Thanks to Seldom Balance for the maps

Greeks ....OH MY GOD.....THEY EXISTED BACK THEN.

I understand what you infer, but you’re seeing it as literally illustrating some sort of proof, in other words it’s all a matter of how things are perceived and thus interpreted.

These maps are recent maps the earliest being 1992 , thus as you would have already read different accounts of different sources and of different authors especially those on this forum (including the posts by TrueMacedonian), I know thus that you are aware of what the population exchanges have brought about.

As these maps are more recent, there just merely interpreting the more recent history of things and that is that those people today (who came from the population exchanges) all refer to them selves as Greek and relate to the country of Greece (and I respect that despite the history behind that). Therefore it’s appropriate to state that all the people who were exchanged (came into Greece for the first time) are Greeks.

When you think about it, it would be strange (to the general public especially those that are unaware of the complexities of the Balkans etc) to show that Muslim Turks (originating in the Balkans), were transferred (thus exchanged) with Christian Turks (originating in turkey). General people would view this as Turkish transferring Turkish

Granted some of those exchanged if not many may well have been remnants of ancient Greeks living there in ancient times, or just people who adopted the Greek culture and language (no surprise there), and /or an amalgamation of people and cultures (as was the case during the population exchanges).

In ancient times the ancient Greeks didn’t belong to one single nation (they were like seafarers who had scatted settlements everywhere that lived in their own independent states), modern times are completely different as for the first time in history a nation called Greece was created and were forced to transfer from lands they have been living in for thousands of years.

Many were apart of Turkey and its culture and customs (perhaps not all customs as many were Christians) and undoubtedly related to the people living in Turkey, as they were there for thousands of years and considered it their homeland.