Pontic Greek

Pontic Greek (Pontic: Ρωμαίικα, romanized: Rhomaiika,^[a] Greek: Ποντιακά, romanized: Pontiaka;^[b] Turkish: Rumca or Romeika)^[4][5] is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety,^[6] Pontic Greek is spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide, who are known as Pontic or Pontian Greeks.^[2]

Like nearly all of Greek varieties spoken today, the linguistic lineage of Pontic Greek stems from the Hellenistic Koine, itself based on Attic–Ionic Greek, which later developed into the Byzantine Greek of the Middle Ages. Following its geographic isolation from the rest of the Greek–speaking world, Pontic continued to develop separately along with other Anatolian Greek dialects, like Cappadocian, from the 11th century onwards.^[7] As a result, Pontic Greek is not completely mutually intelligible with the standard Demotic Greek spoken in mainland Greece today.^{[8][9][10][11]} Pontic also contains influences from Russian, Turkish, Kartvelian (namely Laz and Georgian) and Armenian.

Today, Pontians live predominantly in Northern Greece, following the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Out of their total population, around 200,000–300,000 are considered active Pontic speakers.^[12] Pontic Greek is also spoken in Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, as well as by the Pontic diaspora. It remains spoken in pockets of the Pontus region, mostly by Pontic Greek Muslims in the eastern districts of Trabzon Province. Pontic is primarily written in the Greek script; the Latin script is sporadically used in Turkey, while the Cyrillic alphabet is rarely used in Russia and former Soviet countries.^[6]

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