Talk:Tsakonian language

Tsakonian has "Albanian loanwords"---interesting. I want to read more about this. Decius 06:42, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Most of them are shepherding terms, I believe. There is a quote from Pernot that goes something like "The Albanian's influence ends at the shepherd's door," i.e. the importation of vocabulary is limited to certain occupational terminology. There were villages in the area that were settled by Albanian shepherds, with whom the Tsakonians presumably had contact regarding sheep-related matters. --Jpbrenna 02:13, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

For the record: that was a personal communication from Costakis to me, in 1996. Opoudjis (talk) 12:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Candidacy for page move and other issues

1. The most common name for this language in English is Tsakonian. Tsakonic is much less common, and this page should be moved back to where it was when I started it almost two years ago (my very first Wikipedia edit!), with this page redirecting, instead of the other way around. The present situation is like having the Greek language article at "Hellenic tongue." Sure, it's a much better literal translation of the Greek term, but it would strike an English speaker as rather odd.
2. The description of Tsakonic as a "Greek dialect" is incorrect (unless you take the minority position; see #4 below). While that is the correct name for it in Greek, and many Greeks think of it as being a dialect, it is actually considered a separate but related language in dialect continuum with Greek, like Flemish with Dutch, or the closely related Spanish and Portuguese. (See Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache). There are actually three principal dialects of Tsakonian itself, although one (Propontic Tsakonian) is extinct and it seems that one of the other two has all but disappeared. Exact figures are hard to come by, but I believe that Prof. Costakis latest surveys have found there to be 2-5,000 true full native speakers, and many tens of thousands of secondary or tertiary speakers. That contrasts to an estimated 250,000 speakers a century ago. (If we were doing Babel for Tsakonian, we would have lots of TS-1, TS-2 and TS-3's, but relatively few TS-N's.) I would have to check with my friend Dr. Nicholas about this because it may quaiify as Wikipedia:No original research, but I think that the real "Tsaconic dialect" is not the Tsakonian language itself, but the speech of the thousands of Peloponnesians whose parents or grandparents spoke Tsakonian and whose descendants speak a Tsakonian-flavored dialect of Standard Modern Greek.
3. There is no bibliography here. I thought that the original article had a brief one with Pernot and Costakis' works mentioned. I actually have a copy of Syntomi Grammatiki tis Tsakonikis Dialektou sitting on my shelf here, so I'll put that in right away and add the others later.
4. Tsakonian is not uncontroversial, and we should note that. While the current consensus seems to be that it is a Hellenic language, there are some scholars around who dispute that classification. Again, while the consensus is that it is Doric-derived with a heavy Attic/Koine adstrate (and a little Albanian, Slavic and Turkish), scholars can be found to dispute this as well. Obviously, if you think that the extent of Doricisms to be found is overstated, you tend to lean less toward it being a separate language, and more toward it being just a dialect of Modern Greek.

--Jpbrenna 16:55, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Move

• The page should be moved not to Tsakonian but to Tsakonian language in keeping with Wikipedia naming conventions for languages. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 14:10, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Oops, good point. --Jpbrenna 19:01, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Voting

• For. Whether it should be classified as a separate, closely related language is still debated. What is not debatable is that Tsaconic as an adjective is almost non-existent in English, with most scholars calling the tongue Tsakonian, whether they argue that it is a separate Modern Greek language in its own right, or a mere dialect.--Jpbrenna 20:43, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
• Support. --Node

Tsakonic or Tsakonian, is classified as a Greek dialect not only by linguists [1] , but also its native speakers [2], and that's the bottom line. Therefore there is no basis to talk a about a separate language, unless of course you're willing to compare sources. The vote is pointless and it won't help anything. As for changing it back to "Tsakonian", I can't see any reason other than you being eager to satisfy your ego. It's already mentioned that it's also known as "Tsakonian" and the old name has been redirected here. Furthermore the termination -ic is more correct as it derives directly from the Greek "Tsakoniki" and it's less corrupted in translation. As a significant contributor to the articles of the Greek language, I think my opinion counts more than yours on this matter. Miskin 03:14, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

The article name should be the most common English name. Miskin, do you think that Tsakonic is more common? What are your sources for this? Doing a Google search on English pages for: "Tsakonian -Wikipedia" gives 692 hits [3], whereas searching for "Tsakonic -Wikipedia" gives 64 [4], a 10 to 1 ratio in favor of Tsakonian. Paul August ☎ 04:06, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I want it to be moved to Tsakonian language, not Tsakonian (its original title). And as it has been pointed out by me, and now by Paul August, Tsakonian is the most common name in English. Talking about the word being "corrupted" in English is absurd - shall I go over to the Greek Wikipedia and change Αγγλική γλώσσα to Ινγκλίτς or the Γερμανική article to Nτοϊτς? No, that would be crazy, because it's not Greek.

I am willing to compare sources. We can start with the Ethnologue entry updated by Dr. Nick Nicholas. [5]. It is listed there as "not inherently intelligible with Modern Greek", although it notes that Propontis Tsakonian was much closer to Standard Modern Greek. I am not denying that some very knowledgeable people consider it only a dialect, not an entirely separate language - sometimes that merely comes down to how you classify a "dialect." I am saying that the preponderance of sources at present classify it as a separate language.

Where does this woman assert that she is a native speaker? She is a native of Leonidio (which has long since ceased to be a Tsakonian-speaking area) living in Canada, as far as I can tell from her webpage. Nowhere does she make the assertion that she is a native Tsakonian speaker. Neither do I remember her saying that when she made a post to the Yahoo! Tsakonian group asking if anyone there knew of links to Tsakonian music (one would think a native Tsakonian speaker would know where to look - except even they don't sing their songs in Tsakonian anymore!) A very nice lady, very polite in her Internet posts - unlike some people I could mention. What I find really interesting about that link is the part where she aserts that elderly people use Tsakonian as a "code language." Interesting - if the kids can't understand them, then doesn't that tend to support the theory that is a separate language and that Standard Modern Greek & the Modern Greek dialects lack mutual intelligibility with Tsakonian?

--Jpbrenna 08:45, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Your example of Αγγλικά - Ινγκλιτς is out of context because it's comparing two different cases. The English language has a "built-in" way to translate or assimilate Greek words from "-ικη" to "-ic" and "-ικα" to "-ics". Greek doesn't have a similar functionality to deal with "-ish" or "-an" so there you go. Anyway to show how unbiased I am, I really don't have a problem to change the name of the article to anything you like. Everything is redirected at the same place so I really don't see the difference. You can even name it Tsakonian language if you want and make all those edits that don't change anything except your personal satisfaction. What I will not allow you to do however, is to change the article's content by implying a "separate language" status of Tsakonian from Greek, or unlist it from Modern Greek. As for the dialect-language conflict, yes there's a very thin line between the two, this is why we take the best established views. There's also a debatable intelligibility between Tsakonian and standard Modern Greek, but then again partial comprehensibility is the very thing that distincts a dialect from an idiom. If you think that this site is not the representative opinion of a native speaker of Tsakonian, then I can make sure I get you one. I can even gather documented information by people who have a native diglossy between Tsakonian and Greek, and see whether they consider it a seperate language or not. If you think on the other hand that linguists consider it a separate language, then start preparing your sources. The voting system of wikipedia is rediculous, and this case proves it. I can personally guarantee that User:Angr for example (who edited above) has not a slightest clue in the Greek language, and I have saved a couple of articles from his petty vandalism. Now he comes here, posing as an expert, and having the right to vote like any other editor. Miskin 12:03, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Miskin: The reason that the name matters is because of WP:UE, which says that the most common English name should be used, notwithstanding the fact of redirects. By naming an article, we are implying that that is its most common English name. So do you agree that "Tsakonian" is the most common name in English? (By the way, I see no need to speculate on Jpbrenna's motives for suggesting the name change, and in any case, I see no reason to look further than the motive of wanting the name of the article to conform to WP:UE.) As for the voting issue, generally we try to decide things on Wikipedia by consensus. We generally use voting only to attempt to measure the presence or lack of a consensus. Paul August ☎ 18:38, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

I assumed that since the most common name was also stated, wikipedia's bureaucracy would be satisfied. If it's so evident then you should proceed with the change already. It only strikes as a weird thing to me because I fail to see how can someone make such a big fuss such a unimportant matter. Miskin 22:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the page and merged the edit histories (since the original "move" was done via a cut and paste, and the previous edit histories were "lost". Paul August ☎ 01:07, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Citations needed

1. My addition claiming that Tsakonians traditionally did not call themselves Tskanones - it was in one of Dr. Nicholas's papers, with appropriate citation from his source, but I need to dig it up.
2. It says Tsakonian is officially classified as a dialect. Is this the official position of the Greek government? Who makes this determination, the Vouli or the Ministry of Education or what? I don't dispute the fact that the Greek government considers it a dialect - I'd just like to know the who, what, when, where and how if possible, because I'm curious.--Jpbrenna 19:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Stop accusing the fascist Greek government, it's getting monotonous already. Tsakonian being a Greek dialect is not another Greek government evil scheme, it actually exists in both Greek and neutral linguistic sources. See Robert Browning's "Medieval and Modern Greek", among many others. Miskin 23:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Minority position

I think the title of this page is misleading since it advocates a minority position. Tsakonian is a variety of the Greek language, not a separate language. I think the page should be renamed to Tsakonian, Tsakonian Greek, Tsakonian dialect, Tsakonian (Greek) or another possible variation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Demonax (talk • contribs)

Hi Demonax, thanks for your comments, and welcome. As you can see from the talkpage above, there has been quite a bit of discussion about these names. I would personally go simply for Tsakonian, in fact, but as there were several well-respected fellow editors who had different preferences, I wouldn't unilaterally force a change at this point. There are quite a number of articles in Wikipedia that have "...language" in the title without necessarily implying separate language - take it just like this: a dialect is a language too, the word in the title just serves to disambiguate from "Tsakonian people", "Tsakonian culture", or whatever. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I realize that, I also see a Pontic language and a Griko language. If the article is to retain its present title, then the article should make it very clear that we are talking about a dialect, not an independent language.

Fair enough. But the current text "... is a dialect of Greek" in the lead sentence is already pretty clear, isn't it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Minor add

I will add the following sourced statement in the article, I welcome any constructive suggestions :

In reality, although it is accepted that Tsakonian Language spoken in the eastern Peloponnese comes from ancient Greek is not necessary koiné. Although the language resulting in almost distinction , teaching material written in Tsakonian are provided in some school of Greece.

Reference : Variation in modern Greek Two varieties of Greek are sufficiently different that linguists might want to suggest that they are actually separate languages. Tsakonian (see Newton 1972b), spoken in the eastern Peloponnese, is descended from Ancient Greek but not by way of the koiné. It is reported to be dying out, but some schools in the area have acknowledged the degree of difference between it and other forms of Greek by providing teaching materials written in Tsakonian. Source : Ammon, Ulrich(Editor). Sociolinguistics.Berlin, , DEU: Mouton de Gruyter (A Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co. KG Publishers), 2006. p 152 Dodona--Burra (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but your sentence isn't correct English, and it makes no sense logically. What is the "although"..."although" doing there? And the "in reality"? What do you mean "not necessary"? You seem to be trying to express some logical relation between the parts of your sentence, but it just doesn't become clear what that relation is. I would gladly help you rewrite this in correct English, but I can't figure what exactly you mean. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Please feel free of any change, now i think the meaning is clear.Dodona--Burra (talk) 10:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll put in a sentence about the teaching materials, okay. But you need to tell me the author of the article you're quoting. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The phonology additions are welcome, but not particularly scholarly, I'm afraid. Lots of amateur speculation. I'm cleaning them up. The argumentation against Macedonian b and some other bits are WP:OR (and certainly not compelling or relevant here). Opoudjis (talk) 12:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

70% similarity

A nasty situation arises with the claim of 70% similarity between Standard Modern Greek and Tsakonian, deleted six months ago because "Ethnologue is unreliable". Ethnologue sources its claim to me, and my claim is in an unpublished paper written 10 years ago, which I'm thinking I might as well post online. I think that will satisfy the claims of verifiability (albeit tenuously), and that therefore the 70% para should be restored. Any objections?

I further note that under any linguistic notion of what constitutes a separate language, 70% is conventionally agreed to mean Tsakonian is separate. (Any standard modern Greek speaker who claims Tsakonian is mutually intelligible with Greek is not, I would say, being honest.) There is no evidence for a distinct Tsakonian ethnic identity, and no great push to call it a separate language, but the 70% figure is straightforward... Opoudjis (talk) 09:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering about consistency across the pages on the varieties of Greek: right now, we have "Tsakonian language" but merely "Pontic", for example. While we can argue (endlessly) about the applicability of various metrics (and I merely note that I for one would love to see a source for the claim that "70% is conventionally agreed" to grant "language" status), there being no particular scientific one, only political, cultural, historical, sociological ones, it is common practice in the English-language literature on the development of Greek in all its varieties to refer to Tsakonian as a dialect (see for example Horrocks 1997:300 "... led to the creation and consolidation of the principal dialect divisions of modern Greek"; he lists eight, with Pontic and Cappadocian as one group, Tsakonian as another, etc.). This terminology should not be taken to imply mutual intelligibility: I can attest that Pontic Greek (especially spoken, though also to a great extent written) is not intelligible to standard modern Greek speakers, and I have no reason to doubt Opoudjis's similar claim for Tsakonian). But by wikipedia convention, the most usual term should be used (this is why Tsakonian is clearly preferable to Tsakonic). I note here as well that the sources that Horrocks 1997 cites (Pernot 1934 in French, Kostakis 1951, 1980 in Greek, and Kharalambopoulos 1980 in Greek) all also use the term "dialect" in their works. Therefore it seems reasonable to maintain some sort of consistency across the labelling of these varieties, with a preponderance of scholarly usage favoring 'dialect'. Something like "Tsakonian (Greek)", "Pontic (Greek)" would seem clear. I wish we could rely on some other authority, but the ISO 639-3 codes are themselves inconsistent on this point (assigning separate ISO codes to Pontic and Tsakonian (not under Greek), but listing Cappadocian with Greek).Mundart (talk) 16:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

First, Cappadocian does have its own ISO 639-3 code: here. The label "Greek" with the name Cappadocian should not be interpreted as anything other than a traditional name--the assignment of a separate ISO code itself indicates the consideration of this variety as a separate language.

Second, only 70% similarity between two speech forms is generally considered by most linguists to mean two separate languages. This is specifically noted in Ethnologue as 70% lexical similarity. Most linguists who work with lexicostatistics mark the borders of language/dialect at about 85%. I'll have to find a reference, but I know that in my reading of lexicostatistic studies from various places in the world, that is the range where dialects are separated into languages. This goes back to the use of lexicostatistics and measuring the rate of language change. Using the Swadesh 200-word list, it was assumed that languages retained about 81% of core vocabulary over 1000 years. Using the revised 100-word list, that rate of retention changed to 86%. Most linguists who use these numbers equated 1000 years of separate existence to becoming a separate language. Thus, two speech varieties that only share 70% of basic vocabulary would clearly be two distinct languages. While lexicostatistics is seldom used today, the 85% figure is still quite firmly fixed in the collective linguistic consciousness as a strong indicator of two separate languages.

Third, mutual intelligibility is nearly always equated with distinct languages, especially when there is not a dialect chain involved. If two speech varieties are mutually unintelligible, they are two separate languages. This overrides any "traditional usage" of the words "dialect" or "language" by locals in the minds of most linguists trying to standardize usage around the world. Thus, while Chinese linguists and Greek linguists call the different varieties "dialects" (in this case, Tsakonian, Pontic, and Cappadocian), global-oriented linguists call them separate "languages". (Conversely, they often link--with various levels of acceptance--Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish.) Tsakonian has not been mutually intelligible with Greek for at least 500 years. Here is one Greek/Tsakonian specialist who clearly states that Tsakonian can be considered a separate language because of the number of differences between Greek and Tsakonian at all levels of grammar and vocabulary.

Fourth, there is a photo of a sign at the border of Tsakonian territory in the article. It clearly uses the Tsakonian term groussa (Greek, glossa) and not dialektos (or whatever the Tsakonian word for "dialect" is) to distinguish their speech variety from Greek. Heck, just looking closely at the grammar and vocabulary on the sign convinces me that these are two separate languages.

By two separate objective measurements--percentage of shared vocabulary and mutual intelligibility--Tsakonian and Greek are separate languages. By the Tsakonian people's own judgement, they are separate languages. It is only by using subjective non-linguistic considerations that they are not separate languages. Ethnologue, Linguasphere, Voegelin & Voegelin, etc. all mark Tsakonian as a separate language. (Taivo (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC))

"Fourth, there is a photo of a sign at the border of Tsakonian territory in the article. It clearly uses the Tsakonian term groussa (Greek, glossa) and not dialektos (or whatever the Tsakonian word for "dialect" is) to distinguish their speech variety from Greek." lol 3rdAlcove (talk) 18:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)