Greece Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Languages === {{Main|Greek language|Languages of Greece|Minorities in Greece}} [[File:Greece linguistic minorities.svg|thumb|upright=1.1|Regions with a traditional presence of languages other than Greek. Today, Greek is the dominant language throughout the country.<ref>{{cite web | publisher = Summer institute of Linguistics |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/country/GR/languages |title=Languages of Greece | website = Ethnologue |access-date=19 December 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Euromosaic – Le [slavo]macédonien / bulgare en Grèce |url=https://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/macedoni/fr/i1/i1.html |website=www.uoc.edu |access-date=8 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304044656/http://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/macedoni/fr/i1/i1.html |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Euromosaic – L'arvanite / albanais en Grèce |url=https://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/albanes/fr/i2/i2.html |website=www.uoc.edu |access-date=8 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190702205628/https://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/albanes/fr/i2/i2.html |archive-date=2 July 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Euromosaic – Le valaque (aromoune, aroumane) en Grèce |url=https://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/valac/fr/i1/i1.html |website=www.uoc.edu |access-date=8 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170314/http://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/document/valac/fr/i1/i1.html |archive-date=3 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Turkish The Turkish language in Education in Greece |url=https://www.mercator-research.eu/fileadmin/mercator/documents/regional_dossiers/turkish_in_greece.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190209124027/https://www.mercator-research.eu/fileadmin/mercator/documents/regional_dossiers/turkish_in_greece.pdf |archive-date=9 February 2019 |url-status=live |website=mercator-research.eu}}</ref>{{Sfn | Trudgill | 2000}}]] Greece is today relatively homogeneous in linguistic terms, with a large majority of the native population using Greek as their first or only language. Among the Greek-speaking population, speakers of the distinctive [[Pontic Greek|Pontic]] dialect came to Greece from Asia Minor after the [[Greek genocide]] and constitute a sizable group. The [[Cappadocian Greek|Cappadocian]] dialect came to Greece due to the genocide as well, but is endangered and is barely spoken now. Indigenous Greek dialects include the archaic Greek spoken by the [[Sarakatsani]], traditionally transhument mountain shepherds of [[Greek Macedonia]] and other parts of [[Northern Greece]]. The [[Tsakonian language]], a distinct Greek language deriving from [[Doric Greek]] instead of [[Koine Greek]], is still spoken in some villages in the southeastern Peloponnese. The [[Muslim minority of Greece|Muslim minority]] in Thrace, which amounts to approximately 0.95% of the total population, consists of speakers of [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] ([[Pomaks]]){{Sfn | Trudgill | 2000}} and [[Romani language|Romani]]. Romani is also spoken by Christian [[Romani people|Roma]] in other parts of the country. Further minority languages have traditionally been spoken by regional population groups in various parts of the country. Their use has decreased radically in the course of the 20th century through assimilation with the Greek-speaking majority. Today they are only maintained by the older generations and are on the verge of extinction. The same goes for the [[Arvanites]], an [[Albanian language|Albanian]]-speaking group mostly located in the rural areas around the capital Athens, and for the [[Aromanians]] and [[Megleno-Romanians]], also known as "[[Vlachs]]", whose language is closely related to [[Romanian language|Romanian]] and who used to live scattered across several areas of mountainous central Greece. Members of these groups usually identify ethnically as Greek<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.cilevics.eu/minelres/reports/greece/greece_NGO.htm | publisher = Greek Helsinki Monitor | title = Minority Rights Group, Greece, Report about Compliance with the Principles of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (along guidelines for state reports according to Article 25.1 of the Convention) | date = 8 September 1999 | access-date = 27 December 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120111161345/http://www.cilevics.eu/minelres/reports/greece/greece_NGO.htm | archive-date = 11 January 2012 | url-status=dead }}</ref> and are today all at least bilingual in Greek. Near the northern Greek borders there are also some [[Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia|Slavic–speaking groups]], locally known as ''Slavomacedonian''-speaking, most of whose members identify ethnically as Greeks. It is estimated that after the population exchanges of 1923, [[Macedonia (Greece)|Macedonia]] had 200,000 to 400,000 [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] speakers.<ref name="minorities">Roudometof, Victor; Robertson, Roland (2001). [https://books.google.com/books?id=I9p_m7oXQ00C&pg=PA186 ''Nationalism, Globalization, and Orthodoxy – The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans'']. [[Westport, Connecticut]]: [[Greenwood Publishing Group|Greenwood]]. p. 186. {{ISBN|978-0-313-31949-5}}.</ref> The Jewish community in Greece traditionally spoke [[Ladino language|Ladino]] (Judeo-Spanish), today maintained only by a few thousand speakers. Other notable minority languages include [[Armenian language|Armenian]], [[Georgian language|Georgian]], and the Greco-Turkic dialect spoken by the [[Urums]], a community of [[Caucasus Greeks]] from the [[Tsalka]] region of central Georgia and ethnic Greeks from southeastern [[Greeks in Ukraine|Ukraine]] who arrived in mainly Northern Greece as economic migrants in the 1990s. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page