Slavic language (Greece)
Slavic (
Greek: Σλάβικα
Slávika) is the term sometimes used to designate the dialects spoken by the
Slavophone (i.e.
Slavic-speaking) minority of the region of
Macedonia in northern
Greece. Linguistically, these dialects are classified as
Bulgarian or
Macedonian Slavic depending on the
abstand (distance) of each dialect from the standard languages.
According to
Peter Trudgill, the usage of the name
Slavic to refer to the language(s) spoken by these people raises
ausbau sociolinguistic questions as to whether they are dialects of
Bulgarian or
Macedonian, as both these languages have developed out of the South Slavic dialect continuum that includes also
Serbian,
Croatian,
Bosnian, and
Slovene. Unlike the standard languages in the respective countries, the Slavic dialects of Greece, are "rootless" dialects whose speakers have no access to education in the standard languages. The usage of the term
Slavic to refer to a language or dialect which could otherwise be referred to as Bulgarian or Macedonian, may have the effect of denying that it has any immediate connection with the languages of the neighbouring countries.
|
A Slavic language ABECEDAR schoolbook. |
Under the
Treaty of Sèvres in
1920 (which was never ratified [
1]), Greece undertook the obligation to open schools for minority-language children. In
1925 the government of Greece submitted copies of a schoolbook called ABECEDAR, which was written in the Slavic language for the Slavophone children and published by the Greek Ministry of Education, to the
League of Nations as evidence that they were carrying out these obligations. ABECEDAR was written in a newly adapted variety of the
Latin alphabet for the Slavic language in Greece, and not in the
Cyrillic alphabet which was the official alphabet of neighbouring
Bulgaria and
Serbia - this also shows the intent of the Greek government to create a distinctively Slavic minority, not a Bulgarian or Serbian minority; the result being that Bulgaria and Serbia would have no right to interfere in Greece's internal affairs. Another reason was to discourage the Slavophone community themselves from colluding with their ethnic affiliates accross the immediate border territories in
Bulgaria and the Serbian Kingdom to collectively compose a Macedonian national identity, this was something which had been developing and was seen as a threat to the stability not only of Greece but to
Bulgarian and
Serbian interests too.
On the
4th August 1936 the
authoritarian regime of General
Metaxas came to power, and a new state sponsored policy of Hellenisation was enacted. The aim was to Hellenise all the non-Greek speaking Orthodox Christian populations within the Greek state's territory; other Balkan countries (
Serbia,
Bulgaria,
Romania and
Albania) respectively followed similar policies. In Greece, the ensuing result left the Slavic speakers (and all other minority speech communities) forcibly suppressed, and their privileges under the Treaty of Sèvres withdrawn.
At present, the number of
Slavophones in Greece is unknown. In the latest census posing a question on mother tongue (
1951), 41,017 people declared themselves speakers of Slavic. Almost all Slavic speakers today in
Greek Macedonia also speak
Greek and most regard themselves as ethnically and culturally Greek. Many of those for whom a non-Greek identity was particularly important have tended to leave Greece during the past eighty years.
A political party promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "
Macedonian minority in Greece", and refers to the Slavic language as
Macedonian - the
Rainbow (Ουράνιο Τόξο) - was founded in September 1998, and received 2,955 votes in the region of
Macedonia in the
2004 elections. Similarly, a pro-Bulgarian political party, known as
Bulgarian Human Rights in Macedonia ('ουλγαρικά Ανθρώπινα "ικαιώματα στη Μακεδονία) was founded in June 2000, promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "
Bulgarian minority in Greece", and prefers to designate the local Slavic language as
Bulgarian. This party has not yet participated in any elections.
*
Greece*
Macedonia (Greece)*
Bulgarian language*
Macedonian language*
Bulgarians*
Macedonians (ethnic group)*
Slavic speaking minority of Greece*
Slavic peoples*
Slavic languages*
Trudgill P. (2000) "Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity" in
Language and Nationalism in Europe (Oxford : Oxford University Press)
