Karamanlides

[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]

Originally Posted by Jordan Piperkata

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]

Originally Posted by Jordan Piperkata

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

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]

Originally Posted by BigBlackBeast

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]

Originally Posted by Jordan Piperkata

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]

Originally Posted by Jordan Piperkata

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!!