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 you say you're Cypriot Greek. How would you (and other Cypriot Greeks) describe you nationality/identity? Would you call yourself 'Greek' or 'Cypriot' or maybe both? Can you tell more about that?
@ Our passports list ‘Cypriot’ under Nationality. It really depends on someone’s political views, also the situation. If im speaking to a foreigner, i’ll say Cypriot, if i am speaking with someone online that is Cypriot, then i’ll make the distinction.. some people never say only Cypriot, they always add Greek/Turkish, and a minority don’t even acknowledge that they are Cypriot. It really depends on how each person views the situation. I have to say that since a year ago i have changed plenty, I wouldn’t say half the things i said in my comment these days!
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...🔎📜🔍🆔🕵️🇬🇷✍️☝🏽...
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
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.
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).
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)
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).
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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?
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
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.
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
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
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
@@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
The server doesn't really exist anymore....It does technically, but I'm not active on it as I got rid of Discord myself and I kinda just left the server, it's probably some sort of wasteland.
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)
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
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)
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.
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
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 🤣
@@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!
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.
@@CheLanguages That is understandable given the persecution the Pontic Greeks had to endure (even after they arrived in Greece as refuges), but Pontic Greek is still a separate language that you cannot understand if you only speak standard Greek.
@@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.
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.
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
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 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!!!
@@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
I hope everyone enjoyed part 2! How well did you understand these languages/dialects and which is your favorite?
Kypriaka
@@papazataklaattiranimam awesome!
@Plopi96ILuvPigeons you never heard of it? I'd love to try and find some of the last speakers when I'm in Yerushalayim next month
Yevanic of course, thank you for talking about it!
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)
Hellenic languages/dialects are very underrated, thank you for shining some light on them.
You are most welcome, I hope you enjoy the video! Let me know which was your favorite from the list
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.
@@cypriotmappers5342 that's an interesting trend, hopefully it leads to it being preserved!
As you say you're Cypriot Greek. How would you (and other Cypriot Greeks) describe you nationality/identity? Would you call yourself 'Greek' or 'Cypriot' or maybe both? Can you tell more about that?
@ Our passports list ‘Cypriot’ under Nationality. It really depends on someone’s political views, also the situation. If im speaking to a foreigner, i’ll say Cypriot, if i am speaking with someone online that is Cypriot, then i’ll make the distinction.. some people never say only Cypriot, they always add Greek/Turkish, and a minority don’t even acknowledge that they are Cypriot. It really depends on how each person views the situation. I have to say that since a year ago i have changed plenty, I wouldn’t say half the things i said in my comment these days!
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
Thank you for talking about the Yevanic language as I requested! I hope this language can be preserved
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!!
@@CheLanguages of course! Do you know how the Ladino of Greece differs from the Ladino of other places also?
@@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!
@@AvrahamYairStern I couldn't tell you, I'm sorry
@@nothingtosay21 that's really good to know, how exactly were Milim Lashon haKodesh pronounced?
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...🔎📜🔍🆔🕵️🇬🇷✍️☝🏽...
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.
How well could you understand the Yevanic?
Here before the Albanians start talking about how everything is Albanian and always has been 😂😂😂
They did that in the first part!!!
A captivating video.
Thank you! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it
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
Interesting, thank you! What do you mean by the Katharevousa script? I know what Katharevousa is, but it uses a different script?
Otan o Nikos sou milaei gia thn krhtikh glwssa 🤤🥵💦💦
@@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!
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.
That's a nice fun fact, I always like hearing about younger people preserving old/dying dialects, me included! Which area of Greece are you from?
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!
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
Thank you for the confirmation! I find it a really interesting situation in Cyprus
All?
@@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
Do please part 3 with thracian greek, the arvanite languages, epirotika and the arumanian languages, thanks for the interesting videos 🙏🏼
arvanite and aromanian are not hellenic languages, therefore they should be the subject of another series of videos, namely Albanian and Romance languages .
exactly
I have talked about Aromanian in a previous video, 5 Forgotten Romance Languages. Arvanitika is a dialect of Albanian
I will see what I can do about the other two, thank you for the support!
@@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.
Thanks so muuuch!!!🇨🇾🇨🇾🇨🇾🇨🇾
You are welcome! 🇮🇱💪🏼🇨🇾🇬🇷
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.
That's interesting, they must have been speaking the 'rural' 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).
I didn't know that! I know it was a big center for Jews in Greece, and that some still live there though
Moses Elisaf was his name. He passed in 2023 while in office. A Romaniote Jew, doctor and an inspiration for liberals in Greece
thanks for a second video about us. I didnt know at all about yevanic language
I'm glad you got to learn something new! I hope you enjoyed this video
Great video as always, the pitch accent in crypriot greek is fascinating I hadn’t heard bout that before
I'm glad you learnt something new! I hope you enjoyed the video!
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)
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).
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.
In “koina” greek, we don’t pronounce the o, so it’s more like “kina”. Thanks for shedding some light into greek dialects!
Not anymore, but in Ancient (and actual Koine), it was still pronounced
OMG people will get mad and offended over ANYTHING! Cheers mate! Keep up the great videos!
People really do, but hey, it's good for my algorithm! Thank you for the kind words and support, I appreciate it!
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
Good to know, I don't fully understand it myself but I do know that they preserved some older pronunciations with aspiration
@@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.
@@georgios_5342 thank you for all this information! It's really cool to know
@@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!
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.
That's awesome! Great to have a Cypriot speaker in the comments!
I am waiting for Forgotten Hellenic languages part 3 (Cappadocian and Ancient Macedonian)
It's possible. There are also some other dialects, but I struggle to find much info on them
Also Crimean and Calabrian Greek?
@@AvrahamYairStern crimean greeks speak Kipchak
@@papazataklaattiranimam I wanna see an Urumi video since if’s a Greco-Turkic creole in a way
@@Teapoid Urum is not a Turco-Hellenic creole language, it is directly remnant of Golden Horde’s official language Kipchak.
Great video as usual
Thank you as always!
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!
I'd love to hear this Cypriot accent from London. Are there any documented videos of it?
@@CheLanguages not to my knowledge
@@JohnJoannou-xq5rq that's a shame, I'd be interested in seeing the difference
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
Thank you for the support also!
@@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.
Πολλά καλό το βίτεο σου για τες γλώσσες κύριε γλωσσολόγε. Σιαίρουμαι που έβαλες τζαι τα κυπριακά μέσα. Εύγε!
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.
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.
I've read Trudgill before, nice coincidence, I didn't know he also wrote about Greek
@@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
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
Σωστός. Αυτό το φαινόμενο άρχισε να φαίνεται και σε κάποιες κύριες αστικές πόλεις της Κύπρου.
Great video. I can't decide which one I like best, though.
Thank you for the support as always! My favorite is Yevanic obviously
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.
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.
Perhaps you say that because you speak Cretan Greek? I've heard it's more of a rural/urban divide in Cyprus
Good work.What do you think about ηπειρωτικη διαλεκτο
I might try and talk about it in part 3 if I can find more info on it. Thank you for the support!
Thanks for another interesting video.
You are most welcome!
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.
Ah thank you for all the info!
1:30 Wasn't aspiration lost in Greek during the end of the Hellenistic and start of Greco-Roman period?
It was at some point during antiquity, but a lot of changes in Greek happened during the Byzantine period
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.
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.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video. How well do you understand Yevanic?
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
Thank you for this information! I am glad you liked the video
I'm still a bit confused on Vlach because when I look it up, it says Aromanian (which I've talked about before), not Greek
@@CheLanguages You are right about Aromanian, didn't know that you talked about it before
@@-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"
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!
Thank you so much for the information! That's great to hear your perspective, thank you
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
@@D19DMO128D thank you for this information, it's good to be able to see some examples!
@@amvrosiosmichael7225 they write Ancient Greek?
@@D19DMO128D Please do!
ahahahahahahaha
You made my day with your.... ahahaha
you are a true historical youtuber
congrats
Thank you that is good to hear
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
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.
It's a lot nicer than Standard Modern Greek, the same can be said for Griko
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.
These features surely prove that these "dialects" the Greeks insist on in my comments are in fact their own languages. Thank you for the info!
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.
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.
I think that is the case nowadays yes
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.
Basically what I said
Not you again!
@@NoName-yw1pt LOL, what's wrong with him?
@@CheLanguages he promotes terrorism and denies or justifies violent events
@@NoName-yw1pt oh dear, I've not seen him say anything like that, he's usually pretty peaceful in my comment section. What did he say to you?
Hellenic languages (and dialects) deep in my heart 😁😁
Believe me or not, I found an interesting group of languages in Northern Brazil (Tupí)
I can easily believe you as I know of these languages myself, I really need to do a video on the forgotten languages of Brazil
Also, Hellenic languages are definitely some of my favorite too!
@@CheLanguages I today found a sign in Tupí
@@Account_abandoned-q7m awesome! So you live in Northern Brazil?
@@CheLanguages Southeast, there is a native group in south and southeast; the Tamoios.
I think the sign was saying "Açaí: 1,99, French Bread: 2,45*
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.
thanks for adding cretan
No problem!
Thanks for the video! I'd also like to advise against confusing Cretan Greek with Cretin Greek, which is now sometimes spoken online
What's Cretin Greek?
@@CheLanguages I was just joking. basically greek spoken by those greeks who are cretins.
@@CheLanguages the Greek that sounds like “CONSTANTINOPLE IS OURS EXPELL OUR TURKS FROM MEGALI REAL GREEK BORDERS 🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷
@@CheLanguages cretin = idiot 😂
Cretin Greek? Wtf is that
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.
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).
actually in most cases its not /tʃ/ but /dʒ/ in cyprus like the word και is pronounced /dʒe/ written down like τζιαι/τζ̌αι not /tʃe/
It happens in many languages, just one of those shifts that can occur overtime
@@ethem8284 I apologize because I got that wrong, thinking it was Ce not Dje
Η Βαλτικη ειναι Ελληνικη λεξη Το μερος με τους βάλτους..
Cypriot Greek dialect is also spoken in parts of Rhodes!
Awesome!
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?
And be proud! 🇬🇷🇨🇾💪🏼
My country speaks the same language it did 3,500 years ago, Modern Hebrew. Right now I'm living in the UK and it is not the same here LOL
It's quite controversial but many Greeks from the mainland find the cretan and Cypriot dialect quite funny and use it for comedic effect 😅
I've heard about this before actually!
I hope Cyprus will be united one day 🇬🇧💙🇨🇾
United with Greece!
@@CheLanguages Why? I think it should be independent 🇨🇾
@@ThiccPhoenix Cypriots beg to differ
@@ThiccPhoenix our people 🇨🇾 fought your people 🇬🇧 to unite with Greece.
@@CheLanguages Ew fuck no!
Another good video Yair , Also make a video on ancient Hellenic languages
I might consider it!
@@CheLanguages nice also later try making a video on lesser known language isolates
@@yasagarwal859 it's definitely a thought, I'd have to talk about 3 unrelated languages
Ancient Macedonian would be cool
@@CheLanguages yes i have a
2 languages from South Asia which are unrelated to any other languages
Do one on Gheg Albanian language , you may find it interesting
Have you seen my short on Albanian? I talked about it there
6:34 Why do you spell it Türkiye instead of Turkey? 🇹🇷
Recently, Turkey wanted English to rename the country Türkiye to stop confusion between the country and the bird.
@@seid3366I’ll keep calling it Turkey 🇹🇷
Spot on!
I won't, I like to he respectful to countries when they request to be called something, especially if it's their own language
Also, Türkiye looks cooler and isn't confused with a bird
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.
You think this could make it's own dialect?
@@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
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.
Well put
Thank you
I personally believe as a Cypriot that it will be lost Cypriot Greek dialect is gaining ground for the benefit of Modern Greek
It's possible sadly, but I've heard many younger people are making an effort to use the dialect/language in everyday speech nowadays
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
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
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!
It's fascinating to see that it really is different
And thank you for enlightening me on the subject!
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.
Plenty of people told me about the meaning, thank you for clarifying! Have a great day!
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.
Could you email me some samples of them?
I wouldn't call Makedonian a dialect as usually when it has a few phonimic changes we call it idioms (ιδιομα)
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
@@CheLanguages It's usually just spoken, not written, so I can't imagine where I could find it
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.
Did you even watch part 1?
@@CheLanguages No I did not. I will go back to watch Part 1 now.
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.
Why did you use the flag of the extinct Cretan State?
I wasn't actually aware it was the flag of the Cretan State, it actually showed up on the article about Cretan Greek!
@@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!!!
@@CheLanguages it is not an official flag and it is very controversial.
@@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
wow!
you got one accent right!!!
cool!
What do you mean? Glad you found it cool!
i'm from greece and all of the languages you had talked about inthis video and the preveious one are dialects except probably tsakonika
Did you even listen to what I said at the start of the video?
Hey, can you send me the link to your discord server? A mod banned me and I couldn’t join because the link was expired.
The server doesn't really exist anymore....It does technically, but I'm not active on it as I got rid of Discord myself and I kinda just left the server, it's probably some sort of wasteland.
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)
I can't find anything online, can you email me some links?
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
Cupriot is still part if the hellenic language aka greek how would the turks react to that ?
@@wankawanka3053 I am not sure that I understand that ?
@@wankawanka3053 I think they usually know that
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.
I'm glad you learnt something new! And how well do you understand Yevanic?
@@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)
@@angelb.823 Ancient Greek had quite a large impact on Hebrew, but Hebrew hasn't taken many words from Modern Greek at all
@@CheLanguages I see! Thanks for clarification.
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.
Is that from the Standard Modern Greek Bible?
@@CheLanguages no I transliterated from the Latin alphabet to the Greek one
@@Ratich ah I see, that's cool
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.
@@andreaskalogeropoulos5371 the Septuagint was in Koine Greek, this is definitely something else, not Koine
How Cypriot language have letter sounds that only exist in the Slavic languages?
Which only exist in Slavic languages?
@@CheLanguages CH,TCH,ZH....
@@SrdjanBasaric-w2s what makes you believe that they only exist in slavic languages 😂?
@@wankawanka3053 In Europe, they exist only in Slavic languages. Surely there are also in some black tribes, but I am not an authority on that.
The Yevanic text seems to be a transliteration from the Old Testament. It sounds like Koine Greek written in tve Jewish alphabet
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
Hebrew script*
I honestly can understand small bits off the Yevanic text
Awesome!
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 🤣
Some Cypriots may disagree with that
@@CheLanguages but Cyprus isn't even in Greece lol and especially not in the mainland
@@tsakeboya Yes, but it's in the Hellenosphere, which was my point
my mother says that Greek Cypriots speek better than Mainland Greeks
HAHA is she Cypriot by any chance?
@@CheLanguages no but she loves them
@@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!
@@CheLanguages do Modern Greeks still support Enosis?
@@AvrahamYairStern We dont push,but we wouldnt say no.
4:31 Very cool flag 🇬🇷🇮🇱🇬🇷🇮🇱
Incredibly based flag
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.
Thank you for your insight. A lot of people were adamant that Pontic is not different at all lol
@@CheLanguages That is understandable given the persecution the Pontic Greeks had to endure (even after they arrived in Greece as refuges), but Pontic Greek is still a separate language that you cannot understand if you only speak standard Greek.
@safp5158 very interesting to hear your perspective
Other Hellenic languages: Cappadocian, Pharasiotic, Silliotic
I've not heard of the latter two
@@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.
@@Kurdedunaysiri thank you for clarifying this
Rumeika or Mariupolitan also
@@wankawanka3053 they are dialects of Pontic
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.
Yes, I will always respect the Bishop of Athens during WWII
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
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.
You forgot the local language of the island of Ikaria very ancient
I'll check it out, thank you!
7:18 use the book of the Jonah because his name in Hebrew is similar to that Arabic and Hebrew the name of Greece
His name is Yonah, that's Hebrew and how he was called during his life עליו השלום
greeks love the funny accent of cypriots we always joke about it
LOL
What makes it funny exactly?
@@CheLanguages they always add a "n" sound at the end of the words
@@spirostrak Like the Ancient Greek....!!!
Wb Corfiot?
What?
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!!!
That's really helpful to know, thank you
Greece in Arabic is Yūnān not Yuwan
I apologize, I got it wrong
The word Greece is from the Greek word ΓΡΑΙΚΟΣ and the arabic word Yunan is from the Greek word lΩΝ , from the Greeks of lΩΝΙΑ - ionia
@@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