History of the Greek language (see also: Greek alphabet)

Proto-Greek (c. 3000–1600 BC)

Mycenaean (c. 1600–1100 BC)

Ancient Greek (c. 800–330 BC) Dialects: Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, Attic-Ionic, Doric, Locrian, Pamphylian, Homeric Greek, Macedonian

Koine Greek (c. 330 BC–330)

Medieval Greek (330–1453)

Modern Greek (from 1453) Dialects: Calabrian, Cappadocian, Cheimarriotika, Cretan, Cypriot, Demotic, Griko, Katharevousa, Pontic, Tsakonian, Maniot, Yevanic This box: view talk edit *Dates (beginning with Ancient Greek) from Wallace, D. B. (1996). Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. p. 12. ISBN 0310218950.

Pontic Greek (Greek: Ποντιακή διάλεκτος or Ποντιακά) is a form of the Greek language originally spoken in the Pontus area on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, Eastern Turkish/Caucasus province of Kars, southern Georgia, and today mainly in northern Greece. Its speakers are referred to as Pontic Greeks or Pontian Greeks, although many Greeks mistakenly refer to some Pontic Greek speakers from Georgia as Russo-Ponti.

The linguistic lineage of Pontic Greek stems from Ionic Greek via Koine and Byzantine Greek and contains influences from Georgian, Russian, Turkish and to a lesser extent, Persian (via Ottoman Turkish) and various Caucasian languages. Pontic is most closely related to Cappadocian Greek, and the Greek spoken in Mariupolis (and formerly in Crimea, Ukraine) (see Mariupolitan Greek).

The language is called Rumca in Turkish, derived form the Turkish word Rum denoting ethnic Greeks living in Turkey in general; however, this term comprises other Greek speakers in Turkey such as those from Istanbul or Smyrna who speak a language close to Standard Modern Greek.

Dialects[link]

Greek linguist Manolis Triantafyllides has divided Pontic into two groups:

• Western group (Oinountiac/Niotika) around Oenoe/Ünye.
• Eastern group
  • Coastal subgroup (Trapezountiac) around Trebizond/Trapezus,
  • Inland subgroup (Chaldiot) in Chaldia (around Argyroupolis/Gümüşhane — Kanin in Pontic), in its vicinity (Kelkit, Baibourt/Bayburt, etc.), and around Kotyora/Ordu.

Speakers of Chaldiot were the most numerous. In phonology, some varieties of Pontic are reported to demonstrate vowel harmony, a well-known feature of Turkish (Mirambel 1965).

[edit] Romeyka

The inhabitants of the Of valley, who had converted to Islam in the 17th century, remained in Turkey and have partly retained the Pontic language until today.^[1] Their dialect is called "Ophitic" by linguists, but speakers generally call it Romeyka, (Romeika, Greek: Ρωμαίικα) which, in a more general sense, is also a historical and colloquial term for the modern Greek language as a whole. As few as 5,000 people speak this dialect.^[2][3]

Romeyka has retained the infinitive, which is present in Ancient Greek but has been lost in other variants of Modern Greek; it has therefore been characterized as "archaic" and as the living language that is closest to Ancient Greek.^[2][3]

In his 1996 book entitled Pontos Kültürü, Ömer Asan gives further details about the current Pontic-speaking community of the Of valley.^[4]

A very similar dialect is spoken by descendants of Christians from the Of valley now living in Greece in the village of Nea Trapezounta (part of Kalamaria, Central Macedonia), with about 400 speakers.^[5]

Geographic distribution[link]

Though Pontic was originally spoken on the southern shores of the Black Sea, substantial numbers migrated into the northern and eastern shores (into the Russian Empire of the 18th and 19th century); Pontic is still spoken by large numbers of people in Ukraine, Russia (around Stavropol'), and Georgia, and the language enjoyed some use as a literary medium in the 1930s, including a school grammar (Topkhara 1998 [1932]). After the massacres of the 1910s, the majority of speakers remaining in Asia Minor were subject to the Treaty of Lausanne population exchange, and were resettled in Greece (mainly northern Greece). A second wave of migration occurred in the early 1990s, this time from the former Soviet Union.^[6]

In Greece, Pontic is now used mainly emblematically rather than as a medium of communication^{[citation needed]}.

• Greece: 200,000 speakers (2001)

mostly in Macedonia (East, Central and West)

• Turkey: ~4000 speakers ^{[7] [8]}
  • Çaykara: Multiple villages
  • Dernekpazarı: (13 villages)
  • Kars: Multiple villages and provincial capital.
  • Of: multiple villages
  • Maçka: No information
  • Rize İkizdere: (21 villages)
  • Sürmene: (6 villages)
  • Tonya: (17 villages)
  • Torul-ardasa, Yağlıdere-kromni, Santa, Imera: (no village)

Official status[link]

Pontic has no official status. During the late 1910s, it was destined to become the official language of the proposed Republic of Pontus. Historically, it was the de facto language of the Greek minority in the USSR, despite the fact that in the Πανσυνδεσμιακή Σύσκεψη (All-Union Conference) of 1926, organized by the Greek-Russian intelligentsia, it was decided that demotic should be the official language of the community.^[9]

Culture[link]

The language has a rich oral tradition and folklore and Pontic songs are particularly popular in Greece. There is also some limited production of modern literature in Pontic, including poetry collections (among the most renowned writers is Kostas Diamantidis), novels, and translated Asterix comic albums.

Pontic alphabets[link]

Pontic in Greece is written in historical Greek orthography, with diacritics: σ̌ ζ̌ ξ̌ ψ̌ for /ʃ ʒ kʃ pʃ/, α̈ ο̈ for [æ ø] (phonological /ia io/). Pontic in Turkey is written in Latin script following Turkish conventions, and Pontic in Russia is written in Cyrillic. In early Soviet times, Pontic was written in the Greek script phonetically, as shown below, using digraphs instead of diacritics; [æ ø] were written out as ια, ιο. The Pontic Wikipedia uses a Greek script: it has adopted εα, εο for these vowels, to avoid clashes with Modern Greek ια, ιο, and uses digraphs from the Soviet system instead of diacritics, but otherwise follows historical orthography.

Archaisms[link]

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• Preservation of the ancient pronunciation of 'η' as 'ε' (κέπιν = κήπιον, κλέφτες = κλέπτης, συνέλικος = συνήλικος, νύφε = νύ(μ)φη, έγκα = ἤνεγκον, έτον = ἦτον, έκουσα = ἤκουσα etc.).
• Preservation of the ancient pronunciation 'ω' as 'o' where Koine Greek received it as 'ου' (ζωμίν = ζουμί, καρβώνι, ρωθώνι etc.).
• Preservation of the ancient nominative suffix of neuter diminutive nouns in 'ιον' (παιδίον, χωρίον).
• Preservation of the Ionic consonant pair 'σπ' instead of Koine 'σφ' (σποντύλιν, σπἰγγω, σπιντόνα).
• Preservation of the termination of feminine compound adjectives in -ος (ή άλαλος, ή άνοστος, ή έμορφος).
• The declension of male nouns from singular, nominative termination '-on' to genitive '-ος' (ο νέον -> τη νέονος, ο πάππον -> τη πάππονος, ο λύκον -> τη λύκονος, ο Τούρκον -> τη Τούρκονος etc.).
• The aorist ordering form in -ον (ανάμνον, μείνον, κόψον, πίσον, ράψον, σβήσον).
• The middle voice verb termination in -ούμαι (ανακατούμαι, σκοτούμαι, στεφανούμαι).
• The passive voice aorist termination in -θα (anc. -θην): εγαπέθα, εκοιμέθα, εστάθα etc.
• The imperative form of passive aorist in -θετε (anc -θητι): εγαπέθετε, εκοιμέθετε, εστάθετε.
• The sporadic use of infinitives (εποθανείναι, μαθείναι, κόψ'ναι, ράψ'ναι, χαρίσ'ναι, αγαπέθειν, κοιμεθείν).
• The ancient accenting of nouns in vocative form: άδελφε, Νίκολα, Μάρια.
• The sporadic use of 'ας' in the place of 'να': δός με ας φάγω.

Comparison with Ancient Greek[link]

• Example 1: Pontic en (is), Ancient Greek esti, Koine idiomatic form enesti, Biblical form eni, Modern Greek ine
• Example 2: Pontic temeteron (ours), Ancient Greek to(n) hemeteron, Modern Greek to(n) * mas
• Example 3: Pontic pedhin (child), Ancient Greek paidion, Standard Greek pedhi
• Example 4 (combining 2 and 3): Pontic temeteron to pedin (our child), Ancient Greek/Koine to hemeteron paidion, Modern Greek to pedi mas

• 1. Attachment of the /e/ sound to the ancient infinitive suffix –ειν (in Trapezountiac Pontic)

• 2. Similar infinitive suffix -ηναι

• 3. Ancient first aorist infinitive suffix -αι has been replaced by second aorist suffix -ῆναι

• 4. Attachment of the /e/ sound to the ancient aorist infinitive suffix –σειν

ράψεινε, κράξεινε, μεθύσεινε, καλέσεινε, λαλήσεινε, κτυπήσεινε, καθίσεινε

• 5. Same aorist suffix –ka (–ka was also the regular perfect suffix)

• 6. Ancient Greek –ein (-εῖν) infinitive > Pontic Greek –eane (-έανε) infinitive

See also[link]

• Mariupolitan Greek
• Pontic Greeks

Notes[link]

1. ^ Mackridge 1987.
2. ^ ^{a b} Against all odds: archaic Greek in a modern world, University of Cambridge
3. ^ ^{a b} Jason and the argot: land where Greek's ancient language survives, The Independent, Monday, 3 January 2011
4. ^ Ömer Asan, Pontos Kültürü 'Pontos Culture', Belge Yayınları of Ragip Zarakolu, 1996. Second edition, 2000 (ISBN 975-344-220-3).
5. ^ "www.latsis-foundation.org". http://www.latsis-foundation.org/files/Meletes2009/11.report.pdf. Retrieved 2011-10-29. 
6. ^ Selm, Joanne van (2003). The Refugee Convention at fifty: a view from forced migration studies. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books. p. 72. ISBN 0-7391-0565-5. [1]
7. ^ Romeika - Pontic Greek (tr)
8. ^ Pontic Greek (Trabzon Of dialect) - Turkish Dictionary (tr)
9. ^ "ΟΨΕΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΚΠΑΙΔΕΥΣΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΣ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑΣ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ". http://www.elemedu.upatras.gr/eriande/synedria/synedrio3/praltika%2011/malkidis-karatzas.htm. Retrieved 2011-01-15. (Greek)

Bibliography[link]

• Georges Drettas, Aspects pontiques, ARP, 1997, ISBN 2-9510349-0-3. "... marks the beginning of a new era in Greek dialectology. Not only is it the first comprehensive grammar of Pontic not written in Greek, but it is also the first self-contained grammar of any Greek 'dialect' written, in the words of Bloomfield, 'in terms of its own structure'." (Janse)
• Özhan Öztürk, Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2 Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul, 2005. ISBN 975-6121-00-9
• Mackridge, P. 1987. Greek-Speaking Moslems of North-East Turkey: Prolegomena to Study of the Ophitic Sub-Dialect of Pontic. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 11: 115–137.
• Τομπαΐδης, Δ.Ε. 1988. Η Ποντιακή Διάλεκτος. Αθήνα: Αρχείον Πόντου. (Tompaidis, D.E. 1988. The Pontic Dialect. Athens: Archeion Pontou.)
• Τομπαΐδης, Δ.Ε. ϗ Συμεωνίδης, Χ.Π. 2002. Συμπλήρωμα στο Ιστορικόν Λεξικόν της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου του Α.Α. Παπαδόπουλου. Αθήνα: Αρχείον Πόντου. (Tompaidis, D.E. and Simeonidis, C.P. 2002. Additions to the Historical Lexicon of the Pontic Dialect of A.A. Papadopoulos. Athens: Archeion Pontou.)
• Παπαδόπουλος, Α.Α. 1955. Ιστορική Γραμματική της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου. Αθήνα: Επιτροπή Ποντιακών Μελετών. (Papadopoulos, A.A. 1955. Historical Grammar of the Pontic Dialect. Athens: Committee for Pontian Studies.)
• Παπαδόπουλος, Α.Α. 1958–61. Ιστορικόν Λεξικόν της Ποντικής Διαλέκτου. 2 τόμ. Αθήνα: Μυρτίδης. (Papadopoulos, A.A. 1958–61. Historical Lexicon of the Pontic Dialect. 2 volumes. Athens: Mirtidis.)
• Οικονομίδης, Δ.Η. 1958. Γραμματική της Ελληνικής Διαλέκτου του Πόντου. Αθήνα: Ακαδημία Αθηνών. (Oikonomidis, D.I. 1958. Grammar of the Greek Dialect of Pontos. Athens: Athens Academy.)
• Τοπχαράς, Κονσταντίνος. 1998 [1932]. Η Γραμματική της Ποντιακής: Ι Γραματικι τι Ρομεικυ τι Ποντεικυ τι Γλοςας. Θεσσαλονίκη: Αφοί Κυριακίδη. (Topcharas, K. 1998 [1932]. The Grammar of Pontic. Thessaloniki: Afoi Kiriakidi.)

External links[link]

Pontic Greek edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Mark Janse, "Aspects of Pontic grammar", a Review Article of Drettas (1997). The paper summarizes the high points of the book.
• Ethnologue report for Pontic
• Committee for Pontian Studies (Επιτροπή Ποντιακών Μελετών)
• Trebizond Greek: A language without a tongue
• Info about Pontians
• Pontic Greek: A cost of a language
• The Pontic Dialect
• Argonautai Komninoi Association
• Pontic Greek - English Dictionary
• Development of the Pontic Greek Dialect
• Archaic Greek in a modern world video from Cambridge University, on YouTube

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Yeşim Ustaoğlu (born November 18, 1960 in Turkey) is a Turkish filmmaker and screenwriter.^[1][2]

Life and career[link]

Ustaoğlu was born in Çaykara in eastern Turkey and grew up in Trabzon on the Black Sea. After studying architecture at the Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, she worked as an architect, then as a journalist and a film critic.^[3] Before she made her feature film debut The Trace (Iz) in 1994, she had made several award-winning short films. Ustaoğlu received international recognition for her next film, Journey to the Sun (Güneşe Yolculuk), which told a story of a frendship between a Turk and a Kurd.^[1] Her fourth film Pandora’s Box (Pandora'nın Kutusu) won The Best Film and The Best Actress award in San Sebastian Film Festival and is Ustaoğlu's biggest international succes to date.^[4]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Yeşim Ustaoğlu at the Internet Movie Database

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (June 2010)

Pontian Greeks
Έλληνες του Πόντου (Ρωμιοί)

Pontian Greek man in traditional clothes.
Total population
c. 3,000,000
Regions with significant populations
Greece, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Armenia, Cyprus
Languages
Predominantly Modern and Pontian Greek. Also the languages of their respective countries of residence.
Religion
Greek Orthodox Christianity, Sunni Muslim (Only in Turkey)

Pontus region.

The Pontic Greeks of the Pontians (Greek: Πόντιοι, Turkish: Pontus Rumları) are an ethnic group traditionally living in the Pontus region, the shores of Turkey's Black Sea. They consist of Greek descendants and speak the Pontic Greek dialect, a distinct form of the standard Greek language which, due to the remoteness of Pontus, has had a process of linguistic evolution different from that of the rest of the Greek world.

Population[link]

Nowadays, due to extensive intermarriage (also with non-Pontic Greeks), the exact number of Greeks hailing from the Pontus, or people with Greek descent living there, is unknown. After 1988, Pontian Greeks in the Soviet Union started to migrate to Greece settling in and around Athens and Thessaloniki. They are known as "Russian Pontians" (Ρωσσοπόντιοι) by fellow Greeks. The largest communities of Pontian Greeks (or people of Pontian Greek descent) around the world are^[1]:

Country / region	Official data	Estimation	Concentration	Note(s)	Article
Greece		over 2,000,000	Athens, Macedonia, Thrace
USA		200,000			Greek American
Germany		100,000			Greeks in Germany
Russia	97,827 (2002)		34,078 in Stavropol Krai 26,540 in Krasnodar Krai		Greeks in Russia
Ukraine	91,548 (2001)		77,516 in Donetsk Oblast		Greeks in Ukraine (Sometime referred to as Crimean Greeks)
Australia		56,000			Greek Australian
Canada		20,000			Greek Canadians
Cyprus		20,000			Greek Cypriots
Czech Republic		less than 3,500; 12,000 (1949–1974)			Greeks in the Czech Republic
Georgia	15,166 (2002)		7,415 in Kvemo Kartli 3,792 in Tbilisi 2,168 in Adjara		Greeks in Georgia
Kazakhstan	12,703 (2010)		2,160 in Karagandy 1,767 in Almaty 1,637 in Zhambyl		Greeks in Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan	10,453 (1989)[2]				Greeks in Uzbekistan
Armenia	1,176 (2001)[3]	2,000	655 in Lori 308 in Yerevan		Greeks in Armenia

History[link]

Antiquity[link]

In Greek mythology the Black Sea region is the region where Jason and the Argonauts sailed to find the Golden Fleece.

Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus.

The first recorded Greek colony, established on the northern shores of ancient Anatolia, was Sinop, circa 800 BC. The settlers of Sinop were merchants from the Ionian Greek city state of Miletus. After the colonization of the shores of the Black Sea, known until then to the Greek world as Pontos Axeinos (Inhospitable Sea), the name changed to Pontos Euxeinos (Hospitable Sea). In time, as the numbers of Greeks settling in the region grew significantly, more colonies were established along the whole Black Sea coastline of what is now Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania.

The region of Trapezus, later called Trebizond, now Trabzon, was mentioned by Xenophon in his famous work Anabasis, describing how he and other 10,000 Greek mercenaries fought their way to the Euxine Sea after the failure of the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger whom they fought for, against his older brother Artaxerxes II of Persia. Xenophon mentions that when at the sight of sea they shouted "Thalatta! Thalatta!" – "The sea! The sea!", the local people understood them. They were Greeks too and, according to Xenophon, they had been there for over 300 years.^[4] A whole range of trade flourished among the various Greek colonies, but also with the indigenous tribes who inhabited the Pontus inland. Soon Trebizond established a leading stature among the other colonies and the region nearby become the heart of the Pontian Greek culture and civilization. A notable inhabitant of the region was Philetaerus (ca. 343 BC–263 BC) who was born to a Greek father^[5] in the small town of Tieion which was situated on the Black Sea coast of the Pontus Euxinus, he founded the Attalid dynasty and the Anatolian city of Pergamon in the secong century BC.^[5]

This region was organized circa 281 BC as a kingdom by Mithridates I of Pontus, whose ancestry line dated back to Ariobarzanes I, a ruler of the Greek town of Cius. The most prominent descendant of Mithridates I was Mithridates VI of Pontus, who between 90 and 65 BC fought the Mithridatic Wars, three bitter wars against the Roman Republic, before eventually being defeated. Mithridates VI the Great, as he was left in memory, claiming to be the protector of the Greek world against the barbarian Romans, expanded his kingdom to Bithynia, Crimea and Propontis (in present day Ukraine and Turkey) before his downfall after the Third Mithridatic War.

Roman Diocese of Pontus, 400 AD.

Nevertheless, the kingdom survived as a Roman vassal state, now named Bosporan Kingdom and based in Crimea, until the 4th century AD, when it succumbed to the Huns. The rest of the Pontus became part of the Roman Empire, while the mountainous interior (Chaldia) was fully incorporated into the Byzantine Empire during the 6th century.

Middle Ages[link]

Alexios III (1338–1390), Emperor of Trebizond, and his wife. Chrysobull at Dionysiou monastery, Mount Athos.

Cardinal Bessarion of Trebizond (1395–1472), a Pontian Greek scholar, statesman, and cardinal.^[6]

Pontus was the birthplace of the Komnenos dynasty, which ruled the empire from 1082 to 1185, a time in which the empire resurged to recover much of Anatolia from the Seljuk Turks.

In the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Empire of Trebizond was established by Alexios I of Trebizond, a descendant of Alexios I Komnenos, the patriarch of the Komnenos dynasty. This empire lasted for more than 250 years until it eventually fell at the hands of Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire in 1461.

During the Ottoman period a number of Pontian Greeks converted to Islam and adopted the Turkish language. This could be willingly, for example so to avoid paying the higher rate of taxation imposed on Orthodox Christians or in order to make themselves more eligible for higher level government and regular military employment opportunities within the empire (at least in the later period following the abolition of the infamous Greek and Balkan Christian child levy or 'devshirme', on which the elite Janissary corps had in the early Ottoman period depended for its recruits). But conversion could also occur in response to pressures from central government and local Muslim militia (e.g.) following any one of the Russo-Turkish wars in which ethnic Greeks from the Ottoman Empire's northern border regions were known to have collaborated, fought alongside, and sometimes even led invading Russian forces, such as was the case in the Greek governed, semi-autonomous Romanian Principalities, Trebizond, and the area that was briefly to become part of the Russian Caucasus in the far northeast.

Modern[link]

Greek population in Anatolia and Asia Minor in blue color, 1911.

In fact, the second half of the nineteenth century saw large numbers of such pro-Russian Pontic Greeks from the eastern Trebizond region resettle in the area around Kars (which together with southern Georgia already had a nucleus of Caucasus Greeks), which was ceded to the Russian Empire following the Russo-Turkish war that culminated in the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. They had declined the expedient of conversion to Islam, abandoned their lands, and sought refuge in territory now controlled by their Christian Orthodox "protector", which used Pontic Greeks, Georgians, and southern Russians, and even non-Orthodox Armenians, Germans, and Estonians to "Christianize" this recently conquered southern Caucasus region, which it now administered as the newly created Kars Oblast (Kars Province).

On the eve of World War I, the Young Turk administration exerted a policy of assimilation and ethnic cleansing of the Orthodox Christians in the Empire, which affected Pontian Greeks too. In 1916 Trabzon itself fell to the forces of the Russian Empire, fomenting the idea of an independent Pontic state. As the Bolsheviks came to power with the October Revolution (7 November 1917), Russian forces withdrew from the region to take part in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923).

Proposed flag of the Republic of Pontus.

Pontian Greek women and children harvesting tea in the Black Sea town of Chakva, Georgia, ca. 1905–15. Photograph by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.

In 1917–1922, there existed an unrecognized by the name Republic of Pontus, led by Chrysanthus, Metropolitan of Trebizond. In 1917 Greece and the Entente powers considered the creation of a Hellenic autonomous state in Pontus, most likely as part of a Ponto-Armenian Federation.^[7] In 1919 on the fringes of the Paris Peace Conference Chrysanthos proposed the establishment of a fully independent Republic of Pontus, but neither Greece nor the other delegations supported it.^[8]

Once the Russians had evacuated Pontus, Greeks and Armenians in the region became the targets of irregular Turkish and Kurdish militia. Seeing the fate of Armenians, Pontian Greeks were themselves forced to take up armed resistance, leading to what became known as the Pontus resistance (αντάρτικο του Πόντου in Greek), which lasted until 1923,^{[citation needed]} when the population exchange between Greece and Turkey was agreed under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. While most Christian Pontians were forced to leave for Greece - avoiding nearby Russia, which in the decade post-1917 was of course plunged into the chaos of revolution and civil war - those who had converted to Islam (and in accordance with historical precedent were considered to have "turned Turk") remained in Turkey and were assimilated into the Muslim population of the north and northeast, where their bi-lingual Greek- and Turkish-speaking descendents can still be found (including amongst the notoriously nationalistic Turks of present-day Trebizond).^{[citation needed]}

Rumca, as the Pontian Greek language is known in Turkey, survives today, mostly among older speakers. After the exchange most Pontian Greeks settled in Macedonia and Attica. Pontian Greeks inside the Soviet Union were predominantly settled in the regions bordering the Georgian SSR and Armenian SSR. They also had notable presence in Black Sea ports like Odessa and Sukhumi. About 100,000 Pontian Greeks, including 37,000 in the Caucasus area alone, were deported to Central Asia in 1949 during Stalin's post-war deportations. Big indigenous communities exist today in former USSR states, while through immigration large numbers can be found in Germany, Australia, and the United States.

Persecution and population exchange[link]

Like Armenians, Assyrians and other Ottoman Greeks, the Greeks of Trebizond and the short-lived Russian Caucasus province of Kars (which in 1916 fell back under Ottoman control) suffered widespread massacre and what is now usually termed ethnic cleansing at the beginning of the 20th century, first by the Young Turks and later by Kemalist forces. In both cases, the pretext was again that the Pontic Greeks and Armenians had collaborated or fought with the forces of their Russian co-religionists and "protectors" before the termination of hostilities between the two empires that followed the October Revolution. Death marches^[9] through Turkey's mountainous terrain, forced labour in the infamous "Amele Taburu" in Anatolia and slaughter by the irregular bands of Topal Osman resulted in tens of thousands of Pontic Greeks perishing during the period from 1915 to 1922. In 1923, after hundreds of years, those remaining were expelled from Turkey to Greece as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey defined by the Treaty of Lausanne. In his book Black Sea, author Neal Ascherson writes:

The Turkish guide-books on sale in the Taksim Meydane offer this account of the 1923 Katastrofĕ: 'After the proclamation of the Republic, the Greeks who lived in the region returned to their own country [...].' Their own country? Returned? They had lived in the Pontos for nearly three thousand years. Their Pontian dialect was not understandable to twentieth-century Athenians.^[10]

The suffering of the Pontian Greeks did not end upon their violent and forceful departure from the lands of their ancestors. Many Pontian Greek refugees perished during the voyage from Asia Minor to Greece. Notable accounts of these voyages have been included in Steve Papadopoulos’ work on Pontian culture and history. Pontian Greek immigrants to the United States from that era were quoted as saying:

Many children and elderly died during the voyage to Greece. When the crew realized they were dead, they were thrown overboard. Soon the mothers of dead children started pretending that they were still alive. After witnessing what was done to the deceased, they would hold on to them and comfort them as if they were still alive. They did this to give them a proper burial in Greece.^{[citation needed]}

Settlements[link]

Traditional rural Pontian houses.

Some of the settlements historically inhabited by Pontian Greeks include (current official names in parenthesis):

In Pontus

Amasia (Amasya), Meletios (Mesudiye), Aphene, Kerasounta (Giresun), Kissa, Kromna, Amisos (Samsun), Sinope (Sinop), Themiscyra (Terme), Trapezounta (Trabzon), Bafra, Argyroupolis (Gümüşhane), Xeroiana (Şiran), Ofis (Of), Santa (Dumanlı), Tonya, Matsouka (Maçka), Galiana (Konaklar), Sourmena (Sürmene), Imera (Olucak), Rizounta (Rize), Mouzena, Kotoiora (Ordu), Livera, Platana, Kel Kit, Nikopolis, Kakatsis, Merzifounta, Tokat, Oinoe (Ünye), Neokaisareia (Niksar), Fatsa, Tripolis (Tirebolu), Thermi (Terme), Gümüşhacıköy, Komana, Hopa, Athina (Pazar), Koloneia, Gemoura (Yomra), Akdağmadeni.

Outside Pontus

Kars Oblast, Balya, Sevasteia (Sivas), Çorum, Bayburt, Adapazarı.

In Crimea and the northern Azov Sea

Chersonesos, Kerkinitida, Panticapaeum, Soughdaia, Tanais, Theodosia.