Pontic

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A language of Greece

ISO 639-3
pnt
Alternate Names
Pontic Greek
Population

400,000 (2009 Z. Diakonikolaou). Total users in all countries: 778,000.

Location

Epirus and Western Macedonia, and Macedonia and Thrace administrative units: all of Kilkis, Pella, and Serrai; Thessaloniki except south of Kalamaria borough; fringe enclaves in Drama and Imathia.

Language Maps
Language Status

6a (Vigorous).

Classification
Indo-European, Greek, Attic
Dialects

None known. Standard Greek [ell] speakers cannot understand Pontic, and Pontic speakers reportedly do not understand or speak standard Greek [ell]. Pontic clubs and centers exist in the Athens-Peiraeus suburbs.

Language Use

Youth may speak standard Greek as L1. Speakers in North America reportedly maintain the use of Pontic more zealously than those in Greece.

Language Development
Grammar.
Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Pontic
Writing

Cyrillic script [Cyrl], rarely used. Greek script [Grek], primary usage, used in Greece. Latin script [Latn], sporadic use on social media, used in Turkey.

Other Comments

Brought to Greece in the 1920s and 1930s by immigrants from the Black Sea coast, which had been inhabited by Greeks since antiquity.

Also spoken in:

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