Map showing the distribution of Greek dialects in late Byzantine Empire!

[Daskalot]

Description

Distribution of Greek dialects during the late Byzantine Emptire, 12-15th centuries. Yellow, late Byzantine Koine Greek, which formed the foundation of Modern Greek; orange, Pontic Greek; green Cappadocian Greek.

Link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Di..._Empire_en.png

I found this map over at Wikipedia, I find it quite interesting.
Lets discuss the various aspects of it.

I have not obtained the original source of the map.

It seems as if ~90% of Macedonian territory did not have any Greek speakers. Wonder what language they used? Interesting is also that the largest territory inhabited by Greek speakers is not in the Balkans but rather in present day Turkey.

[Onur]

Like i said in "Kemal Atatürk was Macedonian!" thread, majority of Greek speakers was always in today`s Turkey `till 1924 population exchange. The Greek elite always lived around Izmir and Istanbul.

Also one more thing;
The Pontic and Cappadocian Greek most likely invented by Greek nationalists as late as 19th or 20th century. At 19th century, The language of the Christians in Pontic area was Turkish with considerable amount of Greek vocabulary. In the Cappadocia region, it was Turkish with few Greek words.




I did google search and i found this in wikipedia. It seems that some British scholars did a research about it at 1916 and here is the quote from the book;

Unfortunately, there are next to no written documents in Medieval or early Modern Cappadocian, as the language was and still is essentially without a written tradition. The earliest descriptions of Cappadocian date from the 19th century, but are generally not very accurate
...

Turkish influence appears at every level. The Cappadocian sound system includes the Turkish vowels ı, ö, ü, and the Turkish consonants b, d, g, š, ž, tš, dž. Turkish vowel harmony is found in forms such as düšündǘzu "I think", aor. 3sg düšǘntsü < düšǘntsi (Malakopi), from Turkish düşünmek, patišáxıs < patišáxis "king" (Delmeso), from Turkish padişah.

Agglutinative forms are also found in the verb system such as the pluperfect tense írta ton "I had come" (lit. "I came I was") (Delmeso) on the model of Turkish geldi idi (geldiydi). Although Cappadocian word order is essentially governed by discourse considerations such as topic and focus, there is a tendency towards the Turkish Subject Object Verb word order with its typological correlates (suffixation and pre-nominal grammatical modifiers).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocian_Greek_language

Inclusion of Turkish special vowels and consonants. Turkish vowel harmony. All the words they gave as example here are Turkish. Most importantly, "Subject-Object-Verb" word order and agglutinative features.

A language like this cant be Greek. It seems like they tried so hard to name their Turkish language as "Greek" at 1916. I didn't look for so-called "Pontic Greek" but i know, its Turkish again with some Byzantine Greek vocabulary.


So, like i said, if there was a language called "Pontic and Cappadocian Greek", its either mysteriously vanished without a record or it`s just a product of 19th and 20th century Hellenism ideas.

We also know that all Christians from central Anatolia(Cappadocia) and Black-sea(Pontus) regions couldn't speak Greek at all when they gone to Greece at 1924. Their language was this Turkish with some Byzantine Greek vocabulary. The reason of Greek vocabulary in their Turkish tongue was because they were Christians who were in contact with Greek patriarchy and their bibles and other books was published by them. Also they probably intermarried with Greek speaking Christians for 900+ years.

[osiris]

my problem with that map is that it can be misleading, while greek may have been spoken in those areas it certainly was not the only language nor was it the majority langauge in those areas.

greek was also a second language not a native one for many in the eastern roman empire

[Bill77]

my problem with that map is that it can be misleading, while greek may have been spoken in those areas it certainly was not the only language nor was it the majority langauge in those areas.

greek was also a second language not a native one for many in the eastern roman empire

I agree osiris. If we were to draw a map of Australia and shade Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide yellow, it would sugest there are Greek speakers in this area but does not mean it is Greek teritory or the main language is Greek.

[osiris]

bill what iis even more intresting is that in parts of greece no form of greek was spoken

[Onur]

my problem with that map is that it can be misleading, while greek may have been spoken in those areas it certainly was not the only language nor was it the majority langauge in those areas.

Ofc osiris. For example right before population exchange at 1923, Greece`s population was 2,1 million. They send 550.000 Muslim Turks to Turkey. So, there was only 1,5 million Christians in Greece, which includes Macedonians, Albanians, Gagauz Turks, Gypsies, Pomaks and others. One million Christians immigrated from Turkey to Greece but we know that about ~350.000(estimated) of these people could only speak Turkish.

On the other hand, Turkey`s population at 1927 was 14 million. AFAIK, Greek speaking people in Anatolia and current Greece was always minority after 14th century because of vast number of Turkish other settlers.

[osiris]

onur the modern turks bear very little physical resemblance to the other altaic speakers who look more asiatic can you explain how this came to be.

[Onur]

onur the modern turks bear very little physical resemblance to the other altaic speakers who look more asiatic can you explain how this came to be.

There are two reasons for this;

Like i explained here before, local people of Anatolia didn't vaporize after Turkish speaking people came here at 11th century. All of them intermarried with each other in time.

It`s widely accepted fact that the medieval Turkish language came to Europe with the Huns after 5th century then Cumans, Tatars, Oghuzs laters but no one can be %100 sure which chromosomes they bring here. Estimations are ""J2, G, N, Q".


Check my message below here;

"R1a, I, R1b, E1b1b" are typical DNA of Europeans, total of %34 in Turkey.

"J2, G, N, Q" are typical Eurasian DNA highest among Azerbaijani, Georgia to Finland, total of %41 in Turkey.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?p=53404#post53404

So, most probably %41 of Turkey`s current population has early medieval Turkish immigrant`s DNA and the other %34 carries ancient European people`s DNA. In Aegean side of Turkey some people still carries ~2500 year old DNA of Etruscan mummies. I saw a recent study few days ago, DNA test results shows that the people in Turkey with "Haplogroup R1B"(Primary haplogroup of current western Europeans) have oldest known, ~10.500 year old variety of it.




Second reason is, current Altaic/Turkish speakers at Caucasus like Turkmenistan, Uigurs, Tatars, Uzbekistan etc. mixed with Mongols after 13th century Genghis Khan era. Thats why they have slightly slant-eyes. Azerbaijani and Turks of Turkey didn't get effected much from the Mongol invasion because all of them escaped to Aegean Anatolia(maybe even further west) when Mongols came here. So, before the Mongol invasion, they were probably looking like us too, without any Asiatic slant-eyes appearance.



I saw this DNA study few days ago about Tatar population;

Mitogenomic diversity in Tatars from the Volga-Ural region of Russia

To investigate diversity of mitochondrial gene pool of Tatars inhabiting the territory of the middle Volga River basin, 197 individuals from two populations representing Kazan Tatars and Mishars were subjected for analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region variation. In addition, 73 mitochondrial genomes of individuals from Mishar population were sequenced completely. It was found that mitochondrial gene pool of the Volga Tatars consists of two parts, but western Eurasian component prevails considerably (84% on average) over eastern Asian one (16%). Eastern Asian mtDNAs detected in Tatars belonged to a heterogeneous set of haplogroups (A, C, D, G, M7, M10, N9a, Y, Z), although only haplogroups A and D were revealed simultaneously in both populations. Complete mtDNA variation study revealed that the age of western Eurasian haplogroups (such as U4, HV0a and H) is less than 18,000 years, thus suggesting re-expansion of Eastern Europeans soon after the Last Glacial Maximum.

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...msq065v1?rss=1

Tatars was one of the most effected Turkish speaking group by Mongol invasion but it seems that they carry only %16 Mongoloid DNA but %84 of them still has Caucasoid DNA. So, even Tatars of Volga are primarily Caucasoid.

[Daskalot]

Wonder what language they spoke in Athens, it surely was not Greek, Albanian maybe? Funny that the capital of the modern Greek nation can not boast with '4000 years of Greek history'. What did they speak in Thessaly? Vlach perhaps? Does Megali Vlachia ring a bell?

[Spartan]

At 19th century, The language of the Christians in Pontic area was Turkish with considerable amount of Greek vocabulary.

More 'mis-information'
Pontic is Turkish, with greek words?
Lets see how it is classified in reality -

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/codes/pnt

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/trees/15995@666029

As for Cappodocian, 2 results come up

First -

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/codes/cpg

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/trees/15995@666033

Second -

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/codes/cpg-wes

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/trees/15995@666036

Now I dont doubt that these languages/dialects are heavily influenced by Turkish, but they can hardly be considered 'Turkish with some Greek words".
These languages/dialects are clearly Greek at their root.

In the Cappadocia region, it was Turkish with few Greek words.

A language like this cant be Greek. It seems like they tried so hard to name their Turkish language as "Greek" at 1916. I didn't look for so-called "Pontic Greek" but i know, its Turkish again with some Byzantine Greek vocabulary.

So, like i said, if there was a language called "Pontic and Cappadocian Greek", its either mysteriously vanished without a record or it`s just a product of 19th and 20th century Hellenism ideas.

Their language was this Turkish with some Byzantine Greek vocabulary. The reason of Greek vocabulary in their Turkish tongue

Do you still stand by these statements Onur?

[Onur]

Do you still stand by these statements Onur?

Yes, I fully stand. I don't care if your nationalists managed to classify these languages as an extinct Greek dialect or not.

Read the quote of the British scholars in the book published at 1916. Is Greek agglutinative language with "Subject-Object-Verb" word order and has Turkish vowel harmony???


Read the book named "Karamalidika" written by Greek author and see if they had Greek or Turkish language or come to Turkey and see their Turkish bibles from 19th century. I think there are photos of these bibles in the book "Karamanlidika" too.




If you still deny, then show me one piece of paper written in Greek language by Cappadocians or even Pontic. You wont find any cuz there isn't exist. Like British and Germans couldn't find one evidence at 1916, you wont find either.

Unfortunately, there are next to no written documents in Medieval or early Modern Cappadocian, as the language was and still is essentially without a written tradition. The earliest descriptions of Cappadocian date from the 19th century, but are generally not very accurate

[Spartan]

Yes, I fully stand.

Then you are a liar.

I don't care if your nationalists managed to classify these languages as an extinct Greek dialect or not.

My 'nationalists" !!??

Did you even click the links!?
Go to the sites homepage, and check out their crudentials.
1 of their publishing partners is camebridge for gods sake!!

"My nationalists"??
Im embarassed for you

[Onur]

Then you are a liar.

My 'nationalists" !!??

Did you even click the links!?
Go to the sites homepage, and check out their crudentials.
Their publishing partner is camebridge for gods sake!!

"My nationalists"??
Im embarassed for you

Yes, i clicked and i wonder how difficult it was, to make them classify non-existed Cappadocian Greek dialect as "extinct".

They probably needed that to cover up the fact that these people gone to Greece without knowing Greek language. You want me to look up my old posts and find the book quotes about their language???

There is another way; Go find an old man with descendants from Cappadocia in Greece and ask what kind of language his mother and father spoke. He will tell you exactly what i said if he is brave and honest enough.

[Spartan]

Yes, i clicked and i wonder how difficult it was, to make them classify non-existed Cappadocian Greek dialect.

So all those univerities linguistic departments are mistaken on how they classify these languages/dialects, their origins/roots, and where they place them on the 'language trees'.....and you are in reality correct with the opposite stance?

hmmmmmmmmm

Seems like this is an easy one to figure out.
And you have the audacity to question other peoples educations.
Unreal

[Lügendetektor]

something similar from a German (university of Frankfurt) website

http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/griech/grdialm.htm

Description:
Griechische Dialekte in der Antike
Greek dialects in ancient Times

Dialekte/dialects:
"Äolisch"
Achaiisch
Argolisch
Arkadisch-Kyprisch
Arkadisch
Attisch
Boiotisch
Elisch
Inseldorisch
Ionisch-Attisch
Ionisch
Kretisch
Kyprisch
Lakonisch
Lesbisch
Lokrisch
Messenisch
Nordwestgriechisch
Pamphylisch
Pamphylisch
Phokisch
Thessalisch
Westgriechische Dialekte

as we see, no "geek macedonian" dialect appears

same website also gives some informations about the use of so called "ancient greek alphabets"

http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/griech/schrift/grabclm.htm