Cypriot does sound cool but it was very interesting to see that there is a Graeco-Judaeian language! It shouldn’t be surprising that it exists but as someone rather ignorant of Greek history I had no idea that it even existed! (Also had no idea that the Nazi occupied Greece and that the government sent Jews to concentration camps, that’s so fucked up)
Cypriot Greek here.. proud of my heritage, language, religion and people! Something that Cypriot preserves is the pre- and suffixes of Ancient Greek words, verbs and old nouns, for ex. Limbouros (CY) and Mirmigki (GR) which mean Ant. Many young people of Gen Z have started to use more traditional Cypriot taking from Grandparents and older Folks, unlike Millenials/Gen X who mostly used modernised Cypriot
That's interesting what you said about Gen Z there, that's quite surprizing! I'm hoping to visit Cyprus soon, such a beautiful country with a beautiful language
I feel that the spike of cypriot greek usage can be attributed to people spending more time with their grandparents, and picking up some of the forgotten cypriot words, the usage of social media, letting us use the unstandardized language more easily, and finally, it has become more acceptable, as it is normally used in a classroom setting instead of dhmotiki, by both teachers and students.
As a Cypriot that lives in Nicosia (but has roots from villages of Pafos and Ammochostos) I found something we have in common with Ireland. "Every 10km the Dialect changes". With this I am referring to the fact that although the Cypriot Dialect is still spoken there are villages or even cities that have some insignificant differences on the way they speak the Cypriot Dialect. For example, Nicosians have been heavily influenced by modern Greek since the area is very urban and people tend to use Modern Greek more. That makes people in Nicosia speaking Modern Greek with the only difference being the heavier accent and "che" (τζαι) which are Cypriot features still used when speaking . In Liopetri, (a very big village of around 10000 people in the free side of Ammochostos) people seem to use "χ" instead of "θ" in certain words. They don't say "θέλω" (/thélo/ meaning "I want) instead they say "χέλω" (/hélo/). In Pafos some words are completely different. For example, instead of saying "μοτόρα" (/motóra/ meaning Motorbike, which is usually how it is said in other Cypriot cities) you can also hear the word "τταπουροκολού" (/ttapourokolú/) which means the exact same thing but the word is completely different. All this small differences are rooted to the fact that in the past the Cypriot cities (especially during the Ottoman rule) were cut off from each other. It's a cool feature of the Cypriot Dialect that I haven't seen anyone on the Internet talk about.
I see so many comments about Cypriot and you're right, it doesn't get talked about enough on the internet. More and more I hear, it becomes more fascinating to me. I'm hoping to go to Cyprus later this year and one of the main reasons I've decided I want to visit is because of comments like these. Thank you for the support
You are most welcome! You know I also share an obsession for Jewish languages around the world and could not neglect the chance to talk about it here!!
@@AvrahamYairStern Hey! Not ro intrude, but I'd like to share some info on the topic. As far as I'm aware, the Ladino spoken in Thessaloniki retains initial f- (fazer instead of azer) and doesn't turn unstressed e,o into i,u as many Balkan Ladino dialects and the Rhodes dialect do. It also has a lot more Turkish and Greek loanwords. The pronunciation of Leshon haKodesh words by Sephardim in Greece was also different due to Greek influences. An excellent source for Thessaloniki Ladino are the memoirs of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi, who lived there through most of the 19th century. They were recently published by Stanford University in a bilingual edition. Sadly, I couldn't tell you much more about the Ladino of Greece... I don't think it's as well documented as other varieties. I could share some of the few resources I've found, if you'd like!
I have been to Cyprus when I was a kid and when the Cypriots talked to each other I couldn't understand a word, but when they were speaking with us, they made sure that we can understand them. Any way nice video bro you earned a new sub! Edit: I am Greek btw
I'm glad you enjoyed the video, thank you for the support! It sounds like you experienced Cypriots speaking their rural dialect, then switching to their city dialect. Awesome!
@@CheLanguagesIt doesn't sound like... But we the GREEKS 🇬🇷🆔 go to other places for vacation or even to visit a relative as to Cyprus as well of course and is true that the people who living to that Ireland can understand us but not them, as well to Creta that you forgot to mention it 🤷🏻♀️⁉️🤔🧐🤦🏻♀️😔 that includes MORE important words that rhyme (everything vibrates)of the sound that create each dialect,as to Cyprus and Anatolian (Pontiac /Ποντιακά) Search 🔍🔎 about and if you need help just ask a GREEK person 📜 🏺 to explain you not what think 🤔 💬 but how are in reality that has nothing to do, not even close without to referring about Creta...🔎📜🔍🆔🕵️🇬🇷✍️☝🏽...
Excellent video, Cypriot dialect can be found also in some Greek Islands. In the island of Rhodes and Kastelorizo the dialect is identical and also at the island of Karpathos dialect is 60% to 70% same as the Cypriot dialect. Some more Dodecanese island share many words but not as similar as Rhodes and Karpathos. I believe the village of Archaggelos in Rhodes they speak Cypriot dialect 100%. No chance a grandmother in any village not to understand modern Greek , that is an exaggeration.
It's interesting they speak it also in Rhodes considering it's a different island with a different history too. The last part might not be an exaggeration for older speakers of the dialect/language
@@CheLanguages Not too surprising, since these dialects existed on a dialect continuum back when Greek was contiguously spoken all over the Anatolian coast. The case of Archangelos is more special because its original inhabitants were in fact Paphians (as in from Paphos in Cyprus) brought in to work, and historical ties between the village and Cyprus are quite strong.
@@rhomaioscomrade That is indeed interesting! The only reason it surprized me is because of Cretan's unique influence from its time under both Venezia and later Egypt, which other islands such as Rhodes were (as far as I know) never ruled by
@@CheLanguages The effect of foreign cultures and languages is greatly exaggerated in most cases, with the exception of loanwords where the influence is quite obvious. Significant grammatical deviation occurs when there are large non-Greek speaking population adjacent e.g. in the case of Pontians with Caucasians (Laz, Armenians etc) or Cappadocians with Turks. The rest were surrounded by Greek speakers, so their fundamental way of speaking wasn't as influenced. That being said, most southern Greek islands and Cyprus have had a very similar timeline historically. Both Crete and Cyprus were ruled by the Venetians and later by the Ottomans. Cyprus was for a very long time ruled by Frankish kings, preceding the Venetian period. Most Dodecanese islands such as Rhodes were ruled for many centuries by the Hospitalier Knights, who were ethnically mostly French/Franks as well.
@@rhomaioscomrade You raise a good point, being under foreign rule does not always mean that the language is affected that greatly, looking at Jewish languages only proves that theory. I thought it would still have a big influence as Venetian is said to have greatly affected Cretan, but I couldn't really find much on it (if I searched in Greek I might have found more, but sadly I don't speak Greek)
Cretan language has been written, specially during the Cretan Golden Age between 1450s- 1650s. But it requires the use of the Katharevousa script. The Writing of "Ερωτόκριτος (Erotokritos)" by Βιτσέντζος Κορνάρος (Vincent Cornaro) is the most known text. Another unique Cretan dialect characteristic Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_alveolar_and_postalveolar_approximants ) which exists lightly in Modern Greek, but very much so in Cretan
@@CheLanguages My mistake, script isn't the correct term, but it uses different punctuations (Οξεία "ά", βαρεία "ὰ", περισπωμένη "ᾶ", δασεία "ἁ", ψιλή "ἀ", υπογεγραμμένη "ᾳ") instead of the modern greek single "τόνος". Its basically a system which emphasizes pronunciation. I am oversimplifying here, but i believe you get the gist. Thank you for the reply and the video! Yevanic always intrigued me as a greek speaker. I heard about a unique Corfucian Romaniote dialect which recently went extinct, but i can't find any details on it. I see with this video you detailed all the major greek dialects. The Last one is Cappadocian greek, not to be confused with karamanlid Turkish, which is a closely associated group. That language is almost extinct as well and pretty sure it was, until it was uncovered in some remote greek villages recently.
@@professornikos4905 I'm aware of Cappadocian Greek but cannot get any samples for a video. I'm glad you enjoyed the part on Yevanic! I don't know of an Corfu dialect of Yevanic, from what I know, the Corfu Jews spoke Venetian...
@@CheLanguages Actually we are both in the wrong 😅 I asked a Corfiot i know and apparently Corfucian Jews spoke an Italian dialect, but associated with Apulia and not Venetian. This is where the"unique" in my memory was hiding. The poorer ones spoke a mixture of this Apoulian dialect and the Heptanesian Greek idiom. As regard the Cappadocian greek, it was basically a greek dialect with strong turkish pronunciation elements and loanwords. Basically a mirror language to the Karamanlid Turkish, which was Turkish with strong greek elements. In any way, i really appreciated the video and the interaction. I hope i see more of your content! Thank you!
As a half mainland and half Cypriot Greek, having grown up with both varieties of the language, I would agree with exactly how you stated it, that the urban modern Cypriot dialect is very much intelligible and very close to standard Greek , using Cypriot words thrown in but with standard Greek grammar and vocab, whilst in the rural village areas it is much more heavy and archaic, less influenced by standard Greek, bc in the cities people grow up around media and in school where we use MSG
@@D19DMO128D interesting observation. Sadly I don't know enough Greek to make a useful contribution to this, but from what I can gather, most mainland Greek dialects are like that. A few cases like Tsakonian, Griko and Yevanic seem to differ from this norm however. Again, this is all according to comments I get from a whole range of Greek speakers and I am in no way an expert on the Greek language
The difference of Standard modern Greek and cypriot is often exaggerated by many cypriots to distance themselves from greeks from greece but it is actually a lot closer than anything that could be considered a seperate language. The story about someone's grandma who couldn't understand modern greek is hyperbolic to say the least. In reality the mutual intelligibility is extremely high. Moreover, as a Cretan speaking the Cretan dialect I can say that the same is true, linguistically for the cretan dialect. Lastly, Cretan Greek doesn't have as much Arabic, or Turkish influence compared to other Greek dialects, it's only Venetian that has some lasting impact but mostly in toponyms.
Greek-speaking Cypriot here. Cypriot greek doesn't have a writting system unfortunately, as it is mostly viewed as "impure" and "lesser" than standard greek. We are taught standard greek at school but speak various levels of cypriot outside academic/professional situations. A good analogy would be standard german and swiss german. Depending on the age of the speaker and the area they grew up in, the pitching and the use of non-greek words varies significantly. We also like to mix in words from other languages as well, especially english, since most of us study in english (in Cyprus as well as in the UK), but also other languages as well, depending on the individual. For example, I live in Germany and people that are studying here speak in a mixture of cypriot greek/english/german. Germans usually hate it when you mix german with english however, they prefer you stay in one language, so I find it VERY interesting that we tend to mix languages (but still use the typical cypriot greek sentence structure and grammar). Cypriot turkish and cypriot arabic are worth mentioning as well, since they are pretty unique forms of turkish and arabic respectively and their mainland speakers cannot fully comprehend them. The same goes for cypriot greek by mainland greek speakers of course. We typically speak to visiting greeks in their accent so they understand us, but greeks that move to Cyprus are typically able to pick up the idiom in about a year or so (if they try to).
The first episode was very nice and straight. But this is extremely untrue. Cypriot and Cretan are dialects and not languages. They have the same alphabet, the same grammar, the same syntax, but they are little different in sounds. The same thing happens elsewhere. My own family is from Athens. My sister got married in Larissa and after 50 years of living there, many times I don't understand what she says to me. I'm sorry, but your video today looks like propaganda to me. What do you want to prove, I don't understand. As for the Jews living in Greece, they have their own language that has nothing to do with Greek.
What did I say at the start of the video? These are not exactly languages but don't deserve to be dismissed as dialects either. Yevanic is very different from what other people in the comments told me
Modern Greek linguists divide Greek dialects between northern dialects and southern dialects. I speak both Greek Cypriot and standard Greek and the true difference is vocabulary, mainly old fashioned vocabulary linked to peasant world. To me, Greek cypriot grammar, declensions and conjugations are not different enough to consider it's a different language. My grandma was from a village and she could understand standard Greek. So I don't understand some comments saying it's a different language. I believe politics is the reason why some people say it's a different language even if someone who speaks only standard Greek has to focus a little bit to understand Cypriot pronunciation. I also speak french and I believe a comparison can be made with the relationship between canadian French and France French when canadian French is spoken by someone with a strong Quebec accent and typical quebecois vocabulary (with words a France French cannot understand like achaler, bobettes, boucane, cotteur etc)
Politics can be a major factor. Alas, many commenters from Greece said they cannot understand it at all (the rural dialects), but Cypriots can understand Greek. So it's asymmetric intelligibility
@@CheLanguages Honestly I consider those who say that don't even want to try or are lazy or lack of a little bit of patience. I can accept the opinion that Pontic Greek and Tsakonian are very different from standard Greek but not Cypriot. One can always select a complicated sentence with typical cypriot vocabulary choosen on purpose. But if you take a sentence in english and ask to a honest non biased standard Greek speaker or to a honest non biased Cypriot Greek speaker to translate it you'll see the difference is not so big.
During WWII we had many brave Romaniotes & Sephardim in the Hellenic army and later in the resistance. Up until 1943 in the Italian occupation zones Jews had it easier than the other parts, for example all Jews from Zante survived, on the other hand, in the Bulgarian occupation zone the vast majority of Jews lost their lives... Also in a lot of places the Greek Orthodox Church & the police putting aside their safety, collaborated and managed to issue Christian IDs for Hellenic Jews but unfortunately it wasn't enough to prevent the fate of those whom were sent to concentration camps...
The Bishop of Athens was a Tzadik, named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad vaShem for his service in protecting Jews during the war. And yes, many many Jews fought against the Nazis for Greece, however not many made it out alive. You're right, we had it better in Italy in general because Mussolini actually quite liked us, he never had hard feelings against the Jews and when he later developed policies of Antisemitism, it was only because he was being commanded by Hitler (during the last couple of years of his life when he became a puppet ruler). Bulgaria was a terrible place to be, still is tbh
@@ΔΗΜΗΤΡΗΣΚΟΝΤΟΓΙΩΡΓΗΣ-η3φ oh really? I'm not sure why that's a surprize to me given that Hellas and Cyprus are on good terms. May the day of Enosis come soon!
This is the first time I heard about Yevanic. Did not have a clue! Though it makes total sense due to geographical proximity of both cultures, strong yet flexible nature of both languages and potentially the fact that the timelines of cultural development for both cultures overlap a lot (before-after Bronze Age Collapse, Hellenic Era, Roman Era etc). I would definitely watch a video dedicated to that Dialect. Both Kritika and Kipriotika retail archaic elements better than modern Greek (as most insular Dialects or Languages) Thank you for the great content! Fun fact: Me and my buddies like Kretan dialect so much that we use Kretan phrases in our daily conversations.
Also, most countries that had a substantial Jewish population usually eventually develop their own Judeo-dialect or sometimes even Judeo-language, a big exception for this is English which has no proper Judeo-English language or dialect!
Ioannina city elected the first jew mayor in Greece 4 years ago (2019). A lot of jews come from all over the world to visit the city and the synagogue (200 years old).
arvanite and aromanian are not hellenic languages, therefore they should be the subject of another series of videos, namely Albanian and Romance languages .
@@CheLanguages Thrakika and Epirotika are just minor dialects , and by minor I mean spoken by few people (mostly elderly in the rural area) and not really divergent from standard modern greek, apart from some specific vocabulary as is usual the case. If you start picking up every local variety of every language you will be vloging for the rst of your life.
The Cypriot aspirates don't necessarily correspond to the use of the ancient ones. So it isn't all that certain if the sound was retained from ancient Greek or if it developed anew. Cypriots (mostly) pronounce χ, φ, θ just like any other Greek. Aspiration occurs mostly in other instances. As in ἀππέσσω (apphésso) "from within" («ἀπ’ ἔσω» normally) or ποττέ (potthé) "ever" («ποτέ» normally). Aspirate consonants were also already starting to become fricatives in the hellenistic/roman period. In a few instances of some ancient dialects possibly even in classical times.
Greek person here. I remember overhearing a conversation between two Cypriot students studying at the same uni as me in Greece. It sounded like a completely different language! I was pretty good friends with of them and he would routinely 'tone down' his Greek when conversing with other Greek students. That's going back at least 15 years.
Cypriot Greek, which has a certain amount of regional variation, is markedly different from Standard Greek not only for historical reasons but also because of geographical isolation, different settlement patterns, and extensive contact with typologically distinct languages. The syntax of Cypriot Greek is almost identical with that of Standard Greek, but there are differences in morphol ogy and considerable differences in lexicon and phonology (Papapavlou 1994). The main phonological differences include the presence in Cypriot of palato-alveolar affri cates, and of geminate consonants, includ ing in word-initial position (Newton 1972). Although the differences in syntax, mor phology and phonology are not enormous, the Cypriot dialect and Standard Greek are not particularly readily intelligible (Papa pavlou 1994), probably mostly because the lexicon of Cypriot has significantly more. lexical items of non-Greek origin (Chat zioyannou 1936). Ammon, U., Dittmar, N., Mattheier, K. and Trudgill, P., n.d. Sociolinguistics/ Soziolinguistik. Volume 3. p.1886.
@@CheLanguages " probably mostly because the lexicon of Cypriot has significantly more. lexical items of non-Greek origin (Chat zioyannou 1936)." The comment was written by a propagandist Turk using outdated sources. is not legit, when Cypriot Greek has a different loan word than standard Greek then they count that as extra non-Greek words when in reality the standard Greek word is also a loan but from another language. That is often used for political reasons to claim that "Cypriot Greek is bad, its not Greek". etc
2:42 in my experience it's the inverse. Mainland Greeks have a hard time understanding the rural Cypriot dialect, on the other hand Cypriots can all more or less understand standard Greek due to being exposed to it much more with books, media, tv and movies being in standard Greek more often than not.
My parents are from central greece a town called Nafpaktos. Although i spent 4.5 yrs living in greece and going to school i can say in all honesty i don’t understand, Pontian where my late father in law was from. I don’t understand cypriot either which is where my late mother in law was from. Neither do i understand Tsakonika or Arvanitika or Cretan. The hellenic language is indeed complex.
As a native greek speaker, I can confirm that when heard at first, cypriot isn't always intelligible, unless they speak slowly. Through context though, we understand each other just fine. My grandmother speaks Cretan, we generally consider it a dialect with a lot of its own words rather than a language; I'd never heard of yevanic before but from the little bit i read this is definitely a different language although closely related. Upon reading it out loud i could understand 50-60% of the text, and recognised some very old grammar that modern greek doesn't use anymore.
That's really interesting to hear about Yevanic, thank you for your perspective! Cretan and Cypriot are dialects yes, but Cypriot can border between being its own language and just being a dialect of Greek depending on its register (is it spoken formally in the city or informally in the countryside?) if you understand what I mean.
You 've done your homework and it shows.it's refreshing to see anyone talk about this topic plain and simple. Languages are made to unite and not to devide. Thank you for the details of Yevan Greek. Sorry i had no idea it existed but now i know.
@@CheLanguages all three of them are from Cappadocia. Cappadocian speakers call their language “misiotika”. Silliot has no more speaker after the population exchange. It was thought that Pharasiotica was dead but then about 24 speakers have been found in Northern Greece.
1:43 aspiration was not retained in Cypriot. It was lost when the aspirates became fricatives (χ φ and θ) and was reincarnated for stops (π τ κ) that precede a vowel
@@CheLanguages some of the older pronunciations, such as gemination, have been preserved, but also expanded to some words that never had it, like ena meaning one. Also, the word-final n has been preserved in Cypriot, for accusatives and neuter words, but it has also been expanded to neuter nouns in -a, such as pragma that becomes pragman. All in all, Cypriot is a divergent form of Greek in which the rarer things were preserved and expanded to become rules (even in the words where they never existed), whereas in standard Greek the rarer options were extinct.
@@CheLanguages your video was great, and I learnt something about yevanic for the first time, so, thanks! I was recently in Ioannina and saw that many of the streets there still have names of Jewish people, members of the Romaniotes community. Pretty cool!
@@georgios_5342 thank you for the support! I believe Greece's only remaining Jewish community is in Ioannina still, as I mentioned in the video. It's had a rich Jewish history, even longer than Salonika!
After 1500 years of roman occupation and 500 years of turkomongolian occupation am PROUD to speak modern Greak, an evolution and progression from Homeric Greek(1500 BC) to today. Did your country did the same or they speak english, german, french, espaniol, slavic, turkomongolic, chinese, arabic etc and not your original language?
As a Greek speaker I would say that they all are part of a series of dialects that make the modern Greek language, I can personally understand all these dialects but have to take a second look to the words and see where it is diferent from standard greek, by the way standard greek is based on the old athenian dialect witch has been merged with the literary standard of katharevousa (an idea for a future video) to make the modern variety, my experience is that in Greece almost every place nowadays speaks the standard form and the only remnant of dialectization is the local accent or local expressions in some cases, but due to the spread of tv and internet and the standard dialect being used in all media the young generations are abandoning the regional accents and adopting the standard variety
Cypriots when visiting Grecce still have to adjust to make themsleves understanble by modern greek/native speakers. Also if there will be a part 3 a good entry would be Vlachika Greek, pretty much Balkan Greek
@@-ge7877 ah that's good to know, and if you want to learn about Aromanian, I talked about it in my most popular video on this channel: "5 Forgotten Romance Languages"
I think Cypriot should become the official language of Cypriot Republic instead of Greek. This beauty has to be protected. By the way why do you greet us in Hebrew ?
It's a good idea, but for political reasons it probably wouldn't happen because many Cypriots still support union with Greece and want to preserve that Greek identity instead of creating a new Hellenic one. Whether that is their best choice, I cannot say for sure....
I greet you all in Hebrew because I am Jewish and proud of it, also Shalom means "peace" and I think is a lot nicer than just "hello". I wish peace upon all my viewers regardless of their background
Very interesting thanks for your videos , my parents came from Egypt and spoke Greek that many consider one the most standard forms. They then moved to Cyprus where I was born, and later moved To England. I was brought up in London where most Greek speakers at the time where Cypriot. I was fully comfortable with Cypriot Greek as well as the form my parents speak which is, like mainland Greek but more conservative than the Modern Athenian Greek. I also spent time in Crete. I love the Cypriot and Cretan forms, it's the same language and just like the ancient times varies., it's a privilege to be able to speak this great language of our ancestors and always interesting to learn more.
Greeks were against the Nazis. Early in the war, we Christians risked our lives to save our Jewish friends from Nazis. Then Nazis massacred us Orthodox Christians too. We were victims of the holocaust-- both Greek Jewish and Greek Orthodox Christian.
To me the change k-->tsh (tš, č) looks a bit strange, but seems like it's not rare in general, like with Cypriot Greek, it has happened with some Finnic languages as well (Estonian keel, Votic tšeeli, 'language'), as well as with borrowings from Finnic to Baltic (Livonian place name Ikškilā -->Latvian Ikšķile, Ķ=tsh).
Cretan is very similar to standard Greek. Cypriot less so, but you can still understand it. Tsakonian and Pontic Greek are different languages. You cannot understand them. As for Yevanic, it sounds like very formal Greek.
Being part Cretan and Peleponesian but living for over a decade in north central Crete, you will find many of the mountain villages throughout the island speaking in a heavy Cretan dialect. This is quite common since they tend to be a bit isolated from the northern shore cities that are heavily influenced by modern Athenian Greek. As one travels eastward towards Sitia on the north east of the island you will find a Cretan dialect slightly differing from the central and western side of the island. The main reason is their isolation from tourism and not having a major university branch in their region. No tourism, influx of students for university equals an unique dialect. So keep your ŌZÃ on your horafi and all will be well.
It has a few differences I noticed though, such as using SH a lot more and an F instead of P in the second word. Also the word order seems a bot different
am the person who inform you the truth, that is dialect not language on last video . Well again you didnt learn your just trying something else.... AM FROM CRETE and am so proud about, Cretan dialect is not language, and not show again this flag ON 3.30 at this video. is so wrong. Cretan has not influence from venetian arabic or turkish at all. Greece has maybe 100+ dialects or even more and they are not forgotten at all, english is so poor and cant describe correct the difference of dialect and language, cypriot is not language as well but has influence of arabic or turkish at very very small part. now for judogreek they are far more than what you said, maybe 150,000
I can understand both Cretan easily and Cypriot more or less. What's a dialect though? My Peloponnesian friend couldn't understand A WORD of an elderly neighbour of mine from Central Greece who spoke with an incredibly heavy accent.
That is why I called these videos Forgotten Hellenic Languages, it's not fair to call them dialects in some cases, but in others they're not exactly languages either
Feedback from a Greek: When old Cypriots speak to each other you can't understand anything. However as you said younger Cypriots tend to speak Greek with just a ''funny accent''. When it comes to Cretan, only very old natives in rural regions speak radically different, from my experience at least. Most Cretans speak standard 100% comprehensible Greek. Also, the Yevanic text was very interesting, I got about 10 words and no sense of context at all, fascinating!
I was in Lesvos When they speak in there dilect it's hard to understand The Greek language is very old Greeks when writing they write all the same from thousands years ego
I'd argue that these are more formal versions of the language. I am native Greek and I've visited Crete and Cyprus and I could understand the people. This is understandable however it's really hard to understand them. Yevanic i couldn't even understand surprisingly however I did point out a few words like "Ke" and "Iton" as well as "tu" and some others however I couldn't come up with a translation for that.
That's really interesting to hear you say that Yevanic is super difficult to understand! Wow! As for the others, writing tends to be more formal as speech is way more casual, so that makes sense
Hey!! Hallo man, and bravo for your work.!! One information for you, about the romeika. Romei - ρωμαιοι is the Roman's from Rome and romii ρωμιοι is the :first in the beginning meens the Greeks us members of the empire, and second the Greeks in the east empire with capitol konstantioupoli. And the language name is romeika but is all and only Greek spoken. Thank you.
Very good video, but I have a question. Isn't there a Cappadocian greek dialect? There is even a page about it in the Endangered Languages Archive, that says that it is a greek-turkish mixed language. Did you came a cross it during your research or you didn't find anything about it. Will you make a short or a video about it in the future?
I came across it but there is little research on it from what I could find, there might be more sources available in Greek however. The problem is, I don't speak Greek so I'd need help finding info on it.
Studies in both Greece and Cyprus are included in this chapter. Standard Greek is the language spoken throughout Greece at home, with minor dialectic variation, and the sole language of administration and education. In contrast, in Cyprus the home language is Cypriot Greek, a dialect with no standardized or written form, but the language of administration and education is very similar to standard Greek, in a situation of diglossia (Hadjioannou, Tsiplakou & Kappler, 2011). There are differences between standard and Cypriot Greek in most linguistic domains, and the two dialects are not entirely mutually intelligible (see discussion and references in Arvaniti, 2006, 2010). Although many phonological awareness tasks may be largely equivalent when used in Greece and Cyprus, it might be kept in mind that Cypriot children are taught and tested in a nonnative linguistic system. Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2017). Learning to Read Arabic. In L. Verhoeven & C. Perfetti (Eds.), Learning to Read across Languages and Writing Systems (pp. 183). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cypriot is my facmvourite version of greek it sounds beautifull and has a melody ,it leans towards a romance feel, something I love when languages do that.
Amazing video as always, although as an American Greek I’m surprised I never learned about the Romaniotes even though my family’s both from Epirus and Istanbul, very sad to learn that the language is being forgotten.
Even Greeks living or growing in Germany mix Greek and German words, already from the first generation in 60s. Maybe in a few more decades a distinct dialect may form, especially for the ones who attend German schools. In the USA and Australia they already mix English and Greek words and accent.
@@CheLanguages who knows. We'd need linguistic research first. When I was there in the 80s we hellenized some German words. Eg for bread, instead of Greek " psomi", we would call it "Brotaki" from German "Bröttchen". Or the storage room in houses we'd call it Gela from German "Keller". Unfortunately teaching of Greek language in German schools is not ideal, so many Greek students are only exposed to it via their parents
@@CheLanguages Yeah, I checked out the article and it seems the flag shouldn't have been there. The flag comes from an era when Crete was an autonomous state, and Greece agreed to the Ottoman demands that 1/4 of the flag has an Ottoman element, hence the star which can still be found near the crescent of the flag of Turkey nowadays. Modern Crete doesn't have a flag of its own afaik. No biggie really, just thought I should point it out.
@@fidemporas thank you for pointing it out. But if Kriti has no flag today, is there a problem using this one to represent it? I've noticed many regions of Greece don't have their own flags and I think that seriously needs to be fixed!!!
@@billba I am now aware that it is not official, but please enlighten me on why it is controversial? I am somewhat ignorant to the politics of Modern Greece sadly
I also would like to mention that there is still a large comunity of jews in most cities. It is unoticible though, if you don't know, cause they are fully intergrated in Greek comunity, except their customs ,synagogs etc.
There are only around 4,500 now, and most are assimilated into Greek culture. The number used to be as high as 100,000, but the Holocaust changed that sadly.
I am a greek speaker and I must confess that I cannot understand all of the cute-cypriort greek, let alone rule-cypriot greek; that is incomprehensible to me and most of the other greeks!!!
Και ήτον προφητεία Κυρίου προς Υονά υιού Αμτιτά του είπειν: Ανάστα πορεύγου προς Νηνευέ τη πόλην την μεγάλη για λάλισε εδεικέ είπει αυτήν ότι ενέβειν κακύα η αυτή ενόπιου ομού. This is kind of how it should be in Greek script.
Are you sure that this is Yevanic Greek and not part of the The Translation of the Seventy? (Septuagint). The Septuagint is the translation of the Tora (Old Testament) made by the greek speaking Jews of Alexandria during the Hellenistic period. I have never seen a sample of Yevanic Greek but I suppose that it is (was) much similar to modern Greek than this sample.
Shavua tov. Another fascinating video dude. I've spent quite a bit of time on Corfu and in medieval times about a third of the population there was Jewish. Apparently it was a mix of Ashenkazim, Sephadim and Romaniote Jews. I was always a little unclear about what language the latter spoke so thanks for this information. It would have been interesting to see how these groups interacted. There is still a small shul in Corfu town but, sadly, the island's population was decimated by the Nazis. There is a prominent monument in Corfu town to those who were murdered, may their memories be a blessing.
Shavua tov. Someone else also mentioned it, I seem to remember the Corfu Jews speaking Venetian, but I imagine with a diverse community like that, there were probably a few Jewish languages being spoken!
@@CheLanguages That they spoke Venetian would make sense. There was a huge Venetian influence on the island. Much of the architecture feels more Italian than Greek.
@@stubronstein9932 it was ruled by the Venetians for such a long time! Kriti was also ruled by Venezia for over 400 years! Somebody else in the comments told me that the Corfiot Jews actually spoke a dialect of Puglian (one of the Southern Italian languages) but I have not fact-checked it yet.
I am a greek and from my reading of the transliteration with latin characters below the language is very different in some aspects, but I can recognise common words, and or similarities where words diverge a bit (example, tin boil tin megali = the big (the) city, ipi aftin oti enevin kakiyah I aftin enipiy omu = told her that [enevin: did/performed/acted or climbed?, kakiyah: [translating it as: bad action/ to hurt someone, but I am probably wrong!, i aftin enopiy 'omu = and from her in front on my presence). I made an effort, probably some are wrong so please someone that speaks both language envagelise us!
Can you speak about mesolonghitica(ΜΕΣΟΛΟΓΓΙΤΙΚΑ)?,we tend to cut words like Μεσολογκιτκα(mesologhitka),In normal greek animal is called ζώο(zoo) in our dialect is called ζλαπ(zlap)
Thank you for your interesting presentations of the Che dialects - the influence could be from the Crusaders (especially those from Italy) who established themselves to a lesser or greater extent in all the regions where these dialects are found - but I suppose you are thinking of older contacts with Hebrew, Phoenician and similar, which is not impossible. What is your theory? The Romaniote Jewish text is clearly from the Old Testament along the lines of "There was a prophesy of the Lord to Jonas the son of Amitay (?) and he was told: Get up and go to Nineveh the great city and tell it that it presents itself as evil upon my sight". For sure I would have not understood the text if it was spoken rather than written. As for the Cypriot dialect, I lived among Cypriots in London and I never had any trouble understanding them even when they were talking to each other. On the other hand, the text you posted had some words that were inscrutable, e.g. συνότζαιρη, ταούλια, σιέρκα, νεπαμέν. I remember the Cypriots saying that in the region of Morphu in Cyprus (now on the occupied part with probably no Greeks still living there), the locals speak (maybe not any longer) such a strange language or dialect that even the Cypriots themselves do not understand it.
In the mainland of Greece the biggest difference you'll find today is different accents and maybe 5-10 local words. Full blown dialects are almost extinct sadly. However, I really like speaking to Athenians because they find every other accent funny 🤣
You could reference the Macedonian dialect of Greece too, with its unique use of pronouns and pronunciation of certain letters. Also, the Serraitic dialect is pretty different from standard Greek.
Unless you are thinking of the Slavic dialects, the Greek spoken in modern Macedonia is only a dialect if the Greek spoken in Athens belongs to the same dialect. Maybe you should listen to an old recording from a politician's speech from the 1960s or of a journalist telling the News.
@@NicholasAggelopoulos Macedonian Greek uses pronouns differently for the indirect object, and has different pronunciation of certain letters. At least in Thessaloniki. In the countryside, it is even more divergent
Greetings from Cyprus! Great video! There's a small Romaniote community in New York who originates from Ioannina, their ancestors moved to the US during the early waves of Greek migration during the 1910s and 20s, I don't know though if some of them still speak Romaniote. A small correction to the cypriot text, there's an οι missing at the end of the last word. Keep up the good work!
The New York Ioannina community mainly speak Ladino from my knowledge, but there might be some Yevanic speakers among them too as some Yevanic speakers live in the US
@@CheLanguagesThere are some Ladino speakers that were or are in the NY community but it's because Sephardic Jews came there from Greece due to a huge fire in the place they left from Greece. There are a FEW Romaniote/Yevanic speakers in that area, mostly quite elderly.
I think you could add the Hellenic language spoken in South Italy and the Hellenic language from Pontis or Pontiac Greek who used to live in North Turkey.
Hi. New subscriber here, John from London, UK. I am third generation Greek Cypriot, born and raised in London. We here in London, and the UK, on the whole, have a large diaspora of Greek Cypriots, and from mainland Greece. When I was growing up, I went to Greek school which was taught by Greek priests in London. We have our own Cypriot dialect here in the UK, as when we go to Cyprus say for holidays, when we speak our Greek to people in Cyprus, they understand us, but we also have words where they don't understand us, plus we speak Greek with a British accent!
Crete actually got through something like a Renaissance and it was for a time, before the Ottoman conquest, the only candidate for a common modern Greek language; before the creation of the modern Greek state, the change of the Capital to Athens by Otto, and the urban dialect of Athens becoming dominant (especially prominent after the Civil War where large amounts of internal refugees and immigrants accumulated there, not to mention the centralisation of Mass Media and government that followed, and still continues to this day). An only slightly archaic version of Cretan dialect, possibly even artificially "cleansed" by several loanwords by the author, Vincenzos Cornaros, is to be found in the "Erotokritos" poem, which set the standard for the Cretan dialect for Centuries (though you won't find any Turkish loanwords there obviously). In general it was easy finding books in Cretan in the past, maybe modern people that left the village of their parents simply speak "Athenian" with only a small residue of Cretan elements. Another way to find written Cretan words is by traditional songs, Mantinades or Mandinades, Sordina and Rizitika. I thought it's easier to find resources in Cretan than the other examples honestly. PS: That flag you posted is the one we had when we were temporarily an independent state, which partially recognised the authority of the Sultan, before reunification with Greece. The red area with the star displays just that. There exists people that post this flag in bumper stickers to show they want Crete to be independent from Greece (!) but this is a catastrophe, since we don't want to be subjects of the... Sultan anymore, thank you very much. Long story short, that was a controversial flag.
As a Greek, I can read and understand (for the most part) all the dialects you mentioned but definitely not the Cypriot 😁 There are some words that are the same, but not enough for me to make sense out of the text. Yevanic I didn’t even know about and I didn’t understand much!! Also I assume Cypriot as a different language, maybe not a common opinion, but nowadays there are many differences, maybe same between danish-Swedish. Maybe 🤔
Thank you for your perspective. I got a lot of comments about Cypriot Greek, it seems that two forms exist, Traditional Cypriot (which is its own language) and Modern Cypriot, spoken mostly by younger people, which seems to be a mix of Traditional Cypriot and Modern Greek. A similar thing exists in Northern Cyprus with Cypriot Turkish vs Modern Turkish, it is a similar phenomenon.
I didn't know about the Yevanic language at all, and I am Greek. Never occured to me that there were Jews who spoke a Greek-speaking dialect of Hebrew.
@@CheLanguages Not so much. I saw it with my relatives, and saw some loanwords from Greek. For example, in the translation you give in the example, it says at one point: "Nineveh tin boli tin megali", which in modern Greek goes like "Νηνευή την πόλη την μεγάλη", meaning "Nineveh the grand city". I don't know if its coincidence or not. Perhaps, the most probable theory could be the influence of the Greek language on Hebrew from the Romaniotes who lived in Greece.
@@angelb.823 the text is not in Hebrew though, boli is just the Yevanic pronunciation of poli (much like the bul in Istanbul originally being from polis, for example: stin polis →stenpoli →stanpouli →stanbul → istanbul)
Can you make a video about the Bulgarian languages (Like Macedonian, Bulgarian, Pomak, Gorani, Torbesh Banat, Bessarabian, Old and New Church Slavonic and more?) Also I would like to see a video about the Roman greek language (there are greeks nowdays who still call themselves romans and i think they have their own greek language too) Thank you for the video!
Us Greeks called ourselves "Romans" from the first centuries A.D. up until the Greek revolution and well beyond that. A "Roman" was a person that was culturally and linguistically Greek. So there was no separate "roman" language. Roman language was the Greek language. My friend, also, please don't call the bulgarian dialect of FYROM as Macedonian 😂
@@kkyrezis nah mate you didn't get me, i know greeks called themselves roman and all, i mean that there was another dialect of greek, and its people still call themselves roman instead of just greek
@@ilija_Duniczew As far as I know, the last Greeks calling themselves romans are those that live in Turkey. Thats where my knowledge ends. Let me know if you find anything!
There are also 2 groups in Ukraine, "Rumeika" who were speaking a Greek dialect, and "Urum" (comes from "Romans" in Turkish) who were speaking a language related to Crimean Tatar (sometimes considered a dialect of it), but identifying as Greeks. They used to live in Crimea, but most of them were deported to what is now Donetsk oblast in the 1780s (and the remaining ones in Crimea were deported in 1944 together with the Crimean Tatars). Both groups have largely shifted to Russian, but still identify as Greeks. For more information, check "Mariupol Greek". In addition, there is a separate formerly Turkish speaking Greek "Urum" community, close to assimilation, in Tsalka, Georgia.
@@forgottenmusic1 The turkish speaking Pontian Greeks of Ukraine must be the true definition of how complicated history can be haha. There are some good videos about them in yt btw.
@@Llyebbay yes and no. Greece comes from a name the Romans gave to the Hellenes, but there are still MANY different theories to where it came from. Lots of people in my previous video were discussing it, I heard so many different etymologies!!!
@@CheLanguages the latin word Grecia is from the Ancient Greek word ΓΡΑΙΚΟΣ . Ιn the Greek mythology ΓΡΑΙΚΟΣ was the father of the ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ - Ηellines The ancient latin language and alphabet is from the Greek Language The latin alphabet is from the ancient Greek alphabet from the Greek island EYBOIA - Evia