Nestled in the remote mountainous regions of northern Turkey, a linguistic gem known as Romeyka is facing the threat of extinction.
A vestige of the Hellenistic era, the dialect is currently spoken by a mere handful of individuals. It stands as a testament to the linguistic continuity that allegedly bridged the gap between the modern world and Homer’s time.
In an article, The Guardian highlights the challenges in ascertaining the precise number of Romeyka speakers, attributing this to its preservation through oral tradition alone. The dialect has withstood the test of time in Pontus, adjacent to the Black Sea. Still, the advancing age of its speakers threatens its potential loss.
To safeguard this linguistic heritage, Cambridge University’s Professor Ioanna Sitaridou has spearheaded the “Crowdsourcing Romeyka” campaign, an initiative seeking to salvage the dialect from extinction.
Ms. Sitaridou, an expert in Spanish and Historical Linguistics, says she is on a quest to locate Romeyka speakers globally, extending her search to the USA, Australia, and across Europe. Her research reveals that Romeyka has conserved ancient elements, such as the infinitive verb form “to goein,” a construct shared with ancient Greek but long since vanished from other Greek dialects.
In her study, Ms. Sitaridou says that Romeyka is not a progeny but a parallel branch of modern Greek -- an assertion challenging the notion that Greek is an “isolated” language, unrelated to other European languages.
As Christianity spread across the Black Sea, so did the Greek language. Despite the region’s conversion to Islam and the subsequent linguistic shift towards Turkish, the Romeyka-speaking communities have tenaciously held on to their ancestral tongue.
The “Crowdsourcing Romeyka” project is a race against time to preserve a dialect that serves as a direct link to the ancient past, offering invaluable insights into the evolution of language and culture