Arvanites

[9] Arvanitika is in a state of attrition due to language shift towards Greek and large-scale internal migration to the cities and subsequent intermingling of the population during the 20th century.

The name Arvanites and its equivalents are today used both in Greek (Αρβανίτες, singular form Αρβανίτης, feminine Αρβανίτισσα) and in Arvanitika itself (Arbëreshë or Arbërorë).

In later Byzantine usage, the terms "Arbanitai" and "Albanoi", with a range of variants, were used interchangeably, while sometimes the same groups were also called by the classicising names Illyrians.

In the 19th and early 20th century, Alvani (Albanians) was used predominantly in formal registers and Arvanites (Αρβανίτες) in the more popular speech in Greek, but both were used indiscriminately for both Muslim and Christian Albanophones inside and outside Greece.

[13] In Albania itself, the self-designation Arvanites had been exchanged for the new name Shqiptarë since the 15th century, an innovation that was not shared by the Albanophone migrant communities in the south of Greece.

There is some uncertainty to what extent the term Arvanites also includes the small remaining Christian Albanophone population groups in Epirus and West Macedonia.

[15] However they also use the name Arvanitis speaking in Greek, while the Euromosaic (1996) reports notes that the designation Chams is today rejected by the group.

Arvanites in Greece originate from Albanian settlers[19][20] who moved south from areas in what is today southern Albania during the Middle Ages.

[26] The Albanian tribes of Bua, Malakasioi and Mazaraki were described as "unruly" nomads living in the mountains of Thessaly in the early 14th century in Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos' 'History'.

Two of their military leaders known in Byzantine sources as Peter and John Sebastopoulos controlled the small towns of Pharsala and Domokos.

[30] One of the larger groups of Albanian settlers, amounting to 10,000, settled the Peloponnese during the reign of Theodore I Palaiologos, first in Arcadia and subsequently in the more southern regions around Messenia, Argolis, Elis and Achaea.

[32] In 1453, the Albanians rose in revolt against Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos, due to the chronic insecurity and tribute payment to the Turks; they were also joined by the local Greeks, who by then had a common leader in Manuel Kantakouzenos.

On the other hand, in an effort to control the remaining Albanians, during the second half of the 15th century, the Ottomans adopted favorable tax policies towards them, likely in continuation of similar Byzantine practices.

At the same time, it has been suggested that many Arvanites in earlier decades maintained an assimilatory stance,[41] leading to a progressive loss of their traditional language and a shifting of the younger generation towards Greek.

At some times, particularly under the nationalist 4th of August Regime under Ioannis Metaxas of 1936–1941, Greek state institutions followed a policy of actively discouraging and repressing the use of Arvanitika.

[47] Throughout the Ottoman–Venetian wars, many Albanians died or were captured in service to the Venetians; at Nafpaktos, Nafplio, Argos, Methoni, Koroni and Pylos.

Historian Thomas Gordon who traveled in the Kingdom of Greece in the 1830s and earlier in the 1820s described its Albanian-speaking areas: "Attica, Argolis, Boeotia, Phocis, and the isles of Hydra, Spetses, Salamis, and Andros" as well as "several villages in Arcadia, Achaia, and Messenia".

[49] A demographic census by Alfred Philippson, based on fieldwork between 1887 and 1889, found that out of the approximately 730,000 inhabitants of the Peloponnese, and the three neighboring islands of Poros, Hydra and Spetses, Arvanites numbered 90,253, or 12.3% of the total population.

The following is a summary of the widely diverging estimates (Botsi 2003: 97): Like the rest of the Greek population, Arvanites have been emigrating from their villages to the cities and especially to the capital Athens.

The name Arvanítika and its native equivalent Arbërisht[57] are derived from the ethnonym Arvanites, which in turn comes from the toponym Arbëna (Greek: Άρβανα), which in the Middle Ages referred to a region in what is today Albania.

[65] Ultimately these terms used amongst Albanian speakers originate from the Latin word sclavus which contained the traditional meaning of "the neighbouring foreigner".

[59] Jacques Lévy describes the Arvanites as "Albanian speakers who were integrated into Greek national identity as early as the first half of the nineteenth century and who in no way consider themselves as an ethnic minority".

Negative views are perceptions that Albanian immigrants are "communists" arriving from a "backward country",[70] or an opportune people with questionable morals, behaviors and a disrespect for religion.

[74] Amongst the wider Greek speaking population however, the Arvanites and their language Arvanitika were viewed in past times in a derogatory manner.

[77] The Arvanite revival of the Pelasgian theory has also been recently borrowed by other Albanian speaking populations within and from Albania in Greece to counter the negative image of their communities.

[82] In an Arvanitic village, each phara was responsible to keep genealogical records (see also registry offices), that are preserved until today as historical documents in local libraries.

Widows could inherit the status and privileges of their husbands and thus acquire leading roles within a fara, as did, for instance, Laskarina Bouboulina.