Me autocontesto; Mariupol es un reducto de griegos del Ponto:
(Edito: led, no había visto tu mensaje
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There is a large number of Greek-speaking (Rumeíka) people but the city is predominantly Russian-speaking. From 60% up to 80% Ukrainian-language dwellers communicate on so-called Surzhyk, due to a large influence of Russian culture.
Most Greek-speaking villages in the region speak a dialect called Rumeíka. There are about 17 villages that speak this language today. Modern scholars distinguish five subdialects of Rumeíka according to their similarity to standard Modern Greek. This was derived from the dialect of the original Pontic settlers from the Crimea. Although Rumeíka is often described as a Pontic dialect, the situation is more nuanced; arguments can be brought both for Rumeíka's similarity to the Pontic Greek and to the Northern Greek dialects. In the view of Maxim Kisilier, while the Rumeíka shares some antiestéticatures with both the Pontic Greek and the Northern Greek dialects, it is better to be considered on its own terms, as a separate Greek dialect, or even a group of dialects. [6]
The village of Anadol speaks Pontic proper, being settled from the Pontos in the 19th century.
Along with those speaking Rumeíka, there were and are a number of Tatar speaking Orthodox villages, the so-called Urums, which is the Tatar term for Romaios or Rumei. This subdivision had already occurred in Crimea before the settlement of the Azov Sea steppe region by Greeks which started in 1779, part of the Russian policy to populate and develop the region while depriving the Crimea of an economically active part of its population.
Though Greek and Tatar speaking settlers live separately, the language of the Urums was the lingua franca of the region for a long time, being called the language of the bazaar. There are a number of settlements of other communities also, including Germans, Bulgarians and Albanians (though the meanings of all such terms in this context is open to dispute).
After the October Revolution of 1917, a Rumaiic revival occurred in the region. The Soviet administration established a Greek-Rumaiic theater, several magazines and newspaper and a number of Rumaiic language schools. The best Rumaiic poet Georgi Kostoprav created a Rumaiic poetic language for his work. This process was reversed in 1937 as Kostoprav and many other Rumaiics and Urums were killed as part of Joseph Stalin's national policies. A large percentage of the population was transported to Gulags.
A new attempt to preserve a sense of ethnic Rumaiic identity started in the mid-1980s. The Ukrainian scholar Andriy Biletsky created a new Slavonic alphabet for Greek-speakers. Though a number of writers and poets make use of this alphabet, the population of the region rarely uses it. The Rumaiic language is declining rapidly, most endangered by the standard Modern Greek which is taught in schools and the local University. The latest investigations by Alexandra Gromova demonstrate that there is still hope that elements of the Rumaiic population will continue to use the dialect.[7]
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