Pontic Greek

Pontic Greek is classified as an Indo-European, Greek language of the Attic-Ionic branch.[1]

Historically, the speakers of Pontic Greek called it simply Romeyka (or Romeika, Pontic: 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 Pontiaká.[8]

Similarly, in Turkish, there is no special name for Pontic Greek; it is called Rumca ([ˈɾumd͡ʒa]), derived from the Turkish word Rum, denoting Byzantine Greeks.[9][10][11]

Nowadays, Pontic speakers living in Turkey call their language Romeyka, Urumce, Rumca or Rumcika.[11]

Similar to most modern Greek dialects, Pontic Greek is mainly derived from Koine Greek, which was spoken in the Hellenistic and Roman 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.[12] The Pontians remained somewhat isolated from the mainland Greeks, causing Pontic Greek to develop separately and distinctly from the rest of the mainland Greek.[13] However, the language has also been influenced by the nearby Persian, Caucasian, and Turkish languages.

Greek linguist Manolis Triantafyllidis has divided the Pontic of Turkey into two groups:

• the Western group (Oinountiac or Niotika) around Oenoe (Turkish Ünye);
• the Eastern group, which is again subdivided into:
  • the coastal subgroup (Trapezountiac) around Trebizond (Ancient Greek Trapezous) and
  • the inland subgroup (Chaldiot) in Chaldia (around Argyroupolis (Gümüşhane) and Kanin in Pontic), its vicinity (Kelkit, Baibourt, etc.), and around Kotyora (Ordu).

Speakers of Chaldiot were the most numerous. In phonology, some varieties of Pontic are reported to demonstrate vowel harmony, a well-known feature of Turkish (Mirambel 1965).

Outside Turkey one can distinguish:

• the Northern group (Mariupol Greek or Rumeíka), originally spoken in Crimea, but now principally in Mariupol, 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". 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.

Though Pontic was originally spoken on the southern shores of the Black Sea, from the 18th and 19th century and on substantial numbers migrated into the northern and eastern shores, into the Russian Empire. Pontic is still spoken by large numbers of people in Ukraine, mainly in Mariupol, but also in other parts of Ukraine such as the Odesa and Donetsk region, in Russia (around Stavropol) and Georgia. The language enjoyed some use as a literary medium in the 1930s, including a school grammar (Topkharas 1998 [1932]).

After the massacres of the 1910s, the majority of speakers remaining in Asia Minor were subject to the Treaty of Lausanne population exchange, 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.[22]

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: 400,000 speakers, mostly in Macedonia (East, Central and West) and in Attica[23]
• Turkey: Unknown (certainly more than 5,000), mostly in eastern Black Sea Region and in Istanbul[24][23][25]
  • Of-dialectical region:
    • Of: multiple villages
    • Çaykara: (24–70 villages)
    • Dernekpazarı: (13 villages)
    • Köprübaşı: (5 villages)
    • Sürmene: (31 villages)
    • Rize: (21 villages, mostly in İkizdere district)
  • To the west of Trabzon:
    • Maçka: A handful of villages, settled from the Of-Çaykara region
    • Tonya: (17 villages)
    • Beşikdüzü: 1 village
    • Giresun: (3 villages in Bulancak district)
    • Gümüşhane: Sparsely in Torul-ardasa, Yağlıdere-kromni, Dumanlı
  • Caucasus region
    • Kars: Multiple villages and provincial capital.

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 (among the most renowned writers is Kostas Diamantidis), novels, and translated Asterix comic albums.[28] 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.[1]

Pontic, in Greece, is written in the Greek alphabet, with diacritics: σ̌ ζ̌ ξ̌ ψ̌ for /ʃ ʒ kʃ pʃ/, α̈ ο̈ for [æ ø] (phonological /ia io/). Pontic, in Turkey, is written in the Latin alphabet following Turkish conventions. In Russia, it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. In early Soviet times, Pontic was written in the Greek alphabet phonetically, as shown below, using digraphs instead of diacritics; [æ ø] were written out as ια, ιο. The Pontic Wikipedia uses 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.

The following are features of Pontic Greek which have been retained from early forms of Greek, in contrast to the developments of Modern Greek.

• Mariupolitan Greek
• Caucasus Greeks
• Cappadocian Greek
• Italiot Greek

• Berikashvili, Svetlana. 2017. Morphological aspects of Pontic Greek spoken in Georgia. LINCOM GmbH. ISBN 978-3862888528
• Özhan Öztürk, Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2 Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul, 2005. ISBN 975-6121-00-9
• 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 [1932]. Η Γραμματική της Ποντιακής: Ι Γραματικι τι Ρομεικυ τι Ποντεικυ τι Γλοςας. Θεσσαλονίκη: Αφοί Κυριακίδη. (Topcharas, K. 1998 [1932]. The Grammar of Pontic. Thessaloniki: Afoi Kiriakidi.)

Pontic edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pontic.

• Mark Janse, "Aspects of Pontic grammar", a Review Article of Drettas (1997). The paper summarizes the high points of the book.
• Committee for Pontian Studies (Επιτροπή Ποντιακών Μελετών)
• Trebizond Greek: A language without a tongue
• Pontic Greek: A cost of a language
• The Pontic Dialect
• Argonautai Komninoi Association
• Pontic Greek - English Dictionary
• Development of the Pontic Greek Dialect
• Archaic Greek in a modern world video from Cambridge University, on YouTube
• Hakan Özkan (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität), The language of the mountains - the Rumca dialect of Sürmene (Conference, 8 December 2010)