Pontiaka people

[Makedonetz]

these people have endured trials and tribulation from greece assimilations over time. Onur any info on this group, i hear the population is very minimal in greece? interesting how they came around. My mothers 1st father who was killed by the greeks was Pondi.



this intrigues me the diversity in greece showing they are not "pure stream" greeks who tells us we never existed.

Onur you have any information on their origin of language which i assume is a substrain of turkish?

[Onur]

I think the origin of this people will never be answered because its unknown. They are probably mix of Byzantine Greeks, Cuman and Oghuz Turks and maybe even Georgians. Only difference is their religion but its also impossible to know whether Greek ones became Muslims or Turks became Christians. You couldn't distinguish them as Greeks or Turks either.

These are blacksea people in Turkey in their traditional clothing;

YouTube - Erkek Horonu - KARADENIZ SHOW HAMBURG 2006

These are blacksea people in Greece(Pontus people as they call);

YouTube - Σ�*ρρα



Their population wasn't that high comparing to other people in Ottoman days. They were living in rural places at Blacksea, doing agriculture. They were speaking Turkish with heavy usage of Greek words. I can say that it was half Greek, half Turkish.

As you can see in the videos above, their clothing in both women and men are quite same even after their separation at 1924 population exchange. Turkish ones calls their dance as "Horon" which derived from Greek word but their famous instrument named with Turkish originated word "Kemence". Greek pontus ones says "Kemence" too. Also their DNA analysis shows same results.

IMHO, they didn't give a f.ck about politics nor religion and they happily lived together in the green plateaus and mountains for 900+ years then politics was able to poison them in the end at 1920s and Christian ones gone to Greece at 1924.

Normally, you can never separate these people from each other but they got separated in the end by force

Turkish ones knows these similarities very well and they consider the ones in Greece as their cousins but i don't know if Greek ones totally assimilated and hates from Turks or not.

[Makedonetz]

Onur Kazantitzis was a famous Pondi singer who was someone who sang from the heart and never really was reconized by the greek community. Listen to his words that show sorrow and sadness let me know if you understand what he is saying.

[osiris]

a pontian recently remarked to a close freind of mine how he felt cheated by the hellenisation process but when my freind expressed his view on macedonia the pontian howled him down indignantly.

i dont have any sympathy for people who have a double standard

[Daskalot]

Here is some information found at Wikipedia:

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

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

Take the information for what it is.

[Onur]

Onur Kazantitzis was a famous Pondi singer who was someone who sang from the heart and never really was reconized by the greek community. Listen to his words that show sorrow and sadness let me know if you understand what he is saying.

Stelios was also popular in Turkey too. I think most of his songs was Turkish but this is one is Greek, so i couldnt understand.


But i found this in related videos. It says, they are Pontiac and video recorded in Salonika. They sing in half Turkish half Greek;

YouTube - Nikos Mihailidis - Gemiler Giresune - Oy Benum Sevdicegim



Man, i really have no idea how they can still sing in Turkish after 2-3 generation since 1924. I guess some people in Greece refuses to accept assimilation and hate propaganda, thats why i still got tiny bit of hope for peace.

Btw, as far as i heard, all central Anatolia and blacksea immigrants took a surname in Greece with "-lis, -dis, -zis -oglou" suffixes. Already most of their surname is Turkish words like "Karamanlis, Kazantzidis". Also surnames with the suffix "-oglou" most common in Turkey too, it means "son/child of a ...", like "Papazoglou" means "son of a priest".

[Mastika]

Man, i really have no idea how they can still sing in Turkish after 2-3 generation since 1924. I guess some people in Greece refuses to accept assimilation and hate propaganda, thats why i still got tiny bit of hope for peace.

Seeing as many people hardly knew Greek when they moved to Greece many older Pontic Greeks grew up speaking Turkish (I mean like people in their 80s and 70s now). Many of these people then passed it down to their children with the help of the Grandparents in the 1950s and 1960s. Riki Van Boeschoten reported that in 1993 the language was still being spoken Strupino/Likostomi, Fustani/Evropos, Piperi and Bizovo/Megaplatanos in the Moglen region of Macedonia. No doubt it is spoken in other areas as well, one are which springs to mind is the area around Zlijahovo in the Ser region, these people are the descendants of Turkish speaking Christians who were not deported in 1923. It is thought however that those people are in fact Gagauz rather then Turks, which is probably the case, but that is another matter all together.

[osiris]

mastika you really have a deep interest in the current ethnic composition of the balkans i commend you for it

[TrueMacedonian]

And weren't the Pontis made fun of when they were dumped in Macedonia as well? It seems that this Hellenic fantasy of "4000 years of greek macedonia history" is nothing more than a 20th century migration of all peoples of all ethnicities, determined and questionable, who got caught up in the imposter hellene political scheme of things.

[osiris]

where is the opposition to this assimilation, i have yet to see a pontian questioning his role in the colonization of macedonia or their own revival of the non greek aspects of their culture, until i do i wont feel much sympathy for them

[Makedonetz]

Onur its amazing how languages can stand the hands of time and it shows in the Pondi. What about Crete are they origins or simularities from Turkish?

[Onur]

No doubt it is spoken in other areas as well, one are which springs to mind is the area around Zlijahovo in the Ser region, these people are the descendants of Turkish speaking Christians who were not deported in 1923. It is thought however that those people are in fact Gagauz rather then Turks, which is probably the case, but that is another matter all together.

Gagauz people are believed to be descendant from early Cuman and Oghuz Turk immigrants to the Balkans. They are believed to be the only remaining Cuman Turks who still speaks Turkish today. Their Turkish accent is same as other Turkish speaking people in Balkans. Also they had Orthodox faith even before Ottoman Empire came to Balkans.

They have autonomous region called Gagauzia in Moldova with ~200.000 population(if i remember correctly). The newspapers are Turkish in there but some schools still have Russian education because of communism days. We(Turkey) are helping them for building schools, libraries and sending them teachers from Turkey because they are trying to get rid of Bolshevik influence with our help.

There are Gagauz people in other surrounding countries like in Turkey and Greece too. I don't know if the ones in Greece assimilated or not.

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=7GhbDxIUkIIC

where is the opposition to this assimilation, i have yet to see a pontian questioning his role in the colonization of macedonia or their own revival of the non greek aspects of their culture, until i do i wont feel much sympathy for them

Mate, especially `till 1970s, they were under heavy pressure and assimilation. Speaking any other language than Greek was forbidden `till 1950s. In 1990s, several people, including Turkish minority party leader got jailed only because they said they are not Greeks but Turks. After that, 100s of neo-nazi Greeks lynched Turkish people and vandalized their property in Thrace.

So, it`s not easy for an minority to revive their non-Greek culture, either Macedonians or Turks.

[osiris]

i know its not easy mastika but turks and macedonians even some vlasi and aranauti have opposed the process i dont see the same in any of the prosfigi groups.

i remember karakasidou speaking about her father secretly listening to turkish radio but where are their human rights fighters.

[Onur]

i remember karakasidou speaking about her father secretly listening to turkish radio but where are their human rights fighters.

Who is that "Karakasidou"???

"Karakasidou" means a person with Black eyebrows

[osiris]

she is a first generation greek academic an anthropologist i think onur whose work is hated in greece because she studied a so called pure greek village in macedonia and found it to be surprise surprise macedonian.