Karamanlides

[akritas]

The tribe Karamanlides lived in the region of Karaman of The Ottoman Empire. The region is well known as Cappadocia. (http://www.tufts.edu/org/hellenic/m-asia/cappa/cappa.html) Also there were many Karamanlides living in Constantinople (Istanbul) and other provinces of the Empire. Karamanlides were a Christian Orthodox people, monolingual with Turkish. They were writing Turkish with Greek alphabets. Today, only a 80-100 people group remaining from this tribe live in Constantinople. All of the Karamanlides were sent to Greece after the exchange of populations (http://www.megarevma.net/exchange.htm).

Karamanlides used Turkish as the church language and translated the bible into Karamanlidika. Also the first novel written in the Ottoman Empire was Temasha-e Dounia by a Karamanlis Evangelinos Missailidis(1872). In this novel, Ottoman Empire is characterized through the eyes of a Greek living in Constantinople. Also many religious, law, philosophy, medical books were written or translated in Karamanlidika language. One of such books is named Anadolu Türküleri(The Songs of Anatolia), by Stauros Stauridis(1896). A lyric from the book:
BIRER BIRER SAYDIM DA YEDI YIL OLDU
DIKTIĞIN FIDANLAR MEYVAYA DURDU
SENINLE GIDENLER SILAYA DONDU
ISTANBUL YOLUNA DIKTIM GOZUMU
I counted the years one by one and it made up of seven
The saplings you planted now give fruit
Those who had gone with you returned to homeland
I still have my eyes on the roads from Istanbul

Also there were newspapers published in Karamanlidika as Anatoli, which was established by Evangelinos Missailidis in 1851 and continued to circulate till 1914.

By the exchange treaty (http://www.megarevma.net/exchange.htm) both Greece and Turkey solved their ethnic minority problems. In a radical and bitter way. The Muslims in Greece and The Orthodox Greeks in Turkey were exchanged.

In 1924, all the Karamanlides started the immigration to Greece. When they were transported to the harbour of Mersin, neither of them had an idea about the place they're going, besides most of them were seeing the sight of the sea for the first time. The Karamanlides were regarded as foreigners also in Greece in the first time.



A written literature was developed then by the Turkish-speaking Orthodox of the Karamania principality. This literature was religious at the beginning, called Karamania literature. It was written in Turkish with Greek letters by Greek writers. The term Karamanlis as it is used today is restrictive and vague. All the inhabitants of Karamania are called Karamanlides. At first the Turkish- speaking Orthodox inhabitants of Kappadokia are called Karamanlides, too but in the end the term applied to all Turkish- speaking Orthodox people in Asia Minor. As we have mentioned, apart from the Turkish-speaking inhabitants of Kappadokia there were 31 Greek- speaking communities untill 1924. Dockins, the English linguist who visited Kappadokia early in the 20th century, studied the dialects of these villages and divided them in three groups: a) the dialect of Silly b) the dialect of Kappadokia and c) the dialect of Farasa. Among the Greek-speaking villages were Farasa, Malakopi, Anaku, Silata, Floita, Axos, Troxos, Goundounos, Aravani, Misti and the colonies of Tsarikli, Dela, Tseltek and Karadzaviran.

SOURCES:
http://www.megarevma.net/Karamanlides.htm
http://www.kappadokes.gr/english/history/his_pages/his_19.htm

[Amyntas]

Guys can anyone tell me a few things about them? are they greeks? or christian turks? you get so much different informatian about them

[akritas]

Guys can anyone tell me a few things about them? are they greeks? or christian turks? you get so much different informatian about them

http://www.megarevma.net/Karamanlides.htm

It's up to you what was them origin:wacko:

[Ellinas]

Yes, the only sure is that the Karamanlides were Turkish speaking Orthodox Christians. Not sure about their racial backround.

[Tsontos]

Its not possible they were Turkish racially or Kurdish for that matter. Are you telling me that under Ottoman sharia law (where the penalty for converting to Christianity was death), in the heart of Anatolia, they gave up all the privledges of being a muslim and converted en masse to Greek Orthodoxy. This would have meant paying crippeling amount of taxes, sending their children away as Jannisseries to never be seen again??

It was common practice for the Ottomans to force the christians of Asia Minor to choose between their language and their religion. The Karamanlides chose to keep their religion. thats why their are many Janniseries in the Ottoman records found with the name Karamanli. Only Christian children were taken as janniseries remember.

They were Turkish speaking Greek Orthodox Christians by the 1920s. Racially they were likely to be Greek for the most part and possibly some Armenians as well as they were the other Christian people present in the area.

[Oka]

hello guys!
i am first time at your forum.
was reading a bit and decided to ask you a question.
sorry in advance if i did not choose perhaps the correct topic..
in any case, my question is about the last name Karaman...how does it sound to you? i know you might say Turkish...but is there any Greek background?
Thank you all in advance
Olga Karaman
just in case, my mail is oka220180@yahoo.com

[akritas]

hello guys!
i am first time at your forum.
was reading a bit and decided to ask you a question.
sorry in advance if i did not choose perhaps the correct topic..
in any case, my question is about the last name Karaman...how does it sound to you? i know you might say Turkish...but is there any Greek background?
Thank you all in advance
Olga Karaman
just in case, my mail is oka220180@yahoo.com

kara- is a turkish loan (propably persian origin) and not Greek and mean black.
κάρα is the greek word that mean head
its up to you what finally is the origin of the karaman

[Oka]

thank you, akritas!
i guess the right thing is to make a research where my anchestors come from...
otherwise, i always have 2 options: greek and turkish...but for some reason, i'd love to know my anchestors were greek :)

[Truth Bearer]

Karamanlis means black Christian in turkish(Manlis shorthened for Christs name Emmanuil)They were Christians who became isolated once the Ottomans took over the region.We believe they were Greek speakers originally but due to being marginalised they lost the language but still kept their faith.

[Dianatomia]

Hi guys,

I am also new on this forum. I'd like to give my two cents.

The origin of the name does not mean a thing. Since names were given to Greeks by non-Greek administrations who at a certain period of time ruled the Greek population.

Karamanlides could not be of Turkic origin because they were Christian. So that leaves a few options. My guess is that they were of Anatolian origin. If they lived in the west of modern day Turkey they may have been Greeks. But this is obviously not the case cause the Karamanlides lived to the east of today's Ankara. Best guess is that they were Anatolian tribes who in the Byzantine era became Hellenized.
Later the Turks came and Turkofied most of the Anatolian population. Some of them though choose not to convert to Islam and thus only adopted the Turkish language.

So their roots are Anatolian. But Anatolians and Greeks were never that different to begin with. That's why Turks and Greeks sometimes resemble. Turks are 'primarily' Anatolian peoples who were Hellenised in the Byzantine era and were Tourkofied in the Ottoman era.

[kostas68]

Hi guys,

I am also new on this forum. I'd like to give my two cents.

The origin of the name does not mean a thing. Since names were given to Greeks by non-Greek administrations who at a certain period of time ruled the Greek population.

Karamanlides could not be of Turkic origin because they were Christian. So that leaves a few options. My guess is that they were of Anatolian origin. If they lived in the west of modern day Turkey they may have been Greeks. But this is obviously not the case cause the Karamanlides lived to the east of today's Ankara. Best guess is that they were Anatolian tribes who in the Byzantine era became Hellenized.
Later the Turks came and Turkofied most of the Anatolian population. Some of them though choose not to convert to Islam and thus only adopted the Turkish language.

So their roots are Anatolian. But Anatolians and Greeks were never that different to begin with. That's why Turks and Greeks sometimes resemble. Turks are 'primarily' Anatolian peoples who were Hellenised in the Byzantine era and were Tourkofied in the Ottoman era.

I believe that the Turkish people originates at 85-90% at least either from the ancient indoeuropean tribes of Asia Minor(Phryges,Lydoi,Kares,Leleges) whose hellenization started from the Hellenistic era or from the ancient Greek colonists.I remember that in a visit i made in Constantinople 18 years ago,i noticed that only a 10-15 % of the whole population had classical Turkish-Mongolian facial features(pure <Tourkofatses> as i said>.The rest was a typical sample of the mediteranean race and many of them were blond with light-coloured skin.I saw even a red-haired with freckles on his face in Tekirdag(Raidestos).

[Hellas7]

Hi guys,

I am also new on this forum. I'd like to give my two cents.

The origin of the name does not mean a thing. Since names were given to Greeks by non-Greek administrations who at a certain period of time ruled the Greek population.

Karamanlides could not be of Turkic origin because they were Christian. So that leaves a few options. My guess is that they were of Anatolian origin. If they lived in the west of modern day Turkey they may have been Greeks. But this is obviously not the case cause the Karamanlides lived to the east of today's Ankara. Best guess is that they were Anatolian tribes who in the Byzantine era became Hellenized.
Later the Turks came and Turkofied most of the Anatolian population. Some of them though choose not to convert to Islam and thus only adopted the Turkish language.

So their roots are Anatolian. But Anatolians and Greeks were never that different to begin with. That's why Turks and Greeks sometimes resemble. Turks are 'primarily' Anatolian peoples who were Hellenised in the Byzantine era and were Tourkofied in the Ottoman era.


I think that is very, very accurate. That has always been my thoughts also.

[Oka]

thank you, for your comments guys!

[Dianatomia]

I believe that the Turkish people originates at 85-90% at least either from the ancient indoeuropean tribes of Asia Minor(Phryges,Lydoi,Kares,Leleges) whose hellenization started from the Hellenistic era or from the ancient Greek colonists.I remember that in a visit i made in Constantinople 18 years ago,i noticed that only a 10-15 % of the whole population had classical Turkish-Mongolian facial features(pure <Tourkofatses> as i said>.The rest was a typical sample of the mediteranean race and many of them were blond with light-coloured skin.I saw even a red-haired with freckles on his face in Tekirdag(Raidestos).

Well, to say that Turks are primarily Anatolians is one thing, but to say that this equates being primarily Indo-Europeans is another. Not all the peoples of ancient Anatolia were indo-europeans. Even the ancient Greeks in peninsular Greece were only part indo European because they absorbed many pre-Greeks who were not of Indo-european origin.

Another thing about the alleged mongolic features the Turks are supposed to have. An Ottoman Turk does not equal a mongol. Turks were nomadic peoples and as they wandered around the world, they absorbed other peoples such as Persians and Arabs. So when they conquered the Byzantine empire it is very likely that they were heavily mixed allready. It is thus very difficult to make predictions as to how Turkish an Anatolian is, because we don't know to what degree the original Turks were mongolic. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that they are mostly Anatolians.

[Mygdonia]

There is enough evidence they held their christian faith very sternley.

It is possible they were of Armenian, Assyrian, Greek or local Anatolian peoples.

[Jordan Piperkata]

Karamanlis means black Christian in turkish(Manlis shorthened for Christs name Emmanuil)They were Christians who became isolated once the Ottomans took over the region.We believe they were Greek speakers originally but due to being marginalised they lost the language but still kept their faith.

so it is more probable to change your language than to change your faith..... :huh:

[Draco]

so it is more probable to change your language than to change your faith..... :huh:
Over a very long time I suppose yes. It was a capital offence to repudiate Islam in the Ottoman Empire.

[Jordan Piperkata]

Over a very long time I suppose yes. It was a capital offence to repudiate Islam in the Ottoman Empire.

let me give you some examples of peoples that did not change their language but did change their faith...... Albanians, Bosnians, Pomaks and the Dönmehs just to name a few.....

could you give me an example of a people doing the opposite except the Karamanlides?

[Mygdonia]

Putting this into context:

Greeks in diaspora whose family has moved to the 'new world' in the 1950's majority of 3rd generation 'Greek-American' for example doesn't know a word of Greek.

...and it has only been 50 yrs....imagine 400 yrs...

[Victor]

let me give you some examples of peoples that did not change their language but did change their faith...... Albanians, Bosnians, Pomaks and the Dönmehs just to name a few.....

could you give me an example of a people doing the opposite except the Karamanlides?YOu fyromanians must have changed your language because it certainly is sharply different from the Slavic my relatives speak.Coming as I do from a village with a substantial pro-fyromanian minority,its amazing how many times Ive heard them say about the fyrom language that "I cant understand people from YUgoslavia".Even the stari who grew up in the old country say it.
SO tell me Jordan,was the language always different up there,or is the HUnt-Kolishevski codified language(Serbadonia I believe Lubi calls it) an artificial entity imposed on fyroms population by the Yugoslav communists?

[Truth Bearer]

Piperi you are stupid aren't you??These people didn't change their language on purpose it was a gradual erosion over the cenjturies.The Donmehs changed by choice their religion for self interest the Bosnians were Bogomils so to them they at cleast found some protection from their new masters.The Albanians again were never that religious they really never gave 2 hoots about spirituality(except the Arvanites)to them it was survival and how to make ends meet.The Pomaks(yr cousins Piperi) well they were never that religious they became one though for protection and money from the Turks.
Can you tell us Piperi as a person of Vlach descent how did you lose yr language and adopted the South Western Bulgarian dialect?Have you ever bothered to ask yr dedo?Why don't you ask and try and find out the truth about who you are and where you come from all that region where you come from have had strong Vlach populations.Is it possible to tell us how or why you people lsot the Vlach lingo??No need to be embarassed as we are all good neighbours here...

[BigBlackBeast]

let me give you some examples of peoples that did not change their language but did change their faith...... Albanians, Bosnians, Pomaks and the Dönmehs just to name a few.....

could you give me an example of a people doing the opposite except the Karamanlides?

Jordan,

I think your simplistic observation reveals an apparent incapacity on your part to analyze effectively. You have missed a very obvious difference between the Balkan groups you mention above (and yes there are others - eg the Cretan Muslims who were transferred to Turkey with the 1923 exchange) and the Karamanlides.

The Karamanlides were isolated, for almost nine centuries, in the depths of Anatolia amongst an overwhelmingly preponderant Turkish population. Their lands formed part of the first Turkish (Seljuk) states in the Anatolian plateau and remained this way ever since. According to relevant Ottoman statistics, (Kemal Karpat - Summary of 1906/7 Census; p. 164) the Greeks of the Konya region - to which area the Karaman region belonged - comprised no more than 2% of the total population and were nowhere found in any compact contiguous zones.

In contrast, nowhere in the Balkans (not in Albania; not in Bosnia; not in the Rhodope mountain regions and not in Crete) did the Turks form anywhere near such an overwhelming proportion of the population. It was thus relatively easy for the new converts to Islam to retain their original language. Their major interaction was, after all, with Christians who spoke the same tongue. In fact this was the case also in parts of the Pontus that apostasized to Islam, where Pontic Greek remained the language of the converts (and is still spoken there in significant numbers) - this despite the Turks forming a good 60-70% of the region's overall population!

The 'Karamanlides' Greeks had no such recourse and although they clung to their ancestor's faith, their Greek language eventually succumbed to the surrounding Turkish. It is interesting to view the fate of their language with reference to the experience of the Greek dialects of Cappadocia further east. These Cappadocian dialects were also isolated from the rest of the Greek world but comprised a significantly larger proportion of the total population of their specific region compared to the Karamanlides. Even so, Cappadocian Greek was subject to very extensive attrition in the face of the surrounding Turkish and by the end of the 19th century, those areas that had not disappeared entirely to Turkish, were very heavily influenced by it. It was a question as to how many generations more the Greek language there would survive.

Now ... hypothetically ... if, at the point that we first encounter studies on the Greeks of Cappadocia, the process of linguistic erosion happened to have been further advanced, to a degree that Greek was no longer spoken there, we would have a situation identical to that which is observable with the Karamanlides. In such a scenario, Jordan and his blockhead compatriots would of-course see an easy opportunity to deny that the Cappadocian refugees who made it to Greece (in our imagined scenario two or so generations later than they did) were anything but Christian Turks....!

[BigBlackBeast]

so it is more probable to change your language than to change your faith..... :huh:

For the reasons I explained to you in my previous post, it was far more probable in the Balkans for converts to Islam to retain their original language. So yes I can understand your cynicism yet I can also see your relative ignorance and your inability to expand your thinking.

That it is very probable to 'change your language [rather] than your faith' should immediately be observable to you if you expand your horizon just a little and consider the Middle East. There you will find numerous examples analogous to the Karamanlides (indeed the case of the Karamanlides is in many ways more akin to the 'invasion model' in those lands). There are numerous instances of linguistically Arabised pre-Islamic groups who have retained the religion (whether Coptic, Nestorian, Orthodox or Maronite Christianity; or Mandaeans etc) of their originally non-Arabic speaking ancestors. Indeed it is probably the norm in situations where the adherents of the new religion - bringing with them a language of the new faith - outnumber the pre-existing groups.

[Jordan Piperkata]

For the reasons I explained to you in my previous post, it was far more probable in the Balkans for converts to Islam to retain their original language. So yes I can understand your cynicism yet I can also see your relative ignorance and your inability to expand your thinking.

That it is very probable to 'change your language [rather] than your faith' should immediately be observable to you if you expand your horizon just a little and consider the Middle East. There you will find numerous examples analogous to the Karamanlides (indeed the case of the Karamanlides is in many ways more akin to the 'invasion model' in those lands). There are numerous instances of linguistically Arabised pre-Islamic groups who have retained the religion (whether Coptic, Nestorian, Orthodox or Maronite Christianity; or Mandaeans etc) of their originally non-Arabic speaking ancestors. Indeed it is probably the norm in situations where the adherents of the new religion - bringing with them a language of the new faith - outnumber the pre-existing groups.


Good to see that I made you think, now lets play with the Vaalades, how do they fit into your above little thesis BBB?

[Draco]

Jordan, I don't understand why you don't understand this. In the Ottoman Empire you could only convert to Islam from another religion, you could not convert from Islam to another religion because that was an offense (apostasy) and carried the death penalty (it still does in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia). Changing language was another matter altogether; since language was not institutionalised in "millets" people just adopted the languages of the areas in which they lived without hinderance.

Regarding the Valaades, I'd expect their case to have been analogous to that of the Pomaks.

[BigBlackBeast]

Good to see that I made you think, now lets play with the Vaalades, how do they fit into your above little thesis BBB?

The objective here Jordan is to make you think ... but apparently you still have a little difficulty in achieving this. The tone of your remark suggests that you've made some sort of triumphant point ... and in your mind, no doubt, you think you have. Ridiculous.

As Draco points out, the case of the Vala(h)ades is perfectly analogous to the case of the Pomaks, Bosnians, Cretan Muslims etc. That is, Islamised groups, retaining their original language given that they are surrounded by Christian peoples speaking the same tongue with whom they mainly interact (rather than with Turks given the relative paucity of Turks in their midst).

In case you are not aware, the Vala(h)ades, were Greek-speaking Muslims inhabiting a number of villages in the valley of the Aliakmon river. This area was entirely populated by indigenous Greek-speaking Makedones (just like the Elimeioi, Orestioi and Tymphaioi of ancient times before them). The nearest Turks were the Koniar Turks of the Kailar region (equivalent to the modern eparchy of Eordaia and the southern parts of the Florina region).

Do you understand now how they fit into my 'little thesis'?

[Tsontos]

let me give you some examples of peoples that did not change their language but did change their faith...... Albanians, Bosnians, Pomaks and the Dönmehs just to name a few.....



All those peoples you mention were converting to Islam, the faith of the conquorer and tax collector. The penalty for converting to Christianity if you are a muslim was death, not to mention christians pay more taxes and have to be subject to humiliations such as dismounting from your horse when you pass a mounted Muslim. It's a useless analogy you make.

could you give me an example of a people doing the opposite except the Karamanlides?

Yes. Turkish speakers in Macedonia, Vardar and parts of Thrace, who adopted the Bulgarian Exarchate. Not all patriarchists and Exarchists spoke Greek or Bulgarian. Mostly this happened in Anatolia in relation to Armenians and Greeks (the christian population of deep Anatolia) however.





Olga, the eymology of your surename has absolutley no bearing on the racial or ethnic affinity of your ancestors.

[Truth Bearer]

BBB excellent post mate well done!!