Modern Greek in Asia Minor (continued)

Abstract

§ 39.—In contrast with the Silli dialect spoken in one place only, we have here to do with a dialect in use in many villages, in each of which it varies slightly. I leave out of account the dialect of Sinasos. As recorded by Archelaos it differs, or rather, since the purified language has made great strides in Sinasos, it differed widely from that of the Poutak Ovasi villages, chiefly however in being less corrupt, no doubt owing to long contact with Constantinople and the outer world. Mr. Archelaos assured me that the idiom now spoken at Tshalela and Potamia closely resembles this old Sinasos dialect. Of Arabison also I can say nothing; it is said to be a recent colony with a dialect like that of Misti. It would be of great interest to examine these northern villages, including Anakou and Silata, and with them the Lazic colonies north of the Halys, keeping especially in view the points of contact between Pontic and North Cappadocian, such as the tendency to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects in the declension of nouns, which is a mark of Pontic and is increasingly prominent in the Cappadocian dialects as one passes from the southern to the northern villages, the use at Sinasos of the Pontic κί as a negative by the side of δέν, the dropping of unaccented i and u and the preservation of the old possessive pronouns.