I have heard that the Greeks in the Caucasus and Anatolia speak a variety of Greek that is quite different from Standard Greek. It seems to be considered merely a dialect of Greek, however I have also read that it is quite difficult for Greeks from Greece to understand the Pontic variety.
Hello everyone. I am a turk and did a dna test a few weeks ago. Well I got it back and found out I am Pontic greek.
Some of my friends have been pointing out my appearance not looking very turkish, some even teasing me and daring me to do one of these tests these Youtubers do. I've researched them (since they're really expensive, didn't want to pick the wrong one) and chose ancestry dna for the communities.
I've always read stories about "Turkified peoples" but I never thought I myself would be one of them. My parents always said they're proud turks. My grandpa says we're of Nomad descent.
It's weird to take this in after a few decades of "knowing" something. Are these tests accurate? What does it mean to be pontic greek? What's the difference between Pontic Greeks and normal greeks? Didn't the greek dispora disappear after the population exchange? So many damn questions. How am I gonna tell my father about this? He was pretty excited and wanted to know how oghuz he was.
I'd really appreciate your thoughts/information on all of this 🙏.
Obviously controversial, curious to know your opinion
Pontic Greeks come from the Black Sea and Caucasus and are a Greek-speaking Christian minority of that region. Which label fits them best?
The surname is Agabedis just wondering if anyone has any idea if its truly Greek. Thanks!
Why or why not?
My opinion is Cypriots head toward looking like Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians (Levant) whereas Pontic Greeks head toward Armenian, Georgian and Iranian/Kurdish, and both look different than the average person from Greece itself.
Is this view shared by others? I don’t mean on an individual basis but on average.
Do you accept it?
I know that Pontic isn’t really an ancient dialect (sorry mods), but does anyone know of any resource I can use to learn the language/dialect? Thanks!
Hello guys. Pontic Greek was a language that have been spoken over centuries in my hometown (Trebizond). But sadly there's not much speaker left in the area. Im wondering that can a Pontic Greek speaker and Modern Greek speaker understand each other?
Pontic Greeks are genetically closer to Armenians, Georgians, and other Caucasus populations. Many Anatolian Greeks share ancestry with the other people of Anatolia also due to Hellenization.
Does this reflect phenotypically?
Who are they, and why are they grouped in the WANA category, are they genetically greeks like mainlanders or more like Azeris, Gerogians, Persians, chechens and are just hellenized greeks?
Which?
I haven't seen this one mentioned yet, and I find it really interesting that it's been included, so I thought I'd try to show it off.
DNA maps have had problems for a long time trying to make sense of the Pontic/Pontian Greek half of my tests. I've seen them shift (as I remember it) between Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Italy... with the last big update, Ancestry started to get a grip on things, placing 45% in Turkey & the Caucasus, and 5% in Greece & Albania.
And now with the new update, North Anatolia community has been added, currently shared by 17,944 members. And unless the connected story changes from person to person, it's actually a dedicated Pontic Greek community. As with the Armenian community, it does not appear right under Turkey & the Caucasus, but at the bottom under "Additional Communities". Which seems like a cautious move, but interestingly, it doesn't shy away from touching on the topic of genocide.
Anyway, here's an album with my screencaps from the story of the North Anatolia community as told by Ancestry (only slightly censored for privacy):
https://imgur.com/a/Gs55vZr
Are these stereotypes/common notions generally applied to all Greeks from Mikra Asia or specifically those from Pontou? Are they still widely-known or obsolete?
If you can remember any, could you please mention any TV shows, movies or other media that promoted such stereotypes?
Any bit info you may give would be much appreciated, thank you so much!
So I’m or thought I was Pontic Greek. My grandparents from my mother side descend from Trabzond and Macka Black Sea. And from my fathers side my grandma is from Corfu and Epirus, while my grandfather was from Thessaloniki. His last name was Pontic Greek but he didn’t speak the dialect. My Ancestry results from AncestryDNA came in as 94 percent Greece and Albania and 6 percent Balkan. And surprisingly I didn’t get any Turkey and the Caucasus. How did that happen, how accurate is the test?
Yes or no?
So from what I knew all my life was that I was majorly Pontic Greek. My grandparents from my mothers side were from Trabzond and Macka Black Sea region (North eastern turkey). While my grandparents from my fathers side were from mainland Greece. My grandma from Corfu and Epirus, and my grandfather had a Pontic Greek surname but didn’t speak the dialect. So we assumed he probably wasn’t full Pontic. But my results say that I got 94% Greece and Albania, and 6% Balkan with no dot on North Eastern Turkey. How is it possible I got not ancestry from turkey and the Caucasus or west Asia. How accurate is it
Update: So after asking information from relatives from my mothers side, I came to find out that her father did not originate from Pontus. They said they moved from the coast of Turkey towards Pontus, and that before that they think they might have moved from somewhere else. That else we don’t know.
