Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Florina, Edessa, Kastoria, Thessaloniki, Serres, Kilkis | |
 Greece
|
50,000–250,000 (est.) |
 Bulgaria
|
descendants of 92,000–120,000 (est.) refugees from Greece (1913–1950) |
 Australia
|
81,745 (2006 census) – 90,000 (est.) descendants of migrants from the region of Macedonia |
 Republic of Macedonia
|
50,000 (incl. descendants) – 70,000 (est.) |
 Canada
|
26,000 (est.) |
 United States |
30,000 (est.) |
 Serbia (Banat) |
7,500 (est.) |
| Languages | |
| Macedonian, Greek | |
| Religion | |
| Greek Orthodox Church | |
Slavic-speakers are a linguistic minority population in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, who are mostly concentrated in certain parts of the peripheries of West and Central Macedonia, adjacent to the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. The language called "Slavic" in the context of Greece is generally called "Macedonian" or "Macedonian Slavic" otherwise. Some members have formed their own emigrant communities in neighbouring countries, as well as further abroad.
Members of this group have had a number of conflicting ethnic identifications. Predominantly identified as Macedonian Bulgarians until the early 1940s, since the formation of a Macedonian nation state, many of the migrant population in the diaspora (Australia, United States and Canada) now feel a strong Macedonian identity and have followed the consolidation of the Macedonian ethnicity. However, those who remain in Greece now mainly identify themselves as ethnic Greeks. The Macedonian region of Greece has a Greek majority which includes descendants of the Pontic Greeks, but it is ethnically diverse (including Albanians, Aromanians and Slavs).
The second group in today's Greece is made up of those who seem to reject any national identity, but have distinct regional ethnic identity, which they may call "indigenous" (Greek: ντόπια, dopia), which might be understood as Slavomacedonian, or Macedonian, and the smallest group is made up of those who have a so-called ethnic Macedonian national identity. They speak East South Slavic dialects that can be linguistically classified as either Macedonian or Bulgarian, but which are locally often referred to simply as "Slavic" or "the local language".
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Wikipedia