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Diglossia features and bilingualism in the Turkish-speaking community of

Western Thrace

Chapter · January 2019

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Maria Petrou
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
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 Diglossia features and bilingualism in the Turkish-speaking
community of Western Thrace

MARIA PETROU

1. Introduction
The speech community on which this paper focuses is the Turkish-speaking com-
munity of Western Thrace, particularly the ethnic Turks. Together with the rest of
the Muslim populace of the region, i.e. the Bulgarophone Pomaks and the Romani-
speaking Roma, they had been exempted from the compulsory population exchange
between the Muslims of Greece and the Orthodox Christians of Turkey in 1923.
Their presence in Greek Thrace dates back to the 14th century, when the region
came under the Ottoman rule.
The ethnic Turks represent the majority of the entire Muslim population of Greek
Thrace. Most of them live in the Rhodope regional unit, whereas most of the Po-
maks have traditionally lived in the Xanthi regional unit (especially in the Rhodope
Mountains) and most of the Muslim Roma in the Evros regional unit (Kahl 1995,
114; Lienau 2000, 53). In the towns of Xanthi, Komotini and Alexandroupolis, and
in some smaller towns, the minority members live together with the Greeks. In the
rural areas the situation is different. There are both mixed and homogeneous “Mus-
lim” or “Christian” villages, as well as Greek-speaking and/or Turkish-speaking ones.
Turkish has always been regarded – by the Greek state – as the language of the
minority. Therefore, these three ethnically and linguistically distinct communities,
i.e. the ethnic Turks, the Pomaks and the Roma, receive bilingual (Turkish and
Greek) education. Disregard for the Bulgarophone Pomaks and Romani-speaking
Roma language-wise has led to the predominance of the Turkish language as the
vernacular language of all three ethnic groups. This paper will present some pre-
liminary ideas on diglossia features, bilingualism and contact-relevant linguistic
variables that may be related to different social factors. The material was collected
during my fieldwork study in the regional units of Rhodope and Xanthi involving
informants of three generations, mostly of Turkish origin (i.e. excluding Pomaks
and Roma), the oldest born in 1926 and the youngest in 1985.

2.  Western Thrace Turkish

The dialect spoken by the speech community in question, i.e. Western Thrace Turk-
ish, belongs to the Eastern Rumelian group of the Balkan Turkish dialects. In ad-
dition to common features with other Rumelian dialects, it also displays phenom-
ena induced by contact with Greek. Apart from ‘established’ and incidental lexical

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 Diglossia features and bilingualism

borrowings (e.g. in cases of intrasentential code-switching), there are contact fea-

tures in other linguistic levels too, such as in phonetics, e.g. fronting of the back [ı]
(common also in Trabzon dialects due to Greek influence), or in syntax, where
scrambling does not always signify a marked sentence, as opposed to Standard
Turkish (ST). Nevertheless, the scale of influence of both Greek and ST varies, not
only from generation to generation but also within one and the same generation.
Social factors such as age, place of living, mobility, social interaction, including ed-
ucational level and educational system, which in this case has not been and is still
not uniform, play a significant role: numerous speakers had not completed prima-
ry education, whereas others who had, had different curricula. Speakers who re-
ceived secondary education did so either in Turkey or in Greece (in medreses, in
bilingual minority or in monolingual public schools). Turkey and Greece are the
main providers of higher education, too.
Western Thrace Turkish itself consists of regional (and socially determined) va-
rieties. There is a continuum between the varieties spoken in the villages, which
can be regarded as the basilect, and the town varieties of Komotini and Xanthi
which serve as the acrolect of Western Thrace Turkish. Taking the Rhodope re-
gional unit as an example, the basilect spoken there displays present suffixes such
as {-(I)y}, {-(I)}, {-(A)y}, {-(I)yA}, and {-(I)A}, whereas the acrolect in Komotini,
used primarily by the educated speakers in informal settings, displays the forms
{-(I)y} and {-(I)} but rejects the rest. The present suffix {-(I)yo} which is phoneti-
cally and morphologically the closest form to the ST {-(I)yor} seems to perform a
more complex sociolinguistic function in comparison with {-(I)y} and its shortened
form {-(I)}. Depending on the speaker, the interlocutor, the linguistic setting and
the locality a speaker comes from, it serves either as an acrolectic or as a basilectic
variant. The additional function it has is that, in contrast to the other forms, it can
also indicate that a speaker changes his/her register to colloquial ST. Thus, it some-
times denotes that a speaker is able to communicate in ST, which signifies the
speaker’s social status, i.e. the status of an educated individual.

3. Diglossia
The Turkish-speaking community of Greek Thrace seems to display some classic
diglossia features in the Fergusonian sense, which will be briefly presented below.
The Western Thrace Turkish represents the low variety (L), while ST the super-
posed high variety (H).
(1) Acquisition: A striking feature of this linguistic situation which can render
it as a diglossic situation is that the spoken Turkish of this region is the mother
tongue of all members of the community, whereas ST is acquired in the bilingual
minority schools which most of the Turkish-speaking children attend. Most of the
textbooks for the Turkish curriculum used in these primary schools between the
1920s and the 1950s were printed in Turkey. It is worth noting that during that time

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 MARIA PETROU

the Ottoman script was still in use, as well.1 Textbooks in Ottoman script were also
printed in Athens (Hüseyinoğlu 2012a, 161, 185). The Turkish textbooks imported
from Turkey and written in the Latin script were revised in the early 1950s and were
used until 2000. In the year 2000, new textbooks edited in Turkey were distributed
and have since been in use (Tsitselikis & Mavromatis 2003, 16; Hüseyinoğlu 2012a,
162). According to Tsitselikis & Mavromatis (2003, 16), they follow the same pat-
tern as the ones used in Turkey, but do not contain Turkish national symbols.
(2) Function and prestige: Other features of diglossia, as described by Ferguson
(1959), seen in this speech community include function and prestige. ST is only ap-
propriate in formal settings, whereas Western Thrace Turkish is appropriate in in-
formal ones. This is actually the case only for speakers who have a good command
of ST. Speakers who dropped out of school early and only have a passive or limited
command of ST are not capable of such changes in register.
ST is usually regarded (especially by educated speakers) as superior to Western
Thrace Turkish, which is often considered to be “incorrect Turkish” or a “variant”
whose existence is associated with illiteracy or a bad educational system. As an ex-
ample, I quote a 23-year-old female informant who received bilingual education in
Greece and higher education in Turkey: “Şimdi herkes çocuğu iː bi eğitim alsın is-
tiyo. […] yanı kendisi konuşamasa da çok düzgün Türkçei, çocuğu konuşsun istiyo
yanı.” ‘Now everybody wants their children to receive good education. […] name-
ly even if they [= the parents themselves] don’t speak very correct Turkish, they
want their children to do so.’ Similar views are also expressed by educated speakers
of the older generation. During an interview, a 60-year-old male speaker who also
received higher education in Turkey said: “Biz Rumeli Türkleri elbette ki Türkçeyi
güzel konuşuruz. Eğer birtakım hafif bozukluklarımız varsa, bu da cahilliktendir.”
‘We, the Rumelian Turks, for sure speak good Turkish. If we have some irregulari-
ties, they are due to illiteracy.’
Others, who did not develop such feelings through education and have no or
limited command of the high variety, e.g. because they did not complete primary
school or they graduated from primary school but did not receive secondary edu-
cation, find ST to be more beautiful and “clear”. During my interaction with basilect
speakers, comments such as “güzel, temiz konuşuyo” ‘s/he speaks beautifully, clear-

1  Kemal Ataturk’s profound reforms in the second half of the 1920s aiming at the seculariza-
tion and modernization of Turkey, as well as the creation of a nation state, had an impact on the
intragroup dynamics of the Muslim community of Western Thrace. Even though Turkey’s sec-
ular values were incompatible with the traditional Ottoman culture in the region and were not
embraced by all its members, the Muslim minority was gradually divided into two conflicting
groups: the “traditionalists” who wanted to preserve their Ottoman identity and tradition, and
the “modernists” who supported the reforms of Kemal Ataturk. This polarization had an impact
on minority education. Traditionalist-affiliated primary school teachers continued to deliver in-
struction using the Ottoman script, whereas teachers who affiliated themselves with the modern-
ists promoted instruction in the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet (Hüseyinoğlu 2012a, 90f.).
Although instruction in the Ottoman script was ever dwindling, according to Hüseyinoğlu (2012a,
196), the Latin alphabet only became prevalent in all minority primary schools by the 1980s.

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 Diglossia features and bilingualism

ly’ referring to individual native speakers or even foreigners who are able to com-
municate in ST, were not rare. Nonetheless, if a native speaker attempts to commu-
nicate in ST in an informal situation (where the other participants use the L) or
activity (e.g. shopping), they would not be “an object of ridicule” as described by
Ferguson (1959, 329), but would most probably be regarded as snobbish or distant.
At this point it should also be mentioned that, according to Ferguson (1959, 336–
37), the use of the H in an ordinary conversation in a diglossic society appears to
be “pedantic and artificial” or somehow “disloyal to the community”. This criterion,
however, does not hold in the Turkish-speaking community of Western Thrace.
(3) Standardization and literary heritage: Ferguson’s feature of standardization
also applies since, unlike for ST, there are no grammars, dictionaries or any acces-
sible descriptions of any canonical Western Thrace Turkish. Standardization is not
even considered by the community in question. As far as the literary heritage is
concerned, written literature in ST, as well as in Ottoman Turkish, is highly valued.
(4) Grammar: Concerning grammar, I think it is fair to say that – based on my cor-
pus – there are some grammatical differences between ST and the local varieties. For
example, the use of a different case from the expected one, as in [a] and [b] below: 2
[a] (Arriana, Rhodope regional unit; 76-year-old male speaker)
[bɑkˈʧɑ̟ˑdi içthijɑ̟ˈɾı]
look after-fut-p.cop-3sg old man-acc
‘She would have taken care of the old man.’
[b] (Kirnos, Xanthi regional unit; approx. 55-year-old female speaker)
[kjɛnˈdi bɑbɑˈnı bɑˈkıjoˑsun sɛn?]3
own father-2sg.poss-acc look after-impf.nonpst-2sg you
‘Do you look after your own father?’
In ST the verb bak- ‘to look (at), to look after’ is an intransitive verb governing
the dative case. In Western Thrace Turkish it can govern, as shown in the above
examples, the accusative case. Its construction with the accusative occurs in village
varieties (basilect). In the acrolect it usually governs the dative case, as in ST.
The occurrence is found in other Turkish dialects too, particularly in the West
Anatolian and in the Eastern Black Sea dialects, as well as in other Balkan Turkish
dialects. Furthermore, the same phenomenon is also observed in the 19th century
Turkish texts written in Greek script, known as Karamanlidika. In these texts the
case-shifting seems to be triggered by Greek-Turkish language contact. However, in-
fluence from Turkish dialects is also possible (Kappler 2002, 185). For the West Ana-

2  Abbreviations: abl: ablative case; acc: accusative case; aux: auxiliary verb; com: comita-
tive marker; dat: dative case; excl: exclamation; fut: future; impf.nonpst: imperfective non-
past; loc: locative case; p.cop: past copula; pf.pst: perfective past; poss: possessive; sg: singular;
vn: verbal noun; voc: vocative
3 Note that, unlike ST, the question is expressed through intonation. The omission of the
particle {mI}, which appears to be random, may be due to contact with Greek. For further ex-
amples see Petrou (2018, 301–2).

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 MARIA PETROU

tolian dialects, the phenomenon is interpreted as a phonological one, due to the fact
that the raising of /a/ and /e/ is found in word final position in stem words, e.g. perde
> perdi ‘curtain’, para > parı ‘money’, as well as in suffixes, e.g. elimde > elimdi ‘in my
hand’ (Korkmaz 2005, 227–28). For the Eastern Black Sea dialects, the occurrence
seems to be syntactically explained. In short, the intransitive verb bak- that governs
the dative in ST may be transitive in the varieties spoken on the Eastern Black Sea
coast (Brendemoen 1996, 41–42). For the Rumelian dialects spoken, e.g., in Macedo-
nia, Kosovo and Bulgaria, the phenomenon is seen as a contact-induced one, due to
the influence of the Balkan languages (particularly Bulgarian and Greek), in which
the equivalent verbs govern the accusative case (Mollova 1980, 128–29). In the case of
Western Thrace Turkish, in particular, I tend to believe that the construction of the
verb bak- with the accusative case is syntactical rather than phonological. The occur-
rence may have been induced by contact with Greek. If not so, Greek must have played
a significant role in strengthening or supporting any possible pre-existing tendency.
A grammatical difference between ST and Western Thrace Turkish, that appears
both in the basilect and the acrolect, is the non-final position of the verb, includ-
ing in the absence of pragmatic conditions causing this phenomenon in ST, e.g.:
[c] (Selero, Xanthi regional unit; 32-year-old female speaker)
[bɛn ˈbugjün gjitˈthim ɑrkɑˈdɑʃnɑn doktoˈrɑ (.) thɑːriˈhi
I today go-pf.pst-1sg friend-com doctor-dat date-acc
unutˈthu söjleˈmeː (.)]
forget-pf.pst-3sg say-vn-acc
‘Today I went with a friend to the doctor, he forgot to say the date.’4
In the first sentence the adverbial phrase “ɑrkɑˈdɑʃnɑn doktoˈrɑ”5 ‘with a friend to
the doctor’ takes the post-predicate position. In ST, according to Erguvanlı (1984,
56 ff.), post-predicate elements convey information which are discourse-predictable
or recoverable from the previous discourse. Constituents may also be placed after
the verb, when the speaker wants to emphasize the action or state expressed by the
predicate, or when the speaker does not want to topicalize the information or does
not want to focus on a constituent (even if it is a part of new information). Post-
predicate elements may also be a result of after-thought. In this particular sentence,
none of these pragmatic conditions are met: the sentence is unmarked. Note that
the word order corresponds to the Greek equivalent:
Εγώ σήμερα πήγα με έναν φίλο στο γιατρό
/eˈɣo ˈsimera ˈpiɣa me ˈenan ˈfilo sto jaˈtro/
I today go-pf.pst-1sg with a friend to the doctor-acc
‘Today I went with a friend to the doctor.’
In the second sentence, i.e. “thɑːriˈhi unutˈthu söjleˈmeː” (for ST tarihi söylemeyi
4  According to the context, the speaker’s friend did not know how to say his/her date of birth
in Greek.
5 This nominal phrase also shows the omission of the indefinite article bir ‘a’ which would
have been obligatory in a ST equivalent.

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 Diglossia features and bilingualism

unuttu) there is inversion of the infinitive form söjleˈmeː ‘to say’ and the finite verb
unuttu ‘s/he forgot’. This is a widespread phenomenon in Western Thrace Turkish.
It occurs in both the basilect and the acrolect, in the speech of all speakers, irre-
spective of their educational level. The occurrence can be interpreted as a Balkan
Turkish phenomenon, since it is attested in other Rumelian dialects as well.6
(5) Phonology: Phonological features of diglossia are absent in this speech com-
munity since both varieties have the same phonemic inventory. The difference be-
tween the two lies in the phonetic peculiarities of Western Thrace Turkish, most of
which are shared by other Balkan Turkish dialects (e.g. raising of /o/ to /u/ in initial
syllables, dropping of /h/ in word-initial or word-internal position, voicing of word-
initial /k/) or even by Eastern Black Sea dialects, where Greek plays a role as con-
tact language (e.g. fronting of back /ı/, backing of front /ü/).7
(6) Lexicon: Phonetic differences sometimes create lexical doublets, whose use
marks the utterance either as L or H, e.g. L [thɑ] ~ H [dɑː]/[dɑˈhɑ] ‘more, -er; so
far, until now, yet’; L [buˈbɑ] ~ H [bɑˈbɑ] ‘father’; L [kjhü] ~ H [kjhöj] ‘village’; L
[suˈvɑn] ~ H [soˈ(w)ɑn] ‘onion’; L [ʧöˈʤükh] ~ H [ʧoˈʤukh] ‘child’. Lexical dou-
blets which are not the result of phonetic processes are also found, e.g. L [ɑɾɑˈbɑ
hɑjdɑˈmɑk] ~ H [ɑɾɑˈbɑ khullɑnˈmɑk] ‘to drive a car’; L [khıˈzɑːn] ~ H [ʧoˈʤukh]
‘child’; L [veˈɾɑn] ‘old (thing or person), thin (person)’ ~ H [esˈkjhi] ‘old, ancient’;
L [buɫgɑˈri(j)ɑ] ~ H [buɫgɑɾisthɑn] ‘Bulgaria’; L [thoˈmɑthɑ] ~ H [thomɑthes] ‘to-
matoes’; L [ˈphɑstɑɾɑ]/[ˈphɑstɾɑ] ~ H [ˈphiʃthi] ‘Bastra’; L [khuˈmbil] ~ H [phɑˈthɑthes]
‘potatoes’; L [zɑrzɑˈvɑth] ~ H [sebˈze] ‘vegetable’.
(7) Stability: The reason why reference is made to diglossic features and not to
‘pure’ dialectal features of Western Thrace Turkish is mainly because, as mentioned
above, it is not the standard language but the local dialect which is the mother
tongue of the Turkish-speaking community in question. The fact that H is learned
largely in formal education alone does not satisfy the requirements to characterise
a speech community as diglossic, but this acquisition feature – together with other
diglossic criteria fulfilled – could be an indication that this community is likely to
develop diglossia. Even though in recent years more and more community mem-
bers do graduate from school or receive higher education in Turkey, there are still
many of them who have only limited or passive command of ST. Western Thrace
Turkish is retained, in spite of the increasing number of loans from the high vari-
ety, as there is a need for speech communication between the younger and the older
generations and/or the well- and the poorly-educated community members. Dou-
bled by the fact that the standard language is spoken as mother tongue in another
country (Turkey) and not in Greek Thrace,8 this may result in a stable diglossic

6 Especially when the infinitive expresses purpose, e.g. Cideym derman aramȧ (for ST İlaç
aramaya gidiyorum) ‘I am going to look for medication’ (Sureja 1987, 105). For further examples
from Turkish in Prizren/Kosovo, see Sureja (1987).
7  See Brendemoen (2002, 171–85), Petrou (2010, 248–50) and Petrou (2018, 296–301).
8  This may actually trigger a distinct linguistic variety, i.e. differences between the ST spoken
in Greek Thrace and the ST spoken in Turkey.

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 MARIA PETROU

situation. Another factor that may contribute to a stable diglossia is exposure to the
Greek language, regardless of whether one has active or passive command of Greek.

4. Bilingualism
The speech community described can also be regarded as bilingual (Turkish and
Greek). Whether the command of Greek is passive or active depends on sociolin-
guistic factors such as mobility, social interaction with Greek native speakers, place
of living, the educational system and the educational level. Taking the domain of
education as an example, we find that speakers who received bilingual primary and
secondary education or Greek monolingual secondary and/or higher education
have a better command of Greek than those who received part of their education
(usually secondary and/or higher) in Turkey. Exceptions among the latter can be
found only in intensive interaction with Greeks or due to a personal desire to mas-
ter the Greek language. Active command of Greek is observed also among speak-
ers who did not finish primary school, but acquired, due to social interaction or
mobility, a level through which basic communication in Greek is possible.
Speakers who have no or passive command of Greek can nevertheless use Greek
words denoting institutional and administrative terms like /dimarˈhio/ ‘town hall’
(< Gk. /ðimarˈxio/) and /tafˈtata/ ‘ID card’ (< Gk. /tafˈtotita/ ‘identity; ID card’). Bilin-
guals with a good command of Greek produce a realisation more similar or identical
to the Greek one, i.e. they don’t pronounce /tafˈtata/ but /tafˈtotita/ and they don’t tend
to substitute the fricative /ð/ with the plosive /d/ in /ðimarˈxio/ (Petrou 2015, 442).
This also holds for other segments that the Turkish language lacks, e.g. the affricate
/ʦ/. In code-switching situations, speakers who have some active command of Greek
gained through social interaction with Greek native speakers and not through educa-
tion usually substitute /ts/ with /ʧ/, e.g. /koˈriʧi/ for Greek /koˈriʦi/ ‘girl’, /piʧiriˈkas/
for Greek /piʦiriˈkas/ ‘young boy’, /ˈeʧi/ for Greek /ˈeʦi/ ‘in this way’.9 On the other
hand, speakers who learned Greek through formal education provided in Greece and
improved their Greek language skills through social interaction, not only do they
not substitute this sound in Greek words, but they sometimes substitute the ‘Turk-
ish’ affricate /ʧ/ with the ‘Greek’ /ʦ/ in monosyllabic Turkish words, such as [ʦok]
‘much’, [kaʦ] ‘how much’, [çiʦ] ‘nothing’ for ST /ʧok/, /kaʧ/, /hiʧ/. This occurrence
is extremely rare in the conversation of other members of the speech community.
Passive speakers, especially of the older generation, also use Greek loans which
tend to be avoided in the speech of the younger generation, who prefer their ST
equivalents even if they have active command of Greek. Such words are, for exam-
ple: /ˈporta/ ‘front door, gate’ < Gk. /ˈporta/ ‘door’; /poˈtir/ ~ /puˈtir/ ‘drinking glass’

9 In the 1st International Conference on Language Contact in the Balkans and Asia Minor
(Thessaloniki 2016) it was brought to my attention that in the above-mentioned Greek words,
i.e. in contact with front vowels, the affricate/ʦ/ can be pronounced as /ʧ/ in the local Greek di-
alect. /ʧ/ is in fact a phoneme in these local Greek varieties.

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 Diglossia features and bilingualism

< Gk. /poˈtiri/; /kuˈtal/ ‘spoon’ < Gk. /kuˈtali/; /kraˈvat/ ‘bed’ < Gk. /kreˈvati/. Some
Greek loans are regularly used by both passive and active speakers along with their
ST equivalents, e.g.: [thoˈmɑthɑ] ~ ST [thoˈmɑthes] ‘tomatoes’; [sɑˈkhuɫɑ] ~ ST
[poˈʃeth] ‘plastic bag’.
Another linguistic outcome of language contact and bilingualism is code-switch-
ing. A high frequency of intrasentential and intersentential code-switching is char-
acteristic of speakers who received education in Greece only, especially if they live
in an urban area. An example from young male speakers living in Komotini can be
found below:10
A /ben evlenmekˈten korˈkum ˈfile/
I marry-vn-abl afraid-impf.nonpst-1sg friend-voc
‘I am afraid of marriage, (my) friend.’
B /niˈje re X?/
why excl X (= male name)
‘Why re X?’
A /ˈma ͜ se sovaˈros ˈtora? kendiˈme zor
excl be-impf.nonpst.2sg serious now self-1sg.poss-dat difficulty
baˈkıjm (.) kadıˈna ͜ da bakaˈʤam?/
take care-impf.nonpst-1sg woman-dat also take care-fut-1sg
‘Are you serious now? I can hardly take care of myself, how could I take care of a
wife too?’
B [….] /ˈborada olduˈu her hafˈta ˈgomena
hier-loc aux-vn-3sg.poss every week girlfriend
deiʃtiˈrij (.) her hafˈta/
change-impf.nonpst-3sg every week
‘Every week he is here, he has a new girlfriend, every week!’
Speakers are clearly aware of this fact: “Ben kendim de konuşum, bi Yunanca
konuşuyom bi Türkçe konuşuyom. Babam da kızıyo bana «Ya Yunanca konuş, ya
Türkçe konuş». Hani ikisi de bi arada yapıyosun […]. Bazen aklıma gelmiyor Türk-
çeyi, Yunancayı söylüyom. Bazen Yunanca aklıma gelmiyor Türkçe söylüyom. Her
iki dili aynı zamanda kullanıyoz burada.” (33-year-old bilingual female speaker;
Selero, Xanthi) ‘I myself also speak both Greek and Turkish. My father gets upset
at me [and says] «Speak either Greek or Turkish!» That is, one uses both of them
at the same time. Sometimes I don’t come up with the Turkish (word), I say the
Greek one. Sometimes Greek does not come to my mind and I use Turkish. Here
we use both of these languages at the same time.’

5. Synopsis
In this paper, I presented some preliminary ideas concerning the complex speech
situation of the Turkish-speaking community of Western Thrace, a speech com-

10  For further examples of insertional code-switching see Petrou (2015).

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 MARIA PETROU

munity that may be characterized by both diglossia and bilingualism. Speech com-
munication is affected both by Greek and by ST, including by the educational level
and the educational system. The educational level and system cannot however be
viewed as the sole factor affecting this aspect of communication, since communi-
cation is also conditioned by various social factors. Regarding diglossia, this paper
suggests that further research is required to determine whether the encountered
diglossic features are sufficient to characterise the community in question as di-
glossic or as one that will likely develop diglossia, or else to ascertain that the lin-
guistic situation better fits to a standard-with-dialects. Native Western Thrace Turk-
ish speakers who use ST for written and formal spoken purposes may provide the
answer. In other words, if the written and spoken ST of Western Thrace shows
widely-occurring and systematic differences from ST as spoken in Turkey, it would
indicate the existence of a different linguistic (high) variety. Such a result would
directly be related to a diglossic status, irrespective of whether or not the Turkish-
speaking community of Western Thrace is aware of it or not.

References
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Περίληψη
Χαρακτηριστικά διγλωσσίας και διπλογλωσσίας στην τουρκόφωνη
κοινότητα της Δ. Θράκης
Η ομιλούμενη τουρκική της Δ. Θράκης ανήκει στις βαλκανικές τουρκικές διαλέ-
κτους, οι οποίες ονομάζονται επίσης ρουμελικές διάλεκτοι και διαιρούνται σε δύο
υποομάδες, τις δυτικές και τις ανατολικές. Τα τουρκικά της Δ. Θράκης υπάγονται
στις ανατολικές. Εκτός από κοινά χαρακτηριστικά με άλλες ρουμελικές διαλέκτους,
η τουρκική της Δ. Θράκης παρουσιάζει φαινόμενα γλωσσικής επαφής με την ελ-
ληνική. Πέραν των καθιερωμένων και ad hoc δάνειων λέξεων, π.χ. σε περιπτώσεις
ενδοπροτασιακής εναλλαγής κώδικα (intrasentential code-switching), υπάρχουν
φαινόμενα γλωσσικής επαφής και σε άλλα γλωσσικά επίπεδα, όπως στη φωνητική
(π.χ. προσθίωση του οπίσθιου /ı/ – κοινή και στις τουρκικές γλωσσικές ποικιλίες
της Τραπεζούντας), ή στη σύνταξη, όπου η ανακατάταξη στοιχείων (scrambling),
σε αντίθεση με την κοινή τουρκική, δεν υποδηλώνει πάντα μια χαρακτηρισμένη
πρόταση (marked-sentence). Τα ίδια τα τουρκικά της Δ. Θράκης αποτελούνται από
γεωγραφικά αλλά και κοινωνικά καθορισμένες γλωσσικές ποικιλίες. Σύμφωνα με
τα υπάρχοντα δεδομένα από τη μελέτη της ομιλούμενης διαλέκτου στις περιφε-
ρειακές ενότητες Ροδόπης και Ξάνθης, υφίσταται ένα γλωσσικό συνεχές μεταξύ
των ποικιλιών που μιλιούνται στα χωριά (και μπορούν να θεωρηθούν ως ο βασι-
λεκτικός πόλος) και αυτών που μιλιούνται στις δύο κύριες πόλεις, δηλαδή στην
Κομοτηνή και την Ξάνθη. Οι τελευταίες λειτουργούν ως ακρολεκτικές ποικιλίες
της τουρκικής της Δ. Θράκης.
Η τουρκόφωνη κοινότητα της ελληνικής Θράκης φαίνεται να παρουσιάζει με-
ρικά κλασικά χαρακτηριστικά διγλωσσίας (diglossia) με ‘χαμηλή’ γλωσσική ποι-
κιλία την τοπική τουρκική διάλεκτο και με ‘υψηλή’ γλωσσική ποικιλία την κοινή

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 MARIA PETROU

τουρκική. Η πρώτη, που κατακτιέται με φυσικό τρόπο, χρησιμοποιείται στις οικο-

γενειακές συζητήσεις και σε άλλες γενικά άτυπες περιστάσεις, ενώ η δεύτερη, που
διδάσκεται στα μειονοτικά σχολεία, χρησιμοποιείται – εάν έχει κατακτηθεί επαρκώς
– σε τυπικές περιστάσεις. Η εν λόγω γλωσσική κοινότητα δεν παρουσιάζει μόνο
στοιχεία διγλωσσίας αλλά και διπλογλωσσίας (bilingualism): τουρκικά/ελληνικά.
Ο βαθμός επάρκειας στην ελληνική εξαρτάται από επιμέρους κοινωνικούς παρά-
γοντες, όπως η ηλικία, το φύλο, ο τόπος διαβίωσης (ελληνόφωνη και τουρκόφωνη
ή αμιγής τουρκόφωνη περιοχή), η κινητικότητα και η κοινωνική συναναστροφή.
Η τοπική γλωσσική διάλεκτος δεν επηρεάζεται μόνο από την ελληνική, αλλά
επίδραση ασκεί και η κοινή τουρκική. Η κλίμακα επιρροής των δύο αυτών γλωσ-
σών ποικίλλει όχι μόνο από γενιά σε γενιά αλλά και από άτομο σε άτομο. Εκτός
από τους παραπάνω κοινωνικούς παράγοντες, σημαντικό ρόλο διαδραματίζουν
επίσης το μορφωτικό επίπεδο και το εκπαιδευτικό σύστημα (το οποίο σε αυτή την
περίπτωση δεν ήταν/είναι ομοιόμορφο): πολλοί ομιλητές δεν ολοκλήρωσαν την
πρωτοβάθμια εκπαίδευση, ενώ σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις τα σχολεία αυτών που
την ολοκλήρωσαν δεν παρείχαν ενιαίο εκπαιδευτικό υλικό. Απόφοιτοι δευτεροβάθ-
μιας εκπαίδευσης φοίτησαν είτε στην Τουρκία, είτε στα ιεροσπουδαστήρια (med-
reses), στα (δίγλωσσα) μειονοτικά σχολεία ή στα (μονόγλωσσα) δημόσια σχολεία
στην Ελλάδα. Η Τουρκία και – πλέον – η Ελλάδα αποτελούν τους κύριους φορείς
παροχής τριτοβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης.
Στην παρούσα εργασία παρουσιάζονται ορισμένες προκαταρκτικές ερευνητικές
παρατηρήσεις και ιδέες, οι οποίες αφορούν τα χαρακτηριστικά διγλωσσίας και δι-
πλογλωσσίας της τουρκόφωνης γλωσσικής κοινότητας της Δ. Θράκης και τις με-
ταβλητές που μπορεί να αποδίδονται σε γλωσσικές επαφές και διάφορους κοινω-
νικούς παράγοντες. Το γλωσσικό υλικό συλλέχθηκε με έρευνα πεδίου στην περι-
φερειακή ενότητα Ροδόπης και Ξάνθης, με αρχικό σκοπό τη μελέτη της ομιλούμε-
νης τουρκικής διαλέκτου φυσικών ομιλητών τριών διαφορετικών γενεών (εξαιρου-
μένων των Πομάκων και των Ρομά), από τους οποίους ο πρεσβύτερος γεννήθηκε
το 1926 και ο νεότερος το 1985.

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