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Victor A. Friedman: FROM THE BALKANS TO BAHASA: COMPARATIVE ...
also a religiously defined language, since the term refers to Bulgarian-speaking
Muslims. 21 At present, there are efforts to use Pomak as a language of instruction
in elementary schools in Western Thrace (e.g., Kokkas 2004), the only part of
Greece where Turkish is still spoken as a first language and allowed in the educational
system. These efforts, however, are resisted by Turkish-speaking authorities
in Greece who see them as a threat to their hegemony (cf. the introduction to
Adamou 2008 and the articles in Steinke and Voss 2007).
Striking in its absence from the list of languages of ‘bilingual communities’
in Greece cited above is Macedonian (Greek Makedoniká), which is mentioned
as such in Greece only in proclamations banning its use (see Friedman 2009). So
violent is the opposition to Macedonian language and identity in Greece that the
author of this article was assaulted in Athens on 2 June 2009 at the promotion of
the first Modern Macedonian-Modern Greek dictionary to be published in Greece
by members of Hrisi Avgi ‘Golden Dawn’, a Greek political party with representation
on the Athens Town Council. 22
The namelessness of Macedonian in Greece contrasts strikingly with the
treatment of Malay. In Greece, one way to find out if one’s interlocutor can speak
Macedonian is to ask, in Macedonian Da li govoriš jazikot? ‘Do you speak the
language?’ As noted above, it is dangerous to refer to ‘the language’ by name. The
author of this article experienced a quite different name avoidance with regard
to Malay while in Australia. In a conversation with a taxi-driver in Australia, the
driver identified himself as being Indonesian and the author mentioned that he
had been to Malaysia. The driver inquired: “Do you speak Bahasa?” As observed
in note 8, bahasa means ‘language’, but it is also used in the names of the official
languages (or one of the official languages) in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei,
and Singapore. This official language is based on Riau (or Riau-Johor) Malay, a
prestigious dialect of Malay spoken in a region that currently straddles the border
between Malaysia and Indonesia. In Malaysia, it is called Bahasa Malaysia, in
Indonesia, Bahasa Indonesia, and in Singapore and Brunei and Bahasa Melayu.
to their language, as opposed to the term Shqip, dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century and
used in all Albanian dialects that separated from the main body of Albanian after that period.
21 The Pomak dialects of Greece belong to the same group of Rhodopian Bulgarian dialects as those
of Muslims and Christians across the border in Bulgaria. These dialects are very different from
standard Bulgarian, but not from one another. An additional complicating circumstance is the fact
that the term ‘Bulgarian’ was religiously defined as referring to Christians in Ottoman Turkey, and
the Bulgarian state persecuted its Muslim citizens during various periods of the twentieth century
(see, e.g., Neuburger 2004).
22 A video clip of the assault can be seen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40kQfnFuik&feature=related (accessed 20 January 2011). A
different version with Macedonian subtitles (but a less immediate angle) can be seen at http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=_QXj4fXgEmw (accessed 20 January 2011).
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