Tsakonian Dialect

Начиная с 2008 года, Греческий институт Филологического факуль-тета СПбГУ совместно с ИЛИ РАН организовал серию экспедиций на Пелопоннес в места компактного проживания носителей цаконского диалекта. Этот диалект традиционно привлекает внимание филологов-классиков и неоэллинистов, так как считается, что он напрямую восходит к древнегреческому лаконскому диалекту. В настоящей статье представлены важнейшие результаты исследований, проведенных на базе собранных полевых материалов.

Tsakonian is one of the most mysterious Greek dialects. It is still spoken in Peloponnesus and almost all scholars believe that the dialect originates from the Ancient Greek Laconian dialect. Three years ago the Hellenic insti-tute of St. Petersburg state university launched a new field research project aimed to prepare a new linguistic description of Tsakonian and to investigate history and traditional culture of its speakers. This article provides a brief description of the new linguistic data from Tsakonia with an example of a narrative in Tsakonian in the last section.

A small number of inscriptions found in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta and dating to the Imperial period display the use of the Laconian dialect (§1). Since the epigraphical record has otherwise shown a steady decline in the use of dialect, scholars have often interpreted its reappearance as an expression of antiquarianism (§2). The present work explores the possibility that the inscriptions offer direct testimony to the language spoken at Sparta. This scenario does not seem unlikely, since evidence from other sources suggests that Late Laconian was in wide use in other parts of Laconia (§3). Examination of the inscriptions themselves reveals that the dialect used betrays no signs of artificiality, as is otherwise usually assumed, and that many peculiarities are better explained through the assumption of dialect survival at Sparta; the provisional use of dialect in writing is interpreted as motivated by a wish among Spartans to promote local identity (§4).

"Настоящая статья посвящена разбору перевода отрывка
Евангелия от Иоанна (20: 19–25) на цаконский диалект новогреческого языка. Традиционно считается, что цаконский — это единственный из современных диалектов, напрямую восходящих к древнегреческому (лаконскому диалекту). Помимо указания на особенности перевода, в статье описаны основные черты цаконского.

In our paper we analyze the translation of an extract from the
Gospel of John (20: 19–25) in Tsakonian. This is the only Greek
dialect that was not radically changed in the period of Koine and
preserved some Doric features. Our analysis does not content just with differences between the translation and the original, but also provides necessary information on phonetics and morphological peculiarities of Tsakonian."

In Ancient Boeotian inscriptions (3rd – 2nd c. BCE), the spelling ιου occurs in place of ου (representing /u(ː)/) after coronals. Similar phenomena are attested in modern Tsakonian and in Oscan inscriptions written in the indigenous alphabet (Campania and Samnium).
The spellings Tιου for Toυ (Tυ) and Tiu for Tu (where T = any coronal) have been considered to be evidence of a phonetic process of fronting and/or diphthongization of /u(ː)/, purportedly induced by the preceding coronal: e.g. [tu(ː)] > [ty(ː)] > [tju].
In my presentation, I intend to demonstrate that the reconstructed changes are untenable and that the spellings at issue reflect the palatalization (backing) of a coronal before a high back vowel.

Hellenic Institute of the Saint-Petersburg State University in collaboration with the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences organized more than twenty expeditions to South Kynouria in Peloponnese (Greece) in order to describe the Tsakonian dialect. During these expeditions its participants collected a large number of oral texts in Tsakonian and it was decided to create a Tsakonian corpus so that this very interesting linguistic material could be easily accessed. This paper provides the first description of the project and discusses its current problems.

В статье рассматривается лексика цаконского диалекта новогреческого языка, приводятся результаты анализа ее происхождения, на основании которых опровергается гипотеза об изолированности данного идиома от других греческих диалектов. Исследуемый материал обнаруживает сходства с лексикой северных диалектов греческого языка, что позволяет предположить сосуществавание указанных диалектов в общем географическом ареале в прошлом. Состав иноязычных заимствований в лексике цаконского диалекта не отличается существенно от прочих диалектов новогреческого языка; лексическое своеобразие цаконского обеспечивают слова древнегреческого происхождения, а также новообразования. Непонятность цаконского диалекта для носителей нормы новогреческого языка определяется не столько лексическими, сколько фонетическими и морфологическими особенностями.

The paper analyzes the vocabulary of the Tsakonian dialect of Modern Greek and refutes the hypothesis about its isolation from other Greek idioms. The material reveals some similarities with the Northern Greek dialectal vocabulary, which allows us to conclude that the aforementioned dialects have been circulating in a common geographic area. Tsakonian vocabulary demonstrates almost the same foreign borrowings as other Modern Greek dialects, whereas Ancient Greek roots and neologisms provide its lexical uniqueness. The Tsakonian dialect is incomprehensible for speakers of Standard Modern Greek due to its phonetics and morphology, but not its lexical peculiarities.

"Цаконский диалект — единственный из новогреческих диалектов, который не прошел через койне. Благодаря этому в нем сохранились некоторые черты, свойственные дорийским диалектам древнегреческого языка. Существующие сейчас классификации новогреческих диалектов не относят цаконский ни к одной из групп, поскольку фонетические изоглоссы, на которых эти классификации базируются, по большей части незначимы для цаконского.
Наибольшую сложность в цаконской фонетике представляет система согласных, и одна из проблем связана со статусом мягких сонантов и с причинами изменений, которые они часто претерпевают. В статью рассматриваются /n’/, /l’/ и /r’/ и критически разбираются существующие гипотезы.


Tsakonian is the most mysterious Greek dialect. Famous Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi noted about 1668 that nobody can understand inhabitants of Tsakonia without an interpreter: they speak neither Greek nor Italian. Even today Tsakonian is almost incomprehensible for other Greeks. It falls out of all current classifications of Greek dialects because the majority of Tsakonian phonetic features doesn’t coincide with the isoglosses that are valid for other Greek dialects.
Palatal sonants, their status and mutation still a lot of discussion. For example, it is not clear how distribute palatal and non-palatal sonants. Another problem deals with the conditions of mutation, i. e. it is often not clear if the mutation depends just on phonological environment or is also affected by certain extralinguistic factors, like the sex of the speaker."

Цаконский диалект новогреческого языка часто напрямую возводят к древнему лаконскому диалекту, и это ставит его на особое место в новогреческой диалектологии. Если сейчас исключительная древность цаконского практически не ставится под сомнение, то в конце XIX – первой половине XX вв. она стала предметом острой научной полемики, в которой приняли участие ведущие неоллинисты. В статье обсуждается, как эта полемика могла быть связана с «греческим языковым вопросом» и как в ней проявились идеологические и научные преференции ее участников. В конце статьи поднимается вопрос о задачах современной диалектологии.

It is almost generally accepted now that Tsakonian is a unique Modern Greek dialect and it originates directly from Ancient Doric Laconian. This statement was already present in the first linguistic descriptions of the dialect in the 19th century and was referred to as a basic one that requires no discussion. German classicist Michael Deffner was the first to apply comparative analysis to Tsakonian phonetics (1881) and thus he managed to demonstrate systematic connections between Tsakonian and Laconian. Deffner’s publication has revealed Tsakonian data to his contemporaries, although not all of them approved of his approach. One of those who became interested in Tsakonian but could not accept Deffner’s conclusions and methods was famous demoticist Ioannis Psycharis, because Deffner, evidently, supported the ideas of his rival Georgios Hatzidakis. Psycharis and his student and colleague Hubert Pernot believed that many Tsakonian phenomena treated as Laconian or Doric heritage had been misinterpreted and they should be approached from the point of view of synchronic typological analysis. Pernot found multiple “Tsakonian” peculiarities in other Modern Greek dialects as well and proved that at least some of them could be better explained by means of medieval or modern evidence. As a result, Pernot proposed a new typological approach to Tsakonian which actually admits Laconian origin of the dialect but does not regard it as a crucial factor for linguistic description. Although this approach has deeply affected posterior Tsakonian studies, its core seems to have been somehow forgotten: many papers use typological analysis to demonstrate uniqueness of Tsakonian. This happened, probably, due to Thanasis Costakis, who was a student of Pernot, but as Tsakonian himself he definitely emphasized Laconian origin of the dialect because for him it was a basis of Tsakonian identity.
In this paper, I observe how the variety of approaches to Tsakonian depends on ideological and theoretical background of the scholars involved in Tsakonian studies and their goals. I believe that nowadays it is not really important to discuss again the Laconian origin of Tsakonian. It would be more promising to deal with the current state of the dialect, for example, to investigate the impact of Standard Modern Greek and the possible future of the dialect. It means that linguists and anthropologists should analyze the relations between the dialect and modern identity of its (possible) speakers and to find out if (and how) the dialect can respond to their current needs.

Одной из отличительных особенностей цаконского диалекта новогреческого языка являются аналитические формы для выражения настоящего времени и имперфекта при отсутствии соответствующих синтетических форм. Вопрос о происхождении аналитических форм в цаконском до сих пор остается открытым. Нельзя исключать иноязычного влияния, однако несомненные предпосылки для появления таких форм были в греческом языке. Одиночные примеры употребления перифрастических конструкций со значением имперфекта обнаруживаются в древнегреческом, однако всплеск употребления подобных конструкций приходится на «Новый завет», откуда они проникают в т. н. позднее койне (греческий язык IV–X вв). Можно предположить, что аналитические формы развились в цаконском в византийский период, однако неясно, почему данное явление затронуло именно цаконский. В статье предпринимается попытка рассмотрения цаконских аналитических форм как собственно греческого феномена, а также отмечаются особенности их употребления и семантики.

Tsakonian is famous for its analytic forms of Present and Imperfect and it has no other means to express these tenses. The origin of these forms is still unclear. The foreign impact cannot be excluded as Tsakonian had contacts with Romance and Slavic languages. However, the Greek language definitely had its own mechanisms to develop analytic forms. Single examples of periphrastic constructions with the verb ‘to be’ and a participle for Imperfect are already found in Ancient Greek. They are widespread in New Testament koine and they are also sometimes used in Late koiné (the Greek language of the 4th–10th centuries A. D.). I presume that Tsakonian analytic forms appeared during the Byzantine period, but I cannot explain why these forms exist only in Tsakonian. In my paper I analyze Tsakonian analytic forms as an entirely Greek phenomenon and describe some peculiarities in their usage and semantics.

В статье разбираются примеры архаичных явлений в системе греческих диалектов. Особое внимание уделяется диалектам диаспоры, развивавшимся в изоляции от литературного греческого языка, а также цаконскому диалекту. Предлагается двойная интерпретация процесса архаизации как результата внутриязыкового развития или сознательного употребления в речи архаизмов, вызванного стилистическими или идеологическими соображениями. Приводятся примеры из греческого диалектного материала на оба вида архаизации, разбираются смешанные случаи.

The article presents some examples of archaic phenomena in Greek dialects. The research is focused on the idioms of the Greek diaspora which have been developing in isolation from Standard Greek and on the Tsakonian dialect as well. These dialects have not undergone several innovative changes as Standard Modern Greek did. The process of archaization is interpreted both as a result of the intrastructural language development and as a conscious use of archaisms motivated by stylistic or ideological considerations. Examples from the Greek dialects material are provided for both types of archaization and mixed cases are analyzed. An ancient origin (Doric, Ionian) is traced back for some dialect peculiarities. The archaic features are mostly observed on the phonetic level. This allows us to conclude that those are the phonetic inconsistencies which make an idiom incomprehensible to speakers of other Greek dialects and of Standard Modern Greek.

Tsakonian, a modern descendant of Laconian Doric, a dialect of Ancient Greek, is an endangered language spoken in Arcadia, Greece in a remote area in the Parnon Mountains. The language is in need of documentation, codification and digitization in order to allow its universal access and dissemination and support its preservation. Even though there is raw data of the language in the form of sound and video recordings, they have not been archived by the community yet and therefore are inaccessible. There are primary and secondary sources of the language in the form of grammars, dictionaries and texts. These sources have been arbitrarily transcribed in various scripts created by their authors according to their needs. One of these scripts, which is also the script in question in this study, was created for the needs of lexicography in the language, the product of which was a three volume dictionary. This script in turn was adopted by the community for the transcription, archiving and publication of texts in the language. The script in question is based on the Modern Greek alphabet supplemented by extra characters to represent the contrastive phonemic elements distinct to the language. However, based on descriptive analyses of the language's phonological system carried out by researchers within a scientific linguistics framework to date, the script is need of revision. The encoding and inclusion of this script in the Unicode Standard would facilitate the language's transcription, digitization, archiving and dissemination. A requirement for the proposal of the script's inclusion in the Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) defined by the International Standard ISO/IEC 10646 is its acceptance by the community as key stakeholders in its viability and sustainability. As primary end users they are to decide on the level of representation they require while taking into account the scientific conclusions mentioned above to ensure the script's reliability and validity. The community needs to adopt a prescriptive approach in making the necessary revisions based on practical and functional criteria towards an emerging standard. Its success requires the support of various experts such as: linguists, graphic designers, information technology technicians as well as legal experts. This along with the close involvement of the community in the decision making process is important not only in the script's adoption but also to address ethical concerns of ownership and access. In a global world with advances in information and media technology, digitization would also act as a catalyst for literacy in the language. Therefore, an essential component of the language's preservation and sustainability is an effective literacy program for the encoded Tsakonian script. This would involve the development of educational materials, training of teachers and distribution of literature, which is an essential requirement for its implementation as outlined in the community's language policy and planning program. The overall aim of this study is to report on the processes involved in the endeavor described above and its results.

На территории муниципалитета Южная Кинурия (ном Аркадия, Пелопоннес, Греция) распространен цаконский диалект, который принято считать древнейшим диалектом греческого языка. Греческий институт Филологического факультета СПбГУ, начиная с 2008 г. регулярно проводит полевые исследования диалекта и этнографии. При сборе фольклора на диалекте пришлось столкнуться с необычной ситуацией, общее описание которой здесь приводится.
The Tsakonian dialect is generally traced back to the Ancient Greek Laconian dialect. It is still spoken in South Kynouria in Arkadia (Peloponnese, Greece). Hellenic Institute of the Saint Petersburg State University organized more than 20 expeditions to the area in order to collect the relevant data about the dialect, ethnography and folklore. The remarkable situation with the Tsakonian folklore is described here.

Современное диалектологическое исследование предполагает не просто описание тех или иных особенностей диалекта и определение новых или уточнение старых изоглосс, а представляет собой, в первую очередь, комплексное историко-филологическое исследование. Греческий институт Филологического факультета СПбГУ совместно с ИЛИ РАН, начиная с 2008 года, проводит экспедиции на Пелопоннес (Греция) в места распространения цаконского диалекта. В ходе экспедиций удалось собрать не только уникальный языковой материал, но и интереснейшие сведения по истории региона, которые в комбинации с лингвистическим анализом диалектных данных позволили предложить новую этимологию этнонима ‘цаконец’, представленную в настоящей статье.

Modern dialect studies cannot content just with the description of the dialect itself or with reevaluation of known isoglosses and introduction of the new ones. A wider historical and philological context should be taken into account, because it is the only way to get relevant material and properly to interpret this material. Hellenic Institute of St. Petersburg State University together with the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences organized multiple expeditions to the Tsakonian speaking area of Peloponnese. The collected material includes very interesting information on the history of the region along with unique linguistic data. If the description of most peculiar dialect features has been already published elsewhere, this article introduces non-linguistic data, i. e. the history of the Tsakonians from the 10th century AD till nowadays. The complex analysis of both linguistic and non-linguistic data made it possible to propose a new etymology of the term ‘Tsakonians’ and to demonstrate that it has nothing to do with the national identity.

Одним из наиболее распространенных приветствий среди носителей цаконского диалекта новогреческого языка является выражение kaúr ekánate ‘добро пожаловать’. В настоящей статье предпринимается попытка выяснить, что же обозначает элемент kaúr и верно ли его традиционное отождествление с новогреческим наречием καλώς. При рассмотрении этого вопроса были использованы полевые материалы, собранные автором во время многочисленных экспедиций в места компактного проживания носителей цаконского диалекта на Пелопонесе.

One of the most popular greetings in Tsakonian — kaúr ekánate ‘you are welcome’ — is often compared with Modern Greek καλώς ήρθατε with the same meaning. The element kaúr is generally treated as a dialectal version of καλώς ‘well’. The goal of this article is to demonstrate that another hypothesis is at least also possible if even not more preferable. On my opinion kaúr is actually ka úra ‘good time/hour’ and has nothing to do with the adverb καλώς. The analysis is based on dialectal evidence collected in Tsakonian-speaking villages of the Peloponnese.