The Cambridge researcher Dr. Ioanna Sitaridou discovered a classical Greek dialect Romeyka in the mountains of the north-eastern Turkey. I sent the clip to Lars Brownworth, he writes:
“I had read that there was an area near the Black Sea where Greek was still spoken, but had never heard it. These are the descendants of the Trebizond splinter state that was formed after the 4th Crusade and survived until 1461 as an independent Byzantine ‘empire’. Since the word ‘Hellenic’ had pagan connotations in Byzantine times they referred to themselves and their language as Roman (Romanoi) which you can still hear in the modern name of the language. Surrounded by Turkish speakers (especially after the 20th century population exchange), their language ‘fossilized’ (like the Icelanders- Icelandic is closer to the Norse spoken by the Vikings than any other Scandinavian language). So they preserved the archaic grammar that modern Greek lost – in other words we are hearing the Byzantine language as spoken in the 10th-14th centuries. Or at least as close to that as we can get in the modern world!”
Here is the clip:
Couple of aside observations. Notice Ioanna Sitaridou interviews the “babushkas” only. The younger generations probably no longer speaks Romeyka and the men are obviously long dead. Another example is the Ladino, a fossilized (also Turkey/Greece based) Portuguese.
Notice how beautiful are the older women. In a movie theater last week I was thinking how ugly are the retirement age Americans, with the layers of the false stucco and the debilitating aftershocks of the sedated life. And here are the older women full of the natural grace, beauty, laughter and energy. The authentic colorful dress.
Further reading:
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That’s a fascinating finding. And I’m wondering whether they possess written documentations of their history, language, and culture.
Abdullah, one can ask Dr. Ioanna Sitaridou at Cambridge.
Hi,
I think Ladino has evolved from Spanish originally.
But anyway, I wanted to say or ask something else: is the word babushka known in English-speaking world in its original meaning: grandmother?
Libor
There`s even a Scandinavian counterpart to this language spoken in a remote valley in Sweden called Elfdalian. Like Romeyka, it`s considered an especially archaic subdialect of an especially archaic dialect (Dalecarlian, cf. Pontic Greek) of a highly innovative major language (Swedish), though in my opinion it they both count as languages in their own right. It`s only spoken by 3000 people but the locals are taking great measures to preserve it. We can only hope that the Turkish government will do the same.
The Turkish government? Protect what is greek? what the hell are you talking about? the turks are annihilating everything that is greek in their way. they even say that the ancient historical locations where built by them. not the greek… turks= fucking, sadistic, mongols. nothing else nothing more
There are many children that speak the language, but the number is getting less each year. But hopefuly as life improves, less people will have to move away from the villages like they had to in the 50′s to 80′s. There are also speakers of this language in diaspora in western Europe :)
the word greek is a counterfeit derogatory word. the most advanced language till this day is ellene. ellenike means unity in being with victory. all the rest of the languages spoken are simplified.
Daniel, do you mean “all languages” or all Greek dialects?
meu nome e romeyca e romeyka o qui vcs fala e o q ?
Sorry, but Ms. Sitaridou did not discover anything. The language has been described by so maany researchers before her … Well, do some research, please.