The Real Ethnic Composition of Modern Greece

[Amphipolis]

Originally Posted by Carlin15

Amphipolis, would you be able to make sense for us of the following passage? Thanks.

URL:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=aTj...6AEwAHoECAAQAg

"... οι Αθηναίοι αποβάλανε σιγά σιγά με την αύξηση του πληθυσμού της Αθήνας τη βλάχικη προφορά - τους . Ο Μακρυγιάννης τον Παπαφλέσσα τονε γράφει Παπαφλέσσια και Φλέσσια , που σημαίνει ότι μίλαγε βλάχικα , ότι το σ το πρόφερνε παχύ ."

(... the Athenians gradually eliminated the Vlach accent - with the increase of the population of Athens. Makrygiannis ...... which means that he spoke Vlach ...)

... the Athenians gradually eliminated the vlach (peasant) accent - with the increase of the population of Athens. Makrygiannis spells Papaflessas as Papaflessias or Flessias, which means that he spoke vlach/peasant, he pronounced it with a thick s.

I don't get it much either. I have a stereotype impression on how peasant accent was presented in cinema or theater until the 1950s or later. I don't know what a thick s is or if I should use the word thick. I don't know if Flessias means something. I didn't get if it was Makrygiannis who had a peasant accent or if it was Papaflessas and Makrygiannis was making fun of him.

[Dove]

Originally Posted by Amphipolis

... the Athenians gradually eliminated the vlach (peasant) accent - with the increase of the population of Athens. Makrygiannis spells Papaflessas as Papaflessias or Flessias, which means that he spoke vlach/peasant, he pronounced it with a thick s.

I don't get it much either. I have a stereotype impression on how peasant accent was presented in cinema or theater until the 1950s or later. I don't know what a thick s is or if I should use the word thick. I don't know if Flessias means something. I didn't get if it was Makrygiannis who had a peasant accent or if it was Papaflessas and Makrygiannis was making fun of him.

sachlamara, igrački

The thick 's' is the 'sh' phoneme that was used in Athens before language changes occurred. The more significant point here is that the author is aware that the Vlach accent used the 'sh' phoneme and the Vlachs are so well known in Greece that the reader would have understood this expression at the time of writing.

[Amphipolis]

Originally Posted by Dove

sachlamara, igrački

The thick 's' is the 'sh' phoneme that was used in Athens before language changes occurred. The more significant point here is that the author is aware that the Vlach accent used the 'sh' phoneme and the Vlachs are so well known in Greece that the reader would have understood this expression at the time of writing.

Well, no. Almost all local and ethnic accents sound dreadful or funny in Greece. The peasant accent or attitude is called vlach or vlachic and it just means peasant. Sometimes it's written as vlach (for peasant) and Vlach (for the ethnic group). For instance, in the above case neither Makrygiannis or Papaflessas are related to Vlachs, while Athens being full of vlach newcomers refers to peasant/ non-urban people of all types, (not Vlachs in particular).

[Carlin]

1) Handbook for Travellers in Greece: Including the Ionian ... , John Murray (Firm), 1900

"The spoken Greek of the present day is more or less mixed with Turkish, Italian, or Albanian words, according to the geographical or political condition of each separate district. 'In the Ionian Islands,' says Leake, 'most ideas above the ordinary usage of the vulgar, and even many of the most common phrases, are denoted by Italian words with Romaic terminations and inflexions; and thus the language of these islands is one of the most corrupt in Greece.' But the substitution in 1852 of Greek for Italian as the official language has made a great change there." Among seafaring Greeks, both in the Ionian and Aegean seas, many nautical phrases and technical terms, borrowed from the Venetians and Genoese, are still in use."

2) Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year ... with Accompanying Papers, Volume 1, By United States. Bureau of Education, 1898

"In the fifteenth century bands of Wallachians were to be found as far south as the Taygetos Mountains."

3) Munsey's Magazine - Volume 28 - Page 237, 1903

"Not only are there Albanians in Eleusis, two hours' drive from Athens, but another foreign race is largely represented in the near vicinity of the city. In its environs are many Wallachians, the remnants of the old Wallachian kingdom which once embraced Aetolia, Acarnania, and Thessaly..."

4) The English Historical Review - Page 657, Mandell Creighton, ‎Justin Winsor, ‎Samuel Rawson Gardiner, 1904

"On the other hand a few Wallachs wandered about Athens , some Albanian Mussulmans were employed in guarding the entrances to the town , and in all the villages of Attica the inhabitants were of the Albanian race..."

5) Greece and the Greeks of the Present Day - Pages 49 & 50, Edmond About, 1857

"Every evening at sunset, long files of Albanians are to be met on the roads, coming back with their wives from the labour of the fields. They almost all dwell on the slopes of the Acropolis, on the spot where dwelt formerly the Pelasgi. The Wallachs sleep in the air on the hillside among their flocks. It was thus that Eumeus lived of old... The dogs of the Wallachs are like those of Eumeus, ferocious animals, against which it is well to be provided with a javelin. ...

The Maltese, those Savoyards of the Mediterranean, are numerous at Athens and Piraeus; they are reckoned at more than fifteen hundred. By a rather curious exception, in Greece they are of unreproachable honesty, while at Smyrna and Constantinople they form the dregs of the populace. At Constantinople, robbery and assassination is their chief occupation; at Athens, they go on errands, and are the masons and gardeners - they divide with the robust inhabitants of Maina all the severe labours which the journeymen of Athens would refuse."

[Carlin]

M. Rangabe, eminent publicist and statesman of Greece, claims that almost all the Greeks of Epirus are Vlachs, hellenized in the course of the last four centuries (Courrier d'Orient, July 15, 1874).

--- Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales publié sous la direction de MM. les docteurs Raige-Delorme et A. Dechambre · Volume 84, 1877

[Carlin]

[Carlin]

The diverse origins of modern Greeks. In northern Greece, villagers sing traditional Gagauz songs. Their grandparents were Gagauz (Turkish-speaking Christians) who lived in Turkey but classified as 'Greek' during the population exchange and sent to Greece.

https://mobile.twitter.com/alexsakal...67356762365954

[Carlin]

"Most of the so-called Greeks of that region (Thrace) was in fact Gagauz."

[Carlin]

[Soldier of Macedon]

First mentioning of the word katun (cătun, katund) comes in a text by Ioannes Trachaniotes, monk at Ivirion monastery dating from 1109 regarding the dilemma the Athonites monk had about the several Vlach "katounai" with about 300 families.

The word khatun/hatun (lady, woman), a Turkic word most likely borrowed from an Iranian language, was mentioned well before the 12th century. It wasn't common in the Balkans before the Ottoman occupation and without having read the text in question (or knowing much about this Ioannes Trachaniotes), I'm not sure how it came to be that an Athonite monk would have used it in the year 1109.