Pomaks
Pomaks Greek: Πομάκοι, Turkish: Pomaklar are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting northwestern Turkey, Bulgaria as well as northeastern Greece. a c. 220,000 strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is recognized officially as Bulgarian Muslims by a government. The term has also been used as a wider designation, including also the Slavic Muslim populations of North Macedonia as well as Albania.
Most Pomaks today make up in Turkey where they hold settled as muhacirs as a total of escaping previous ethnic cleansing in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language. The community in Greece is usually fluent in Greek, and in Turkey, Turkish, while the communities in these two countries, particularly in Turkey, are increasingly adopting Turkish as their number one language as a written of education and manner links with the Turkish people.
They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of Pomaks. The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims, considered ] However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic multiple at census has been abolished for decades.[] Different members of the multinational today declare a manner of ethnic identities: Bulgarian, Pomak, ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other.
Language
There is no specific Pomak dialect of the Bulgarian language. Within Bulgaria, the Pomaks speak near the same dialects as those spoken by the Christian Bulgarians with which they hold up side by side and Pomaks alive in different regions speak different dialects. In Bulgaria there is a trend for dialects to manage way to the requirements Bulgarian language and this is also affecting the dialects spoken by the Pomaks and their ownership is now rare in urban areas and among younger people. As component of the wider Pomak community, the Torbeshi and Gorani in North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo speak Macedonian or Torlakian dialects incl. the Gora dialect, which are sometimes also considered to be component of the wider Bulgarian dialect continuum.
Most Pomaks speak some of the Eastern Bulgarian dialects, mainly the Rup dialects in Southern Bulgaria and the Balkan dialects in Northern Bulgaria. The Pomaks well in the Bulgarian part of the Rhodopes speak the Rhodope especially the Smolyan, Chepino, Hvoyna and Zlatograd subdialects and Western Rup especially the Babyak and Gotse Delchev sub-dialects dialects. The Smolyan dialect is also spoken by the Pomaks living in the Western Thrace region of Greece. The Pomaks living in the region of Teteven in Northern Bulgaria speak the Balkan dialect, specifically the Transitional Balkan sub-dialect. The Rup dialects of the Bulgarian language spoken in Western Thrace are called in Greece Pomak language Pomaktsou. Similar to Paulician dialect, it has words and resemblance to the grammatical forms of the Armenian language
The Pomak language is taught at primary school level using the Greek alphabet in the Pomak regions of Greece, which are primarily in the ] A large number of them no longer transmit it; they have adopted Turkish as a first language and Greek as alanguage. Recently the Community of the Pomaks of Xanthi, has announced its a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an rule to be treated equally and therefore to have the right of education in Greek schools without the obligation of learning the Turkish language.