Arvanites - Demographics

Demographics

Regions with a strong traditional presence of Arvanites are found mainly in a compact area in southeastern Greece, namely across Attica (especially in Eastern Attica), southern Boeotia, the north-east of the Peloponnese, the south of the island of Euboea, the north of the island of Andros, and several islands of the Saronic Gulf including Salamis. In parts of this area they formed a solid majority until about 1900. Within Attica, parts of the capital Athens and its suburbs were Arvanitic until the late 19th century. There are also settlements in some other parts of the Peloponnese, and in Phthiotis (Livanates, Malesina, Martino villages).

There are no reliable figures about the number of Arvanites in Greece today (no official data exist for ethnicity in Greece). A Venetian source of the mid-15th century estimates that 30,000 Albanians lived in the Peloponnese at the time. In the mid-19th century, Johann Georg von Hahn estimated their number in Greece between 173,000 and 200,000. The last official census figures available come from 1951. Since then, estimates of the numbers of Arvanites has ranged from 50,000 to 200,000. The following is a summary of the widely diverging estimates (Botsi 2003: 97):

  • 1928 census: 18,773 citizens self-identifying as "Albanophone" in all of Greece.
  • 1951 census: 22,736 "Albanophones".
  • Furikis (1934): estimated 70,000 Arvanites in Attica alone.
  • Trudgill/Tzavaras (1976/77): estimated 140,000 in Attica and Boeotia together.
  • Sasse (1991): estimated 50,000 Arvanitika speakers in all of Greece.
  • Ethnologue, 2000: 150,000 Arvanites, living in 300 villages.
  • Federal Union of European Nationalities, 1991: 95,000 "Albanians of Greece" (MRG 1991: 189)
  • Minority Rights Group International, 1997: 200,000 Arvanites of Greece.
  • Jan Markusse (2001): 25.000 Arvanites in Greece

Like the rest of the Greek population, Arvanites have been emigrating from their villages to the cities and especially to the capital Athens. This has contributed to the loss of the language in the younger generation.

  • Ethnic map of the Epirus region (1878) according to the Greek point of view.

  • German ethnographic map of the Peloponnese, 1890. Albanian-speaking areas in red.

  • German ethnographic map of Greece, 1897. Albanian-speaking areas in Central Greece and Epirus are diagonally brindled.

  • French ethnographic map of the Balkan Peninsula, 1898. Albanian-speaking areas in light blue.

Read more about this topic:  Arvanites