# Pomak language

Pomak language (Greek: πομακική γλώσσα, pomakiki glosa or πομακικά, pomakika; Bulgarian: помашки език, pomaški ezik; Turkish: Pomakça) is a term used in Greece and Turkey to refer to some of the Rup dialects of the Bulgarian language spoken by the Pomaks of Western Thrace in Greece and Eastern Thrace in Turkey. These dialects are native also in Bulgaria, and are classified as part of the Smolyan subdialect. Not all Pomaks speak this dialect as their mother language.

## History

Some grammatical forms of the Rup dialects, published by the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen in 1907, have a striking resemblance to the grammatical forms of the Armenian language. As well, the Rup dialects have slightly different forms of demonstrative suffixes (exercising also functions of the possessive pronouns) from the Bulgarian Tran dialect and the modern standard Macedonian language. There are publications concerning the vocabulary of the Rup dialects and anthroponyms of Armenian origin which overlap areas, populated by Paulicians from the 15th to 18th centuries.
According to the 1935 census in Turkey, 3881 people in Eastern Thrace identified their mother tongue as Bulgarian and 18,382 as Pomak. The overall statistic from 1935 shows that 41,041 people spoke Pomak as their mother tongue or as a secondary dialect.
In the mid-1990s, "Grammar of the Pomash language", "Pomash-Greek" and "Greek-Pomash dictionary" were published in Greece, which, according to Bulgarian linguists, were a political attempt at glottotomy. Pomak is also noted for its dialectal differences, as highlighted in recent work by Sercan Karakas (2022), which demonstrates that the language's case system exhibits dialectal variation.

## Examples
### Some phrases and words

| English | Rhodope Pomak Dialect (Xanthi, Komotini, Alexandroupoli) |
| Hello | Dobar den (Formal), Zdravej (Informal) |
| I am Pomak/Bulgarian/Bulgarian Muslim (man) | Ja sam Pomak/Balgarin/Balgarski Mohamedanin |
| I speak bulgarian | Ja lafim balgarcko |
| How are you? | Kak si? |
| Thank you | Blagodarja |
| Good day | Dobar den |
| Children | Detine |
| This chair | Aisos skemle |
| That auntie | Ainos lelka |
| Ibrahim is my uncle | Ibrahim e moj amiđa |
| Hatiđa is my sister | Hatiđa e moja sestra |
| My father | Mojet bubajko |
| What are you doing? | Kina rabutaš? |
| I knew | Ja znajeh |
| Do you know? | Znaješ li ti? |
| He was a good man | Toj beše dobar čilak |
| I am from Xanthi | Ja sam ot Skeča |
| One woman from the new village | Enna žena ot novoto selo |
| One day and one night | Edin den i enna nošt |
| Last year | Lani |
| I love you | Milovam te |
Some words and phrases in the Pomak language are borrowed from Turkish, Greek, and other languages.

## Grammar
### Spatio-pragmatic and temporal-modal uses of nominals and noun modifiers

Three deictics (-s-, -t- and -n-) are used for spatio-pragmatic and temporal-modal reference in nominals. These deictics are used among others in noun modifiers such as definite articles and demonstratives:
| The cat | (close to the speaker, here and now) | Koteso |
| The cat | (close to the addressee or realis past) | Koteto |
| The cat | (distal, realis future, irrealis or habitual) | Koteno |
| This is grand-father's snake | | Aisos e dedvasa zmie |
| That is grand-father's chair | | Ainos e dedvasa skemle |