In the last post, I said—somewhat flippantly—that the locative adverbs of Pontic are neurotic; and John Cowan asked me to spell out how. To do so, I’ve gone through the 60 pp discussion of George Drettas’ 1993 grammar of Pontic, Aspects pontiques. I have to say, I don’t like Drettas’ grammar; as a friend said […]
Way, way back, Tipoukeitos asked if I could comment on the seemingly illogical use of πάω από Χ “to go past X”, which has attracted opprobrium from at least one Modern Greek language maven. (“Language maven” is not intended here as a term of praise.) What is seemingly illogical about the construction is that it […]
In a previous blog post, I went through Shishmanov’s listing of erstwhile Bulgarian villages in Asia Minor, and tried to map their location—to get a sense of how isolated Kızderbent was, and whether that would account for the heavy Turkicisation that Trakatroukika reportedly underwent. Stoyan Shivarov, of the Ottoman Archive in the Bulgarian National Library, […]
Language advisory In the last obscenity-filled post on this blog, Pierre left a comment on α σιχτίρ “fuck off”, which is derived from Turkish: The Turkish is sıçdırmak ( ﺼﭽﺩﺭﻣﻕ ) with a chim, rather than a kha, and it gets “shit” right back into the context. Actually, it is a causative form and means […]
Having exhausted the online resources for Kızderbent and its language, I’m closing off the posts on it, for now at any rate. So what have we learned about Kızderbent? The people who lived in Kızderbent speak a Slavonic-based language, called Trakatroukika, with a significant Turkish admixture. The Turkish admixture is definitely there in the vocabulary; […]
To check further on Kızderbent, I got hold of the 2001 book Γλωσσική Ετερότητα στη Ελλάδα [Linguistic Otherness in Greek], to see what it said about Trakatroukika. The book is a transcription of a series of panels on linguistic minorities in Greece. Most sessions passed without incident, except for the Vlach session (which the organisers […]
I am wrapping up the series of posts on Kızderbent with the rich harvest of material that Stazybo Horn found for me, which I present with the odd comment. Then I’ll put up a post on what the material found online—thanks to Butcher of Yore and Stazybo Horn more than me—seems to be telling us. […]
After Ververidis’ account of Kızderbent, I turn to Shishmanov’s, from his 2001 book Необикновената история на малоазийските българи (The Extraordinary History of the Anatolian Bulgarians). This is mediated through Google Translate, and I’m happy to take corrections on my lack of Bulgarian. Shishmanov turns out to mostly talk about the early accounts of Kızderbent; I […]
A Trakatroukis, Nikolaos I. Ververidis, has written three non-academic books on the Trakatroukides/Rokatzides and Kızderbent: Οικογένειες Κιζδερβενιωτών Μικράς Ασίας: Families of Kizderveniotes of Asia Minor Η έξοδος των Κιζδερβενιωτών της Μικράς Ασίας: The Exodus of the Kizderveniotes of Asia Minor Οι Ροκατζήδες: The Rokatzides Based on the last book, Ekaterini Asteriou-Kavazi has written summaries in […]
First up, thank you again to Butcher of Yore—and now Stazybo Horn as well—for sending me links continuously about Kızderbent. There is a lot to go through and assimilate, so this blog is going to turn into Kızderbent Central for the next week or so. [You will note btw that I keep saying Macedonian Slavonic […]