Talk:Minorities in Greece

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[edit] Slavic groups

Please rephrase in the lines of Macedonians (ethnic group)#The situation today*Greece as previously agreed in the Talk:Macedonian_language#Dialects_section. I wouldn't want to do it myself, as I am Greek, but I think that this summary is one-sided and excludes the Greek position on the matter entirely. Namely:

Thank you.  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 14:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Nah, its ok, go ahead and add the information — if its terribly POV someone can always re-write it, the stuff I added was basically a summary of an HRW report on "Macedonians in Greece". Btw, this article is a work in progress, I've been working on Macedonian language, and acquired a map which I hope will allay some of your concerns. - FrancisTyers 14:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I insist for two reasons:
  • I'm afraid I'll carry it further than necessary
  • My English is not as good as yours
  • A third person (non-Greek — non-MacSlav) is less likely to be reverted for being biased
Please, Francis, do it.  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 15:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I've added it, haha, my English sucks too ;) I couldn't get to the references on the page, so I've left out some of the stuff. Any suggestions, comments? - FrancisTyers 15:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
It's ok. I think the rest of the editors can now continue from this solid basis. (talking about your English... look above "please do it for two reasons, the following three").  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 21:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and good thing you got the lettercase right in the article at least...  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 23:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

:)) - FrancisTyers 23:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Francis, I'm not sure there's a single sentence in this article that is not POV. Prepare for major debunking and you'd better have independent sources to substantiate your claims. The most important thing you have to consider is: Are the minorities you have in mind, ETHNIC minorities? The answer is NO. A little definition for you: An ethnic minority is comprised by indigenous people who do not consider themselves Greek. Not linguistic minorities, not religious minorities, it's ETHNIC we're looking for. Let me tell you, you'll have a hell of a trouble proving that one, because, they simply don't exist,or their numbers are in the very small thousands. --Avg 19:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok let's start:

The existence of a Slavic speaking minority of northern Greece, commonly referred to as Macedonians or Macedonian Slavs is denied by the Greek government. Members of this minority group have been convicted in Greek courts for expression of their views. The Greek government does not permit teaching in the Macedonian language.

The devil is in the details. The existence of a Slavic SPEAKING minority is NOT "denied" by the government. The existence of a Slavic ETHNIC minority is "denied". The very usage of the verb "denied" is POV. Greece doesn't "deny". The way you put it is af Greece is in denial. What happens is that Greece has given many many opportunities for alleged "Macedonians" to count themselves. Where are the hundreds of thousands of "oppressed Macedonians"? After heavy propaganda they managed to get slightly over a thousand votes with this Rainbow party thing. So the Greek govt says, you had your chances and you produced such a small number, that you practically don't exist. I mean there are about 1000 Greeks in Istanbul, will we start FYROMing about our opressed Greek brothers? It's utterly ridiculous. Next sentence: Yes, members of this minority group have indeed been convicted in Greek courts, but you distort the most important thing, why! They were convicted for distributing leaflets that advocated secession from Greece and for openly speaking about "enslaved Macedonia"! Next sentence: This is a totally absurd statement. The Greek government doesn't have any issue about "permitting" or not "permitting" the language. You completely forget there's a naming issue: The people who accuse Greece about it, refer to this language as "Macedonian". Could Greece ever allow a non-Greek language to be taught as "Macedonian"? Let them and their country choose a proper name and there'll be no objection whatsoever. It's just common sense. Moreover, I seriously doubt there's an audience who wants to be taught this language, no matter what a couple of hotheaded propagandists say. --Avg 19:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's go:

The Greek government discriminates against refugees who fled from the Greek Civil War. Refugees who self-identify as Macedonian are not permitted to regain their citizenship or even visit northern Greece, whereas refugees identifying as Greek have these rights.

You seriously have to show numbers here, because I know we are talking about no more than a few dozens of people here. Yes it's that ridiculous. And even those people "discovered" only after being heavily brainwashed by Skopje that they are "Macedonians". Because at around the Greek Civil War, the "Macedonian" ethnicity did NOT EXIST as an idea. It was just being created by Tito. I find utterly unbelievable that someone could believe he was "Macedonian" back in the fourties. It needed at least a generation for the Titoist propaganda to enter the FYROM minds. Hence it is obvious that whoever claims he fled Greece during the Civil war as a "Macedonian" is LYING.

A Greek court denied permission to set up a "Centre for Macedonian Culture".

Do I need to even comment on that? Please tell me you're just joking and you put that on the page.

Greece opposes the use of the term "Macedonians" to refer to the country's slavophone Macedonian minority, which is centred on the northern Greek town of Florina (Lerin). The term "Slavomacedonians" or "Slavophones" is sometimes used instead, to distinguish them from the greek-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia. The term "Slavomacedonians" is however considered pejorative by some Macedonians.

POV-orama. So the poor "Macedonians" consider pejorative the term Slavomacedonians, but the Greek Macedonians should better start addressing the Slavophones as ...Macedonians and this is not considered neither offensive, nor pejorative, nor anything. Well done Francis.

Honestly, it's a matter of hours before I completely rewrite your article. I will just wait for your answer out of plain curiosity.--Avg 20:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting if true... - FrancisTyers 20:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I've shown you mine, now you show me yours (non-Greek, non-Macedonian, 3rd party sources from reputable international organisations). - FrancisTyers 20:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
You mean HRW? Please you must be joking right? Do you know who wrote these reports? The "famous" Panagiotis ("Panayote") Dimitras! He was behind "Helsinki Watch", "Greek Helsinki Monitor" and so on, with a sole purpose of promoting the FYROM agenda. This guy's a joke for at least 10 years! Just google for him. Here's a link for you. Enjoy! [1]. Are these really your sources? --Avg 20:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
By the way it's you who bear the burden of proof. How can I produce reports that say "there is no minority oppression"? When there is nothing to be reported, there are no reports. Perhaps the fact that nothing is mentioned in the State Department [2] or CIA [3] reports is a clue. --Avg 20:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Human Rights Watch is a well respected organisation, if you have a problem with them I suggest you take it up on their Wikipedia page, or provide arguments countering their view from non-Greek, non-Macedonian, 3rd party sources from reputable international organisations. - FrancisTyers 20:53, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Haha! I was right! :-)

23:20 <bogdan> OMG, spectie! You don't know that "Human Rights Watch" and the "Helsinki Commission" are part of the big anti-Greek conspiracy.
23:21 <bogdan> spectie: trying to use it against a Greek has null effect. I know this from the UseNet debatings.

bogdan 20:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hellenic Resources Network — interesting name for a non-Greek, non-Macedonian, 3rd party sources from reputable international organisation. Oh wait... - FrancisTyers 20:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with HRW, I've just told you who I have a problem with. HRW reports were all written by the notorious Dimitras! Just a little hint for you, aren't you a little curious how all the HRW reports came out in one year, between July 1993 and May 1994? What happened before that? There was no Dimitras around. And most important, what happened after that? Well I'll tell you what happened, the reports were DEBUNKED and never surfaced again. have you checked the link I sent you? Here it is again: [4]. The writers might be Greek but they do use extensive references, it's not a propaganda article and I find it as scientific as it gets. The Dimitras' reports were a joke and are very well known and ridiculed all over Greece. Why HRW did not follow up after 1994 if there was an issue? The 1993-1994 era was the proto-nationalistic era of FYROM, when they were claiming preposterous things. Put this reports (and Dimitras) in this context. After 1995, when things calmed down after the settlement of the flag and the constitution issues, this kind of propaganda has diminished. --Avg 21:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not going to argue this. As I said... Show me a source from a non-Greek, non-Macedonian, 3rd party reputable international organisations. If it was so widely debunked, where are they? - FrancisTyers 21:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
And another thing, don't mix the issues. Claiming one right thing doesn't justify all your claims. I will be the first to object to the treatment of immigrants by the authorities, or to the ridiculous power that the Orthodox Church has. Now these are real issues, not artificial like the pseudoMacedonians. --Avg 21:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Then add that stuff to the Human rights in Greece article, which is pathetically small :( I'd be glad to collaborate with you. - FrancisTyers 21:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course I will. But mind you, I know what issues are real and what issues are artificial. I won't just surrender myself to propaganda because of some loosely defined moral values. --Avg 21:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


In speaking of the Vinozito (Rainbow) party this article and the Rainbow article Rainbow (political party) give different dates for when the party participated in the elections. Could someone clarify (in both articles) when did the party actually participate in the elctions (1994? 1999? 2004?) and what results they got each time (in cooperation or not with other parties).-Getas75 (talk) 09:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citation for "Macedonians" being offensive?

What kind of citation is needed for this? Over 2 million people in the streets protesting against the name is not enough?----   Avg    21:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite?

The article is supposed to be about the ethnic minorities. Some of the groups listed do not fit in the article. --Hectorian 22:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree. You can remove all irrelevant data. It was only Francis putting everything he could think of, relevant or irrelevant.----   Avg    22:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poor Turks

To accuse Greece for not recognising the Slavs has a debatable basis, but accusing Greece for oppressing the Turks of Thrace is simply absurd. A historical background: In the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish war of 1923, Greece and Turkey agreed to exchange populations. Thus some 1.5 million Asian Greeks were moved to Greece, and some 500K European Turks were moved to Turkey. This treaty had one exception:

  • The Greeks of Constantinople, Imbros and Tenedos,
  • The Turks of Western Thrace

Now. By 1923, Western Thrace had no more than 30 or 40K Turks. Constantinople, Imbros and Tenedos had some 250,000. Within 80 years (2003), the Greeks of Constantinople reached a mere 2,000 and the Turks of Western Thrace number over 120,000. Despite what the Turks think, this did not happened because the Turkish had the biggest - excuse my French - "willies" in the neighbourhood so that they would "do" anything that moves. No. This happened because during those 80 years the Greeks of Turkey were being constantly harrassed and forcefully deported. Hostilities against us reached their peak in the 50s and 60s where Turkish mobs attacked the Greek districts, smashed to bits and burned down our businesses. Those years over 30,000 Greeks, Turkish nationals or not, were literally kicked out of their houses and had their properties confiscated. They were telling us that if we converted to Islam we'd be allowed to stay, otherwise we'd have to leave the country with a single bag on us. Anyway I don't think there's a need to get into more details, the numbers speak for themselves. The last thing I could bear in wikipedia is to listen that Greece has been oppressing its Turkish minority. As I stated in my edit summary, "Muslim Greeks" is paperwork terminology. Nobody tries to convince anybody that the Muslims of Thrace are not Turks. Towns of Thrace are usually divided into Greek and Turkish part, and there's been no attempt to wipe out the Turkish element as it has happened with the slavs. The Turkish parts of the cities still lie within Ottoman ruines which give the impression of travelling in the past. Last but not least, the use of a national+religious formula (e.g. Muslim Greeks) was intiated by Turkey itself, when it coined the Greeks its "Rum Orthodox" subjects. Miskin 22:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Muslim minority are not all Turks. They are divided into Turks, Pomaks and Muslim Roma (and under the Treaty of Lausanne, in theory, the same privileges are available to the Pomaks and Roma in their own languages, as for the Turks), however we don't know how many of these people determine themselves as something other than Greeks. Telex 22:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok the truth is, the first thing you'll notice when you visit the Muslim areas in Thrace is the sheer amount of satellite dishes pointing to Turkish satellites. I believe a lot of them feel Turkish. But I also believe most of them want to remain Greek (perhaps because of the privileges of an EU passport).----   Avg    23:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
For some idea on the Greek attitude to these issues, see this article. Telex 23:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

The point is that no Greek in that region has ever insisted on calling them "ethnic Greeks of Muslim faith" instead of simply "ethnic Turks" of Greek nationality. Miskin 23:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I source i've found about the minorities in Greece [5]

I've no idea weather it is a neutral or not, but it says many things about all the things discussed here. Also, it has a breakdown of the muslim community in Western Thrace: Though no updated and objective data exists, according to the most accurate estimations, 49.1 % of the Muslim minority are Turkish (this is a borderline, national minority, as already discussed briefly), 32.5 % Pomaks and 18.3 % Roma (ibid.).(I know it is a pretty long page, so i am giving the numbers myself:)...). --Hectorian 00:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The domination of the concept of the migrant in Greece – rather than that of minority, which is never used about the migrant groups – reflects a resistance of the Greek polity and society to accept that these communities are there to stay (Christopoulos, 2001). The concept of the migrant – especially as it often assumes an illegal or semi-illegal status – reproduces the dominant ideology of Greek cultural homogeneity and of the temporality of the Greek contemporary multi-ethnic condition. This example alone reflects the level of problems that migrant/new ethnic minorities have to deal with. When their survival and everyday life is subject to all different, basic and apparent forms of legal and economic exclusion, it becomes rather difficult to discuss cultural inclusion and participation; even less so to discuss the shaping of a multicultural model of diversity.

LOL!!! :))) Fetch me my beret, and a packet of French cigarettes. STAT! "The concept of the migrant – especially as it often assumes an illegal or semi-illegal status – reproduces the dominant ideology of Greek cultural homogeneity and of the temporality of the Greek contemporary multi-ethnic condition" man that line almost made me wet myself! - FrancisTyers 00:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Listen, my friend: as i said, i do not even know if that source is realible! Yet, u prefer to mention what u want too-i editted that source as a makeup of the Muslim Community in Western Thrace. according to may own observations, this appears to be the truth (no matter what, this may be my POV, and i am not gonna edit it in the article). if u want to believe that the greek society is as multicultural as the UK, this is your POV, and i would really appreciate it if u did not try to force such edits. afterall, this is your obligation as a Wikipedian, and furthermore as an admin. --Hectorian 02:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Dude, I was laughing at the pretentiousness of the article, not at you. :)) Of course Greece isn't as multicultural as the UK, you haven't had nearly as much immigration. Hope you got the beatnik [6] reference... - FrancisTyers 17:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeap, i got it. anyway, i presented it as just a source about the percentances (to be honest, that was all i had read, before i add it here;-)...) --Hectorian 18:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


According to [7]

A special commission set up to determine the population of the Greeks of Istanbul and the Turks of Thrace under the 1923 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations determined the Turkish population of Thrace to be 106,000. The 1928 Greek census put the number of Muslim Turkish speakers at 126,017, a figure that grew to 140,090 in the 1940 census.26 According to the 1951 census, there were 112,665 Turks, though many believe that decrease can be attributed to the fact that many Turks fled Greece, especially Thrace which was under Bulgarian control, during World War II, and did not return at war’s end.27 Today the Turkish minority of Thrace, depending on estimates, numbers between 80-120,000, roughly the same as the number in the 1951 census. Given a 2 percent growth rate—and some estimates have put the growth rate of the Turkish minority as high as 2.8 percent—the Turkish population today would be expected to number 291,472 using the 1951 census data as a base figure or 444,945 using the 1940 census data.

So "By 1923, Western Thrace had no more than 30 or 40K Turks." is a total bs. 193.140.194.103 23:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

According to [8]number of turks in thrace is around 90000. If you have another reliable source please post it before changing number.Dukak 14:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The quote appears to be from a good source; almost identical estimates are made in Clogg's Minorities in Greece. I've found, BTW, quite a lot of info on the Greek Turks while searching on the Pomaks, so I'll probably add some data when I find time to finish the Greek section on the Pomaks.--Aldux 21:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Eurominority in itself is not a good source. Certain entries (such as their entry on the Pomaks) are dominated by POV pushing. --Tēlex 22:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I was speaking of the HRW quote given by the anon; these numbers are confirmed by several sources. Regarding the Pomaks, are you sure you're not making confusion with euromosaic? As for HRW. it's a good and respected source.--Aldux 23:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm talking about Eurominority www.eurominority.org. Unconfirmed claims of theirs (e.g. that Pomaks speak "Macedonian", when it is known that they speak dialects of Rhodope) should be used with extreme caution. --Tēlex 23:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I understand your concerns, I've just seen the webpage and what is said is utterly absurd, that idea of Macedonian spoken in Western Thrace is simply crazy. That said, I may mention it if it repeated in other sites among the crazy theories on the Pomaks, like the idea of them being Cumans or Thracians.--Aldux 23:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slavs

About the Slavs. I'm in favour of the use "Slav macedonians" over simple "Macedonians", for the sake of disambiguation. This is a practice followed by Britannica, Word Book and literally every encyclopaedia I'm familiar with (using Mac. slavs instead of Mac. at special occasions). Secondly; After the Balkan war Greece made a small-scale population exchange with Bulgaria, which inevitably left some minorities behind. Then Greece made a treaty with Bulgaria which foresaw the protection of those minorities in each country. Not long after Bulgaria's siding with the Central Powers in the Great War, Greece declared openly that it didn't intend to respect their pact on the Bulgarian minority. Thus all three countries (Yugoslavia included) followed an assimilation policy, and let's not forget that the Millet of Monastiri was until then predominantly Greek. I'm not trying to justify Greek policies, I'm merely trying to point out that as far as Greece is concerned, Macedonia included a Bulgarian minority, which involved a pact and population exchange with the Bulgarian state, nothing more, nothing less. Now Tito woke up one day 20 years later and decided to enforce his land claims on Northern Greece by promoting the "Macedonian nation" formula. Fine by him, fine by the Bulgarians, fine by me. But under what logical arguments does the Helsinki or Reykjavik human rights watch expect Greece to recognise a minority which was not only recently baptised with a different name, but this new name happened to coincide with the wider region's name, exactly as Tito had planned 60 years ago. I've got sources on this, and once I find them I'll edit accordingly. Miskin 23:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Macedonians was (and still is) the common Bulgarian name of the Bulgarians from Macedonia (region). This was their self-designation as well ("I am a Macedonian and I am a Bulgarian") and got internationalized during 1890-1940 as their struggle for liberation entered the world newspapers. Thus Macedonian Slavs somehow corresponds to (one of the meanings of) Macedonians, although today not all of them consider themselves of bulgarian ethnicity anymore. Koliokolio 14:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Slavs in northern Greece - the facts:
  • Even before the regions annexation by Greece, many Slavs identified as Greek (probably due to religion) and were bilingual in Greek.
  • The population has dramatically decreased due to a) population exchanges with Bulgaria (under the Treaty of Neuilly in 1919) and b) expelling by force Slavs to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (who had supported the Communists during the Civil War).
  • Census in 1951 gives 41,000 Slavic speakers.
  • Names of Slavophone villages are cited: Ξυνό Νέρο, Κέλη, Αγ. Παντελεήμων and Κόμανος.
The source for what I have written above is with the exception of the brackets is Stefanos N. Sotiriu - Mionotites ke alitrotismos - Elliniki Evroekdotiki 1991. ISBN 9602410191, pages 108, 114. Telex 23:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not justifying the actions of Greece. I'm just posing the question: Why does the human right watch and any third-party organisation expect from Greece to recognise an ethnic group whose name and very attitude has nothing but blatant land-claims. Realistically, would the US ever recognise a Texan ethnic group in state of Texas for instance? Let alone an ethnic group which officially possessed a different name only 50 years before. All I see is random accusations stemming from childish conclusions. Miskin 23:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Point of reference the word 'Texas' IS derived from the name of an ethnic group, the 'Tejas',so the US does exactly that. The Tejas prefer to be called the Hasinai these days, though. Indisciplined 00:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
As I've said above, all HRW reports come from one person: Dimitras. He was the main influence back then at 1995. After 1995, when his role became known and the ultra-nationalist elements at FYROM subsided, HRW did never mention the "Macedonian" minority again.--   Avg    23:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
It is considered "human rights" bad form not to recognise ethnic minorities, look at the Turks with the Kurds. Sure you can say that "Kurdish" is an older ethnicity, but the same arguments you proposed apply there too. Some kind of sense of fear of secession is no excuse. Are there other European countries (wi the exception of France) that don't recognise some ethnic minorities? Telex — I think those are "some" facts, not "the" facts. The Yugoslavs in the 1980s claimed up to 100,000 Macedonian Slavs in Greek Macedonia. Of course their figures will be exaggerated, but I think it should be noted that the Greek government figures will probably be underestimated, especially so soon after the civil war. - FrancisTyers 00:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Iceland, the Republic of Ireland? Telex 00:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Also, Slavophones ≠ Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs), Slavophones > Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs), Slavophones (allegedly of course) = Macedonians (Macedonian Slavs) + Bulgarians [9]. Telex 00:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The quantity of Bulgarian dialect speakers is much lower than of Macedonian dialect speakers, in dialectological terms. - FrancisTyers 00:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Requesting sources... on talk:Macedonian language, we have hearsay saying the exact opposite. Telex 00:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually I pasted it there before: Trudgill, P. (1992) "Ausbau sociolinguistics and the perception of minority languages in contemporary Europe" in International Journal of Applied Linguistics + Schmeiger, R. (1998) "The situation of the Macedonian language in Greece: sociolinguistic analysis" in International Journal of the Sociology of Language. pp. 125-135
An interesting consequence of this dispute is that it is not clear how to refer to the South Slavic dialects of northern Greece (which have in any case been mostly repressed or simply ignored by most Greek governments). One does not know whether to refer to the Slavic dialects of Greece as dialects of Bulgarian or dialects of Macedonian, although, of course, the western varieties are more like Standard Macedonian, the eastern varieties more like Standard Bulgarian. (Trudgill 1992)
Apart from certain peripheral areas in the far east of Greek Macedonia, where in our opinion must be considered as part of the Bulgarian linguistic area (the region around Kavala and the Rhodope mountains, as well as the eastern part of Drama nomos), the dialects of the Slav minority in Greece belong to the Macedonian diasystem (reflex o instead of Proto-Slavic *b in strong position, rebuilding of the accent system). Within the Macedonian linguistic area the dialects spoken in the eastern part of Greek Macedonia are undoubtedly part of the East Macedonian subgroup, whereas the dialects of Voden, Kostur, and Lerin areas constitute a transition between East and West Macedonian. (Schmeiger 1998)
- FrancisTyers 01:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Again, I'm not justifying Greece in any way for not recognising a Slavic minority. I'm only pointing out that if Greece were to justify this minority, they would never do it as long as this minority calls itself 'Macedonian'. Greece knew this minority as "Bulgarian", and my opinion is that if it hadn't suddenly stopped being called as such, it would have received its recognition. That's right, all countries recognise minorities, but does any country recognise a minority which has recently changed its name and falsely implies native rights on the host county's largest province? The answer is 'no'. Miskin 00:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Greece had ample chance to recognize it as a Bulgarian minority for the 80 years it occupied that land and it didnt, choosing politics or pressed assimilation instead. So the name issue does seem to be the most important. If Greece had officially recognized it as Bulgarian in the last 20 years, the name would be no more greek problem but an internal split between those who wanted to be Bulgarian and those who wanted to be "Macedonian" instead, and indirectly a conflict between the two mother-countries. The greeks missed a good chance for divide et impera here. Koliokolio 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Every country that doesn't recognise ethnic minorities gets shit. The Turks get shit (no reference needed), the French get shit [10] and the Greeks get shit. I'm not convinced about Iceland and Ireland -- do you have references? If they don't recognise ethnic minorities then I expect they'd get shit too. - FrancisTyers 00:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone in Greece, except for the c. 3,000 people in Greek Macedonia who voted for the Rainbow Party, feel "Macedonian"? Does this minority actually feel Macedonian - it has not been proven. There is just one (Skopje sponsored?) organization which has been nagging to HRW. The very existence of a Macedonian identifying minority has not yet been proven. Telex 00:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Many things haven't been proven. We'd have more chance of knowing if the Greek government allowed it to be recorded on the census. ;) - FrancisTyers 00:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
IMO they should - this is what FYROM propaganda is depending on. The Macedonian ethnicity was created within the borders of present day FYROM and its only international recognition is by Bulgaria and Albania recognising Macedonian minorities and counting them in their censi. The only reason they did this of course was to safeguard the interests of the thousands of Albanians and Bulgarians in FYROM. FYROM used to claim there were 300,000 Macedonians in Bulgaria; census reveals it is more like 3,000 ;-) This proves most of their claims περί μειονοτήτων are moot (I think 3,000 people in Greek Macedonia voted for Vinozhito - where are the 280,000 they are claiming?). Telex 00:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it would be much better if they just accepted it. Really, I don't think they are any longer a threat. Greece is a much bigger country. They should do what they did with KKE after it became no longer a threat. - FrancisTyers 01:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Not the right example. The Greek government back then never claimed that there were no communists. They just outlawed them :-) --   Avg    01:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic,Linguistic,Religious...

I really find it sick... Who on earth made such an article!!! And what kind of logic is this? Lets try to edit something like that in the 'Ethnic minorities' article of Germany, and start listing: Protestants, Kalvinists, Sorbs, Bavarians, Turks, Poles, Catholics, Romas, etc etc all together... --Hectorian 00:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

It was me, after a suggestion from Niko. - FrancisTyers 00:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I think an Ethnic minorities in Germany could be a pretty good article. - FrancisTyers 01:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
We have other Ethnic groups in/of X. e.g. Ethnic groups of the United Kingdom. There are others too - FrancisTyers 01:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I did not know that it was u. the Ethnic groups of the United Kingdom, is not a good example: i do not see there any mentioning about religious minorities... all i see is 'irish catholics', what about all those christian, or not sects(Presveterians, Hinduists, etc) and linguistic groups (Gaelic, Cornish, bla bla bla) that do exist in the UK? i am not asking for an expanding of that article to enclude them as well, but to make this article remain strict to its headline: Ethnic minorities in Greece. --Hectorian 02:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you, but this article has some merit. I propose a rename to Minority groups in Greece --   Avg    02:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
No objection 'bout that. afterall, this is what the articles indeed deals with: all the minorities, no matter ethnic, linguistic or religious differences. there should really be an article about the minorities in Greece, but every attempt to present all of them as ethnic (non-greek) is at least ridiculous, and at worst suspicious... --Hectorian 02:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
No objection here to changing it to "Minority groups in Greece" in principle, although I will note that being an ethnic minority does not exclude a person from being Greek. A religious minority can be an ethnic minority.
ethnic: Of or relating to a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage.
So religious and linguistic come under ethnic. - FrancisTyers 08:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Could you add these (along with anything else you find appropriate) in the article intro? talk to +MATIA 10:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Hectorian has a point, the article's title somewhat implies that Greece is composed by several ethnic groups, one out of which happens to be the Greek (which is far from reality). Miskin 11:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

And really, I don't understand what's this wikipedia obsession to point out that Greece doesn't recognise some 1% of its population as an ethnic minority. As far as I'm concerned the other Balkan countries (who complain in wikipedia today) have all had the same or worse treatment to their minorities. As far as data is concerned, ethnic Greeks have suffered more genocides, ethnic cleansing and discrimination than any of its neighbours during the 19th and especially 20th century, the Greco-Turkish war alone is sufficient to prove this. So why aren't Greeks complain in wikipedia nearly as much as the Slavs and even the Turks (ironically)? The only difference here is that Greece met a relative economical prosperity while the other Balkan counties were absorbed by the communist misery, which gives them a good reason to complain. Eventually, neutral editors who know half of the story, tend to provide romantic support to the "weak", thus we have all of dubious articles and attacks against Greece. It's really ironic, the other day some Turkish editor added to Islam in Greece that the state refused to operate a mosque in the centre of the city (right below the acropolis) the same day that the event took place. I wonder if anybody in wikipedia will ever care to mention the frequent protests of the Grey Wolves in Constantinople who in public view make violent threats against the Ecumenical Patriarch and burn his voodoo-doll on a stake. So far we've got:

Miskin 12:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

We also have:
Telex 12:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, we need one more: Rainbow parties in Greece (sorry) Rainbow Parties in Greece. But I guess the latter is fairly covered at the Gay rights in Greece, considering the overwhelming support it amassed by supporting gay rights (and not by the non-existent Slavic "minority") with 2000 votes in Macedonia! Since it is already covered, I move to erase the section! :-)  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 14:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proper article title

As mentioned above, this is the best title about the content of this article.--   Avg    19:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was a good idea to rename it, but I got a message telling me otherwise. Perhaps it should be talked out here. talk to +MATIA 12:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] merge and redir?

Shouldn't this article be a part of Demographics of Greece? talk to +MATIA 12:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Agree. As long as the information herein remains relatively equal.  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 00:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Can't say I agree on this; this article has considerable potentialities of expansion, and in my opinion all European countries should have a similar article. This article shouldn't be lived by Greeks as an attack, but a contribution to show the world what a rich country Greece is.--Aldux 14:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Not sure. The demographics article can be as big as the ‎Apology Against Rufinus ‎(290,131 bytes) if you wish! The titles signify the same thing. Sincerely I don't consider it as an attack, and wouldn't care either way. My comment/vote is purely stylistic/aesthetic/functional, since as I already clarified, I would agree only if the content remains relatively equal. I think it would be silly to have the same info in two articles with different titles. Anyway, do as you please.  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 17:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the merge proposal posted by Telex, I feel that if we do a merge it's not with Demographics of Greece, but with the article Telex is making at his sandbox, Ethnic identity in Greece, as they seem to cover much the same content.--Aldux 18:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
What I'm making in my sandbox is for Demographics of Greece (a section). This article is a POV fork (the title is POV, as it uses the term minority to refer to groups which the Greek government does not refer to as minorities - the term used is ethnotites (for Jews and Armenians), and diglossoi for everyone else - "minority" meionotita only refers to the Muslims of Thace). --Telex 18:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
We should ask Fran's opinion, as the creator of the article. If he agrees to the merge, it's OK for me to.--Aldux 18:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
The content of this page needs significantly editing anyway. It presents allegations by the notorious Greek Helsinki Monitor as facts, without presenting the other side. --Telex 19:00, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with the merge, although the title was my proposal. I have to remind fellow editors that this title was a compromise after the initial title "Ethnic minorities in Greece" by Francis and a move (again by Francis) to "Ethnic groups in Greece". My first priority was to exclude the characterisation "ethnic" and not to include the characterisation "minorities". The problem with the word "minority" is that it implicitly differentiates the group in question with the rest of the population, which is not true for Arvanites, Aromanians etc.--   Avg    19:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Per Aldux I would probably support a merge into Telex's page. I really think we should have some kind of article on Ethnic groups in Greece, similar to other articles on European states. - FrancisTyers 01:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any article as such at the link you've given. I only see categories.--   Avg    12:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor change

I added common history and religion in the reasons for the self-identification of the members of the minorities as Greeks. Maybe i should add 'common origins' as well, but i neither believe this is something that can be verified nor do i want to cause a revert-war. The phrase governmental policy of hellenisation seems kinda strange... Noone can say for sure if it is/was a governmental policy (or also a Church or Great Powers' policy) or a free choice of the people (compare the hellenisation of the East after Alexander the Great's conquests, or the hellinasation of the Phrygians, as an example- they were not government-sponsored or forced attempts-), or even if it was a policy of 're-hellenisation' of the minority population. --Hectorian 01:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you implying that Greece used to be and still is, irresistible? I'm sure User:Apostolos Margaritis will disagree... NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 16:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Different voices are always welcomed in democratic societies. the good think is that in such societies irrentistic and fascist voices become isolated... (i hope u got what i mean Nikola:)...). PS:[11] in case someone (administrator or not) will accuse me of making 'hidden' personal attacks. --Hectorian 01:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming problem

I just realized a defect in this article's title. Minority groups in Greece includes religious minorities. The problem with this is the Roman Catholic minority, and other minority religions, which are officially recognized, yet are largely ethnic Greek, and no one has implied otherwise. I think this article should be moved back to Ethnic minorities in Greece - after all, this is standard nomenclature. The article looks silly now saying that the only recognized groups are the Armenians, Muslims and Jews, whereas there are also Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, and even Jehovah's Witnesses, which are all officially recognized minority groups, and yet don't quite qualify to be treated in this article, which is mainly about what foreign (mainly human rights') groups refer to as ethnic minorities. --Telex 21:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem such a big problem; we only have to say that all religious minorities are recognized. We can leave sections on the mormons, the catholics, ecc. After all, nobody said this article is there to be a story of woe or persecutions and whinings. After all, the name is used by Clogg in Minorities in Greece; almost precisely the same title as our's and with many essays from Greek scholars.--Aldux 21:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Done. --Telex 22:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About greek schools in Istanbul

http://www.geocities.com/omogeneiaen/education-schools.html greek schools in Istanbul

http://www.mitos.com.gr/scamp.asp Phone number of Zographion School if you do not believe feel free to phone them.

   * From TURKEY (Period 15 – 31/7/05)
     Contact Person: Mr. Giannis Demirtzoglou “ Zografeio Lykeio Konstaninoupolis
     Tel: + 90 212 2442789
     Fax: + 90 212 2939517
     E-mail: zograf@superonline.com


http://www.greekembassy.org.au/headline_news.php?act=detail&id=46

about recent conferance that was hold in Istanbul by Zographion School Alumni

Dukak 10:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC) By the way this article is about minorities in Greece not the situation of Greeks of Istanbul. Open a new article if you want to write something about it.Dukak 10:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish section

I think the Turkish section is getting a bit lame now, but what the hell, it's fun! --Tēlex 11:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

More knowledge is betterDukak 12:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

BTW do you know who sponsors the Greek schools in Turkey, the minority itself or the Turkish government? I'd bet the former, but I can't find any references on the topic. --Tēlex 12:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok your source about minotory schools is greek i can't read it :/. As for Greeks in Istanbul , for my personal knowledge primary greek schools are state sponsored and there is 1 state sponsored high school and 2 private schools(minotory pays). I don't have any English sources.Dukak 12:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC) Btw don't get it wrong I know schools for minority in West thrace is state-sponsored i only wondered if any documents in English about it. Dukak 12:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Give me a minute - I'll see what I can find. --Tēlex 12:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Come on Telex, it's well known that Turkey is not at the first places for the respect of the HR, but why do we have to speak so much of Turkey? This section should speak of Greece and its minority, not the other way.--Aldux 12:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
To Dukak: here - to Aldux: I know. We should start an article for comparing and contrasting (where I can go into the Istanbul Pogrom in detail). We could call it Strengths and weaknesses of the Greek and Turkish governments when it comes to ethnic minorities. --Tēlex 12:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Now, that would be a great mudslinging contest ;-)--Aldux 12:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
You certainly mean: Strengths and weaknesses of the Greek and Turkish governments when it comes to ethnic minorities. -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Aldus this section should speak about Greece only. This section needs some cleanup. Comparative stataments does not fit into encyclopedic nature of wikipedia. And I think there is no article about Greek minority of Turkey maybe some info can be splited to there.--Dukak 20:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
There is an article called Greeks in Turkey better use this one--Dukak 21:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Any respected source about Dodecanese island turks is more than welcome--DuKaK (☠Talk) 19:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greier

What do you want? The Aromanians section is more sourced than it has ever been. You are welcome to add info (providing it is sourced), but do not remove sourced info. --Tēlex 21:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Labels

This article (whole article) is POV, disputed, and need to be verified by non ultranationalist greeks greier 21:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. Happy now? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Greier, who do you think you're fooling [12]. Self-determination does not apply to the Aromanians, as none of them are seperatists, and words such as "basic minority" rights are used only by amateurs and propagandists such as yourself. Don't fabricate sources. --Tēlex 10:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record, the same article by Kahl is quoted on Aromanians as saying:
"There are still pro-Romanian Aromanians in Greece, especially in villages in which strong Romanian communities were once accepted by the Greek authorities, above all in Avdhela, Perivoli, Samarina, Vovusa, Krania, Edessa, Veria and surrounding areas, as well in a few villages in the district of Kastoria and Ioannina. On a whole, they are a minute and dwindling number of Aromanians.." - By the way, I'd be grateful if folks who quote scholarly journals gave correct bibliographical details. It's Dede Kahl, "The Ethnicity of Aromanians after 1990: the Identity of a Minority that Behaves like a Majority", in Ethnologia Balkanica 6 (2002): 145-169. A similar article by the same author is online here: [13].

Good, Greier can use that or whatever else he wants. Just note that in that release by the Panhellenic Federation... they also say that there is no such thing as a Vlach ethnicity or Vlach language (only unstandardized dialects). --Tēlex 10:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Needless to say, the Kahl article doesn't support what Greier was claiming. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Just as a record for posterity: Greier wanted to introduce the following text: "many Aromanians still have a non-Greek identity, and argue for the the basic minority rights to be respected, such as education and church service in maternal language." [14], ostensibly quoting title and page of an article by Kahl. However, Kahl himself said [15]: "the national identity of most Aromanians takes place without a doubt through modern Hellenism. [...] Claims that "the Vlach community wants to have education and church services in Vlach" and "Greece refuses to give the Vlachs any cultural rights", do not necessarily represent cultural demands made by the Aromanians of Greece" - However, Kahl then does go on with some rather interesting differentiations. But in any case, in view of this example of blatant academic dishonesty, I think we should require from Greier in future that he back up his edits not just with a reference, but always with a literal quote from his sources on talk. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racists

It's interesting to read all the anti-macedonian and pro-greek racist comments on wikipedia, inclduing the articles. You can talk all you want about how we "don't exist" or were created by Tito but the simple fact remains that people have called themselves Macedonian before Tito and before our greatest hero Alexander the Great. Honestly though if any of you are actually concerned with scholarly history and not this politically charged racist bullshit please go out and read a book. Why not try reading something by Eugene Borza, Ernst Badian, Peter Green, or how about just abouy any historian from antiquity and they will all mention the Macedonians as a distincit nation, a distinct ethnicity. Their works on Macedonia happen to be highly regarded (especially Eugene Borza) and their works are not scoffed at by contemporary historians.

Anyone who argues against the validity of the Macedonian nation I have a suggestion for you. Read all the books that you can get your hands on, read the pro-greek ones, the pro-macedonian ones, and the unbiased ones. You will see for yourselves the ones that make the most sense and the ones that fit history perfectly are the ones that acknowledge the Macedonian ethnicity. The other ones are filled with propaganda and historical nit-picking.

So please instead of posting back and trying to argue with me, go read those books instead. Until you have compiled enough research to engage in an intelligent historical debate just don't bother posting. Believe me I will know if you have done research that counts. Typing in the google bar doesn't count. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stefanthemacedonian (talk • contribs) 04:49, 18 September 2006.

We've been reading them since antiquity... Why don't u just re-read them? oh, perhaps cause u will change your mind. Hectorian 06:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The term "turkish minority"

The term "turkish miniroty" is not used internationally by any country(incuding Turkey), therefore i find it inapropriate to be used here. --GrWikiMan 11:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Come on man, you know there are Turks in Greece, and even the Greek government admits there are Turks in Greece (how else can they say that 50% of Muslims in Thrace are ethnic Turks). See it this way: Human Rights Watch uses the term Turkish minority [16], happy? --Tzekai 11:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Tzekai is right, and besides, a simple Google test will also show that the phrase is in use. Different sources use different words, and the CIA World Factbook is normally very sensitive. They just present statistics and not labels, and instead let the readers draw their own conclusions and make their own descriptive monikers. If we are discussing whether or not a term should be used, the CIA factbooks is therefore not an appropriate reference, where HRW and similar interpretive sources are. - Mauco 14:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Look I wont argue with you because i dont have anything personal with turks and/or muslims(as i am not a nationalist), i just dont find accurate the quoted term thats all nothing else. I am not an expert on this field so I am not willing to discuss this any further. --GrWikiMan 17:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

See it this way, it's agreed by everyone (except Turkey and the Turks) that the Muslim minority of Greece encompasses three different ethnicities: Turks, Pomaks and Roma/Gypsies. All those groups are dealt with seperately in this article: Minorities in Greece#Turkish (Turks), Minorities in Greece#Muslim Slavophones (Pomaks) and Minorities in Greece#Roma (Roma/Gypsies). No one said that Muslim minority of Greece = Turks. The article says Muslim minority of Greece > Turks (within Greece that is). --Tzekai 17:40, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


I changed the term to "Muslin minority". The arcticle must be written according to the international standards. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

%50 of the "muslim minority" is Turkish. Even greek goverment census gives it that way. http://www.hri.org/MFA/foreign/musmingr.htm http://www.malkidis.info/gr/?p=66 Dukak (talk) 00:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't imply that we have a "minority" in Greece. According to article about Minority: In the politics of some countries, a minority is an ethnic group that is recognized as such by respective laws of its country and therefore has some rights that other groups lack.
In Greece what is recognized is a Muslim minority consisted by 3 ethnic groups. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I used one your links to provide more detailed information. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This article seems to be about the groups that exist in Greece in fact, not about what the Greek government does or does not recognize (if it were, then the Arvanites and Vlachs etc would not be mentioned). Furthermore, if it is merely a Muslim (religious) minority, what is it doing in the "ethnic minorities" section? If you had read the section, you would be aware that it and its sources discuss Turks (which are distinguished from the wider Muslim minority), not Pomaks or anything else discussed elsewhere. That section in its current state makes no sense and serves as little more than a tribute to the vast abyss which separates nationalist narratives and reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dolavon (talk • contribs) 12:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with VoA Bot II

Apparently due to a bug (possibly related to non-ascii characters in usernames, but that's just my guess), the anti-vandalism bot VoA Bot II has currently taken a dislike to Kékrōps (talk · contribs) and won't let him edit on this article. Until this is fixed, can people please just extend the courtesy to Kekrops and revert back to his version whenever the bot interferes? The bot will leave other users alone. 3RR is obviously not an issue. I don't want to block the bot as it is probably doing a useful job elsewhere. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

OK. I will take care of this for the time being.Hectorian 19:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 95%?

Just for the record, I place here a contribution that was immediately deleted by Future Perfect at Sunrise and that nobody has restored:

Speaking to the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece on 10 October 2006, Archbishop Christodoulos stated: "Today more than 500,000 Moslems live in our country" (Εκκλησία, Official Gazette of the Church of Greece, October 2006, page 737). If Moslems are therefore about 5% of the population of Greece, and since there are also people of other religions or no religion in the country, the Orthodox cannot be 95% of the population.

The original text of what Archbishop Christodoulos said is: "Οἱ πιστοὶ τοῦ Ἰσλάμ, συγκεντρωμένοι μέχρι πρὸ 20ετίας στὴ Δυτικὴ Θράκῃ, ἄφηναν ὅλους ἐμᾶς τοὺς ἄλλους ἀδιαφόρους ἐμπρὸς στὴν ὕπαρξή των. Σήμερα ζοῦν στὴ χώρα μας πάνω ἀπὸ 500.000 μουσουλμάνοι, οἱ περισσότεροι τῶν ὁποίων εἶναι συνκεντρωμένοι στὴν Ἀττική." Lima 14:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The 95% of the Greek citizens and legal residents of the country are Christian Orthodox. The Archbishop made a total estimation of the Muslims in Greece, combining the Muslim minority in Thrace, the legal immigrants of Muslim faith, as well as the 10s of thousands of illegal immigrants. The number 95% for the Orthodox is the number referred to the Greek population, those who are citizens of Greece in Greece and those who reside in Greece legally and are counted in the census. Thus, u cannot say estimated 500,000 Muslims out of 11,000,000 of the census equals about 5%. If u have credible estimations about all the legal or illegal immigrants, or for the Europeans who come here and stay some weeks or months or years without mentioning their arrival to the authorities (since we are in the EU) and about their faith, do provide them, and u will have to estimate the percentage of the Muslims according to that number. In case u do not know, most illegal immigrants in Greece are not Muslims, but people from the former Eastern Block. so, in reality, even if u provide sources for the total population (which would be very interesting, and I really wanna know), the percentage of the Muslims would be much much lower. Regards Hectorian 16:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want sources for the number of adherents of Orthodoxy, I suggest the following. About 97 percent of Greece’s population is at least nominally Greek Orthodox [17] and Greek Orthodox 98% [18]. These are certainly more reliable than some hearsay from Christodoulos; he says a lot of things that cannot be taken seriously.

U are right! But, as we know, it is not rare in wikipedia users trying to rise the percentages and numbers of an ethnic, religious or linguistic group, based on hearsays and unofficial quotes, and then comparing it to the total official population number... Hectorian 18:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

This BBC news article [19] is interesting too. It says things like ...a country whose population is 96% Greek Orthodox... and ...[Athens]'s 200,000 or so Muslims have been.... 200,000 is about 1,8% of Greece's population.

Not that I care too much about this topic, but just for the record, the article France claims that "4% of the population identifies itself as muslim", and nobody complains about it [I'm not even going to compare the frequencies of running into muslims in the two countries]. Here we are using raw figures without even knowing how many of those people actually admit to being muslim, and yet there's still complaints. This is happening in some 90% of Greece-related articles and it is getting monotonous. Miskin 18:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't intend to return to this page and discuss this matter any further. For me it is enough to have left here the quotation for the record. But I will just say this: Whatever others may understand by population, I understand it to mean inhabitants, not citizens. In my poor experience, a census counts those who are present on a particular night, citizens or not, and without asking if some citizens who are normally resident happen to missing at just that particular moment. In countries where the census form asks about religion - it Greece it does not - the census results indicate the proportions of those in the country that night who belonged to one religion or another. I certainly have been counted in the census of countries where I was not a citizen, increasing by one also the number of people indicated as having the same religion I belong to. Archbishop Christodoulos, who I suppose had no reason to exaggerate the number of non-Orthodox in Greece, said there are over half a million Moslems in the country. The July 2006 estimate of the Greek population - population, not citizenry - was 10,688,058 (CIA Factbook). I cannot help but draw the conclusion that Moslems constitute about 5% of the population of Greece. Others may draw what conclusions they will. Lima 19:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all Christodoulos is not a source. If for no good reason, because he makes the false assumption that all Albanians are muslim. Secondly, even if Christodoulos is taken as a source, the 95% estimation is valid. Will you be happier if we said "over 5% is muslim due to an estimation of illegal immigrants (who are by default muslim)"? I can't figure out how someone can be that concerned by such a matter. How come none of that huge percentage of muslims doesn't complain and you do? Miskin 21:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should question how come Saudi Arabia appears to be 100% Muslim and we do not say that 4% are Catholics (+more %s other Christians), when we know for sure that there are 1 million Catholic Phillipinos. LOL Hectorian 22:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Oooooh no, we might insult their faith! Miskin 22:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Seriously now, 4% of the population of Saudia Arabia are Christians [20]. User:LieutenantBoom
LOL:). I was not kidding... But who "dares" to reduce the percentage of Muslims in Saudi Arabia to less than 100% in wikipedia? Hectorian 22:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jews of Greece

The given total population of Thessaloniki (360,000) in the year 2000 is definitely wrong (it was 700,000 back in 81).

[edit] Albanian origin population group ignored

Although helenisation factor there is a significant number of Albanian( Arvanites) population in Greece more then 3 million realistic number" army and education were the most effective mechanisms of Hellenization, assisted by the judiciary system ready to denounce and punish all forms of behavior inconsistent with the state’s nationalist culture (Kitromilidis, 1990:38; Kollias, 1994)." Dodona —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.78.74.68 (talk) 09:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

Arvanites are Greeks.They take Albanian tag as an insult.The fact is that they are totally and willingly assimilated to Greek culture is obvious as they communicate, marry with other Greeks generally don't consider themselves something different from us at all and we don;t consider them sth different also. So speaking about 3 million is just ridiculous and science fiction.

Frankly it does not really matter what these Arvanites think of themselves today. As the person above mentioned, and cited, a policy of Hellenization may have contributed to them thinking they are Greeks and you thinking they are the same as you. Relying on your emotional views is not really scholastic.--PG-Rated (talk) 03:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stub assessment for WP:GR?

Title says all. NikoSilver 21:54, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External link

I would like to ask kindly Mr. Kapnisma ?, not to exclude constantly the link Sur la question de la minorité nationale macédonienne en Grèce written by Lazo Moïsov from the article Minorities in Greece. The article is written with arguments and facts. And in the end, Mr. Moisov is a member of this minority. He was born in the Kastorian village of Dendrochori, and was expelled from his home village in 1949. Secondly the site where this article is published is also civilized, and is not “nationalistic” as Kapnisma ? says. An example is and introduction from the cite[21]: “The position of this site’s editors is that the ethnic Macedonians and Greeks can and will be friendly nations when they start respecting each other for what they are. The editors believe that the unity of the two people which was present during the Greek Civil War will be repeated one day, while fighting for a new common ideal.”. So, you see. The article is all right, and shows the other point of view. Every other exclusion of the link will be Vandalisation. Revizionist 09:12, 03 September 2007 (UTC)


Please, don't lecture us about how to behave, specially you people, since most of you in your talk pages express irredistic claims. Here it is an English site, few can understand what this article says it;s in your language, and judging from this and from the quality of most of these sites we can very well understand what is the content. And try to read WP:RS before accusing others. Kapnisma ? 08:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Please stop with that "You people". You can not judge a whole people beacuse of the begavior of several members of that people. This goes both to ethnic Macedonains and Greeks. The article is in French, and is written by a member of the minority. The cite is an internet library. Here is the article. Please read it (your user profile indicates that you understand Frech): Sur la question de la minorité nationale macédonienne en Grèce. Best regards. Revizionist 11:19, 03 September 2007 (UTC)

That you people was adressed not to you, but to the anonymous user who placed the link. The article IS NOT in French, try to open some links. The only links in other language are some pseudohistory claims by someone Thammy Evans who speaks of Aleksandar Macedon (sic) , Tsar Samoil of Macedonia (again sic). I specially liked the part where he/she says: I bet if we could conjure up old Alex and ask him his nationality, he would answer that he was Macedonian, not Greek.

Now seriously, the reproduction of varius ludicrous claims , historical and genetic pseudoscientific fringe theories (see Arnaiz-Villena controversy among others, and Macedonia (terminology)#Ethnic Macedonian nationalism (Extreme and moderate)) to support claims like that Macedon had differrent civilization from South Greece so contemporary Greeks do not have any right on their Macedonian heritage, that some Slavs absorbed Ancient Macedonians to produce modern Slavomacedonians, that Tsar Samuil was Macedonian Slav and not Bulgarian, that Greeks practiced genocide to Slavomacedonians, etc by sites similar to this one, is aiming to equate irrelevant things like: Macedonia (country) = Macedonia (region) = Macedon = Bulgarian Empire (called "Macedonian Empire" by them), and like ethnic Macedonians = Macedonians (regioners) = Ancient Macedonians. That thing is not something that wikipedia promotes and most of the editors are not going to take you seriously if you continue to insist in these sources.

I would strongly advice you to read WP:RS Kapnisma ? 09:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

What thing applies specially in historyofmacedonia.org and similar sites and I mention it because you have provided this site as an external link to an other article. Can you imagine what will happen if everyone starts placing nationalistic sites as sources and evidences? Kapnisma ? 10:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Kapnisma, filo mou. I', not talking about ancient Macedonians, we are talking about modern Greece - which is a multi-linguistic and multi-ethnical country like every other country in the Balkans. And now about the article: [22] – open it in MOZILA and click on the scanned pages. It is in French and is a scientific, historical and anthropological article. There is nothing nationalistic about it. Revizionist 12:07, 03 September 2007 (UTC)

I use internet explorer 7 and there is nothing in my browser, but still that does not change what I have told you above, φίλε μου. As for the which is a multi-linguistic and multi-ethnical country like every other country in the Balkans don't judge from your country. We are not so multi-ethnical as you have learned to believe. Furthermore, you have placed a link in your language about the supposed Slavomacedonian minority in Greece, where the only thing in English are the above pseudohistory claims, a user who doesn't know French, or doesn't have Mozilla, what do you thing is going to read? And what do you want me to assume? So, please, φίλε μου, spear me the I'm, not talking about ancient Macedonians Kapnisma ? 10:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

As I can see, Evans is a British autor, so we can say that she is neutral. But ok, let's live that aside. We are not talking about ancient Macedonia, but for contemporary Greece. Every country in the Balkans is multyethnic (the difference is in the degree). In Greece there are Pomaks, Vlachs, ethnic Macedonains, Albanians, Bulgarians, Roma, Turks and others. And now for the article. OK, here you are:
Sur la question de la minorité nationale macédonienne en Grèce
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
C'il vous plait lessez le livre at dites moi que-ce-que vous pensez. D'accord? Salut. Revizionist 13:19, 03 September 2007 (UTC)

I will read them, don't worry but I can tell from now that it reproduces what I have said above. You want to pose as neutral someone who is already biased. And as for this Evans being neutral because he is British... come on, man, just read what he writes! Kapnisma ? 11:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Kala..Entaksi Kapnisma. As you see I have always been reasonable. I will wait untill you throw an eye on the text, and I won't change imput the link Sur la question de la minorité nationale macédonienne en Grèce in the article untill you tell your arguement. OK, regards till now. See you soon. Revizionist 13:49, 03 September 2007 (UTC)

As I have stated before I do not think that the personal opinion of someone in a site somewhere in internet is compatible to WP:RS, specially when they reproduce the claims I have mentioned above. Furthermore, I fail to understand the usefulness of a source in french here, in english wikipedia. As anyone can see from visiting this particular site, apart from the french section, which by the way is inaccessable to those who use Internet Explorer, all the rest is written in Slavomacedonian, except, of course, the english section that repeats well known pseudohistory claims. Kapnisma ? 12:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Content of current AfD candidate Slavomacedonian

The term Slavomacedonian (Greek: Σλαβομακεδόνας, σλαβομακεδονικός) is a term used to refer to members of the ethnic Macedonian community. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports that it was introduced and initially accepted by the community itself in order to overcome the confusion caused by the different and often conflicting uses of the name Macedonian. According to members of the community, however, its subsequent misuse by the Greek authorities in a "pejorative, discriminatory way" has led, to the "reluctance if not hostility of modern-day Macedonians of Greece (i.e. people with a Macedonian national identity) to accept it".{{ref|ghm}}

The term was used by the EBLUL to refer to both the Slavic speaking minority in northern Greece, and the population in the Republic of Macedonia. The term was dropped after complaints from ethnic Macedonian organisations. {{ref|eblul}}

  1. {{note|ghm}} Greek Helsinki Monitor - The Macedonians
  1. {{note|eblul}} Greek Helsinki Monitor - Press Release - 2002

If that article gets deleted, the info should be added to this page. BalkanFever 07:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It already exists at Macedonia (terminology). ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 07:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] temporary?

In the 6th and 7th centuries AD, Slavic-speaking populations temporarily overturned Macedonia's Greek ethnic composition, and Slavic languages have been spoken in the area alongside Greek in the region ever since.

A not concluded period of 1500 years cannot be classified as temporary[23]

Alex Makedon (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I see that my contribution was reverted by User:Tasoskessaris with the comment: Temporarily refers to the 6th and 7th centuries only. That's two hundred years not 1500. After the 7th century the population became predominantly Greek again and stayed predominant ever since

Now the Britannica link attached [24]from wich a part of the aticle is copy/pased does not use the term temporary. Instead it states that after the 6-7th century Slavic invasion most of the region subsequently fell under the sway of the first Bulgarian empire in the 9th century meaning that the region continued to be mainly inhabited with Slavs. Saint Cyril and Methodius born in Thessaloniki, Macedonia in the 9th century created the Cyrillic alphabet for the Slavofonic population living in the region. During the Middle ages this region was ruled by Bulgarian and Serbian empires. By the same Britannica Article the ensuing treaty in 1913 of the Balcan Wars assigned the southern half or “Aegean Macedonia” to Greece. Grece or the Hellenic population are not mentioned before 1913 so the Slavic population has lived in the Macedonia region ever since the 6th century, not as you are claiming just from the 6th till the 7th century. According to the same source the Slavofinic Macedonian language is spoken in Agean Macedonia ever since 6th century. Its clear that the Slavofonic population that inhabited the Macedonia region have 1500 years of continous history, language and culture. Alex Makedon (talk) 22:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It's fine now. After I saw the Britannica article I realised it was referring to the historical region of Greater Macedonia, not the geographical Macedonia part of Modern Greece. Thanks for taking the time to clarify it on the talk page. Dr.K. (talk) 00:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

To be precise the Britannica article reffers to the history and the inhabitants of the Macedonia (region) which covers parts of five Balkan Modern countries: Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria and minor parts of Albania and Serbia. Infact in the chapter discussing the Balcan Wars it is stated The ensuing treaty in 1913 assigned the southern half, or “Aegean Macedonia,” to Greece and most of the northern half (“Vardar Macedonia”) to Serbia; a much smaller portion, “Pirin Macedonia,” went to Bulgaria. Alex Makedon (talk) 02:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure by "Greater Macedonia" he meant Macedonia (region). BalkanFever 02:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes I did. Dr.K. (talk) 03:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Since the geographical area Macedonia of Modern Greece is a part of the Macedonia region i found the above statement by Dr.K. ambiguous, so i needed to precise. Alex Makedon (talk) 03:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It's fine the way it is, especiallly since it reflects Britannica. Dr.K. (talk) 03:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Its strange why the word overturned sounds not appropriate all of a sudden, considering that it was on the article ever since 16 June 2006 [25] furthermore it is used in the Britannica Article, and i dont think they would use an inappropriate term. Alex Makedon (talk) 11:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image of languages

Polibiush wants this image in, AerospaceM and some IP from Athens want it removed? It was created by a Greek user based on an ethnologue map. What do others think about it? BalkanFever 03:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It's obviously woefully inaccurate. It has Arvanitika spoken in Kalamata rather than Thebes, for example, and Turkish in Kavala rather than Komotini or Xanthi where the Muslim minority actually resides. It also seems to have confused Arvanitika with Tsakonian in the case of the southeastern Peloponnese, and if that yellow bit on the Bulgarian border is supposed to be Pomak, it should be well to the east in Thrace, not eastern Macedonia. I wasn't aware that Athens lay so far away from a Greek-speaking area or that Thessaloniki was a borderline Slavophone city, either. It's all over the shop, really. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 06:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The source image as well? BalkanFever 07:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, which is Ethnologue's problem, and needn't be ours as well. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 07:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Can someone get a more accurate map then? We clearly need something in a similar format, showing the regions where the various groups are located. Needless to say, a caption should make clear that these are traditional language areas, not present-day majorities. It of course doesn't imply that no Greek is spoken there (in that sense, Kekrop's objection against Athens/Arvanitika is unfounded. Yes, Athens ought to be shown as a small enclave in an overall solidly Arvanitika spot). Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Well the original source did state "Greek is spoken in all of Greece" or something to that effect. I tried to look for another map but with no luck yet. BalkanFever 09:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
In that case it should be captioned accordingly, not left open to interpretation. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 09:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I was actually trying to improve the caption just the other day, in one of the pages where this map was used (forget which). No doubt that was not yet the optimal solution. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
This one, strangely, had none at all. Don't know how that slipped past me. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 09:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
This image is accurate and comes from a very reliable source. If someone makes a new more "accurate" map, what would it be based on? Your POVs? At least this map is based from a real map from Ethnologue. Why not mention ethnologue in the caption of the image so everyone knows where exactly it came from? Polibiush (talk) 16:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Of course Athens and Thessaloniki is Greek speaking, this map just outlines that apart from Greek speakers there are also minority languages present that area, Athens always had a presence of Arvantika being spoken, and the villages around Thessaloniki are both Greekspeaking and Slavophone. There is nothing wrong with this map. Polibiush (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The original map from the Ethnologue website, amd the map made on wikipedia, differ slightly when it comes to the location of the languages spoken. If some could make a more accurate map, that is very carefully based from the original map on Ethnologue, that would be appreciated. Polibiush (talk) 17:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Just remind me please, could you give us a link to the original map on Ethnologue? – By the way, since somebody questioned the use of Ethnologue as a source in general: Yes, Ethnologue does count as a generally reliable scholarly publication. It's a tertiary source, of course, being based on compilation of all sorts of other academic literature. Of course there are mistakes in it from time to time, and if we can get at the research literature directly that'll be better, but on the whole there's no doubt it's a decent publication, and of course ethnographic maps of that type exist and the basic facts shown in the map can be hardly in doubt (i.e. Arvanitika around Attika, Turkish in the northeast, Slavic in the north, etc.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
And in addition, if it should be the case that the map on Ethnologue contains trivial errors, such as locating this or that population spot a few kilometers too far to the right or left, as Kekrops seemed to imply above, I'm sure we wouldn't be stretching WP:NOR if we just silently corrected it in our version, based on what we know. What would such mistakes be? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Here is the link [26] Polibiush (talk) 17:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I did something for now. Linguists may be interested in blue-ing that red link. NikoSilver 17:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, something along those lines is fine. But I don't think "frequency", in the sense you have in mind, exists as a technical term in linguistics that would warrant an article. When I hear of "frequency" in linguistics, I think more of stuff like this or this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:36, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks NikoSilver :) Polibiush (talk) 17:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
You are right Fut.Perf., I don't think moving locations of the languages a few kilometres to the right or left is worth doing, especially in our case with a map of such low resolution. This is not a big deal Polibiush (talk) 17:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
So has this been resolved, or what? El Greco(talk) 02:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

No, it hasn't. The map needs to be scrapped and redrawn from scratch, preferably according to more reliable sources. I've already pointed out the most glaring errors that need to be fixed. Kalamata, a major population centre, and Athens itself, as opposed to the surrounding Attica region, are not traditional Arvanitika-speaking areas, and Pomak and Turkish are spoken in Thrace, not eastern Macedonia. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

These are very small errors, almost unnoticable with such a small map with low resolution. The original ethnologue map (the link is provided in the caption) do not have the mistakes you pointed out. Also in the caption, it is clarified that these are "approximate areas", meaning the areas shown in the map could be off by a couple of kilometers. The map is alright, no major problem here. Polibiush (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The map is a bad, and probably wouldn't hold up to Wikipedia scrutiny. It's got to be done right or its no good. Approximation is not encyclopedic. And aren't there other sources out there besides this one site? El Greco(talk) 20:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
In this case we have to be approximate, since Greece does not conduct censuses that ask for mother tongue. This map was based on field studies conducted by ethnologue. The claims made by ·ΚέκρωΨ· are being made into a big deal when they're not (let me remind you that there are no city borders or municipal lines in the map so of course it will be a little vague.) Also, i'm very sure that Turkish and Pomak is spoken inboth Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, after all they're right beside eachother Polibiush (talk) 21:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
No, they're not actually. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 04:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


What is the matter with you? Since when do you know everything?

According to Roland Schmieger,[1]

“

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.

 ”

Polibiush (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I plan to redraw that map, hopefully during this weekend. I'll do it on the basis of the Ethnologue map, which is a good enough source in the absence of anything better right now. If anybody knows of particular factual errors in that one, please point them out now. I'm willing to go out on a limb of OR and make appropriate minor corrections, if objections to any particular detail in the map can be substantiated. I take it there cannot be any serious objections against having some map along those lines, and against the rough outlines of its content (like: Arvantika around Attica, Vlach in Pindus, Slavic in Macedonia, Turkish in Thrace etc.). Those, as far as I can see, are entirely uncontroversial and match what we are saying in the article anyway. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map redrawn

New linguistic minorities map
New linguistic minorities map

Okay guys, I've redrawn that map. It's now closer to the original at Ethnologue. Comments welcome; it can still be modified fairly easily. commons:Image talk:Greece linguistic minorities.svg. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

"Macedonian Slavic" is inaccurate. From this article: "The actual linguistic classification of these dialects is unclear, although most linguists will classify them as either Bulgarian or Macedonian Slavic taking into account numerous factors, including the resemblance and mutual intelligibility of each dialect to the standard languages (abstand), and the self-identification of the speakers themselves. As however the vast majority of these people don't have a Bulgarian or Macedonian Slav national identity, linguists will make their decisions based on abstand alone.". I think we should change this to Slavic language, which includes both Macedonian Slavic, and Bulgarian. NikoSilver 20:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
From the linguistic studies quoted literally in our Slavic language (Greece) article:
  • 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. (Trudgill)
  • 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. (Schmieger)
Those parts of the "Slavic" area that are actually shown in the map are all safely on the "Macedonian" side. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
BTW, needless to say, I deliberately chose "Macedonian Slavic" rather than just "Macedonian" in order to please you guys. I mean, come on, "Macedonian Slavic" clearly refers to whatever Slavic varieties are spoken in Macedonia. All is well. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I agree with NikoSilver. If the Ethnologue's map and article is anything to go by then "Slavic" it is. Why use an alternative name for this one and not for others e.g. for "Turkish" - Osmali, for "Albanian" (NW) - Arvanitika and so on. Also, if again we go by Ethnologue's map, where is "Pontic Greek", which largely covers the "Macedonian Slavic" area? All coloured areas must be stripped or dotted as so to blend in with the substrate colour, which should be labelled as the Greek language. The vast majority are using the Greek language. --LittleTinMan (talk) 20:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
  1. Ethnologue agrees with everybody else in the literature that "Slavic" in Greece is indeed Macedonian [27].
  2. The Turkish language in Greece is called Turkish, wherever I've seen it in writing. Who on earth would be calling it Osmanli?
  3. "Arvanitika" (in the south) is duly distinguished from Albanian proper (in the north), again following Ethnologue and other relevant literature.
  4. The presence of Greek is taken for granted, the image description doesn't imply anything to the contrary, and neither should the captions that will be used with it in the article.
  5. I opted to only include the non-Greek languages. I doubt all Greek readers would be happy to see "Pontian" and "Tsakonian" described as "minority languages".
By the way, what kind of a new user would you be? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
  1. Ethnologue clearly labels the language as "Slavic" in your reference and , again clearly, uses "Slavic" in it's map. [28]
  2. Ethnologue labels "Macedonian Slavic" as an alternative name in its list about "Languages of Greece" [29]. Thus, by using an alternative name for "Slavic" we can easily use other alternative names as Osmali, Hellenoromani, Arvanitika (NW), Meglenitic, Romika and so on.
  3. Again, the Greek language should be clearly labelled (since Ethnologue's map seems to be the reference here) and blend in with all coloured areas, as so to reflect linguistic reality. Most, if not all minority languages speakers are using the Greek language.
  4. I do not have a problem with that. I do not "mind" minority languages either if by any chance you imply that. (Not that it would make any difference but I've spent considerable, of my free, time to study the linguistic situation in Greece and the Balkans in general.
  5. See # 3
That kind; as you once did, if I'm not mistaken. (FYI, I'm not a meat-puppet nor an (abusive) sock-puppet of any Greek ( and/or Greek-speaking) editor, concerned with this kind of articles, that you usually interact with.) --LittleTinMan (talk) 21:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
There is no need for us to stick slavishly with that particular source, to the extent that we'd have to follow all their terminological decisions. We are perfectly free to choose whatever fits our naming policies, i.e. the name that is most common in the literature in each case (unless the terminology in the source was intended to carry a specific, divergent factual claim. Which it does not.) – As for the "blending in", feel free to try your luck if you have the graphic skills. How exactly do you want to show that a pastel colour lets another shine through, when that other colour is an almost white, yellowish pastel brown? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
... And Slavic fits our naming policies just fine (plus, according to some sources, it is the preferred self-identifying autonym in those areas), as is Arvanitika (NW), Meglenic and so on (fitting our policies, that is). I can not claim that I'm a keen graphic designer but I can try; it's going to take at least 2 or 3 days though. --LittleTinMan (talk) 21:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I insist that this map use linguistic terminology as commonly used in the international English-speaking literature. "Meglenic" is not a term used in English. "Arvanitika" is not commonly used as a linguistic term in English with reference to the northern varieties (as opposed to the southern ones, where it is used with some regularity.) If you don't want "Macedonian Slavic", the only alternative is "Macedonian". In that case, we can also change "Arvanitika" to "Albanian", "Pomak" to "Bulgarian" and so on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Just to make it clear; Have you or have you not used the Ethnologue's map as a reference for your design?
As I’ve said above, if we go by Ethnologue's map (i.e. reflecting here those linguistic areas) Slavic is a perfectly fine linguistic term. It also uses Bulgarian, Arvanitika Albanian (not just Albanian), Tosk Albanian (Arvanitika NW), Pontic and so on. I 'll say it again; I do not have a problem with any of these terms, including "Macedonian Slavic." Clearly though, "Macedonian" is not the only alternative. --LittleTinMan (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
And the idea with the graphic "shining through" etc is still useless. The topic of this map, unlike the Ethnologue model, is not "languages spoken in Greece". It is explicitly "minority languages in Greece". Greek is not within the scope of this map at all. If Greek is the majority language everywhere, it is plainly silly to emphasise this fact through graphic devices. That would only make sense if the map was displaying a contrast between some areas where the local languages are stronger as opposed to others where they are marginal. Might be nice if we could do such a thing, but we can't as we don't have the data. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
We can clearly make that "editorial decision" and label the map as "Languages of Greece" and not plainly "Minority Languages of Greece", thus including a lot more. This is perfectly fine for this article by reflecting linguistic reality and English language, academic or otherwise, sources. Let me try my graphic design (l33t) skills and then pass your judgement. --LittleTinMan (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
But why would we want to make that editorial decision? Anything that makes those coloured dots less distinct will only make the map less readable, and add no information value whatsoever. If Greek is spoken everywhere, it does not need to be shown. By the way, if you really want to have a go at modifying it, I strongly recommend you take the svg version and edit it in Inkscape or something similar, so the result will still be editable for others too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Fut.Perf. for redrawing the map, your work is appreciated! Polibiush (talk) 22:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Here are the points (some already mentioned, twice):
  1. The map does not clearly reflect the linguistic reality (i.e. that "Greek" is overwhelmingly spoken in those coloured areas) and most importantly does not reflect any official, academic or otherwise seriously sourced consensus about any ethnic minorities in Greece; we are, in the "Minorities of Greece" article after all. Most , if not all, members of these linguistic groups use primarily the Greek language (or at least in conjunction with). The linguistic map can easily perceived by a lay reader as representative of the "ethno-national" identity of the people in those areas.
  2. There is obviously a disagreement on the used terms, as explained time and time again above. Linguistic terms can (and often are) be perceived, as "ethnic" or even "national" terms. They can be (and most often are) used, also to advance claims of such nature, left and right.
  3. My disagreement does not, primarily, have to do with cosmetics. Cosmetics are trivial. The substrate (blend in colour) is perfectly viable to achieve (heck even those guys in Ethnologue did it) without any confusion for the lay user. The linguistic areas can and will be clearly defined.
That "ultimatum-style" editing is not appreciated. Even though I do, greatly, appreciate your efforts and tips (and l33t designing skills), this map appeared today and currently discussed in the talk page. Clearly there is no consensus. Why did you unilaterally decide to add it in the article? Further more, why did you even bother to publish it in the talk page since you seem less than appreciative of other people’s concerns? --LittleTinMan (talk) 23:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
P.S. (This is not a rhetorical question) Did you or did you not use the Ethnologue’s map as a reference?

(undent)

  1. Of course I did. I said so a couple dozen times above.
  2. I asked yesterday whether there were any objections against a map based on the Ethnologue source. There was no answer. Your removal is a needlessly hostile act and not appreciated either.
  3. You have failed to respond to the essence of my objection against including Greek: Its information value will be nil. Colour codes in maps are there for displaying distinctive properties of areas. If all areas possess property X, the presence of a colour code for X is redundant. Such a property can far better be explained in words, there's no need for wasting optical space with it. The net result of "mixing" or "blending in" colours will be the same: A spot somewhere around Athens that looks optically different from the areas around it.
  4. As for the terminology, I haven't heard any serious objections. Niko said he'd prefer a different term for one item, based on a false reading on some sources he quoted. Okay. From you, I've only heard waffling and lawyering, about absurdities such as replacing "Turkish" with "Osmanli". Oh, but we could also use this and we could also use that. But why the heck should we??? Fut.Perf. ☼ 00:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I will never engage in a discussion with you (not that I forfeit the right to edit similar articles, images or whatnot - even made by you, personally), if you engage that tone and language on me ("what the fuck" etc), ever, again. Is that clear? --LittleTinMan (talk) 02:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
And your point about possible ethnic misunderstandings misses the mark too. This map is about languages, not about ethnicities. Avoiding any possible misunderstandings is purely an issue of how to word the caption. There is no way on earth how the graphic design as such could make any difference here – how would a different colouring scheme tell the reader we are not making a claim about ethnicities? Fut.Perf. ☼ 00:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone should change Megleno-rumanian (242 google hits) to Megleno-Romanian (2,140) or Meglenitic (3,690). BalkanFever 00:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate that BalkanFever. To be quite honest though, the so-called "google-test" (or X search engine general test) that so many people were (or still are?) fond of around here, is, most often than not, a bunch of brouhaha. --LittleTinMan (talk) 00:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, the "u" was a mistake on my part. Correcting now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 00:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Factual details

Two things. First, On the Ethnologue version, Cornith, is excluded where Aravanitika is spoken (there's a break between Attica and Peloponnese) but on Future's version it's all connected, as is a part from Athens, to Megara and Salamina. Second, how comes Pontic isn't included (just out of curiosity)? Other than that the map looks much better than before. El Greco(talk) 01:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for spotting the Corinth thing. I hadn't seen that detail on the map. Can easily be changed. As for Pontic, I said it somewhere above, the idea was just to restrict the map to the non-Greek minority languages. Including it would have led to yet more problems both POV-wise ("what's a minority?" - "Do recent migrant communities count?" etc.) and technical (yet more overlapping colours). I left out Tsakonic too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 01:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The map still shows a significant chunk of Messenia as a traditional Arvanitic-speaking area. To the best of my knowledge, the Arvanites of Messenia are located in and around Ano Dorio, a part of the Triphylia area near the border with Elis, not in the large coloured area in the centre of the prefecture. The location of Pomak and Turkish still look too far west, and the size of the Moglenitic area is overblown considering the language is spoken only in six villages according to the relevant article. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 02:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I'll look out for better information to redraw these. As for Pomak, are you certain? The area shown here seems to match pretty well with the area across the border in Bulgaria shown as Pomak in Image:Pomaks map.png. The other points you raise seem to make sense. Anybody know of a better source on the location of Turkish (map or statistics by districts or something)? Since that's the recognised "Muslim" minority, statistics ought to be not too difficult to come by. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Update: I found this fairly serious-looking report. It has a map on p.4, of the distribution of Turkish-language minority schools. That map suggests a contiguous zone stretching across Xanthi, Komotini and the northern half of Rhodope Prefecture. Objections to using that as a basis? – About the Meglenites, we can probably go by Image:Capidan Megleno.jpg, which would indeed be stretching less far south as currently shown. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm now looking at the various relevant reports from Euromosaic. They don't have maps, but fairly detailed lists of locations broken down by prefectures. That data seems better than Ethnologue. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right about the Pomak area, but I always thought it lay more directly north-northeast of Xanthi. Echinos is the main Pomak centre, so drawing the blob around that should do the trick. As for Turkish, the westernmost red blob should be moved to the east of the other so that it lies more substantially in Komotini. I agree that we should use more precise data where possible. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 12:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)



i dont't see any linguistic maps of the past and nowdays for turkey ,albania or FYROM, where many millions greeks,kurds vlachs etc have lived there for thousands years.. but instead of it you drew a map for some hundred(not millions)thousands guys that spoke an x language a long time ago...

[edit] Map terminology

Okay, once more, I'll explain why I personally prefer to have the label say "Macedonian Slavic" rather than simply "Slavic". "Slavic" (Slavika) may, for the Greek reader, be something like a proper name for that particular variety of Slavic they speak there. If it was just that, it would be fine. However, for the outside reader, "Slavic" is primarily a generic term for the whole language family, reaching all the way up to Siberia. Therefore, "Slavic" presents us with yet another disambiguation issue. We have another type of Slavic already in the map, the Pomak bit in Thrace (it doesn't matter whether we label that as Pomak or as Bulgarian, the problem is the same either way.) If the varieties in Macedonia are "Slavic", we must tell the reader what kind of Slavic. The most neutral way of doing that is "Macedonian Slavic", the Slavic spoken in Macedonia. Then, everybody can decide for themselves what national characteristics they associate with the "M" word. As I said, the only viable alternative would be to go straight for "M" alone, but I can see why that would meet with resistance here. "Slavic" alone may be what Ethnologue chose, for whatever reasons best known to them, but it would be poor service to our readers. And as I said above, I don't accept that just because we got the factual data from them forces us to stick with their terminology; using a source is not a suicide pact. Fut.Perf. ☼ 01:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Ethnologue may have chosen Slavic for a good reason. Macedonian Slavic would be even more misleading. Because the word Macedonia can describe a region as well as a country (FYROM). Calling it Macedonian Slavic makes the reader wonder what's the meaning of Macedonia. Is it FYROM Slavic or Slavic spoken in Greek Macedonia? In the former case we equate Macedonia with FYROM which is wrong because Macedonia is primarily a region, in the latter we don't need it because it is just Slavic spoken in Greek Macedonia. Dr.K. (talk) 03:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
This is not a dispute over the confusion and use of the word "Macedonia". Firstly, Ethnologue describes the Slavic language spoken in Greek Macedonia as "MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE" (it also mentions though that in Greece the Macedonian language is refered to as "Slavic") [30], which doesn't change the fact that it is still the same language, the same language that is official in Fyrom but just called by a different name in Greece. Well, Wikipedia is not a Greek nationalist website. Here, Wikipedia uses the term Macedonian language, so the word "Macedonian" is acceptable on the map. But because "Macedonian" is called "Slavic" in Greece, Fut.Perf. took one extra step when making the map to include both terms ("Macedonian" and "Slavic"), when really he should have just put "Macedonian" on it since that is how the language is recognized in Wikipedia and internationally. I don't see how people can still complain after this neutral move. Polibiush (talk) 05:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I have no doubt about the status of Wikipedia as not being a nationalist website of any type. That's why in this kind of tangled socio-politico-cultural-linguistic issues/mess we must try to analyze a few concepts so that we keep it that way. This field is, however, full of hazards and pitfalls, one of which is the n word (nationalism) just waiting to reveal itself and stick to anyone at anytime. Dr.K. (talk) 05:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
So I think we should all stop wasting our time on deciding what term to use. Macedonian or Macedonian Slavic or Slavic. What's the difference, they are all the same one language. Using an alternative name won't improve the quality of the article in any way. Polibiush (talk) 05:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Dr.K. (talk) 05:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Let's just use the term "Macedonian Slavic". I never thought that I would be saying that, but there you go. This, I hope, will stop petty arguments if a Greek user who stumbles upon this page changes it from "Macedonian" to any number of things, for various reasons. BalkanFever 06:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
To Dr.K. I basically agree about the ambiguity of the term "M.S." – but unlike you, I'd tend to see that as a strength rather than a weakness for our purposes. The best we can do to not hurt national sensitivities is to leave the issue open, hence the ambiguity. The alternative is to follow the unanimous consensus in the linguistic literature, which does regard these varieties as varieties of "Macedonian", in the Macedonian language sense, no matter what the national identifications of its speakers may be. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Macedonian Slavic is what is redirected from the link, and not what is spoken in Macedonia, Greece. The people there call it something else. The sources in the article are too scarce to provide evidence on what is more frequent, so the self-identification principle prevails (WP:NCON). What is spoken there is called Dopia by those who speak it, regardless how close it falls to which spectrum. We all know that. If Fut.Perf. is concerned with readers that may confuse Slavic language (Greece) with e.g. Siberian Slavic, then this is double standards, because he should also be concerned about confusing Macedonia/n/s with the Greeks, so this is a non-argument. In any case, I'll drop in one more name that, I think, covers all concerns: "Eastern South Slavic". NikoSilver 13:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Academic consensus beats self-identification, hands down, any time. Academic consensus is that the Slavic spoken in Greek Macedonia indeed is Macedonian, like it or not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

All I see is academic hypotheses, verbosely. That's too far from consensus. Self-identification it is. That, or double-standards. NikoSilver 13:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Show me one reputable academic linguist (non-Greek, if possible) who claims that the Slavic of Greek Macedonia is not Macedonian. If there isn't, it's consensus. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
No. It is the other way around. You show me one that does, and does so without verbosely saying that s/he is supposing it may be so. NikoSilver 13:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
And I don't really need to provide a source that all acknowledge for a fact that the people there call it "Dopia". Do I? NikoSilver 13:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
No, you'd need some documentation that international English-speaking literature uses that as a primary means of referring to it. Which you needn't try, because you know as well as I that they don't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, "international English-speaking literature" for it, is limited to the two quotes already in the articles. It is expresely stated that those are hypotheses, and that the self-id name is Dopia. I challenge you to find one that doesn't. NikoSilver 13:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not stated that it's "hypotheses", it's stated that it's the authors' own opinion. We quote sources for documenting what the authors think, not what they also report others think. Add to these, for instance: Victor Friedman, for one [31]. Also Jouko Lindstedt [32]. Cf. Roland Schmieger 1998. "The Situation of the Macedonian Language in Greece: Sociolinguistic Analysis," International Journal of the Sociology of Language"; Ilija Casule, 1998. "The Interplay of the Macedonian Standard and Dialects in a Bilingual Setting: Macedonian Language Maintenance in Australia," International Journal of the Sociology of Language 131: 105-124. Kramer, Christina E. 1999. "Official Language, Minority Language, No Language at All: Macedonian in Primary Education in the Balkans," Language Problems-Language Planning 23.3: 233-250; Hadumod Bußmann, Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft (together with probably every single general-purpose linguistic dictionary known to man, including of course Ethnologue and friends) Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
How exactly do you expect to find reputable linguists who would commit such an unscientific error of calling a language differently from how its speakers do? They can say it may approach this or that, but that is merely a description of where it relates. Certainly not a name for it. Need I remind the illiterates that call Macedonian (Slavic), "a Bulgarian dialect"? NikoSilver 13:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

So, how about the accurate "Eastern South Slavic"? And, why not, how about we go ahead and call it "Dopia"? (I'd be in for a move of that article too btw. I'm creating a redirect for now.) NikoSilver 14:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

We've already found those reputable linguists. Like it or not, that's what linguists do. They will note that people locally call a variety X, and at the same time make the analytic scholarly claim that X is best described as a variety of Y. They will also include treatment of X in their general analyses and discussions of Y where appropriate. (Just as our Macedonian language article does, by the way, where it comes to its dialectology). I wouldn't be averse to using a local name for our purposes, just like I chose the local name "Arvanitika" over the more general (and likewise scientifically correct) opition of "Albanian", but in this case it runs against the disambig needs. We need the word "Macedonian" to disambiguate "Slavic", and we need the word "Slavic" to disambiguate "Macedonian". In this context.
"Eastern South Slavic" doesn't work for the same reasons "Slavic" alone doesn't work, it's both too general and too specific at the same time. BTW we are talking about map legends, not wikitext, so let's not mess around with scenarios of wikilinking. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

We can have wikilinked texts in maps (eg), but that's irrelevant indeed. Local name it is then. Thanks. NikoSilver 14:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Is not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Why? Does "Dopia" "run against the disambig needs"? Is it not local? NikoSilver 14:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
For Christssake. It is not the term used in English, and it's certainly not the term our readers will most easily recognise. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
But it is wrong and it is not a name. NikoSilver 15:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
The language is called Macedonian and it is Macedonian whether you like it or not. Calling this language "Dopia" on wikipedia is wrong. Firstly, Dopia is just a nick-name for the Macedonian language, which was used when the first refugees from Asia Minor settled in the region. Dopia means "local" or "native", a reference introduced by the newly settled refugees to refer to the Slavic speakers. So Dopia was a term not originally used by the Slavic speakers themselves, it was introduced by others. But academics have studied the Slavic language and have confirmed that its Macedonian. Its not like Dopia is its own language that forms a seperate branch in the Slavic languages. Polibiush (talk) 15:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Similar arguments were used for Macedonian (Slavic) vs Bulgarian. I don't know about the Asia Minor Greeks theory, all I know is how the current speakers call it. And that is undebatable by all scholars. What is debatable, is how close Dopia falls to either of the two very close languages up North. So we have a variation of a variation of a variation, that also happens to be a direct variation in some places. How can we assign a name of either to that? NikoSilver 15:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

We don't. Experts do it for us. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

NikoSilver, You have to be careful when you say "I know how the current speakers call it." Perhaps some of them do call it Dopia, but one thing is certain, they do not call it "Dopia" when speaking in their Slavic language. The word "Dopia" is only used when speaking in Greek. In their own language they call it "Makedonski", since "Dopia" is Greek word. Polibiush (talk) 16:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Quote from our own article on Macedonian laguage:
In Greece, although groups may be considered to be speaking dialects heteronomous with standard Macedonian, they do not all identify their language with their national identity. The Slavic speaking minority in Greece varies on how it describes its language - most describe it as Slavic and proclaim a Greek national identity, although there are smaller groups, some of which describe it as Macedonian and espouse an ethnic Macedonian national identity, and some who describe it as Bulgarian and espouse a Bulgarian national identity. Some prefer to identify as dopii and their dialect as dopia which mean local or indigenous in Greek [33].
Quote again from the quote above: although there are smaller groups, some of which describe it as Macedonian
Conclusion: In Greece, only a subgroup of another subgroup speaks or identify with Macedonian language. Others speak dialects heteronomous with standard Macedonian. How can we then call this Macedonian for everyone? Dr.K. (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Quote again: The Slavic speaking minority in Greece varies on how it describes its language - most describe it as Slavic and proclaim a Greek national identity, The article identifies most as Slavic (not Macedonian) speaking and it goes on to say they identify themselves as Slavic speaking. Why would we want to call them Macedonian speaking? Dr.K. (talk) 16:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Update: Actually, if we switch to the Euromosaic reports as our primary data source, we might be forced to merge the "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian/Pomak" blobs into a single category after all. In that case, we can switch to a label of "Slavic" as a cover term for both. Maybe that way the problem is avoided after all. Reason is, while all the literature I've seen agrees it is in principle possible to assign some subvarieties to "M" and others to "B", different sources draw the line differently. For instance, the Euromosaic report has a Slavophone corner straddling Serres and Drama prefectures, not shown in the Ethnologue map (and according to the report less vital than Western Macedonia), and it calles those varieties Bulgarian. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Great proposal Future. I agree. Thanks for the research work. Dr.K. (talk) 17:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Thanks for confirming. NikoSilver 18:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
On the wikilink issue, I propose we do it like this so as to be easily editable. What do you say? NikoSilver 18:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think so, an image is just fine. Polibiush (talk) 18:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
We all know that there are serious developments on the naming issue. And it's really easy to make it editable. If FP can upload the picture without the texts, we can even include a legend for the colors below. Like this one. NikoSilver 18:22, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, I haven't got much experience with this technique, but having clickable wikilinks on a map has some appeal. I'll include a version without labels when I upload my next update. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New draft

Image:Greece linguistic minorities A.svg
New draft

Okay, I made a second draft on the basis of the Euromosaic data. Much of it matches the Ethnologue data quite well. Where it does not, the trouble is, those reports just give you information like "12-14 X-speaking villages in prefecture Y". If you're lucky you get "in the east of prefecture Y" or "in eparchia Z". Not very exact, that is. So, I did a few very tentative blobs in a couple cases. What do you guys say, is that acceptable?

As for technicalities of how to handle the legends, or modifying the colour scheme or whatever, I'm open for suggestions. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly much better than the other one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
To someone who doesnt know the impression that only those languages are spoken in those areas is created.You need legend and "dots" not covering with areas with shadow .Megistias (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
That can be easily taken care of with an Ethnologue-style caption down the bottom along the lines of "Greek is spoken in all areas of the country", though your point about using dots rather than blobs could be a valid one, as it would avoid the problem of inevitable geographic imprecision. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 21:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Interesting idea, but dots per what? Different-sized dots per prefecture? Or dots per village? I'd love to do dots per village, but to do that I'd need to know where those damned villages are. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, should we represent Turkish in Kos and Rhodos? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes and any sourced material but lets not give the impression again on the above.Dots and explanatory legend.Megistias (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
You cant be so detailed the map wont be discernable just dot the areas to the extent of the languages.Megistias (talk) 21:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I was discussing that with the other guy last night. I still don't think it's either graphically feasible without getting terribly ugly and hard to read, or that it's indeed necessary. Won't repeat my arguments here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Romaniotes ,do they speak some Yevanic? Megistias (talk) 22:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Yevanic seems to be completely extinct in Greece, or almost completely. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
How about releasing the strangehold of Slavic on the outskirts of Thessaloniki (is it really spoken so close to the city?) to make some room for Ladino? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll have another look at the sources about how they describe Thessaloniki. Ladino might be a good idea. (Stupid me, I actually had Ladino and Yevanic mentally mixed up when I answered Megistias yesterday, but it seems I nevertheless ended up correct: Yevanic is apparently not alive, or no longer distinct, while Ladino still is to some extent.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Ladino is almost exticnt. There are only a couple hundred speakers left in all of Greece. I don't think there would be enough speakers of Ladino to qualify for the map. Polibiush (talk) 21:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
BTW the new draft looks great! Polibiush (talk) 21:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Second that. Great effort. Dr.K. (talk) 22:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. About Ladino, it could be included simply for its historical significance, rather than its present-day demographic weight. As its presence is punctual, just in the city of Thessaloniki (I guess?), it wouldn't make for a colour blob, but perhaps some symbol, like a small star or circle. We could do it similarly for Turkish in Kos and Rhodos. Or does anybody know if there are specific geographical corners in those islands where Turkish is concentrated? Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

How about Tsakonian,Pontian? Also,most of the languages presented come from groups that dont consider themselves a minority like the arvanites and vlachs.Megistias (talk) 22:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Tsakonian and Pontian are Greek regional dialects. They are not (non-Greek) minority languages. As for your second point, keep ethnicity and ethnic matters out of this discussion, this is a map on minority languages, not the ethnic minorities that speak them. Polibiush (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
(ec., again duplicating P's response). As I said further above, I thought it better to restrict the map to the non-Greek languages. As far as the concept of "minority" is concerned, it's about "linguistic minorities", not national minorities. The Arvanites or Vlachs are undoubtedly just that, linguistic minorities. I know many people in Greece are ideologically allergic against the term "minority" in whatever sense, but in an English-speaking international encyclopedia we can't really take consideration of that oversensitivity. To a Greek reader, the term "minority" may perhaps suggest an implication of "lack of integration in society", "lack of loyalty to the nation", "being an object of discrimination" or whatever. Please be aware that in English, to an international audience, it simply doesn't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like original research on terminology from Fut.Perf. Minority implies a clear differentiation from the majority language which is Greek. So whichever language is spoken in Greece and IS NOT a Greek dialect, I agree it should be included. How many languages really qualify here?--   Avg    23:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
We agree, that is just those the map is showing. What's the point about "original research"? (Hint: it's not forbidden to use your own brain on talkpages.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Actually, we forgot Romani, of course. But that's probably difficult to pin down geographically, right? Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Nice example, I agree it deserves a mention although Roma in urban areas use it less and less (not a Greek-only phenomenon of course).--   Avg    23:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can i say sth?

Arvanitika/Slav or Tsakonian are spoken by elderly people and so are Pontic.In fact where you put Slav speaking population there is a sea of a way more populous Pontic Greek language linguistic minority.

PS:None of the above mentioned languages is really spoken but if you want to show historical accuracy about were these almost dead languages were spoken then you are POV excluding the biggest linguistic minority by numbers after 1922. Eagle of Pontus (talk) 09:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Pontic is spoken or at least known throughout all macedoniaMegistias (talk) 09:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • And as i read the above discussion i find hard to understand how if according to Polibius Ladino isn't qualified to be included because it's not spoken today then HTF are all the others qualified when are almost dead languages.Are Arvanitika, Vlachika or whatever alive languages?Do these colours have to do anything with reality?Cauze my mother's family is from a village above Serres near Bulgarian borders and i see the whole area in purple but in reality it's full of Pontic villages.If a minority language is spoken there that's Pontic. Eagle of Pontus (talk) 09:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Pontic Greek is a minority language indeed,( not as a language spoken by a minority but as a language spoken less than the predominant Greek so it's a minority language).Exactly the same as Arvanitika or Vlach were these people are also not considered neither do they consider them selves as minorities.In fact due to the number of speakers Pontic Greek is way more qualified.You have half Makedonia as if Slav are spoken there where it's all about Pontic except a couple of villages outside Florina.Eagle of Pontus (talk) 09:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree and i dont get where ethnlologue see this.Slavic to that extent and near thessaloniki?.......Megistias (talk) 10:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Ethnologue is a joke book. Cannot be considered a fact book at all. Please provide Greek sources. 213.97.51.67 (talk) 14:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Somebody needs to go and check A. Karakasidou, (1993) "Politicising culture: negating ethnic identity in Greek Macedonia", in: Journal of Modern Greek Studies 11, 1-28. According to how it's quoted by Trudgill, that article contains some more detailed description of the extent of Slavic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry but can't help it. By default a reference to Karakasidou and Dimitras is POV. We know all too well what these two guys stand for. --Avg (talk) 17:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
To begin with, they aren't "two guys". More relevant, there is no "POV by default". It's always better to rely on multiple sources than single sources, but Karakasidou and Dimitras are well respected in the academic community. They may not be very popular in Greece, but that does not "by default" disqualify them. JdeJ (talk) 17:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I've had this discussion some time ago. These "studies" appeared only between 1992-1995. After the interim agreement of 1995, miraculously these "studies" that supported the irredentist claims disappeared. This is not a coincidence. --Avg (talk) 18:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't aware Dimitras had any academic credentials. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 20:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I have checked the Karakasidou paper. It is slightly tendentious in its political outlook, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a reliable academic source. Alas, it doesn't contain as much concrete demographic information as I hoped, nothing useful for a map, that is. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok, anyway since I've mentioned the issue above you can find an article dealing with the articles of that era here [34] --Avg (talk) 18:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Please refrain from nationalistic comments. There is no preference for Greek sources, only for verifiable facts. JdeJ (talk) 17:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
even before 1919-23 there were many(hundred thousands) people who were speaking greek language(or both greeks and slavic dialects ) according to otthoman and greek census in macedonia.So coloured areas don't show the truth .map is inaccurate...moreover today after people exchanges 1919-1923 (for example treauty lausanne,treauty Neuilly etc) many thousands of slav people left the colourised areas and more than 1.500.000 greeks came from bulgaria and minor asia to (nowdays)greece,most of them stayed at the areas and houses turks and slavs left..

So nowdays there are more than 2.500.000 greek speaking people to Macedonia and only few thousands(30.000+)who speak slav dialects mainly in northern florina(but few of them don’t have greek identity(ouranio toxo a slavskopian party took only 3.000 votes in Macedonia) Also greeks with one or two arvanites parents are about 200.000 all over the Greece.BUT only 30 thousands of them speak a language that is not teached by greek schools,arvanitika(I am arvanitis btw)..most of them are old people. Moreover more than 5.000.000 greek speaking people live in attiki (green coloured area) and about 500.000 migrant workers(Albanians,pakistans,Russians. Etc) who came there after 1991. This map is accurate only for western thraca!and probably its information are taken of propagandist books that speaks-propagandize of so-called “great albania”-“great Macedonia”etc

Ps:The 1904 Ottoman census of Hilmi Pasha recorded 373,227 Greeks and 204,317 Bulgarians in the VILAYET(region) Selânik (Thessaloniki) alone, while it makes no mention of a Macedonian Slav ethnicity (which at the time was regarded as Bulgarian). According to the same census, Greeks were also dominant in the vilayet of Manastır (Bitola), counting 261,283 Greeks and 178,412 Bulgarians.So more than 500.000 were greek speaking people and about 100 thousands slav and vlach speaking with greek identity(as next census also shows) census in 1925 (after balkan wars and before civil war between communists and anticommunists in which more than 35 thousands slavs (and thousands greeks )left greece and came to communistic yugoslavia and soviet union after defeat etc ) a census that shows the number of greek speaking natives of the area ,slav or vlach speaking people with greek or bulgarian ,romanian identity,greek speaking(that came from anatolia),jews etc http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/9766/ethnologicalcompositionqi2.jpg Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia, Oxford, Elizabeth Kontogiorgi, 2006 i have to notice also that many slavs were nazi's allies ,during world war 2 and german occupation of greece, with nationalist dreams of an"indepedent macedonia" (a purpose that never changed even afterwhile they joined democratic army) last but not least i dont see any data dealing with the map

Anyway ,sorry for my english.I hope you understood me :) bye! :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.203.132.183 (talk) 12:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] HRW block quote

I have removed the HRW block quote, which User:P m kocovski has apparently been adding to a host of articles. The material should be summarized and referenced appropriately if it is to be of any value. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 08:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that. While the report could well be mentioned in the article, it should be wikified and summarised. JdeJ (talk) 09:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I wikified it at Human rights in Greece if anyone's interested. BalkanFever 10:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me, thanks! JdeJ (talk) 10:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Good Idea Kekrops but have you left a full version on ANY wikipedia page? A full version should be left on one page and on the other the summarized version which you have summarized Human Rights in Greece should be left. Or a new article (Human Rights Watch)??? should be added for the FULL version of the findings of the reoprt --P m kocovski (talk) 06:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
No, the summary and reference should more than suffice. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 07:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Will a new page on with the complete findings on it be acceptable? Titled possibly (something on the lines of) Findings of the Humans Rights Watch report in Greece, 1993. P m kocovski (talk) 07:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
No, we can't have an article for every conceivable individual source. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 08:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arvanites ≠ Albanians

Regarding this, an important clarification needs to be made. Whatever the origins of Arvanitika, the Arvanites not only do not identify as Albanians, but find the label offensive. As the Helsinki source makes clear, they "loathe" its use. Language doesn't equal ethnic identity, and giving credence to the claims of Albanian nationalists that the Arvanites are really just a subgroup of ethnic Albanians is unhelpful. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· (talk) 10:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments and for the edit you made to the article, the present version is the best so far. Keep up the good work! JdeJ (talk) 11:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Yep, that version works for me too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
It's great to see that Wikipedians, such as the three "minds" above, stimulate implied or indirect racism!--Arbër T • ? 10:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Colour code for map needed

The Hammond map does not have a colour code for the ethnicities. I suggest the full map, with colour code, is included, or to remove the map until this can be rectified. Politis (talk) 17:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't need one. You can see written on top of the colours the names of the various ethnic groups.--Dexippus (talk) 17:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but it would be best with the code. Ok, have it as you please Politis (talk) 17:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cham Albanian atrocities

From article: "Their properties were either confiscated, destroyed or taken over by relatives who identified as Greeks. Recently, this issue has brought some controversy because some elderly representatives of the Chams and their descendants are claiming their properties back from the Greek state while Greek descendants of Cham atrocities are also claiming compensation from Albania." Could someone possibly cite this claim? --PG-Rated (talk) 03:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Distribution of races in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor in 1922, Racial Map Of Europe by Hammond & Co.

I have removed "Distribution of races in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor in 1922, Racial Map Of Europe by Hammond & Co." since it is inaccurate.

1) The map shows ethnic Macedonians as Bulgarian.
2) The map shows no Greek minority on the Turkish coastline.
3) The map shows no Turkish ethnic in the Balkans.

Since this was a map made before the population exchanges, all these errors shows its inaccurate and should be removed. Maktruth (talk) 20:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

a map from after the population exchanges would be of great use. Maktruth (talk) 20:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the only reason to remove the map was that you simply don't like what it shows, I've changed it with another one. What a pity it shows the same. It's pretty obvious there are two positions on the issue and it would be more than unfair to show only one. So just stop it - either remove both maps or don't touch either of them. --Laveol T 20:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Why can't you admit that only point 1 concerns you at all? Laveol covered it, pretty much. 3rdAlcove (talk) 23:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Pomaks

Just a query Most Pomaks are fluent in their Pomak dialects

Their dialects are usually classified as dialects of Bulgarian

There dialects are always classified as Bulgarian, that is what they speak. Pomak Dialects, they speak bulgarian! Any Comments.P m kocovski (talk) 12:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Pomaks consider their language to be Pomak, not Bulgarian but they are certainly no strangers to each other... (I think the official Slav Macedonian language is closer to Bulgarian than Pomak). There is even a Pomak manual to teach the language to thei children and it uses the Greek alphabet. Politis (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

So what you are trying to tell me is that the language spoken in Ohrid is closer to the language in Bulgaria than what the Pomak dialects are? I find that very hard to believe. The Pomak dialects are bulgarian. Oh and as for bieng closer to bulgarian, i wouldnt know i cant understand bulgarian. PMK1 (talk) 13:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Excellent source Greek Helsinki

http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/special_issues/CEDIME-unwgm2001/un%20wgm%20ghm-mrgg%20statement%203a%2014-5-01.doc

"Its neighbor Greece, with an ideological construct of a “100% homogeneity” to quote the Athens Journalists’ Union president among many others, is the other OSCE country besides Turkey that refuses to recognize the presence of ethno-national minorities, like Macedonians and Turks, while recognizing only one religious minority, the Muslims, as imposed by the Treaty of Lausanne. The latter are denied the right to call themselves and their associations Turks and Turkish (but allowed to call themselves and their groups Pomak or Roma). Restrictions of the freedom of association and expression of Macedonians and Turks have been criticized by ECRI, while CERD has appealed to Greece to respect self-identification and apply its General Recommendations VIII and XXIV (see above)." Mactruth (talk) 00:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

We are already familiar with that great masterpiece. And now what? --Laveol T 01:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)