The Gajal or Gadzhal (; ) are a Turkic-speaking group of the Muslim faith living in the east of the Balkans and Turkey. The main areas of settlement of the Gajals are located in the extreme northeast of the Republic of Bulgaria at Deliorman, as well as in the region of Eastern Thrace (Turkey). Because of the Turkic language, and the Islamic faith in other countries, Gadjals are usually ranked among the Turks, although the Gajals cause some ethnic isolation due to their ethnogenesis. Balkan-Gagauz language is spoken by the Gajals. The total number of Gajals is about 300,000 people, including about 20,000 native speakers. They are believed to be descendants of Pechenegs and Cumans. They are closely related to the Gagauz people, leading to claims that the Gagauz are the Christian part, while the Gajal are the Muslim part.
History
Neither Jirecek nor Kanitz mentioned this word. It was first used in Ahmef Vefik's dictionary Lehçe-i Osmani written in 1873–1876. According to him, Gajal was a word used to describe gypsies of Varna and Balchik. In fact, his dictionary is the only Turkish dictionary which mentions this word. The Škorpil brothers - Hermann Škorpil and Karel Škorpil published in 1898 "The Yearbook of the Varna State High School", where they had written: "In our research we paid attention to the questions - what happened to the first non-Slavic Bulgarians? Is it possible that these people, who won, disappeared completely in two centuries, mixed with Slavs, whose character was completely opposite to the character of the ancient Bulgarians? We came to an opinion that cannot be final until more material is collected, namely: that today's Muslim population of Deliorman - the Gajals, and perhaps the Christian Gagauz in Eastern Bulgaria are the remnants of non-Slavic Bulgarians."
Soon their theory became very popular and was accepted by a number of historians, such as Gavril Zanetov, one of the supporters of the Turkic theory of the origin of the Bulgarians. Zanetov perceived both the Gajals and the Gagauz as descendants of non-Slavic Bulgars. His source was also the Shkorpil brothers - but with one difference - he added that the Alevi population of Balbunar, Silistra and Varna were also Bulgarians who have converted to Islam, because "they give sacrifice for St. Elijah (actually Ali, local Christians believed that Ali was related to the Christian Elijah, which is not true), drink and don't hide their faces". Lyubomir Miletich was another historian who also supported the Škorpil brothers' theory in his book "The Old Bulgarian Population in Northeastern Bulgaria" published in 1902. Miletich, who had visited the Ludogorie region wrote in his book that: "they (Turks of Deliorman) are old inhabitants, they did not come from Asia Minor, as the Turks from Tuzluk (region covering most of Targovishte) did, and that from time immemorial their ancestors knew each other as locals." His other claims were that the Deliorman Turks have a different language and dialect.