Modern Greek dialects

[Risto the Great]

Spartan, you have to define Northern in this context and exactly which people. Either the ones still in Greece or in the Diaspora.The ones in the Diaspora are absolutely irrelevant, as an example, my Grandparents spoke horrible Greek which was heavy in the way you describe. It was not their natural language. If you mean the locals, then are we talking about a standard language that relates to the imported Christians as well as the local indigenous Macedonians, Greeks, Vlachs, Albanians and Turks? If this is the case, it further suggests all of this is a relatively new phenomena.

[Spartan]

Originally Posted by Risto the Great

Spartan, you have to define Northern in this context and exactly which people. Either the ones still in Greece or in the Diaspora.The ones in the Diaspora are absolutely irrelevant, as an example, my Grandparents spoke horrible Greek which was heavy in the way you describe. It was not their natural language. If you mean the locals, then are we talking about a standard language that relates to the imported Christians as well as the local indigenous Macedonians, Greeks, Vlachs, Albanians and Turks? If this is the case, it further suggests all of this is a relatively new phenomena.

Im not talking Diaspora
Its probably more like the one you describe your Grandparents speak.
Maybe it stems from the language changes your people endured?

I cant tell who is a prosfyge or not , so I wont even venture a guess on them.

Pehaps its a Grkomani(is this the right term?) accent.

ps
I just proofread my post, and I want to make it clear that I am not
implying that your Grandparents are Grkomani. Im just saying maybe its Greek with a Slavic accent?

[Risto the Great]

Macedonians call Macedonians that have abandoned their cultural ties and embraced the modern Greek identity as Grkomani. This was not any of my people and is used as a disrespectful term. Honestly, I see no better term than "modern Greeks" for the people you were describing above.

Greek with a Macedonian or slavic accent would not explain the accent of the Christian imports or Vlachs or Albanians who have lived in the region for varying degrees of times. If this "heavyness" applies to all Northerners, then it surely has to be a recent phenomenon as the Vlach/Albanian languages are dramatically different and would have left different influences in the language. What amazes me is how the different people that came in the 1920's from Turkey and further afar did not impart any noticeable variations to the language of the region. I suspect it was because they were not a uniform race of people and soon embraced the modern Greek language as a compromise language to facilitate communication.

The reality is that there is no dialect in the North, it is distinguished from the rest of Greece because it simply does not have a dialect. It was given the freshest version of Greek to learn and did not have the "baggage" (meaning historical dialects) that the Southerners had to largely discard in order to embrace the formalised new Greek language. This is simply further evidence of the non-Greekness of the Macedonian region and many Greeks do not like to hear such talk.

Having said that, I stand firm on the fact that dialects should exist East of Salonika in the coastal areas as Greeks have been there for a very long time.

[Svoliani]

In the article , the Northern Greek dialect that is mentioned is the dialect spoken by local Greeks that have lived there for a long long time.
He clearly says the more inland and north you go that it used to be Slavic and Turkish speaking. So in the southern places that were traditianally greek speaking like Kastoria/Grevena/Voiou/Kozani/Veria/Katerini have this distinct dialect.

"Extreme Northern dialects delete all unstressed i,u and raise unstressed e,o to i,u respectevely"
An example of this would be the word LEOFORIO(bus) which would be pronounced LIUFURIU .

Of course, the younger generation dont talk this nowadays , the only way to hear it is from the oldies.
Spartan, look at these videos and tell me if this sounds a bit different than what is spoken in Sparti.
YouTube - Avgerinos
YouTube - Morfi

[Spartan]

@ Risto
^^ That makes sense
However there is an exception to this.
Pontians, who make up alot of the Greek population in Macedonia(northern Greece), have their own very distinct dialect(not accent). I think this sometimes gets associated as being a Macedonian dialect, when in fact it is a dialect of Greek from a region that was long isolated from greece proper for thousands of years. The Pontians are from the southern shores of the black sea(deep in the Turkish interior), and thus the Greek they spoke evolved differently from the "proper" Greek.
This could be another factor contributing to this confusion over this topic of the Macedonian dialect, since many of them were settled in northern Greece.

[Spartan]

Originally Posted by Svoliani

Spartan, look at these videos and tell me if this sounds a bit different than what is spoken in Sparti.

A very noticable difference in the accent.
However , I do understand what is being said.

[Risto the Great]

Originally Posted by Spartan

This could be another factor contributing to this confusion over this topic of the Macedonian dialect, since many of them were settled in northern Greece.

My point exactly. It has no bearing on the natural language of the land.

[osiris]

my favourite greek dialect is actually not spoken in greek its in grenglish, and its spoken around oakliegh clayotn area of melbourne in australia, its best exponent is effi the boring one. and george kapinaris makes a good go of it too.

[Spartan]

^^^
Nice post
We speak gringlish over here too!
Thanks buddy, you just made me laugh, on what has been a shitty morning so far here in Toronto.

[osiris]

here spartan here is effie,

YouTube - EFFIE at the Logies 1993

here is george k
YouTube - Acropolis Now Promo

YouTube - Memo Hatzidimitropoulos