Language and Ethnic Affiliation
Like their Christian ethnic kin, Macedonian Muslims speak the Macedonian language as their first language. Despite their common language and racial heritage, it is almost unheard of for Macedonian Muslims to intermarry with Macedonian Orthodox Christians. Macedonian ethnologists do not consider the Muslim Macedonian Slavs a separate ethnic group from the Christian Macedonian Slavs, but instead a religious minority within the Macedonian Slav ethnic community. Intermarriage with the country's other Muslim groups (Albanians and Turks) are much more accepted, given the bonds of a common religion and history.
Some Turkish ethnologists have claimed that the Macedonian Muslims are in fact Slavicized Turks, although this interpretation is not widely supported. The Macedonian writer Jakim Sinadinovski has similarly claimed that the Macedonian Muslims are not Slavic Macedonians; this prompted a strong reaction when his thesis was first published in 1988.
When the Socialist Republic of Macedonia was established in 1944, the Yugoslav government encouraged the Macedonian Muslims to adopt an ethnic Macedonian identity. This has since led to some tensions with the Macedonian Christian community over the widespread association between Macedonian national identity and adherence to the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
Read more about this topic: Macedonian Muslims
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