Pomaks

Pomaks can mean:

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• Muslim Bulgarians, the descendants of Bulgarian Christians who converted to Islam under the Ottomans. Their name is usually traced to the words помъчен ("tortured") or помагач ("collaborator")." They speak Bulgarian as mother tongue and do not mix with the country's ethnic Turks and other Muslims. Bulgaria does not recognise Pomaks as a separate ethnic group but as a religious minority.
• Members of the Greek Muslim minority who speak the pomak dialect, closely related to Bulgarian, and number some 30,000 in the Greek region of Thrace. They are not recognised as a separate minority but rather form part of the wider Muslim minority.
• Muslim Slavs in the Republic of Macedonia are also called Pomaks as well as Torbeshes or Poturs.