Pontic Greek

This article is about the language. For the ethnic group, see Pontic Greeks.
Pontic Greek
ποντιακά, ρωμαίικα
Regionoriginally the Pontus on the Black Sea coast; Greece, Russia, Georgia, and Turkey
EthnicityPontic Greeks
Native speakers
778,000 (2009–2015)[1]
Dialects
Greek, Latin, Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3pnt
Glottologpont1253
ELPPontic
Linguasphere56-AAA-aj
Pontic Greek is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)
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Anatolian Greek dialects until 1923; Demotic in yellow. Pontic in orange. Cappadocian in green, with green dots indicating individual Cappadocian Greek villages in 1910.
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Pontic Greek (Pontic: Ρωμαίικα, romanized: Rhomaiika,[a] Greek: Ποντιακά, romanized: Pontiaka;[b] Turkish: Rumca or Romeika)[3][4] is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety,[5] Pontic Greek is spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide, who are known as Pontic or Pontian Greeks.[1]

Like nearly all of Greek varieties spoken today, the linguistic lineage of Pontic Greek stems from the Hellenistic Koine, itself based on Attic–Ionic Greek, which later developed into the Byzantine Greek of the Middle Ages. Following its geographic isolation from the rest of the Greek–speaking world, Pontic continued to develop separately along with other Anatolian Greek dialects, like Cappadocian, from the 11th century onwards.[6] As a result, Pontic Greek is not completely mutually intelligible with the standard Demotic Greek spoken in mainland Greece today.[7][8][9][10] Pontic also contains influences from Russian, Turkish, Kartvelian (namely Laz and Georgian) and Armenian.

Today, Pontians live predominantly in Northern Greece, following the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Out of their total population, around 200,000–300,000 are considered active Pontic speakers.[11] Pontic Greek is also spoken in Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, as well as by the Pontic diaspora. It remains spoken in pockets of the Pontus region, mostly by Pontic Greek Muslims in the eastern districts of Trabzon Province. Pontic is primarily written in the Greek script; the Latin script is sporadically used in Turkey, while the Cyrillic alphabet is rarely used in Russia and former Soviet countries.[5]

  1. ^ a b "Pontic". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on April 12, 2018. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cambridge was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Armostis, Spyros; Voniati, Louiza; Drosos, Konstantinos; Tafiadis, Dionysos (2020). "Trapezountian Pontic Greek in Etoloakarnania". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 52 (2): 328–340. doi:10.1017/S0025100320000201.
  4. ^ Tursun, Vahit (2023). Romeika (Karadeniz Rumcası): edebiyat - gramer bilgileri ve ağızlar arasi karşılaştırma. Töz araştırma-inceleme (1. Baskı ed.). Ankara: Töz Yayınları. ISBN 978-605-71864-6-1.
  5. ^ a b "Pontic". Endangered Languages Project.
  6. ^ Mackridge, Peter (1991-01-01). "The Pontic dialect: a corrupt version of ancient Greek?". Journal of Refugee Studies 4: 337.
  7. ^ Tsekouras, Ioannis (2016). "Nostalgia, Emotionality, and Ethno-Regionalism in Pontic Greek Parakathi Singing" (PDF). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. pp. 65–69.
  8. ^ Fann Bouteneff, Patricia (September 2003). "Greek Folktales from Imera, Pontos". Fabula. 44 (3–4): 292–312. doi:10.1515/fabl.2003.018.
  9. ^ Popov, Anton (2003). "Becoming Pontic: "Post-Socialist" Identities, "Transnational" Geography, and the "Native" Land of the Caucasian Greeks". Ab Imperio. 2003 (2): 339–360. doi:10.1353/imp.2003.0114. S2CID 131320546.
  10. ^ Hionidou, Violetta; Saunders, David (November 2010). "Exiles and Pioneers: Oral Histories of Greeks Deported from the Caucasus to Kazakhstan in 1949". Europe-Asia Studies. 62 (9). JSTOR: Taylor & Francis: 1480. doi:10.1080/09668136.2010.515794. JSTOR 25764696. S2CID 144384647.
  11. ^ Sitaridou, Ioanna; Kaltsa, Maria (2010). "Topicalisation in Pontic Greek". Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistic Theory. 4: 259–279.


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