Gorals

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The Gorals (Polish: Górale; Slovak: Gorali; literally "highlanders") are an ethnic group found along southern Poland, northern Slovakia, and in the region of Teschen Silesia in the Czech Republic, illustrating the conundrum of national identity.

1 Spread
2 Origin and language
3 National identity
4 Gorals in a wider sense
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Spread

In Poland they live in the region of Podhale of the Tatra Mountains and parts of the Beskids (Cieszyn Silesia, Żywiec Beskids). In present-day Slovakia they live in 4 separate groups: in northern Spiš (34 villages subdivided in two groups), Orava and Kysuce (2 villages) and smaller groups in 7 other enclave villages in northern Slovakia.

[edit] Origin and language

There are several hypotheses about their origin, but they are usually considered descendants of Vlachs, who settled this area of the Carpathian Mountains between the 14th to 17th centuries. Analyses of skulls conducted by Polish anthropologists in the 1960s have indicated that they are mostly of Balkan origin.

Their (quite different) dialects are characterized as Proto-Slavic from the Eastern Lechitic, Old Polish area, superimposed by Slovak. In other words, the language is of Polish origin, but has been influenced by Slovak in recent centuries. The language contains Polish words, specific words, Vlach words, Slovak words and words that are peculiar to the Carpathian language area (Carpathisms).

[edit] National identity

While their language indicates the Gorals' Polish ancestry (for a better idea of the issue see either Kevin Hannan's work Borders of Language and Identity in Teschen Silesia or works by the Slovak linguist Katarína Kriššákova) many of them have been inhabitants of the territory of what is now Slovakia within the Kingdom of Hungary. For most Gorals, the decisive factor in their self-identification is not ethnic but territorial: those living in areas under a long tradition of belonging to the Polish state identify themselves as Polish, while those living in Slovakia have identified themselves as Slovaks at least since the 19th century, with notable exceptions to this rule on both sides of the border. This situation resulted in controversies such as that arose when the Polish government in 1918 made claims to the area on linguistic grounds that the areas inhabited by Gorals in Slovakia were Polish.

[edit] Gorals in a wider sense

In a wider sense Gorals refers to an ethnographic (or even ethnic) group comprising certain mountainards in northern Carpathians, more precisely these ethnic groups: