The Pomaks in Turkey refers to an ethnic group, who are predominantly Muslim and speak their own dialect of Bulgarian. They mostly live in Eastern Thrace, though some are also present in Anatolia.[1]
In the census of 1965, 23,138 Turkish citizens spoke Pomak as mother language. Proportionally, they were most numerous in Edirne (3.4%), Kırklareli (1.3%) and Çanakkale (1.0%). 2,776 of these could only speak Pomak . Another 34,234 spoke Pomak as second best language.
The Pomaks of Turkey speak a Bulgarian dialect.[2][3][4][5][6] According to Ethnologue at present 300,000 Pomaks in European Turkey speak Bulgarian as mother tongue.[7] It is very hard to estimate the number of Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks who live in Turkey, as they have blended into the Turkish society and have been often linguistically and culturally assimilated.[8] According to Milliyet and Turkish Daily News reports, the number of the Pomaks along with the Turkified Pomaks in the country is about 600,000.[8][9]
