The Language of Leonidas Lives On

Back in 2009 I blogged that there are parts of Greece that still speak an ancient dialect (Ancient Greek Still Spoken in the Peloponnese!?). This Greek dialect is known as Tsakonian, and can trace it's heritage back almost 3000 years. In fact, Tsakonian is the direct descendant of the ancient Doric used by the Spartans!

Recently I came across a fantastic-looking documentary on how people in the Eastern Peloponnese (Southern Greece) are trying to preserve this historic tongue. Called A Groussa Namou (Our Language), it shows how the native Tsakonians are starting to lose their unique form of speech and what they're doing to preserve it. Here is a description from the website:

In the Eastern Peloponnese, in a remote region in the shadow of Mt Parnon, live the Tsakonians, a stubborn group of native Greeks. For 3,000 years now, they have been speaking an ancient dialect, the only surviving representative of the Doric language. They never abandoned it, not even when the Attic-based Koiné (from which Modern Greek derives) became the first common dialect of all Greeks and the lingua franca of the entire Mediterranean. Having survived for a great many centuries, the Tsakonian dialect entered a period of neglect in the 1960s, and may currently be approaching its end...This movie is about the loss of identity: what it means to know that your language will have vanished in a hundred years’ time.


If you have a love for history and languages, check out this Youtube clip and listen to what the Spartans may have actually sounded like! Or if you're so inclined, you can instantly download the documentary and watch it by going to their website.

Etymology Fun!

I love knowing the origins of certain words and expressions. To me, it connects us to our past; to a people, time and place that are now beyond our reach.

Many of our modern day expressions come from very old sources, specifically from Ancient Greece and Rome.

Here are some of my favorites that I found around the Internet.

ETYMOLOGY OF...


Abacus : "Comes from the Greek word abax, which means 'sand tray'. Originally, columns of pebbles were laid out on the sand for purposes of counting."

Allegory:

"From Greek allos meaning 'other' and agora meaning 'gathering place'. Some of the topics discussed in the agora were clandestine and when people spoke about them they would speak indirectly. That is to say, they would speak about one thing in such a way as to intimate the actual information to the listener."


Barbarian:
"From the Greek "barbaroi, meaning 'babblers,'; from the sound that the Greeks thought they were making: 'bar bar bar bar...'"


Chaos and Chasm
"From the Greek 'chainein,' meaning, 'to yawn'; chaos was thus the 'original yawning abyss' outside of the ordered universe we know."


Museum, Mosaic
"Both from the Greek Muse (museum is Latin for 'Place inhabited by the Muses'; mosaic is from the Greek mouseios, 'related to the Muses'"

Nemesis
"From the Greek of the same, originally meant, 'the act of distributing or apportioning' and later became, '(divine) wrath and retribution, righteous indignation at the breach of rules.' Nemesis was a deity who restores a balance. Were a bunch of shipmakers to launch a vessel without saluting the gods, for instance, this act of hubris might call forth a counter-reaction, as we saw with the Titanic. There was no judgmentalism or divine punishment involved, simply a response from the other world to lapses occurring in this one."

Planet:
"From the Greek 'Planasthai' for 'to wander.'"

Risk: "Originally a nautical expression. The Latin word meant 'cliff', which came from an ancient Greek word for 'root'. The term is cited in Homer's Odyssey, when Odysseus saves himself from Charybdee at the cliffs of Scylla by grabbing the roots of a wild fig tree."


Sardonic smile/laugh: "Another term first used in The Odyssey ('Odysseus smiled in his anger a very sardonic smile'), it refers to bitter or mocking laughter. On the island of Sardinia condemned criminals were forced to ingest a plant that caused their facial muscles to spaz and perhaps wheez due to the toxic effects on their respatory system. This ritual was known through out the ancient world."


Sycophant:
"From the Greek 'sykon,' meaning 'fig'; a sycophant was thus originally someone who makes figs appear. There are a few suggested etymologies: fig smuggling was illegal in ancient Greece, so a sycophant could have been a telltale for a reward; or, it could be from the shaking of a fig-tree, which moved the figs from the hidden heights to the ground where all could see it; or, it could be from 'the sign of the fig,' which is the gesture of making a fist with the thumb in-between the index and middle fingers, which represented female genitalia;--this gesture was used to indicate an accusation of wrong-doing."

Utopia :
"Greek for 'no where.'"

Ancient Greek still spoken in the Peloponnese!?

Could it be that a form of archaic Greek still exists in the world?

According to Wikipedia, a dialect derived from ancient Doric is still spoken by a small group of people in the Peloponnese. This language, known as Tsakonian (Τσακωνικά), preserves archaic forms of Greek and is not always intelligible with the modern language spoken in Greece today. Tsakonian is divided into three dialects: Northern Tsakonian, Southern Tsakonian and Propontis Tsakonian. The core vocabulary remains recognizably Doric, though it's hard to say how much of it contains true Doricisms.

Naturally yours truly was excited to learn that a descendant of the language used by the Spartans still exists (though obviously much changed since ancient times), so of course I headed over to Youtube to see if anybody had uploaded a video featuring a native speaker. Sure enough I came across the following links:

Τραγούδια Τσακώνικα

I Told You Mother, Give Me in Marriage

The first song is in (Southern?) Tsakonian and is sung by someone in Leonidio. The second tune also has a dance that accompanies it, which is said to be derived from the Crane Dance of Theseus.

I have to say I love the sound of Tsakonian. It's crisp, clear and easy on the ears. What do you think?