Pontic

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Pontic

ETHNONYMS: none

Pontic refers to speakers of the Pontic language who currently reside in Greece, in the suburbs of Athens and Piraeus. Pontic speakers also live in the United States, Canada, and perhaps on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. Pontic is a non-Indo-European language of ancient Asia Minor with no known affiliations to other languages. Pontic speakers immigrated to Greece in the 1920s and 1930s from Black Sea Communities where Greeks had lived for centuries. The use of Pontic is declining in Greece where younger people more often speak modern Greek.

Bibliography

Danoff, Charles M. (1962). "Pontos Euxeinos." Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopädie, supp. 9:865-1175.