Why there is more than one Greek language: the case of Romeyka

Linguistics Circle

Professor Ioanna Sitaridou, University of Cambridge

Romeyka, an endangered Greek variety still spoken in North-East Turkey, has maintained the infinitive, which as such does not exist in Modern Greek. Thanks to the infinitive, I created a chronology of the evolution of Proto-Pontic to which Romeyka belongs, and identified its split from other Greek varieties as being at least 500 years earlier than previously thought namely, in Hellenistic times, rather than during the medieval period thus putting forward a new phylogeny of Asia Minor Greek. Interestingly, (i) despite early branching out, (ii) considerable amount of micro-(vis-à-vis Modern Greek) and nano-(vis-à-vis other Pontic Greek varieties) syntactic variation as well as (iii) distinct identity of the speakers who see themselves as Turks, the variety is seen by many as yet one more Greek dialect. In this talk, I examine the linguistic, ethnolinguistic, historical and ideological reasons why this is the case. I argue that there is more than one Greek language and that Romeyka is one of them.

Meeting ID: 316 491 056 225
Passcode: 6Zcyev