Slavic dialects of Greece

Slavic/(Slavonic)Macedonian/Bulgarian
makedonski / pomak / bulgarski
Native to	Greece
Native speakers	41,017 (1951)
Language family	Indo-European Slavic South Slavic Eastern South Slavic Slavic/(Slavonic)Macedonian/Bulgarian
Official status
Official language in	None
Regulated by	Unknown
Language codes
ISO 639-1	none
ISO 639-2	none (B) none (T)
ISO 639-3	None (mis)

Slavic (Greek: Σλάβικα Slávika, reported self-identifying names: endopika, makedonski (Macedonian), pomakika, bugarski, balgarski (Bulgarian) [1]) are terms sometimes used to designate the dialects spoken by the Slavophone (i.e. Slavic-speaking) minority of the region of Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece; other names include Slavic-Macedonian or Dopia. Linguistically, these dialects are classified as Bulgarian or Macedonian Slavic depending on the abstand (distance) of each dialect from the standard languages.

Linguistic classification

File:Abecedar.JPG

A Slavic language ABECEDAR schoolbook.

According to Peter Trudgill,

There is, of course, the very interesting Ausbau sociolinguistic question as to whether the language they speak is Bulgarian or Macedonian, given that both these languages have developed out of the South Slavonic dialect continuum that embraces also Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene. In former Yugoslav Macedonia and Bulgaria there is no problem, of course. Bulgarians are considered to speak Bulgarian and Macedonians Macedonian. The Slavonic dialects of Greece, however, are "roofless" dialects whose speakers have no access to education in the standard languages. Greek non-linguists, when they acknowledge the existence of these dialects at all, frequently refer to them by the label Slavika, which has the implication of denying that they have any connection with the languages of the neighboring countries. It seems most sensible, in fact, to refer to the language of the Pomaks as Bulgarian and to that of the Christian Slavonic-speakers in Greek Macedonia as Macedonian.

According to Roland Schmieger,

Apart from certain peripheral areas in the far east of Greek Macedonia, which in our opinion must be considered as part of the Bulgarian linguistic area (the region around Kavala and in the Rhodope Mountains, as well as the eastern part of Drama nomos), the dialects of the Slav minority in Greece belong to Macedonia diasystem.

Recognition

Under the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 (which was never ratified [2]), Greece undertook the obligation to open schools for minority-language children. In 1925 the government of Greece submitted copies of a schoolbook called ABECEDAR, which was written in the Slavic language for the Slavophone children and published by the Greek Ministry of Education, to the League of Nations as evidence that they were carrying out these obligations. ABECEDAR was written in a newly adapted variety of the Latin alphabet for the Slavic language in Greece, and not in the Cyrillic alphabet which was the official alphabet of neighbouring Bulgaria and Serbia - this also shows the intent of the Greek government to create a distinctively Slavic minority, not a Bulgarian or Serbian minority; the result being that Bulgaria and Serbia would have no right to interfere in Greece's internal affairs.

In October 2006 [3] [4] [5], the Rainbow Party in Greece reprinted the original ABECEDAR Slavic language primer in Thessaloniki, Greece, which was printed in Athens in 1925 and was based on the Florina/Lerin dialect, as well as an up to date primer in the standardized Macedonian language and script as taught in the Republic of Macedonia and presented it to the Greek Ambassador to the OSCE, Mr Manesis [6] [7]. The book is reportedly being distributed to people self-identifying as ethnic Macedonians in northern Greece and it has been successfully promoted in the city of Thessaloniki [8].

The Metaxas regime

On the 4th August 1936 the authoritarian regime of General Metaxas came to power, and a new state sponsored policy of Hellenisation was enacted. The aim was to Hellenise all the non-Greek speaking Orthodox Christian populations within the Greek state's territory; other Balkan countries (Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania) respectively followed similar policies. In Greece, the ensuing result left the Slavic speakers (and other minority speech communities) forcibly suppressed, and their privileges under the Treaty of Sèvres withdrawn.

Present situation

At present, the number of Slavophones in Greece is unknown. In the latest census posing a question on mother tongue (1951), 41,017 people declared themselves speakers of Slavic. Almost all Slavic speakers today in Greek Macedonia also speak Greek and most regard themselves as ethnically and culturally Greek. Many of those for whom a non-Greek identity was particularly important have tended to leave Greece during the past eighty years. Very few speakers can understand written Macedonian and Bulgarian, and according to Euromosaic, the dialects spoken in Greece are mutually intelligible [9].

A political party promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "Macedonian minority in Greece", and refers to the Slavic language as Macedonian - the Rainbow (Ουράνιο Τόξο) - was founded in September 1998, and received 2,955 votes in the region of Macedonia in the 2004 elections. Similarly, a pro-Bulgarian political party, known as Bulgarian Human Rights in Macedonia (Βουλγαρικά Ανθρώπινα Δικαιώματα στη Μακεδονία) was founded in June 2000, promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "Bulgarian minority in Greece", and prefers to designate the local Slavic language as Bulgarian. This party has not yet participated in any elections.

See also

• Greece
• Macedonia (Greece)
• Bulgarian language
• Macedonian language
• Bulgarians
• Macedonians (ethnic group)
• Slavic speaking minority of Greece
• Slavic peoples
• Slavic languages

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 14.2 329-343 [10]