?'', pp. 88-89. C. Hurst & Co, 2000. ] In January 1926, the region of
Florina
Florina ( el, Φλώρινα, ''Flórina''; known also by some alternative names) is a town and municipality in the mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'.
The town of Florina is the capital of the Fl ...
saw extensive protests by Greek and pro-Greek Slavic speakers campaigning against the primer's publication, demanding the government change its policies on minority education.
[Roudometof, Victor. ''Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question'', p. 102. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. ] As result although some books reached villages in Greek Macedonia, it was never used in their schools.
Greek communists’ codification
After the
Tito–Stalin split
The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
in 1948, under the auspices of some Macedonian intellectuals in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north ...
, anti-Yugoslav alphabet, grammar, and primer closer to Bulgarian, ''purified'' of the Serbo-Croatian loanwords of the ''language of Skopje'' were created.
The
Communist Party of Greece
The Communist Party of Greece ( el, Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a political party in Greece.
Founded in 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece and adopted its curre ...
led by
Nikos Zahariadis took the side of the
Cominform. After the defeat of communists in the
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War ( el, ο Eμφύλιος όλεμος ''o Emfýlios'' 'Pólemos'' "the Civil War") took place from 1946 to 1949. It was mainly fought against the established Kingdom of Greece, which was supported by the United Kingdom ...
in 1949, a hunt for
Titoist
Titoism is a political philosophy most closely associated with Josip Broz Tito during the Cold War. It is characterized by a broad Yugoslav identity, workers' self-management, a political separation from the Soviet Union, and leadership in the ...
spies began in the midst of Greek political immigrants - civil war refugees, living in socialist countries in Eastern Europe (often coming there after a brief stay in the so-called “Tito's traitorous fascist Yugoslavia"). As a result the Greek communist publisher "Nea Ellada" issued a Macedonian grammar (1952) and developed a different alphabet. Between 1952 and 1956, the Macedonian Department of Nea Hellas published a number of issues in this literary standard, officially called "Macedonian language of the Slavomacedonians from Greek or Aegean Macedonia". This failed attempt of codification included the Ъ, Ь, Ю, Я, Й and was proclaimed as ''non-serbianised''. However it was merely a form of Bulgarian. This codification did not gain widespread acceptance. The Soviet-Yugoslav rapprochement from the mid-1950s probably helped to put this codification to an end.
[Roumen Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies; BRILL, 2013; , p. 480.] The grammar was prepared by a team headed by Atanas Peykov. Atanas Peikov himself came to Romania from Bulgaria, where till 1951 he had worked at the
Informbureau of ''Hellas Press''. Although this "Aegean Macedonian language" legitimized the symbolic importance of the "Macedonian language" and thus facilitated the later spread of the standard Yugoslav Macedonian norm among the Aegean emigrants, it also delayed this process, creating certain reservations towards the Yugoslav Macedonian standard. ''Greek refugees'' educated in this norm were nearly unable to adopt the ''Yugoslav version'' later.
Communist refugees from Greece in Australia
The Macedonian
Greek Civil War Refugees in Australia issued a ''
Makedonska Iskra'' (Macedonian Spark). It was the first Macedonian newspaper published in Australia, from 1946 to 1957. The Makedonska Iskra was also thrown into confusion by the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the
Cominform. The newspaper was printed in the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
. Its articles were not in standard Macedonian but in local Slavic dialects of Greece. Some of the Slavic texts were in mixed Bulgaro-Macedonian language or were written in
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians.
Along with the closely related Macedonian ...
. A monthly with national distribution, it commenced in Perth and later moved to Melbourne and Sydney.
Pomak language
In Greece, attempts to write the
Pomak language in formal publications have been criticized because their script, whether it was in Greek or in Latin. Since the 1990s several publications in Pomak dialect have been issued using either script. Some criticisms to these publications were related to their funding sources. For example by the cases using the
Greek script
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
, two volumes of a textbooks were printed in 2004. Their author was Nikos Kokkas and publisher ''Pakethra''. Its funding was provided by a Greek businessman and directly through his company. The preface of a Pomak primer presents it as one of the “lesser-spoken languages” of Europe.
[Vemund Aarbakke, “Pomak Language Usage and the Spell of Nationalism—The Case of the Pomaks in Greece,” Slavia Islamica: language, religion and identity, edited by Robert D. Greenberg, Motoki Nomachi, Slavic Eurasian studies; no. 25, Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, pp. 149-177.] The use of Pomak in writing is very limited. It is even not used in the local Pomak newspaper "Zagalisa", that is published in Greek. Recently, the use of Pomak is preferred in a new local newspaper "Natpresh". Pomak is not being actively promoted by either Pomak communities or by Greek authorities. The result is a strong language shift in Greece towards Turkish.
Features
See also
*
Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia
*
Eastern South Slavic
The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic lin ...
*
Pomak language
*
Fallmerayer's Greek theory
References
Bibliography
*
Trudgill P. (2000) "Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity" in ''Language and Nationalism in Europe'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
* Iakovos D. Michailidis (1996) "Minority Rights and Educational Problems in Greek Interwar Macedonia: The Case of the Primer 'Abecedar'". ''Journal of Modern Greek Studies'' 14.2 329–34
External links
Dialectial dictionary of the Oschima speech of the Lerin dialect
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slavic Dialects Of Greece
Bulgarian language
Macedonian language
Languages of Greece