Religion In the 18th century, a wave of
Islamization began in Gora. The Ottoman abolition of the
Archbishopric of Ohrid and
Serbian Patriarchate of Peć in 1766/1767 is thought to have prompted the Islamization of Gora as was the trend of many Balkan communities. The last Christian Gorani, Božana, died in the 19th century – she has received a cult, signifying the Gorani's Christian heritage, collected by Russian consuls Anastasiev and Yastrebov in the second half of the 19th century. The Slavs of Gora were Christianized after 864 when
Bulgaria adopted Christianity. The Ottomans conquered the region in the 14th century, which started the process of
Islamization of the Gorani and neighbouring Albanians. However, the Gorani still tangentially observe some
Orthodox Christian traditions, such as
Slavas and
Đurđevdan, and like
Serbs they know their
Onomastik or saint's days. Gorani are
Sunni Muslims and many practice
Sufism, in particular the
Halveti and
Bektashi Sufi orders are widespread. Traditional Gorani folk music includes a two-beat dance called "
oro" ('circle'), which is a circle dance focused on the foot movements: it always starts on the right foot and moves in an anti-clockwise direction. The Oro is usually accompanied by instruments such as
curlje,
kaval,
čiftelija or
tapan, and singing is used less frequently in the dances than in those of the Albanians and Serbs. The "national" sport of
Pelivona is a form of oil wrestling popular among Gorani with regular tournaments being held in the outdoors to the accompaniment of
curlje and
tapan with associated ritualized hand gestures and dances, with origins in the
Middle East through the
Ottoman Empire's conquest of the Balkans. Another popular drink is
Turkish coffee which is drunk in small cups accompanied by a glass of water.
Tasseography is popular among all Gorani using the residue of Turkish coffee. File:Момче од Гора во народна носија.jpg|Gorani boy in folk costume File:Veshje Tradicionale Struka e bardh Dhe Dimijat ..JPG|Gorani girls in folk costume File:Veshje tradicionale.JPG|Elderly Gorani woman in traditional clothing File:Festa e Patates Shishtavec.JPG|Young Gorani dancing at village festival
Language (
Gora region in dark orange) The Gorani people speak a local South Slavic dialect known as "
Našinski" spoken in Southern
Serbia, Western Bulgaria and part of
North Macedonia. The Slavic dialect of the Gorani community is known as
Gorançe by Albanians. Within the Gorani community there is a recognition of their dialects being closer to the
Macedonian language than to
Serbian. The Gorani have been used as a lever of
Bulgarian irredentism, on the premise that if the Gora dialect is Bulgarian, then all Macedonian dialects are Bulgarian. Illustrating the Bulgarian interest is the first Gorani–
Albanian dictionary (with 43,000 words and phrases) published in 2007 by Albanian-Gorani scholar Nazif Dokle, sponsored and printed by the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Within scholarship, the Goran dialects previously classified as belonging to Serbian have been reassigned to Macedonian in the 21st century. Gorani speech has numerous loan-words, being greatly influenced by
Turkish and
Arabic due to the influence of Islam, as well as
Albanian areally. It is similar to the
Bosnian language because of the numerous Turkish loanwords. Gorani speak Serbo-Croatian in school. According to the 1991 Yugoslav census, 54.8% of the inhabitants of the Gora municipality said that they spoke the Gorani language, while the remainder had called it Serbian. Some linguists, including Vidoeski, Brozovic and Ivic, identify the Slavic-dialect of the Gora region as
Macedonian. There are assertions that Macedonian is spoken in 50 to 75 villages in the Gora region (Albania and Kosovo). According to some unverified sources, in 2003 the Kosovo government acquired Macedonian language and grammar books for Gorani schools. In 2008 the first issue of a Macedonian-language newspaper,
Гороцвет (
Gorocvet) was published. ::
Verno libe :
Gledaj me gledaj libe, abe verno libe, :
nagledaj mi se dur ti som ovde. :
Utre ke odim abe verno libe dalek-dalek :
na pusti Gurbet. :
Racaj poracaj libe šo da ti kupim. :
Ti da mi kupiš :
abe gledaniku cerna šamija, ja da ga nosim :
abe gledaniku i da ga želam. :
Racaj poracaj abe verno :
libe šo da ti pratim :
Ti da mi pratiš abe :
gledaniku šarena knjiga :
Ja da ga pujem abe gledaniku i da ga želam ==Organizations==