Archaic Greek in a modern world

[Groenewolf]

UcAYP4irSyQ

It is a short video, but might be interesting.

[Óttar]

Funny how these super-Greeks, Ionians, didn't get transferred to Greece. I bet the extent of their "Islam" is reciting a few Quran verses at funerals.

[Guapo]

UcAYP4irSyQ

It is a short video, but might be interesting.

Great video and music, I've known about these ancient speaking Pontic Greeks in Turky before but never bothered to search on youtube for anything.

[poiuytrewq0987]

If these people are remnants of the Greeks left behind after the fall of the Byzantine Empire then it is possible that our glimpse of them will give us an idea of what Byzantine Greeks looked like? I also found it interesting that a lot of them are light-skinned and light-eyed unlike mainland Greeks who tend to be the opposite on a common basis.

[jerney]

I also found it interesting that a lot of them are light-skinned and light-eyed unlike mainland Greeks who tend to be the opposite on a common basis.

Many Greeks in Athens are really swarthy, but outside Athens you can find many light haired, skinned, eyed people.

[Vasconcelos]

Many Greeks in Athens are really swarthy, but outside Athens you can find many light haired, skinned, eyed people.

Of course, not everyone in mediterranean areas has dark pigmentation, just the (large) majority.

http://thesocietypages.org/graphicsociology/files/2009/01/westernparadigm_blue_eye_color_map.jpg
not that this is a really accurate map, but wtv

[Guapo]

Many Greeks in Athens are really swarthy, but outside Athens you can find many light haired, skinned, eyed people.

Typical, miscegenation always happens in larger cities.

[Vasconcelos]

Perhaps, but as far as I know Athens was a kind of tiny "city" during the Ottoman Era.


Athens was chosen to be the capital of the newly established kingdom of Greece. At that time, the city was virtually uninhabited, being merely a cluster of buildings at the foot of the Acropolis, where the Plaka district is now.




Maybe it's just jerney's perception ;)

[jerney]

Perhaps, but as far as I know Athens was a kind of tiny "city" during the Ottoman Era.


Maybe it's just jerney's perception ;)

It's not my perception, anyone with eyes can see the how phenotypes differ in the villages and outside of Athens. Of course there are light Greeks in Athens too, but there is a high number of swarthy people, at least from my perspective. I guess this actually makes sense because Maniot said many Greeks from Asia Minor moved to Athens which can account for the darker, more "exotic" appearance you can find among Athenians today.

[Vasconcelos]

Makes sense :)

[Osweo]

There's all sorts in Asia Minor. Greeks there may have been Celts, Phrygians, Laz, Lycians, you name it, only two millennia ago. It depends on the particular village and family concerned, and it is near impossible to demonstrate with any proof who is who now.

[poiuytrewq0987]

It's not my perception, anyone with eyes can see the how phenotypes differ in the villages and outside of Athens. Of course there are light Greeks in Athens too, but there is a high number of swarthy people, at least from my perspective. I guess this actually makes sense because Maniot said many Greeks from Asia Minor moved to Athens which can account for the darker, more "exotic" appearance you can find among Athenians today.

If so then could that mean the Greeks who once lived in Asia Minor were never really fully European genetics-wise?

[Osweo]

If so then could that mean the Greeks who once lived in Asia Minor were never really fully European genetics-wise?

Nobody who lives on the edge of a continent, often within sight of the next continent, is going to be purely of that first continent. Genes don't give a fuck about geographical terms, just ease of movement. So don't be daft.

[poiuytrewq0987]

Nobody who lives on the edge of a continent, often within sight of the next continent, is going to be purely of that first continent. Genes don't give a fuck about geographical terms, just ease of movement. So don't be daft.

That's true, and I'm hardly surprised by that fact.

[Arthur Scharrenhans]

Very interesting; from what little can be heard in the video, the sound of the language is very different from standard modern Greek.
The preservation of the infinitive in a variety spoken in Turkey in fact makes sense, considering that the loss of infinitives in modern Greek is a Balkan Sprachbund thing.

(I'm sort of an expert on ancient Greek dilects, but the modern ones seem to be equally fascinating).