Talk:Demographics of Greece

Comments

I'm sick of all this Greek propaganda that Greece is supposedly 98% Greek! We all know there are large minorities in Greece, its not going to cause the sky to fall in if you admit it. Greece is flush with Macedonians, Turks, Albanians, Jews, Pomaks, Vlachs, Roma and who knows how many Middle Easterners! How do you expect a country that was created out of imperialism and territorial expansion not to have minorities??

User:NikosP keeps removing information about the Greek Helsinki Monitor Report. His summaries are "first deal with the millions of Belarusians, Germans and Ukrainians in Poland, then come to try to villify Greece" and "revert soiling campaign by user Borachek". This suggests that in his opinion any mention about ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities in Greece is "villifying and soiling Greece". This in turn makes me think that his reversions are made from a Greek nationalist standpoint, which denies the presence of ethnic minorities in Greece, considered "impurities". But maybe I am wrong. I kindly ask user NikosP to explain his reason for deletion of the part about the report. Boraczek 08:41, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry but you will have to give some good reasons why the Greek Helsinki Monitor Report should be considered NPOV and accurate. I have never been called nationalist (in fact many times I was told that I'm not patriot) but these numbers seem far from the truth, specially about the 200,000 Slavic speakers. I live in Macedonia, Greece and rarely I have heard someone speak a slavic language. I believe the true number would be about 30000 and of them only 10000 or less would claim a non-greek national identity with the majority of them to claim of being Bulgarians. I consider Greek Helsinki Monitor a non-neutral organisation and I'm willing to delete the report also, if you don't give some good reasons not to. --geraki 00:47, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your input and sorry for the late answer.

The Greek Helsinki Group Monitor Report is a serious scientific inquiry. It doesn't take as granted either statistics of the Greek government (which consider the matter from a clearly nationalistic standpoint) or statistics of the organizations of minorities (which are extremely likely to be biased). It tries to find independent measures of the number of members of minorities. And it considers the matter of the national or ethnic consciousness as well.

The estimate of 100,000-250,000 Slav speakers in Greece is supported by many other sources as well. Please take into account that there are 2,315,000 inhabitants of Makedonia, so the Slavic speakers constitute less than 10%. Given that the Slavic language is less prestigious, there's no wonder you rarely hear it. Even the Greek authorities acknowledge the presence of some 100,000 Slavophones, despite their very reluctant attitude towards speaking Slavic.

Anyway, it is not our task to decide if the report is accurate or not and confirm it or delete it. Our task is to report on what the report says. And if the report has been criticized, it would be good to report on the criticism. But please let's avoid weasel terms. Remarks like the numbers provided are considered by many, as biased or at least not accurate do not tell us much. They rather introduce POV. Who criticized the report and for what? This is what ought to be included.

Kind regards. Boraczek 5 July 2005 09:21 (UTC)

Hi! The Report says: "Local authorities have acknowledge the presence of some 100,000 “Slavophones,” while researchers have given twice as high as estimate (200,000). However, those with a Macedonian national identity can be estimated to between 10,000-30,000. Indeed, the political party “Rainbow” which was created in 1994 and has campaigned for the recognition of a national Macedonian minority, received 7,300 votes in 1994 and 5,000 in 1999, two elections it contested alone: these figures correspond to some 7,000-10,000 citizens of all (not just voting) ages. One can estimate that besides this “hard core” there may be other citizens voting for mainstream parties that also espouse this identity, hence the above estimate."

About the numbers of slavophones:
"While researchers": who are these researchers, anyway?

Unfortunately, the report does not name them. As far as I know Tošo Popovski published high estimates of the number of Macedonian Slavic speakers in Greece. Ethnologue [1] gives the number of 180,180 Macedonian speakers with a mysterious note "1986 census". Boraczek 10:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

The latest research about languages in Greece is one from September 2001 made by [V-PRC] (a research and survey company trusted by all media companies in Greece) for a major newspaper. This report [2] found the following numbers of slavic macedonian speakers: 5.6% in West Macedonia, 1.6% in Central Macedonia (except Thessaloniki) and 1.9% in Thessaloniki prefecture. Far from the "10%" in the whole Macedonia.

Please notice that the research by the VPRC Institute is a survey on 1095 respondents. The range of statistical error for 1095 respondents is about 2 x 3%. So scientifically, the result of 0.6% only proves (with 95% probability) that the percentage of Slav speakers in Greece is between 0 and 3.6%. The estimate gets even less precise when it comes to particular regions. The percentage for West Macedonia was 5.6%, but there were only 36 respondents, so the range of statistical error is about 2 x 17%. Whence, the survey only proves that the percentage of Slavic speakers in West Macedonia is between 0 and 22%. Anyway, I think the data are worth including in the article. Boraczek 10:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

"can be estimated": how is the estimation made? The number of voters of a political party does not make a nation. The Rainbow Party except of its minority campaign is also a far-left party. Considering the number of communist voters in the area (the largest in Greece), how are they so sure that many of the voters supported only its minority campaign and did not see it as an altenative to the KKE (The year 1994 tells as something. It's after the alliance of the KKE with the right-wing New Democracy in 1989 which dissapointed many of its supporters). At that time the Rainbow Party was allied with another left-wing party the OAKKE.

The Rainbow Party overtly presents itself as a "Political Party of the Macedonian Minority in Greece" ([3]), so it's reasonable to assume that the voters are Macedonian Slavs. I agree that voting results are a very imperfect base to draw conclusions on ethnic matters. The problem is we have no much other data. Boraczek 10:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

So where is the scientific approach to all of these? Now, about the neutral approach on the subject from the Greek Helsinki Group Monitor. The greek organisation is rarely considered seriously in Greece. In no way should be considered neutral and third party organisation. It's president is also the president of the Homesexuals Association (so he is not a third party or neutral on these matters when it comes to GHRM, how neutral can it be?) and oups! the secretary general is a member of the OAKKE, so we have a political connection here. That's all about the neutrality of this organisation...

This has little bearing on the question at hand. The secretary general may be a transsexual satanist and a fanatic communist whose wife is a daughter of the leader of Macedonian nationalists, or whatever. But what really matters is the method used in the report. The scientific approach manifests itself in revealing methods and including many varied sources of information.

Still, you may want to add to the article that the neutrality of the organization is questioned, which is all right with me. Boraczek 10:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

So, how do you decide that the numbers of the report should be mentioned (when we have a more scientific inquiry) and what would you say if we had 2-3 or even 10 different reports from other NGOs? —Geraki 2005-07-9 T 18:25 Z

The more sources are used, the better. Best regards. Boraczek 10:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

At first, I hope that you didn't misunderstand my objections on the persons of the GHM. I sympathise both homosexuals and communists. What I want to say is that if the don't even try to show the are neutral (resigning from one of their two positions for example) probably they aren't. Would you trust the GHM report if the president was the Archbishop and secretary general the head of police? Probably no. The point here is because it's an easy thing to form an organisation and say whatever, it is hard to say which resource is valid enough to be cited. I can show you dozens of reports where half of the citizens of Albania, FYROM and Bulgaria are of greek origin, and some of them signed by university professors. Do we have to mention them on the articles for Albania, FYROM and Bulgaria? No. Because none of them is a result of a scientific survey but nationalistic propaganda. It's simple common sense. This is the case with the GHM report. There is no clue how they collected the numbers. They could easily put half or double and there would be no difference on the credibility of the report because there is NO credibility. So, I prefer the V-PRC results even with less accuracy, instead of the arbitrary estimations of the GHM report. Probably you'll say that we only cite the report without any claims that is valid. But when someone writes in a local newspaper "The Pope is gay" and you refuse it in New York Times, you will have more believers than not paying attention at all. A citation from wikipedia has a lot of weight, so we must take care of where it is given. —Geraki 2005-07-13 T 22:17 Z

100,000-200,000 Slavic speakers in Macedonia

100,000-200,000 Slavic speakers in Macedonia! Come on! :) Statistics like that make Helsinki Monitor untrustworthy. Maybe in that statistic people who know the word "voda" are considered Slavic speakers.
I suppose there are 100,000-200,000 people who's grandparents where Slavic speakers, but no way so many spekers nowadays. --Mik2 19:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

What makes you think that this estimate is unlikely? Boraczek 10:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that this estimate is likely only if we consider slavic speakers also those whos' parents are speakers. Those people therefore have some experience of that language, can understand some things, but they cannot be conciderd speakers themselfs since they can only understand.
A rought estimate:Slavic is spoken in Macedonia mainly in Florina and Edessa perfectures, and to a lesser extent to Kilkis perfecture. In other places there are only a few vilages with slavic speakers. The total polulation of those 3 perefectures is 55,210+148,190+91,828=295,228 people. If we accept that there are 200.000 slavic speakers, then the 2/3 of the total population speaks slavic. This cannot be right simply, but not only, because only a handfull of people aged less that 30 speaks that language now. Therefore, to "reach" the number of 200.000 almost everyone aged more that 30 should speak slavic. This obviously cannot be true. The 100.000 limit is more possible, but also exagerated.

I cannot estimate myself a number. From my personal experience (One from my grandfathers is from Edessa, Pella and my mothers family from Florina) I may say that maybe 1/5 of the population of Pella speaks slavic now (30.000) and 1/5 in Florina (10.000). Taking those into acount we may say that there are about 40.000 slavic speakers in those perfectures. In Kilkis there live alot of Pontic greeks. Maybe half of the population speaks or understands Pontic. Also there are at least 5.000 Meglenitic speakers. There are only a few slavic speaking vilages there now. But i have no personal experience from there, so i could suggest a persentage.

These estimates are personal and I wouldn't bet on them. But I have the feeling that they are close to real numbers.--Mik2 10:24, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

P.S. In the 1951 greek census, the last that included statistics about languages, there were 41,017 speakers of the slavic language. If there where 40.000 people then, there couldn;t be 100.000 or 200.000 speakers today. Posibly alot where afraid to answer, but from 41.000 to 200.000 there is a big distanse. And we are talking about 1951, not 2005.Mik2

Thank you, Mik2. I know for sure there are some (not many) autochthonous Slavic speakers in Thessaloniki perfecture and Ethnologue also reports the presence of Slavic speakers in Kastoria perfecture. Nonetheless, I have to say that your argument is very convincing. Best regards. Boraczek 20:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes in Kastoria there are slavic speakers too. There are a few slavic speaking vilages there. And in Serres also I think there are a few, but i am not sure about that. In Thessaloniki its sure that there used to be speakers too. Maybe a lot. But I don't know if there are any now. I've heard that they exist in some vilages near Thessaloniki, but even thouth I live in Thessaloniki, I've never heard anyone speaking that language there. But in a 1 million people city maybe they are just too few to notice. Or maybe they are some very old people, that rarely go out of their vilages and speak slavic only at home. --Mik2 21:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) numbers need to be removed from the text altogether. They are not simply a range of high to low but a clear hyperbole. It doesn't warrant argument but amazement.

Having followed this issue closeley as I had the chance to work there from 2000 through 2003 with my business and family interests taking me all around the northern Greece region. Two of my grandparents, who were not ethnic Greek or Slavic were from there, so I was often looking for evidence of the various cultures. It is very clear that northern Greece today, including its Macedonia area, is strikingly homogenious. There were areas of large minorities and more importantly of ambigious ethnicity, but the first the mutual mass population transfers and second in the post WWII period the modern European non devisive concept of ethnicity has taken hold.

I am familiar with GMH. As two of my family were Greek Jews I initially followed their analysis of anti-Semitism. But it was clear to me that the GMH was engagining in both a lot of exaggeration, where they really made minor and vestigial prejudice sound like a huge deal in Greece. Having lived in France, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria I found their assertions of some sharp and broad anti-Semitism in Greece to be uninformed and really a problem in search of a client.

Reading the GHM report on these figures my question is what is GHM data source? I have never seen a demographic claim like this by a serious NGO with no source or methodology. They cite no study, no method. It seems very exaggerated claim, and not serious.

I also note a search of the GHM pages returns many documents which they have written refering to "Pirin" "Aegean" and "Vardar" "Macedonia. People who follow the history of the region know these are expressions dating back to Macedonian nationalist calls for "uniting" the various Macedonias, including the Greek and Bulgarian regions. I always check who pays the bills and GHM is also affiliated and receives finance support for Macedonia nationists groups in Canada, which really makes me question their credibility. George Soros, who is a massive investor in Macedonia and has no meanigul business in Greece, also bankrolls this group.

Looking at wikipedia's listings on demographics in various Balkan countries, I see the demographics for the country of Macedonia page only uses their official government claims as well as the CIA fact book (based on government claims). One can find NGO's claiming the estimated Albanian minority in Macedonia as high as 40% with 30% being the number most cited. Yet the Wikipedia page cites the (obviosuly low) 17% government number only. The same is the case for Bulgaria and Albania.

I think in the case of these GHM numbers we are looking are the vestiges of very old style Balkan defintions, as well as an expansive concept of ethnicity vs nationality, which is very strange for a contempary NGO to be flogging. I think they are giving a number of possible descendents of Slavic populations (which could also be persons with a Bulgarian parent and not particularly a Slavic Macedonian one) and attempting to create a minority issue where there is not a serious problem.

In my experience you can look around in Greece and see in the faces many different ethnic sources, but the implication that so many persons think of themselves as a minority is absurd to anyone who has spent time in Greece. In terms of speakers of Macedonian, the tiny number I met even in the areas with a historic Slavic minority were grandfathers, their grown children thnk of themselves as Greek and are excepted as such.

One should be cautious about relativism, but in many cases, especially with nation states, it gives one perspective .The various nationalists from the newly freed states seem to have made a mess of the Wikipedia pages on the Balkans. But in this case it is clear Wikipedia is in danger of becoming absurd as a source, by ascribing to the country with the most modern, stable and developed sense of identity (as well as for certain the best and most fair legal and civil rights system)) in the Balkans to seem like the one with the biggest problem. DaveHM 08:44, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

THe Greek legal system is as corrupt as any in the Balkans, which is a disgrace for an EU country. I suggest user DaveHM keeps his nationalistic bias under control. The identity issue is highly contested for Northern Greece, and is not open to contestation from tourists in Greece.--87.202.18.205 11:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like to encourage other editors to review DaveHM's comment thoroughly, as I find it to be a significantly better starting point for serious discussion about how to improve this article than I have seen up until this point. I would also like to point out Talk:Greece where a similar issue is being discussed. Jkelly 20:12, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

DaveHM puts this "issue" on its true basis. GHM is not respected in Greece because its claims are so over the top that it is obvious they serve some other purpose than the truth. And here's the most obvious proof: After every such claim of 200,000 Slavic speakers, the Greek government has urged all Slavic speakers to come out and identify themselves as such in the census! Guess what, they could hardly register 1000 persons. GHM cry wolf and with its tactics have lost every credibility. This can only harm their own cause, because when they speak about real issues nobody takes them seriously. --Avg 04:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

What is wrong with these numbers??? 128.000 People speak Turkish and 180.000 speak Slavic??? 600.000 speak Cretan?? LOL the numbers are pure fiction i have many friends from Crete and none speaks Cretan as defined here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretan_Greek Yes they use some basic words but not pure Cretan. Same For Slavic, if you speak a word or two like someone previously mentioned and you hear the language from your grandparents or something does not mean you are a speaker. These facts are dangerously inaccurate and maybe biased. Soathana (talk) 11:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Also i must insist that no facts is always better than wrong facts if someone else believes these numbers are OK could travel to macedonia and Check if there is a city anywhere the size of Larissa speaking slavic. Good luck.Soathana (talk) 11:21, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to say thanks to DaveHM for his comment. It truly grasps the essence of the disputes in here especially in regards to the frequent demonizing of Greece in the topic of our history of identitarian politics when it comes to minorities. We have come to a point where reality is disregarded for the sake of different POVs and we don't even realize it anymore just because such views have rooted themselves quite well by now and sadly, this is becoming more and more clear in every articles you look when it comes to such topics. Lmagoutas (talk) 09:04, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Reasons for the changes

I removed the section of VPRC cause it is based on info from a company, and is no way an academic source, thus not reliable. i was not even able to see the percentances, that were claimed in the edit, in the site of that company, since the data are only available after paying for them and after requesting them from the company. info sourced by profit-making websites should not be here. lastly, i do not know who had added that, or if he/she had in mind that there might be a copyright violation. in the company website is stated (in greek): 'Δεν επιτρέπεται η δημοσιοποίηση δεδομένων με οποιοδήποτε τρόπο και σε οποιοδήποτε Μέσο Μαζικής Επικοινωνίας χωρίς τη γραπτή έγκριση της εταιρείας VPRC'. which means (in brief) that the information should not be presented in anyway, but only under the written permission of the company VPRC.i guess that these reasons justify totally my changes. --Hectorian 06:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think VPRC refer to results already published in the mass media. But still, you are right in removing them because there is no reference as to when exactly and where they were published.--Avg 01:37, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

You are right, but it was printed on the Sunday edition of Eleftherotypia in 2001. I put back the survey results, with direct links to the pdf file with the results, and the newspaper article presenting them. —Geraki ^✉2006-04-2 T 13:21 Z

I am sorry, Geraki, but now that i saw the source (moreover in my mother tangue) i have one more reason to revert it. the source is not talking about linguistic minorities, but about speakers of various languages in Greece, no matter if it is the mother tangue of these people, or if it is a language that they were taught at school. according to this survey, if i had learnt italian for example at school, will i be considered a member of the italian linguastic minority in Greece? this survey was made for other purposes, not for the reasons it is used here. --Hectorian 14:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

At first I thought you are wrong, but now I think you have some good point. Most of these speakers were taught these languages together with Greek. Of course it's very clear that there are no schools in Greece teaching the Arvanitic, Aromanian, Russian, Macedonian Slavic or Roma language. If the survey would look into speakers who were taught a language at school, it would also have a 20-30% of speakers of English language and some big percentages in French and German languages. The article says that the first question was "what is your mother language" followed by "what other languages do you speak". So I changed the paragraph to include the results about mother tongue and distinguish between mother tongue and second language. —Geraki ^✉2006-04-10 T 10:06 Z

A question

I didn't understand from the article whether there is ethnic similarity between the ethnic Greeks of today and the Greeks of the classical period? If so, does this similarity have scientific proof (D.N.A)? In other words, are the current Greeks direct descendants of the Ancients, holding genetic similarity? Tal :) 14:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the article addresses this issue, and proving a genetic link between modern and ancient Greeks would require testing every person individually. Personally, I doubt there's an unbroken chain, although the Greek language has been spoken continuously in present-day Greece for the past three millenia, so there is some continuity between ancient and modern Greece. --Tēlex 15:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Vlachs having pure Greek identity

quotes from wikipedia articles:

Greek Ethnic : The Greeks are an ethnic group mostly found in the southern Balkan peninsula of southeastern Europe and are primarily associated with the Greek language.

Demographics of Greece: Some of the ancestors of those Vlach settlers survive until today, but only as linguistic groups of purely Greek ethnic identity

Eastern Romance languages: Vlach language

I intend on removing this association of Vlachs with "pure Greek ethnic identity". my reasons, since Vlach language is romance, and Greek ethnic is asociated with greek language, then Vlach "linguistic group" cant have pure Greek ethnic identity. if i fail to see the meaning of "pure Greek ethnic identity" in relation with Vlachs, then please someone clear things up so i wont make unnecessary edits Criztu 18:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

There are also ethnic Greeks that speak arvanitic, slavic as mother tangue in greece, as well as diaspora greeks who speak english, swedish, german or othere languages, but are ethnic greeks. language is not a strict way to clarify ethnic groups and Vlach been a romance language does not prohibit its speakers of been greeks by descent (cause this is how i think u assume 'pure'). so, do not make any changes... --Hectorian 20:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, what the hell is a "pure" ethinc identity anyway? I would propose the use of:

Some of the ancestors of those Vlach settlers survive until today, as a linguistic group, assimilated in modern Greek culture.

Thoughts? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 21:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

i support "a linguistic group assimilated in modern Greek culture" Criztu 17:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Are u sure that the ancestors of 'those' Vlachs were settlers? most academians agree that they were indigenous latinized population. anyway, i wouldn't object on the removal of the word 'pure' (it seems 'nazist' to me), but i do not think we should rephrase sentences. --Hectorian 21:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I reworded it. Removed the "settlers" wording, too. Oh, and we should rephrase sentences that are not good enough. That is often what being a wikipedian is about. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 16:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, good. btw, my bad... i meant say that your proposal above was not a good rephrase, not that we should not rephrase in general (i am doing this a lot:p) --Hectorian 16:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

quote from article " Ancestors of these Vlachs survive until today, linguistically assimilated though.". since Vlach language is romance, and Vlachs still speak it, i fail to see how the Vlach language is assimilated (i assume by the greek lang). Cant u rephrase to some "they see themselves as greek citisens", or "they identify themselves as greeks speaking a Vlach language" ? I assume they dont see themselves as "romanians" Criztu 17:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

---

to: Minority Ethnic and Linguistic Groups "According to the report by Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group - Greece [1] from 1999, in Greece there are various autochtonous minority groups, but its estimations are considered biased since there are based on estimations of questionable validation:

• 90,000 Muslims and the very large majority of them have a Turkish national identity. Among the Muslims 50,000 have Turkish as a mother tongue, 30,000 Pomak and 10,000 Romanes. (see main article: Greek Muslim minority)
• 100,000-200,000 Slavic speakers in Macedonia. 10,000-30,000 of them have a Macedonian Slav national identity. The rest have a Greek national identity or no national identity at all.
• 300,000-350,000 Roma, the vast majority of them speak Greek as their native language and proclaim a Greek national identity.
• 200,000 people of Arvenite origin, who proclaim a Greek national identity.
• 200,000 people of Aromanian origin, who proclaim a Greek national identity.
• 5,000 Jews, who proclaim a Greek national identity.

The report also mentions 700,000 immigrants (mostly illegal) and taking them into account, concludes that, among the residents of Greece, 7% have a non-Greek national identity (but less than 1% are autochtonous) and another 7% have a Greek national identity but also an ethnolinguistic and/or religious specificity.

In a survey conducted by the VPRC Institute in 2001 the following results were recorded:

• 3.3% Arvanitic speakers
• 2.2% Turkish speakers
• 2.0% Aromanian speakers
• 1.4% Italian speakers
• 0.7% Russian speakers
• 0.6% Macedonian Slavic speakers
• 0.6% Roma speakers

The survey mentioned that most of the respondants were using Greek language in everyday life."

from: http://experts.about.com/e/d/de/Demographics_of_Greece.htm http://www.minelres.lv/reports/greece/greece_NGO.htm

I've removed the second part of the survey. if someone takes a look at it, will understand that it is about speakers who learnt each language for various reasons, and it is not a mother tangue for them. someone may start italian or turkish lessons tomorrow... but this does not make him part of any linguistic minority.... --Hectorian 00:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Removal of a section

See my comment above, editted one month before... --Hectorian 17:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Page protected

Currently I've protected this page from editing for one week; please note that edit wars can be quite disruptive to the integrity of the site, and that dispute resolution is often a better solution in the long run. With that in mind, I'd appreciate it if interested parties would instead discuss these changes here. If you need, feel free to request mediation from MedCom or MedCab. – Luna Santin (talk) 09:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Just an outside note: Lyoisisi's addition of "Arvanites, Vlachs" etc. under the "minor ethnic" groups is of course factually correct, and I would reinstate it once the protection expires, were it not for one reason: it's a bit silly to have all those entries in the infobox when the same are also listed one line below under languages. Remember my mantra: Infoboxes must burn in hell. Other than that, there's no doubt about the correctness of the claim as such: these groups are indubitable ethnic minorities in the English, international sense of the word, and they are universally described as such in the international academic literature. That's all that counts. The fact that members of these groups share the well-known irrational ideological allergy against that term common in Greek society, and that they therefore don't like it applied to themselves, is entirely immaterial. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that they identify ethnically as Greeks, so distinguishing them as separate ethnic groups is simply wrong. You cannot put them in the same basket as, say, the Armenians or Roma. Does your "international academic literature" make the distinction? If not, it is seriously deficient. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 08:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Who cares what you find deficient? Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, apart for the "these groups are indubitable ethnic minorities in the English" part, I hope that you should also instate the indubitable fact that the vast majority of these people in Greece, do not consider themselms as minority[4], nor they want their language to be used from foreigners as a tool to artificialy ceparate them from the other Greeks[5], shouldn't you? Kάπνισμα 09:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

As for the "immaterial" issue of self determination and of what you find as "irrational ideological allergy", who cares what you think, or how you characterize them?

In other topics the "self determination" thing is in fashion, why discarding it here? Am I the only one to sense a contradiction? Kάπνισμα 09:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Read the literature on the topic. Of course, in-depth sociological treatments of these groups will often mention the local objections against the term "minority". But that doesn't stop academic researchers from using it, as a neutral objective description of what these groups are. The thing is, those objections are directed against perceived political connotations of the term (as you say yourself: an anxiety not "to be used from foreigners as a tool" and so on), and these connotations are a matter purely within Greek society, and entirely irrelevant for the world at large. Nobody except Greeks (and Greek wikipedia editors) cares about them.

By the way, I'm talking here about academic literature written to a large part by Greeks and by native members of these minorities themselves. Much of it is cited at the Arvanites article. Some further recent stuff in the collection edited by S. Trubeta and C. Voss, Minorities in Greece: Historical Issues and New Perspectives, Munich 2003. All this literature treats Aromanians and Arvanites as part of its subject matter, as a matter of course. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, there is nothing to stop "academic literature" from manipulating actualities by downplaying or grossly ignoring the existence of Greeks adopting and using non-Greek languages. I bet that to authors/editors like Trubeta and Voss, a Greek that doesn't speak katharevousa must technically belong to some non-Greek "minority". In emphasizing this kind of post-modern "logic", Wikipedia is fast becoming a junkyard of dubious infotainment. After having read "The Six Rotten Pillars of Wikipedia", I'm beginning to realize that this so-called "encyclopedia" is nothing but a long-winded fap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.188.254 (talk) 21:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments round two

I looked under ethnic groups minorities and I laughed so hard I pissed my self. Russians? Albanians? Georgians? This articles is listing immigrants who came to Greece the past 11 years ago as ethnic minorities. What kind of bullshit is this? If thats the case why don't you add the 30.000 Pakis, Nigerians, Filipino and other legal and illegal workers under "ethnic minorities" and then go to the United states make up and add Mexican ethnic minority, and make an article about the ethnic Greek minority of New York and the American occupation of Astoria NY and the historic city of Greek town in Chicago.. LOL Clowns, as a wikipedia reader I expect this stupidity to be corrected... ASAP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.53.224.61 (talk) 03:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Demographics of Greece

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Demographics of Greece's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "OECD":

• From Macedonia naming dispute: "Key Information on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". Support for Improvement in Government and Management. Retrieved 6 May 2009.
  *"Information by Country". Retrieved 6 May 2009.
• From Greeks in the United Kingdom: "Country-of-birth database". Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
• From Greece: "OECD Health Data 2011: How Does Greece Compare" (PDF). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
• From Health care in Greece: "OECD Health Data 2011: How Does Greece Compare" (PDF). www.oecd.org. Retrieved 22 July 2011.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 00:11, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Important changes and explanation

1) In the paragraph about ethnic groups , it is used as a link this site: https://joshuaproject.net/. I removed Arvanites from the list of ethnic groups because, the previous writter did not use the given information as the link is concerned. If someone notice carefully at the site ,Arvanites are be noticed as a Indigenous People group.link:https://joshuaproject.net/countries/GR So, we cannot put them in a list with other ethnic groups like Bulgarians,Indians,Egyptians etc. We have to understand that there is a diference between these two terms.We don't have to confuse the indigenous groups which are native and they have totally ethnic conscience with the foreign ethic groups.

2) I removed totally the passage from the link Minority Rights Group beacause it is not a certified organization ,thus it is not reliable and it can not be a resaurce.

3) Arvanitika is with no doubt an oral dialect. There are not documents which can prove the language's existing.So all the information we have about this dialect , is empirical or derives from empirical case studies. So it is frequently argued that we can not confuse this dialect with other foreign languages that are spoken in Greece.If someone thinks that has official data or meticulous numbers about the people who speak this dialect he may be Pythea and he surely has diviner's abilities.Unless he have to do with someone who wants to pervert and mislead the readers of wikipedia. Thus, I removed this dialect from the list of other languages because it is not literally and scientifically correct. The dialect was replaced to the list native languages.

Dear readers , there is no one document,or reliable link to prove that there is an ethnic group as Arvanites.It is irresponsible to be shown by this free site those irreliable information. It is a common belief that it is out obligation to inform correctly without misleadings a major percent of our society by writting a post.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.66.243.122 (talk) 08:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Discussion

To the editors keep blanking the statistics - you keep edit-warring after you had been asked to explain your removal. I have already attempted to use the talk page but my comment was deleted. You continue to edit-war and long edit-warring without any attempt to discuss is DISRUPTIVE. Judist (talk) 11:08, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Change of statistics

User:199.7.157.82 is changing statistics and doesn't seem to know that other Wikipedia articles are not regarded as reliable sources on Wikipedia. I have reverted his changes a few times. User doesn't seem to want to take his issues to the talkpage. He has been asked to do so repeatedly. We have a worrying amount of conflicts like this going on in Macedoniain Greek controversies at the time. Please take your issue here!Gerard von Hebel (talk) 22:48, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Can you please explain why you insist on adding an edit which includes a source recognized as unreliable since 2005 (see section "100,000-200,000 Slavic speakers in Macedonia" in this page)? Everything was fine until a biased user "Judist" added this unreliable source again on the 20th of May. Why do you support such an edit? I left a message in your talk page about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:B410:5700:E5:BD2B:70B7:BE19 (talk) 02:47, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

No, will you explain your case here now and stop reverting? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 03:00, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I added a note on the source. Macedonian, a Greek (talk) 11:52, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

What dead links to primary sources do you mean, Macedonian, a Greek? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 20:21, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I mean the links to the primary sources which Minority Rights Group International points at, under "Peoples" section. They are dead. Macedonian, a Greek (talk) 09:21, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

The content has been removed per WP:NOR, plus as carrying an unwarranted disclaimer. See WP:NODISCLAIMERS. Macedonian, I can only understand the stats that have been added to be considered WP:ITSIMPORTANT as being WP:PPOV. If you have reliable secondary sources to bring to the table, please do so. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:56, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong to point out the obvious, even more if it has been given as a note and not in the body of the article! It simply clarifies things. Macedonian, a Greek (talk) 09:21, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia has hundreds of articles with dead links. These are only dead links to the footnoted references used for the "Peoples" section. The actual content remains, and there is no doubt that it's a reliable source. Please read WP:KDL. For long standing content, it is assumed in good faith that the citations were checked. Just because you can't check the citations, it does not mean that they were verified. If you have doubts, it's unfortunate because WP:BURDEN was already met. Adding disclaimers of this kind does not comply with WP:NPOV as such an addition implies to the reader that the source is tainted. As a source in itself, minorityrights.org has already interpreted any primary sources it may have used, making the text in the "Peoples" section WP:SECONDARY (i.e., they've already set up a short analysis of their own for the reader). If this were a printed text, you'd only be provided with the names of primary sources used and interpreted by the the RS. It would not automatically give you access to the sources used. In fact, for a multitude of subjects tackled on Wikipedia, it would be unlikely that editors would be able to access, or begin to understand primary and secondary sources used. We may as well add disclaimers of the ilk you introduced to nearly every source for every article: we can't vouch for the technical knowledge of all authors interpreting any original sources... --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:19, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

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Are immigrants "minorities"?

In this article there's a link to "Minority Rights Group International" where a group of immigrants is labeled 'minority'. If groups of immigrants are to be considered minorities that should be true about all of them, not just Albanians. In the article 'Demographics of Germany' they don't even mention minorities (just recognized minority languages). Apostolos Papadimitriou (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Aromanians, Romani people, Arvanites etc. are not immigrants but local minorities in Greece. Jingiby (talk) 06:20, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Please stick to the sources

I have reinstated the text according to the sources (and made som minor corrections).

• Calling "Greek Helsinki Monitor" dubious and removing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs source is disruptive. They are used to source the point of view of the Greek authorities, and are clearly relevant. I have adjusted the number from 97,605 to 98,000 (according to the source) and removed the percentage, which is irrelevant (and not in the source). Also I have corrected GEEK to GREEK(!)

• I have reinserted the number 100,000-200,000 (0.91-1.82%) in the list. That is what the source says. I know that it may be controversial, which has been the reason for giving an alternative estimate, but since the source is quoted (with percentages) for all other groups, you cannot choose to remove the number form teh source. This seems to be a clear case of WP:IDLI. --T*U (talk) 20:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Please stick to the sources – again

@NickTheRipper: As I explained the last time you removed the numbers 100,000-200,000 (0.91-1.82%) in February, this is what the source says, the source being Minority Rights Group International, currently note 24 in the article. I also pointed to the source in my edit summary yesterday, and still you claim that "This is not supported anywhere in the source". If you would you be so kind to look at the source, you will see that all the numbers in the table are from that source. I am fully aware that the high number for ethnic Macedonians is controversial, and that is also the reason for giving an alternative estimate. The source is quoted (with percentages) for all other groups, therefore you cannot choose to replace one of the numbers with another source. That is at best syntehsis, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. Bringing in another source for the lower number is, of course, fine. --T*U (talk) 11:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

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"Macedonian" language and minority

Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia. No matter what governments decide, we all know that 'Macedonian' is a word applicable only to Greeks. Therefore, saying 'Macedonian' minority when there's an ACTUAL Macedonian (Greek) population is at least misleading and confusing. Onoufrios d (talk) 19:16, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Despite Greece's ludicrous copyright infringement claims against Macedonia, the rest of the world commonly uses "Macedonia" and "Macedonians" to refer to the Slavic country and population of the country just north of Greece called "Macedonia". --Taivo (talk) 22:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Deleted sourced content

Why recently added content was deleted. Please, explain this action. Jingiby (talk) 18:37, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Alexikoua,

which additions are unexplained? IE linguist (talk) 14:49, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The question is why a second table should be created on ethno-linguistic groups for the only purpose on emphasizing on ethnologue. What makes estimations based on ethnologue so precious? Another issue is that tables of non-official estimates in similar articles are absent (see for example this section Demographics_of_Bulgaria#Ethnic_groups). Controversial data (ethnologue in this case) should be treated with heavy precaution and not taken as granted by presenting huge tables of data.Alexikoua (talk) 15:04, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The table with unofficial estimates was not created by me, but was already there, the half of which was lacking a source. I referenced the existing table to Ethnologue. What do you suggest to be done, to remove the table from this article, to reference it to some sources? Now, in the table some unofficial estimates are lacking a source, while Turkish is referenced to Ethnologue. IE linguist (talk) 15:56, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The existing table is mainly based on Trudgill and the GHM & it's far more compact. Creating an entirely separate table for ethnologue or each source isn't a solution. By the way I fail to see the same situation in Turkey where there is just one table for such estimates, not to mention that its in compact form without geographic concentrations of each group.

A solution will be to add alternative estimates in the existing table.Alexikoua (talk) 19:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The table may combine any sources, instead of becoming a table of Ethnologue. This is a probable solution. IE linguist (talk) 19:16, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, though some numbers among various Ethnologue versions are contradicting each other I assume the most up to date Ethnologue estimation should be presented. For example Arvanitika most up to date est. is 50,000 in 2007 contrary to older Arvanatika estimations by Ethnologue.Alexikoua (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Larissaview.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

—— Hello, not sure if I’m doing this correctly as I’m new to Wikipedia editing. But reading this article, in the first sentence, it describes this article as dealing with the population of the Greek peninsula. Should it not read “Greek peninsula and its islands”? It seems a significant percentage of Greece’s population is found on the many islands. Y Seren Wib (talk) 15:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Newsweek article

I find that the Newsweek article numbered "31" in references is kinda biased when it comes to understanding the situation of minorities in Greece. It is very much identical to many Macedonian propaganda articles that want to present Greece as an ethnostate of some sort. I think this is also especially true when it comes to the rhetoric the the person uses regarding the naming of Macedonia that is severely biased against Greece. At a point the person being interviewed even tries to compare the Macedonia naming dispute to Luxemburg with Beligium as if those two are in any way similar. Anyway I am no expert on this but more often than not I see more and more questionable articles popping that push more and more of the Macedonian viewpoint while misrepresenting Greece. I definitely don't think Greece is on the right in quite a few topics in regards to minorities but I also certainly don't see merit in pushing ignorant POV's in such complicated matters. I would be glad if someone was to look into the article and determine if it is appropriate. Lmagoutas (talk) 08:55, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Vital statistics

Who is the source about deaths and birth about 2023 statistics? Alex1991~elwiki (talk) 06:38, 9 November 2023 (UTC)