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| Cretan Greek | |
|---|---|
| Κρητική Διάλεκτος | |
| Pronunciation | kritiˈci ðiˈalektos |
| Native to | Greece,Syria |
| Region | Crete |
| Greek alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | cret1244 |
| Linguasphere | 56-AAA-ag |
| IETF | el-u-sd-grm |
Cretan Greek, or theCretan dialect (Greek:Κρητική Διάλεκτος,[kritiˈciðiˈalektos]), is avariety of Modern Greek spoken inCrete and by the Cretandiaspora.
The Cretan dialect is spoken by the majority of the Cretan Greeks on the island of Crete, as well as by several thousands of Cretans who have settled in major Greek cities, most notably inAthens. The dialect also survived in the major centers of theGreek diaspora in theUnited States,Australia, andGermany.
In addition, the descendants of manyCretan Muslims, who left the island during the 19th and early 20th century, continue to use it today,[1] albeit rarely. They constitute the majority of the overall population inAyvalık andCunda Island as a result of thepopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. There is another grouping ofCretan Muslims in the coastal town ofal-Hamidiyah,Syria, and in the neighboring territory ofLebanon. Some of these Cretan-speaking families moved back to Crete as refugees from theSyrian Civil War.[2]
Standard Greek has anallophonic alternation betweenvelar consonants ([k],[ɡ],[x],[ɣ]) andpalatalized counterparts ([c],[ɟ],[ç],[ʝ]) beforefront vowels (/i/,/e/). In southern dialects, the palatalization goes further towardsaffricates; for example,[tɕe] is used instead of standard[ce] 'and'). Subtypes can be distinguished that have eitherpalato-alveolar ([tʃ],[dʒ],[ʃ],[ʒ]) oralveolo-palatal sounds ([tɕ],[dʑ],[ɕ],[ʑ]). The former are reported forCyprus, the latter forCrete and elsewhere.[3]
In Standard Greek, theinterrogative pronoun 'what?' isti. In most of the Aegean Islands, except at its geographical fringe (Rhodes in the southeast;Lemnos,Thasos and theSporades in the north andAndros in the west), it isinda,[4] like inCypriot Greek.
Today, the Cretan dialect is rarely used in writing. However, Cretan Greeks normally communicate with each other in speech using this dialect. Cretan does not differ greatly from the otherGreek dialects or from Standard Greek, leading to a fairly high level ofmutual intelligibility. Many organisations of Cretans aim to preserve their culture, including their dialect; as such, the dialect does not seem to be in danger of extinction.
Like all other modern Greek dialects (exceptTsakonian and, to some extent,Griko), Cretan evolved fromKoine. Its structure and vocabulary have preserved some features that distinguish it from standard Greek, owing to the distance of Crete from other main Greek centers.
Cretan Greek also shows influences from other languages. Theconquest of Crete by theAndalusianMoors in 824 left behind mainlytoponyms.Venetian influence proved to be stronger, since the island remained under Venetian control for nearly five centuries. To this day, many toponyms, names, and other local words stem from theVenetian language of early modern times, which came to reinforceLatin influences fromantiquity and the earlyByzantine Empire. Following theOttoman conquest of 1669,Turkish words entered the vocabulary of Cretans as well. Borrowings, as usual, were mainly lexical; Arabic, Turkish, and Venetian had little or no effect ongrammar andsyntax. With the beginning of the 20th century and the evolution of technology and tourism,English,French, andGerman terms became widely used.
Medieval works suggest thatModern Greek started shaping as early as the 10th century, with one of the first works being theepic poem ofDigenis Acritas. However, the first literary production in the Cretan dialect which was important enough to be identified as "modernGreek literature" comes from the 16th century.
Erotokritos is a romantic work written around 1600 byVitsentzos Kornaros (1553–1613). In over 10,000 lines of rhyming fifteen-syllable couplets, the poet relates the trials and tribulations suffered by two young lovers, Erotokritos and Aretousa, daughter of Heracles, King of Athens. It was a tale that enjoyed enormous popularity among its Greek readership.
The poets of the period ofCretan literature (15th-17th centuries) used the spoken Cretan dialect. The tendency to purge the language of foreign elements was above all represented by the poetGeorgios Chortatzis, Kornaros, and the anonymous poets of Voskopoula and theSacrifice of Abraham. As dictated by the pseudo-Aristotelian theory of decorum, the heroes of the works use a vocabulary analogous to their social and educational background. It was thanks to this convention that the Cretan comedies were written in a language that was an amalgam of Italicisms, Latinisms, and the local dialect, thereby approximating to the actual language of the middle class of the Cretan towns. The time span separating Antonios Achelis, author of theSiege of Malta (1570), and Chortatsis and Kornaros is too short to allow for the formation, from scratch, of the Cretan dialect that is seen in the texts of the latter two. The only explanation, therefore, is that the poets at the end of the sixteenth century were consciously employing a particular linguistic preference – they were aiming at a pure style of language for their literature and, via that language, a separate identity for the Greek literary production of their homeland.
The flourishing Cretan school was all but terminated by theTurkish capture of the island in the 17th century. The ballads of theklephts, however, survive from the 18th century; these are the songs of the Greek mountain fighters who carried on guerrilla warfare against the Turks.
Many Greek authors have integrated Cretan literary elements in their respective works. Among these authors wereNikos Kazantzakis, mainly known for his writings in standard Greek. This paradigm, overall, has helped Kazantzakis to write significant works such asZorba the Greek and thus establish for himself recognition in various international circles. HisCaptain Michalis – set in 19th-century Crete – is notable for using many Cretan Greek words and idioms; the book's popularity making them widely known to other Greeks.
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