I just read the Wikipedia article on the Tsakonian dialect/language, and I was wondering if anybody here knows more about it, particularly its relationship to Ancient Greek.
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In this site which you won’t be able to read since it’s in modern Greek, if you scroll down you might find something of interest.
It’s the Sunday prayer in Koine (as uttered by the majority of the Greeks- no modern Greek “translation”) and in Tsakonian.
I haven’t clicked on the links
Just a note: In Mani (Μάνη) which is a rocky area “south” of Sparta they also speak (or used to anyway, it’s dying out) a dialect with many doric elements
It was mentioned in my Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin course: it is a.k.a. Laconian; it is the dialect of the Spartans. That’s about all I know.
Very interesting, but there surely must be some traditional songs. That would be more appropriate. Demotika, I mean!
Α?ιστοκλή you are making me google like crazy ,which is a bad thing because google has decided to give me lots of results on Pontos and I got what we call Calabrian (South Italy/Sicily “greek”) and I got sidetracked!
Anyway, “tsakonian songs” seems to give lots of results. Here’sone
P.S. I am not quite sure if these are all that “tsakonian”. The language is definitely looks like Δημοτική to me apart from the last one that has me scratching my head!
P.P.S Just saw the article on wiki. It doesn’t say all that much does it? Just enough to make you curious
Hi.
My grandfather’s mother (nee Kapeas) on my mother’s side was from the Mani and spoke Tsakonian. My grandfather was very proud of his Mani roots.
In my mother’s village (Palaiopanagia, Laconia) the word for spider is το σφαλάγγι (phalanx), not η α?άχνη as in the rest of Greece.
In Montreal I happened to meet a Greek who was from the Mani area. He was at least SIX-FOOT-FIVE (if not seven feet!), blond hair, and blue eyes. Interestingly, he DID NOT look German, NOR did he look Scandinavian—He looked Greek. The eyes. He had Greek eyes.
~PeterD
Well, I suppose my main questions are 1) how close is Tsaskonian to pre-Alexandrian Greek of any dialect (in other words, if you showed a Tsaskonian speaker documents from Ancient Sparta, how much could (s)he understand and 2) how mutually comprehensible is Tsaskonian with Demotic and/or Katharevousa Greek?
Could he be decended from Menelaus?
I don’t know, GGG. I’d have to ask him (or his wife) whether he has—like Menelaus—“thighs as ivory tinged with crimson.” 
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Aristokles I even found a site (or maybe it was one of the ones I already posted, perhaps the second one) where you can hear the liturgy in Tsakonian! Remember, people down there (dad’s from Mani so I should know) are a bit thick-headed and obstinate and have an streak of independence a mile wide! You can bet they translated the Sunday Prayer!
Just a note: When spoken the similarities are easier to spot. Oh, and does the site mention they have retained the -ο?σι ending which the rest of us have done away with (with the exception of other dialects of course)
One shall never know! At a confrontation with such a paper he would try to read it one time, he wouldn’t understand much and would not give it another try.
Well I guess everybody there understands modern Greek. They do have to go to school. If they don’t speak modern Greek, I don’t thind they will be able to read anything.
Give me the link I have to have it.
Maniates are known to be conservatives, the last Hellenes who were christianized at 950-988, but tsakonic is not their main dialect.
LOL
Go to the first link I posted (oh well! Here it is!) and click on Θεία Λειτου?γία on the right (blue font, under the book photo). Note some (I didn’t listen to all of it obviously) “cute” things such as ‘ταν αγία δέσποινα’.
Btw I know that Maniates don’t talk Tsakonian. In fact they would be offended if you made such a claim. However, although they don’t want to admit it, their dialect has much in common with Tsakonian and both Maniates and Tsakones are stubborn like mule-headed mules
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Here’s a small excerpt from the book I borrowed (a little late but I had forgotten it in another city). The transcription used is a little strange and I don’t know how to type some of the symbols, so this is adapted from the book and I’ll try to explain it.
nomýa em aúnde éteni ph en éχu zondaná, χt’iná i prúata i tσe ta δío mazí. áma n’ éχu prúata monaχá, n’ em aúnde tσe provatáZi. tσ o tSopán’i to íδer éni. ta χt’iná s eni nému monaχó si me ta fan’íl’a si, an en éχu, i en aZíkhu kopél’a.
The acute accent represents stress
’ means the previous consonant is “soft” instead of “hard” (n’ e.g. is like Spanish ñ)
h - aspiration
y - described as similar to Russian y or Romanian î
S - English sh
Z - French j
δ - English th in then
χ - Modern Greek χ
σ - I don’t know what this is supposed to be since both it and s are some kind of s sounds.
It looks like Greek (the articles and some words are obvious) but I’d be surprised if anyone could figure it out knowing Ancient and/or Modern Greek. I thought maybe of not giving the translation and letting people try it out but it’s too short an excerpt and I’m too lazy to type out more right now, but here’s the Greek translation (by the speaker):
Βοσκό λέμε εκείνον που έχει ζωντανά, γίδια ή π?όβατα ή και τα δυο μαζί. Άμα έχει π?όβατα μόνο, τον λέμε και π?οβατά?η. Κι ο τσοπάνης το ίδιο είναι. Τα γίδια τα βόσκει μόνος του με τη φαμιλιά του, αν έχει, ή παί?νει κοπέλια.
And the English translation (of the book’s French translation, so this may not be perfect):
We call the man who has animals, goats or sheep or the two together, a “nomýa”. When he only keeps sheep, we also call him a “provatáZi”. “tSopán’i” is the same thing. He grazes the goats on his own, or with his family, if he has one, or he takes on some lads.
More generally, from what I’ve read, it seems that the grammar has developed along the same lines as Standard Modern Greek (because it was influenced by it), so maybe it’s just a matter of difference in vocabulary and pronunciation (although some of the verb forms that use forms of εἰμί and a particle are very different).