Subscribe to Blog via Email
November 2024 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Where are the Tsakonian villages in Turkey?
I’m revising my paper on Tsakonian lexicostatistics, that I took a month off my PhD to write in 1997. (No idea what I’ll do with it yet.) As part of that, I needed to provide an updated map of where Tsakonian was spoken, including the villages in the Propontis, Havoutsi (Χαβουτσί) and Vatika (Βάτικα) (aka Mousatsa Μουσάτσα). Of course, these were the Greek names, and they don’t have Greek names any more. Costakis monograph on the villages has distances from towns and a sketch map, but no latitude/longitude (Κωστάκης, Θ.Π. 1979. Βάτικα και Χαβουτσί: Τα τσακωνοχώρια της Προποντίδας. (Βιθυνία 1) Αθήνα: Κέντρο Μικρασιατικών Σπουδών.) Google Maps doesn’t speak pre-1922 either.
Luckily for me, a PDF of the Turkish Bulletin of the Mineral Research and Exploration 121 (1999) had an article on the geology of the Gönen (ancient Asepus) Delta, including a map in Fig.4 (p.8). So now, I know that Havoutsi is Havutça, and Vatika aka Mousatsa is Misakça. (Αs I would have found out in Costakis’ monograph, had I kept reading.) After 1922, the Vatikiots ended up in Servia (Σέρβια), near Kozani. The Havoutsiots ended up in Hionato (Χιονάτο, at the time Garleni), near Kastoria.
This now lets me put a map of Tsakonophonie—also including Vatika, in far south Laconia, which sounds suspiciously like Vatika on the Propontis, and may be circumstantial evidence that Tsakonian used to be spoken far further south than it is now.
View Tsakonophonie in a larger map
Leave a Reply