Variation in the Vowel System of Mišótika Cappadocian: Findings from Two Refugee Villages in Greec

This paper discusses changes in the vowel system of contemporary Mišótika, the Cappadocian variety originally spoken in Misti. We compare the speech of native speakers from two Cappadocian refugee communities and analyse the differences between the two, taking into consideration mechanisms of language contact and linguistic change, and also the social parameters that influence the dialectal system. The study is based on recordings of native speakers of Mišótika who live in two different villages, one in the prefecture of Kilkis (Neo Agioneri), and the other in Thessaloniki (Xirohori). Although these villages are very close to one another, they present two major differences. Neo Agioneri is a homogeneous village, whereas Xirohori is a mixed village, since not only Cappadocians but also other Greek-dialect speakers live there. 78 Another distinguishing characteristic between the two villages is the attitude of the inhabitants towards Mišótika. It seems that speakers from Neo Agioneri are more receptive to the use of the dialect. The inhabitants from Xirohori, by contrast, present a different attitude, reflecting the consequences of social stigmatization and linguistic attrition that their dialect has undergone after the population exchange of the 1920s. To conclude, the current vowel system of Mišótika seems to diverge significantly from the older one described by Dawkins (1916). At the same time, the preliminary findings of our research indicate that there are also differences in the phonological status of the vowels between speakers of the same linguistic system. Dawkins, R. M. 1916. Modern Greek in Asia Minor: a Study of the Dialects of Sílli, Cappadocia and Phárasa with Grammar, Texts, Translations and Glossary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

The acoustic characteristics of diphthongs in Mišótika Cappadocian : findings from two refugee villages in Northern Greece

This paper discusses the acoustic characteristics of diphthongs in contemporary Mišótika, the Cappadocian variety originally spoken in Mistí. The aim is to analyse the distribution of diphthongs in the vowel space and determine their phonetic status. In particular, we compare the realization of diphthongs in the speech of ten male native speakers from two Cappadocian refugee communities: Neo Agioneri (Kilkis) and Xirohori (Thessaloniki). The present study traces out the distinctive phonetic properties of diphthongs of Mišótika diphthongs which are realized atin the boundary of a word (internal hiatus) according to measurements at two time points, at the beginning (25%) and at the ending (75%) point of each diphthong in order to detect its trajectory (see Harrington 2010; Jacobi 2009). We detected identified 19 diphthongs that which are classified according to stress position. Moreover, wWe divided thesem into ‘closing’, ‘centring’ and ‘opening’ to identify determine whetherif the diphthongs are produced with a tongue movement to a low or central or to a high position in the vowel space (Clark et al. 2007). These distinctions aim to capture the direction of the diphthong trajectory in the F1/F2 acoustic vowel space (see also Maxwell & Fletcher 2010). In Mišótika, it seems that the part of the diphthong which is characterized as more prominent is defined by the stress position. In other words, the stressed segment of the diphthong is more prominent than the unstressed one. The results of the analysis show that there are variations of diphthongs in the vowel system of the speakers due to the stress position in the onset or offset element. Specifically, the position of stress influences the gravity center of the diphthongs and causes graduations in the beginning and/or the ending point of a diphthong in the vowel spectrum. Also, the length of the Euclidean distances from the first segment to the second vowel target seems to be affected by the position of stress. In particular, using the terms ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’, where broad is related to a longer trajectory and narrow to a shorter trajectory (Kerwill & Torgersen 2008), it was found that if the same diphthong is stressed in the first segment, its trajectory is broad, but if it is stressed in the second segment, it is narrow. Moreover, the trajectory often diversifies because of the direction of the diphthong, as for a closing diphthong (e.g. oi) the trajectory is broad, but for an opening (e.g. io) it is narrow. At the same time, we detected differences between the two villages under investigation in relation of the diphthongs’ realization and trajectory. In particular, many pairs of diphthongs present more than one variation in their realization by the speakers of the two Cappadocian communities and most of them are determined by the F2 values in the vowel spectrum

Methodological principles of Mišótika Cappadocian data collection

This paper discusses the methodological principles and tools that will be used in our study of the vowel system of Mišótika Cappadocian. This study will be based on the collection of recordings of native speech from Cappadocian refugee communities in prefectures of Kilkis, Larisa, Kavala, Chalkidiki and Alexandroupoli, where there are still native speakers of different age groups. In this paper, we focus on the comparison of the methodological principles. In particular, we consider the importance of applying ethnographic with experimental methods in order to collect data of conversational and elicited speech. The point is that the combination of the two types of speech must accomplish ‘ecological validity’ (Post & Nolan, 2012), that is, speech recordings should be a sample of natural speech communication in register with dialectal authenticity. According to Kainada & Baltazani (2013), linguists doing dialectal fieldwork should use a combination of conversational speech and tightly controlled speech tasks. They claim that both can elicit representative dialectal speech, provided we avoid informants’ accommodation to the dominant standard variety. For this reason, the recording of native speech will take place in two phases. Each phase is aimed to produce different results. The first phase will focus on ethnographic fieldwork with recordings of casual conversations. The target is to conduct spontaneous dialectal speech, since conversational speech provides the most naturally uttered and representative dialectal data. The second phase of data collection will be conducted following experimental methods. The tasks will be constructed so as to guide the informants to be accommodated to the variety under investigation (Kainada & Baltazani, 2013). We will apply naming and perceptual experiments as well. On the one hand, we would like to examine how the informants produce a list of words with the target vowels in differential metrical contexts. On the other hand, we want to identify how the native speakers of Mišótika perceive the dialectal differences that the current vowel system has undergone, as a result of linguistic change and language contact either with Standard Modern Greek or with other dialectal varieties. Moreover, the appropriate stimuli of the tasks will be based on our previous findings about the vowel system of Mišótika. To conclude, this paper compares the combination of ethnographic and experimental principles in the same study. It is essential that targeted experiments are implemented to approach specific dialectal phenomena, but at the same time the collection of casual conversations constitutes the first step for carrying out a larger and more in-depth study of the Mišótika vowel system

Asia Minor Greek: Towards a Computational Processing

AbstractIn this paper, we discuss issues concerning the computational aspect of an on-going research project which aims at providing a systematic study of three Greek dialects of Asia Minor (“Pontus, Cappadocia, Aivali: In search of Asia Minor Greek”- AmiGre) In fact, the project constitutes the first attempt to describe dialectal phenomena at a phonological, morphological, and structural level. Furthermore, it also constitutes the first attempt in Greece to combine Informatics and Theoretical Lin- guistics in order to facilitate the above-mentioned task. The aim here is to provide the design principles of the computational component of the project namely, an electronic dictionary and a multimedia database which would provide an innovative mechanism of storing, processing and retrieving oral and written dialectal data

In Situ, Ex Situ and (Non) Echo Questions

Abstract and full text of the articles are freely available on www.degruyter.com (De Gruyter Open)