Re: Greek Re: R: Graiugenic languages (was: Re: Another

Leo Caesius wrote:

> (though, I understand that there is one dialect
> spoken in Greece which may be a pre-koine survival - off the top of my head,
> I remember it being the Tsakonian, although I'm probably wrong).
Yes, Tsakonian is a direct descendant of Doric dialect.  Here's what
the Ethnologue (http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Gree.html#TSD)
says:

# TSAKONIAN (TSAKONIA) [TSD] 300 shepherds (1981 J. Werner); 10,000
# (1977 Voegelin and Voegelin). Towns of Kastanitas,
# Sitena, Prastos, Karakovonve, Leonidi, Pramatefti, Sapounakeida,
# Tyros; eastern coast of Peloponnesos. Isolated in summer in the
# mountains west of Leonidi in the eastern Peloponnesus; in winter
# they descend to Leonidi and neighboring towns. Indo-European,
# Greek, Doric. Dialects: KASTANITAS-SITENA, LENIDI-PRASTOS.
# Derived from the Doric dialect spoken in Lakonia by
# ancient Spartans. There were monolingual speakers in 1927. It is
# not inherently intelligible with modern Greek (Voegelin and
# Voegelin). Children attend Greek schools, including kindergarten,
# in winter. Pastoralists. Survey needed.

The other Greek languages mentioned by the Ethnologue (which takes
"mutually intelligible" seriously, and as such is a "splitter")
are Greek proper, Pontic Greek, and Romano- and Judeo-Greeks.

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