Der neugriechische Subdialekt des Farascha-Gebiets (Kappadokien) und der Türkische Einfluss auf seinen Wortschatz

Abstract

In the history of the Greek language nowadays Farasha is the name given
to a region in East Cappadocia on either side of the River Zamandis (Turkish:
Zamantdi Irmák). This region contains six villages that were Greek-speaking
up to 1922 (Βαρασός, Αφσάρι, Τσουχούρι, Κίσκα, Σατής and Φκόσι or
Γαρσαντής), the total population of which was about 4,000. Until 1922, the inhabitants
were Greeks, who spoke the modern Greek idiom of Farasha with
slight differences among them, primarily phonetic. The Turkish influences
upon it were fewer than on the idioms of West Cappadocia.
I have counted 2,146 Turkish words that have intruded into the modern
Greek idiom of Farasha. I have gathered them mainly from the oral tradition
of the Farasha Greeks who nowadays live in Greece. Of these words, 518
come from Arabic, 213 from Persian, and 48 from European languages. Out
of 2,073 of these words (the remaining 73 are primarily adverbs), 720 refer
to the body and to people’s natural and spiritual needs and activities, 359
refer to the household and family life, 217 to social and political life, 390 to
economical and professional life, 142 to the natural world, 59 to religious
life; and 106 are indeclinable words.
It is interesting to note that the Farasha idiom has assimilated all the
Turkish loan words, nouns, adjectives, verbs, and pronouns, and has adapted
them to it’s own linguistic morphology. It thus offers one more example of
the great assimilative capacity of the Greek language and at the same time
Greek resistance to foreign influences and pressures in the heart of Asia
Minor.