Pontic language
| Pontic (ποντιακά) | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Azerbaijan , Germany , Georgia , Greece , Canada , Kazakhstan , Turkey , Russia , Ukraine , USA | |
| speaker | 1,178,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language in | - | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
ine |
|
| ISO 639-3 | ||
The Pontic language (Pontic Ποντιακά Pontiaka or Ρωμαίικα Romeyika , Greek Ποντιακή διάλεκτος Pontiakē dialektos , Turkish Pontus lehçesi ) is a Greek language that was originally spoken on the Turkish Black Sea coast including adjacent areas of Georgia . In ancient times , this region was called Pontos , Latinized Pontus . The speakers of Pontic are the Pontic Greeks .
In the new edition of the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger by UNESCO , the Pontic language is classified as an endangered language .
Language development
The Pontic language emerged from the Attic Greek language and contains influences from the Byzantine-Greek , Turkish , Persian and numerous Caucasian languages .
Pontic is difficult to understand for speakers of standard Greek. The main reason for this is that these languages developed over a period of almost two millennia with little mutual influence. In addition, the Pontic was influenced by the Caucasian languages in the Middle Ages . The Pontic contains grammatical forms that are alien to standard Greek.
Examples
- Example 1: Pontic en (is), Ancient Greek esti , Koine enesti , Biblical form eni , Modern Greek ine
- Example 2: Pontic temeteron (our), ancient Greek to (n) hemeteron , modern Greek to (n)… mas
- Example 3: Pontic diminutive pedin (child), ancient Greek paidion , modern Greek pedi
- Example 4 (combination of 2 and 3): Pontic temeteron to pedin (our child), ancient Greek / Koine to paidion , modern Greek to pedi mas
Conceptual
The Greek Byzantines called themselves "Romans". The term “Byzantine Empire”, coined by Hieronymus Wolf in the 16th century, was unknown to the citizens of the (Eastern) Roman Empire . The term rum , which is still used in Turkey today, describes their descendants. It can be derived from their self-designation: ancient Greek Ῥωμαῖοι (modern Greek Ρωμαίοι) Rōmaioi ("Roman").
- Rumca , Rumdza and Romeyika (Pontic names for the Greek around Trabzon )
- Pontiaka (today common name for the Pontic of the Diaspora )
The Greek linguist Manolis Triantafyllidis differentiates in the context of the Pontic language between a western group (Oinuntian or Niotika, around Ünye (Greek Oinoe)), an eastern coastal group (Trapezuntian, around Trabzon ), and Chaldiotic, which is in the eastern hinterland (around Gümüşhane ) was spoken; most of the speakers lived in Chaldia.
distribution
At the beginning of the 20th century, Pontic Greek was spoken along the entire Turkish Black Sea coast as well as in neighboring Georgia . The West Pontic dialect group was located in the area between Inebolu and Ünye , the East Pontic group in the Trabzon area , in Chaldia and near Gümüşhane . As part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey regulated in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the majority of speakers left these areas with the Christian Pontos Greeks. What remained were the Muslim Pontic Greeks, whose ancestors had largely converted to Islam in the 17th century (Mackridge 1987). Muslims still speak Pontic today in a contiguous area called Holo (Pontic Χολό Choló) in the districts of Çaykara , Dernekpazarı and Köprübaşı , all of which are in the Trabzon Province .
In spoken exclusively by Muslims subdialect the region Of the Neogräzist Peter Mack Ridge assumed the original form of the Pontic, as the spokesman for the conversion lost to Islam any contact with the Greek-speaking world of their ancestors (for example, the Greek Church), which many archaic and medieval characteristics of the subdialect were retained. For example, they only use the ancient Greek negation particle ου .
There are no reliable and official figures on the (Muslim) Pontic Greeks in Turkey, as the state has not been allowed to collect data on the ethnic groups and religious affiliation of the inhabitants in censuses since 1965. Precise information is therefore difficult to determine. According to the 1965 state census, the last time the population's ethnicity and religion were recorded, 300,000 people in Turkey spoke Pontic. The Greek linguist of Pontic descent, Dr. Ioanna Sitaridou estimates the number of Pontic- speaking Muslims at around 5,000 speakers.
In the latest edition of the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger by UNESCO , the Pontic language in Turkey is definitely classified as an endangered language because the speakers (according to this level from UNESCO), with the exception of a few semi-speakers and linguists , are only older speakers and the language is no longer passed on to the younger generation.
According to Sitaridou, in addition to the constant emigration from Trabzon, the influence of the dominant Turkish-speaking majority is one of the reasons why the language is threatened with extinction. The Turkish author Ömer Asan refers to the contiguous Pontic language area, consisting of 60 villages in the province of Trabzon . According to Asan, these speakers come from the Trabzon province and are now scattered all over Turkey or have emigrated abroad.
These are among others in the following districts:
- Çaykara (25 places)
- Maçka (13 places)
- Dernekpazarı (7 places)
- Tonya (5 locations)
- Köprübaşı (1 place)
- Of (1 place)
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Pontic language area expanded to include the Caucasus and the Russian Empire as a result of significant migration (see Greek minority in the successor states of the Soviet Union ). In these areas today the Pontic is most vital, although large parts of the speaker populations migrate to Greece. In the 1930s, the Pontic was used as a literary medium in what was then the Soviet area. Among other things, a school grammar was written down (Topkhara 1998 [1932]) which explains Pontic grammar in Pontic language. In 1989 there were 40,000 speakers in Russia, including 15,000 each in the Krasnodar region and near Stavropol . At that time, there were 60,000 speakers in Georgia and 2,500 speakers in Armenia . The Pontic dialects in the Georgian Tsalka and in the Armenian Alawerdi are partly derived from Cappadocian dialects, which were probably assimilated by the Pontic.
There is a limited amount of Pontic literature, including some volumes by Asterix .
Romeyka
Romeyka is a Pontic dialect spoken by around 5000 people in the Trabzon area today. According to the linguist Ioanna Sitaridou, Romeyka is closely related to ancient Greek in terms of sentence structures and many vocabulary. The speakers of the language live in villages in the Pontus Mountains near Trabzon and were spared the expulsion of the Pontus Greeks after the Treaty of Lausanne, as they are of Muslim faith. They were able to retain their archaic language through extensive isolation.
Comparison with ancient Greek
The following comparisons relate to phonetics .
- 1. In Trabzonian Greek the sound / e / is attached to the suffix -ειν of the ancient Greek aorist .
| Pontic | Ancient Greek |
|---|---|
| ipìne | ειπείν |
| pathίne | παθείν |
| apothanίne | αποθανείν |
| piίne | πιείν |
| iδίne | ιδείν |
| fiίne | φυγείν |
| evrίne | ευρείν |
| came | καμείν |
| faίne | θαγείν |
| mathίne | μαθείν |
| erthéane | ελθείν |
| menίne | μενείν |
- 2. Identical infinitives –ηνα
| Pontic | Ancient Greek |
|---|---|
| anevίne | ανεβήναι |
| Katevine | καταβήναι |
| embine | εμβήναι |
| evjine | εκβήναι |
| epiδeavine | αποδιαβήναι |
| kimethine | κοιμηθήναι |
| xtipethine | κτυπηθήναι |
| evrethine | ευρεθήναι |
| vrasine | βραχήναι |
| raine | ραγήναι |
- 3. The aorist ending -είν becomes -αι
| Pontic | Ancient Greek |
|---|---|
| κράξαι | κράξειν |
| μεθύσαι | μεθύσειν |
- 4. Infinitives in the aorist / e /
ράψεινε, κράξεινε, μεθύσεινε, καλέσεινε, λαλήσεινε, κτυπήσεινε, καθίσεινε
- 5. Identical aorist suffix -ka
| Pontic | Ancient Greek |
|---|---|
| eδoka | έδωκα |
| enδoka | ενέδωκα |
| epika | εποίηκα |
| efika | αφήκα |
| etheka | έθεκα |
- 6. Change the infinitive ending –ine to -eane
literature
- Pietro Bortone : Greek with no history, no standard, no models: Muslim Pontic Greek. In: Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Michael Silk (eds.): Standard Languages and Language Standards: Greek, Past and Present. Ashgate, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-7546-6437-6 , pp. 67-89, limited book insight .
- Georges Drettas: Aspects pontiques . Association de Recherches Pluridisciplinaires (ARP), Paris 1997, ISBN 2-9510349-0-3 . See the extensive review by Mark Janse: Aspects of Pontic grammar . In: Journal of Greek Linguistics , Vol. 3 (2002), pp. 203-231, quotation p. 203: ... marks the beginning of a new era in Greek dialectology. Not only is it the first comprehensive grammar of Pontic not written in Greek, but it is also the first self-contained grammar of any Greek "dialect" written, in the words of Bloomfield, "in terms of its own structure" .
- Peter Mackridge : Greek-Speaking Moslems of North-East Turkey: Prolegomena to Study of the Ophitic Sub-Dialect of Pontic . In: Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Vol. 11 (1987), pp. 115-137.
- Οικονομίδης, Δ.Η .: Γραμματική της Ελληνικής Διαλέκτου του Πόντου . Ακαδημία Αθηνών, Athens 1958.
- Παπαδόπουλος, Α.Α: Ιστορική Γραμματική της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου . Επιτροπή Ποντιακών Μελετών, Athens 1955.
- Παπαδόπουλος, Α.Α: Ιστορικόν Λεξικόν της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου , 2 volumes. Μυρτίδης, Athens 1958–1961.
- Τομπαΐδης, Δ.Ε: Η Ποντιακή Διάλεκτος . Αρχείον Πόντου, Athens 1988.
- Τομπαΐδης, Δ.Ε, Συμεωνίδης, Χ.Π: Συμπλήρωμα στο Ιστορικόν Λεξικόν της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου του Α.Α. Παπαδόπουλου . Αρχείον Πόντου, Athens 2002.
- Τοπχαρά, Κ .: Η Γραμματική της Ποντιακής: Ι Γραματικι τι Ρομεικυ τι Ποντεικυ τι Γλοςας . Αφοί Κυριακίδη, Thessaloniki 1932, reprint 1998.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Ethnologue Database - Languages of the World - Pontic (Greek) - Turkey
- ↑ a b c Christopher Moseley: Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. 2007, p. 265.
- ↑ UNESCO Culture Sector, UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, 2009
- ↑ omerasan.com: PREFACE - By Peter Mackridge ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Turkey - Encyclopedia of the European East (EEO) - Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c University of Cambridge: News and Events: Endangered language opens window on to past University of Cambridge January 11, 2011
- ^ UNESCO Culture Sector, UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, 2012
- ↑ International Herald Tribune : Omer Asan: Greek-speaking writer from Turkey and a guide to the Pontian culture ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. April 25, 2000
- ↑ Christopher Moseley: Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. 2007, pp. 239-240.
- ↑ Asterix Lexicon: Asterix auf Pontisch ( Memento of the original from November 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. August 30, 2011
- ↑ Speak like Plato. In: Der Spiegel 3 (2011), p. 111; and Steve Connor: Jason and the argot: land where Greek's ancient language survives. The Independent of Jan. 3, 2011.
Web links
- Two reviews of the book Aspects pontiques by Georges Drettas:
- Mark Janse: Aspects of Pontic grammar Aspects of Pontic grammar . In: Journal of Greek Linguistics , Vol. 3 (2002), pp. 203-231 (English).
- Luc Bouquiaux: Georges Drettas, “Aspects pontiques” . In: L'Homme. Revue française d'anthropologie , vol. 38 (1998), pp. 255-257 (French).
- http://www.ocena.info/ Pontic-language website in Turkey, also with Pontic-Turkish vocabulary (previously A – G) and Pontic-language music
- Ethnologue report on the Pontic language