 Poem in Arvanitika and Greek honoring the wedding of Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna and Archduke Paul (1889). | |
| Total population | |
| c. 150,000 (Arvanite-speakers) | |
| Languages | |
| Albanian (Arvanitika), Greek | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Albanian-speaking peoples (most notably Tosk Albanians) |
The Arvanites (Arvanitika: Αρbε̱ρεσ̈ε̰, romanized: Arbëreshë, Greek: Αρβανίτες) are a bilingual Greek people speaking both the Greek language and a dialect of the Albanian language called Arvanitika. They moved from the regions of northern Epirus and central Albania to the Greek peninsula during the Middle Ages. The Arvanites settled as farmers and soldiers (stradioti) getting land as payment for their work. They were organized into clans called fares (Greek: φάρες), or sogia (Arvanitika: σόjτε), and their culture was Byzantine Greek. They fought in the Greek revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire and its allies. The name Arvanites, or Arnauts, was also used to describe Greeks from Roumeli, Albanians, Bulgarians and Serbs who all served as bodyguards for royals.
In one of their songs, the Arvanites of Boeotia in central Greece sing of their homeland, Constantinople: "Τρε παμπόρἐ σκούαν ε βάνἐ νἐ Σταμπούλ νἐ βέντἐ τάνἐ" (transliteration: "Tre pampóre skoúan e báne ne Stampoúl ne bénte táne", "Three ships passed and are going to Constantinople to our lands"). According to Maria Michael-Dede, the song proves that the Arvanites are of Greek origin.