Hellenic Forums Omogenia - YASOU - Hellenism: The new site of the Turkish Foreign Ministry carries provocative statements about Greece.

Independence of Republic Euxinos Pontos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz4JF7hZXe8

Pontians (Pontioi)

The Pontians, or Pontic Greeks, are a Greek people living in the Black Sea coastal region of Pontus, currently in Turkey. They converted to Islam in the 18th century and have largely retained their unique language, culture and identity in the face of massive assimilation pressures and anti-Greek discrimination.

At a population of around 300,000, Pontic Greeks are concentrated in five or six villages in the regions of Tonya and Trabzon and in nearly 50 villages at the Yukarύ Solaklύ valley, south of Of. There are also at least two villages founded by Pontian emmigrants at Sakarya, near Istanbul. Although Pontians are Sunni Muslims, many Turks denounce them to be crypto-Christians. Not that there exists any evidence to suggest insincerity in the Pontians' Islam.
Their allegience to the Muslim faith is called into question merely on account of their clinging on to their Greek idenitity which, according to the ultra-nationalist Turkish mindset, is proof of anti-Turkishness and, therefore, hypocricy and treason against Islam! Not surprisingly, Pontic Greeks will generally refuse to refer to themselves as such due to the ever-pervasive Turkish supremacism which engenders inferiority complexes in the republic's many supressed minority groups. Instead, most Pontic Greeks prefer to be called "Turkoi" or "Turkos" - a rather silly and nonsensical ethonymn which is actually the Greek noun for "Turk"!

The correct Pontian self-designation, "Romioi" or "Romios", the Pontian Muslims reserve for Greek-speaking Christians. The Pontian language itself, called "Romaika" by its speakers, is a dialect of archaic Cappadocian Greek and has its origins in Attic Greek. Because Pontic and standard Greek developed independently for almost two thousand years, the two tongues are, for the most part, mutually unintelligable. During its development, Pontian was also heavily influenced by Byzantine Greek and Caucasian languages. The fact that Greek has no officially recognised status in Turkey, along with other assimilation pressures, means that today, the Pontian languge is facing extinction.

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