European languages and Greek

[Redsun]

Hello Amp

Amp -Greek dialect (not written) was common until 20 years ago in South Italy (Magna Grecia) and had survived against official language.

How common?

I always wondered why Lord Byron learn Italian from his young lover Nicolo Giraud in Athens and not elsewhere.

How common was Latin in comparison to the "Greek"? dialect" in and around the Peloponnese.

[Amphipolis]

Hello Amp

Amp -Greek dialect (not written) was common until 20 years ago in South Italy (Magna Grecia) and had survived against official language.

How common?

I couldn't find a map on geographic distribution. My point was that this dialect (almost) eclipsed only in 20th century (after surviving for 28 centuries). More info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griko_dialect

I always wondered why Lord Byron learn Italian from his young lover Nicolo Giraud in Athens and not elsewhere.

How common was Latin in comparison to the "Greek"? dialect" in and around the Peloponnese.

Ncolo Giraud is often described as a young Greek boy, as he was born and lived in Greece, but he was a foreigner, a French of Italian roots. (That was around 1810 before the Revolution)

As I have argued in the link (when my username was dekapentaugoustos) there were no Latin (Italian or Vlach) speakers in Peloponnese at the time. Many foreigners confuse Vlachs with Arvanites or the derogatory term vlach (peasant) with the Vlach ethnic identity and language. There's a whole thread on the topic.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6633

[Carlin]

I couldn't find a map on geographic distribution. My point was that this dialect (almost) eclipsed only in 20th century (after surviving for 28 centuries). More info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griko_dialect

Ncolo Giraud is often described as a young Greek boy, as he was born and lived in Greece, but he was a foreigner, a French of Italian roots. (That was around 1810 before the Revolution)

As I have argued in the link (when my username was dekapentaugoustos) there were no Latin (Italian or Vlach) speakers in Peloponnese at the time. Many foreigners confuse Vlachs with Arvanites or the derogatory term vlach (peasant) with the Vlach ethnic identity and language. There's a whole thread on the topic.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...ead.php?t=6633

Hi Amphipolis,

What makes you think that there were no Latin (Vlach) speakers in the Peloponnese at the time? What makes you say with such certainty that the term "Vlach" simply meant peasant and not something else?

Here are a couple of additional sources. I will summarize from French (the first one).

Les Tzacones
By Stamatis C. Caratzas

https://books.google.ca/books?id=i_vafS-PiDoC&pg=PA120&dq=Valaques+Volchia&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Valaques%20Volchia&f=false

Page 120 Summary:

- Chalcocondyle said that Vlachs were installed in Laconia, on the Taygetos and peninsula of Tenarion.
- In a petition of the inhabitants of Monemvasia, dated 1527, it is said that the Vlachs (Vulachi) have become accustomed to graze their cattle every winter in their territories; which confirms the testimony of Chalcocondyle the site of the installation.
- In the Frankish era, there are place names in Arcadia such as Volchia ["Apud Volchiam et alias Arcadiae et Romaniau partes"].
- On the page 120, there are numerous toponyms listed which contain the term "Vlach" in it. [But this is truly only a small portion, and doesn't do it justice as it only refers to toponyms with the term "Vlach". In the footnotes of page 121, there are additional such toponyms provided from the following regions/areas of Peloponnese: Olympia, Pylia, Triphylia. Again, this doesn't even begin the scratch the surface.]

Page 121 Summary - footnote 197:
- The probable sites of Vlach installation must be the Gortynia and Laconia in the Peloponnese. Philippson admitted as probable installation of Vlachs in the Peloponnese, without being able to specify neither date nor place of origin.

Page 122 - Top:
"Il est maintenant tres probable que les Valaques ont ete installes dans la Peloponnese."
It is now very likely that the Vlachs were installed in the Peloponnese.


I haven't provided additional translations from this book, but basically there is an Athonite legend (legend from Holy Mountain/Mount Athos), as well as medieval imperial chrysobulls which seem to indicate that these Peloponnesian Vlachs were originally living in southern Macedonia, very close to Mount Athos -- and were expelled and transferred from these areas to Peloponnese, most likely by Alexis Comnene.

Also, per Κωνσταντίνος Κούμας -

Διεσκορπισμένοι εις διάφορα χωρία ως επί το πλείστον ορεινά από της Μακεδονίας έως την Πελοπόννησον είναι οι λεγόμενοι Βλάχοι, Μακεδόνες όντες και Θετταλοί και Έλληνες το γένος (σελ.522).

The translation would not be necessary for you. Here is the link.

http://vlahofonoi.blogspot.ca/2012/03/blog-post_21.html

Thanks,
Carlin

PS: Did you know that the Peloponnesian Melingi were probably Vlachs, and not Slavs? Just where the Melingi settled in the Peloponnese there can be found the most Vlach-Romanic toponyms - which can be derived neither from Greek, Slavic, Albanian or Turkish languages.