Pomak language ( el, πομακική γλώσσα, ''pomakiki glosa'' or πομακικά, ''pomakika''; bg, помашки език, ''pomaški ezik''; tr, Pomakça) is a term used in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

to refer to some of the Rup dialects of the

Bulgarian language Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians. Along with the closely related Macedonian la ...

spoken by the Pomaks of

Western Thrace Western Thrace or West Thrace ( el, �υτικήΘράκη, '' ytikíThráki'' ; tr, Batı Trakya; bg, Западна/Беломорска Тракия, ''Zapadna/Belomorska Trakiya''), also known as Greek Thrace, is a Geography, geograp ...

in Greece and Eastern Thrace in Turkey. These dialects are native also in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

, and are classified as part of the Smolyan subdialect. Not all Pomaks speak this dialect as their mother language.

History

Some grammatical forms of the Rup dialects, published by the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen in 1907, have a striking resemblance to the grammatical forms of the

Armenian language Armenian ( classical: , reformed: , , ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is the official language of Armenia. Historically spoken in the Armenian Highlands, today Armenian is widely spoken t ...

. As well, the Rup dialects have slightly different forms of demonstrative suffixes (exercising also functions of the possessive pronouns) from the Bulgarian

Tran dialect The Tran dialect is a Bulgarian dialect, member of the Transitional dialects, which is spoken in the regions of Tran and Godech in central western Bulgaria and in the Western Outlands. It borders on the Belogradchik dialect to the north, the Sofi ...

and the modern standard Macedonian language. There are publications concerning the vocabulary of the Rup dialects and anthroponyms of Armenian origin which overlap areas, populated by

Paulicians Paulicianism (Classical Armenian: Պաւղիկեաններ, ; grc, Παυλικιανοί, "The followers of Paul"; Arab sources: ''Baylakānī'', ''al Bayāliqa'' )Nersessian, Vrej (1998). The Tondrakian Movement: Religious Movements in the ...

from the 15th to 18th centuries. According to the 1935 census in Turkey, 3881 people in Eastern Thrace identified their mother tongue as Bulgarian and 18,382 as Pomak. The overall statistic from 1935 shows that 41,041 people spoke Pomak as their mother tongue or as a secondary dialect.

Examples

;Some phrases and words Some words and phrases in the Pomak language are borrowed from Turkish, Greek, and other languages.

Grammar

Spatio-pragmatic and temporal-modal uses of nominals and noun modifiers

Three

deictics In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...

(-s-, -t- and -n-) are used for spatio-pragmatic and temporal-modal reference in

nominal Nominal may refer to: Linguistics and grammar * Nominal (linguistics), one of the parts of speech * Nominal, the adjectival form of "noun", as in "nominal agreement" (= "noun agreement") * Nominal sentence, a sentence without a finite verb * Nou ...

s. These deictics are used among others in noun modifiers such as definite

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...

s and

demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

s: Adamou, E. 2011, Temporal uses of Definite Articles and Demonstratives in Pomak (Slavic, Greece), Lingua 121(5) : 871-889. {, class=wikitable , The cat , , (close to the speaker, here and now), , ''Koteso'' , - , The cat , , (close to the addressee or

realis A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...

past), , ''Koteto'' , - , The cat , , (distal, realis future, irrealis or habitual), , ''Koteno'' , - , This is grand-father's snake, , , , ''Aisos e dedvasa zmie'' , - , That is grand-father's chair, , , , ''Ainos e dedvasa skemle''

References

External links

Report on the Pomak language by the Greek Helsinki Committee

Pomaks Dialects of the Bulgarian language Languages of Greece Languages of Turkey Language naming *Website of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, study "Changing the Signs: Media and Religion", Snezhana Popova, "The Heroes of the Media Story", 1997: In recent years, he has baptized many Bulgarian Muslims (Bulgarians who forcibly converted to Islam centuries ago) in the Rhodopes. 08. 11. 2005) to thousands ("Standart" newspaper, "Father Boyan Saraev: I'm not a good husband" Archive of the original from 2009-04-16 in Wayback Machine., August 10, 2008).

History

Examples

Grammar

Spatio-pragmatic and temporal-modal uses of nominals and noun modifiers

References

Further reading

External links