Some arguments:
Pomak language is between Bulgarian and Macedonian languages.
There are close relations but have many differencies with them.
Pomak language is more slavic than Bulgarian.
Pomak language has more preserved the Slavic purity than Bulgarian.
Pomak language belongs to the South-East Slavic group.
It is not easy to say that Pomak language is the same as Bulgarian.
Pomak language is more preserved in immigrants in Turkey.
Immigrants in Turkey do not define her own language as Bulgarian but Pomak language.
Rhodope region history has not always gone together with Bulgarian history.
Rhodope region is a combination point of the Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish cultures.
Therefore has it own richness and diversity.
Bulgarian language have created in 19. century as a syntetic language.
Under the German domination Czech language had death but was raised again.
Under the Arab domination Persi language had death along the 3 centuries, but poet Firdevsi has aroused the Persi language by Shahname.
And Ibrani language had dissapeared along the 2000 years but Israelis has resurrected this death language.
Pomak language is not too hard to standardize as a modern tongue.
We as Pomaks are aware of our diversity have not been any intention of separatism in the countries where we live.
Ago Mustafa,
There`s a lot of things that are questionable here.
First lets start with what language do you define as "pomak" - the language from the Rupchos region, the language from Chech region, the language from Pirin region, the language from Lovech in Northern Bulgaria, Pleven or Teteven?
These are all distinctive regions where pomaks are found and we are all with different dialects.
The pomaks from Northern Bulgaria don`t speak like the ones in Rupchos.
The Pirin pomaks speak different than the Eastern Rhodope people.
If you consider the dialect Rupchos to be pomak language, then what language do the pomaks from the other regions speak?
Please keep in mind that a lot more Christians speak Rupchos dialect than Muslims, as the Rup dialects stretch from Western Rhodopes to Strandja and Sakar to the East.
So we canno claim that this is pomak language as the Christians living here speak the same dialect.
I understand that the situation in Turkey is different. There the only people speaking what you call "pomak" are namely the pomaks that were resettled after the fall of the Ottoman empire. You have no contacts with Christian Bulgarians from the Rupchos region. If you had contact, you would have seen that these Christians speak absolutely the same language that you speak. Of course due to the mass education and the influence of the media, the people living in the Rhodopi region tend to speak the official Bulgarian language. But the old people, both Christian and Muslim, speak still the dialects.
So Rupchos dialects are not privy to pomaks.
In Bulgaria we all speak the same dialects - no matter if we are Christian or Muslim.
The difference comes from the geographical region, not from the religious affiliation.
You say that "pomak" is more Slavic than Bulgarian.
Bulgarian is a Slavic language.
If you refer to the language of the Proto-Bulgarians - we still have no definitive proof what their language was.
Modern scholars define as Bulgarian the language in which all the Church Slavonic books were written in the 9-10-11 century. This is a Slavic language. Moreover they define the dialects of Solun as the basis of the Church Slavonic.
I am aware that the pomak people in Turkey do not identify themselves with Bulgarians.
That is why you do not define the language you speak as Bulgarian.
But again the problem here stems from the religious affiliation.
As we all know, the religion was the defining factor until the beginning of the 20th century.
Bulgarian was equal to Orthodox Christian and Muslim was equal to Turk.
It was religion that was the predominant factor in people`s lives as most of them were illiterate.
But since the introduction of the education in the 20th c, a lot of people started to realize that Muslim is not the same as Turk and Bulgarian is not the same as Christian.
So Rupchos dialects cannot be claimed as pomak language.
Remember that the Christians from this region even had the Bible translated in Rhodope dilect at the beginning of the 19th century in order to replace the Greek language in their churches
