Pontic Greek

Pontic Greek (Pontic: Ποντιακόν λαλίαν, romanized: Pontiakón lalían or Ρωμαίικα romanized: Roméika; Greek: Ποντιακή διάλεκτος, romanized: Pontiakí diálektos; Turkish: Rumca) is an endangered variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish/Caucasus region. Today it is spoken mainly in northern Greece. Its speakers are referred to as Pontic Greeks or Pontian Greeks. It is not completely mutually intelligible with modern Demotic Greek.

The linguistic lineage of Pontic Greek stems from Ionic Greek via Koine and Byzantine Greek, and contains influences from Russian, Turkish, Kartvelian (namely Laz and Georgian) and Armenian.

Pontic Greek is an endangered dialect of Greek spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide. Many Pontians live in Greece; however, only 200,000–300,000 of those are considered active Pontic speakers. Although it is mainly spoken in Northern Greece, it is also spoken in Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, as well as by the Pontic diaspora. The language was brought to Greece in the 1920s after the population exchange between the Christian Pontic Greeks and the Turkish Muslims from their homelands during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. However, it is still spoken in pockets of the Pontus today, mostly by Pontic Greek Muslims in the eastern districts of Trabzon Province. Pontic Greek is one of the languages of the Greek (Hellenic) branch separate from Mainland Greek. Pontic Greek and typical demotic, Mainland Greek is generally mutually unintelligible. It is primarily written in the Greek script; in Turkey and Ukraine the Latin script is used more frequently; in Russia and former Soviet countries, the Cyrillic alphabet is used.