Pontian Greek Dialect

The dialect of the Pontus region (NE Asia Minor)

This dialect,with really many ancient greek's language elements surviving in her, is spoken in Greece -wherever the pontic people live.

People who spoke it are bilingual(predominately speak modern Greek,except the latest pontians arrived in Greeks during the '90s from ex USSR)

The amazing thing is that there are still people in Pontos (today NE Turkey) ,who still speak "Pontiaka"-they call it "Rumja"="Roman"="medieval Greek".
They stayed in Turkey,not following their co-patriots in Greece,because of their different religion (they have become muslims)

One of them Vahit Tursun,realized the origin of his mother tongue after much searching.
He has opened a simple site about his village "Ocena" ,in which he gives a taste of his language...
http://www.ocena.info/



Edited by Digenis - 31-May-2006 at 16:58

I heard that the book was forbidden for some years and there was a trial with accusation of "try of splitting Turkey"
...Sad things for some people who only search for the culture of their grandfathers...

I visited the web site ocena.info and found this video:

http://www.ocena.info/videodes/albums/videodes/parakathe_1.wmv

I am wondering what the subject of that video is. The people in the video look very happy and full of life. 





By the way, Digenis, I hope that with this thread we learn something new, everybody knows the minority policy of Turkey and unfortunately, Pontians aren't exception. In this thread, I am more interested in Pontian culture, language and people rather than Turkey's politics, at which I am good enough, like most of us.

Best regards.

I'd go for "integration" instead of assimilation, since the genes were more or less similar, inherited by common ancestors. All the parts joined the same body, doxeio, to say it in "Greeklish"

The only who never integrate are those who create a ghetto.


about the Pontian muslims.. i've seen some photos of them in a recent report and they were drinking cofees under Kemal's photo.. It seemed weird considering that he's the man who gave the orders to persecute their brothers, who only differed in religion





Edited by Kotsos - 02-Jun-2006 at 18:09

My  mother said me, she firstly spoken a  langauge we named Rumca(half turkish- half greek),  she can understand some words of greek langauge.(very very  limited), but I  am sure she have no  sypmaty for  their brothers, who only differed in religion.

maybe, It is only a joke, to call each  other as greek. My  mother says, they lived with greeks  before population exchange, so they  know some greek words.  after all langauge  she talk  is  half-turkish half-greek.  But well, maybe I have  some greek ancestors too. can I call themself great MURTAZA.

I have some relevent material on the Pontic (and others) dialect, I think i should contribute it to this thread.

"Pontic (Athanasiadis 1977; Dawkins 1931; Dawkins 1937; Drettas 1997;
Ikonomidis 1958 [1940]; Papadopoulos 1955b; Papadopoulos 1961) refers to Greek dialects formerly spoken on the southern shores of the Black Sea (�Pontus�); it is still spoken there, around Ophis [Of], by the Muslim Pontians not subject to the 1922 population exchanges (Mackridge 1987). Pontic was spoken in isolated pockets in the western part of the Pontus, from Inepolis [Inebolu] to Oinoe [�nye], and in a continuous region from Oinoe to Ophis. Itwas also spoken in Pontian mining colonies further inland (as seen, Pharasa has been considered an erstwhile mining colony), and in isolated pockets near the Caucasus, such as Batumi and Kars.

Pontic is also spoken on the northern shores of the Black Sea, in southern Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia, and the Ukraine, particularly around Rostov-na- Donu (Semenov 1935); the Pontic speakers are known to have emigrated from Asia Minor in xviii and xix�AD (Dawkins 1937:17�18). Many of the Northern Pontic speakers were resettled during Stalinist rule to Kazakhstan; following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they are resettling in Greece." Link

From what i read, it split from the main body (as other archiac forms did) around the 10-11 century but that source says the 14th century. It has been suggested that it has/had three seperate subdivisions. basically Western > Eastern and hinterland.

Cappodicain was seperate dialect and more isolated (than pointiac) from what was spoken in the aegean

The Hidden Face i found this source via wiki, it reads well



Edited by Leonidas - 06-Jun-2006 at 07:30

DayI the name of Sultan(a) was  common for the Greek women in Ionia and Constantinople. This name mentioned also in many Greek books and specially those that written from Dido Sotiriou,known Greek writer.

Edited by akritas - 06-Jun-2006 at 13:21

Although Greeks regard Pontic as a dialect of Greek, Pontic and Standard Greek are mostly mutually incomprehensible, both because they developed independently for almost two millennia, and because of the influence of Ibero-Caucasian languages on Pontic in the middle ages. (For instance, Pontic replaces gender distinctions in its adjectives with a strict animacy distinction, alien to both Greek and Turkish.)

• Example 1: Pontic en (is), Ancient Greek esti, Koine idiomatic form enesti, Biblical form eni, Modern Greek ine
  
• Example 2: Pontic temeteron (ours), Ancient Greek to(n) hemeteron, Modern Greek to(n) * mas
  
• Example 3: Pontic diminutive pedhin (little child), Ancient Greek paidion, Modern Greek pedhi
  
• Example 4 (combining 2 and 3): Pontic temeteron to pedin (our little child), Ancient Greek/Koine to hemeteron paidion, Modern Greek to pedi mas

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_language

Of course Mortaza, but tommorow because is late now