Η εορτή των Τριών Ιεραρχών στα Εκπαιδευτήρια " Όμηρος" Κορυτσάς! -Festa e Tre Hierarkëve në Shkollën "Omiros" Korçë!

 

 

Ιστορική ημέρα για τους Τουρκαλβανούς

Οι Τουρκαλβανοί στον Όλυμπο της Μυσίας στην Προύσα

Η μεταφορά του ουκρανικού μετώπου στα Βαλκάνια

                              

Η εθνική και η βαλκανική σημασία της ελληνικής μειονότητας στην Αλβανία

Διαμαρτυρία της Αρχιεπισκοπής Τιράνων στη δημόσια τηλεόραση της χώρας για επίθεση στο πρόσωπο του Αρχιεπισκόπου Αναστασίου! -ANKESË PËR KEQPËRDORIMIN E TELEVIZIONIT PUBLIK (RTSH) NGA GAZETARI ILIR YZEIRI!

 

Στην Αλβανία τα «μικρομέγαλα» λένε ότι η Χειμάρρα είναι «ιστορικά αλβανική»

 

Θέμα Τσάμηδων θέτει η Αλβανία εν όψει Χάγης

 

Linguistic Maintenance and Cultural Idiosyncrasies in Greece’s Arvanitic Speaking Communities-Mesimi i Arvanishtes ne Greqine e fundit te shekullit te 19-te dhe fillimt te shekullit te 20-te; Ruajtja e gjuhes dhe vecorite kulturore te komuniteteve Arvanishtfolese ne Greqi.

Learning Arvanitic in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Greece: Linguistic Maintenance and Cultural Idiosyncrasies in Greece’s Arvanitic Speaking Communities

 

Theodore G. Zervas (Chicago)

 

 

Historical Origins

Most historians agree that the  Arvanites  first settled central  and southern Greece in the thirteenth century. A succession of migrations into  Greece  continued  until  the early nineteenth century. The Arvanites are thought to have originated from parts of present day Albania. Their identity has been linked  to their  Arvanitic (Arvanitika) or Tosk Albanian language and their practice of Greek Orthodox Christianity.

One of the earliest accounts to mention the Arvanites is from Anna Comnema (1083–1153 ACE) in the twelfth century, where she briefly  describes  a  town  and people from Durrës in present day Albania called Arbanus (Sewter 2009). It is here, that contemporary historians believe the name  Arvanite  or  Αρβανíτες  originated. Later Byzantine accounts describe them as Christians who settled in  parts of  present day southern Albania and northwestern Greece. It is also said that they were encour- aged by Byzantine officials to  migrate south in undeveloped and under-populated ar- eas of Central Greece and the Peloponnese where many of these communities still live today.

Historians and anthropologists continue to debate the Arvanites geographic and ethnic origins. Some have characterized them as a “hybrid” Greek/Albanian  culture since they speak both Greek and Albanian while others mostly nationalists in both Greece and Albanian have claimed them to be purely Greek or purely Albanian.

For nearly 900 years Arvanite towns were scattered around  Athens  in  Attica, Central Greece,  Southern  Euboea,  Corinth,  the  Argolis,  western  Laconia  and  many of the Soronic and Cycladic Islands in the Aegean. For some time the Arvanites was Greece’s biggest public secret in that the Greek state had always been aware of them, but reluctant to acknowledge that the language they spoke was not Greek (Mag- liveras 2009).

After the creation of the modern Greek state in 1827 the Arvanites identified as being almost  exclusively  Greek  or  Greek  Orthodox  Christians,  but  preferred  to speak Arvanitic instead of Greek. The Greek state  had  also  seen  them  this  way, mainly because they had participated the Greek Revolution and had been active in the political and cultural life of Greece.

At the same time, the Arvanites remained mysterious and many Greeks assumed that the Arvanitic language was ancient northern Greek dialect. But when Albanian immigrants began flooding into Greece in the 1990s (after the collapse of communism in Albania) it became apparent that Arvanitic was not Greek at all, but an “old” Tosk Albanian dialect. Arvanite communities nonetheless clung to their Greek national identity. They found it offensive to be called Albanians and were quick to point out differences between themselves and the Albanian immigrants.

While Greek and Albanian are distinct languages within the Indo-European clas- sification of languages, they share many similarities in syntax and grammar. There are even ancient Greek words in the Arvanitic that are not used in Modern Greek. The word for mouse, μι in Arvanitic, is the ancient Greek word for mouse μις. Νουκ for the contraction “not” in Arvanitic is suspected to derive from the ancient Greek of ουκ. The Arvanitic word for house, στεπή is also thought to derive from the ancient Greek word σκεπή. Similarly, hades is often used when referring to the underworld or afterlife. There are about 30 ancient Greek loan words in Arvanitic, but many lin- guists suspect that there are likely more. At the same time, colloquial Greek has adopted many Albanian words.  George Babiniotis attributes  about 50–75  words used in Modern Greek that derive from Tosk Albanian (Babiniotis 1998). Some examples include: γκομáρι for donkey, γουβα for ditch, λουλουδι for flower, μπέσα for the intransitive verb “come”, καλικουτσα to carry on ones back, λουτσα to be soaked, σβέρκος for neck, and σíγουρα, for the adverb “clearly” or “certainly”.