Bulgaria recognizes their language as a Bulgarian dialect whereas in Greece and Turkey they self-declare their language as the Pomak language.[18] The community in Greece is commonly fluent in Greek, and in Turkey, Turkish, while the communities in these two countries, especially in Turkey, are increasingly adopting Turkish as their first language as a result of education and family links with the Turkish people.[19][20]
They are not officially recognized as one people with the ethnonym of Pomaks. The term is widely used colloquially for Eastern South Slavic Muslims,[21] considered derogatory.[clarification needed] However, in Greece and Turkey the practice for declaring the ethnic group at census has been abolished for decades.[clarification needed] Different members of the group today declare a variety of ethnic identities: Bulgarian,[22][23] Pomak,[24][25][26]ethnic Muslims, Turkish and other.[27]
^Carl Waldman; Catherine Mason (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. Infobase Publishing. pp. 607–. ISBN978-1-4381-2918-1. living in the Rhodope Mountains in Thrace in southern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and northwestern Turkey.
^Hugh Poulton; Suha Taji-Farouki (January 1997). Muslim Identity and the Balkan State. Hurst. pp. 33–. ISBN978-1-85065-276-2. The Pomaks, known officially in Bulgaria as Bulgarian Muhammadans or Bulgarian Muslims, are an ethno-confessional minority at present numbering about 220,000 people.
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