We used to speak Albanian and call ourselves Romans

Originally Posted by Xiotis

Jokers like Mangovski also (mis)quote Finlay's descriptions of Albanians/Arvanites in Attica with the purpose of showing that there were no Greeks in Greece until the Germans invented them out of Albanians, as his buddies Stefovski and the rest of the maknut geniuses are preaching. Unfortunately for the maknuts 'scholastic' academy, Finlay describes vast population of Greeks in addition to Vlachs, Albanians and Slavs. And even more unfortunate is that Finlay makes no mention of any "ethnic Macedonians". Perhaps Mangovski, who is a promotor of the "Greeks were invented" theory, can explain Finlay's accounts to us.

Finaly states the the Greeks formed the majority of the population in six Ottoman Pashliks back during the 1860's....

Originally Posted by SARISA

As usual, my friend Constantinos aka Kiril has written an intelligent post. Although I sometimes abhor his language (scum etc) he remains the only reason I visit this group, the rest of you guys are amateurs.

Let's look at some of his text re Dimou:

c) A greek is not made by genes but by self-identification:
http://www.ndimou.gr/newsarticle_gr.asp?news_id=376

How many of you guys really understand the above?


Also - this a gift to Slavko who had become enamoured of Dimou recently, here's what he had to say about the name issue:
http://www.ndimou.gr/newsarticle_gr.asp?news_id=353

Thank you for the gift. I understand the pressure one must feel by giving unpopular statements. That just shows what kind of country is Greece.

Yes we are amateurs sarisa...But it appears that you try take things out on context to try to prove a point. I suggest try not to do that cause you'll juts end up looking foolish!

Originally Posted by chicagogeorge

Finaly states the the Greeks formed the majority of the population in six Ottoman Pashliks back during the 1860's

How the FYROM propgandists have the audacity to use Finlay as proof that Greeks did not exist and were somehow invented during the early 19th century is beyond me! Finlay's population statistics address the period of the Greek revolution. His accounts were recorded before the Germans could have allegedly manufactured Greeks out of Albanians as the crackpots and liars of Mangovski's ilk claim. What is most amazing is that they completely overlook the fact that first hand witnesses of the Greek revolution, guys like Finlay and Gordon, dont make any mention of "ethnic Macedonians". But this doesn't stop the charletans and quack scholars of the FYROM diaspora from citing them in support of their absurd theories....

Originally Posted by SARISA

Let's look at some of his text re Dimou:

c) A greek is not made by genes but by self-identification:
http://www.ndimou.gr/newsarticle_gr.asp?news_id=376.

Yes,there exist people of Arvanite or Vlach origin that declare themselves Greeks.Isn't that case the same as with former Bulgarians declaring themselves "Ethnic Macedonians"?The only difference is that Macedonians were never a distinct ethnicity in ancient time.

Originally Posted by SARISA

How many of you guys really understand the above?

We can understand it,Sariki.Now tell us whether you can understand what your hero wanted to point out with this statement below



Does he try to say "Don't worry,Bulgarian brothers,i never forget that i was a Bulgarian till recently and i will always feel as such,regardless of how i call myself"?

And what about this?

Originally Posted by Xiotis

What is most amazing is that they completely overlook the fact that first hand witnesses of the Greek revolution, guys like Finlay and Gordon, dont make any mention of "ethnic Macedonians"

Furthermore they clearly call Bulgarians the ancestors of today's Scopians.

Originally Posted by Xiotis

Jokers like Mangovski also (mis)quote Finlay's descriptions of Albanians/Arvanites in Attica with the purpose of showing that there were no Greeks in Greece until the Germans invented them out of Albanians

Attica exactly.. but what was Attica in the time of Finaly?
Athens was but a village composed of a population of some 4000 people, the entire prefecture had slightly over 7000 inhabitants and Peiraias and Faliro together had the massive total of 46!!! (note that the 46 include the monks from the monastery of St. Spyridon).
So in reality what Finlay describes is a population that doesn't even constitute the 0.1% of the total..

Originally Posted by New Politics

Do you what to prove your point even if you are wrong? Well this is the way it is done.

First take a few facts out of context:

• A large population of Attiki spoke Albanian
• The population of Greece called themselves Romans

Now distort those facts by placing them in a context that fits your needs of how you want to the story to go. As for example this quote:




So now you have these Albanians that have been told that they are Greeks, which as we know by the construct above is ridicules. Therefore their request to return the “Parthenon Marbles” back to the city of their birth is also ridicules. Do you see how that works?

But no one asks one important question:

• Who changed these Albanian speaking people to speak Greek? Not only speak Greek, but in a manner that is closer and more understandable to ancient Greek (2000yr) than English is to Old English (1000yr) which is not understandable.

Well the truth of the matter is that these Albanian speaking people were Greeks that started to speak Albanian. Why on earth would these people start to speak Albanian? Are we forgetting Ali Pasha, that nice Albanian over lord that governed a large part of Greece?

Take a wild guess what Lingua Franca dominated Greece at the time of Ali Pasha.


In fact the majority of Albanian speaker in Attiki were in fact bilingual Greeks.
These bilingual Greeks in southern Greece spoke Greek and Albanian as the Thessaloniki Greeks spoke Turkish and Greek, and the those Greeks north of there spoke Bulgarian and Greek and those in Canada speak English and Greek.

Not all Greeks in these regions were bilingual but those that did not speak Greek had a strong sense of being Greek by their relationships with those bilingual relatives.


It was for this reason that the Greek offensive against the other peoples of the Balkans was so successful. Albanian speakers who were not Albanian fought against Albanians, Turkish speakers who were not Turkish fought against Turks, Bulgarians speakers who were not Bulgarians fought against Bulgarians.


That is why we are Hellenes. We are neither Albanians, nor Turk, nor Bulgarians, but have been culturally influenced by these people as we have influenced them.

The separation between Greeks on one hand and Albanain and Turks onthe other whom both spoke Albanian or Turkish was the religion, Christian and Muslium.

The separation between Greek and Bulgarian was the bilingual relations that existed to the point that some Greeks may have thought themselves as Bulgarians as that was the dominate language but not the other way around due to the difficulties that came with a Greek identity.

Greek folk-songs from the Turkish provinces of Greece, Albania, Thessaly ... By Lucy Mary Jane Garnett, John S. Stuart-Glennie




A few things to note:

• Epiros, Thessalia and Macedonia are called "Northern Greece". (Why? because of the Greek population.)
• Greco-Albanian conferation would give "Greece an army of hereditary fighters" Meaning Greeks in Albanian.
  (To do what with?)
• "Enfranchisement of Northern Greece from the Turkish, and of its salvation from a Slavonic yoke"

So now we come back to the "who or rather what were those bilingual speaking Albanians that occupied Athens and Attiki? How did we Greeks convert these Albanians to speak Greek, when the Turks did not convert them to Turkish and the Slavs did not convert them to a Slavic language?

Is the Greek language so compelling and are we Greeks so magnificent and did Greece have the tools to complete eradicate the Albanian language from all of Greece? Not likely.

These Albanian speakers were bilingual Greeks. The instance of a race of people to reassert themselves in a land that they had lost to another race has never been done. To claim the few remaining Greeks after a war of independence had no internal conflict between them and the Albanians, on who would be the top dog is absolutely laughable.

Again these Albanian speaking people were nothing more than Greeks.

Originally Posted by Orphic_Hymn

Attica exactly.. but what was Attica in the time of Finaly?Athens was but a village composed of a population of some 4000 people, the entire prefecture had slightly over 7000 inhabitants and Peiraias and Faliro together had the massive total of 46!!! (note that the 46 include the monks from the monastery of St. Spyridon).
So in reality what Finlay describes is a population that doesn't even constitute the 0.1% of the total..

This is Attica's population in 1828... a whopping 20,000. Even if we were to say that they were all Arvanites (the majority were), 20,000 is nothing out of a population of 1.2 million for the Greek kingdom







This might help put things into perspective on the size of the Arvanite population in Greece (the KINGDOM ONLY) during the early 1800's










and mind you, the Arvanites, who had lived on Greek land since the 14th AD had virtually no ties with the Albanians. In fact, they wanted nothing to do with them





Sariski, get it through your thick skull, The Greek language has survived in virtually the same areas for 4000 years. Did migrations occur? Of course. Were other languages spoken in Greek lands? Of course, this was true even in ancient Greece. Were non Greeks assimilated into Greeks over the course of time? Yes. This has been happening in Greece for thousands of years, as it happens in almost every single country all over the world. There is no such thing as a blue blood....


and as for the article.... take a look at what was said about the Greeks in 1855....






Just look where the Greek language was spoken in the early 1900's






Now for a moment, can you please tell me why the early sources (pre 1920) make NO MENTION OF ANY SEPARATE MACEDONIAN OR MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE IN GREECE OR ELSEWHERE!!!

Originally Posted by New Politics

Do you what to prove your point even if you are wrong? Well this is the way it is done.

First take a few facts out of context:

• A large population of Attiki spoke Albanian
• The population of Greece called themselves Romans

Now distort those facts by placing them in a context that fits your needs of how you want to the story to go. As for example this quote:




So now you have these Albanians that have been told that they are Greeks, which as we know by the construct above is ridicules. Therefore their request to return the “Parthenon Marbles” back to the city of their birth is also ridicules. Do you see how that works?

But no one asks one important question:

• Who changed these Albanian speaking people to speak Greek? Not only speak Greek, but in a manner that is closer and more understandable to ancient Greek (2000yr) than English is to Old English (1000yr) which is not understandable.

Well the truth of the matter is that these Albanian speaking people were Greeks that started to speak Albanian. Why on earth would these people start to speak Albanian? Are we forgetting Ali Pasha, that nice Albanian over lord that governed a large part of Greece?

Take a wild guess what Lingua Franca dominated Greece at the time of Ali Pasha.


In fact the majority of Albanian speaker in Attiki were in fact bilingual Greeks.
These bilingual Greeks in southern Greece spoke Greek and Albanian as the Thessaloniki Greeks spoke Turkish and Greek, and the those Greeks north of there spoke Bulgarian and Greek and those in Canada speak English and Greek.

Not all Greeks in these regions were bilingual but those that did not speak Greek had a strong sense of being Greek by their relationships with those bilingual relatives.


It was for this reason that the Greek offensive against the other peoples of the Balkans was so successful. Albanian speakers who were not Albanian fought against Albanians, Turkish speakers who were not Turkish fought against Turks, Bulgarians speakers who were not Bulgarians fought against Bulgarians.


That is why we are Hellenes. We are neither Albanians, nor Turk, nor Bulgarians, but have been culturally influenced by these people as we have influenced them.

The separation between Greeks on one hand and Albanain and Turks onthe other whom both spoke Albanian or Turkish was the religion, Christian and Muslium.

The separation between Greek and Bulgarian was the bilingual relations that existed to the point that some Greeks may have thought themselves as Bulgarians as that was the dominate language but not the other way around due to the difficulties that came with a Greek identity.

Correction to above

I'm the first one to look for errors in concepts and the notion that Greeks and Albanians intermingle effortless struck me as odd considering that Serbs and Bulgarians could split along ethnic line, two people that understood each other and were the same religion. So I took the position that the Albanians must have been Greeks that spoke Albanian.
Some of the above may be true, but on further reading I now admit that I was wrong, but below is point to my assertion that two different ethnicities living next to each other during a time of struggle against a third party will eventually turn on each other over past grievances.

The state of relations between Greek and Albanian in Greece prior to the war of independence. Note the isolation of one from the other.



During the war after a short period of friendship motivated exclusively by the relatively small Albanians community hostilities broke out between Greek and Albanains where Albanians fought with the Turks.





The massacre of Albanians by Greeks and the isolation between these two people indicates the hostility that existed by Greeks of the Albanians. No absorption of Albanians in Greek society occurred. The Albanians were force to side with the Turks for survival.



Whenever I see a too rosy picture painted of one or another community I question the reality and validity of what is being said.


You do not survive as a people for 3000 years because you are nice. If anything you survive because of a bloody and waring past.