Tsakonien

The tsakonien or language tsakone (in Greek: Τσακωνική γλώσσα ) Greek dialect is a formerly spoken in the area about the Tsakonie ( Τσακωνιά ), names Arcadie (Peloponnese), and currently still of use in a group of villages located on there east coast of Arcadie along the Golfe of Argolide. Nevertheless, it was to extend before more to the west in Arcadie, like in part of the Laconie.

This dialect is resulting from the Dorien, one of the old Greek dialects of the ancient Greece. It is thus distinguished clearly from the modern Greek by its vocabulary and its pronunciation, in particular because it preserved the Digamma , old Phonème /w/ become /v/ in certain words (whereas in the common language, the digamma was amuï for a long time). Thus, one can compare the word valve , “lamb”, with the Ionian-attic ἀρνίον/ arníon , both resulting from a étymon warn- .

As for the Lexicon, the tsakonien has borrowed of the terms from the modern Greek, with the Albanian and with the Turkish but the principal vocabulary is clearly of doric origin.

Natural geographical barriers isolated the Tsakonie from the remainder of Greece until the 19th century preserving the originality of the language thus. But since the independence of Greece, supported by the powerful ship-owners of the coast tsakonienne, the development of education in modern Greek to considerably decreased the speakers number, estimated at 200.000 before independence. More recently, since the Years 1970, the Rural migration towards Athens and the introduction of television into the area caused a new massive fall of the number of speakers of the tsakonien to the profit of the modern Greek. It is probable that the language tsakonne disappears as a living language in the current from the century, and this in spite of recent efforts in the local schools. It is currently estimated that only some 300 people usually speak the tsakonien while approximately: 2000 include/understand it.