Greece has various ethnolinguistic communities with a distinct identity and language. The term "minority" is something not recognized or accepted and any official information about ethnic, linguistic and religious populations has been abolished since 1951. The only officially recognized "minority" (as the Treaty of Lausanne instructs), is based on religion and it is called "Muslim minority". It consists of Turks, Pomaks and Romani of Thrace, all together.
Enjoy a dance presentation of 6 major communities of Greece, who didn't/don't speak Greek as first language and originate from other ethnic backgrounds.

LET'S BREAK IT DOWN:
00:00 - INTRO
00:14 • SLAVIC MACEDONIANS - Slavic speakers of the Greek region of Macedonia. One of the biggest controversies in terms of identity and presence, the Slavophones (Greek sources) or ethnic Macedonians (Macedonian sources) or Bulgarians (Bulgarian sources) have had a number of conflicting ethnic identifications with tons of discrimination from all sides, especially during the Greek regime. Internationally, they are recognized as ethnic Macedonians.
03:00 • CHAM ALBANIANS - Tosk Albanian speakers of western Epirus. There is only some Orthodox population left in a few villages, since the Muslim one was expelled through ethnic cleansing at the end of WWII, citing collaboration with the Axis. Those who stayed currently refer to themselves as Albanophones, since "Cham" creates controversy over their repatriation.
05:09 • AROMANIANS - Found all over Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia, the Aromanians, known in Greece as Vlachs, are said to be Latinized native people of the Roman colonization era. Many notable Aromanians helped immensely in the shaping of modern Greece, such as Zappas and Averof. The Aromanian language, due to non-recognition, is in danger of extinction, with mostly elderly speaking it. A reviving process is in the making.
07:28 • ARVANITES - Tosk Albanian speakers of southern-central Greek regions, who played a significant role in the Greek War of Independence and Greek culture in general. Coming from central Albania during the Middle Ages, most of them are settled in areas around Athens, Corinth and Argosaronic islands. However, cultural assimilation and marginalization made the Arvanitika dialect in a state of attrition or even extinction.
09:47 • POMAKS - Bulgarian-speaking population who resides in villages of the Rhodope Mountains and Xanthi in Thrace. Together with Turks and Roma, they are the only recognized minority in Greece, under the name "Muslim Greeks", despite not being ethnically Greek. Their tongue is a Smolyan dialect, however, due to certain policies many Pomaks speak Turkish and Greek only, in an attempt to distance them from Bulgaria.
11:43 • TURKS - The Turkish community of Western Thrace descends from the Balkan Turkish populations (Rumelians) of the Ottoman era. Like the Greeks of Istanbul, they were exempted from the 1923 population exchange and kept their numbers. However, Greek courts have outlawed the use of the word 'Turkish' to describe them and answer only to 'Greek Muslims' in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne.
14:41 • OUTRO

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PERSONAL NOTE:
Greece, like any state in the world, must protect and take care of every citizen and group its borders have. Despite the religion, the language and the ethnic background anyone has. What you saw in this video is still Greece. But it's the hidden, untold Greece that can get controversial. Greece, like all states, has made mistakes with its own people and especially those people I presented don't enjoy the right of self-determination and are marginalized. By bringing this to light, it won't make a difference, but it's important to pay tribute and let the world know that Greece isn't only sirtaki, Santorini and ancient columns. Let's not ignore almost two thousand years of the Roman and Ottoman legacy and wrongly consider Parthenon or Socrates to be our immediate legacy.

SIDENOTE:
This video has a Part 2 potential!
Greece has had or still has more groups that didn't/don't speak Greek as first language, those being the Roma (Indo-Aryan speakers), the Sephardic Jews (Ladino speakers), the Gagauz (Oghuz Turkish speakers) and the Megleno-Romanians (speaking the Eastern Romance language of Meglenitic). Not originating from the Greek mainland are the Karamanlides (Oghuz Turkish speakers) who are settled in very small numbers in Thessaloniki and Athens.

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