TsakoniaTsakonia (Τσακωνιά, Tsakoniá; Tsakonian: Τσακωνία, Tsakonía) or the Tsakonian region (Τσακωνικός χώρος) refers to the small area in the eastern Peloponnese where the Tsakonian language is spoken, in the area surrounding 13 towns, villages and hamlets located around Pera Melana in Arcadia. It is not a formally defined political entity of the modern Greek state. In his Brief Grammar of the Tsakonian Dialect published in 1951, Prof.
GammaGamma 'gæmə (uppercase , lowercase ; γάμμα gámma) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop ɡ. In Modern Greek, this letter represents either a voiced velar fricative ɣ or a voiced palatal fricative ʝ (while /g/ in foreign words is instead commonly transcribed as γκ). In the International Phonetic Alphabet and other modern Latin-alphabet based phonetic notations, it represents the voiced velar fricative.
IotacismIotacism (ἰωτακισμός, iotakismos) or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation i in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to the letter iota, the original sign for i, with which these vowels came to merge. The alternative term itacism refers to the new pronunciation of the name of the letter eta as ˈita after the change. Koine Greek phonology Ancient Greek had a broader range of vowels (see Ancient Greek phonology) than Modern Greek has.
ManiotsThe Maniots or Maniates (Μανιάτες) are an ethnic Greek subgroup that traditionally inhabit the Mani Peninsula; located in western Laconia and eastern Messenia, in the southern Peloponnese, Greece. They were also formerly known as Mainotes, and the peninsula as Maina. The Maniots claim to be the descendants of the ancient Spartans and they have often been described as such. The terrain is mountainous and inaccessible (until recently many Mani villages could be accessed only by sea), and the regional name "Mani" is thought to have meant originally "dry" or "barren".
UpsilonUpsilon (ˈʌpsɪˌlɒn,ˈ(j)uːp-,-lən, UKalso(j)uːpˈsaɪlən,ʊp-,-lɒn; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; ýpsilon ˈipsilon) or ypsilon Ip- is the twentieth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, Υʹ has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw . The name of the letter was originally just "υ" (y; also called hy, hence "hyoid", meaning "shaped like the letter υ"), but the name changed to "υ ψιλόν" u psilon 'simple u' to distinguish it from οι, which had come to have the same [y] pronunciation.
OmicronOmicron (ˈoʊmᵻkrɒn,_ˈɒmᵻkrɒn,_oʊˈmaɪkrɒn; uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, όμικρον) is the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. This letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin: . In classical Greek, omicron represented the close-mid back rounded vowel o in contrast to omega which represented the open-mid back rounded vowel ɔː and the digraph ου which represented the long close-mid back rounded vowel oː. In modern Greek, both omicron and omega represent the mid back rounded vowel o̞ or ɔ̝.
OmegaOmega (oʊˈmiːɡə,_oʊˈmɛɡə,_oʊˈmeɪɡə,_əˈmiːɡə; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" (ō mega, mega meaning "great"), as opposed to omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, micron meaning "little").
TarantoTaranto (təˈræntoʊ , USalso-ˈrɑːn-,_ˈtɑːrəntoʊ , ˈtaːranto; Tarde) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base. Founded by Spartans in the 8th century BC during the period of Greek colonisation, Taranto was among the most important poleis in Magna Graecia, becoming a cultural, economic and military power that gave birth to philosophers, strategists, writers and athletes such as Archytas, Aristoxenus, Livius Andronicus, Heracleides, Iccus, Cleinias, Leonidas, Lysis and Sosibius.
Greek language questionThe Greek language question (το γλωσσικό ζήτημα, to glossikó zítima) was a dispute about whether the language of the Greek people (Demotic Greek) or a cultivated imitation of Ancient Greek (Katharevousa) should be the official language of the Greek nation. It was a highly controversial topic in the 19th and 20th centuries, and was finally resolved in 1976 when Demotic was made the official language. The language phenomenon in question, which also occurs elsewhere in the world, is called diglossia.
Ancient Greek dialectsAncient Greek in classical antiquity, before the development of the common Koine Greek of the Hellenistic period, was divided into several varieties. Most of these varieties are known only from inscriptions, but a few of them, principally Aeolic, Doric, and Ionic, are also represented in the literary canon alongside the dominant Attic form of literary Greek. Likewise, Modern Greek is divided into several dialects, most derived from Koine Greek.
