Tsakonian language loss questions

[Laomedan]

Let me first begin be thanking flipper for his post describing Tsakonian if has been of great help.
I was looking online for some resources for Tsakonian and have found it somewhat difficult. It seems that much of the work was done in the 1920's and the books are hard to find and read(I know very little Greek and its ancient). I am an anthropology/archeology student from the United States and as part of the four field approach in the states we study linguists as well as standard archeology. I recently visited Sparti last summer and was very interested in the history of the Spartan people. As part of this linguistics class I was asked to give a presentation on an endangered language. I thought Tsakonian would be a great choice and might help get some of my colleagues involved with helping to protect these disappearing ancient languages. If any of you are native speakers or know anyone who is, I would be very interested in knowing your opinions on these questions. How do you feel about the loss of the language? What do you think are the main reasons for this loss? Is there a way to help/save the language? What are the major sound differences between Tsakonian and standard Greek? Has the language been affected by other languages other than Greek? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time

[Flipper]

Laomedan welcome!
I will provide you as much material possible. I have lexicon, grammar sources and even folksongs.

[Truth Bearer]

So what is Tsakonian???I believe it's spoken in an area of the Peloponnese b/w Arcadia and Messinia is that right??

[kostas68]

Originally Posted by Truth Bearer

So what is Tsakonian???I believe it's spoken in an area of the Peloponnese b/w Arcadia and Messinia is that right??

Tsakonian is the only modern Greek dialect which isn't derived from the koini attici dialect as all the other but it's considered by the linguists as live and physical evolution of the ancient Lakonian dialect.It's spoken in the area of todays town of Leonidio in Arcadia(i'm not sure if it's spoken in other areas)where the descendands of the Eleytherolakones were settled.

[Mygdonia]

I have stayed at Areopoli in Sparta for 2 weeks few years ago and they definitely speak Tsakonian.

[Andrew]

Tsakonian speaking areas in 19th century :


[URL=http://g.imageshack.us/img50/peloponnesosethnicld9.jpg/

It's so Doric and so deeply rooted !!!

Take for instance the word for "sickling". In modern greek and ancient Koine it's θερίζω (therizoo) and in Tsakonic it's σερίνδου (serindu).

Now :

1) σ for θ . The sound of "θ" until middle classical period was an aspirated "t" like in "two". From the late classical period and on the "θ" acquired it's modern fricative sound. The Ancient Spartans had a difficulty in the transition and so reproduced the new sound as "s" ...that's way we see them say σιόρ instead of θεός.

2) νδ for ζ . The archaic sound of ζ was "dz" ("ντζ") that's why we have both Ζευς/Δευς/Διας. So it seems that when all the other greeks made "z" a sibilant the Dorians maintained the old sound , hence Cretan Doric εργάδδομαι instead of standard koine εργάζομαι.

3) ου for ω .The laconian doric was a "doric severior" dialect , which means that used "ου" instead of "ω" and vice-versa ...let my remind you that the accusative "τους λύκους" in Laconian was "τως λύκως".