Tsakonian (also Tsaconian, Tzakonian or Tsakonic; Tsakonian: τσακώνικα, α τσακώνικα γρούσσα; Greek: Greek, Modern (1453-);: τσακώνικα) is a modern Hellenic language which is both highly divergent from other spoken varieties of Modern Greek and, from a philological standpoint, is also linguistically classified separately from them. It is spoken in the Tsakonian region of the Peloponnese, Greece. Tsakonian descends from Doric, which was an Ancient Greek language on the Western branch of Hellenic languages, and it is its only living descendant (along with the debatable Maniot dialect of Modern Greek). Although Tsakonian is treated as a dialect of Modern Standard Greek,   some compendia treat it as a separate language, since Modern Standard Greek descends from Ionic and Attic which are on the Eastern branch of the Hellenic languages, while Tsakonian (as a descendant of Doric) is the sole surviving member of the Western branch.
It is named after its speakers, the Tsakonians, which in turn may be derived from 'exo-Laconians' 'Outer Lakonians'.
Tsakonian is found today in a group of mountain towns and villages slightly inland from the Argolic Gulf, although it was once spoken farther to the south and west as well as on the coasts of Laconia (ancient Sparta). There was formerly a Tsakonian colony on the Sea of Marmara (or Propontis; two villages near Gönen, Vatika and Havoutsi), probably dating from the 18th century, whose members were resettled in Greece with the 1924 population exchanges. Propontis Tsakonian appears to have died out around 1970.
Geographical barriers to travel and communication kept the Tsakonians relatively isolated from the rest of Greece until the 19th century, although there was some trade between the coastal towns. The rise of mass education and improved travel beginning after the Greek War of Independence meant that fluent Tsakonian speakers were no longer as isolated from the rest of Greece. In addition, during the war, the Turkish army drove the Tsakonians east, and as a result, their de facto capital shifted from Prastos to Leonidio, further making the people significantly less isolated. There began a rapid decline from an estimated figure of some 200,000 fluent speakers to the present estimate of a speaker count between 200 and 1,000.
Since the introduction of electricity to all villages in Tsakonia by the late 1950s, the Greek mass media can reach the most remote of areas and profoundly affect the speech of younger speakers. Efforts to revive the language by teaching it in local schools do not seem to have had much success. Standard Modern Greek is the official language of government, commerce and education, and it is possible that the continued modernization of Tsakonia will lead to the language's disappearance sometime this century.
The area where the language is found today in some villages Tsakonia slopes of Parnon in the southern province of Kynouria, including the towns of Leonidio and Tyros and villages of Melana, Agios Andreas, Vaskina, Prastos, Sitaina and Kastanitsa.
Tsakonian has no official status. Prayers and liturgies of the Greek Orthodox Church have been translated into Tsakonian, but the ancient Koine of the traditional church services is usually used as in other locations in Greece. Some teaching materials in Tsakonian for use in local schools have reportedly also been produced.
Tsakonian is divided by scholars into three dialects, Northern Tsakonian, Southern Tsakonian and Propontis Tsakonian.
Another difference between Tsakonian and the common Demotic Greek dialect is its verb system – Tsakonian preserves different archaic forms, such as participial periphrasis for the present tense. Certain complementisers and other adverbial features present in the standard Modern Greek dialect are absent from Tsakonian, with the exception of the Modern που (pronounced as //pu//) relativiser, which takes the form πφη (pronounced as //pʰi//) in Tsakonian (note: traditional Tsakonian orthography uses the digraph πφ to represent aspirated pronounced as //pʰ//). Noun morphology is broadly similar to Standard Modern Greek, although Tsakonian tends to drop the nominative, final -ς (-s) from masculine nouns, thus Tsakonian ο τσχίφτα for Standard o τρίφτης (o tshífta/o tríftis: "grater").
The Propontis dialect was much more heavily influenced by the modern Thracian dialect, and although there were significant grammatical differences, its vocabulary was much closer to Standard Modern Greek. Compare the Northern and Southern word for water, ύο (ýo, derived from Ancient Greek Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ὕδωρ) to Propontic νερέ and Standard νερό (neré, neró).
However, there has always been contact with Koine Greek speakers and the language was affected by the neighboring Greek dialects. Additionally, there are some lexical borrowings from Arvanitika and Turkish. The core vocabulary remains recognizably Doric, although experts disagree on the extent to which other true Doricisms can be found. There are only a few hundred, mainly elderly true native speakers living, although a great many more can speak the language less than fluently.
Tsakonian in some words preserves the pre-classical Greek [w]-sound, represented in some Ancient Greek texts by the digamma (ϝ). In Tsakonian, this sound has become a fricative pronounced as /[v]/: βάννε pronounced as /[ˈvane]/ "sheep", corresponding to Ancient ϝαμνός pronounced as /[wamˈnos]/ (Attic ἀμνός).
Tsakonian has extensive changes triggered by palatalisation:
Word-initial pronounced as /[r]/ > pronounced as /[ʃ]/: *ράφων pronounced as /[ˈrafɔːn]/ > σχάφου pronounced as /[ˈʃafu]/
Word-final pronounced as /[s]/ > pronounced as /[r]/, which reflects an earlier process in Laconian; in Tsakonian, it is a liaison phoneme: τίνος pronounced as /[ˈtinos]/ > τσούνερ pronounced as /[ˈtsuner]/
In Southern Tsakonian, pronounced as /[l]/ is deleted before back and central vowels: λόγος pronounced as /[ˈloɣos]/ > Northern λόγo pronounced as /[ˈloɣo]/, Southern όγo pronounced as /[ˈoɣo]/; λούζων pronounced as /[ˈluzɔːn]/ > Northern λούκχου pronounced as /[ˈlukʰu]/, Southern ούκχου pronounced as /[ˈukʰu]/;
Occasionally pronounced as /[θ]/ > pronounced as /[s]/, which appears to reflect an earlier process in Laconian, but in others pronounced as /[θ]/ is retained though the word is absent in Standard Greek: θυγάτηρ pronounced as /[θyˈɣatir]/ > σάτη pronounced as /[ˈsati]/, but Ancient θύων pronounced as /[ˈθiɔːn]/ (Modern σφάζω pronounced as /[ˈsfazo]/) > θύου pronounced as /[ˈθiu]/
Tsakonian avoids clusters, and reduces them to aspirated or prenasalised stops and affricates:
In the common verb ending -ζω, pronounced as /[z]/ > pronounced as /[nd]/ : φωνάζων pronounced as /[foˈnazɔːn]/ > φωνιάντου pronounced as /[foˈɲandu]/
pronounced as /[z, v]/ are added between vowels: μυία, κυανός pronounced as /[myˈia, kyaˈnos]/ > μούζα, κουβάνε pronounced as /[ˈmuza, kuˈvane]/
pronounced as /[ɣ, ð]/ often drop out between vowels: πόδας, τράγος pronounced as /[ˈpoðas, ˈtraɣos]/ > πούα, τσχάο pronounced as /[ˈpua, ˈtʃao]/
Tsakonian avoids consonant clusters, as seen, and drops final [s] and [n]; as a result, syllable structure tends more to CV than in Standard Modern Greek. (The use of digraphs in tradition spelling tends to obscure this). For instances, ancient [hadros] "hard" goes to Tsakonian [a.tʃe], where /t͡ʃ/ can be considered a single phoneme; it is written traditionally with a trigraph as ατσχέ (= atskhe).
Tsakonian has undergone considerable morphological simplification: there is minimal case inflection.
The present and imperfect indicative in Tsakonian are formed with participles, like English but unlike the rest of Greek: Tsakonian ενεί αού, έμα αού "I am saying, I was saying" ≈ Greek ειμί λαλών, ήμην λαλών.
Traditionally, Tsakonian used the standard Greek alphabet, along with digraphs to represent certain sounds that either do not occur in Demotic Greek, or that do not commonly occur in combination with the same sounds as they do in Tsakonian. For example, the [ʃ] sound, which does not occur in standard Greek, does occur in Tsakonian, and is spelled σχ (much like German sch). Another sound recalls Czech ř. Thanasis Costakis invented an orthography using dots, spiritus asper, and caron for use in his works, which has been used in his grammar and several other works. This is more like the Czech usage of hačeks (such as š). Lastly, unpalatalized n and l before a front vowel can be written double, to contrast with a palatalised single letter. (e.g. in Southern Tsakonian ένι [eɲi] "he is", έννι [eni] "I am" – the latter corresponding to Northern Tsakonian έμι [emi] and Standard Greek είμαι [ime].)
|πφ||Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: π̒||pronounced as /pʰ/|
|τζ||(Κ) τζ – τζ & τρζ — τρζ|
(Λ) τζ – τζ
|(K) pronounced as /tɕ, trʒ/|
(L) pronounced as /tɕ/ pronounced as /d͡ʒ/
|νν||Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ν̇||n (not pronounced as /ɲ/)|
|λλ||λ̣||l (not pronounced as /ʎ/)|
Note: (K) is for the northern dialect of Kastanitsa and Sitaina, (Λ) and (L) for the southern which is spoken around Leonidio and Tyros.