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- Title
MINORITY NAME STUDIES IN THE BALKANS - THE POMAKS.
- Authors
Konstantinov, Yulian
- Abstract
The present paper attempts to describe the specific way in which an Islamic community in Bulgaria behaves in a situation of regaining Turkic-Arabic personal names after a period of enforced use of Bulgarian substitutes. The data used in the analysis has been gathered in a series of field-studies (1990–1991).1 The initial pilot-study was carried out among Pomaks who were forcefully resettled to the interior of the country in 1948–52 (‘Hadjiyska 90’). Subsequently a second field-study was carried out in the same area (‘Hadjiyska 91’) as well as others in the Rhodopes: (a) in the Central Rhodopes (SlaveinoVievo; BaroutinZmeitsaBouynovoKozhareTrigrad) and (b) in the Western Rhodopes and Pirin (KornitsaLuzhnitsaBreznitsa). A control sample has been taken from the Turkish village of Zaichar (Region of Bourgas). A total of 3385 name-cases has been investigated. The results indicate that Pomaks have evolved a rich and varied system of anthroponymic behaviour, aimed at counteracting the enforced departure from their in-group (Turkic-Arabic) names. The strategies employed are generally based on a compromise principle, according to which a name should ideally satisfy both in-group and out-group requirements. The anthroponymic peculiarities which have been observed are interpreted as reflecting an unstable state of a communal identity; the instability being related to the general tension in ethnic matters in the Balkans. There seem to be grounds to believe, therefore, that the development of a branch of Ethnolinguistics, to be tentatively called Minority Anthroponymy, may prove to be useful for investigating cultural communities with similarly affected identities, as well as for collecting valuable data (or ethnicity-oriented interdisciplinary studies.
- Subjects
BULGARIA; POMAKS; ETHNOLOGY; TURKIC names; ARABIC names; LINGUISTICS; LANGUAGE &; languages; COMMUNICATION
- Publication
Folia Linguistica, 1992, Vol 26, Issue 3/4, p403
- ISSN
0165-4004
- Publication type
Article