An interesting text in relation to the Vlach origins of Greece and the nature of the 'Greek' peasant with regard to their language(s) and identity.
.....We walked out down a lane to see an encampment of Wallachian shepherds........They are nomad people, tending sheep, who roam in the mountains all the summer, & pitch their tents, or rather their huts, in the winter. We were asked..to go inside their huts. They are made of boughs, & the dead leaves serve for lining to the roof. A family of twelve children lived here; brown and sallow, gentle & communicative. They shook hands - the women were weaving cloth, in an outer court; & inside was the sleeping place of the family. They live presumably in the open air; we peered around, & tried, not very successfully, to imagine the whole life, built on such a foundation. But this needs more imagination than any other feat of archaeology; for mud huts belong to the dark ages. The people did not look robust or fierce; one or two women had notably fine faces, aquiline and expressive. Then we tramped some way over the estate; & this would be a dull record, but all the time, somehow - I can't define it - you felt the place arrange itself in its natural order, & and this was something beautiful. Here were the olive groves - here they dug a trench - here come all the village people, trooping home from work with their salutations, prompt & respectful. Miss Noel knew each by name; each spoke to her. Now this seemed to give what was wanting to Greece before; & it is a very essential part of it. The people use the same plough that they did in the days of Homer, says Mr. Noel, & though the races have changed, their lives cannot be much different; the earth changes but little......
The poorer people of Athens - & all the people seem poor- have a pleasant habit of longing up here in the evening, when their work is done; just as we stroll in our parks. They sit about on classic marble, chatting & knitting; but they do not vulgarise the place as we Tourists must do; but rather make it human and familiar.
The people of Athens are, of course, no more Athenian than I am. They do not understand the Greek of the age of Pericles - when I speak it. Not are their features more classic than their speech: the Turk and the Albanian & Franks - it seems- have produced a common type enough. It is dark and dusky, small of stature, & not very well grown. It is true that the streets are dignified by the presence of many rustics, in their Albanian dress; the men wear thick white coats, kilts, much pleated; & long gaiters. But this you may see written in a dozen guide books. I have seen no native women; & indeed you see very few women. The streets are crowded with men drinking & smoking in the open air, even, in the country, sleeping beneath the wall; but the women keep within. You generally see them leading children, or looking from an upper window, where, presumably, they work. But the mind has no difficulty in making brigands.
Like a shifting layer of sand these loosely composed tribes of many different peoples lie across Greece; calling themselves Greek indeed, but bearing the same kind of relation to the old Greek that their tongue does to his. For the language they talk is divided from the language that few of them can write as widely as that again is divided from the speech of Plato. The spoken language because it has not been fixed by grammar or spelling, twists itself afresh on each tongue. The peasants drop syllables, & slur vowels so that as proficient a speaker as Miss Noel could not undertake to write down the words that run so swiftly from her tongue. Nor could she read or write the Greek of the newspapers; & still less could she read the Greek of the Classics. So you must look upon Modern Greek as an impure nation of peasants, just as you must look upon the modern Greek as a nation of mongrel element & a rustic beside the classic speech of pure bred races.
(Virginia Woolf on Greece(1906) - in "Travels with Virginia Woolf". Edited by Jan Morris - The Hogarth Press London 1993, pp. 208 - 213)
.....We walked out down a lane to see an encampment of Wallachian shepherds........They are nomad people, tending sheep, who roam in the mountains all the summer, & pitch their tents, or rather their huts, in the winter. We were asked..to go inside their huts. They are made of boughs, & the dead leaves serve for lining to the roof. A family of twelve children lived here; brown and sallow, gentle & communicative. They shook hands - the women were weaving cloth, in an outer court; & inside was the sleeping place of the family. They live presumably in the open air; we peered around, & tried, not very successfully, to imagine the whole life, built on such a foundation. But this needs more imagination than any other feat of archaeology; for mud huts belong to the dark ages. The people did not look robust or fierce; one or two women had notably fine faces, aquiline and expressive. Then we tramped some way over the estate; & this would be a dull record, but all the time, somehow - I can't define it - you felt the place arrange itself in its natural order, & and this was something beautiful. Here were the olive groves - here they dug a trench - here come all the village people, trooping home from work with their salutations, prompt & respectful. Miss Noel knew each by name; each spoke to her. Now this seemed to give what was wanting to Greece before; & it is a very essential part of it. The people use the same plough that they did in the days of Homer, says Mr. Noel, & though the races have changed, their lives cannot be much different; the earth changes but little......
The poorer people of Athens - & all the people seem poor- have a pleasant habit of longing up here in the evening, when their work is done; just as we stroll in our parks. They sit about on classic marble, chatting & knitting; but they do not vulgarise the place as we Tourists must do; but rather make it human and familiar.
The people of Athens are, of course, no more Athenian than I am. They do not understand the Greek of the age of Pericles - when I speak it. Not are their features more classic than their speech: the Turk and the Albanian & Franks - it seems- have produced a common type enough. It is dark and dusky, small of stature, & not very well grown. It is true that the streets are dignified by the presence of many rustics, in their Albanian dress; the men wear thick white coats, kilts, much pleated; & long gaiters. But this you may see written in a dozen guide books. I have seen no native women; & indeed you see very few women. The streets are crowded with men drinking & smoking in the open air, even, in the country, sleeping beneath the wall; but the women keep within. You generally see them leading children, or looking from an upper window, where, presumably, they work. But the mind has no difficulty in making brigands.
Like a shifting layer of sand these loosely composed tribes of many different peoples lie across Greece; calling themselves Greek indeed, but bearing the same kind of relation to the old Greek that their tongue does to his. For the language they talk is divided from the language that few of them can write as widely as that again is divided from the speech of Plato. The spoken language because it has not been fixed by grammar or spelling, twists itself afresh on each tongue. The peasants drop syllables, & slur vowels so that as proficient a speaker as Miss Noel could not undertake to write down the words that run so swiftly from her tongue. Nor could she read or write the Greek of the newspapers; & still less could she read the Greek of the Classics. So you must look upon Modern Greek as an impure nation of peasants, just as you must look upon the modern Greek as a nation of mongrel element & a rustic beside the classic speech of pure bred races.
(Virginia Woolf on Greece(1906) - in "Travels with Virginia Woolf". Edited by Jan Morris - The Hogarth Press London 1993, pp. 208 - 213)
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