Also known as: Ashkali, Haškalija, Evgjits, Jevgs, Egiouptsi, Magjup

A people who may have originated in Egypt and are believed to have arrived in the Balkans partly as traders as early as the time of Alexander Macedonian, but chiefly later on in the 4th century (between 306 and 337 according a Vatican document discovered by Hugh Poulton) as soldiers or refugees, who subsequently married Balkan women – mainly socially excluded. Older members of the community recall a tradition handed down over centuries that they originated in “Misiri, which is in Turkey”; this probably refers to Egypt, since this country, called Mısır in Turkish, was in fact for centuries a part of the Ottoman Empire. Ashkali is in fact their traditional and popular name in former Yugoslavia but when their intellectuals discovered their probable Egyptian origin, they began to promote the name of "Balkan Egyptians". As a matter of fact, they are most numerous in Albania, where more than 50,000 are known as Evgjits or Jevgs (a majority having completely assimilated), and their number is almost as high in Dardania (Kosovo and Metohija); the next largest communities are to be found, in order, in Macedonia, Greece and Bulgaria, where some 12,000 Egiouptsi live in the Madan (Rhodopes) region. In Turkey they are known as Kıpti (Copts). Most are currently of the Muslim faith, some having converted as recently as the 19th century, and a certain number (notably in Uroševac/Ferizaj in Dardania) are convinced followers of radical Islam.
Some local people, particularly urban population in former Yugoslavia, confuse them with Rroms, under the name of “Cigani”, but their near neighbours, especially in Albania and Metohija are well aware of the distinction. Yet neither the Ashkali Egyptians nor the Rroms accept being lumped together. Living in many cases in downtown urban areas (in Ohrid and Struga for example), the Egyptians have never had a mobile lifestyle. In Albania, they are regarded by the authorities as native Albanians despite their distant non-Illyrian origins, and they are refused official minority status both on that basis and because they do not have a language of their own (they all speak Albanian – often with a colourful accent which some delight in exaggerating), literature or body of tradition that would be specifically theirs. At the same time, they are quite clearly held in contempt by other Balkan peoples, a factor that contributes to instability in the region. Given the objective discrimination that they suffer, it would be hypocritical to consider them as citizens with equal rights, and there is a need for awareness rising in this regard, particularly to promote their heritage and historical contribution to the local societies. The fact that certain extremist Kosovians set out to “cleanse” Dardania of Balkan Egyptians after 1999 demonstrates that they represent a not-inconsiderable political issue. In recent years, the term Ashkali can be heard sometimes to signify people of mixed Rrom and Balkan Egyptian descent, now that the practice of avoiding intermarriage has declined. It is worth adding that the Balkan Egyptians have a small number of words particular to themselves: some of these are of unknown origin, four or five are borrowings from Rromani and the others refer in some way to Egypt. In Dardania, for example, misíre means “magic” (literally “Egyptianism”), while in Albania the expression aspi čoče (which has now passed into general slang) means “hush, somebody is listening” and could be derived from the Coptic aspe (meaning “tongue”) and djodje (“stranger” or “enemy”), although the similarity may be merely coincidental.

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