Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος

I’m perusing that Russian Pontian forum some more. The Pontic is done in Roman script by some (default foreign script these days, I suppose), and Cyrillic by others. The Mariupolitan I’d seen in print had a systematic mapping, including Дъ and Тъ for ð and θ. Things are more chaotic here: θ is usually ф—the default Russian transliteration—or с *shudder*, and ð is just д. On the other hand, at least one poster came up with гь for ɣ; and to my delight, one poster dealt with the notorious minimal pair of kʰi “not” vs. ki ‘and” by transliterating the former Tsakonian-style, as кхи. (Greek historical orthography ignores the phonetics here, and uses etymology instead: ‘κι < ουκί vs. κι. The Pontic spoken in Turkey maintains the initial vowel in uç, so they don’t have that problem.)

As happens in longstanding diasporas (and as Greeks in Greece prefer to ignore), the Russian Pontians do not immediately feel that Standard Greek is their language, or that they are Greeks (as opposed to “the same as Greeks”). I liked this exchange. (Pardon any misinterpretations—or better, comment to correct them.)

• Elena S: И Кардия му тосо поли харисе гьяти акуса ромейка! Нэ, препи на вруме то Прасинос, ксери поли кала ромейка! “My heart was so gladdened to hear Romeic. [Which is what Pontians outside Greece call Pontic.] Yes, we must find Prasinos, he knows Romeic very well.”
  

  Better than Elena, presumably, since she’s slipped up and used a Standard Greek subjunctive. As Dima points out immediately…

• Дима Топалов: Эко кхи ганево эленика. Калачепсон ромейка… “I don’t understand Hellenic. Speak Romeic!”
• Elena S: мборо мборо алла ти мон ти глосса ине меси эллиника то ксеро поте имун стин еллада его ивра 70% ромейка логия.Ке кексеро кала ромейка нунизо, фело ке на мафено па. “I can, I can; but my language is half Hellenic, I know! When I was in Greece I found 70% of the words were Romeic. And I don’t know Romeic well, I know; but I am trying to learn.” [I was guessing a bit there, the Pontic dictionaries are at home.]
• ЯнисСПБ: не, маса ти ромейка,хасон та эллиника.Ан са пас син Эллада панда эпорис акека кала намасанц ато ти хлосса. “Yes, learn Romeic, lose the Hellenic. If you go to Greece you can always learn that language quite well there.”
• Дима Топалов: хриса лоя!!! “Golden words!”
• Elena S: Ксерите педья оти ипе енан филос му а по тин еллада, Оти ромеяс ке елленес ехи ена ема. 🙂 “You know guys, what a friend of mine from Greece said. Romei and Hellenes have the same blood *wink*”

Indeed. Interestingly, a lot of the posters did end up in Greece—there’s been continuous migration from the former Soviet Union (Russia, Georgia, Ukraine) over the past 15-odd years. Haven’t got the time yet to check whether they stuck with Cyrillic or switched to Latin; but I didn’t notice Greek script from them 🙂

In the history of Greek, Greek adjusts to the orthography of the culture it falls under; and cultures have their own scripts. So the Catholic Greeks, and the Greeks of the Venetian cultural sphere, wrote in Roman script with Italian spelling. The Greek-speakers of Southern Italy now write Greek in Roman script with Southern Italian spelling (ddh for [ɖː], for instance). When Mevlana Rumi and Sultan Walad wrote their few verses of Greek scattered among their divans (and I need to post the transcriptions, they’ve really changed over time), it was in Arabic script. The little bits of Yevanic we have are all in Hebrew script. The Mariupolitan Greeks have settled on a Cyrillic orthography. And of course it went the other way round: Orthodox Albanians used Greek script, Catholics used Latin, Muslims used Arabic. The Karamanlides, Turkish-speaking Christians, used Greek script for Turkish.

H/t my friend George, the latest instance of this is the Muslim Pontic speakers, who have remained in Turkey, using Turkish orthography. Take this from romeyika.com:

Paleya temeteri i trani ontan uç eksernan alo ğlosa çe ethelenan kati na leğun t’ enan t’ alo, eleğan aletera çe eğriçenan aletera. Emis pa estekam çe eterenamatinus çe tipo uç eporenam n’ eğrikume. Aytika esane pola ama ata pal exathan çe epiğan. Ula enespalamata. Eğo oso erthan so num çe oso eporesa na sorevo apada ce apaçi, esorepsa çe eğrapsata. Ada katu na diğo sas eliğa apata nto esorepsa çe esis pa an erxuntan so nusuna aytika, enositeta apo katu. Na min anespalkuntan çe xantane çe pane.

Some decidedly un-Turkish placement of ğ, of course, and x unapologetically for the voiceless velar fricative. And of course there’s no standard in place. Wikipedia (bless) in its article on Pontic notes dh for /ð/ (and h or kh for /x/); I just saw d and x. I note one of the commenters uses ä for [æ] (like Pontic written in Greek script uses α̈), while the website admin just uses e. The Soviet (pre-Stalin) Pontians, who had a phonetic Greek script with no diacritics (so ςς was [ʃ]) had the best solution: historically and phonologically [æ] is /ia/, so they just spelled it ια, and trusted you could do the phonetics in your head.

For jollies, let’s do it the way a Christian Pontian would. Only with more misaccentuations:

Παλαία τεμέτεροι οι τρανοί όνταν ουκ έξερναν άλλο γλώσσα και έθελεναν κάτι να λέγουν τ’ έναν τ’ άλλο, έλεγαν αλέτερα και εγροίκεναν αλέτερα. Εμείς πα εστέκαμ και ετέρεναμ ατους και τίπο ουκ επόρεναμ ν΄εγροικούμε. Αούτικα έσανε πολλά άμα ατά παλ εχάθαν και επήγαν. Ούλα ενέσπαλαμ ατα. Εγώ όσο έρθαν σο νου μ’ και όσο επόρεσα να σωρεύω απαδά και απακεί, εσώρεψα και έγραψα τα. Αδά κάτου να δηγώ σας ελίγα απ’ ατα ντο εσώρεψα και εσείς πα αν έρχουνταν σο νου σουνα αούτικα, ενώσητε (?) τα από κάτου. Να μην ανεσπάλκουνταν και χάντανε και πάνε.

(One thing: a Christian Pontian would say ‘κ, not ουκ̌. The Ancient Greek negator has survived with all its phonemes intact only in the Of valley. And the Christian Pontian will call his ancestral language “Pontic”—a modern learnedism—and not Romeic, or as this passage does, “Different.” Neither are eager to continue the old confusing habit of calling themselves Lazoi. But otherwise, the same blithe ignoring of subjunctive aspect, the same columnar stress, the same focus particles.)

Of course, there’s plenty of back story to the fact that Pontic gets written in two scripts. (Cyrillic too, according to Wikipedia; I’ve certainly seen Mariupolitan in Cyrillic, and I have no reason to doubt it for Pontic, I just haven’t seen any… Er, strike that.) The Muslim Pontians may be hospitable enough to the visiting Christian Pontians these days, but they’re pretty insistent about their Muslim identity, and they won’t be happy to be told that their script isn’t the Real Way of writing Pontic. Which makes me wonder what will happen to the Pontic wikipedia. It’s a Greek script (and Greece) affair so far, but “Start Writing in the Forum” does appear in both Greek and Turkish orthography.

I also note that the Pontic wikipedians have worked out their own diacritic lite orthography. Including dealing with the problematic [æ ø] as the non-Greekish (so non-confusable) εα εο. A bold and unfamiliar solution, which makes me uneasy—in other words, a resounding success!

But what is this I see? A Tsakonian Wikipedia? Έννι αραμού μακρζυά, όννι μπορού να γράφου γρούσσα πφ’ όννι νοού…