Pontic Greek ( pnt, Ποντιακόν λαλίαν, or ; el, Ποντιακή διάλεκτος, ; tr, Rumca) is a
variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos may refer to:
* Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea)
* Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology
* Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...
region on the southern shores of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
, northeastern
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
, and the Eastern Turkish/
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
region. Today it is spoken mainly in northern
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. Its speakers are referred to as
Pontic Greeks
The Pontic Greeks ( pnt, Ρωμαίοι, Ρωμίοι, tr, Pontus Rumları or , el, Πόντιοι, or , , ka, პონტოელი ბერძნები, ), also Pontian Greeks or simply Pontians, are an ethnically Greek group in ...
or Pontian Greeks.
The linguistic lineage of Pontic Greek stems from
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek.
History
The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...
via
Koine
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
and
Byzantine Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman co ...
, and contains influences from
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
,
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
,
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
, and
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
.
Pontic Greek is an endangered
Indo-European language
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide.
Many Pontians live in Greece; however, only 200,000–300,000 of those are considered active Pontic speakers. Although it is mainly spoken in Northern Greece, it is also spoken in Turkey, Russia, Georgia,
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
and Kazakhstan and by the Pontic diaspora. The language was brought to Greece in the 1920s after the population exchange between the Christian Pontic Greeks and the Turkish Muslims from their homelands during the
1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. However, it is still spoken in pockets of the
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos may refer to:
* Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea)
* Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology
* Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...
today, mostly by
Pontic Greek Muslims in the eastern districts of
Trabzon Province
Trabzon Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Located in a strategically important region, Trabzon is one of the oldest trade port cities in Anatolia. Neighbouring provinces are Giresun to the west, Gümüşhane to the ...
. Pontic Greek is one of the languages of the Greek (Hellenic) branch separate from Mainland Greek. Speakers of Pontic Greek and typical demotic, Mainland Greek do not usually understand each other.
It is primarily written in the
Greek script
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
; in Turkey and Ukraine the Latin script is used more frequently; in Russia and former Soviet countries, the Cyrillic alphabet is used.
Classification
Pontic Greek is classified as an
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
,
Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
of the
Attic
An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
-
Ionic branch.
Name
Historically, the speakers of Pontic Greek called it simply (or , pnt, Ρωμαίικα), which is also a historical and colloquial term for Modern Greek in general. The term "Pontic" originated in scholarly usage, but it has been adopted as a mark of identity by Pontic Greeks living in Greece. Pontic Greeks in Greece may call their language .
Similarly, in
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
, there is no special name for Pontic Greek; it is called (), derived from the Turkish word ''
Rum
Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Phili ...
'', denoting Byzantine Greeks.
Nowadays, Pontic speakers living in Turkey call their language , or .
History
Similar to most modern Greek dialects, Pontic Greek is mainly derived from Koine Greek, which was spoken in the
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
and
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
times between the 4th century BC and the 4th century AD. Following the
Seljuk invasion of Asia Minor during the 11th century AD, Pontus became isolated from many of the regions of the Byzantine Empire. The Pontians remained somewhat isolated from the mainland Greeks, causing Pontic Greek to develop separately and distinctly from the rest of the mainland Greek. However, the language has also been influenced by the nearby Persian,
Caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
, and Turkish languages.
Dialects
Greek linguist
Manolis Triantafyllidis Manolis A. Triantafyllidis ( el, Μανόλης Α. Τριανταφυλλίδης; Athens, 15 November 1883 – Athens, 20 April 1959) was a major representative of the demotic movement in education in Greece.
He was mostly active in Thessalonik ...
has divided the Pontic of Turkey into two groups:
*the Western group (''Oinountiac'' or ) around
Oenoe (Turkish Ünye);
*the Eastern group, which is again subdivided into:
**the coastal subgroup (''Trapezountiac'') around
Trebizond (Ancient Greek ) and
**the inland subgroup (''Chaldiot'') in
Chaldia
Chaldia ( el, Χαλδία, ''Khaldia'') was a historical region located in the mountainous interior of the eastern Black Sea, northeast Anatolia (modern Turkey). Its name was derived from a people called the ''Chaldoi'' (or ''Chalybes'') that i ...
(around
Argyroupolis (Gümüşhane) and Kanin in Pontic), its vicinity (
Kelkit
Kelkit is a town and district of Gümüşhane Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. According to the 2010 census, population of the district is 39,547 of which 13,784 live in the town of Kelkit. The district covers an area of , and the town ...
,
Baibourt, etc.), and around
Kotyora
Ordu () or Altınordu is a port city on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, historically also known as Cotyora or Kotyora ( pnt, Κοτύωρα), and the capital of Ordu Province with a population of 229,214 in the city center.
Name
Kotyora, the ori ...
(Ordu).
Speakers of Chaldiot were the most numerous. In phonology, some varieties of Pontic are reported to demonstrate
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, a well-known feature of Turkish (Mirambel 1965).
Outside Turkey one can distinguish:
*the Northern group (
Mariupol Greek
Mariupolitan Greek, or Crimean Greek also known as Tauro-Romaic or ''Ruméika'' (''Rumaíica'', from el, Ρωμαίικα, " Romaic"; russian: Румейский язык; uk, Румейська мова), is a Greek dialect spoken by the ethn ...
or ), originally spoken in
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
, but now principally in
Mariupol
Mariupol (, ; uk, Маріу́поль ; russian: Мариу́поль) is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is situated on the northern coast (Pryazovia) of the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Prior to the 2022 Russian i ...
, where the majority of Crimean Pontic Greeks of the Rumaiic subgroup now live. Other Pontic Greeks speak
Crimean Tatar as their mother tongue, and are classified as "
Urums
The Urums, singular Urum (, ; el, Ουρούμ, ''Urúm''; Turkish and Crimean Tatar: ''Urum,'' ) are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people in Crimea and Georgia. History
There are two main theories covering how the Urums m ...
". There are approximately half a dozen dialects of Crimean (Mariupolitan) Pontic Greek spoken.
**Soviet Rumaiic, a Soviet variant of the Pontic Greek language spoken by the Pontic Greek population of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
Ophitic
The inhabitants of the
Of valley who had converted to Islam in the 17th century
remained in Turkey and have partly retained the Pontic language until today.
Their dialect, which forms part of the Trapezountiac subgroup, is called "Ophitic" by linguists, but speakers generally call it . As few as 5,000 people are reported to speak it.
There are however estimates that show the real number of the speakers as considerably higher.
Speakers of Ophitic/Romeyka are concentrated in the eastern districts of Trabzon province:
Çaykara
Çaykara (Romeika: ''Kadahor'', ''Κατωχώρι'') is a town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. As of 2014, the District Mayor of Çaykara is Hanefi Tok ( AKP). Çaykara village lies in a V-shaped valley along th ...
(Katohor),
Dernekpazarı
Dernekpazarı is a district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey.The old name of the town was Kondu (or Kondualtı) and the current mayor of the town is Mehmet Aşık ( AKP). Dernekpazarı is part of the Of-valley system ('Solaklı ...
(Kondu),
Sürmene
Sürmene (Greek: Σούρμενα, ''Sourmena''; ota, ﺳﻮرﻣﻨﻪ, romanized as ''Sürmena e') is a small town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. In ancient times the town of Hyssus or Hyssos ( grc, Υσσ ...
(Sourmena) and
Köprübaşı (Göneşera). Although less widespread, it is still spoken in some remote villages of the Of district itself. It is also spoken in the western
İkizdere
İkizdere is a town and district of Rize Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey.
Etymology
Formerly known as ''Dipotamos'' and ''Kuray-ı Sab'', İkizdere means "twin streams" in both the Pontic Greek and Turkish languages, and indeed the ...
(Dipotamos) district of Rize province. Historically the dialect was spoken in a wider area, stretching further east to the port town of
Pazar (Athina).
Ophitic has retained the
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
, which is present in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
but has been lost in other variants of Modern Greek; it has therefore been characterized as "archaic" or
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
(even in relation to other Pontic dialects) and as the living language that is closest to Ancient Greek.
Because a majority of the population of these districts converted to Islam during the 17th to 19th centuries, some Arabic and Turkish loanwords have been adopted in the language. According to Vahit Tursun, writer of the Romeika-Turkish dictionary, loanwords from the neighboring Laz speakers of Rize province are strikingly absent in the Romeika vocabulary of Trabzon natives.
A very similar dialect is spoken by descendants of
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
from the Of valley (especially from
Kondu) now living in Greece in the village of
Nea Trapezounta, Pieria
Nea Trapezounta ( el, Νέα Τραπεζούντα, ''Nea Trapezunda'') is a village and a community of the Katerini municipality. Before the 2011 local government reform, it was part of the municipality of Korinos, of which it was a municipal di ...
,
Central Macedonia
Central Macedonia ( el, Κεντρική Μακεδονία, Kentrikí Makedonía, ) is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece, consisting of the central part of the geographical and historical region of Macedonia. With a populat ...
, with about 400 speakers.
[Anthi Revythiadou and Vasileios Spyropoulos (2009): "Οφίτικη Ποντιακή: Έρευνα γλωσσικής καταγραφής με έμφαση στη διαχρονία και συγχρονία της διαλέκτου" 'Ophitic Pontic: A documentation project with special emphasis on the diachrony and synchrony of the dialect'']
Geographic distribution
Though Pontic was originally spoken on the southern shores of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
, from the 18th and 19th century and on substantial numbers migrated into the northern and eastern shores, into the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. Pontic is still spoken by large numbers of people in
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, mainly in
Mariupol
Mariupol (, ; uk, Маріу́поль ; russian: Мариу́поль) is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is situated on the northern coast (Pryazovia) of the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Prior to the 2022 Russian i ...
, but also in other parts of Ukraine such as the
Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
and
Donetsk
Donetsk ( , ; uk, Донецьк, translit=Donets'k ; russian: Донецк ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin and Stalino (see also: Names of European cities in different languages (C–D), cities' alternat ...
region, in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
(around
Stavropol
Stavropol (; rus, Ставрополь, p=ˈstavrəpəlʲ) is a city and the administrative centre of Stavropol Krai, Russia. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 547,820, making it one of Russia's fastest growing cities.
It was known as ...
) and
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
. The language enjoyed some use as a literary medium in the 1930s, including a school grammar (Topkharas 1998
932
Year 932 (Roman numerals, CMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – Alberic II of Spoleto, Alberic II leads an uprising at Rome ag ...
.
After the
massacres of the 1910s, the majority of speakers remaining in
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
were subject to the
Treaty of Lausanne
The Treaty of Lausanne (french: Traité de Lausanne) was a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–23 and signed in the Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The treaty officially settled the conflic ...
population exchange
Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration, often imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development. Banishment or exile is a ...
, and were resettled in Greece (mainly northern Greece). A second wave of migration occurred in the early 1990s, this time from countries of the
former Soviet Union
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
.
/ref>
In urban areas in Greece the language is no longer spoken in daily life but in villages and towns with more homogeneous Pontic population, located mostly in the northern part of country, the language is still in active daily usage. Many radio stations broadcast in the Pontic language, and many associations exist for its safeguard.
* Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
: 400,000 speakers, mostly in Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia (East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
, Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
) and in Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...
* Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
: Unknown (certainly more than 5,000), mostly in eastern Black Sea Region
The Black Sea Region ( tr, Karadeniz Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The largest city in the region is Samsun. Other big cities are Trabzon, Ordu, Tokat, Giresun, Rize, Amasya and Sinop.
It is bordered by the Marmara Region to the ...
and in Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
** Of-dialectical region:
*** Of: multiple villages
*** Çaykara
Çaykara (Romeika: ''Kadahor'', ''Κατωχώρι'') is a town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. As of 2014, the District Mayor of Çaykara is Hanefi Tok ( AKP). Çaykara village lies in a V-shaped valley along th ...
: (24–70 villages)
*** Dernekpazarı
Dernekpazarı is a district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey.The old name of the town was Kondu (or Kondualtı) and the current mayor of the town is Mehmet Aşık ( AKP). Dernekpazarı is part of the Of-valley system ('Solaklı ...
: (13 villages)
*** Köprübaşı: (5 villages)
*** Sürmene
Sürmene (Greek: Σούρμενα, ''Sourmena''; ota, ﺳﻮرﻣﻨﻪ, romanized as ''Sürmena e') is a small town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. In ancient times the town of Hyssus or Hyssos ( grc, Υσσ ...
: (31 villages)
*** Rize
Rize (Greek language, Greek: ρίζα, Laz language, Laz: რიზინი, Georgian language, Georgian: რიზე,
, Ottoman Turkish: ريزه)
is the capital city of Rize Province in the eastern part of the Black Sea Region of Turkey.
Rize ...
: (21 villages, mostly in İkizdere
İkizdere is a town and district of Rize Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey.
Etymology
Formerly known as ''Dipotamos'' and ''Kuray-ı Sab'', İkizdere means "twin streams" in both the Pontic Greek and Turkish languages, and indeed the ...
district)
** To the west of Trabzon:
*** Maçka
Maçka ( el, Ματζούκα, Matzoúka, the "club"; Laz: მაჩხა ''Maçxa'') is a town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. The name derives from the medieval Greek '' Matzouka'', which was one of the pro ...
: A handful of villages, settled from the Of-Çaykara region
*** Tonya: (17 villages)
*** Beşikdüzü
Beşikdüzü is a town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. The mayor is Ramis Uzun ( CHP).
Name
The name ''Beşikdüzü'' is composed of two Turkish words, namely ''beşik'', "a cradle" and ''düzü'', "a plain". T ...
: 1 village
*** Giresun
Giresun (), formerly Cerasus (Ancient Greek: Κερασοῦς, Greek: Κερασούντα), is the provincial capital of Giresun Province in the Black Sea Region of northeastern Turkey, about west of the city of Trabzon.
Etymology
Giresun wa ...
: (3 villages in Bulancak
Bulancak (Georgian: ''ბულანჩაკი'') is a town in Giresun Province on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, near the city of Giresun. Its former name is Terastios. It is the seat of Bulancak District.[Gümüşhane
Gümüşhane () is a city and the capital district of Gümüşhane Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. The city lies along the Harşit River, at an elevation of , about southwest of Trabzon. According to the 2010 census, population of Gü ...]
: Sparsely in Torul-ardasa, Yağlıdere-kromni, Dumanlı
Dumanlı ( pnt, Σάντα, Sanda or Santa) was formerly a mid-sized community in Gümüşhane Province, Turkey, close to its border with Trabzon Province.
History
Established in the 17th century by Greeks who fled the coast of Pontus in order t ...
** Caucasus region
*** Kars
Kars (; ku, Qers; ) is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province. Its population is 73,836 in 2011. Kars was in the ancient region known as ''Chorzene'', (in Greek Χορζηνή) in classical historiography ( Strabo), part of ...
: Multiple villages and provincial capital.
Official status
Greece
In Greece, Pontic has no official status, like all other Greek dialects.
Soviet Union
Historically, Pontic Greek was the ''de facto'' language of the Greek minority in the USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, although in the (, All-Union Conference) of 1926, organised by the Greek-Soviet intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
, it was decided that Demotic
Demotic may refer to:
* Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language
* Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language
* Chữ Nôm, the demotic script for writing Vietnamese
See also
*
* Demos (disa ...
should be the official language of the community.
Later revival of Greek identity in the Soviet Union and post-Communist Russia saw a renewed division on the issue of Rumaiic
Mariupolitan Greek, or Crimean Greek also known as Tauro-Romaic or ''Ruméika'' (''Rumaíica'', from el, Ρωμαίικα, " Romaic"; russian: Румейский язык; uk, Румейська мова), is a Greek dialect spoken by the ethn ...
versus Demotic. A new attempt to preserve a sense of ethnic Rumaiic identity started in the mid-1980s. The Ukrainian scholar Andriy Biletsky
Andriy Yevheniyovych Biletsky ( uk, Андрі́й Євге́нійович Біле́цький, Andríj Jevhénijovyč Biléćký, ; born 5 August 1979) is a Ukrainian far-right politician. He is the leader of political party National Corps. ...
created a new Slavonic alphabet, but though a number of writers and poets make use of this alphabet, the population of the region rarely uses it.
Culture
The language has a rich oral tradition and folklore and Pontic songs are particularly popular in Greece. There is also some limited production of modern literature in Pontic, including poetry collections
A poetry collection is often a compilation of several poems by one poet to be published in a single volume or chapbook. A collection can include any number of poems, ranging from a few (e.g. the four long poems in T. S. Eliot's ''Four Quartets ...
(among the most renowned writers is Kostas Diamantidis), novels, and translated Asterix
''Asterix'' or ''The Adventures of Asterix'' (french: Astérix or , "Asterix the Gaul") is a ''bande dessinée'' comic book series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight the Roman Republic, wi ...
comic album
a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
s.Asterix in Pontic Greek
. The youth often speak standard Greek as their first language. The use of Pontic has been maintained more by speakers in North America than it has in Greece.
Alphabets
Pontic, in Greece, is written in the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
, with diacritics:
for ,
for (phonological ). Pontic, in Turkey, is written in the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
following Turkish conventions. In Russia, it is written in the
Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
. In early Soviet times, Pontic was written in the Greek alphabet phonetically, as shown below, using digraphs instead of diacritics; were written out as
,
. Th
Pontic Wikipediauses Greek script: it has adopted εα, εο for these vowels, to avoid clashes with Modern Greek ια, ιο, and uses digraphs from the Soviet system instead of diacritics, but otherwise follows historical orthography.
Archaisms
The following are features of Pontic Greek which have been retained from early forms of Greek, in contrast to the developments of Modern Greek.
Phonology
* The vowel "η" sometimes merged with "ε" rather than "ι" (κέπιν = κήπιον, κλέφτες = κλέπτης, συνέλικος = συνήλικος, νύφε = νύ(μ)φη, έγκα = ἤνεγκον, έτον = ἦτον, έκουσα = ἤκουσα etc.).
* The vowel "ω" merged with "o" even in those cases where Koine Greek received it as "ου" (ζωμίν = ζουμί, καρβώνι, ρωθώνι etc.).
* Preservation of the
Ionic consonant pair "" instead of Koine "" .
Declension of nouns and adjectives
* Preservation of the ancient
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
suffix "" in neuter diminutive nouns from Ancient Greek "-" (; Pontic ).
* Preservation of the termination of feminine compound adjectives in
* The declension of masculine nouns from singular, nominative termination "" to
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
* The ancient accenting of nouns in
vocative
In grammar, the vocative Grammatical case, case (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers ...
form:
Conjugation of verbs
* The second
aorist
Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the I ...
form in
* The
middle voice
In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the ...
verb termination in .
* The
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
aorist termination in (anc. ): etc.
* The
imperative form of passive aorist in (anc
* The sporadic use of
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
s
* Pontic ("is") from Koine idiomatic form ' (standard Ancient Greek '), compare the Biblical form ("there is"), Modern Greek ''ine'' ()
Lexicology
* The sporadic use of in the place of :
* Pontic (; "ours") from Ancient Greek in contrast to Modern Greek
Comparison with Ancient Greek
; 1. Attachment of the /e/ sound to the ancient infinitive suffix (in Trapezountiac Pontic)
:
; 2. Preservation of the Ancient infinitive suffix
:
; 3. Ancient
first aorist infinitive suffix -αι has been replaced by
second aorist suffix -ειν
:
; 4. Attachment of the /e/ sound to the ancient aorist infinitive suffix
:
; 5. Same aorist suffix was also the regular perfect suffix)
:
; 6. Ancient Greek infinitive > Pontic Greek infinitive
:
See also
*
Mariupolitan Greek
*
Caucasus Greeks
The Caucasus Greeks ( el, Έλληνες του Καυκάσου or more commonly , tr, Kafkas Rum), also known as the Greeks of Transcaucasia and Russian Asia Minor, are the ethnic Greeks of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in what is now ...
*
Cappadocian Greek
Cappadocian Greek ( cpg, Καππαδοκικά, Καππαδοκική Διάλεκτος), also known as Cappadocian or Asia Minor Greek, is a dialect of modern Greek heavily influenced by Turkish, originally spoken in Cappadocia (modern-day ...
Notes
Bibliography
* Berikashvili, Svetlana. 2017. Morphological aspects of Pontic Greek spoken in Georgia. LINCOM GmbH.
*
Özhan Öztürk
Özhan Öztürk (born 1968) is a Turkish writer and researcher. He wrote a Turkish Folklore Encyclopaedia and an encyclopaedic dictionary of the culture and folklore of the peoples of the Black Sea region of Turkey.
Works
* ''Karadeniz Ans ...
, Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2 Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul, 2005.
* Τομπαΐδης, Δ.Ε. 1988. Η Ποντιακή Διάλεκτος. Αθήνα: Αρχείον Πόντου. (Tompaidis, D.E. 1988. The Pontic Dialect. Athens: Archeion Pontou.)
* Τομπαΐδης, Δ.Ε. ϗ Συμεωνίδης, Χ.Π. 2002. Συμπλήρωμα στο Ιστορικόν Λεξικόν της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου του Α.Α. Παπαδόπουλου. Αθήνα: Αρχείον Πόντου. (Tompaidis, D.E. and Simeonidis, C.P. 2002. Additions to the Historical Lexicon of the Pontic Dialect of A.A. Papadopoulos. Athens: Archeion Pontou.)
* Παπαδόπουλος, Α.Α. 1955. Ιστορική Γραμματική της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου. Αθήνα: Επιτροπή Ποντιακών Μελετών. (Papadopoulos, A.A. 1955. Historical Grammar of the Pontic Dialect. Athens: Committee for Pontian Studies.)
* Παπαδόπουλος, Α.Α. 1958–61. Ιστορικόν Λεξικόν της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου. 2 τόμ. Αθήνα: Μυρτίδης. (Papadopoulos, A.A. 1958–61. Historical Lexicon of the Pontic Dialect. 2 volumes. Athens: Mirtidis.)
* Οικονομίδης, Δ.Η. 1958. Γραμματική της Ελληνικής Διαλέκτου του Πόντου. Αθήνα: Ακαδημία Αθηνών. (Oikonomidis, D.I. 1958. Grammar of the Greek Dialect of Pontos. Athens: Athens Academy.)
* Τοπχαράς, Κονσταντίνος. 1998
932
Year 932 (Roman numerals, CMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – Alberic II of Spoleto, Alberic II leads an uprising at Rome ag ...
Η Γραμματική της Ποντιακής: Ι Γραματικι τι Ρομεικυ τι Ποντεικυ τι Γλοςας. Θεσσαλονίκη: Αφοί Κυριακίδη. (Topcharas, K. 1998
932
Year 932 (Roman numerals, CMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – Alberic II of Spoleto, Alberic II leads an uprising at Rome ag ...
The Grammar of Pontic. Thessaloniki: Afoi Kiriakidi.)
External links
*
Mark Janse
Mark Janse (born 31 August 1959 in Sas van Gent, The Netherlands) is BOF-ZAP research professor in Asia Minor and Ancient Greek at Ghent University, where he studied Classics, Hebrew and Linguistics. Before coming to Ghent, Janse has been editor o ...
,
Aspects of Pontic grammar, a Review Article of Drettas (1997). The
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
summarizes the high points of the book.
Committee for Pontian Studies (Επιτροπή Ποντιακών Μελετών)The Pontic DialectArgonautai Komninoi AssociationPontic Greek - English DictionaryArchaic Greek in a modern worldvideo from Cambridge University, on YouTube
*Hakan Özkan (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität)
The language of the mountains - the Rumca dialect of Sürmene(Conference, 8 December 2010)
{{Languages of Ukraine
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
Varieties of Modern Greek
Languages of Greece
Languages of Turkey
Languages of Georgia (country)
Languages of Abkhazia
Languages of Azerbaijan
Greek, Pontic
Languages of Russia
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Languages of Armenia
Languages of Kazakhstan
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Endangered Indo-European languages
Pontic Greek culture