Turco-Albanian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Turco-Albanian (Greek: Τουρκαλβανοί, Tourk-alvanoi) is an ethnographic, religious, and derogatory term used by Greeks for Muslim Albanians from 1715 and thereafter.[1][2][3][4] In a broader sense, the term included both Muslim Albanian and Turkish political and military elites of the Ottoman administration in the Balkans.[5] The term is derived from an identification of Muslims with Ottomans and/or Turks, due to the Ottoman Empire's administrative millet system of classifying peoples according to religion, where the Muslim millet played the leading role.[6] From the middle of the nineteenth century, the term Turk and from the late nineteenth century onwards, the derivative term Turco-Albanian has been used as a pejorative term, phrase and or expression for Muslim Albanian individuals and communities.[1][7][8][9][10] The term has also been noted to be unclear, ideologically and sentimentally charged,[6] and an imperialist and racialist expression.[11] Albanians have expressed derision and disassociation toward the terms Turk and its derivative form Turco-Albanian regarding the usage of those terms in reference to them.[8][12][13] It has been reported that at the end of the 20th century some Christian Albanians still used the term "Turk" to refer to Muslim Albanians.[14]